Resistance fighters and a local activist say Myanmar’s military deployed hundreds of troops around the proposed Dawei Special Economic Zone in the Tanintharyi Region, burning villages and pushing resistance groups back as the government seeks to revive the project.
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August 21, 2026 (Friday)
1.3 minutes to read
Armed conflicts and attacks
Pakistani forces raid multiple hideouts and kill 49 militants allegedly belonging to the Pakistani Taliban and the Balochistan Liberation Army in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Arts and culture
The Odyssey reaches $1.35bn at the worldwide box office to become the highest-grossing r-rated film, surpassing Deadpool & Wolverine.
Business and economy
The Panama Canal announces it will limit the number of ships allowed to cross the passage over the next month due to El Niño causing droughts in the region.
Disasters and accidents
Health and environment
India's Supreme Court orders states to protect elephant corridors, identify and remove obstructions, and prohibit groups from using fire to drive wild elephants away amid increasing habitat loss and human-elephant conflict.
Law and crime
Three people are injured in a mass stabbing, carried out with a sword, at a high school in Fagersta, Sweden. The perpetrator is arrested at the scene.
Turkey justice minister Akın Gürlek announces that Turkey has issued an Interpol arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his role in attacks on activists seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Hong Kong Court of First Instance convicts Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung of incitement to subversion over their leadership of a group that organized annual Tiananmen crackdown vigils. They face up to 10 years in prison.
Japan executes a 58-year-old man for a 2009 arson attack that killed five people at a pachinko parlor in Osaka. It is the first execution under the premiership of Sanae Takaichi.
August 20, 2026 (Thursday)
2.1 minutes to read
Armed conflicts and attacks
The Israel Defense Forces accuses Hamas of using the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis to carry out interrogations and torture Palestinians.
Human Rights Watch reports that Africa Corps forces summarily killed nine civilians, including four children, in Mali last month.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu regains control of Kauda, South Kordofan, following two days of clashes with Otoro fighters.
The USS George Washington arrives in the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln amidst a nine-month deployment and reports of mental health challenges among the crew and supply shortages on the aircraft carrier during the Iran war.
Business and economy
Disasters and accidents
Four railway workers on the Tōbu Nikkō Line are killed after being struck by a Limited express train in Kanuma, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.
Five people are reported missing and eight others are injured after a fire at a restaurant with apartments in Thusis, Grisons, Switzerland.
Mauritania's coast guard rescues more than 300 migrants, including 40 children, from an overcrowded boat off the country's coast after finding them in distress.
Eight people are killed when a Cessna 441 Conquest II aircraft crashes at the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site in western Alaska, United States.
Health and environment
The World Health Organization says that the Democratic Republic of the Congo will receive 70,000 doses of the Ebola vaccine candidate developed by Merck to combat the Ebola outbreak in the country.
International relations
The U.S. Treasury Department issues sanctions on 15 people allegedly involved in a drug trafficking network shipping thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Ecuador through Mexico to the United States.
Law and crime
A Chinese court sentences Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan to life imprisonment for financial fraud, bribery, and embezzlement, and fines Evergrande and its real estate arm a combined ¥15.8 billion (US$2.35 billion).
Argentina deports a Mexican Rear Admiral accused of leading a fuel-smuggling network inside the Mexican Navy to Mexico after the Mexican government withdraws its extradition request. He is taken to the Altiplano maximum-security prison, where his brother and alleged co-leader, Vice Admiral Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna, is also imprisoned.
Politics and elections
Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi says the integration of Kurdish military, security, and administrative institutions into the Syrian state is complete following an agreement reached with president Ahmed al-Sharaa in January.
The Jatiya Sangsad elects Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the President of Bangladesh in the first contested presidential election in 35 years. Alamgir will take office tomorrow.
Sports
In American football, the National Football League fines the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints $500,000 each after they started a brawl after a joint practice session at the Cowboys' facility in Oxnard, California, United States.
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