Portal:Current events/2023 August 31

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Ecuadorian security crisis
  • Fifty-seven police and prison officers are taken hostage in six different prisons in Quito as explosive attacks occur in Ecuador's capital targeting the country's prison authority. (AFP via Malay Mail)
• Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Nine soldiers are killed and five more injured during a suicide bombing against a convoy in Bannu District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (ARY News)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • An Israeli soldier is killed and two others injured during a vehicle-ramming attack at a checkpoint in Beit Sira, in the occupied West Bank. The perpetrator is shot dead. (Al Jazeera)

Disasters and accidents

• 2023 Johannesburg building fire
  • At least 73 people are killed by a fire in a government building that had been taken over by gangs who rented it out to squatters in Johannesburg, South Africa. (CNBC)
• Fifteen people are killed in a fire at a clothing factory in Quezon City, Philippines. (AP) (The New York Times)
• Five people are killed and seven others injured when a truck collides with several vehicles in La Guaira, Venezuela. (Xinhua)
• Five people are killed and two others are injured when a passenger train collides with track workers doing maintenance work in Brandizzo, Piedmont, Italy. (BBC News)

International relations

• 2023 Gabonese coup d'état
  • The African Union announces the suspension of Gabon's membership after the country's military instigates a coup d'état. (AFP via The Peninsula)
• North Korea–South Korea relations
  • The Korean Central News Agency reports that North Korean forces has conducted drills simulating a nuclear missile strike on South Korea, in protest of ROKAF-USAF military drills said to simulate plans for a preemptive nuclear attack. (Reuters)
• Sierra Leone–United States relations
  • The United States announces visa restrictions for Sierra Leoneans implicated in undermining recent elections. (AFP via The Manila Times)

Law and crime

• Aftermath of the January 6 United States Capitol attack
  • Criminal proceedings in the January 6 United States Capitol attack
    • Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs is sentenced to 17 years in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the planning of the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol. (NBC News)
• The Brazilian Federal Police questions former president Jair Bolsonaro in an investigation in which he is accused of smuggling $3 million in diamond jewelry from Saudi Arabia. (AP)