Portal:Current events/2018 January 19

• Pan-Amazon region synod:
  • Pope Francis visits Peru and meets 4,000 members of the indigenous communities from the Amazon rainforest. He states that the people of the Amazon are threatened now more than ever, and questions the conservationist policies that affect the Peruvian rainforest. In Puerto Maldonado, he asks for the indigenous communities to be recognized as partners instead of as minorities. He calls on the Peruvian people to put an end to practices that degrade women, and criticizes the sterilization of indigenous women. (Anadolu Agency) (America)

• Turkish military intervention in Afrin
  • With a cross-border artillery bombardment into the Afrin Canton, Turkey starts its announced military campaign to "destroy" the Syrian Kurdish YPG group. (Reuters)

• Protests against Rodrigo Duterte
  • Journalists in the Philippines protest the government's decision to cancel the license of Rappler. (The Philippine Star), (Channel News Asia)

• Fifteen people are injured and an infant is killed after a car hits a group of pedestrians near Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The police report that the driver had an epileptic seizure. (BBC)
• The bodies of ten Syrian men are found after a snowstorm on the Lebanon–Syria border. The Lebanese Army says they tried to enter Lebanon illegally. Two presumed people smugglers are arrested. (Daily Star)

• Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Service arrests 7 journalists who were covering this week's economic protests in Khartoum. The charges are unclear. (The New York Times)
• Outside the Fleury-Mérogis prison, French police clash with prison guards who are striking over the detention conditions in French jails. (Reuters)

• Politics of China
  • Citing a national "fervor", the Communist Party of China proposes writing the Xi Jinping Thought into the state constitution, after it was already added to the party constitution. (Reuters)
• Politics of the United States
  • Presenting a new national defense strategy, the United States Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, says terrorism is no longer the focus of the national security of the United States. Now it is competition between great powers. (BBC)
• Politics of the United Kingdom
  • A spokesperson for Prime Minister Theresa May says the government has seen no plans for Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's idea of building a road bridge across the English Channel between France and the United Kingdom. (CNBC)
• Political appointments by Donald Trump
  • Carl Higbie, Corporation for National and Community Service Chief of External Affairs, apologizes and resigns from his position with the agency that runs AmeriCorps after racist and anti-Muslim remarks he made in 2013 are reported by CNN. (NPR)

• An Atlas V rocket successfully deployed the fourth SBIRS satellite for the United States Air Force. This launch completes the geosynchronous segment of SBIRS and provides a global missile detection system for the United States. (Spaceflight 101)
• Twitter announces it is notifying 677,775 people in the U.S. that they had some contact with the Kremlin-linked troll farm, Internet Research Agency, during the 2016 election period. The count of Russian-linked bot accounts is now 50,258, the company having identified an additional 13,512 bot accounts since its November Congressional briefing. (Politico) (Mumbrella)