Portal:Current events#2012 May 26

Disasters and accidents

• The death toll from the floods in southern Thailand increases to 33 people. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Murders of Yuna and Minu Jo
  • Justice Geoffrey Venning of New Zealand's High Court sentences 45-year-old mother Hakyung Lee to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years after convicting Lee of murdering her two children in 2018. (DW)

Politics and elections

• The Italian Parliament approves a bill to punish femicide with life in prison. (AP)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russo–Ukrainian war
  • Kyiv strikes, Attacks in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    • Seven people in Kyiv, Ukraine, and three more in Rostov, Russia, are killed as both countries launches airstrikes at each other. Several more people are wounded in both countries. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian)
• Afghanistan–Pakistan clashes
  • Afghanistan says nine children and a woman were killed when a civilian home was hit by a Pakistani airstrike in Khost, Afghanistan. (Al Jazeera)
• War in Darfur
  • Médecins Sans Frontières withdraws its staff from a hospital in central Darfur, Sudan, after a stretcher bearer is shot dead and several others are injured, stating that it will not resume operations unless the Rapid Support Forces guarantee the safety of its personnel and patients. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

• Polygamy in Christianity
  • Pope Leo XIV approves a decree affirming the Catholic Church's rejection of polygamous and polyamorous marriages. (Reuters)

Business and economy

• Insurance in Australia
  • The Australian Federal Court fines United Super, the Cbus pension fund's trustee, A$23.5 million (US$15.2 million) for systemic failures that caused extensive delays in processing death and disability insurance claims affecting over 7,000 members. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

• A plane chartered by Samaritan's Purse crashes in Unity State, South Sudan, killing all three crew members while en route from Juba with two tonnes of food aid for flood-displaced communities. (Reuters)

Health and environment

• Food security in Nigeria, Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria
  • The World Food Programme reports that escalating instability in northern Nigeria is increasing acute food insecurity to record levels, with nearly 35 million people projected to face hunger in 2026 as the agency exhausts its funding by December. (Reuters)
• The Hayli Gubbi volcano in the Afar Region of Ethiopia erupts, sending ash plumes across Oman and Yemen, and prompts flight cancellations in northern India. (DW) (AP)

Law and crime

• Arrest of Jair Bolsonaro
  • Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro starts his 27-year sentence for leading a coup plot. (AP)
• Counter-terrorism in Singapore
  • Singapore orders Meta and TikTok to block local access to the social media accounts of an Australian man whose posts advocate replacing Singapore's secular system with an Islamic state and seek to cause communal tensions and influence elections. (Reuters)
• Killing of Lisa from Abcoude
  • In Amsterdam court start trial of illegal migrant from Nigeria who brutally killed 17-years-old Lisa Pronk from Abcoude. The girl was murdered in Duivendrecht during the night of August 19th to 20th. He is also on trial for a violent rape a few days earlier. (NOS)
• LGBTQ rights in the European Union, Same-sex union legislation
  • The European Court of Justice rules for all European Union member states to recognize same-sex marriage and not discriminate against same-sex couples. The ruling does not force individual countries to legalize same-sex marriages. (DW)

Politics and elections

• 2026 Ugandan general election
  • Uganda's National Unity Platform says security forces have detained more than 300 supporters and officials since presidential candidate Bobi Wine began campaigning, while police report several arrests linked to clashes at Wine's rallies. (Reuters)

Science and technology

• Chinese space program
  • The Shenzhou 22 spacecraft enters orbit after China conducts its first emergency space launch to restore a safe return option for the three astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station following damage to the Shenzhou 20 return capsule earlier in November. The uncrewed spacecraft, launched on a Long March 2F rocket, carries replacement parts and supplies and aims to return the current crew to Earth in 2026. (Reuters)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Gaza peace plan
    • The United States and the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announce it will permanently wind down operations, after closing its distribution sites six weeks ago. (AP)
• Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • 2025 Federal Constabulary headquarters attack
    • A Jamaat-ul-Ahrar suicide bomber blows himself up outside the Federal Constabulary headquarters in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, killing three people and wounding two others. Two more armed attackers attempt to enter the camp and open fire, wounding nine other people, before being killed in a shootout. (Dawn)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • Israeli forces kill a Palestinian terrorist that killed two Kfir Brigade soldiers during a vehicle-ramming attack in May 2024 and arrest several others in Nablus, West Bank. (The Jerusalem Post)
• Moro conflict
  • Seven militants, including a field commander of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), are killed in an encounter in Cotabato, Philippines, involving MILF factions caught in a clan feud. (PNA via Manila Bulletin)
• Western DR Congo clashes
  • At least 14 people are killed in conflict between rival ethnic militias in Kwamouth, Mai-Ndombe Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AP)
• Yemeni civil war
  • At least seven people are killed, including two attackers, and two others are injured in a mass shooting when unidentified gunmen opened fire on the governor of Taiz's motorcade on a road linking the southwestern city to the rest of Yemen. (MSN)

Disasters and accidents

• Seven people are killed, and more than 30 others are injured after two private buses collided head-on in Tenkasi district, Tamil Nadu, India. (The Independent) (The Hindu)
• Five people are killed and 13 others are injured after a bus carrying pilgrims overturns and plunges into a gorge in Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India. (The Indian Express)
• Two climbers are killed after falling from a ridge on Aoraki / Mount Cook in New Zealand during a guided ascent. (Reuters)

International relations

• Myanmar–United States relations
  • The United States announces the end of temporary protected status for approximately 4,000 Myanmar nationals in January 2026, with the Department of Homeland Security citing changes in Myanmar's political and security climate, particularly the upcoming election, for the policy change. (Reuters)
• United States–Venezuela relations, War on drugs
  • The United States formally declares Cartel of the Suns, an umbrella designation for Venezuelan Armed Forces officials allegedly involved in the drug trade, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. (AP via KUOW)

Law and crime

• Arrest of Jair Bolsonaro
  • A panel of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court upholds an order to keep former president Jair Bolsonaro in police custody after he allegedly tampered with his ankle monitor while appealing a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup. (Reuters)
• Capital punishment in Sri Lanka
  • A court in Embilipitiya, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka, sentences ten people, including three women, to death for the murder of a man in October 2011. Sri Lanka has an unofficial moratorium in place, with the last execution taking place in 1976. (OnLanka) (Mirror Sri Lanka)
• Prosecution of James Comey, Prosecution of Letitia James
  • Judge Cameron McGowan Currie rules that the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was illegal, dismissing the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James without prejudice. (NBC News)
• One person is killed, and ten others are injured when a man rammed a stolen car into pedestrians in Tokyo, Japan. The perpetrator is arrested by police at the scene. (The Independent) (AP)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Egyptian parliamentary election
  • Egyptians vote in the second round to elect parliament members after the National Elections Authority annulled votes in 19 of the 70 constituencies due to various violations. (AP)
• India–Israel relations
  • The Israeli government approves a plan jointly-coordinated with the Indian government to admit 5,800 members of the India-based Bnei Menashe ethnic group to Israel under Aliyah laws and will settle them to the Galilee region. (DW)
• Pauline Hanson's burqa incidents
  • The Australian Senate censures and suspends Queensland senator Pauline Hanson for a week after she wore a burqa in the chamber to push for a burqa ban in Australia. (AFP via CBS News)
• Unions in Belgium begin a three-day general strike across the country to protest Prime Minister Bart de Wever's government of "social dismantling" through budget cuts in their savings program. (DW)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Israel–Hezbollah conflict
  • November 2025 Israeli attack in Beirut
    • Israel carries out an airstrike on a building in Beirut, Lebanon, killing five Hezbollah militants and injuring 28 others. Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tabatabai is confirmed among the fatalities. (Al Jazeera)
• 2025 massacres of Syrian Alawites
  • Sectarian violence erupts in the Homs area of Syria, targeting the Alawite population. (SOHR) (The Independent) (The National)

Arts and culture

• International Paderewski Piano Competition
  • South Korean pianist Roh Hyunjin wins the 13th International Piano Competition held at the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz, Kuyavia–Pomerania, Poland. (Portal Kujawski)

Disasters and accidents

• The death toll from the floods in central Vietnam a week ago increases to 90 people. (AP)

Health and environment

• The long-dormant Hayli Gubbi volcano erupts in the Afar Region of Ethiopia for the first time in nearly 12,000 years, sending ash plumes across the Red Sea towards Oman and Yemen, and causing flight disruptions across the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia. (AP)

International relations

• 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Australia–Turkey relations
  • Australia and Turkey confirm an agreement for Turkey to host the 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, with Australia leading the conference's negotiation process and the Asia–Pacific Group convening a pre-COP31 meeting focused on climate-related vulnerabilities. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Slender Man stabbing
  • Police detain stabbing convict Morgan Geyser in Posen, Illinois, United States, after she removed her monitoring device and fled a supervised group home in Wisconsin. Geyser is returned to Wisconsin custody. (BBC News) (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Guinea-Bissau general election
  • Guinea-Bissauans vote for a president, with incumbent Umaro Sissoco Embaló seeking a second term. (AP)
• 2025 Republika Srpska presidential election
  • Citizens of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, vote for a president to replace Milorad Dodik, who was removed by the court in June. Preliminary results show that Dodik's ally, Siniša Karan of SNSD, will defeat Branko Blanuša of SDS with 50.89% of the votes. (Al Jazeera)
• 2025 Slovenian assisted dying referendum
  • Slovenians reject a referendum on a law that proposed legalising assisted dying for some terminally ill adults with 53.44% voting against. (Reuters)

Sports

• 2025 in sumo
  • Ukrainian sekiwake Aonishiki Arata defeats Mongolian yokozuna Hōshōryū Tomokatsu in the playoff to become the first Ukrainian wrestler to win the Honbasho. (AFP via France 24)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Twenty-four Palestinians are killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, including five in a vehicle in Gaza City and four children in the Nuseirat refugee camp. (Al Jazeera)
• Israel–Hezbollah conflict
  • A person is killed in an Israeli airstrike on a car in Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, Lebanon, while several more attacks are carried out across Kafr Rumman. (Al Jazeera)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 European drone sightings
  • The Dutch defence ministry says the military opened fire at drones over Volkel Air Base, but that no wreckage was recovered. (AP)
• Five people are killed and 34 injured after a vehicle carrying passengers from Kano to Maiduguri en route to Lagos, Nigeria, collides head-on with a truck in Niger State. (Premium Times)

International relations

• Belarus–Ukraine relations, Belarus–United States relations
  • Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko pardons 31 Ukrainian citizens convicted of criminal offences in Belarusian territory in accordance with agreements reached between Lukashenko and United States president Donald Trump. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• 2022–2023 Brazilian coup plot, Arrest of Jair Bolsonaro
  • Days before the start of his 27-year sentence, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is taken into preemptive custody due to a ruling by Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes that Bolsonaro violated his house arrest by damaging his ankle monitor. (AP)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Kyrgyz parliamentary election
  • Kyrgyz law enforcement conducts arrests, searches, and interrogations of journalists and opposition figures, including former first lady Raisa Atambayeva and several former legislators allied with former president Almazbek Atambayev, in an investigation into alleged calls for mass unrest ahead of the November 30 snap election. (Reuters)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russo-Ukrainian war
  • Kupiansk offensive
    • Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov announces that Russian forces have captured the city of Kupiansk, the administrative centre of Kupiansk Raion, Kharkiv Oblast. The Ukrainian military denies the statement. (Reuters)
  • Peace negotiations in the Russo-Ukrainian war, United States and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    • The United States outlines a new 28-point peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine, including a casus foederis guarantee for Ukraine and the cession of Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia. (Axios)
    • U.S. president Donald Trump gives Ukraine a deadline of November 27 to accept the peace proposal, or the U.S. will end all weapons shipments and military intelligence support. Russian president Vladimir Putin confirms he has formally received the proposal from the U.S. (BBC News)
  • Zaporizhzhia strikes
    • Five people are killed and three others are injured in a Russian glide bomb strike on a high-rise apartment block in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Euronews)
• Gaza war
  • Israeli incursions in the West Bank during the Gaza war
    • Two Palestinian teenagers, aged 16 and 18, are killed by Israeli soldiers during a raid in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank. (Al Jazeera)
• Kidnapping in Nigeria, Religious violence in Nigeria
  • 2025 Niger State school kidnapping
    • One person is shot, and 315 people, including 12 teachers and 303 schoolchildren, are abducted in an attack on a Catholic school in Agwara, Niger State, Nigeria. (BBC News)

Arts and culture

• Miss Universe 2025
  • Fátima Bosch of Mexico is crowned Miss Universe in Nonthaburi, Thailand, becoming the fourth Mexican woman to win the title. (ABS-CBN News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Bangladesh earthquake
  • A M_w 5.5 earthquake strikes central Bangladesh, killing ten people and wounding over 350 more. (AA) (Jamuna Television)
• 2025 HAL Tejas Dubai Airshow crash
  • An Indian Air Force HAL Tejas crashes at the Dubai Airshow in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, killing the pilot. (AP)
• At least 18 people are killed and 21 others injured in an explosion at a glue factory in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. (AP) (Al Jazeera)

Health and environment

• Jamaica declares a leptospirosis outbreak after Hurricane Melissa, with health minister Christopher Tufton reporting nine confirmed cases, 28 suspected cases, and six suspected deaths linked to flood-related exposure to contaminated water. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Flood control projects scandal in the Philippines
  • The Philippine Sandiganbayan issues arrest warrants for former representative Zaldy Co and 17 others, including government engineers and construction executives, over alleged irregularities in a ₱289 million (US$5.87 million) flood control project in Oriental Mindoro. (AP)
• Peruvian political crisis
  • 2022 Peruvian self-coup attempt
    • A Peruvian Supreme Court judge orders the arrest and five-month preventive detention of former prime minister Betssy Chávez, who is under asylum at the Mexican embassy and is being prosecuted for alleged seditious conspiracy in connection with former president Pedro Castillo's attempt to dissolve Congress. (Reuters)
• High Court judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb sentences former Welsh MEP Nathan Gill to 10 and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from ex-Ukrainian lawmaker Oleh Voloshyn to promote pro-Russian positions in the European Parliament. (AP)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Five Palestinians are killed in two Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
  • Israeli forces and tanks move 300 m (980 ft) beyond the Yellow Line in Gaza City, violating the ceasefire. (Al Jazeera)
• Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Two police officers are killed and four more injured after a bomb explodes near their armoured personnel carrier in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (Pakistan Today)

Arts and culture

• Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) sells for US$54.66 million at Sotheby's in New York City, United States, setting a auction record for the most expensive painting by a woman, surpassing the previous high set by Georgia O'Keeffe's Jimson Weed. (AFP via France 24)

Business and economy

• American telecommunications company Verizon announces it will lay off over 13,000 employees, nearly 20% of its management workforce, in a restructuring. (AP)

Disasters and accidents

• Two trains collide near České Budějovice, Czech Republic, injuring at least 57 people, including five seriously. (Euronews) (AP)
• Sixteen people are killed and 24 are injured when a tourist bus plunges off a bridge into a river in Santuk district, Kampong Thom province, Cambodia. (Xinhua)
• The toll from the floods and landslides in Vietnam since the last four days increases to 41 people killed and nine missing. (Al Jazeera)
• The toll from the landslides in Cilacap Regency, Indonesia, seven days ago, increases to 18 people killed and 34 others missing. (AP)

Health and environment

• 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Brazil–Germany relations
  • At COP30, Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva announces that Germany has committed to donate €1 billion (US$1.15 billion) towards Brazil's rainforest blended-finance mechanism over the next decade. (DW)
  • The conference is temporarily suspended after a fire breaks out at the venue. (BBC News)
• At least 170 mountain climbers are evacuated when Mount Semeru on Java, Indonesia, suddenly erupts. (AP)

International relations

• Belarus–Lithuania relations, Belarus–European Union border crisis
  • Lithuania reopens its Medininkai and Šalčininkai border checkpoints with Belarus after closing them over security concerns involving weather balloons used for smuggling. (TVP World)

Law and crime

• 2025 Nepalese Gen Z protests
  • Clashes erupt across Nepal between supporters of ousted prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli and supporters of interim prime minister Sushila Karki. A curfew is imposed in various districts. (NDTV)
• Human trafficking in the Philippines
  • A Philippine regional trial court sentences former de facto Bamban mayor Alice Guo to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of human trafficking for a scam center in her town. (Bloomberg) (BBC News)
• Insurgency in Southeastern Nigeria
  • A Nigerian court sentences Biafran separatist Nnamdi Kanu to life imprisonment on seven terrorism charges over his leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra militant group. (AP)
• Bulgarian law enforcement arrests 35 people linked to a transnational network accused of trafficking cultural goods, with authorities reporting large seizures of artifacts, antique firearms, vehicles, and safes during coordinated raids with Europol and Eurojust. (Reuters)
• Spain's Supreme Court sentences Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz to two years of disqualification and a fine for revealing secrets about a tax fraud case involving Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. (RTVE)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Tongan general election
  • Tongans vote to elect 26 of the 30 members of the Legislative Assembly. Members of the country's nobility elect nine representatives, while the rest of the voting population elect 17 MPs. (RNZ)
• Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appoints Attorney General Jorge Messias to the Supreme Federal Court to fill the seat that retired justice Luís Roberto Barroso vacated, pending Senate confirmation. (Reuters)