Portal:Current events/2012 September 2

September 2, 2012 (Sunday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian civil war:
- A car bomb attack by unknown people near a Palestinian refugee camp in the Damascene suburb of Sbeineh (Sabina) kills at least 15 people. AFP says rebels claim the capture of the village of Harem near Idlib on the Turkish border, after a 3-day siege; the government still keeps air supremacy. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi says it is both conflict parties' duty to try to reach peace. (Bloomberg via Business Week) (The Daily Star)
- Twin explosions rock the Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood of Damascus, near a security forces compound, wounding at least six. (Xinhua) (Al Jazeera)
War in Afghanistan:
- The Washington Post reports that U.S. special operations personnel temporarily halt the training of all Afghan army and police recruits while a full background check of 27,000 people is ongoing. 45 NATO troops have been killed this year in so-called green-on-blue attacks. (The Washington Post)
- A pro-government militia in Kanum village near Kunduz kills at least eight villagers, apparently thinking the villagers killed one of them. (AFP via Asia One)
Clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish rebels in the southeastern province of Şırnak kill ten Turkish troops and twenty fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party. (BBC)
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa reports the execution of a kidnapped Algerian diplomat in northern Mali. (Xinhua)
A car bomb explodes in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing at least one person. (Al Jazeera)
Local security sources say a drone attack kills ten suspected Al-Qaeda militants and three companion women in central Yemen. Other sources say, relating to the same incident, that a government air raid misses its target and kills ten civilians, of which two female, in a car. (Nahrnet) (Reuters)

Arts and culture

State television in Egypt lifts a decades-long ban on veiled female news presenters. (Al Jazeera)
Unification Church founder and self-proclaimed messiah Sun Myung Moon dies at the age of 92. (CNN)

Disasters

A plane crashes in the Quad City Air Show in Davenport, Iowa, killing the pilot. (AP via Fox News)
A bus struck a rock and flipped over near Shiraz, Iran killing 19 and injuring 25. (IRAN FOCUS)

International relations

South Sudan appoints Francis Deng as its first ambassador to the United Nations. (IOL)

Law and crime

Burma's new information minister Aung Kyi says that private newspapers will be allowed to publish daily from 2013. (Bangkok Post)
Police in Cambodia announce that Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, was arrested on August 30 in Phnom Penh, enforcing a suspected Interpol warrant by his homeland Sweden. Warg has been sentenced in April 2012 by a court in Stockholm for copyright violations to 12 months in jail and his quarter share (about € 900,000) in a solidary fine of 30 million SKr. (BBC) (TorrentFreak) (The Local) (Khmer440.com)
After public anger, a prosecutor in South Africa provisionally withdraws charges against 270 miners accused of killing 34 striking colleagues shot by police. The strike enters its fourth week. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

State funeral of Ethiopia's long-serving Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is attended by thousands of people in Addis Ababa. (BBC)

Sports

Jenson Button "enjoys" winning the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. (USA Today)