Current events: 2023-07-09

[Wikipedia Current Events]

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian civil war
  • War against the Islamic State
    • The United States Central Command announces that a MQ-9 Reaper drone strike killed a senior Islamic State leader, Usamah al-Muhajir, in eastern Syria two days ago. (Reuters)
  • At least eight people are killed due to two separate car bombings in northern Syria. (Al Arabiya English)

Disasters and accidents

• Fifteen people are killed as a result of landslides and flooding across northern India. (Al Jazeera)
• Ten people are killed and 30 others are injured when a bus collides with a bridge and falls into a river in North Central Province, Sri Lanka. (Xinhua)
• Six people are killed and ten others are injured when a gas explosion caused a three-story building to collapse in Jhelum, Punjab, Pakistan. (India Today)
• A jet bridge collapses at Dublin Airport, Ireland, damaging a Boeing 787 belonging to American Airlines. (The Irish Times)

International relations

• New Zealand–European Union relations
  • New Zealand signs a free trade agreement with the European Union. The agreement is expected to increase EU exports to the South Pacific nation by €4.5 billion a year. (AFP via RTÉ)
• 15th BRICS summit
  • South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirms that the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg will be conducted in-person for the first time since 2019, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, Ramaphosa does not reveal whether Putin will attend. (AFP via The Moscow Times)
• Poland–Ukraine relations
  • President of Poland Andrzej Duda and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy commemorate the victims of the 1943 massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, at a ceremony held at Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral in Lutsk, Ukraine. (DW)

Politics and elections

• 2023 Gabonese general election
  • President Ali Bongo Ondimba announces his bid for a third term in office. (AFP via The Guardian)
• 2023 Uzbek presidential election
  • Uzbeks vote for a president following the approval of the constitutional referendum which reset term limits, allowing incumbent president Shavkat Mirziyoyev to serve two more seven-year terms. (AFP via France 24)

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