Portal:Current events/2018 April 5
April 5, 2018 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2018 Gaza border protests
- The Israeli Defence Forces releases footage of a man fatally shot yesterday during an apparent attempt to breach the Gazan border fence. Israel says he was carrying an AK-47 and explosive devices including grenades, and accused Hamas of "playing with fire". (Ynet News)
- Ukrainian crisis, War in Donbass
- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko holds a press conference in Vinnytsia announcing the end of the anti-terror operation in Donbass in May. It will be replaced with a military force. (UNIAN)
- Terrorism in Turkey
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls 15 peaceful anti-war protestors arrested last month at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul terrorists and says they will not be allowed to complete their education. (Times Higher Education)
Disasters and accidents
- Earthquakes in California
- A magnitude 5.3 earthquake, the strongest in the region in four years, takes place near Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, being felt as far as Riverside. No injuries are reported. (Los Angeles Times)
- A bus crash in Makomero, Tanzania, kills 12 people and injures 46. (News24)
- An F-15K fighter jet crashes on a mountainside in Chilgok, South Korea. One pilot is killed and another is missing, presumed dead. (The Washington Post)
- A fire breaks out on the roof of a hospital in Gaziosmanpasa, Istanbul, and spreads down the outside to ground level. Minister of Health Ahmet Demircan say all patients have been evacuated and transferred to hospitals elsewhere by ambulances. (CNN)
Health and environment
- 2017–18 Philippine dengue vaccination controversy
- The Public Attorney's Office filed the criminal charges against former Health Secretary Janette Garin and other executives from Sanofi Pasteur and Zuellig Pharma Corporation, the manufacturer and distributor of dengue vaccine called Dengvaxia. (Rappler)
- Medically assisted suicide became legal in the state of Hawaii. (AP)
International relations
- China–North Korea relations
- Korean Workers' Party chairman Kim Jong-un has reportedly told Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping that he is willing to resume six-party talks. (Yahoo! News)
- Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
- Vasily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, tells the UN Security Council the United Kingdom has created a "fake story" and says Russia has "told our British colleagues that you are playing with fire and you will be sorry." UK representative to UN Karen Pierce tells the Security Council UK actions "stand up to any scrutiny" and compares Russian requests to join the investigation to an arsonist investigating their own fire. (BBC)
- Trump tariffs, China–United States relations
- Trump instructs officials to consider a further $100 billion of tariffs against China in addition to the $50 billion worth of US tariffs already proposed on hundreds of Chinese imports. (BBC)
Law and crime
- Crime in Turkey
- At Eskişehir Osmangazi University, central Turkey, a research assistant shoots and kills four staff members. Media report that three people are wounded and that the shooter has turned himself in to police. (Fox News)
- Operation Car Wash
- Brazilian federal judge Sérgio Moro orders the arrest of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by late Friday to begin serving a 12-year sentence for corruption. (Reuters)
- Terrorism in the United States
- Newly released documentation reveals Benjamin Morrow, a man killed by an explosion on March 5 in his home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, possessed white supremacist literature, five guns with ammunition, boxes of binary explosives, jars of explosive TATP, and a small explosives manufacturing laboratory. (Wisc News)
- Orlando nightclub shooting
- Sixteen survivors use anti-terror legislation to sue Google, Twitter and Facebook, alleging the firms "provided support and resources" to the Islamic State. (WSB-TV)
- 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
- Former major of the Mossos d'Esquadra Josep Lluís Trapero is charged with two counts of sedition and one of criminal organisation. (BBC)
- Former director of the Mossos d'Esquadra Pere Soler, former Lt. Teresa Laplana, and former General Secretary of Catalan Ministry of the Interior Cèsar Puig are charged with one count of sedition and one of criminal organitsation. (RTVE)
- Twitter suspensions
- Around 20 armed robbers attack a police station with guns and a bank with dynamite in Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria. The shooting kills nine and the explosion kills seven. (CNN)
Politics and elections
- Human rights in Vietnam
- A Vietnamese court sentences six high-profile Brotherhood for Democracy activists to prison on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, with the longest sentence handed to human rights lawyer Nguyễn Văn Đài. (BBC)
Sports
- 2018 in UFC
- An arrest warrant is issued for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight champion Conor McGregor after he was involved in a melee at a press conference at the Barclays Center in New York City ahead of UFC 223. Video footage appears to show McGregor throwing a hand truck through a window of the Khabib Nurmagomedov team bus. (The Guardian)