Current events: 2023-08-11

Wikipedia Current Events · Aug 11, 2023

Armed conflicts and attacks

Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Corruption in Ukraine
  - Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announces the dismissal of all heads of regional military recruitment centers due to corruption. (NOS)
- Russia temporarily closes its airspace above Moscow due to the detection of drones. A drone was later shot down. (NOS)
- A lieutenant of the Russian Armed Forces crosses the border into Lithuania and requests political asylum. (Novaya Gazeta Europe)

Business and economy

2021–2023 global energy crisis
- The International Energy Agency increases its 2023 forecast for global oil demand to a potential all-time annual high of 102.2 million barrels per day. (AFP via TRT World)

Disasters and accidents

2023 Hawaii wildfires
- Authorities in Hawaii call the Lahaina fire the "worst natural disaster in the state's history", as the death toll surpasses 55 and 11,000 homes and businesses continue without electricity. (Reuters)
The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland is closed for at least six days after a freight train derails in the tunnel. (NOS)

Health and environment

The United States recorded its highest number of suicides in 2022, with 49,449 people taking their own lives, making it the deadliest suicide rate in the country since World War II. (Al Jazeera)
Nearly 14,000 residents of the city of Lublin, Poland, are ordered to evacuate, after an unexploded bomb was found yesterday at the site of a pre-World War II factory. (TVP World)
After the FSO Safer in Yemen has not been maintained for years, 1.1 million barrels of oil are transferred to another ship by Smit International to prevent an environmental disaster. (NOS)

Politics and elections

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pardons his predecessor Jacob Zuma, who was convicted last year for refusing to testify in his corruption trial, alongside other non-violent offenders as part of an attempt to alleviate the country's overcrowding prisons. (Al Jazeera)

Science and technology

Russia launches the Luna 25 lunar lander, which will touch down near the moon's south pole. The mission will investigate the composition of the moon's polar soil as well as the plasma and dust contained in the lunar exosphere. (CNN)