Portal:Current events/2019 February 2

February 2, 2019 (Saturday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Moro conflict
- Patikul, Sulu shootout
  - Five soldiers and three militants die in an attack that also injured several others in Patikul, Sulu, in The Philippines. (Al Jazeera)
Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency
- An Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member is killed and five others are injured at an Iranian paramilitary base in Nik Shahr. (Al Jazeera)
Somali Civil War
- Two people are killed and at least five others injured by a suicide car bombing that targeted an African Union Mission base in Somalia. Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for the attack. (AA)

Art and culture

Law and crime

Crime in Cincinnati
- A sheriff's deputy is killed and another wounded during a 12 hour standoff in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The suspect has been taken into custody. (NBC News)

Disasters and accidents

A collapse of a building damaged by the war in Aleppo, Syria, kills 11 people. (BBC News)

International relations

Russia–United States relations, Cold War II
- Russian President Vladimir Putin suspends Russia's involvement in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and will now start developing new missiles, in response to the United States' decision to withdraw from the Cold War-era treaty. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

Crisis in Venezuela, 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis
- Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro supports a proposal by the 2017 Constituent National Assembly to hold early legislative elections, which is seen as an attempt to eliminate the threat posed by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tells a Florida rally that the time for dialogue "had ended" and "all options were on the table." (RTE)
- Venezuelan Air Force general Francisco Yáñez becomes the first high-ranking general to publicly support Juan Guaidó after he denounced the "dictatorship" of Maduro and recognized Guaidó's claim as the nation's legitimate leader. (Fox News)
- Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan people take to the streets to protest socio-economic and political situation of the country and to demand a better economic situation. Large competing anti-Maduro and anti-Guaidó rallies are held in Caracas. (The Washington Post)
2019 Virginia political crisis
- Governor of the U.S. state of Virginia Ralph Northam says he will not resign from office because he does not believe that he appears in a controversial photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook showing one person wearing blackface and another person wearing Ku Klux Klan attire. However, Northam later admits to wearing blackface during the same time period for a dance contest, in order to imitate musician Michael Jackson. (Post and Courier) (The Washington Examiner)