Portal:Current events/2019 October 14
October 14, 2019 (Monday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Syrian Civil War, 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, NES–Syria relations
- In the early hours of the morning, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces hands over control of Tabqa, and the nearby Tabqa Airbase in the Raqqa Governorate to the Syrian Army. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera)
- Insurgency in the Maghreb
- Mexican Drug War
- Fourteen state police officers are killed in an ambush in Aguililla, Michoacán; crime-scene evidence points to the involvement of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. (BBC News) (El Universal)
Arts and culture
- A stone statue is discovered in the walls of a church in England. Officials believe the statue had been hidden inside those walls for about 400 years since the Restoration period. (MSN) (Daily Mail)
Business and economy
- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer as laureates for this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty". (NPR)
Law and crime
- Trial of Catalonia independence leaders, 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
- The Supreme Court of Spain sentences the twelve Catalan independence leaders between 9 and 13 years in prison and disqualification from holding public office for sedition and misuse of public funds. While it proves the existence of violent outbreaks, it judges they are not sufficient to convict for rebellion. (BBC News) (The New York Times)
- Former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras receives the highest penalty with 13 years in prison and disqualification, while former councilors Meritxell Borràs, Santi Vila and Carles Mundó are sentenced to one year and eight months disqualification for disobedience. (El País)
- Demonstrations and cut roads take place throughout Catalonia, with the largest taking place in Barcelona. The Committees for the Defense of the Republic calls for disobedience and popular revolt. (El Periódico) (El Mundo)
- President of Catalonia Quim Torra requests a meeting with King Felipe VI of Spain and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and calls the sentence as an act of "revenge". Sánchez, in a special press conference, guarantees compliance with the sentence and calls for dialogue and coexistence, as well as ensures that Spain is a democratic state. (El Confidencial) (El Mundo)
- Judge Pablo Llarena issues a European Arrest Warrant against former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont. (El Confidencial)
- Clashes erupts between Mossos d'Esquadra and the protesters that occupied the Barcelona–El Prat Josep Tarradellas Airport. Several flights are cancelled. (ABC.es)
- Convicted British serial sex offender and paedophile Richard Huckle, who sexually abused dozens of children in Malaysia, is found stabbed to death in his cell at HM Prison Full Sutton. (BBC News)
- The IRGC say they captured Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian journalist-activist exiled in Europe, accusing him of having stoked anti-government unrest in early 2018 using social media. (Reuters)
- 2018 Westminster car attack
- At the Old Bailey in London, Salih Khater is sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of fifteen years. (BBC News)
- Shooting of Atatiana Jefferson
- Aaron Dean, the Fort Worth, Texas police officer who shot a woman to death in her bedroom during what was intended to be a welfare check, resigns his position, and later that day is arrested and formally charged with murder in the case. (Fox News)