Portal:Current events/2012 August 8

Current events of August 8, 2012 (2012-08-08) (Wednesday)

Armed conflict and attacks

• Armed men open fire at a checkpoint in the Egyptian city of Arish on the Sinai Peninsula. (Reuters)
  • The Egyptian Air Force responds with air strikes leaving 20 people dead. (Al Jazeera)
• Syrian civil war
  • Heavy fighting continues in the Salaheddine district in Aleppo. (Washington Post)
  • A Jordanian government spokesman says Syria's ex-prime minister, Riad Hijab, arrives in Jordan, contradicting earlier reports that he had fled Syria on August 6. (Washington Post)

Business and economy

• China announces plan to close one-third of the nation's 23 rare earth mines and about half of 99 smelting companies. (CNN)

Disasters

• 2012 Pacific typhoon season
  • Typhoon Haikui makes landfall over Xiangshan County in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. (CNN)
  • The death toll in the Philippines capital Manila from flooding rises to 16 with rain continuing to fall. (BBC)
  • Philippine news agencies reported that several cities, provinces and towns in Luzon are now under state of calamity. (The Philippine STAR) (INQUIRER.net) (ABS-CBNnews.com)
• Hurricane Ernesto hits the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. (CNN)
• A welding fire breaks out but is soon extinguished, with no injuries, on the 88th floor of One World Trade Center in New York City.(NBC)

Law and crime

• Marvin Lee Wilson is executed by the state of Texas despite the low IQ results that could have invalidated his punishment. (CBS News)
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan orders the Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to appear before it to explain his alleged failure to comply with orders reopening corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari. (Reuters)
• A police dog team have searched a grandmother's house after the Disappearance of Tia Sharp. (Sky News)
• A man has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the kidnapping and Murder of Anni Dewani in South Africa.(Sky News)

Politics

• Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda annouces that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has reached an agreement with the opposition Liberal Democratic and New Komeito parties to pass a bill that will raise Japan's consumption tax rate. This will "shortly" be followed by dissolution of the Diet and a snap election, although no timetable has been set. (NHK World) (Bloomberg)
• President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych signs a controversial law about official status of 18 languages (including Russian, Crimean Tatar language, etc.) as regional and minority languages, allowing officials in Russian-speaking regions of the country to use it at public events and in documents. (The Washington Post)

Sport

• German footballer Robert Huth is hospitalised with suspected meningitis. (ESPN)