Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares a state of emergency in the city of Lod following rioting between Arabs and Jews. It is the first use of emergency powers over an Arab community in Israel since 1966.
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May 12, 2021 (Wednesday)
4.5 minutes to read
Armed conflicts and attacks
Afghan officials confirm that Nirkh District, in Maidan Wardak Province, was captured by the Taliban yesterday as the group seized the district building and set it on fire after days of intense siege. Attacks by the group have significantly increased as United States troops have started to withdraw from the country before the final deadline of September 11.
The Israel Defense Forces says that it has conducted a "complex and first-of-its-kind operation" in the Gaza Strip, killing several senior members of Hamas.
President of Colombia Iván Duque Márquez announces that 65 officers have been given disciplinary actions for acts of brutality allegedly committed while repressing demonstrations. Of the actions, eight were for homicide, 27 for abuse of authority, and 11 for physical assaults.
Mullah Mannan Niazi, the deputy leader of a splinter group of Taliban led by Mullah Rasul, is wounded and left in a coma after attackers target the area where he lived in Herat Province. Three of Niazi's men are also killed and four others wounded during the clash.
Thirty-seven more Palestinian civilians are killed after further airstrikes are executed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll to 69. Among the victims are a five-year-old child and their parents, who died when a residential building collapsed, while five more are farmers killed at their farms. The number of children killed rises to seventeen. At least 390 people have also been injured. The main Palestinian headquarters and all of the police stations in Gaza are destroyed by the strikes. Protests also erupt in the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of three protesters.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces that the Biden administration will send Hady Amr to help defuse tensions. Blinken also defends Israel's right to exist and condemns Hamas for firing rockets.
Five villagers are killed and two more wounded as militants storm the village of Fantio, in the Tillabéri Region, Niger, during Eid al-Fitr celebrations.
Business and economy
Amazon wins a legal dispute against a European Union order to pay back taxes of €250 million ($303 million). The setback renewed calls from EU lawmakers for a global corporate tax deal and for several to voice their support for the Biden administration's proposed 21% minimum tax rate on multinationals.
Health and environment
A total of 52 bodies have been found floating in the Ganges in the state of Uttar Pradesh with suspicions that villages may simply be disposing of pandemic deaths in the river.
Malaysia reports a record 39 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, thereby bringing the nationwide death toll to 1,761.
Thailand reports a record 34 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, thereby bringing the nationwide death toll to 486.
The French National Assembly approves the creation of a COVID-19 health pass to enable international travel and organization of large events. MPs also agree to end the state of emergency on June 1 and replace it with a transitional period that will last until the end of September, which will allow the prime minister to extend the 9 p.m. curfew until June 30.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg announces that Norway will remove the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine from its vaccination programme due to the risk of rare blood clots.
The World Health Organization says that the B.1.617 variant first detected in India in October has now been detected in more than 4,500 samples from 44 countries that were uploaded to an open-access database.
A study published in Nature estimates that during the last glacial maximum, low-to-mid latitude land surfaces at low elevation cooled on average by 5.8 °C relative to their present day temperatures. The study was based on an analysis of noble gases dissolved in groundwater rather than examinations of species abundances that have been used in the past.
Hungary announces that hospitals are resuming elective surgeries, which had been suspended during the pandemic. However, due to the workload, altered circumstances, the vaccination campaign, and other factors, waiting list times have effectively doubled and are now one to two years for most patients.
Cuba initiates its mass vaccination campaign for around 1.7 million people, using its locally-developed SOBERANA 02 and ABDALA vaccines, both of which have yet to complete its Phase III clinical trials.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel votes to recommend the use of Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine for children aged 12 to 15 years.
Sri Lanka imposes a night travel ban from 11:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. until May 31 in order to combat the rise of COVID-19 cases.
Law and crime
Twenty-nine men are charged with the sexual exploitation and rape of a teenage girl over a seven-year period in Calderdale and Bradford, West Yorkshire, between 2003 and 2010.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is investigated by anti-corruption prosecutors for allegedly lying to Parliament about his role in the Ibiza affair. Kurz denies the charges.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab reports that war criminal and former Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadžić will serve the rest of his life sentence in the United Kingdom. Karadžić was handed the sentence by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2019 for crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian War.
Politics and elections
United States House Republicans vote to remove Wyoming representative Liz Cheney as Chair of the House of Representatives Republican Conference, following her critical statements about former President Donald Trump.
Protesters gather in Paris, France, in support of Palestine following attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Gaza Strip. During the protest, police dispersed crowds.
In Milwaukee, protesters gather near the The Calling sculpture in opposition to Israel's occupation.
Sports
The Badminton World Federation announces the cancellation of the 2021 Singapore Open, which would have been held from June 1–6, due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic.
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