Portal:Current events/2019 September 12

• Kulp bombing
  • Seven civilians are killed and ten are injured in a roadside attack by the PKK in Kulp, Diyarbakir Province, Turkey. (Anadolu Agency)

• The European Central Bank announces new monetary stimulus, with a second round of quantitative easing "for as long as it deems necessary" and lowering its already-negative main deposit rate. (CNBC)

• A train derails in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Tanganyika Province, killing about 15 people and injuring many others. (The Independent)

• The French National Assembly says its president, Richard Ferrand, is put under formal investigation in a "financial impropriety" case. Ferrand stepped down as a minister in President Emmanuel Macron's government in 2017 over the case related to property deals, eight years ago, by a health insurance fund he managed in Brittany. Prosecutors in Lille say he is charged with a conflict of interest. (Reuters via France 24) (AFP via The Straits Times)
• Death of Sahar Khodayari
  • Iran's judiciary issues a warrant to arrest actress Saba Kamali after she posted a text in her Instagram sympathizing with Sahar Khodayari, which was reported to be found "insulting" to the third Shiite Imam, Hussain ibn Ali. (Radio Farda)

• Tongan Prime Minister ʻAkilisi Pōhiva, age 78, dies one day after being taken to a New Zealand hospital from his native country. (RNZ)
• 2020 U.S. Democratic Party presidential debates and forums
  • The third major Democratic Party televised debate takes place at the Health and Physical Education Arena in Houston, Texas, with a focus on health care in the United States. (BBC News)

• Interstellar objects
  • C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), a second interstellar comet after ʻOumuamua in 2017, is discovered by an amateur astronomer. (BBC News)
• Social media use in politics
  • Twitter suspends several Cuban government and state media accounts, including First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Raúl Castro and his daughter Mariela Castro. The pro-government Union of Journalists of Cuba denounces the suspensions as "massive censorship". (The Guardian) (BBC News)
  • Facebook suspends a chatbot on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official page for violating its hate speech policy. Netanyahu says the mistake was made by a volunteer employee. (The Guardian)