{"event_trigger":"Hilo Man Accused of Poisoning Stream, Killing Prawns Fined $633K","document":"HILO, Hawaii — The state Board of Land and Natural Resources fined a man more than $600,000 on accusations of poisoning a stream, killing an estimated 6,250 Tahitian prawns.\nIt was the largest fine to date for an aquatic resource violation in the state, West Hawaii Today reported.\nWayne Keaulana Spatz, 54, allegedly poured ant poison into Pa?he?ehe?e Stream in North Hilo on the Big Island. Efforts by The Associated Press to reach Spatz for comment on Monday were unsuccessful. Phone numbers and an email associated with him were no longer in service.\nOfficials indicated it’s unlikely that Spatz, who they said has no known address, would be able to pay the penalties and that they were unable to contact him to inform him of the impending fine, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.\nSpatz's alleged activity was discovered after Edwin Shishido, an official with the state's Department of Land and Natural Resources, received a tip from a person living nearby of someone pouring “Home Defense” liquid ant poison into the stream last July. Thousands of dead Tahitian prawns flowed downstream.\nIn the following months, Shishido conducted an investigation and found that soil and prawn samples from the stream tested positive for bifenthrin, an insect repellent ingredient.\nBifenthrin is extremely toxic that has been shown to cause long-lasting harm to aquatic ecosystems, said Troy Sakihara, a biologist who joined the investigation. Using pesticides is “understood to be a terrible method of collecting fish,\" harming the fish and potentially the people who consume them.\nAuthorities have warned people not to eat freshwater Tahitian prawns without knowing where they came from because of similar cases in which pesticides were used to collect the delicacy.\nIn addition to $100 fines for each of the 6,250 prawns that Spratz allegedly took, he was fined $200 for alleged unlawful use of poisonous substances and $8,640 for research and overtime by Department of Land and Natural Resources investigators — amounting to $633,840.\n“The action sends a strong and clear message to anyone else who is endangering people’s health and killing life in our streams,” said Suzanne Case, chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.\nOver the last week, officials have received more reports of people using pesticides in streams to collect prawns so they can sell them, Case said.\n“It is illegal and morally indefensible, and anyone caught will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” she said.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":["600,000"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["6,250 Tahitian prawns"]},{"role":"Date","values":["last July"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["ant poison"]},{"role":"Location","values":["North Hilo on the Big Island"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["Shishido"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ivermectin poisoning hospitalizes 5 in Oregon","document":"The intensive care unit at OHSU Hospital is full as COVID-19 patients fill hospitals across the state. (Kristyna Wentz-Graff/Pool Photo via AP)AP\nFive Oregonians have been hospitalized recently due to the consumption of an antiparasitic drug, ivermectin, despite no clinical data supporting its use in the protection against COVID-19.\nThe Oregon Poison Center has managed 25 cases involving the use of ivermectin between Aug. 1 and Sept. 14. Two of the five Oregonians hospitalized required intensive care.\nThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ivermectin tablets to treat people with intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two conditions caused by parasitic worms, according to the FDA website. Some topical forms of the drug are approved to treat head lice and skin conditions, like rosacea.\n“Neither the FDA nor the National Institutes of Health have endorsed its use for COVID-19, and OHSU doesn’t recommend any use of ivermectin for COVID-19,” Oregon Health & Science University officials wrote in a news release. “Initial lab research indicated ivermectin might be able to treat COVID-19, but when tested in human trials, ivermectin did not decrease symptoms or cure the disease.”\nPatients identified by OHSU as using ivermectin were in their 20s through 80s, with most older than 60, and were evenly split between both men and women. Some cases, according to OHSU, include individuals who obtained a prescription for either human or veterinary forms of the drug.\nRobert Hendrickson, medical director of the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU and professor of emergency medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine, said that after reviewing many of the human studies done on the drug, there is no evidence that there is a decrease in symptoms or a cure for COVID-19.\n“If you look at all of the data, it really suggests this doesn’t work at all,” Hendrickson said. “We’re just really wanting (to let individuals know) to not to take it if you’re thinking about it or to stop taking it if you are.”\nHendrickson said the drug is difficult to dose for patients and people could have severe reactions with other prescribed medications.\n“COVID-19 is a devastating disease and can be very frightening, but the public does not need to use - nor should it use - unproven and potentially dangerous drugs to fight it,” Hendrickson said in a statement.\n-- Alexandra Skores\naskores@oregonian.com; 503-221-8073; @AlexandraSkores\nNote to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Five Oregonians"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["antiparasitic drug"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Oregon"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["OHSU Hospital"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Woman Dead From Suspected Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in Flushing","document":"The FDNY and EMS responded to a 911 call just after 8 p.m. and came across an unconscious woman on the floor of her apartment inside 34-45 Leavitt St., the FDNY said.\nThe 52-year-old was transferred to Flushing Hospital where she was later pronounced dead, the FDNY said.\nThe 911 caller initially reported the woman as being in cardiac arrest but when firefighters arrived they detected an elevated level of carbon monoxide, according to the FDNY. \nThe FDNY evacuated the building and ventilated the gas until it was safe for the residents to return. A carbon monoxide alarm was present in the victim’s apartment but was not working, the FDNY said.\nThe FDNY has yet to determine the source of the carbon monoxide, the FDNY said.\nFollowing the incident, the FDNY tweeted a reminder about the importance of having both a functional carbon dioxide alarm and a fire alarm inside residencies.\nThe tweet said that carbon monoxide is a “silent killer” and is undetectable by human senses.\nIf inhaled, the odorless and colorless gas can displace oxygen in the blood and deprive the heart, brain and other vital organs of oxygen.\nFDNY members responded to a medical emergency in Queens yesterday evening. While performing patient care, members received alerts on their CO detectors that read 200 parts per million (PPM). Read more: https://t.co/gYoKXsMSfM pic.twitter.com/AObqTZNihM\n— FDNY (@FDNY) January 27, 2021\nCarbon monoxide is a silent killer, undetectable by human senses. Have both a smoke alarm and a CO alarm (or a combination smoke/CO alarm) installed where you sleep and on every level of your home, including basements. See more #FDNYSmart tips at https://t.co/NpwdRdlElY\n— FDNY (@FDNY) January 27, 2021\nOne Comment\nALL NYC residences are supposed to have smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors! Whenever there is a fire in any of the boroughs, you never hear anybody say “I heard the smoke alarm”. Does anybody know who the heads of NYCHA and DOB are who are getting paid for obviously doing nothing? They must have gone to the Chirlane Mac school of do nothing and get paid lots of money.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["an unconscious woman"]},{"role":"Date","values":["after 8 p.m"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide"]},{"role":"Location","values":["her apartment inside 34-45 Leavitt St"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["Flushing Hospital"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["The FDNY"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Couple found dead of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning inside Westmoreland County home","document":"NORTH HUNTINGTON, Pa. — A couple from Westmoreland County was found dead in their home Thursday of what police believe is carbon monoxide poisoning, according to Channel 11′s news exchange partners at TribLIVE.\nJoseph and Freda Polinski, both 88, of North Huntingdon, were found dead in their Altman Street home after a family member was unable to contact his parents, police Chief Robert Rizzo told TribLIVE.\n[DOWNLOAD: Free WPXI apps for alerts as news breaks]\nHe drove to their home and found them, Rizzo said.\nPolice believe the pair died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide is odorless, but medics did describe a strong smell in the home and had to ventilate it before they could go inside to investigate, according to TribLIVE.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A couple"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Altman Street home"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Webster Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prompts Changes for Local Ambulance Services","document":"0 WEBSTER, N.Y. — A Webster resident is in serious condition at a hospital after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning.\nThe incident has prompted changes for ambulance services in the area.\nSyed Mustafa with Northeast Quadrant Advanced Life Support says they responded to Railway Crossing Tuesday night and found an unresponsive person.\nWhile helping that person, one of the first responders saw two cats unresponsive and thought to check the carbon monoxide detectors, finding both were not functional.\nMustafa says if it were not for the cats, his crews could have been seriously hurt as well.\nHe is now installing carbon monoxide detectors for all of the ambulances.\nResidents and organizations in Rochester are trying to help curb the violence.\nIt has been just two years since Rochester had its lowest homicide rate in a generation.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A Webster resident"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Webster"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Two found dead with carbon monoxide poisoning in Vershire","document":"Thank you for your interest in and support of the Valley News. So far, we have raised 80% of the funds required to host journalists Claire Potter and Alex Driehaus for their one-year placements in the Upper Valley through Report for America, a national service program that boosts local news by harnessing community support.\nPlease consider donating to this effort.\nVERSHIRE — Vermont State Police are investigating after two people were found dead in an SUV over the weekend with accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, according to a news release from police. The deaths of Vershire resident Cody Coburn, 28, and Sharon resident Joelle Ryder, 36, do not appear to be suspicious, according to the release. Police went to a home on Parker Road in Vershire around noon on Saturday after a family member called police to say two people appeared to be dead inside an SUV parked in the driveway, according to the release. Coburn and Ryder were found dead at the scene and their bodies were taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies.\nPreliminary information from the Medical Examiner’s Office “indicated accidental carbon monoxide poisoning appeared to play a role in the victims’ deaths,” police wrote.\nPolice are investigating the deaths and are waiting for the results of toxicology reports, which they said could take several weeks.\nRyder’s friend and former co-worker, Jennifer MacIver, said they met a few years ago when Ryder was living in Florida and was hired to work at MacIver’s job, a pizza restaurant in Daytona Beach.\n“She was amazing to work with. She was one of the hardest workers I ever met,” MacIver said in a message Tuesday. She said the two grew closer as Ryder turned to her for help following a failed relationship. Ryder moved back to Vermont with a plan to eventually relocate to Florida, MacIver said.\n“She never stayed in one place too long,” MacIver said. “I don’t think she was able to really settle because she wanted to live life and do whatever she could to just be happy and keep moving and to help others.”\nThe last time MacIver heard from Ryder she said her friend — ever the animal lover — had recently started taking care of a few puppies and excitedly sent her pictures. “No matter how hard life got she always thought of the positive and it just made her so much stronger every time,” she added.\n","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two people"]},{"role":"Date","values":["noon on Saturday"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Parker Road in Vershire"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["Vermont State Police"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Silent Killer: Watch Out for Carbon Monoxide Dangers This Winter","document":"SUNDAY, Feb. 14, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Carbon monoxide poisoning can prove fatal without a warning, because it can't be seen, smelled or heard.\nIt's important to be aware of it, especially during winter when you're indoors and using heat sources to stay cozy.\nThe Nebraska Regional Poison Center has some tips for preventing carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and recognizing symptoms of exposure to CO.\nCO is a gas produced when fuels burn incompletely. This includes gas- and wood-burning fuel sources, such as furnaces, fireplaces, stoves, water heaters, gas clothes dryers and cooking stoves, space heaters and gas-powered grills, generators and power tools.\nPoisoning happens when a person inhales either high levels of the gas over a short period or low levels over a longer time. Symptoms can resemble other health conditions and include headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, confusion and loss of consciousness.\nIf you suspect someone is experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning, get that person to fresh air immediately. You may need to call 911. The person may need to be treated by doctors. Your local poison center can assist you.\nThe Nebraska Regional Poison Center offers several tips to protect yourself from this deadly gas:\nMore than 400 people in the United States die every year from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CO poisoning also leads to more than 15,000 emergency room visits each year.\nThe CO death rate is highest among people 65 and older, according to a center news release.\nYou can reach poison control at 1-800-222-1222. When you call, you will talk immediately to a registered nurse or pharmacist.\nMore information\nThe National Capital Poison Center has more on preventing and responding to poisoning emergencies.\n","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["More than 400 people","more than 15,000 emergency room visits"]},{"role":"Date","values":["every year"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["Carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["United States"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Four guests taken to hospital after carbon monoxide leak at Freeport hotel","document":"Tuesday's response was delayed because the Comfort Suites didn't call 911, and instead left a message about elevated CO levels on a nonemergency business line at the fire department on Monday.\t\nA malfunctioning water heater at a Freeport hotel is believed to have caused a carbon monoxide leak that sent four people to the hospital Tuesday morning.\nThe emergency response to the Comfort Suites was delayed a day because the first call about a possible problem was made Monday to a nonemergency business line at the fire department. As a result, the department didn’t get the message until Tuesday morning, Freeport Fire Chief Charlie Jordan said. The incident prompted Jordan to urge people to report concerns about carbon monoxide to 911 or emergency dispatch.\n“You have to call your dispatch center, find a business line for them or call 911,” Jordan said. “If you have a (carbon monoxide) emergency, that needs to be a 911 call.”\nFire crews evacuated the hotel on U.S. Route 1 around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday after a carbon monoxide detector found levels as high as 675 parts per million in one area of the hotel. Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that can displace oxygen in the blood if inhaled and cause victims to become unconscious and eventually die of oxygen deprivation.\nFreeport Fire Chief Charlie Jordan, center, walks out with his crew after clearing the Comfort Suites as safe for guests to re-enter and get their belongings after they were evacuated because of high carbon monoxide levels inside the hotel on Tuesday.  Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer Three people, including two adults and a child, were taken by ambulance to Mid Coast Hospital after an initial evaluation, and a fourth person was transported to the hospital in a private vehicle. The three people taken by ambulance were expected to fully recover. “It’s just a matter of letting the (carbon monoxide) take its course and get out of their systems,” Jordan said. He said the person transported by private vehicle was evaluated and released.\nAccording to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, most people will not experience any ill effects from prolonged exposure to carbon monoxide at levels up to 70 parts per million – although those with heart conditions might experience chest pain.\nAt levels above 70 parts per million, exposure may produce symptoms such as headache, fatigue and nausea. Concentrations above 150 to 200 parts per million may cause disorientation, unconsciousness and death.\nThe cause of the leak is believed to have been a malfunctioning water heater in a storage room on the first floor. Hotel staff had called the business line of the fire department and left a message Monday about a problem with a carbon monoxide detector in a neighboring hotel room, but Jordan said the department did not receive the message until Tuesday.\nA woman at the hotel who identified herself as the manager declined to comment Tuesday. Comfort Suites is a franchised brand of Choice Hotels International. A media contact for the company said she was looking into the situation Tuesday afternoon but did not immediately have any information.\nSome rooms in the hotel do not have carbon monoxide detectors, Jordan said, but he also noted the building is under renovation and said additional detectors are being installed.\nChristine Yates, who is visiting Maine with her son from Morrisville, Vermont, noticed the fire chief walking outside the building Tuesday morning around 9 a.m. and then heard the alarm warning people to evacuate. Yates said she was feeling fine, and that they were scheduled to check out of the hotel Tuesday anyway.\nChristine Yates, of Morrisville, Vermont, leaves the Comfort Suites with her belongings after waiting outside for more than two hours because of high carbon monoxide levels inside the motel in Freeport on Tuesday.  Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer “I was just starting to go through our stuff and trying to reorganize it for the next leg (of our trip),” said Yates, 53. “Well, now I will wait to do that when we get to our next hotel.”\nMatt Witham, who was staying in the hotel for business, also heard the alarm and evacuated. He said he wasn’t feeling any symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. He was planning to check out Tuesday but said one of his employees was planning to continue staying there.\n“I think they’re going to get him back in,” said Witham, 40. “They didn’t say anything to us, but they told me as soon as the levels drop below a certain level, I can go in and get my stuff.”\nThough the carbon monoxide level dropped to where it was safe for people to re-enter the building to get their belongings around noon, the hotel didn’t reopen Tuesday afternoon because workers for a mechanical service company were not able to complete repairs to the water heater because they didn’t have the parts it needed.\nIn all, four local emergency teams responded: Freeport, Yarmouth, Brunswick and Topsham.\nSuccess. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.\nEnter your email and password to access comments.\nForgot Password?\nDon't have a Talk profile? Create one.\nHi, to comment on stories you must create a commenting profile. This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login. Already have one? Login.\nInvalid username/password.\nPlease check your email to confirm and complete your registration.\n Create a commenting profile by providing an email address, password and display name. You will receive an email to complete the registration. Please note the display name will appear on screen when you participate.\nAlready registered? Log in to join the discussion.\nOnly subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login to participate in the conversation. Here’s why.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four people"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday morning"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a Freeport hotel"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["Mid Coast Hospital"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"El Paso resident dies in home carbon monoxide poisoning incident","document":"An El Paso man has died in what is believed to be a carbon monoxide poisoning over the weekend, police and fire officials said.\nThe man was one of three residents hospitalized Saturday after a suspected carbon monoxide leak in a heater at a home, El Paso Fire Department spokesman Enrique Dueñas-Aguilar said.\nThe man, who was in his 70s, died at a hospital. His name has not been released.\nThe man and two other people were found about 11 a.m. Saturday in a home in the 6000 block of Jemez Drive, Dueñas-Aguilar said.\nThe home is in the Tejas neighborhood off Trowbridge Drive, south of Interstate 10 from Bassett Place.\nMore local news:Suspected arsonist arrested after man dies in house fire trying to rescue dog\nA friend or relative went to the home, found the three people unconscious and called 911, Dueñas-Aguilar said.\nCarbon monoxide detectors worn by the firefighters responding to the scene detected high levels of CO inside the house, Dueñas-Aguilar said. The source of the odorless gas was believed to be a heater.\nThe three residents, who were described as senior citizens, were rushed by ambulance to a hospital in critical condition.\nCarbon monoxide, also known as CO, is potentially deadly and can be produced when natural gas appliances are not working correctly or vented properly.\nThe El Paso Police Department is investigating the case as an unattended death, a police spokesman said Tuesday.\nThe incident on Saturday was the second fatal carbon monoxide poisoning in El Paso this fall/winter season.\nOn Oct. 28 following an unusually early snowfall, a man died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty furnace at a home in the 6300 block of Westside Drive in the Upper Valley, Dueñas-Aguilar said.\nDaniel Borunda may be reached at 915-546-6102; dborunda@elpasotimes.com; @BorundaDaniel on Twitter.\nCarbon monoxide, or CO, is an odorless, colorless and tasteless gas that is potentially dangerous. It is created by the incomplete or improper burning of fuel.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["three residents"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Oct. 28"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["home in the 6000 block of Jemez Drive"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["El Paso Police Department"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Oklahoma Natural Gas provides tips on conserving energy use, prevent carbon monoxide poisoning","document":"\t\t\tby: Hicham Raache/KFOR Symbol photo: A flame burns on a gas stove on February 21, 2020. (Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)\nOKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Oklahoma Natural Gas is providing tips on how residential customers can conserve energy and prevent carbon monoxide poisoning as the winter storm’s historically low temperatures cause an increase in natural gas use.\nThe Oklahoma Natural Gas website addressed the gas usage by businesses, manufacturing plants and residences as winter storm conditions impact the area.\nThe historically low temperatures are causing a spike in natural gas use and therefore a significant surge in natural gas market prices. Customers’ gas bills will, as a result, be higher.\n“Due to the unprecedented, historically low temperatures for an extended period, we are seeing much higher natural gas use and a significant surge in natural gas market prices. While we do not markup the price of natural gas, these events will have an impact on customer bills. At this time, we cannot quantify what the impact will be,” the website states.\nONG provided residential customers the following tips for conserving their gas energy use:\nThe website also provided the following safety tips for using natural gas energy:\nThe website warns carbon monoxide can be produced by a natural gas appliance that is not operating efficiently or vented properly\n“Carbon monoxide, also called CO, is an odorless, colorless and tasteless gas that can make you sick and, in some circumstances, may be deadly. Carbon monoxide is created by the incomplete or improper burning of fuel,” the news release states.\nSymptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are usually recognized by the following:\nHere are some tips to prevent carbon monoxide:\nImmediately leave the building you are in and get outside to fresh air if you suspect carbon monoxide poisoning. Then call 911 or call your local fire or police department and, if necessary, request medical assistance. \nONG officials ask that businesses and manufacturing plants across the state reduce their gas usage to the lowest safe operating level.\nThe website says ONG continuously monitors its pipeline systems and has additional staff working through the weekend and through the duration of the winter storm.","event_type":"Mass Poisoning","arguments":[{"role":"Compensation","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 21, 2020"]},{"role":"Poisoning Type","values":["carbon monoxide poisoning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Oklahoma"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 Philippine President Gloria Macapagal–Arroyo steps down as head of the ruling Lakas–Kampi–CMD party and endorses her former defense minister Gilberto Teodoro for President. (Straits Times) (BBC) (Philippine Star)[permanent dead link]","document":"MANILA - PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal Arroyo endorsed her former defence chief as her successor on Thursday although major defections hit the Philippines' largest political party ahead of presidential elections next May.\nAbout 48 million Filipinos will vote in May 2010 to choose a president, vice president, nearly 300 lawmakers and more than 17,000 local government officials in national and local elections.\nAt the gathering of the country's largest political party, Lakas-Kampi (Strength-Ally), Arroyo said she remained confident former defence secretary Gilberto 'Gibo' Teodoro would win the presidency on the strength of the dominant party.\nLakas-Kampi has controlled about 70-75 per cent of all national and local government elective positions for the last 15 years, a majority that helped Mrs Arroyo survive four impeachment motions in Congress from 2005. But, she acknowledged that there was a 'big and arduous task' ahead due to Mr Teodoro's poor ratings in opinion polls.\nMr Teodoro got only 2 per cent support based on the latest Pulse Asia survey in October. 'The easiest way to campaign is to criticise,' he told partymen after he was formally nominated as Lakas-Kampi's standard-bearer, referring to the good showing of opposition candidates. Excellence will be the key to our winning our struggle for economic and social liberties.'\nAt a sports stadium across the city, Senator Benigno 'Noynoy' Aquino of the opposition Liberal Party was swearing in two mayors from the administration party who defected to his side. About 800 local officials from a province on the southern island of Mindanao have also left Lakas-Kampi and joined Aquino's Liberal Party. A former cabinet member and a popular governor had earlier defected to the Liberals. -- REUTERS","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Gilberto 'Gibo' Teodoro"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Arroyo"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 Germany's army chief Wolfgang Schneiderhan resigns over allegations of a cover up related to a September NATO airstrike in northern Afghanistan. (Deutsche Welle) (Xinhua)","document":"The head of Germany's armed forces has tendered his resignation. The move comes after media reported that the government may have withheld information about a deadly attack that killed numerous civilians in Afghanistan.\nSchneiderhan is the latest casualty of the airstrike\nGermany's military chief of staff, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, has stepped down in the wake of revelations about his handling of a deadly bombing raid in Afghanistan.\nDefense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg announced the resignation in parliament on Thursday as a debate began on Germany's military deployment in Afghanistan. Schneiderhan had \"released himself from his duties at his own request,\" said Guttenberg, adding that Deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert was also resigning.\nBoth the current and the former defense ministers are under pressure\nGuttenberg said that Schneiderhan had failed to provide proper information about the incident, in which a NATO report says that 142 people, including civilians were killed. The positions of Schneiderhan and Wichert became untenable after a revelation that the military received images the same day as the airstrike showing some of the dead were civilians, yet did not make this public.\nChancellor Angela Merkel has called for a full inquiry into the aftermath of the attack. Speaking only hours after the resignations were announced, Merkel told reporters, \"I've always said that if we want to win confidence, we have to have full transparency.\" \"The present defense minister of course has my full support if he investigates what needs investigating and puts into effect the necessary consequences,\" she added.\nSpeaking at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Merkel also failed to defend the former Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, who was in office at the time of the airstrike. Jung is the current labor minister.\nDeadliest post-war airstrike\nThe attack on September 4 against two tanker trucks was called by German Colonel Georg Klein who feared the vehicles could be used in an attack on troops. The exact details of what happened in the incident near Kunduz may never be known, but reports indicate that the truck drivers were murdered, and the stolen trucks later became bogged down in wet sand in a river bed.\nVillagers were apparently helping themselves to free fuel when Colonel Klein directed US fighter-bombers to blow up the trucks and the Taliban fighters aboard them. The pilferers were killed too.\nErrors in procedure\nNATO's report, which remains classified though its key conclusions are public, criticized Colonel Klein, concluding he overstepped his authority by not checking with ISAF's top command before the strike.\nGuttenberg has defended the action, saying that despite \"procedural errors\" the decision to request the airstrike had been \"appropriate in military terms\".\nGuttenberg met troops in Afghanistan earlier this month\nSchneiderhan's resignation follows a report in Thursday's edition of German daily Bild, alleging that former Defense Minister Jung failed to pass on information from a military report and kept secret a video taken in one of the planes involved in the attack. The newspaper report says that shortly after the attack, Jung was informed that children had been injured. Jung, who now serves as labor minister, contended that only insurgents had been killed in the days following the strike. Opposition leaders are putting pressure on Jung to make a statement before the end of the day.\nJung has denied the allegations and said that he had not ruled out the possibility of civilian victims. But he maintained that initial reports from investigations on the scene showed that only the Taliban and their allies had been hit. The German Defense Ministry is investigating the allegations. rc/bk/AP/Reuters/dpa/AFPEditor: Nancy Isenson\nA class-action suit is being brought against the German government. The suit will seek compensation for the families of people killed in a controversial airstrike in Afghanistan. (21.11.2009)\n  In a shift, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg have been speaking frankly about devising a plan to get German troops out of Afganistan. (16.11.2009)\n  German federal prosecutors are to look into an airstrike that was ordered by a German commander on Taliban militants in September. NATO has criticized the airstrike, while the German military has defended it. (06.11.2009)","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["armed forces"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["military chief"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Wolfgang Schneiderhan"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 Franz Josef Jung resigns as Germany's Minister of Labour and Social Affairs following allegations of covering up the Kunduz airstrike, during which he served as Minister of Defence. (Deutsche Welle) (BBC)","document":"Germany's Labour Minister Franz Josef Jung has resigned amid allegations of a cover-up relating to a deadly Nato air strike in Afghanistan.\nMr Jung was defence minister when a strike was ordered on 4 September by a German commander against two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants. But dozens of civilians were also killed in the attack, which happened in the northern province of Kunduz. Mr Jung had repeatedly denied civilians were killed in the attack. He moved to the labour ministry after Germany's general election in September. \"I told Chancellor Angela Merkel this morning that I was handing in my position as federal labour minister,\" Mr Jung told reporters in Berlin on Friday. \"I am therefore taking responsibility for the information policy of the defence ministry.\" Germany's parliament has been debating whether to extend the military mission in Afghanistan, amid growing domestic opposition to involvement in the conflict. Information withheld?\nThe death toll from the September strike remains unclear. The independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor group put the number of civilians deaths at 70, while the Afghan government later said that 30 of 100 casualties had been civilians. For several days after the attack, Mr Jung maintained that no civilians had been killed, and on Thursday he told parliament that he had correctly informed the public and deputies about the strike.\nBut Germany's top soldier Wolfgang Schneiderhan and senior Defence Ministry Peter Wichert resigned on Thursday, following reports that key information about the strike had been withheld. The German newspaper, Bild, alleged key information over the incident had been repressed. Citing a confidential army video and a military report, it said they showed that the German commander who ordered the strike, Col Georg Klein, had not been able to rule out the presence of civilians at the scene before he took action. The newspaper said the report proved the defence ministry had been told there were clear indications of civilian casualties by the evening of 4 September. It is not clear whether Mr Jung was aware of the report and the video. Germany has more than 4,000 troops in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent after the US and Britain.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["minister"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Labour Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Franz Josef Jung"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 Franz Josef Jung resigns as Germany's Minister of Labour and Social Affairs following allegations of covering up the Kunduz airstrike, during which he served as Minister of Defence. (Deutsche Welle) (BBC)","document":"Germany's former defense minister Franz Josef Jung has stepped down from his cabinet position over an alleged cover-up regarding civilian deaths during a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan in September.\nMany argued that Jung was no longer tenable as a minister\nAnnouncing his resignation to reporters in Berlin on Friday, Jung said he would take responsibility for any policy mistakes.\n\"I told Chancellor Merkel this morning that I am vacating my position as labor minister,\" Jung said. \"I hereby assumed political responsibility for the internal communication policy of the defense ministry,\" he said.\nJung said he still believed he had acted in good faith in the airstrike aftermath. \"I have correctly informed the public as well as the parliament about what I knew,\" he said\nGermany's top soldier, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, stepped down one day before Jung\nOn Thursday, two senior defense ministry officials, military Chief of Staff General Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert, pre-empted Jung by resigning. Those resignations followed a report by Germany’s Bild newspaper that said aerial videos and a secret military report clearly indicated civilians had been killed in the airstrike, even though the then-defense minister was denying it. In parliament on Thursday, Jung admitted that the report did point to civilian deaths but said he had had no \"concrete knowledge\" of its contents.\nDeadly airstrike\nOn September 4, the German colonel in charge of German troops at Kunduz, Georg Klein, called in a US fighter plane to strike two fuel tanker trucks said to have been stuck in a river bed after being hijacked by suspected Taliban militants a short distance from the German base. A confidential NATO report said the ensuing fireball caused up to 142 deaths, which would make it the highest death toll related to German forces since World War II. Local Afghan government sources said between 30 and 40 civilians died alongside 69 Taliban fighters in the airstrike. Germany’s new Defense Minister Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg said he had been unaware of the report until Wednesday. Next week, the Bundestag parliament is expected to vote on a new mandate for Afghanistan which could allow up to 4,500 troops. Germany has NATO's third-largest contingent in Afghanistan after the United States and Britain.\nCabinet shuffle\nThe airstrike took place just weeks before Germany’s federal election. After her election victory, Chancellor Angela Merkel switched her Christian Democrat ally from defense to labor amid mounting voter disquiet over the role of Germany’s 4,250 NATO troops in northern Afghanistan. Opinion surveys show that a majority of Germans have become critical of Berlin's involvement amid surges of insurgency, especially since a date for a complete withdrawal remains elusive. In Germany opposition to military conflict still runs deep, more than 60 years after the Nazi defeat. Next Tuesday, US President Barack Obama, whose administration has been re-examining the international troop presence in Afghanistan, is expected to announce the deployment of thousands of additional US troops.\nNew minister named Ursula von der Leyen\nChancellor Merkel announced on Friday that current Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen is to succeed Jung as labor minister.\nVon der Leyen, who is a member of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, is a popular politician and mother of seven who previously introduced generous state child-benefit payments. Kristina Koehler, 32, succeeds von der Leyen at the family ministry.\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["alleged cover-up regarding civilian deaths during a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan in September"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Ursula von der Leyen"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Franz Josef Jung"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2020 Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa Fiame Naomi Mata'afa resigns over three proposed constitutional amendments, which would alter the power of the land and titles court. She also leaves the Human Rights Protection Party. Other MPs have already left the party over the issue and formed a new opposition party. (RNZ)","document":"Samoan deputy prime minister has quit Cabinet and the country's Human Rights Protection Party, in a defection over controversial proposals to amend the constitution.\nFiame Naomi Mata'afa, who is also natural resources minister, quit on Friday after meeting with constituents over the three bills, which would alter the power of the land and titles court.\nFiame Naomi Mata'afa became Samoa's first woman deputy prime minister in 2016.  Photo: RNZ/Daniela Maoate-Cox\nShe said she could not bring herself to support them, which prompted the prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, to last night tell state radio she would no longer be welcome in the party.\n\"I don't mind is [she] doesn't approve [of the bills],\" Tuilaepa told radio 2AP. \"That is her decision which means she is no longer with the party.\"\nSeveral MPs had already quit the party over the bills, including the former speaker of Parliament La'auli Leauatea Polataivao, who has since formed his own political party.\nThat party, the Fa'atuatua i Le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST), has since consolidated with two other opposition parties to form one of the most significant challenges to the HRPP in decades.\nFiame, who was Samoa's first woman minister and deputy prime minister, would stay in parliament as an independent MP until next year's election, said Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia, RNZ Pacific's correspondent in Apia.\nHe said to lose a deputy prime minister is a significant defection from the HRPP, which has ruled Samoa for nearly 40 years, and an embarrassing blow for prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has been in charge since 1998 but is under sustained pressure over the bills.\n\"Now we see the result of all this controversy,\" he said. \"The deputy prime minister stepping down from a party she was loyal to for so many years.\"\nCopyright © 2020, Radio New Zealand\nPacific women leaders have urged governments and communities to ensure that women and girls are protected from violence related to strains caused by the pandemic.\nA former Speaker and Cabinet Minister is continuing to fight to stay a member of the ruling Human Rights Protection Party even though the Prime Minister says he's sacked.\nThree controversial bills before Samoa's parliament may finally be receiving the public consultation required to proceed to a third reading. Audio\nAn attack on Samoa's deputy prime minister by her boss was a breach of almost every Fa'a Samoa protocol, according to a lawyer and former Attorney General.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Human Rights Protection Party"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["deputy prime minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Fiame Naomi Mata'afa"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2020 Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman resigns in protest of holiday lockdown, he also accuses the government of failing to act earlier and deliberately picking Rosh Hashanah as the start date of closure. (Times of Israel)","document":"Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman resigned from the government on Sunday in protest of the government’s imminent decision to impose a general lockdown during the upcoming holiday period.\nLitzman — the former health minister — had long threatened to resign if the lockdown plan is approved, and had also said his United Torah Judaism party could bolt the coalition.\nLitzman accused coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu of planning for months to impose a lockdown on Rosh Hashanah — which begins this week — and Yom Kippur while avoiding the move during the summer season.\nIn a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Litzman decried the fact that the lockdown would prevent worshipers, including tens of thousands of Jews who don’t go to a synagogue during most of the year, from attending the most important and well-attended Jewish services of the year.\nLitzman, who was infected with coronavirus in April when he was health minister and was also reportedly caught attending a prayer group of more than 10 men despite a ban on such gatherings, said he had opposed the lockdown plan “in all forums” and said that if a lockdown was needed, it should have been imposed a month or several weeks ago.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["government"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Housing Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Yaakov Litzman"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2020 Prime Minister of Libya Fayez al–Sarraj announces his wish to step down at the end of October amidst the ongoing civil war and protests over corruption. (DW)","document":"Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj said he wants to step down by the end of October. The announcement comes amid talks on ending the country's conflict. Libya's internationally recognized Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj on Wednesday said he wants to hand over power to a new government by the end of next month. \n\"I declare my sincere intention to hand over the tasks of power to the coming executive authority in a time no later than October,\" Sarraj said in a televised address from the capital, Tripoli. \nThe announcement comes amid talks between Libya's rival factions on ending the country's conflict. Earlier this month, they had agreed to hold elections within 18 months and appoint a new government. \nRead more: Libya: Rival authorities declare immediate cease-fire\nThe German government and the United Nations have announced an online summit for Libya, scheduled for October 5, DPA news agency reported.\nThe meeting will include UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, foreign ministers, and representatives of the conflicting parties in Libya, as well as representatives from Germany and the UN, the United States, Britain, France, China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Congo, Italy, Egypt and Algeria as well as the European Union, the African Union and the Arab League. \nThe meeting comes after Berlin organized a summit in January, where parties agreed to stop supplying weapons to the warring factions.\nDifferences within the Sarraj government surfaced last month during protests over corruption and power cuts in Tripoli and other western cities. The country's south and east had also reported similar protests.\nLibya has been split between rival administrations controlling the country's east and west following the toppling of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi in the 2011 NATO-backed uprising. \nSarraj is head of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, which is backed by the UN. ","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["government"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Prime Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Fayez al-Sarraj"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2020 The Palestinian National Authority resigns the chairmanship of the Council of the Arab League in protest of the bloc's failure to condemn Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates's normalization of ties with Israel. (DW)","document":"The Palestinian Authority has stepped down from a key Arab League role over the bloc's failure to condemn Bahrain and the UAE's normalization of ties with Israel. Its foreign minister called any such deal dishonorable.\nThe Palestinian Authority quit its rotating chairmanship of Arab League meetings on Tuesday, with Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki saying his government no longer wanted the position.\nLast month, the Palestinians were unable to persuade the Arab League to condemn member nations that break ranks and normalize relations with Israel.\nBahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed deals in Washington on September 15 that normalize ties with Israel, a move the Palestinians view as a blow to their efforts to end the Israeli occupation and achieve an independent state.\n\"The state of Palestine ... refuses to record in its history the association of its presidency with the regression in values and principles that was evident in the last meeting of the council of foreign ministers,\" Maliki told reporters in Ramallah.\nRead more: Palestinians seek new friends after Israel normalizes ties with Gulf monarchies\nThe Palestininans were supposed to chair meetings of the council, which brings together foreign ministers from the 22-member regional bloc, until March.\n\"Palestine has decided to concede its right to chair the League's council at its current session. There is no honour in seeing Arabs rush towards normalization during its presidency,\" Maliki said.\nAfter his initial remarks, Maliki read from a letter he said he sent to the Arab League secretary-general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, informing him of Palestine's decision and criticizing the UAE and Bahrain.\nThe UAE's deal with Israel had \"created a deep crisis in the Arab League\" and the move was followed \"by a similar collapse by the Kingdom of Bahrain,\" Maliki said, quoting from the letter.\nThe UAE and Bahrain's decision to normalize ties with Israel broke from years of Arab League policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Palestinians called the deal a \"betrayal.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["over the bloc's failure to condemn Bahrain and the UAE's normalization of ties with Israel"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["chairmanship of Arab League"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["The Palestinian Authority"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2020 President Sooronbay Jeenbekov resigns following ten days of unrest and protests in response to the parliamentary election. (Reuters)","document":"BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov resigned on Thursday, leaving power in the hands of a nationalist rival whose supporters freed him from jail last week.\nThe swift transition appears to put an end to more than a week of turmoil and unrest that followed a disputed election.\nSadyr Japarov, 51, who was named prime minister this week, told cheering supporters that he had taken on the powers of the presidency, following the resignation of Jeenbekov and of the parliament speaker, who would otherwise have been next in line.\n“Today, (speaker Kanatbek) Isayev signed a resignation letter. All presidential powers have fully passed to me today,” Japarov said.\nHours earlier, Jeenbekov became the third president of the small Central Asian nation since 2005 to be toppled in a popular uprising. In a statement, he said he was resigning to prevent violence, which he said would have been inevitable if protesters carried out a threat to march on his compound.\n“I do not want to go down in Kyrgyzstan’s history as a president who shed blood and shot at his own citizens.”\nKyrgyzstan’s constitution requires a new election for president within three months. The rules appear to bar Japarov, as interim president, from standing again.\nRelated Coverage\nKyrgyzstan has been in turmoil since an Oct. 4 parliamentary vote, which the opposition rejected after Jeenbekov’s allies were declared the winners.\nSince the election, opposition supporters have taken to the streets and seized government buildings, prompting the authorities to annul the vote.\nJaparov who was serving a sentence for attempting to kidnap another politician during unrest in 2013, was sprung from prison by his supporters last week. A judge then threw out his conviction, and parliamentary factions picked him to be premier.\nJeenbekov announced last week that he planned to resign, but later said he would stay in office until a new election was held. Japarov rejected the delay and pressed him to resign immediately.\n“The president couldn’t hold out. He’s very weak. No spirit,” Dastan Bekeshev, a lawmaker who supports neither Jeenbekov nor Japarov, told Reuters. “It’s not clear what happens next, nobody can tell what is going to happen.”\nKyrgyzstan hosts both a Russian military base and a large Canadian-owned gold mine. Moscow, which considers the former Soviet space its sphere of influence, had said it would be responsible for ensuring stability.\nRussia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had spoken by phone to his Kyrgyz counterpart, Ruslan Kazakbayev, and promised to assist “legitimate authorities” to stabilise the situation.\nLavrov’s call could be seen as recognition of the legitimacy of Japarov, who named Kazakbayev to the post this week.\nFelix Kulov, a former prime minister who met with Jeenbekov before his resignation, said on Facebook the president had said nothing about planning to quit.\n“One thing is clear: some forces - I am sure sooner or later we will find out which ones - decided to seize power by force and made the president choose between resignation or an all-out war,” Kulov said.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Sadyr Japarov"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["President"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Sooronbai Jeenbekov"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 British Conservative Party MP Nadine Dorries is suspended from the party after her decision to become the first serving politician to appear on a reality television series. The move could take her away from Parliamentary business for up to a month. (BBC)","document":"Nadine Dorries has been suspended by the Conservative Party over her decision to appear on ITV1's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.\nThe Mid-Bedfordshire MP has had the whip withdrawn, a party source said.\nMs Dorries will be the first sitting MP to appear on the show, which could see her being away from her job in the Commons for up to a month.\nThe chief whip will meet her when she returns from Australia, when she will be expected to explain herself.\nThe Conservative Party is concerned about Ms Dorries' inability to do parliamentary and constituency business while she is taking part in the programme.\nMs Dorries said she wanted to use her appearance on the reality show to raise awareness of issues she is interested in, such as reducing the time limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks.\n\"I'm doing the show because 16 million people watch it. Rather than MPs talking to other MPs about issues in Parliament, I think MPs should be going to where people go,\" she told the Daily Mail.\n\"I'm not going in there to upset people, but I have opinions. There are certain causes that I'm interested in, one of which is '20 Weeks'. \"I will be talking about this issue around the campfire. I hope there will be some lively, heated debates.\"\nBut she has come in for criticism over her decision to enter the celebrity jungle, with Home Secretary Theresa May saying: \"Frankly, I think an MP's job is in their constituency and in the House of Commons.\"\nConservative MP Sarah Wollaston said Ms Dorries should resign, telling the BBC: \"I was horrified, frankly. I think it just makes her look ridiculous and it brings politics into disrepute.\"\nPaul Duckett, chairman of the Mid-Bedforshire Conservative association, said members may consider sacking Ms Dorries over her appearance on the show, adding that he had only learned about Ms Dorries appearance when media arrived in the constituency on Tuesday morning.\nMr Duckett said Ms Dorries was a hard-working MP but the appearance might \"detract from the gravitas\" of her role.\nPrime Minister David Cameron - who has publicly clashed with Ms Dorries in the past - earlier refused to be drawn into the row, saying: \"Nadine Dorries can speak for herself on this issue.\"\nRelations between No 10 and Ms Dorries, a former nurse, have been strained since the prime minister made a joke at her expense in the Commons, describing her as \"frustrated\". He subsequently apologised.\nMs Dorries grabbed headlines by describing Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne as \"two arrogant posh boys\" who were out of touch with the real world.\nFormer Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik, who took part in I'm a Celebrity in 2010 after losing his seat, told the BBC the Conservative leadership was \"out of touch with the zeitgeist of the nation\".\nHe added: \"I'm outraged by the fact that it thinks she's been wrong to do something that can put politics in touch with the public.\"\nBut former Tory MP Louise Mensch, who recently resigned from the Commons for family reasons and who has had a well-publicised spat with Ms Dorries over her decision, tweeted: \"Nothing sadder than a politician, or ex-politician, on any of those shows.\"\nLabour MP Steve McCabe said: \"David Cameron was too weak to stop Nadine Dorries appearing on a reality TV show.\n\"But even after dithering over what to do all day, by suspending her he's acted more quickly over an MP who called him an 'arrogant posh boy' than he ever did over a chief whip who swore at a police officer.\"\nIn February 2010, Ms Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs moved in with benefit claimants on a deprived council estate.\nGeorge Galloway, the only other sitting MP to have taken part in a reality game show that took him away from the Commons, when he spent three weeks on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, also faced criticism that he was neglecting his constituents. Politicians on reality TV","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Conservative Party"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Mid-Bedfordshire MP"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Nadine Dorries"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 CIA Director David Petraeus submits his resignation to President Barack Obama, citing an extramarital affair he had. (NBC News) (NBC News via USA Today)","document":"WASHINGTON—CIA Director David Petraeus announced Friday afternoon that he has resigned from his post, acknowledging that he had shown \"extremely poor judgement by engaging in an extramarital affair.\"\nA federal law enforcement official said the relationship was discovered by the FBI during the course of an unrelated security investigation. Subsequently, a number of e-mails concerning the relationship were discovered, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.\nThe bulk of the e-mails were believed to be from Petraeus to Paula Broadwell, a writer and military analyst who wrote a glowing biography of the CIA director, the official said. Aspects of the FBI investigation were continuing, but the official declined to comment on possible targets of the inquiry.\nIn a letter to CIA personnel, Petraeus, 60, said he met with President Obama on Thursday and asked to resign because of personal reasons. Obama accepted his resignation Friday, Petraeus said.\n\"Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA,\" Petraeus wrote. \"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.\"\nPetraeus' wife, Holly, is an assistant director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, charged with advocating on behalf of military service members and their families.\nObama praised Petraeus in a statement Friday and said Michael Morell, Petraeus' deputy, will step in as acting director.\nPROFILE:Who is Holly Petraeus?\nMILITARY RESIGNATIONS:Petraeus not first with messy exit\n\"David Petraeus has provided extraordinary service to the United States for decades. By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end,\" Obama said. \"As Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. By any measure, through his lifetime of service David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger.\n\"Today, I accepted his resignation as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I am completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe. Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time.\"\nMorell is a career CIA officer and began his career at the agency as an analyst tracking international energy issues, then worked for 14 years as an analyst and manager on East Asia. He has held several leadership positions at the agency. Two administration officials said it was too early to say who might be in line to replace Petraeus, and that Morrell could serve as acting director for several months.\nPetraeus, a retired four-star general who previously served as top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, was arguably the most vaunted military officer of a generation.\n\"From his long, illustrious Army career to his leadership at the helm of CIA, Dave has redefined what it means to serve and sacrifice for one's country,\" Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement.\nThe resignation comes at a difficult time for the agency and Obama administration, which has been under intense scrutiny from Republican lawmakers for the September attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans -- including the Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA contractors -- dead. Petraeus and other top U.S. intelligence officials were scheduled to speak next week at a closed-door session of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Benghazi incident.\nPetraeus took over as head of the CIA in September of 2011 following his tour as head of allied forces in Afghanistan.\nThe CIA director's bombshell took former military colleagues by surprise.\nPeter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as Petraeus' executive officer in 2007 and 2008 during the surge strategy, said, \"It just goes to show were all human.\"\nGen. Jack Keane, a retired Army general and longtime mentor to Petraeus, said he learned about Petraeus' resignation from news reports this afternoon. Keane helped formulate the surge strategy in Iraq, which Petraeus carried out.\nKeane said he was saddened by the news and considers Petraeus \"the most accomplished general of ourgeneration\" and compared his legacy to that of the legendary battle leaders of World War II. Petraeus is responsible for \"turning around two wars,\" Keane said, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan. \"Only Gen.MacArthur had that opportunity and he only succeeded at one,\" he said. MacArthur was relieved during the Korean War.\nKeane said Petraeus would have wanted Obama to accept his resignation. \"Knowing Gen. Petraeus he would not want the president to do anything but accept the resignation,\" Keane said. \"He would not want to put the president in an awkward situation.\"\nKeane predicted that Petraeus may emerge later in a prominent role, though he is not interested in elected office. \"He's absolutely adamant about never desiring to seek political office.\"\n\"The world has not seen the last of Dave Petraeus,\" Keane said. \"He has far too much to offer.\"\nSteve Boylan, a retired Army colonel who served as Petraeus' chief spokesman for three years, said he \"never would have expected\" him to resign under these circumstances.\n\"A lot of people have put him on a very high pedestal,\" Boylan said. \"People tend to forget that he is human and people do make mistakes….I can only suspect that in his own mind he felt he was doing the honorable thing by resigning.\"\nSeveral lawmakers praised Petraeus following the announcement he was stepping down.\n\"General David Petraeus will stand in the ranks of America's greatest military heroes,\" said Sen. John McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. \"His inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible – after years of failure – for the success of the surge in Iraq. General Petraeus has devoted his life to serving the country he loves, and America is so much the better for it.\"\nIn addition to Petraeus, two other top-level administration officials, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are also expected to soon leave the Obama administration.\nAttorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday he's also weighing whether he will remain for Obama's second term.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["60"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["CIA"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["acknowledging that he had shown \"extremely poor judgement by engaging in an extramarital affair"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Director"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday afternoon"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["David Petraeus"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 Republican Jim DeMint announces that he will resign from the Senate of the United States in January to lead the Heritage Foundation. (Washington Post)","document":"Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is leaving Congress in January to lead the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.\nDeMint, a staunch conservative who often clashes with party leadership, was reelected to a second term in 2010. He will depart before the new Congress is sworn in next month.\n\"I've decided to join The Heritage Foundation at a time when the conservative movement needs strong leadership in the battle of ideas,\" DeMint said in a statement. \"My constituents know that being a Senator was never going to be my career.\"\nThe senator, a vocal advocate for term limits, had already pledged not to seek a third term.\nSouth Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) will appoint DeMint's successor, who will serve until a 2014 special election. That means two Senate races in the Palmetto State that year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) -- targeted by many of the conservatives who love DeMint -- is up for reelection. DeMint's surprising move appears to be a break for Graham, who may see potential primary rivals flock to the open seat instead of challenging him.\nBefore entering politics, DeMint worked in market research, and he told the Journal that he's excited about taking Heritage Foundation research and working to \"translate those policy papers into real-life demonstrations of things that work.\"\nHeritage Chairman of the Board Thomas A. Saunders, in a statement, praised DeMint's \"passion for rigorous research, his dedication to the principles of our nation’s founding, and his ability to translate policy ideas into action.\"\nDeMint will take over from Ed Fuelner, who helped found the Heritage Foundation in 1973 and has been its president since 1977.\nIn 2010, Fuelner earned a total compensation (including bonuses and incentives) of $1,098,612. His base salary was $477,097. The annual salary for a senator: $174,000. (DeMint happens to be one of the poorest members of the Senate. According to the Post's Capitol Assets investigation, his estimated wealth in 2010 was $40,501.)\n“I couldn’t be more pleased with the Board’s selection,” said Feulner in a statement. “Jim DeMint understands that conservative principles and values advance the interests of all Americans — regardless of age, gender, wealth or race.\"\nThe current president will stay on as chancellor of the foundation and chairman of Heritage's Asian Studies Center.\nDeMint phoned McConnell this morning to tell him the news, according to leadership aides.\nIn a statement, McConnell thanked DeMint “for his uncompromising service to South Carolina and our country in the United States Senate.\n\"Jim helped provide a powerful voice for conservative ideals in a town where those principles are too often hidden beneath business as usual,\" McConnell added. \"There is no question in my mind that he raised the profile of important issues like spending and debt and helped galvanize the American people against a big government agenda.\"\nIn his new role, DeMint will serve as the boss of McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, the former labor secretary who is a Heritage distinguished fellow.\nMcConnell’s deputy, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) appeared caught off-guard by the announcement. “I just heard about it,” he told reporters outside his office.\nDeMint's political allies were quick to congratulate the senator.\nRepublican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said it was \"disappointing\" to lose a fellow conservative in Congress, but \"South Carolina’s loss is the country’s gain.”\n“Senator DeMint has done more to advance the cause of freedom and liberty in Congress than anyone else since his election,” said Chris Chocola, president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, in a statement. “We wish him nothing but the best in his new role at Heritage.”\nDeMint has helped elect a number of like-minded colleagues in recent years through the now-independent Senate Conservatives Fund -- including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.\nAaron Blake and Ed O'Keefe contributed to this report.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Heritage Foundation"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Senator"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Jim DeMint"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 In the Netherlands State Secretary for Economic Affairs Co Verdaas resigns following an expense–affair after only thirty–one days in office. (DutchNews)","document":"Junior economic minister Co Verdaas has resigned following a row over expenses claimed while he was a member of Gelderland provincial council.\n Verdaas, a provincial councillor in Gelderland before joining Mark Rutte’s second cabinet, had for years charged the province for travelling between Nijmegen and Arnhem where the provincial authority is located. However, Verdaas in fact lived in Zwolle, which is in Overijssel province. Councillors are supposed to live in the province they represent. Integrity ‘I have decided to repay the money to the province,’ Verdaas said in a statement. ‘My job is supposed to set an example and my integrity should be beyond all reproach,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to burden the job, the cabinet and my party with any more discussion about this.’ Verdaas, 46, was an MP for the Labour party between 2003 and 2006. As junior minister in the economic affairs ministry, he had special responsibility for farming. Pay Verdaas, who has been in the job for one month, will be entitled to the special unemployment benefit for ministers of €9,000 a month for six months, news agency ANP said. Labour leader Diederik Samsom said Verdaas’s resignation is a loss for the Labour party and the government.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["46"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["economic affairs ministry"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["row over expenses claimed while he was a member of Gelderland provincial council"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["junior minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Co Verdaas"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely resigns as president of the Royal British Legion following claims of his involvement with defense contract lobbying. (BBC)","document":"The president of the Royal British Legion, Lt Gen Sir John Kiszely, has resigned over claims he was involved in defence contract lobbying.\nIn a letter to the body's national chairman John Farmer, Sir John said it was \"inappropriate... to remain as national president of the Legion\".\nHe was one of several retired officers secretly filmed by the Sunday Times, allegedly saying he could influence decision-making over arms deals.\nHe denies breaking any lobbying rules. In the footage, seen by BBC News, Sir John allegedly said that his role gave him top-level access at \"various extremely boring affairs\".\nHe is shown saying he would be able to speak to the prime minister, the defence secretary and the chief of the defence staff at a Remembrance Day event.\n\"You are standing there waiting for the Queen with nothing else to talk about,\" he said.\nSir John had been president of the Legion since 2009.  As well as supporting the armed forces community, the organisation \"ensures that the nation annually marks their service and sacrifice\" at Remembrance Day events.\nIn his letter of resignation, Sir John said he had always kept his \"role of national president completely separate from any business interests\".\nHe added he had \"never used any access gained as president to raise the subject of, or discuss, any business interests whatsoever, let alone to make representations on behalf of clients. \"But I made exaggerated and foolish claims to the contrary, incompatible with my position in the Legion.\"  Sir John said he was due to step down in December, but believes it is in the body's \"best interests\" for him to stand down immediately.\nThe Legion's director general, Chris Simpkins, said he was satisfied that despite Sir John's comments, \"no breach of the... code of conduct\" had occurred.\nHe went on: \"The Legion's work, including Remembrance events, must be kept free of any suggestion that they could be used for commercial or political gain. \"Sir John's remarks suggested otherwise.\"\nMr Simpkins said a successor to Sir John would be publicly announced shortly.\nSir John was among four senior retired servicemen who appeared to suggest they could use their influence to lobby the government on defence procurement.\nThe Sunday Times alleged that Sir John, along with ex-MoD procurement chief Lt Gen Richard Applegate, said they had lobbied on multi-million pound deals while they were in \"purdah\", a two-year post-retirement period where they are not allowed to work in the private sector.\nFormer naval fleet commander Adm Sir Trevor Soar was shown saying he had \"to be slightly careful of lobbying ministers\" but said a way to get around the criteria was \"basically [to] ignore it\".\nThe paper also alleged that former head of the Army, Lord Dannatt, said he could speak to the MoD's top civil servant, a former school friend.\nAll four strongly breaching any government lobbying laws.\nOn Sunday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it would investigate whether it was possible for anyone to secure \"privileged access\" and whether any rules had been broken.\nDefence Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC access to MPs and senior civil servants by retired senior officers could be \"tightened up or shut down\", if the system was found to have been abused.\nSir John retired from the Army in 2007.  He served with distinction in the Falklands War, and in Bosnia and the Gulf. He received many awards during his military career, including the Military Cross, the Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service and the Legion of Merit.\nMoD to probe lobbying claim\nInquiry into Legion lobby claim\nMilitary lobbying claims probed\nLobbying 'to be reformed by 2015'\nRogue lobbyists 'could face jail'","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Royal British Legion"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["he was involved in defence contract lobbying"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["president"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Lt Gen Sir John Kiszely"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 The European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli of Malta, resigns amid corruption charges that he denies. (Times of Malta) (BBC)","document":"John Dalli has resigned from the European Commission, the Commission announced in a shock announcement this afternoon.\nIt said that  Mr Dalli resigned following an investigation by the EU's anti-fraud office into a complaint made in May by the tobacco producer Swedish Match. It alleged that a Maltese entrepreneur had used his contacts with Mr Dalli to gain advantage from the company, in return for seeking to influence a  possible future legislative proposal on tobacco products. \nSources said that Foreign Minister Tonio Borg is viewed as the least controversial choice for appointment as European Commissioner.\nMr Dalli was appointed to the Commission in 2010 and was responsible for Health and Consumer Policy.\nHe  was first elected to the Maltese parliament in 1987 and became parliamentary secretary for industry. He later became Minister of Economic Affairs before serving as Minister of Finance for 10 years, with the rare distinction of having introduced VAT twice – the second after the short-lived Labour government removed the tax in 1996.\nMr Dalli was beaten by Lawrence Gonzi in the 2004 PN leadership contest. He was appointed Foreign Minister but resigned after three months amid allegations relating to his conduct.\nIn 2007 he was made a consultant to the prime minister and following the last election he became Minister of Social Policy and piloted the rent reform before resigning to take up his appointment in Brussels.\nDespite his high profile job Mr Dalli kept a close watch on Maltese politics, occasionally making statements which were critical of the government and of the Nationalist Party. Just over a week ago he said the PN seemed to be following a policy which was akin to apartheid, where one either said yes to the leader or else he was made uncomfortable. He also argued that government policies had changed and there was unfair distribution of wealth.\nTHE EU'S STATEMENT IN FULL\nThe European Commission in its statement this afternoon said:\n\"Commissioner John Dalli has today announced his resignation as a member of the Commission, with immediate effect.\n\"Mr Dalli informed the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso of his decision following an investigation by OLAF, the EU's antifraud office, into a complaint made in May 2012 by the tobacco producer, Swedish Match.  The company alleged that a Maltese entrepreneur had used his contacts with Mr Dalli to try to gain financial advantages from the company in return for seeking to influence a possible future legislative proposal on tobacco products, in particular on the EU export ban on snus. As soon as the Commission received the complaint it immediately requested OLAF to investigate.  \n\"The OLAF final report was sent to the Commission on 15 October. It found that the Maltese entrepreneur had approached the company using his contacts with Mr Dalli and sought to gain financial advantages in exchange for influence over a possible future legislative proposal on snus.  No transaction was concluded between the company and the entrepreneur and no payment was made.  The OLAF report did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events.  \n\"The OLAF report showed clearly that the European Commission's decision making process and the position of the services concerned has not been affected at all by the matters under investigation.  \n\"The final OLAF report and its recommendations are being sent by OLAF to the Attorney General of Malta.   It will now be for the Maltese judiciary to decide how to follow up.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["It alleged that a Maltese entrepreneur had used his contacts with Mr Dalli to gain advantage from the company, in return for seeking to influence a  possible future legislative proposal on tobacco products"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["European Commission"]},{"role":"Date","values":["this afternoon"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["John Dalli"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Chief Whip of the British Conservative Party Andrew Mitchell resigns over remarks he made to police officers in Downing Street, and following a lengthy political row over the issue. (BBC)","document":"Andrew Mitchell has quit as government chief whip after weeks of pressure over an argument with police officers in Downing Street.\nThe Tory MP has admitted swearing at officers in the incident but again denied calling police \"plebs\".\nHe told David Cameron - who has stood by him - that \"damaging publicity\" meant he could no longer do his job.\nFormer Commons leader Sir George Young will be the new chief whip, Downing Street said. Mr Mitchell's resignation is a victory for the Police Federation and Labour who have led calls for him to go.\nBut it spells the end of a 25-year political career for the Sutton Coldfield MP, who was promoted from international development secretary to chief whip in September's cabinet reshuffle.\nBBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said Mr Mitchell told the prime minister about his decision in person, at Mr Cameron's country residence Chequers.\nThe prime minister has accepted his resignation.\nIn his resignation letter, Mr Mitchell says \"it has become clear to me that whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter I will not be able to fulfil my duties as we both would wish.\n\"Nor is it fair to continue to put my family and colleagues through this upsetting and damaging publicity\".\nHe repeats his \"categorical assurance\" that he did not call police officers \"plebs\" - as alleged in the police report on the incident.\nBut he adds: \"The offending comment and the reason for my apology to the police was my parting remark 'I thought you guys were supposed to f***ing help us'.\n\"It was obviously wrong of me to use such bad language and I am very sorry about it and grateful to the police officer for accepting my apology.\"\nMr Mitchell - whose job was to maintain discipline on the Conservative benches - was thrust into the spotlight when The Sun accused him in a front page story of calling police \"plebs\".\nHis outburst came after armed police stopped him from cycling through the main Downing Street gate, instead directing him to the smaller pedestrian gate.\nHe is reported to have used foul language and told the officer at the gates to \"learn your place\" and \"you don't run this government\". The officer concerned reported the incident to his superiors and the official police log, which appeared to contradict Mr Mitchell's story, was later leaked to the media.\nMr Mitchell came under intense pressure from the Police Federation - which represents rank-and-file officers - and which refused to accept his version of events.\nThe MP stayed away from the Conservative Party conference in an attempt to defuse the row, but despite the support of backbench Tory MPs it became clear when Parliament returned from recess on Monday that it was not going to go away.\nMr Mitchell's fate is believed to have been sealed on Wednesday, when deputy chief whip John Randall reportedly had to be talked out of quitting in protest at his determination to cling on, following a stormy prime minister's question time.\nIn his letter of reply to Mr Mitchell, Mr Cameron said he \"understood\" why Mr Mitchell was resigning, adding: \"I regret this has become necessary.\"\nShadow cabinet office minister Michael Dugher, for Labour, said: \"After weeks in complete denial, Andrew Mitchell has finally bowed to public pressure. \"What people will want to know is why, when the entire country could see that what Mr Mitchell did was wrong, the prime minister totally failed to act. \"David Cameron is left looking profoundly weak and totally out of touch, doing everything he could to hold on to Mr Mitchell only for his chief whip to bow to the inevitable given the understandable public anger.\"\nNick Robinson said the fight had gone out of Mr Mitchell, who was considered to be a fighter and a former soldier who loved political scrapping.\nOur correspondent said he had fallen victim to the persistence of the Labour Party - \"who portrayed him as all that was worst about the government, symbolising one rule for those at the top and one for everyone else\" - and the Police Federation who were fighting the government over cuts and reform.\n\"In the end he fell victim to his past behaviour, with too few people prepared to defend him, the tough guy paid for just being too tough\", he added.\nPaul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales said: \"It is not good to see anyone fall from public office but the decision by the prime minister to accept Andrew Mitchell's resignation seemed almost inevitable.\n\"Andrew Mitchell has apologised to our Metropolitan Police colleague and our colleague has accepted the apology.  We hope this matter is now closed.\"\nTory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the incident had been \"hugely exaggerated\".\n\"Somebody lost his temper. Frankly, big deal. All sorts of people lose their temper in their daily lives, it's part of human nature. To blow this up into a resignation issue has been rather unfortunate and actually trivialises politics when there are many important things going on,\" he told BBC's Newsnight. Mr Mitchell told our correspondent he will seek to deliver a personal resignation statement in the Commons early next week. The new chief whip, Sir George Young, was thought to have retired to the backbenches after giving up his position as leader of the House of Commons in September's reshuffle. The Tory grandee, who went to Eton and became an MP in 1974, had held the post since 2010, but was replaced by former health secretary, Andrew Lansley.\nSir George has some experience of the government whips office, serving there in 1990 and also acting as an opposition whip under Margaret Thatcher before she became prime minister in 1979. During the 1980s and 1990s, he held a range of ministerial positions, including transport secretary in 1995.\nAndrew Mitchell's life and career\nMitchell resignation letter\nReaction to decision to quit\nUN calls for end of arms sales to Myanmar\nIn a rare move, the UN condemns the overthrowing of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for an arms embargo.\nThe ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters. VideoThe ethnic armies training Myanmar's protesters\nTokyo Olympics: No fans is 'least risky' option\nAsia's Covid stars struggle with exit strategies\nWhy residents of these paradise islands are furious\nThe Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care. VideoThe Gurkha veterans fighting for Covid care\nTroubled US teens left traumatised by tough love camps\nWhy doesn't North Korea have enough food?\nLe Pen set for regional power with eye on presidency\nHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK. VideoHow the Delta variant took hold in the UK","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["prime minister"]},{"role":"Position","values":["government chief"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Andrew Mitchell"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Following yesterday's conviction of scientists for their failure to predict the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Luciano Maiani—head of Italy's disaster body—resigns in protest at the harsh treatment of his colleagues. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)","document":"Luciano Maiami resigns after seven members of his committee are sentenced to jail for underestimating L’Aquila quake.\nThe head of Italy’s top disaster body has resigned in protest after seven of the organisation’s members were sentenced to six years in jail for manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a deadly 2009 earthquake.\nLuciano Maiami told Italy’s ANSA news agency that he had quit as head of the Major Risks Committee because “there aren’t the conditions to work serenely,” a day after the watershed ruling that sent shockwaves through the international scientific community.\nThe seven defendants are appealing Monday’s ruling by the court in the medieval town of L’Aquila in central Italy, an area devastated by the April 2009 earthquake that killed 309 people.   Maiami, one of Italy’s top physicists and a former head of the top partical physics laboratory Cern in Geneva, criticised the verdict as “a big mistake”.\n“These are professionals who spoke in good faith and were by no means motivated by personal interests, they had always said that it is not possible to predict an earthquake,” he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.\n“It is impossible to produce serious, professional and disinterested advice under this mad judicial and media pressure. This sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.\n“This is the end of scientists giving consultations to the state.”\nAll seven defendants were members of the Major Risks Committee which met in L’Aquila on March 31, 2009 – six days before the 6.3-magnitude quake devastated the region that left thousands homeless.\nUnder the Italian justice system, the seven remain free until they have used two chances to appeal the verdict, but the ruling has sparked outrage among the world’s scientific community which says it has set a dangerous legal precedent.\n‘Incredulous’\nMaiami said the committee’s deputy head was also set to resign.\nMichael Halpern of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists said that without the right to speak freely and independently, they become vulnerable to scapegoating and persecution.\n“Scientists need to be able to share what they know – and admit what they do not know – without the fear of being held criminally responsible should their predictions not hold up,” he said in a blog.\nThe seven Italians will appeal their sentence in hearings set for the final months of 2013, according to Marcello Melandri, lawyer for Enzo Bosci, who was the head of Italy’s national geophysics institute at the time of the earthquake.\n“We will wait to read the grounds for the verdict and then the defence lawyers will work on the appeal, hoping for a better outcome,” he said.\n“I am still incredulous, I keep thinking about it and ask myself why,” he said, referring to judge Marco Belli’s decision to give the scientists a harsher sentence than called for by the prosecutor.\nThe defendants were also ordered to pay more than $12m in damages to survivors.\n‘No danger’\nIn L’Aquila and the surrounding towns, where rubble from crumbled houses and churches still lies in vast piles in off-limit zones, survivors and families of those killed said they were shocked by the global reaction.\n“There has not been any trial against science,” said Anna Bonomi, spokeswoman for the 3and32 survivors’ group which has campaigned for justice.\n“If anything, there has been a trial against a system of power,” she said, referring to the widely-held belief that the government had conjured up a media-friendly reassuring message to calm skittish citizens before the earthquake.\n“They may convince Italians [that the trial was unfair] but they will not convince us residents: they played with people’s lives.”\nThe government committee met after a series of small tremors in the preceding weeks had sown panic among local inhabitants – particularly after a resident began making worrying unofficial earthquake predictions. Italy’s top seismologists were called in to evaluate the situation and the-then deputy director of the Civil Protection agency Bernardo De Bernardinis gave news interviews saying the seismic activity in L’Aquila posed “no danger”.\nHe advised local residents to relax with a glass of wine. About 120,000 people were affected by the earthquake, which destroyed the city’s historic centre and medieval churches as well as surrounding villages.\nFollow Al Jazeera English:\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Major Risks Committee"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["seven of the organisation’s members were sentenced to six years in jail for manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a deadly 2009 earthquake"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["head"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Luciano Maiami"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Following yesterday's conviction of scientists for their failure to predict the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Luciano Maiani—head of Italy's disaster body—resigns in protest at the harsh treatment of his colleagues. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)","document":"The head of Italy's disaster body, Luciano Maiani, has resigned in protest at prison sentences passed on seven colleagues over the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila.\nSix scientists and an ex-official were convicted of multiple manslaughter for giving a falsely reassuring statement.\nProf Maiani, a physicist, said the Serious Risks Commission could not work \"in such difficult conditions\".\nThe 6.3-magnitude quake killed 309 people and left the city in ruins.\nProf Maiani's decision to quit was announced by the Italy's Civil Protection Department, which said the commission's vice-president, Mauro Rosi, and emeritus president Giuseppe Zamberletti had also tendered their resignations.\n\"The situation created by yesterday's sentence... is incompatible with running the commission's work in a calm and efficient manner and with its role of giving high level advice to the organs of the state,\" Mr Maiani said in a statement on the department's website.\n\"A scientific committee has to give in its own judgement... The advice may be wrong. Or it may be imprecise. But if you have such a heavy punishment the committee will not act properly,\" he later told the BBC's Newshour. \"A committee will tend to be, always, on the very, very conservative side. I think there is a definite danger that scientific communities will refrain from giving advice to the government.\"\nProf Maiani, a world-renowned physicist who was director general of the Cern nuclear research centre in Switzerland from 1999-2003, said the possibility of being judged for your scientific judgement was a \"serious problem\".\n\"In this condition, and with this precedent, I would not take the job,\" he added.\nThe group, all members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Serious Risks, were accused of having provided \"inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory\" information about the danger of the tremors felt ahead of the 6 April 2009 quake.\nAt a meeting a few days before the deadly quake, they had told officials in L'Aquila that, while a major earthquake was not impossible, it was not likely.\nOn the night of the quake, many people are said to have remained in their homes and died because of the advice, while others who had decided to remain outside in the street survived.\nIn their closing statements at the trial in L'Aquila on Monday, prosecutors quoted a witness whose father had died. Guido Fioravanti called his mother straight after the first tremor. \"I remember the fear in her voice. On other occasions they would have fled but that night, with my father, they repeated to themselves what the risk commission had said. And they stayed.\"\nHowever, the six-year jail sentences have shocked the scientific community.\nThe prestigious science journal, Nature, said \"the verdict is perverse and the sentence ludicrous\". It called for protests against the sentence's severity and at scientists being criminalised \"for the way their opinions were communicated\".\nLeading political figures in Italy suggested that the case had blurred the lines between science and public life.\n\"The risk is that doubt will no longer be allowed to form part of scientific judgement,\" Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri said. \"The role of science is not the same as politics or administration.\"\nThe speaker of the lower house of the Italian parliament, Gianfranco Fini, was more blunt in his assessment of the verdict: \"I trust it will be corrected on first appeal.\"\nAmong those convicted are some of Italy's most prominent and internationally respected seismologists and geological experts.\nTheir defence had called for their acquittal, arguing that it was impossible to predict an earthquake. More than 5,000 scientists said the same thing when they wrote an open letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in support of the men in 2010.\nReacting to the verdict against him, Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of the Civil Protection Agency's technical department, said: \"I believe myself to be innocent before God and men.\" While the seven men involved are appealing against their convictions - and remain free while they do so - all are facing the prospect of being barred from ever holding public office again.\nItaly quake scientists convicted\nL'Aquila quake scientists in dock\nCan we predict when and where quakes will strike?\nAn extraordinary trial in L'Aquila\n'Science did not do what was required'\nLa Repubblica.it - Homepage\nCorriere Della Sera\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Italy's disaster body"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["in protest at prison sentences passed on seven colleagues over the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["head"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Luciano Maiani"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Japanese Justice Minister Keishu Tanaka, who took office on October 1, resigns amid a scandal over alleged ties to an organized crime syndicate. (BBC)","document":"Japan's justice minister has resigned weeks after taking office citing ill health, amid a scandal over alleged ties to an organised crime group. Keishu Tanaka, 74, only assumed the post on 1 October. He was hospitalised on Friday for chest pains.\nCalls for him to step down mounted amid questions over political funding and his role in a gangster wedding.\nHis resignation is another setback for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, whose poll figures are plummeting. Mr Tanaka is the second minister to step down in the year since he took office.\nIn September 2011 Yoshio Hachiro, the newly-appointed trade minister, resigned after calling the area around the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant a \"town of death\".\nJapan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, said Mr Tanaka had stepped down due to ill health.\n\"After having a health examination, it was determined that with his symptoms it was necessary to rest. And while it is regrettable, I have accepted the resignation,\" Mr Fujimura said. Mr Tanaka had been justice minister for just over three weeks, following a cabinet reshuffle by Mr Noda aimed at revitalising his cabinet in the face of poor poll numbers.\nHe has admitted he acted as a matchmaker - a ceremonial role - at a gangster's wedding and attended a party thrown by a \"yakuza\" crime group boss. But he said he was not aware of either individual's yakuza links at the time of the event, which took place 30 years ago.\nHe also admitted his office had accepted donations from a foreigner-run company between 2006-2009 - banned under political funding law. His office says it has returned the money. Earlier this week, approval ratings for the Noda government slipped below 20% for the first time, Japanese media reported.\nThe prime minister has promised to call an election - due by the end of next year - soon, but it is not clear yet when this will happen. Japan PM Noda names new ministers\nJapan's PM Noda wins party vote\nJapan minister quits over gaffe\nNoda unveils new Japanese cabinet\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["74"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["scandal over alleged ties to an organised crime group"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Japan's justice minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Keishu Tanaka"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2012 Sir Norman Bettison resigns as Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police as his role in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster is being investigated. (BBC)","document":"Sir Norman Bettison has resigned as chief constable of West Yorkshire Police, saying an inquiry into his role after the Hillsborough tragedy was \"a distraction\" to the force. At the time of the disaster he was a South Yorkshire Police inspector who attended the match as a spectator and later took part in an internal inquiry.\nSir Norman has denied claims he helped \"concoct\" a false version of events.\nHe had been due to retire in March but had faced calls for him to go early.\nThe Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is undertaking two investigations into Sir Norman, issued a statement saying: \"Retirement or resignation does not prevent criminal prosecution should the investigation identify criminal offences, including misconduct in a public office.\"\nMargaret Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, said: \"I'm absolutely delighted he's gone but as far as I am concerned he should have been sacked.\n\"I would now like to know what payments and pension he's going to get.\n\"Any financial benefits should be frozen until the outcome of the investigation into the cover-up.\"\nWest Yorkshire Police Authority said media attention and the investigations by the IPCC were \"proving to be a huge distraction for the force\".\nSir Norman has been referred to the IPCC over allegations he provided misleading information after the disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans died.\nLast month, a report by the Independent Hillsborough Panel revealed 164 police statements by South Yorkshire Police were altered - 116 of them to remove or change negative comments about the policing of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the Sheffield stadium.\nIt revealed a cover-up took place to shift the blame on to the victims, and that 41 of the 96 who died could have potentially been saved if they had received treatment earlier.\nIn a statement last month, Sir Norman said: \"Fans' behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be.\"\nHe apologised a day later saying Liverpool fans were \"in no way to blame\" for the disaster and that he was sorry if he had \"caused any further upset\". Sir Norman's resignation comes after candidates bidding to become West Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner called for him to stand down now rather than retire in March as planned.\nIn a statement, he said: \"The police authority, and some of the candidates in the forthcoming PCC elections, have made it clear that they wish me to go sooner.\n\"I do so, not because of any allegations about the past, but because I share the view that this has become a distraction to policing in West Yorkshire now and in the future.\"\nThe police authority said Deputy Chief Constable John Parkinson would take up the role of acting chief constable.\nA Home Office spokesperson said Sir Norman's resignation was \"a matter for the police authority\".\nPolicing minister Damian Green said it was important that the West Yorkshire force was able to get on with the job of policing. \"If the inevitable deep concerns surrounding all of this - which, clearly, would be very, very understandable - were getting in the way of doing that job, then it is clearly sensible to allow West Yorkshire Police to get on with their important work.\"\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["John Parkinson"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["chief constable"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Norman Bettison"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 U.S. television personality Katie Couric announces that she will no longer host the CBS Evening News at the end of June. (USA Today)","document":"Updated  | It's official: After five years in the anchor chair, Katie Couric will be leaving the  CBS Evening News, most likely at the end of her contract on June 3.\nBy George Lange for USA WEEKEND\nKatie Couric, who will depart the CBS Evening News when her contract ends in June, could be hosting a daytime talk show by the fall of 2012.\nBy George Lange for USA WEEKEND\nKatie Couric, who will depart the CBS Evening News when her contract ends in June, could be hosting a daytime talk show by the fall of 2012.\nShe chose People.com to confirm the widely expected news, saying, \"I'm really proud of the talented team ...  and the award-winning work we've been able to do in the past five years, in addition to the reporting I've done for 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning.\"\nShe tells People magazine in an exclusive interview to be published in editions out Friday, \"In making the decision to move on, I know the Evening News will be in great hands, but I am excited about the future.\"\nIn a statement Tuesday, CBS News said, \"There's a lot to be proud of during Katie Couric's time at Evening News,\" adding that \"CBS News, like Katie herself, is looking forward to the next chapter.\"\nNo announcement was made about that chapter. But officials, who were not authorized to speak before the decision is made public, say CBS early next week will name 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, a 22-year network veteran, as her successor.\nCouric, 54, is being courted by major networks to host a daytime talk show to start in fall 2012. Each would offer a continuing presence on affiliated newscasts, newsmagazines or specials, particularly during major news events and during the 15-month gap between the end of her tenure in CBS' anchor chair and the start of a new show.\nShe tells PBS' Tavis Smiley that her plans include \"doing what I do best: interacting with people, interviewing people and having sort of more of extended conversations.\" A deal is likely in the next few weeks, and CBS and ABC — whose top stations will lose The Oprah Winfrey Show this fall — are front-runners. (Both networks would air her show on the big-city outlets they own and sell it to local stations elsewhere.)\nHer success would depend heavily on the stations and time periods she commands, says Bill Carroll, who advises local stations on syndicated programming for Katz Television Group.\nDespite a $15-million-a-year contract that her boss, CBS chief Leslie Moonves, last fall described as the last of its kind, Couric leaves the newscast mired in third place. Last week it drew 5.7 million viewers, compared with  leader NBC's 8.4 million. Financially, her departure \"helps CBS, because they were overpaying\" her, says Andrew Tyndall, publisher of The Tyndall Report, which monitors network newscasts.\nTyndall describes CBS' Evening News as the most hard-edged of the major networks, noting Couric's \"personality fights against the objective content of the newscast,\" whereas Pelley's background as a correspondent will be more in sync. \"It's less about a big personality and more about the work that he does.\"\nAnchor changes often lead loyal viewers to scope out rival newscasts. But some of CBS' ratings problems are caused by weak lead-ins from its local affiliates. And Couric, who was dismissed by some critics as a lightweight when she shifted from NBC's Today show, scored journalistic points, most notably in a combative 2008 interview with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.\nJust this week, she headed to London for the royal wedding, where she interviewed British Prime Minister David Cameron and Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["54"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["CBS Evening News"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["anchor"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Katie Couric"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["After five years"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 Ombudsman of the Philippines Merceditas Gutierrez resigns. Politicians previously voted to impeach her. (BBC)","document":"The top anti-corruption official in the Philippines has resigned weeks after politicians voted to impeach her.   Merceditas Gutierrez said she was stepping down to save the country from a lengthy impeachment process. Her political rivals accuse her of protecting former President Gloria Arroyo from corruption allegations. Ms Gutierrez, who was due to face an impeachment hearing in two weeks' time, denies any wrongdoing.\nLast month, the House of Representatives voted to impeach her after she was accused of betraying public trust by failing to act on corruption claims made against Mrs Arroyo and her family. Current President Benigno Aquino had described her as an obstacle to his anti-corruption campaign. Ms Gutierrez said she could prove the allegations were false, but had decided to step down for the good of the nation. \"At a time when the present administration is in its infancy and beset with more urgent problems, the last thing that the nation needs is for the House and the Senate to be embroiled in a long drawn-out impeachment proceeding against a single public official,\" she said.\nMrs Arroyo, who was president between 2001 and 2010, denies the corruption claims. Philippines to impeach ombudsman","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["House of Representatives"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["save the country from a lengthy impeachment process"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Merceditas Gutierrez"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 The French Football Federation (FFF) announces an internal inquiry over allegations of a secret racial quota targeting blacks and Arabs and supported by its own officials. (BBC News)","document":"The French Football Federation's (FFF) national technical director Francois Blaquart has been suspended from his post with the organisation.\nThe move comes amid claims of a secret racial quota for trainees.\nSenior FFF members were said to have secretly approved limiting the number of black and Arab players to 30% from the age of 12-13.\nBlaquart and French national team coach Laurent Blanc said the comments were taken out of context.\nA probe into the allegations, made by French website Mediapart, is expected to be completed within eight days.\nSports Minister Chantal Jouanno and FFF president Fernand Duchaussoy suspended Blaquart on Saturday.\n\"The suspension is pending the conclusions of an investigation led by the FFF and the IGJS [General Inspection of Youth and Sports],\" Jouanno said in a statement.\nOn Thursday, Mediapart, citing sources within the FFF, said Blaquart proposed to enforce racial quotas to limit the number of players of black or Arab origin in youth academies.\nOn Saturday, Mediapart published a verbatim report of a meeting at which France coach Laurent Blanc, Blaquart, under-21 coach Erick Mombaerts and under-20 coach Francis Smerecki, among others, had a debate over players with dual nationality groomed in France eventually opting to play for their country of origin.\nAt one point Blaquart says there should be an unofficial policy of keeping down the number of mainly black and North African youngsters with dual nationality in French training centres. Blanc is also cited as saying he is \"very much in favour\" of a quotas. Mediapart's editors say the report is evidence of blatant racism. Blaquart told RMC radio's website: \"I cannot not acknowledge these remarks.\n\"They have to be put in their context. We acknowledged the fact that there were many players with dual nationality... we had to control the management of these players who might be leaving us. There is nothing more to it.\"\nBlanc strongly denied plans for any quotas on Friday, and on Saturday said he stood by his comments.\n\"I admit that some remarks made during a work meeting... taken out of their context, may be misinterpreted and, as far as I am concerned, I apologise if I have hurt some feelings.\n\"But I, who am against any form of discrimination, do not stand being accused of racism or xenophobia.\"\nFFF president Fernand Duchaussoy had also denied there were any instructions to limit the number of black or Arab players.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["The French Football Federation's (FFF)"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["claims of a secret racial quota for trainees"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["national technical director"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Francois Blaquart"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Scottish Labour Party leader Iain Gray announces his resignation after his party loses key seats in constituencies across Scotland. (BBC)","document":"Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has announced he will quit the job, after the SNP's stunning victory in the Scottish Parliament elections.\nHe said he would stand down from the post he has held since 2008 in the autumn, after instigating \"root and branch reform\" of his party.\nMr Gray held onto his East Lothian seat in the Scottish Parliament, but by just 151 votes.\nThe party lost seats in key Labour heartlands across Scotland.\nScottish Labour finance spokesman Andy Kerr and former minister Tom McCabe were among the casualties, losing to the SNP in the west of Scotland.\n\"These are very bad results,\" said Mr Gray, as the results came in, adding: \"My heart goes out to colleagues who have lost their seats.\"\nLater, Mr Gray said he had congratulated Mr Salmond on the result, adding: \"The Scottish electorate has spoken and given a clear result which the Labour Party acknowledges. \"There are many hard lessons we must take forward from this election, not least my own responsibility and role as the Scottish Labour Leader.\n\"After consulting with colleagues I have decided to stay on until the autumn as we conduct a fundamental and radical reappraisal of the structure and direction of Scottish Labour.\"\nMr Gray left a career in teaching and foreign aid work for a life in politics more than a decade ago.\nHe was first elected to the Scottish Parliament 1999, holding four ministerial posts for the Labour-led government, including enterprise, transport and lifelong learning.\nAfter losing his Edinburgh seat to the Tories in the 2003 election, he spent four years working as a special adviser to the then Scottish secretary, Alistair Darling, before returning to Holyrood in 2007 following a successful election campaign in East Lothian.\nHe held the post of Labour's shadow finance secretary before taking over the party leadership from Wendy Alexander, during what was a torrid time for the party.\nMs Alexander had quit amid an on-going row over donations to her leadership campaign.\nBefore entering politics, Mr Gray taught maths and physics in Edinburgh, as well as teaching in an agricultural technical school in Mozambique during the civil war.\nIn one of the most infamous incidents of the Holyrood election campaign, Mr Gray was forced to cancel an election campaign event at Glasgow Central train station, after it was hijacked by rowdy protesters.\nIn an incident played out in front of the TV cameras, he took refuge in a sandwich shop, before later declaring at the time: \"I've worked before for two years in a civil war. I've been in Rwanda just after the genocide. \"I've walked the killing fields of Cambodia and I was in Chile three days after Pinochet demitted office.\n\"I've been a lot of places, seen a lot of things - that certainly wasn't the worst of them.\"\ny\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["after the SNP's stunning victory in the Scottish Parliament elections"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Scottish Labour leader"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Gray"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"-","document":"US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell is resigning after two years in the role, the White House says.\nMr Mitchell, a former senator and broker of the peace deal in Northern Ireland, is stepping down for personal reasons, the Associated Press reported.\nHe has shuttled between the Israelis and Palestinians trying to bring the two sides together for peace talks.\nUS President Barack Obama said Mr Mitchell had \"contributed immeasurably\" to the peace process.\nIn a letter to the president announcing his resignation, Mr Mitchell said he had taken the job with the expectation of serving in the position for two years.  He also said in the letter: \"I strongly support your vision of comprehensive peace in the Middle East and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of your administration.\"\nMr Obama said in a statement: \"As he returns to his family, George leaves behind a proud legacy of dedicated public service and the country owes him a debt of gratitude for his extraordinary commitment.\"\nHe praised Mr Mitchell's \"deep commitment to resolving conflict and advancing democracy\".\nUS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: \"As well as anyone in his generation, George understands the slow, hard work of diplomacy, the art of compromise and the indispensable role of American leadership in the world.\"\nShe appointed Deputy Middle East Envoy David Hale to serve as acting envoy. Mr Mitchell's resignation will be effective from 20 May.\nMr Mitchell, 77, was appointed Middle East envoy by President Barack Obama in early 2009. He led nearly two years of proximity talks, in which he functioned as an intermediary between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, shuttling back and forth between the two sides.\nHis efforts culminated in September in a short round of direct, White House-brokered talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.\nBut the negotiations quickly fell apart after Israel declined to extend a moratorium on construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.\nMr Mitchell was unable to push the two sides to restart the talks, and his travel to the region slowed significantly after December.\nMeanwhile, Mr Obama is due to make a speech next week on US policy in the Middle East and his administration's views on the recent sweep of pro-democracy uprisings there.\nThat is likely to come ahead of a visit by Mr Netanyahu to Washington at the end of week to press the US to boycott any Palestinian government that includes Hamas, which governs Gaza.\nHamas and Fatah, the secularist movement that runs the Palestinian Authority government in parts of the West Bank, last week signed a reconciliation agreement paving the way for a joint interim government and elections next year.\nMr Mitchell, a former Democratic senator from Maine, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role with President Bill Clinton in brokering the 1998 Good Friday peace accords in Northern Ireland.\nThe talks he chaired led to a ceasefire by the IRA and set the scene for a reconciliation between the two sides that would have once been unimaginable. In 2000, Mr Clinton appointed him to lead a commission on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his final report, he called for an end to Israeli settlement activity and for Palestinians to prevent militant attacks and punish those responsible.  Later, he investigated steroid doping in professional baseball.\n\"Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings; they can be ended by human beings,\" he said in 2009, when Mr Obama appointed him Middle East peace envoy.\nProfile: George Mitchell\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["personal reasons"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["US envoy to the Middle East"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["George Mitchell"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["two years"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew resigns from the cabinet after 52 years. (BBC) (AP via Salon) (China Daily)","document":"Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew has resigned from the country's cabinet, ceding leadership to his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.\nThe move comes after their party's worst election result since 1965.\nLee Kuan Yew and fellow former prime minister Goh Chok Tong said in a joint resignation statement that the \"time has come for a younger generation\".\nThe 87-year old Mr Lee was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, after which Mr Goh took over until 2004.\nMr Lee had been known as minister mentor, while Mr Goh was senior minister since 2004. Both won parliament seats in the city-state's latest general election on 7 May.\nBBC South-East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey says Mr Lee's retirement is, unquestionably, a key moment in Singapore's political history.\nIn a joint-statement, Mr Lee and Mr Goh said the current prime minister and his team \"should have a fresh clean slate\".\n\"The time has come for a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation,\" they said.\n\"After a watershed general election, we have decided to leave the cabinet and have a completely younger team of ministers to connect to and engage with this young generation.\"\nPolitics in the tiny but hugely wealthy state have been dominated by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965.\nBut in the latest elections, the PAP won only 60% of the vote - down from 67% in 2006 and 75% in 2001.\nThe Workers' Party won six seats, the most the opposition has held since independence in 1965.\nSingapore is one of the world's richest countries, but soaring housing prices amid a surge of foreign workers have left poorer islanders struggling.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["87-year old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["from 1959 to 1990"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew resigns from the cabinet after 52 years. (BBC) (AP via Salon) (China Daily)","document":"Lee and fellow former prime minister Goh Chok Tong said in their joint resignation statement they wanted to leave a clean path for younger leaders.\n\"A younger generation wants to be more engaged in the decisions which affect them,\" they said. \"After a watershed general election, we have decided to leave the cabinet and have a completely younger team of ministers to connect to and engage with this young generation.\"\nThe 87-year old Lee was prime minister from 1959 to 1990 after which Goh took over until 2004. Lee had been known as Minister Mentor while Goh was Senior Minister since 2004, and both won parliament seats in the May 7 election.\nThe ruling People's Action Party won 60 percent of the vote, down from 67 percent in 2006 and 75 percent in 2001. The Workers Party won six seats, the most the opposition has held since independence.\nLee's resignation marks the first time since 1959 that he hasn't been in Singapore's Cabinet and hails the coming-of-age of his son, 59-year-old Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.\nPAP leaders after the election have said they were surprised at the level of resentment some voters felt toward the government for its perceived arrogance and lack of collaboration with citizens. The Southeast Asia island is one of the world's richest countries, but soaring housing prices amid a surge of foreign workers have left poorer Singaporeans struggling.\nLast month, Lee Kuan Yew warned voters in the Aljunied district that they would \"repent\" for five years if they voted for opposition candidates. Prime Minister Lee later distanced himself from his father's comments, but the opposition won all five of Aljunied's seats.\n\"The time has come for a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation,\" Lee and Goh said. \"The Prime Minister and his team of younger leaders should have a fresh clean slate.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["87-year old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Singapore's Cabinet"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Lee"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Dominique Strauss-Kahn offers his resignation as head of the International Monetary Fund following the charges. (BBC), (CBS News)","document":"International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned following allegations he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in New York.\nIn a statement, Mr Strauss-Kahn - who is being held in Rikers Island prison - said he wanted to \"devote all my strength... to proving my innocence.\"\nMr Strauss-Kahn will make a fresh application for bail later on Thursday. Whether his successor comes from the developed or developing world will be a topic of hot debate, analysts say. In the statement, Mr Strauss-Kahn said it was with \"infinite sadness\" that he tendered his resignation.\n\"I think at this time first of my wife - whom I love more than anything - of my children, of my family, of my friends. I think also of my colleagues at the Fund.\" He said he denied \"with the greatest possible firmness\" all of the allegations against him, but said he wanted to protect the IMF.\nThe IMF said it would release information \"in the near future\" about appointing a successor. The organisation's deputy, John Lipsky, has been in interim control of the IMF since Mr Strauss-Kahn's arrest on Saturday. Dominique Moisi, a special adviser at the French Institute for International Relations, said it was sad that \"a brilliant career\" had ended in \"such an indignant way\". But he added that some in France were coming to believe that \"there is maybe a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the personality of Mr Strauss-Kahn\". The pressure had been growing on Mr Strauss-Kahn both at home and abroad, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had led calls for him to stand down, followed by the head of the governing right-wing UMP party in France, Jean-Francois Cope, who said he couldn't see how Mr Strauss-Kahn could carry on. Analysts say Mr Strauss-Kahn's resignation heralds a battle between established and emerging economies over who will get the top job.\nTraditionally, the US names the head of the World Bank, while the top job at the IMF goes to a European. A Chinese government spokeswoman said the selection process should be based on \"merit, transparency and fairness\" - adding \"we believe that emerging and developing countries should have representation at senior levels\", Reuters reported.\nHowever, Germany has said it wants the next head of the IMF to come from Europe. Mr Strauss-Kahn faces a number of charges in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a 32-year-old maid in New York's Sofitel hotel on 14 May.\nThey are: committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.\nPolice have removed a piece of carpet from the Sofitel hotel, in search of evidence to support the maid's allegation she was forced into an act of oral sex.\nMr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said on Monday that the defence believes the forensic evidence \"will not be consistent with a forcible encounter\".\nOn Monday a judge in New York denied Mr Strauss-Kahn bail - despite the offer of a $1m (£618,000) guarantee - saying there was a risk the IMF chief would flee the country. However, he will make a new plea for bail at a court hearing on Thursday morning, Mr Brafman says.\nA copy of his bail application, published on the website of the New York Times, shows Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers are offering new conditions for bail in an effort to convince the judge that he will not try to flee while he prepares his defence.\nThey include Mr Strauss-Kahn being confined 24 hours a day to a Manhattan address, subject to electronic surveillance. The application also highlights Mr Strauss-Kahn's wife's ties to the US in an attempt to counter suggestions he could be a flight risk, saying she was partly schooled there and is currently working on a book about American political life, and pointing out the pair own a $4m home in Washington DC.\nSince being remanded in custody, Mr Strauss-Kahn been placed on suicide watch at Rikers Island, a notorious prison.\nJeffrey Shapiro, lawyer for Mr Strauss-Kahn's accuser, says his client feared for herself and her daughter when she discovered Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity after the incident.\nHe said she had only become aware of Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity \"a day later when a friend called her to tell her, 'do you have any idea who this man is who did this to you?'\".\nMr Shapiro said his client was \"scared and incredulous\".\n\"When she found out this encounter was with a man of great power and wealth she feared not only for herself but more importantly for her daughter.\"\nThe woman, from the West African nation of Guinea, had now been reunited with her 15-year-old daughter in a \"safe place\", he added.\nIMF statement\nSetback for EU in legal fight with AstraZeneca\nBut the drug-maker faces hefty fines if it fails to supply doses of Covid-19 vaccine over the summer.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["IMF"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["International Monetary Fund chief"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Dominique Strauss-Kahn"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Britain formally backs French politician Christine Lagarde to become the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund, following the resignation of Dominique Strauss–Kahn over his alleged rape of a hotel chambermaid in New York City. (BBC)","document":"Chancellor George Osborne is to formally nominate Christine Lagarde for the post of managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).\nHe said the French economy minister was \"the outstanding candidate\". The position became vacant after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned so he could fight sexual assault charges.\nPM David Cameron had suggested the IMF should look beyond Europe for its next chief after appearing to rule out his predecessor Gordon Brown for the job.\nThe IMF is described by many as the world's \"lender of last resort\" for countries facing bankruptcy. In a statement Mr Osborne said Ms Lagarde had \"shown real international leadership as chair of the G20 finance ministers this year\". \"She has also been a strong advocate for countries tackling high budget deficits and living within their means,\" he said.\n\"We support her because she's the best person for the job, but I also personally think it would be a very good thing to see the first female managing director of the IMF in its 60-year history.\" Treasury sources told the BBC's business correspondent Joe Lynam that they were confident she would also get the backing of the Chinese and US governments.\nShe has already won praise for her credentials from the interim head of the IMF, John Lipsky, the Italian government, the Swedish finance minister and Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the eurozone committee of finance ministers.\nGermany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag that \"Europe would have the best chance to secure the post again with Christine Lagarde, if she decides to run\".\nOther contenders include former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck; Axel Weber, the former head of the German central bank, the Bundesbank; and Trevor Manuel, former South Africa finance minister.\nEven before Mr Strauss-Kahn's resignation there had been much speculation that Mr Brown could take on the job, which the Frenchman was expected to vacate anyway in order to run for his country's presidency.\nThe former PM's aides have reportedly been campaigning on his behalf, but in an interview with the BBC last month, Mr Cameron appeared to block his ambitions.\nHe said: \"I haven't spent a huge amount of time thinking about this. But it does seem to me that, if you have someone who didn't think we had a debt problem in the UK, when we self-evidently do, they might not be the best person to work out whether other countries around the world have a debt and deficit problem\".\nThe UK and other major economies have an effective veto on the appointment. During a visit to South Africa on Friday to promote international development, Mr Brown told the BBC he was not there to \"pitch for a job\" at the IMF.\nThe former Labour cabinet minister Tessa Jowell said developing countries would be happy to see Mr Brown appointed as head of the IMF.\n\"Gordon has appealed directly to those countries - particularly developing countries - who were beneficiaries of his vision and Labour's investment in aid and development,\" she told Sky News's Murnaghan programme.\n\"If you want the IMF to be more than the rich countries' institution, then Gordon Brown has an incredibly important contribution to make.\"\nForeign Secretary William Hague told the BBC's Politics Show on Sunday: \"I can certainly tell you we have never received any public or private communication in the government from Gordon Brown seeking to be a candidate for this position. \"But in any case we regard Christine Lagarde as an outstanding candidate - as the outstanding candidate in the field.\"\nTraditionally the head of the IMF comes from Europe, with America providing the boss of its sister organisation - the World Bank.  With the recent emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China, many global figures - including the head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development - had called for the IMF job to go to a non-European.\nMr Cameron had appeared to support that suggestion, telling the BBC the IMF could look to \"another part of the world\" for its next leader. \"If you think about the general principle, you've got the rise of India and China and South Asia, a shift in the world's focus, and it may well be the time for the IMF to start thinking about that shift in focus,\" he said. Mr Strauss-Kahn was the fourth Frenchman to have held the IMF's top job. He is currently in New York on bail awaiting trial for sexual assault and attempted rape - charges he denies. Profile: IMF chief Christine Lagarde\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["International Monetary Fund (IMF)"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["sexual assault charges"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Christine Lagarde"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["managing director"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Dominique Strauss-Kahn"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 A southern minister in Sudan's national government, Luka Biong Deng, resigns over the incident. (BBC)","document":"A southern minister in Sudan's national government has resigned, saying \"war crimes\" had been committed in the disputed Abyei region.\nLuka Biong Deng said he could no longer work with the party of President Omar al-Bashir in the unity government.\nHe is a senior official in the south's ruling party, which is set to lead South Sudan to independence in July.\nThe two sides fought for decades before agreeing to share power and hold a referendum on southern independence.\nAnalysts fear the the dispute could reignite the north-south conflict, in which some 1.5 million were killed.\nNorthern troops seized the territory at the weekend after southern forces had ambushed a convoy of its forces in the area, killing 22 people.\nSome 20,000 people have now fled the town, which has been left deserted, aid workers say.\nUN human rights chief Navi Pillay said she had received reports that northern forces had been shelling and bombing civilian areas.\nOn Monday the UN said the town had been set ablaze, while gunmen were looting property following the northern takeover.\nMr Biong Deng is originally from Abyei, which both sides claim.\nIts status was left undecided in the 2005 peace deal and a referendum, due in January, on whether the area should be part of the north or south has been postponed indefinitely.\n\"We had hoped that we could form two viable states in good relationship with each other, but those in Khartoum do not seem interested in peace,\" Mr Biong Deng said in his resignation statement.\n\"But with war crimes being committed in Abyei at the hands of the [President Bashir's] National Congress Party, I could not in good faith continue to take part in such a government.\" His party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, has urged the northern troops to withdraw from the town.\nThe US envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, has warned that the takeover could jeopardise possible debt relief worth billions of dollars.\nHe also said that Washington would find it difficult to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism unless troops were withdrawn from Abyei.\nUnder these sanctions Sudanese companies are banned from using US currency - a major obstacle to international trade.\nThe US has previously suggested that a peaceful transition to independence for the south and a negotiated solution to the separate conflict in Darfur could normalise relations.\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["south's ruling party"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["\"war crimes\" had been committed in the disputed Abyei region"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["southern minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Luka Biong Deng"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Lord Wei, who was in charge of David Cameron's Big Society project, has announced he is standing down from the role. (BBC)","document":"The man in charge of implementing David Cameron's Big Society plan has announced he is standing down.\nLord Wei said it had been \"an honour\" to be part of the project and he would now be taking on a role at a community action charity.\nThe prime minister said the peer had played an important role in initiatives like the Big Society Bank.\nMr Cameron has called the Big Society his \"mission in politics\", but Labour says it is a cover for spending cuts.\nThe Big Society was the Conservatives' flagship policy at the last general election and is based around a desire to shrink the role of government and devolve power to local communities to run their own services.\nThe Cabinet Office said Lord Wei \"remained a committed advocate\" of the idea and would \"continue to champion the cause of social action in the House of Lords\".\nEarlier this week, the prime minister gave a speech about charitable donations and volunteering to promote the Big Society - but Labour called it \"the latest in a long line of desperate attempts to rescue [the policy]\". Lord Wei of Shoreditch, who sits on the Tory benches, was a member of Teach First's founding staff team, a charity which trains high-flying graduates for careers in tough inner-city schools. The former management consultant was appointed as a government adviser in 2010 and was later ennobled.\nHe is standing down from his unpaid post to work for the Community Foundation Network.  \"I look forward to taking on this new role where I will be getting out into communities and advising investors, organisations and community leaders in helping them to transfer power and resources from the centre to where it is really needed,\" he said in a statement.\n\"I will always be proud to have played a modest role in helping lay the foundations here on which the Big Society will be built in years to come. I want to thank everyone, but particularly the prime minister, for giving me this opportunity and for pursuing this vision with courage and determination.    \"I look forward to helping in my own small way outside government - because it is out there, in local communities, that the heavy lifting must now be done.\"\nMr Cameron said Lord Wei had worked \"incredibly hard\" to help develop policies that support the Big Society.   \"He has played an important role in delivering key initiatives like Community Organisers, National Citizen Service and the Big Society Bank,\" the PM said. \"I wish him every success in his new role.\"\nFor Labour, shadow Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell MP said \"yet again\" the Big Society was \"descending into farce\". \"Only a day after Cameron told us all to take more responsibility, it appears that there will now be nobody in his government responsible for bringing the Big Society into reality,\" she added.  In his maiden House of Lords speech, Lord Wei described the Big Society as \"a coral reef\" and the policies around it as \"nurturing an ecosystem\". He said public services were \"the seabed\", the various providers of those services were the \"coral\", and the local citizen groups involved in running them were \"the fishes\".\nIn February, it was announced that Lord Wei would be resuming his \"agreed hours\", having worked overtime since his appointment.\nHe was reported as saying he wanted to cut back his government work so he could earn money and have \"more of a life\", but that was denied by the Cabinet Office.\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["David Cameron's Big Society plan"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["he would now be taking on a role at a community action charity"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Lord Wei"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2011 Veteran US National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal announces his retirement by Twitter. (Shaquille O'Neal), (USA Today)","document":"Updated  | Certain to be a Hall of Famer in five years, veteran NBA center Shaquille O'Neal(FSY) announced on Wednesday he's about to retire.\n\n\nBy Ronald Martinez, Getty Images\nCenter Shaquille O'Neal, here smiling during his run to the NBA title with the Miami Heat in 2006 vs. the Dallas Mavericks, announced his retirement Wednesday on Twitter.\nIn a very short tape on his Twitter account, O'Neal says:\n\"We did it. Nineteen years, baby. I want to thank you very much. That's why I'm telling YOU first. I'm about to retire. Love you. Talk to you soon.\"\nO'Neal, who turned 39 in March, averaged 23.7 points and 10.9 rebounds in his 19-year career out of LSU. What set him apart right away was the enormity of his size — and his personality.\nAt 7-1, 325 pounds, he was a beast underneath, with rim-rattling dunks. Off the court, his various Shaqisms became part of the sports lingo of the time, such as: \"I've won at every level, except college and pro,\" before he had won an NBA title. He played for six teams, but his mega-highlight years came for the team that drafted him, the Orlando Magic, and for the team where he won three consecutive NBA championships, the Los Angeles Lakers.\nHe was the NBA's MVP in 1999-2000 with the Lakers, when he averaged a career-high 29.7 points with 13.6 rebounds and 3.0 blocks as Los Angeles won its first of three titles in a row.\n\"His contributions were significant to the entire NBA, but we specifically appreciate what he did with and what he meant to the Lakers during his eight years with us,\" owner Jerry Buss said in a statement. \"We have three championships that we wouldn't have won without him, and we will forever be grateful for his significant contributions to those teams.\" Added NBA Commissioner David Stern in a statement; \"For 19 seasons, Shaquille O'Neal was literally and figuratively an NBA giant. On behalf of the NBA, its teams, and his millions of fans around the world, I want to thank Shaq for everything he has meant to the league and to the sport of basketball, both on and off the court. We wish him and his family all the best.\" O'Neal was named one of the NBA's 50 greatest players, and his uniqueness was difficult to escape.\n\"There's been a lot of great players in the league. But when you're dealing with his combination of agility and brute strength, it changed every game plan. He was just so overpowering,\" says ABC/ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who coached against O'Neal with the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets. \"He really developed into a great passer. But it's the freakishness of his size, strength and agility that set him apart. \"When he came into the league with Orlando, the way he ran the floor was incredible. His footwork inside was really good. I think the other thing people underestimate is he took so many incredibly forceful shots to the head and the body to prevent him from making a layup and sending him to the line.\n\"Thankfully, he didn't have a temper.\"\nA 15-time All-Star, he averaged 24.3 points in the playoffs and 11.6 rebounds. He would retire as fifth all-time in scoring (28,596 points), 12th in rebounds (13,099 rebounds) and second only to Artis Gilmore among players with more than 2,000 baskets with a 58.2% field goal percentage.\nHe also won an NBA championship with the Miami Heat in the 2005-06 season, his second year after leaving the Lakers.\n\"I'm a little bit sad,\" said Heat president Pat Riley, who was the coach when Miami won the title in 2006. \"It's the end of an absolute 20-year career. Great, great player. ... The league's going to miss Shaq. I'm sure Shaq will do something big and beyond.\"\nSaid Heat guard Dwyane Wade (FSY) , a teammate of O'Neal's in 2006: \"He came into my life at a time where I needed some guidance, in a way. I was 22 years old. He helped me grow. I'm always appreciative of him for that, whether we spoke another day or whether we don't. He meant a lot to my basketball career.\"\nOther Tweets:\n• Heat forward LeBron James: (FSY) \"The most dominating force to ever play the game.\"\n• Lakers forward Pau Gasol: (FSY) \"It's been an honor having played against one of the most dominant players ever.\"\nO'Neal was unique. O'Neal finished his career playing for the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and Celtics.\nWith Boston this past season, O'Neal was thought of so highly that that the Celtics traded center Kendrick Perkins(FSY) to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the trading deadline. But injuries, primarily an Achilles issue, kept O'Neal out of action after Feb. 1 until five minutes in a game April 3. After that, he only got into two playoff games against the Heat, his last action coming May 9.\nCeltics spokesman Jeff Twiss said O'Neal has not yet informed the team of his plans. As of Wednesday afternoon, \"To my knowledge, he has not informed any of us that he's retiring,\" Twiss said.\nEven as he was struggling this year, O'Neal commanded the respect of his NBA brethren.\n\"It's been an honor having played against one of the most dominant players ever. Congratulations for an amazing career Shaq\" is what Lakers forward Pau Gasol tweeted Wednesday. \"Talk about someone who does it on both sides of the floor, and on and off the court. He did it as far as using his personality to get out to the world. He made fans believe they were one with him,\" Heat forward LeBron James has said.\n\"As big as Shaq is, the way he was with his personality, if he was a complete stranger and you see how big he is, you wouldn't be afraid to go talk to him because you seen how likable he was and how his personality was, how outgoing he was.\" Contributing: Jeff Zillgitt in Miami","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["39"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["NBA"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Shaquille O'Neal(FSY)"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2011 Austan Goolsbee announces plans to leave the position of Chairman of President of the United States Council of Economic Advisers by September. (New York Times)","document":"                                        on his core economic team, plans to leave as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers by September after a year in the job to return to the University of Chicago.\n With the recovery flagging, the White House is eager to name a successor to Mr. Goolsbee this summer and is considering several academic economists, an administration official said on Monday. The job requires Senate\n                                        confirmation.\n                                     “Since I first ran for the U.S. Senate,\n                                        Austan has been a close friend and one of my most trusted advisers,” Mr. Obama said in a statement late Monday. “Over the past several years, he has helped steer our country out of the worst economic\n                                        crisis since the Great Depression,\n                                        and although there is still much work ahead, his insights and counsel have helped lead us toward an economy that is growing and creating millions of jobs. He is one of America’s great economic thinkers.”\n                                     Mr. Goolsbee, a left-of center economist who has advised Mr. Obama since he was a state senator, has been part of the inner circle since the earliest campaign days. He was the chief economic adviser at the Chicago headquarters\n                                        and would call on outsiders on occasion for expertise.\n When Mr. Obama took office, he named Mr. Goolsbee as one of the three members of the Council of Economic Advisers; when the first chairman, Christina Romer, left last year to return to teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Obama promoted Mr. Goolsbee to the top chair.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["Senate"]},{"role":"Position","values":["chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Goolsbee"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 President of Mexico Felipe Calderón replaces his Secretary of the Interior, Fernando Gomez Mont, after weeks of speculation. (BBC)","document":"Mexican President Felipe Calderon has replaced his interior minister, Fernando Gomez Mont, who oversaw the crackdown on powerful drug cartels. Mr Gomez Mont's departure ended weeks of speculation over his future. He had opposed a decision by Mr Calderon's National Action Party to join forces with leftist parties in key state elections earlier this month. New minister Jose Francisco Blake takes charge of a strategy that has seen troops deployed against drug gangs.\nMore than 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since late 2006. Announcing the changes to his cabinet, President Calderon praised Mr Blake's experience as a senior official in the state of Baja California.\n\"The knowledge he has of crime, and the good relations he managed to build between the police and army in the fight against crime in Baja California will without doubt be of great value in strengthening the fight for public safety,\" said Mr Calderon. The Interior Ministry plays a key role in overseeing all Mexico's police forces, both at federal and state level.  Since late 2006, more police and troops have joined the fight against the drug gangs but violence has not abated. As well as responsibility for national security, Mr Blake will play a key part in negotiating with opposition parties in Congress.  President Calderon has struggled to ensure the passage of any significant legislation in the opposition-led Congress, correspondents say. Mr Gomez Mont, until recently a member of the National Action Party (PAN), opposed the party's decision to join forces with other parties in state and local elections on 4 July. In the end, the alliances allowed the PAN to win governorships of three states traditionally run by its archrival, the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI.\nBoth parties have their eyes clearly on the 2012 presidential election, which the sitting president is constitutionally barred from contesting.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["oversaw the crackdown on powerful drug cartels"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Jose Francisco Blake"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["interior minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Fernando Gomez Mont"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 Controversial French footballer Thierry Henry retires from international football. (Arab News) (CNN) (Hindustan Times) (Vancouver Sun)","document":"French soccer star Thierry Henry gets a rooftop view of New York after an interview on Thursday. (AP)\n                                                                                                 By ASSOCIATED PRESS\nPublished: Jul 15, 2010 21:27\n                Updated: Jul 15, 2010 22:14\n            NEW YORK: Thierry Henry said Thursday he is retiring from the French national team.\nThe 32-year-old forward announced his decision during an interview at the offices of The Associated Press before a news conference to discuss his signing with Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls.\nHe said he will not try to emulate England's David Beckham and commute between the US and Europe.\n\"I always want to be here 100 percent and fully committed to this cause and the organization,\" Henry said.\nHenry had 51 goals in 123 international appearances. He made his debut Oct. 11, 1997, in a 2-1 win over South Africa. His finale was June 22 against Bafana Bafana, when he was introduced as a 55th minute substitute in a 2-1 defeat that condemned France to a first-round exit from the World Cup.\n\"That was my last game, against South Africa,\" he said.\n\"Ironically, it was also my first game in the national team against South Africa.\" Henry said he had made up his mind to retire before the World Cup.\n\"I couldn't announce it before because that's the not type of thing you announce before a World Cup,\" he said.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["32-year-old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["French national team"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Thierry Henry"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 Maria Jepsen, the world's first female Lutheran bishop, resigns due to her handling of an alleged case of sexual abuse. She is the third German bishop to resign in recent months. (BBC)","document":"The bishop of Hamburg - the world's first female Lutheran bishop - has resigned amid criticism of her handling of a sex abuse case.\nMaria Jepsen stepped down saying her credibility had been contested. She denies having known before May this year about a priest in the town of Ahrensburg who reportedly sexually abused boys and girls in the 1980s.\nThe case has echoes of scandals that have hit the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and elsewhere this year.\nMaria Jepsen was elected bishop in 1992, becoming the first woman to become a Lutheran bishop.\n\"My credibility has been put in question,\" she said. \"Consequently, I feel that I am no longer able to spread the good word, as I vowed to do at my ordination.\n\"I expect that the... cases in Ahrensburg and elsewhere will be swiftly investigated and that the truth will come to light.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["her handling of a sex abuse case"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Lutheran bishop"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Maria Jepsen"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 Pakistan's cricket captain, Shahid Afridi, quits in controversy after losing his team's first Test to Australia. (The Guardian)","document":"Pakistan's first \"home\" Test against Australia ended in defeat and controversy after their captain, Shahid Afridi, resigned in a post-match interview.\nAfridi, who was playing his first five-day match in four years, said next week's second Test at Headingley would be his last.\n\"I have struggled to adapt to this form of the game and the next Test will be my last,\" Afridi said after Pakistan capitulated at Lord's by 150 runs.\n\"I am struggling with a thigh injury and I need to get myself right.\nThe 30-year-old added: \"This may be bold but I believe Salman Butt should take over as captain.\"\nAfridi's comments came as a surprise to Butt, whose departure for 92 triggered Pakistan's collapse from 186 for two to 289 all out.\n\"I have not heard anything about this,\" he said. \"The captaincy is a great honour and if it will come it will come but I have not given it any thought just yet.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["30-year-old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["first \"home\" Test against Australia ended in defeat"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["captain"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Shahid Afridi"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 The White House holds an official review after an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture was forced to resign regarding controversy about a video that surfaced on the Internet. (CNN) (The Guardian) (BBC News) (The New York Times)","document":"This article was reported by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Shaila Dewan and Brian Stelter and was written by Ms. Stolberg.\nWASHINGTON — Shirley Sherrod, the black Agriculture Department official whose firing and subsequent offer of rehiring by the Obama administration this week has sparked a national conversation about politics and race, said Thursday she believes she deserves a telephone call from President Obama — and the White House said Mr. Obama has not ruled it out.\nMs. Sherrod, who until Monday was the rural development director for the Agriculture Department in Georgia, said she was inclined not to return to the agency. Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday said he was asking her to return to use her expertise to help move the department past its checkered history in race relations, but she told the “Today” show on NBC that she did not want the burden of solving the department’s racial problems to rest entirely on her.\nShe said she would like to have a conversation with Mr. Obama, but does not believe he owes her an apology.\nAdvertisement\n“I’d like to talk to him a little bit about the experiences of people like me, people at the grass-roots level, people who live out there in rural America, people who live in the South,” she said on the show. “I know he does not have that kind of experience. Let me help him a little bit with how we think, how we live, and the things that are happening.”\nMs. Sherrod appeared on a round of morning talk shows, one day after the White House and Mr. Vilsack offered their profuse apologies to her for the way she had been humiliated and forced to resign after a conservative blogger put out a misleading video clip that seemed to show her admitting antipathy toward a white farmer.\nBy the end of the day, Ms. Sherrod had gained instant fame and emerged as the heroine of a compelling story about race and redemption. Pretty much everyone else had egg on his face — from the conservative bloggers and pundits who first pushed the inaccurate story to Mr. Vilsack, who looked stricken as he told reporters he had offered Ms. Sherrod a new job. “This is a good woman, she’s been put through hell and I could have and should have done a better job,” Mr. Vilsack said, as he conceded that he had ordered Ms. Sherrod’s firing in haste, without knowing that the video clip, from a speech she gave to the N.A.A.C.P., had been taken out of context. He said that he had acted on his own, and that there was “no pressure from the White House.”\nMr. Vilsack’s late-afternoon appearance on Wednesday capped a humiliating and fast-paced few days not only for the White House, but also for the N.A.A.C.P. and the national news media, especially the Fox News Channel and its hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, all of whom played a role in promoting the story about Ms. Sherrod. Advertisement\nThe controversy illustrates the influence of right-wing Web sites like the one run by Andrew Breitbart, the blogger who initially posted the misleading and highly edited video, which he later said had been sent to him already edited. (Similarly, Mr. Breitbart used edited videos to go after Acorn, the community organizing group.) Politically charged stories often take root online before being shared with a much wider audience on Fox. The television coverage, in turn, puts pressure on other news media outlets to follow up. The full video of Ms. Sherrod’s March speech to an N.A.A.C.P. gathering in Douglas, Ga., shows that it was a consciousness-raising story. Ms. Sherrod’s father was murdered in 1965 by white men who were never indicted; she spoke about how in response, she vowed to stay in the South and work for change. She married the Rev. Charles Sherrod, a civil rights leader and cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later, as director of a nonprofit group in Georgia formed to help black farmers, long before she went to work for the Agriculture Department, Ms. Sherrod received a request to help a white farm couple, Roger and Eloise Spooner, and she confessed in the speech that the request had given her pause. She did help them, however, and as the fracas over her firing became public this week, the Spooners came to her defense, saying Ms. Sherrod had gone out of her way to accompany them to see a lawyer and, in effect, had helped them save their farm.\n“If we hadn’t have found her, we would have lost everything, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Spooner, 82, said in a telephone interview.\n Fox News began its pursuit of Ms. Sherrod in prime time on Monday night on three successive opinion shows that reached at least three million people. Leading off, Mr. O’Reilly asked on his top-rated program, “Is there racism in the Department of Agriculture?” He discussed the tape, plugged Mr. Breitbart’s Web site and demanded that Ms. Sherrod resign immediately.\n By the time Mr. O’Reilly’s remarks, which were taped in the afternoon, were broadcast, Ms. Sherrod had indeed resigned, a development that Fox’s next host, Mr. Hannity, treated as breaking news at the beginning of his show. He played a short part of what he called the “shocking” video from Mr. Breitbart, and later discussed the development with a panel of guests, mentioning the N.A.A.C.P.’s recent accusations of racism within the conservative Tea Party movement.\nAdvertisement\n “It is interesting they just lectured the Tea Party movement last week,” Mr. Hannity said, telegraphing a talking point that would come up repeatedly on other shows.\nFox’s 10 p.m. show also covered the resignation as breaking news. Ms. Sherrod later said Fox had not tried to contact her before running the video clip repeatedly on Monday. (A Fox spokeswoman said the O’Reilly program had contacted the Agriculture Department for comment. On Wednesday, Mr. O’Reilly said he owed Ms. Sherrod an apology “for not doing my homework.”)\nBy Tuesday, Ms. Sherrod’s forced resignation was the talk of cable television news, and it was becoming clear that the Breitbart video clip had been taken out of context. After seeing the full video, the N.A.A.C.P., which had initially applauded Ms. Sherrod’s resignation, had reversed itself, saying it had been “snookered” into believing she had been acting with racial bias.\n Still, Mr. Vilsack stood his ground on Tuesday, insisting that the Agriculture Department had a “zero tolerance” policy for discrimination. The department has for years been embroiled in lawsuits over accusations of discrimination against black farmers, and Mr. Vilsack said he had been working hard to “turn the page on the sordid civil rights record as U.S.D.A.”\n By Tuesday night, however, the White House had intervened, a senior official said, and sent word to the Agriculture Department that Mr. Vilsack needed to reconsider.\n The official said Mr. Obama had not spoken personally to Mr. Vilsack, but questions swirled around the White House on Wednesday over just how involved the president and his aides were.\n Mr. Obama has shied from making race relations a major theme of his presidency, yet somehow racially charged controversies keep cropping up — as was the case last year, when the president said the Cambridge, Mass., police had “acted stupidly” in arresting a black Harvard University professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. The upshot of that was the White House “beer summit,” in which Mr. Gates and the white arresting officer shared some cold beverages with Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.\nAdvertisement\nIn an interview Wednesday afternoon, shortly after Mr. Vilsack extended his public apology, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Mr. Obama should hold another summit with Ms. Sherrod and the Spooners.\n“In the end, it’s such a redemptive storybook ending,” said Mr. Jackson, who has known Charles Sherrod for decades. “I wish that Shirley Sherrod and the Spooner family could be invited to the White House and give them the credit that they’re due, because it is a great American story. A rural white family in Georgia and a black woman, overcoming years of segregation. It would be great if the president were to seize this moment.”\nAdvertisement\nDue to technical difficulties, comments are unavailable. We’re working to fix the issue as soon as possible.\nIf you have a critical piece of feedback for us, you can always reach the newsroom via the Reader Center.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Agriculture Department"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["rural development director"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Sherrod"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 Hockey India investigates after M. K. Kaushik, 1980 Olympic gold medalist and coach of the women's team, allegedly sexually harasses a squad member; he denies the allegation but temporarily resigns pending the outcome of the investigation. (BBC News) (The Hindu) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (NDTV)","document":"Reeling under allegations of sexual harassment by one of the players, the Indian women's hockey team chief coach M. K. Kaushik relinquished his post on Wednesday. The player, Th. Ranjitha Devi, in an email to Hockey India (HI) on July 20, said that she was subjected to ‘sexual harassment' and eventually not considered for inclusion in the team when she did not accede to the coach's “demands.”\nOn a day of dramatic developments, Ranjitha was flown in to attend the enquiry meeting conducted by a five-member committee appointed by Hockey India, comprising Rajeev Mehta (Chairman), Olympians Ajit Pal Singh and Zafar Iqbal, Hockey Delhi member Sudarshan Pathak and HI media manager Anupam Ghulati.\n“The committee will make a recommendation to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) by Friday,” HI Secretary-General Narinder Batra told mediapersons. He said SAI would take the final decision since Kaushik was on a deputation from that department.\nSources indicated that the report of the committee was likely to be inconclusive. Zafar defended his former colleague. The two were members of the team that won the gold at the Moscow Olympics. “It is not a strong case. It could have been resolved much earlier. The complaint looks dicey,” said Zafar. He was particularly disturbed with the timing of the complaint. “Why did she not come up with her protest earlier even though the alleged harassment had been going on for six months.”\nDuring the enquiry, Zafar reportedly asked the player to be specific with her allegations but she could not produce a convincing explanation, according to the Olympian.\n“He has never touched that lady,” Zafar said. Assessing Kaushik as a player, coach and a person, Zafar said he personally would not doubt his credentials. “He has never faced such an allegation before. Kaushik has been attached with the team as National coach since 1999. We have played together but I have not heard anything against him,” the former India captain said.\nZafar and Batra disclosed that 30 other probables of the team had expressed their support to Ranjitha and signed the letter forwarded by her to HI. “But when I asked some other players whether such things have happened with any of them, they said no,” said Batra.\nMany in hockey circles believe the controversy to be connected with the HI elections slated for July 28. While Zafar said the controversy could be an off-shoot of the coming HI elections, Batra denied any such possibility.\nKaushik, on his part, said this was a conspiracy against him and he was ready to face any inquiry. “I know the decision would come in my favour, but I would not continue,” he said.\nWould he not like to return as coach even if proved innocent? “No. It would be difficult for me to continue if the team has even one player who has doubted my character. It is the work of some disgruntled elements and some girls have been misled into doing this. I would say they are immature.”\nKaushik was convinced that the players had been “pressurised” to sign the letter supporting Ranjitha.\nEarlier in the day, Batra had said that on July 16 and 17 HI received anonymous emails (in the name of ‘hockey sudhar singh'), accusing the women's hockey team's videographer Vasavraj, a SAI employee, of immoral conduct. On July 19, HI suspended the videographer.\nOn Tuesday, HI received the email from Ranjitha with allegations against Kaushik and the committee, headed by Mehta, had been enquiring the matter. Batra said HI would support the player if she sought legal help.\nMeanwhile, the women's team left for Korea to take part in the Asian Champions Trophy. Vasu Thapliyal and Mohd. Khalid Modi will be the coaches.\nChaos reigned outside the Organising Committee office as a large number of mediapersons gathered on the pavement to keep track of the developments. News filtered in from different sources in the absence of any official guidance. Despite repeated requests, the OC was not able to provide a decent platform for holding the press conference, which was addressed on the road by Batra and Zafar.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["chief coach"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["M. K. Kaushik"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2010 1984 Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu announces he is to withdraw from public life. (BBC) (Aljazeera) (euronews) (France24) (The New York Times) (Reuters Africa)","document":"Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has announced he is to withdraw from public life.\nHe played a prominent role in South Africa's struggle against the whites-only apartheid system.\nAfter his 79th birthday in October, he said he would reduce his workload to one day a week before retiring.\nThat work would be devoted to The Elders, a group appointed by former President Nelson Mandela to tackle the world's most pressing problems. During the 27 years that Mr Mandela was in prison, Archbishop Tutu spoke out against apartheid - and won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 for his efforts.\nHe was chosen by Mr Mandela to chair South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and investigate the crimes committed by all sides during the apartheid regime.\nThe former Archbishop of Cape Town, the first black cleric to hold that position, said his career highlight was introducing Mr Mandela as South African president in 1994.\nIn a nationally televised news conference from Cape Town, the Anglican cleric described how his schedule had grown more punishing in recent years.\n\"I have been very, very fortunate to have been given opportunities to contribute in a small way to develop our new, democratic, exhilarating and sometimes exasperating nation,\" he said. \"The time has come to slow down.\"\nHe said he wanted to spend more time sipping tea with his wife, watching cricket, or visiting his grandchildren, although he added that he would honour his existing appointments.\nSince his retirement as archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, as well as his work with the Elders, the cleric has launched his own peace foundation, advised world leaders and played an active role as a public speaker.\nArchbishop Tutu spoke at several events during the recent football World Cup in South Africa, which he described as one of the most important events locally since the end of apartheid.\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["79th"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["he would reduce his workload to one day a week before retiring"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Desmond Tutu"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Shirlene Ostrov resigns as chairwoman of the Hawaii Republican Party following a series of tweets posted by vice chairman Edwin Boyette on the party's Twitter account defending people who supported the QAnon conspiracy theory. Additionally, Boyette resigned on January 24th after the tweets were posted the day before. (AP)","document":"HONOLULU (AP) — The chairperson of the Hawaii Republican Party has resigned after a senior party member used an official Twitter account to send tweets defending adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Shirlene Ostrov stepped down “to allow the party to recover from the controversy and focus on finding excellent candidates and fighting for policies that improve the quality of life for Hawaii’s hardworking families,” the party said in a statement. Her resignation took effect Sunday. Ostrov said the party has been “redefining itself” since President Joe Biden was inaugurated. “We have a stark but important choice to make: either we rededicate ourselves to our Constitution and continue to defend and uphold our best American institutions and traditions or we get distracted by conspiracy theories and social media wars,” the statement quoted her as saying. Edwin Boyette, who had served as the state party’s vice chairman for communications, resigned on Jan. 24, one day after posting the tweets on the Hawaii GOP account. “We should make it abundantly clear — the people who subscribed to the Q fiction, were largely motivated by a sincere and deep love for America. Patriotism and love of County (sic) should never be ridiculed,” said one of the tweets, which were later deleted. QAnon followers advocate a conspiracy theory rooted in the baseless belief that former President Donald Trump was fighting deep state enemies and a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals operating a child sex trafficking ring. Some QAnon believers were among the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as lawmakers were counting Electoral College votes validating Biden’s victory.\nOstrov served as chairperson for four years. In 2016, the retired Air Force colonel was defeated by former Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in the special election to serve out the remaining term of U.S. Rep. Mark Takai after his death. As chairperson, she had mixed success trying to boost the number of Republicans in the state Legislature, which is dominated by Democrats.\nRep. Val Okimoto, a Republican who represents the Honolulu suburb of Mililani in the state House, said Ostrov’s resignation was necessary for the future of the party and “a crucial part” of her taking responsibility for what happened on the party’s social media account. “It is high time we become the party of Lincoln and not a party on the fringe. Hawaii deserves better than that. It deserves a functioning two-party system,” Okimoto said in an emailed statement. “It deserves a Republican Party that fights for the people’s best interests instead of fighting between themselves.”\nFellow Republican state Rep. Bob McDermott said Ostrov worked hard and did a good job but she made the right decision to get a fresh start. Neither Ostrov nor Boyette returned messages to The Associated Press on Monday seeking comment. Republicans lost one of their five seats in the state House in the November general election, leaving them with just four out of the 51 seats in the chamber. The party holds one of the 25 seats in the state Senate. The party’s first vice chairperson, Boyd Ready, will serve as acting chairperson. The party will elect a new chairperson and executive committee in May. The party’s statement said Ostrov invigorated the Hawaii GOP, bringing in national resources to help candidates and presided over a 60% increase in party members in 2020. Ostrov will continue to serve on the party’s executive committee as immediate past chair and will help party efforts to elect more Republicans.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["to allow the party to recover from the controversy and focus on finding excellent candidates and fighting for policies that improve the quality of life for Hawaii’s hardworking families"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["chairperson of the Hawaii Republican Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Shirlene Ostrov"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2021 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announces that he will step down as CEO during the third quarter. Current Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy is expected to replace him. (CNBC)","document":"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will leave his post later this year, turning the helm over to the company’s top cloud executive, Andy Jassy, according to an announcement Tuesday. Bezos will transition to executive chairman of Amazon’s board.\nBezos, 57, founded Amazon in 1994 and has since morphed the one-time online bookstore into a mega-retailer with global reach in a slew of different categories from gadgets to groceries to streaming. Amazon surpassed a $1 trillion market cap under Bezos’ leadership in January of last year — it’s now worth more than $1.6 trillion.\nThe company had kept its succession plans quiet, though onlookers speculated that either Jassy or Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, would be Bezos’ eventual successor. In August Amazon announced Wilke will retire in 2021. Jassy, 53, will become CEO in the third quarter.\nJassy joined Amazon in 1997 and has led Amazon’s Web Services cloud team since its inception. AWS continues to drive much of Amazon’s profit.\n“I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO,” Bezos said in a letter to employees. “In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”\nThe news came alongside an earnings report in which Amazon posted its first $100 billion quarter. AWS, under Jassy, reported 28% revenue growth for the fourth quarter. About 52% of Amazon’s operating income was attributed to AWS as of October 2020.\nShares of Amazon were up about 1% in extended trading Tuesday on the back of the earnings report and the C-suite news. The company’s stock has gained about 4% so far in 2021 and is up nearly 70% in the last 12 months.\nAmazon’s chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, said on a media call that the executive change was decided in consultation with Amazon’s board of directors. He said Bezos will remain very involved and have his fingerprints on lots of different parts of the company. Olsavsky said Jassy is a visionary leader who will bring his own skill set but that Amazon expects a lot of continuity with the transition.\nJassy will need to guide the company through antitrust concerns once he takes the reins. In October, after a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at big tech companies including Amazon, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust concluded that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google enjoy monopoly power. Amazon is also facing antitrust complaints in the EU.\nRep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter shortly after the announcement that he has questions for Jassy, hinting at an early hurdle when Jassy is installed.\nBezos said he will stay engaged in important Amazon projects but will also have more time to focus on the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin spaceship company, The Washington Post and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.\n“As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” Bezos said in his internal announcement. “Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”\nIndustry CEOs and Amazon competitors congratulated Bezos and Jassy on the coming transition, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling Jassy’s promotion “well-deserved.”\nAlphabet CEO Sundar Pichai offered Bezos “best wishes” on his other projects.\nHere’s the full letter from Bezos to Amazon employees:\nFellow Amazonians:\nI’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.\nThis journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.\nToday, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.\nHow did that happen? Invention. Invention is the root of our success. We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.\nI don’t know of another company with an invention track record as good as Amazon’s, and I believe we are at our most inventive right now. I hope you are as proud of our inventiveness as I am. I think you should be.\nAs Amazon became large, we decided to use our scale and scope to lead on important social issues. Two high-impact examples: our $15 minimum wage and the Climate Pledge. In both cases, we staked out leadership positions and then asked others to come along with us. In both cases, it’s working. Other large companies are coming our way. I hope you’re proud of that as well.\nI find my work meaningful and fun. I get to work with the smartest, most talented, most ingenious teammates. When times have been good, you’ve been humble. When times have been tough, you’ve been strong and supportive, and we’ve made each other laugh. It is a joy to work on this team.\nAs much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition. Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else. As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions. I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.\nAmazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish. We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices. We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it.\nKeep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Andy Jassy"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Amazon CEO"]},{"role":"Date","values":["this year"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Jeff Bezos"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2021 The United States House of Representatives votes 230–199 to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her assignments on the Education and Labor and Budget committees. (BBC)","document":"The US House of Representatives has voted to expel a Republican congresswoman from two committees over incendiary remarks she made before being elected last November. Marjorie Taylor Greene had promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and endorsed violence against Democrats. Before the vote, she said she regretted her views, which included claims that school shootings and 9/11 were staged.\nEleven Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the motion by 230-199. It means the representative - who was elected in November, representing a district in the southern state of Georgia - cannot take up her place on the education and budget committees. This would limit her ability to shape policy as most legislation goes through a committee before reaching the House floor. Committee positions can determine the influence of individual lawmakers in their party.\nIt is highly unusual for one party to intervene in another party's House committee assignments.   On Friday, Mrs Greene said that she woke up \"laughing\" at the situation.\n\"I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving some one like me free time,\" she tweeted, referencing the 11 Republicans who also voted to remove her.\nAt a news conference in Washington hours later, Mrs Greene said that Democrats had \"stripped my district of their voice\" by removing her from the committees.\nShe described the Democratic-run government as \"tyrannically controlled\" and denounced the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump - over his role in the 6 January riot - as a \"circus\". The lawmaker also criticised the media for \"addicting people to hate\". According to The Hill, a political news outlet, Mrs Greene received a standing ovation at a closed-doors meeting with members of her party on Wednesday after she apologised for her past remarks, and on Thursday before the vote, she expressed regret for her past comments.\nOn the floor of the House, she said her controversial remarks had been made before she ran for office last year. \"These were words of the past. These things do not represent me,\" she said. Mrs Greene said she had been \"upset about things\" happening in the US and did not trust the government when she came upon conspiracy theories online in 2018. The 46-year-old also sought to pin blame on the media, saying they were \"just as guilty as QAnon for promoting lies\". But she did not address a series of past inflammatory remarks:\nAsked by a reporter on Friday whether or not she was \"sorry\" for some of these additional remarks, Mrs Greene said she was \"sorry for saying all those things that are wrong and offensive\". She added that she was \"not sorry\" for speaking to Mr Hogg about gun rights, saying that \"he was an adult when I spoke to him\". After an afternoon of procedural manoeuvres and debate, a majority of the House of Representatives took the unprecedented step of voting to strip one of its members of her committee assignments because of what it deemed dangerous and toxic speech she made before she was elected.\nRepublicans warned that sanctioning Marjorie Taylor Greene set a dangerous precedent, where the majority party in the chamber could tell the minority how to allocate its committee seats. Democrats countered that the real precedent would be if a member of the chamber made threats against her future colleagues - and the House did nothing. Because the Republicans refused to punish one of their own, the majority said they had to step in.\nThe House has sanctioned the conspiracy-minded Mrs Greene, but it may have started a new cycle of political retribution.\nAhead of the vote, Mrs Pelosi said she was \"profoundly concerned\" by Republicans accepting \"an extreme conspiracy theorist\".\nChuy Garcia, of Illinois, said Mrs Greene's floor speech had come across as \"premeditated\".\n\"I did not hear remorse and I didn't hear an apology,\" Mr Garcia said. \"It's all about spin and I think she'll probably try to raise a lot of money from it. I think it's disgraceful.\"\nHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said before the vote: \"I have never encountered a situation like the one before us now, where a member has made such vile and hurtful statements, engaged in the harassment of colleagues and expressed support for political violence.\"\nJimmy Gomez, of California, vowed to press ahead with a resolution to expel Mrs Greene from Congress altogether. Under section five of the US Constitution, a house can expel a member with a two-thirds majority, meaning that there would have to be significant support from Republicans in the narrowly divided House of Representatives. Analysis by Alistair Coleman, BBC Monitoring\nMarjorie Taylor Greene has said that she stopped believing in the QAnon conspiracy in 2018\nHowever, she continued to allude to ideas pushed by QAnon believers.\nIn a 2019 video she claimed that then-Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was being played by a body double.\nThe idea stemmed from the macabre conspiracy theory that Ginsburg's death - which actually did occur, later, in September 2020 - was somehow being covered up. Odd as it sounds, in feverish QAnon groups where the rumour was born, whispers about imposters and political \"body doubles\" are fairly common.\nIn December 2020, she insisted in a now-deleted social media post that the QAnon community was \"exposing truth\".\nAnd somewhat prophetically, in a February 2019 video post she called for people to flood the US Capitol building to demonstrate against Democrats. The month before, she \"liked\" a post saying that it would be quicker to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi \"with a bullet to the head\".\nShe refused to address these issues when questioned Friday. Mrs Greene may have left overt support for QAnon behind, but it appears she's still paying attention to what's being said in conspiracy-minded groups.\nHouse Republican leader Kevin McCarthy vowed retribution whenever his party next controls the lower chamber of Congress.\nAccusing Democrats of a double standard, he referred to the 2019 anti-Semitism furore when Minnesota lawmaker Ilhan Omar implied US politicians only supported Israel because of lobby money, and Mrs Pelosi appeared with her that same month on a magazine cover.\nOn Wednesday, Mr McCarthy condemned Mrs Greene's past remarks, but refused to punish her.\nJim Jordan of Ohio told the floor: \"So who's next? Who will the cancel culture attack next?\"\nHe assailed Democrats for stoking unsubstantiated claims that Mr Trump secretly plotted with Russia to win the 2016 election.\n\"I've heard several times today from the Democrats: conspiracy theory. The Democrats peddled the biggest conspiracy theory of all time - the Russia hoax!\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["had promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and endorsed violence against Democrats"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["The US House of Representatives"]},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Marjorie Taylor Greene"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2021 North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong–un fires Economic Affairs Minister Kim Tu–il less than a month after appointing him to his cabinet for \"lack of innovation\". He is replaced by O Su–yong, according to state media. (Reuters)","document":"SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sacked his economy chief, who was only appointed last month, and denounced his cabinet for a lack of innovation in drafting goals for a new five-year economic plan, state media reported on Friday.\nThe ruling Workers’ Party wrapped up its four-day plenary meeting on Thursday, where Kim also mapped out his vision for inter-Korean affairs and relations with other countries, as well as party rules and personnel issues.\nWith the economy topping the agenda, Kim reviewed action plans for his new five-year strategy which was unveiled at last month’s party congress amid international sanctions, a prolonged border closure and reduced outside aid due to the coronavirus pandemic.\nHe accused the cabinet of drafting plans with “no big changes” from previous ones, which he has said had “failed tremendously on almost every sector.”\nThe committee appointed O Su Yong, a longtime economic policymaker who previously served as a vice premier, to be the new director of its Department of Economic Affairs, replacing Kim Tu Il who was appointed in January.\n“The idea and policy of the party congress are not properly reflected in the proposed plan for economic work for this year and innovative viewpoint and clear tactics can’t be found,” Kim told the meeting, according to the official KCNA news agency.\n“The cabinet failed to play a leading role in mapping out plans of key economic fields and almost mechanically brought together the numbers drafted by the ministries.”\nAs a result, plans for some sectors were unrealistically elevated and others had tasks that were already easily achievable, he added.\nThe party decided to build 10,000 homes in capital Pyongyang this year, replacing a previous construction plan that Kim described as too low and a product of “self-protectionism and defeatism” in the bureaucracy.\nState television footage showed an angry looking Kim yelling, finger pointing and striking the podium as he addressed the meeting.\nHe also called for enhanced self-reliance and the local production of goods and materials, KCNA said, after trade with China, which accounts for about 90% of shipments into and out of North Korea, plunged more than 80% last year due to strict COVID-19 lockdowns.\nAs part of its personnel changes, the committee also promoted Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon to the politburo shortly after reinstating him as an alternate member of the powerful governing body.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["Department of Economic Affairs"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["his cabinet for a lack of innovation in drafting goals for a new five-year economic plan"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Su Yong"]},{"role":"Approver","values":["Kim Jong Un"]},{"role":"Position","values":["director"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Kim Tu Il"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2021 Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia resigns due to disagreements with his cabinet over the detention of prominent opposition figure Nika Melia. (Reuters)","document":"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia announced his resignation on Thursday, prompting celebrations from the opposition, which called for an early election.\nGakharia, who had held the post since 2019, said he was stepping down because of a disagreement with his own team over the detention of Nika Melia, a prominent opposition politician.\n“I believe that confrontation and rivalry within the country endanger the future of Georgia’s democratic and economic development,” Gakharia wrote on Twitter.\n“Therefore, I have announced my resignation in the hope of reducing polarisation and de-escalating the situation.”\nGakharia had said Melia’s detention was unacceptable if it threatened to fuel political divisions in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people.\nThe U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by recent developments in Georgia and called on “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid any actions or rhetoric that could escalate tensions or result in violence.”\n“We will continue to work with Georgia, our strategic partner, to promote the rule of law and accountable institutions,” department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.\nMelia, chairman of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party, had been accused of inciting violence at street protests in June 2019, a charge he has dismissed as politically motivated.\nA court in the capital Tbilisi on Wednesday ordered that Melia be taken in to custody for allegedly failing to post bail.\nFollowing Gakharia’s resignation, the Interior Ministry announced it was postponing carrying out the order to take Melia into custody.\nA crowd gathered outside his party’s offices and waved Georgian flags in celebration, according to Sputnik Georgia.\nInside UNM headquarters, Melia called for an early election.\n“On behalf of all opposition parties, I declare: let’s sit at the negotiating table with representatives of this government and start negotiations on new early elections,” Melia said.\nGeorgian Dream won the parliamentary election in October last year, but the opposition said the vote was rigged and marred with violations.\nMelia said at the time that his party did not recognise its outcome and called for a re-run.\nIrakli Kobakhidze, chairman of Georgian Dream, said it was putting forward Defence Minister Irakli Garibashvili as a candidate to replace Gakharia, TASS news agency reported.\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["a disagreement with his own team over the detention of Nika Melia, a prominent opposition politician"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Georgian Prime Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Giorgi Gakhar"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2021 The junta leaders fire Myanmar's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Kyaw Moe Tun after he called for their removal in a UN General Assembly meeting on Friday. (BBC)","document":"Myanmar's military rulers say they have fired the country's ambassador to the United Nations, a day after he called for help to remove the army from power.\nIn an emotional speech, Kyaw Moe Tun said no-one should co-operate with the military until it handed back power to the democratically elected government.\nUN sources told Reuters that as they do not recognise the junta, Kyaw Moe Tun remains Myanmar's UN ambassador.\nSecurity forces intensified a crackdown on anti-coup protesters on Saturday.\nLocal media say dozens were arrested, and that a woman was shot in the city of Monwya. Her condition is not clear.\nThe country has been rocked by protests since top government leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, were overthrown and detained after the army took power on 1 February.\nSpeaking at the UN General Assembly on Friday, Kyaw Moe Tun urged the international community to use \"any means necessary to take action\" against the military to help \"restore the democracy\", saying he was representing Ms Suu Kyi's ousted government.\n\"We need further strongest possible action from the international community to immediately end the military coup, to stop oppressing the innocent people, to return the state power to the people and to restore the democracy,\" he said.\nThe speech was met with applause and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the new US envoy to the body, was among those praising his remarks as \"courageous\".\nIn a further show of defiance, Kyaw Moe Tun held up three fingers, a gesture against authoritarian rule that has been adopted by anti-coup protesters in the country.\nMyanmar's state television announced his removal on Saturday, saying he had \"betrayed the country and spoken for an unofficial organization which doesn't represent the country and had abused the power and responsibilities of an ambassador\".\nSpeaking on condition of anonymity, a UN official told Reuters that as they do not officially recognise the junta as Myanmar's new government, they consider Kyaw Moe Tun to be still in post as the country's UN ambassador.\nIn a separate, official statement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also said: \"We have not received any communication concerning changes to the representation of Myanmar at the United Nations in New York.\"\nFurther protests were held in several cities with water cannon reportedly deployed and journalists among dozens detained.\nIn the main city of Yangon, crowds of protesters were advanced upon by police firing tear gas. Witnesses who spoke to the Reuters news agency said people were arrested and beaten by police, who also reportedly fired into the air, with similar clashes reported in the second city of Mandalay.\nA number of local media outlets reported that a woman had been shot at a protest in the central city of Monwya, close to Mandalay. Images and an alleged identity circulated on social media but have not been independently confirmed. An ambulance service official later told the Reuters news agency she was in hospital, contradicting other reports she had died. A medic in the town told the AFP news agency he had also seen a man \"severely injured\" in his leg with at least 10 others treated for more minor injuries. Local media there also reported alleged beatings by plainclothes officers. Protesters in some places, including Yangon, were seen building makeshift barricades to try and hinder the crackdown against them. General Min Aung Hlaing has defended the coup he led, but at least three protesters and one policeman have died so far in violence against it.\nAccording to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, more than 770 people have been arrested and sentenced since the coup began. At least three journalists were detained on Saturday including a photographer from the Associated Press, the AFP news agency reported. Military leaders justified the seizure of power by alleging widespread fraud in November elections, which Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.\nShe was placed under house arrest and charged with possessing illegal walkie-talkies and violating the country's Natural Disaster Law. But there is growing uncertainty about her whereabouts amid reports on an independent news website on Friday that she had been moved to an undisclosed location.  A lawyer for the 75-year-old ousted leader told Reuters he had also heard she was moved and has been given no access to her ahead of her next hearing. The army has ordered internet blackouts and also banned social media platforms but demonstrations have continued daily. The coup has been widely condemned outside Myanmar, prompting sanctions against the military and other punitive moves. Myanmar coup: What is happening and why?\nCan Asia help Myanmar find a way out of coup crisis?\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["Myanmar's military"]},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["a day after he called for help to remove the army from power"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Kyaw Moe Tun"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2021 Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan removes Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in light of rising inflation and Shaikh's defeat in the recent Senate elections. Minister of Industries and Production Hammad Azhar is selected to replace him. (Reuters)","document":"ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan removed his finance minister on Monday as part of a government shake-up aimed at bringing in policies to control “rising inflation”, the information minister.\nThe removal - the second of a finance minister in the 2-1/2 years of Khan’s tenure - comes amidst the restart of a $6 billion IMF bailout programme that had been suspended for one year over questions about fiscal and revenue reforms.\nCash-strapped Pakistan is also preparing to float Eurobonds worth around $2 billion to raise capital from international markets about two months before presenting a budget.\n“There has been rising inflation, and the prime minister thinks that we need to bring in a fresh team which could devise pro-poor policies,” information minister Shibli Faraz told local Dunya News TV.\nHe said Hammad Azhar, the minister for industries and production, would replace Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.\nThe central bank on March 19 kept its policy rate at 7% for a 10th consecutive month to support economic recovery while keeping inflation expectations well-anchored and maintaining financial stability. It also revised higher its growth rate for the current fiscal year.\nThe South Asian nation recorded 8.7% CPI Y/Y in February.\nSheikh had lost a parliamentary election earlier this month that was mandatory for him to keep the office of the finance minister constitutionally. However he could have stayed in office until June 10, and it is not clear whether the decision to remove him was also a move to cover for the consequences of that election loss.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Hammad Azhar"]},{"role":"Approver","values":["Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan"]},{"role":"Position","values":["finance minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Abdul Hafeez Shaikh"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2021 Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster announces her resignation after losing the support of her Democratic Unionist Party in the aftermath of the riots. (UrduPoint)","document":"Minister Arlene Foster on Wednesday announced her resignation, at a tense time in the divided British province. The 50-year-old politician said she would step down as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on May 28 and as first minister at the end of June, calling it \"the privilege of my life\" to have served Northern Ireland's people. \"I have sought to lead the party and Northern Ireland away from division and towards a better path,\" she said in a statement. Her resignation arrives in the midst of a growing crisis for unionists in the province. Earlier this month Northern Ireland witnessed more than a week of rioting -- with at least 88 police officers injured -- as pro-UK unionist tempers frayed over post-Brexit arrangements. Foster stepped down after reports that 75 percent of DUP lawmakers signed a letter calling for a leadership contest. Local media reported discontent over her decision to despatch a DUP member to a meeting with Irish officials, despite a party-wide belief that such summits should be boycotted over Brexit.\n Rancour was also brewing among backbenchers over her recent abstention from a vote on gay conversion therapy, the news Letter paper reported Tuesday. The DUP is the largest party of the unionist community in Northern Ireland, where tensions have been growing over a post-Brexit \"protocol\" for the region. The new arrangements, which came into effect in January, effectively keep the province inside the European customs union and single market for goods, with new checkpoints at Northern Irish ports. Many hardline unionists believe the arrangements are warping the position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, thereby increasing the likelihood of it joining the Republic of Ireland.\nDUP lawmakers held a powerful kingmaker role in the last UK government, and were capable of blocking a Brexit withdrawal which entailed special arrangements for their territory.\nBut after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a landslide election in December 2019 they were powerless to prevent it.\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["50-year-old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["stepped down after reports that 75 percent of DUP lawmakers signed a letter calling for a leadership contest"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Arlene Foster"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 NBC News announces that it has terminated their employment of Matt Lauer after a female employee filed a complaint about him conducting \"inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace\". (CNN) (The New York Times)","document":"  Matt Lauer’s Rise and Fall at ‘Today’  By Ellen Gabler, Jim Rutenberg, Michael M. Grynbaum and Rachel Abrams\nThe fast-moving national reckoning over sexual harassment in the workplace toppled another television news star on Wednesday when NBC fired Matt Lauer, the co-host of its most profitable franchise, “Today,” after an allegation of inappropriate sexual behavior with a subordinate.\nThe downfall of Mr. Lauer, a presence in American living rooms for more than 20 years, adds to a head-spinning string of prominent firings over sexual harassment and abuse allegations. NBC News said it had decided to dismiss its star morning anchor after a woman met with network executives on Monday to describe her interactions with him.\n“While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident,” Andrew Lack, the NBC News chairman, wrote in a memo to staff.\nOn Wednesday, NBC received at least two more complaints related to Mr. Lauer, according to a person briefed on the network’s handling of the matter. One complaint came from a former employee who said Mr. Lauer had summoned her to his office in 2001, locked the door and sexually assaulted her. She provided her account to The New York Times but declined to let her name be used.\n\nShe told The Times that she passed out and had to be taken to a nurse. She said that she felt helpless because she didn’t want to lose her job, and that she didn’t report the encounter at the time because she felt ashamed.\nOn Thursday, Mr. Lauer issued an apology, expressing “sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused.”\nNews of Mr. Lauer’s sudden downfall shook the television world, where he had established himself as one of the most powerful men in his industry. Even President Trump — who himself has denied multiple allegations of sexual misconduct — weighed in, seizing on Mr. Lauer’s firing to denounce NBC News’s coverage and call for other senior figures at NBC News to be ousted.\nMr. Lauer, 59, joins an ignominious group of media figures felled by the recent spate of harassment claims, including the studio mogul Harvey Weinstein, the comedian Louis C.K., the CBS host Charlie Rose and the political journalist Mark Halperin. Journalists at several news outlets had recently conducted interviews with former and current NBC employees about Mr. Lauer’s behavior, alerting the network to potential articles about him. But it was the formal complaint on Monday that prompted NBC to take action.\nIn an editorial meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Lack said that Mr. Lauer’s involvement with the woman who made the complaint began while they were in Sochi, Russia, to cover the Winter Olympics in 2014, and that their involvement continued after they returned to New York, according to two people briefed on the meeting.\nOther “Today” hosts learned of Mr. Lauer’s termination around 4 a.m. on Wednesday; staff members were told just minutes before the show went on the air at 7 a.m. Savannah Guthrie, Mr. Lauer’s co-anchor, was visibly shaken when she delivered the news to viewers, describing Mr. Lauer as “a dear, dear friend” and adding that she was “heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story.”\n\nSoon after announcing the dismissal, Ms. Guthrie gripped the hand of Hoda Kotb, who was rushed in as an emergency substitute host. The network did not name a replacement for Mr. Lauer.\nAri Wilkenfeld, a civil rights lawyer with the firm Wilkenfeld, Herendeen & Atkinson in Washington, said on Wednesday that he represented the woman who had made the initial complaint to NBC, but declined to identify her. In a statement provided to The Times, he praised the courage of his client and said:\n“My client and I met with representatives from NBC’s human resources and legal departments at 6 p.m. on Monday for an interview that lasted several hours. Our impression at this point is that NBC acted quickly, as all companies should, when confronted with credible allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace.”\nThe woman met with reporters from The Times on Monday, but said she was not ready to discuss it publicly.\n  Lauer, O’Reilly and Rose: The Fall of Male Media Stars  Besides his “Today” perch, Mr. Lauer was a genial co-host of events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and the Winter and Summer Olympics, and he conducted countless interviews with celebrities. He also contributed to NBC News’s political coverage, although he was widely panned after a debate last year in which he appeared to go easy on Mr. Trump while asking aggressive questions of Hillary Clinton.\nThe “Today” show caters to — and relies on — an overwhelmingly female audience, and Mr. Lauer is part of a cast that presents itself as a tight-knit family. Behind the scenes, however, the on-set environment could sometimes resemble a boys’ club, particularly in the years before Comcast completed its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2013, according to interviews with more than half a dozen former staff members. Jokes about women’s appearances were routine, the former employees said. One former producer recalled a director saying he “wanted some milk” in reference to one woman’s chest and making inappropriate comments about women over an audio feed with multiple people listening. Two former employees recalled colleagues playing a crude game in which they chose which female guests or staff members they would prefer to marry, kill or have sex with.\n\nThe former employees spoke anonymously because they feared their career prospects in the industry could be harmed.\nOther current and former staff members, however, described a more professional work culture, and said they did not witness harassment. An NBC spokeswoman declined on Wednesday to comment on the “boys’ club” characterization, but pointed out that 13 of 19 senior-level female producers at “Today” had been promoted since 2015.\nThe woman who described the encounter in 2001 with Mr. Lauer in his office told The Times that the anchor had made inappropriate comments to her shortly after she started as a “Today” producer in the late 1990s.\nWhile traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”\nIn 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)\nThe woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.\n\nThe woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.\nOn Wednesday, the episode in Mr. Lauer’s office was reported to NBC News after the woman told her then-supervisor, who still works at the network. The woman said an NBC human resources representative had since contacted her.\nThe woman, who was in her early 40s at the time, told her then-husband about the encounter, which The Times confirmed with him in a phone call. The couple was separated at the time, and later divorced. She also described it to a friend five years ago, which the friend confirmed to The Times.\nNBC News has suffered other black eyes, as well. Last year, the network reviewed 2005 footage from the NBC-owned show “Access Hollywood” that revealed Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitalia. But the footage was released first by a competitor, The Washington Post, embarrassing the NBC news division.\nIn recent weeks, NBC News was criticized for passing on an exposé of Mr. Weinstein by an MSNBC contributor, Ronan Farrow. Mr. Farrow’s reporting later appeared in The New Yorker, and helped set off the current wave of revelations about abuses by powerful men in media and entertainment.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["sexual harassment in the workplace"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["NBC"]},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Matt Lauer"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 Garrison Keillor, the former host of A Prairie Home Companion, is fired from Minnesota Public Radio after the public broadcaster discloses that it had become aware of allegations of \"inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him\". (The Washington Post)","document":"Garrison Keillor, one of the nation’s most lauded humorists, was fired Wednesday by Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of “inappropriate behavior” that occurred while he was in charge of “A Prairie Home Companion,” his long-running variety show heard nationwide by millions every week.\nKeillor, 75, who retired from the show last year and did not respond to a request for comment, denied any wrongdoing but described what he believed to be the allegation against him in an email to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.\n“I put my hand on a woman’s bare back,” he wrote. “I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”\nMinnesota Public Radio did not immediately confirm whether this allegation was the reason for his firing and declined to give additional details on the accusation in question, including whether it was sexual in nature. The news broke hours after another enduring broadcaster, \"Today\" show host Matt Lauer, was fired by NBC for \"inappropriate sexual behavior.\"\n“Minnesota Public Radio is terminating its contracts with Garrison Keillor and his private media companies after recently learning of allegations of his inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him,” said Angie Andresen, communications director for the station.\nKeillor spent his career creating and tending to a fictional place called Lake Wobegon, “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve.” His radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” launched in 1974, stitched together old-timey jingles for fictional brands of biscuits and acoustic performances by guest musicians. But the heart of the show was Keillor’s storytelling — a slow, artfully rambling monologue about a stoic heartland community.\nBy the 1980s, Keillor had won a Peabody, and the show was one of public radio’s biggest cash cows — as popular as public-radio juggernauts “Car Talk” and “Marketplace,” and capable of matching the audience of the Saturday TV baseball Game of the Week.\n[‘Today’ show host Matt Lauer fired after claims of ‘inappropriate sexual behavior’]\nKeillor was shy, wry and unreadable in many ways, but his grave persona created an American enterprise as familiar and cozy as a hearth.\nHis program, despite its sense of place, was a road show, with a tractor-trailer full of sets and props and a traveling crew of stagehands, producers and performers who spent long hours together in college auditoriums, civic centers and hotel rooms.\nKeillor has been married three times. One of his long-term girlfriends worked with him on the show. But three longtime members of the show’s staff, who asked not to be named because they don’t know the details of the new accusation, said that Keillor’s shrinking demeanor and social awkwardness were a far more powerful part of his personality than any forwardness around women.\n“The guy screams ‘fatherly,’ ” one longtime female staffer said. “He was awkward and fascinating and lovely.”\nOn the road, Keillor kept mainly to himself, holed up in his hotel room to write his weekly monologue. Writers would join him to work over material, but those encounters were often stilted and quiet, the co-workers said.\nIn 1994, Keillor addressed the National Press Club and defended Bill Clinton against a battery of accusations, calling him a “soulful man” who “got himself elected without scaring people.” Keillor warned that society should try “not to make the world so fine and good that you and I can’t enjoy living in it.”\nHe added in his hangdog baritone: “A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all, is a world in which there will not be any flirtation. A world without thieves at all will not have entrepreneurs.” Twenty-three years later — amid a reckoning of workplace behavior that has felled politicians, TV anchors and Hollywood heavies — a viewer is left to wonder: Was Keillor being straight, or satirical?\nIn 1998 Keillor wrote “Wobegon Boy,” a novel about a radio host who is wrongly accused of sexual harassment and fired by his station.\nOn Tuesday, the day before his firing, The Washington Post published his opinion piece ridiculing the idea that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) should resign over allegations of sexual harassment.\nCalls for Franken’s head are “pure absurdity,” Keillor wrote, “and the atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness.”\nKeillor, an avowed Democrat, last year became a weekly columnist for The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate — meaning he was a contract writer, not an employee with a desk in the newsroom. Many of his columns took mournful aim at President Trump, who “would have enjoyed the 17th century,” when “the idea of privileged sexual aggression was common in high places.”\n[Violence. Threats. Begging. Harvey Weinstein’s 30-year pattern of abuse in Hollywood.]\nRichard Aldacushion, general manager and editorial director of The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate, said there was no revision of its relationship with Keillor as of late Wednesday. The organization “takes the allegations against columnist Garrison Keillor seriously and is seeking more information about them,” the syndicate told its clients Wednesday.\nIn his email to the Star-Tribune, Keillor shared other thoughts. “If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars,” he wrote. “So this is poetic irony of a high order. But I’m just fine. I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.”\nMinnesota Public Radio said it has retained an outside law firm to conduct an “independent investigation” into the allegations. The station will stop distributing and broadcasting “The Writer’s Almanac,” a show Keillor still produced after retiring from “A Prairie Home Companion.” The latter show, which will be renamed, has been hosted by Chris Thile since Keillor’s retirement.\nIn 1998, when \"Prairie Home\" was on 433 stations and in the ears of 2.5 million listeners, a Washington Post reporter spent a week with the show to write a profile of Keillor. One day, after rehearsal, the host gathered his cast in his hotel room for water and appetizers.\n“Care for a social moment?” he asked.\nThe group stood around awkwardly for a few minutes, and at one point they all tried to speak in the voices of a variety of animals — whale, walrus, horse, bird — which provided a chance to exhale and chuckle. But after a short time, Keillor brought the social moment to an end.\n“I might write something new,” he said, which was the invitation for his guests to file out of the room.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["allegations of “inappropriate behavior” that occurred while he was in charge of “A Prairie Home Companion,” his long-running variety show heard nationwide by millions every week"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["Minnesota Public Radio"]},{"role":"Position","values":["host"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Garrison Keillor"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 American producer Russell Simmons announces his resignation from his companies after a sexual assault allegation was made by screenwriter Jenny Lumet against him. (The Guardian)","document":"The hip-hop mogul and Def Jam founder has said ‘I don’t want to be a distraction’ after he was accused by screenwriter Jenny Lumet of sexual intimidation\nLast modified on Wed 11 Jul 2018 09.25 BST\nRussell Simmons, the mogul who founded iconic hip-hop label Def Jam as well as a host of other companies, has stepped down from them after a fresh sexual assault allegation was made against him.\nThe screenwriter Jenny Lumet, whose credits include Rachel Getting Married and The Mummy, and whose father is acclaimed director Sidney Lumet, accused Simmons in a column for Variety. She recalls that “circa 1991”, after Simmons offered her a ride back to her house, he then locked the car doors and had his driver take them to his apartment, where he allegedly coerced her into sex.\nSimmons has responded to the article with a statement, saying: “While her memory of that evening is very different from mine, it is now clear to me that her feelings of fear and intimidation are real. While I have never been violent, I have been thoughtless and insensitive in some of my relationships over many decades and I sincerely apologise.” He added that he would step aside from his numerous companies, grouped as Rush Communications – which include clothing, health and media brands, some carrying the “Def” name; Simmons sold Def Jam itself to Universal in 1998. “I don’t want to be a distraction so I am removing myself from the businesses that I founded,” he said. “I will step aside and commit myself to continuing my personal growth, spiritual learning and above all to listening.”\nSimmons was accused of sexual assault earlier this month by model Keri Claussen Khalighi, in an incident also in 1991, and involving disgraced Hollywood director Brett Ratner. Simmons denied the assault, saying that “everything that occurred between Keri and me occurred with her full consent and participation”.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["fresh sexual assault allegation"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["The hip-hop mogul and Def Jam founder"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Russell Simmons"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2017 U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) steps down amid allegations of sexual harassment. (NPR)","document":"\n\n\nSeveral women have accused Rep. John Conyers, who is the most senior member of Congress, of verbal abuse, inappropriate touching and groping over decades.\nUpdated at 2:30 p.m. ET\nRep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi informing them of his decision to step down from Congress as of Tuesday, amid allegations of sexual misconduct leveled by multiple women.\nConyers told a Detroit radio show Tuesday morning that \"I am retiring today,\" though he is effectively resigning. He also said in an interview on The Mildred Gaddis Show that he wants son John Conyers III to succeed him in Congress. \"My legacy will continue through my children,\" Conyers said.\nMichigan law says it's up to the governor to call a special election to fill the seat. Earlier, Conyers' grandnephew, Michigan state Sen. Ian Conyers, told the The New York Times that he planned to run for Conyers' seat.  John Conyers spoke from an undisclosed hospital, according to his attorney. He is being treated for stress-related health concerns.\nSeveral women have accused the Michigan Democrat, who is the most senior member of Congress, of verbal abuse, inappropriate touching and groping over decades.\nConyers, 88, has denied the allegations, saying Tuesday that \"they are not accurate; they are not true.\" But amid an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee following revelations of a settlement two years ago for wrongful dismissal of a female employee, Conyers is stepping down. The ethics committee does not investigate former members, so that inquiry would likely come to an end. Last week, a woman who received a $27,000 confidential settlement, Marion Brown, described to NBC's Today her accusations against Conyers. \"Violating my body, propositioning me, inviting me to hotels with the guise of discussing business, and then propositioning for sex,\" Brown said. \"He just violated my body. He has touched me in different ways, and it was very uncomfortable and very unprofessional.\"\nBrown said she came forward because she wants \"to be a voice\" and so that her granddaughter would \"not have to endure sexism and gender inequality. I thought it was worth the risk to stand up for all the women in the workforce that are voiceless.\"\nPelosi, D-Calif., had called for Conyers' resignation after Brown's TV appearance. She had previously defended him, calling him an \"icon.\"\nThe same day as Pelosi's remarks, Ryan, R-Wis., also said Conyers should resign. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., one of Pelosi's top deputies in House Democratic leadership and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, had also told Conyers he should resign, Politico reported.\nConyers stepped down as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 26. He was the first African-American member of that committee.\nGiving up his spot on the committee was a move that a senior Democratic aide said Pelosi helped orchestrate. The minority leader had spent a few days prior to Nov. 26 working with Conyers and other Congressional Black Caucus members on how to \"lay groundwork for him to step aside gracefully,\" the aide told NPR's Scott Detrow.\nOn Nov. 27, Pelosi said she had spoken to another woman, Melanie Sloan, a founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who had worked for Conyers and also came forward. She told The Washington Post about alleged mistreatment and verbal abuse, though Sloan said she did not believe she was sexually harassed by Conyers.\nConyers' potential resignation was raised in a statement by Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond. Richmond, D-La., said he had met with Conyers on Nov. 28 and had a \"very candid conversation about the seriousness of the allegations against him, which he vehemently denies.\"\nHe added that \"any decision to resign from office before the ethics investigation is complete is John's decision to make.\"\nConyers missed two roll call votes in the House on the evening of Nov. 28, and he was photographed that night on a flight from Washington, D.C., back to Detroit.\nConyers was first elected in 1964 and is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He had previously served on the staff of former Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. Conyers' congressional career, which spanned more than 50 years, included voting for articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. He sponsored the bill to declare Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, as well as the Alcohol Warning Label, National Voter Registration and Hate Crime Statistics acts.\nHe also hired civil rights heroine Rosa Parks to serve on his congressional staff in his Detroit office. Parks worked for Conyers for more than 20 years.\nA previous version of this story incorrectly said Rosa Parks worked for John Conyers for more than 30 years. She actually worked for him from 1965 to 1988.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["Several women have accused Rep. John Conyers, who is the most senior member of Congress, of verbal abuse, inappropriate touching and groping over decades"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["John Conyers"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2017 Trent Franks, a United States representative for Arizona's 8th congressional district, announces his immediate resignation, following allegations that he asked a female staffer to be a surrogate mother for him. Franks previously announced that he would resign from Congress in January 2018. (KSAZ-TV)","document":"\"Last night, my wife was admitted to the hospital in Washington, D.C. due to an ongoing ailment. After discussing options with my family, we came to the conclusion that the best thing for our family now would be for me to tender my previous resignation effective today, December 8th, 2017,\" said Franks in a statement announcing his resignation.\nThe eight-term lawmaker abruptly resigned Friday, bowing to an ultimatum from Speaker Paul Ryan. Ryan told Franks that he would refer the allegations to the Ethics Committee, and urged him to step aside.\nFranks represented Arizona's 8th District. According to Census.gov data, the district is located in the northwestern part of Phoenix.\nFranks has been a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, according to the AP.\nResignation originally scheduled for January\nOn Thursday, when Franks announced his resignation, he stated that he would leave Congress on January 31, 2018. Earlier that day, the Associated Press reported on Franks' decision to resign, citing two Republican consultants who spoke on condition of anonymity.\nNews of Franks' resignation on Thursday came, as the House Ethics Committee issued a statement that it will establish an Investigative Subcommittee to determine whether Franks engaged in conduct that \"constitutes sexual harassment and.or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.\"\nAccording to a statement issued by Franks late Thursday afternoon, he denied every having physically intimidated, coerced, had, or attempted to have any sexual contact with any member of his congressional staff.\nMisconduct allegation\nOn Friday, the AP reported that a former aide to Franks said the congressman repeatedly pressed her to carry his child, at one point offering her $5 million to act as a surrogate.\nAccording to the AP Friday afternoon, the former staffer said Franks, at least four times, asked if she'd be willing to act as a surrogate, in exchange for money.\nThe former aide, whose identity has been verified by the Associated Press, said the conversations took place in private, sometimes in Franks' car, and that she repeatedly told him she was not interested.\nAccording to the AP, the former aide, who asked for the name to be withheld out of privacy concerns, said she never filed a formal complaint because, until recently, she did not know where to go, but that Franks' behavior made her feel uncomfortable.\nThe woman said the requests shocked her, and made her feel afraid that if she didn't agree, she would face professional consequences. She said she spoke to another aide in the office, who had also been approached about surrogacy.\nFranks touched on his experience with surrogacy in the statement he released Thursday, saying his wife had suffered three miscarriages, and said due to his \"familiarity and experience\" with surrogacy, he \"clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others\".\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["Ryan told Franks that he would refer the allegations to the Ethics Committee, and urged him to step aside"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["The eight-term lawmaker abruptly"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Franks"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2017 Pierre de Villiers resigns as the Chief of the Defence Staff of the French Armed Forces due to disagreements with President Emmanuel Macron over proposed budget cuts. (The Independent)","document":"'I won't let myself be f***ed like that,' general was reported to have told parliamentary committee\n\nThe head of the French armed forces, General Pierre de Villiers, has quit his post after publicly clashing with Emmanuel Macron over proposed budget cuts.\nIn a statement from his office, Mr de Villiers said he had sought to maintain a French defence force able to do an increasingly difficult job within the financial constraints imposed on it.\n“In the current circumstances I see myself as no longer able to guarantee the robust defence force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country,” he said.\nHe added that, as a result, he had tendered his resignation to Mr Macron and that it had been accepted by the new President.\nIt came days after Mr Macron watched a show of France’s military force alongside Donald Trump in a grand parade marking Bastille Day.\nThe state visit, which saw the two presidents mark the centenary of the US’s intervention in the First World War, acted as a temporary distraction from dissatisfaction within the defence ministry.\nThere was widespread speculation that Mr de Villiers could step down in protest ahead of a formal meeting scheduled on Friday with Mr Macron, who is proposing €850m (£750m) worth of military cuts.\nIt is part of the French President’s programme aiming to achieve €60bn (53bn) of savings over five years – while upholding an election pledge to cut taxes.\nLast week, his government announced plans to cut the defence budget for 2017 to bring France’s deficit below the EU limit of 3 per cent GDP.\nMr de Villiers was said to have told a parliamentary committee he would not let the government “f*** with” him on spending cuts.\n“I won’t let myself be f***ed like that,” he said in the closed-door hearing, according to sources.\n“I may be stupid, but I know when I’m being had.”\nOn Monday, a government spokesman told France Info that the French President and Mr de Villiers would “take the decision together” about the general’s future.\nIn his first defence policy speech last week, Mr Macron said he would not tolerate public dissent from the military.\n“For me it’s undignified to wash dirty linen in public,” he told dozens of top army officers and their families in a traditional annual address.\n“I have made commitments, I am your boss… what I like is the sense of duty, the sense of discretion that has taken our army to where it is today. And what I sometimes find hard to tolerate in certain sectors, I tolerate it even less when it comes to our military.”\nMr Macron then raised eyebrows with a newspaper interview in Le Journal du Dimanche, saying: “If the military chief of staff and the President are opposed on something, the military chief of staff goes.”\nThe former chief of the French armed forces, Henri Bentégeat, said that the way the new President was imposing his authority “will leave marks”.\n“You can’t publicly question a military leader like that in front of his subordinates,” he told Le Monde.\nBut Mr Macron appears to have heeded calls for higher military spending by defence officials and opposition leaders by pledging to increase expenditure from 2018 onwards.\nFrance’s defence spending is scheduled to reach €34.2bn (£30bn) next year, including €650m (£575m) for external operations, up from €32.7bn (£29bn) in 2017, Mr Macron said.\n“It’s a considerable effort, considering the current context of budgetary constraints,” he added, after pledging to raise France’s total defence budget up to 2 per cent GDP from the current 1.7 per cent by 2025.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe unprecedented row and resignation has shocked France, where the military tends to refrain from political comment, earning itself the nickname “la grande muette”.\nJean-Jacques Bridey, chairman of the parliamentary committee on defence, was among those announcing his opposition to the cuts “while our men risk their lives every day”. The far-right Front National and left-wing opposition groups also opposed the move as French troops continue to fight al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in Mali and remain stationed in countries including the Central African Republic, Chad and Libya.\nMr Macron restated his commitment to military intervention in Mali during his first foreign trip earlier this year, telling soldiers in the former jihadi stronghold of Gao he would be “uncompromising” in the fight against terrorism.\nFrance is also a member of the US-led coalition bombing Isis territories in Iraq and Syria.\nJoin thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies\nAFP/Getty Images\nAP\nWant to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["French armed forces"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["clashing with Emmanuel Macron over proposed budget cuts"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["head"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["General Pierre de Villiers"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2017 Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau, upon reflection and at Mayor Betsy Hodges's request, resigns in the wake of last Saturday’s tragedy as well as some other recent incidents. (ABC News) (The New York Times)","document":"The Minneapolis police chief, Janee Harteau, resigned on Friday at the mayor’s request, less than a week after one of the city’s officers fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman who had called 911 for help.\nMayor Betsy Hodges said in a statement that “I’ve lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead us further” and that “it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well.”\nThe fatal shooting of the Australian woman, Justine Damond, last weekend by Officer Mohamed Noor led to outpourings of grief in Minnesota and outrage in Ms. Damond’s home country, where the prime minister condemned the shooting and Ms. Damond’s family members have expressed frustration with how little they have been told about what happened.\nLast Saturday, Ms. Damond, 40, called 911 twice to report a possible sexual assault near her home. Officer Noor and his partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, arrived at the scene in a dark alley several minutes later. Officer Harrity told state investigators that he had been startled by a loud noise just before Ms. Damond approached their cruiser. Officer Noor then shot her through the open window.\n\nOfficer Noor has declined to speak with investigators, and the authorities have provided no explanation for why he shot Ms. Damond. Neither Officer Noor nor his partner had turned on their body cameras.\nChief Harteau, a 30-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force, said in a statement that “the recent incidents do not reflect the training and procedures we’ve developed as a department.”\n“I’ve decided I am willing to step aside to let a fresh set of leadership eyes see what more can be done for the M.P.D. to be the very best it can be,” Chief Harteau said. “The city of Minneapolis deserves the very best.”\nMs. Damond’s death was the latest high-profile episode to raise questions about police tactics under Chief Harteau. In 2015, weeks of protests followed the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man.\n\nNekima Levy-Pounds, a civil rights lawyer and activist running for mayor of Minneapolis, said Chief Harteau “needed to be fired.” Ms. Levy-Pounds said it had been “a slap in the face to people of color” that the chief spoke out about the death of Ms. Damond, who was white, after defending officers involved in past shootings of black people.\n“She is attempting to paint this as an isolated case based on one officer’s poor judgment as opposed to a systemic pattern,” Ms. Levy-Pounds said.\nMs. Hodges, who is up for re-election in November and who has faced criticism for her handling of police issues, said she was appreciative of Chief Harteau’s service but had requested her resignation.\n“In conversation with the chief today, she and I agreed that she would step aside to make way for new leadership,” Ms. Hodges said. “I asked Chief Harteau for her resignation, she tendered it and I have accepted it.”\nMs. Hodges said she would nominate Medaria Arradondo, currently the assistant chief in Minneapolis, to become chief of police.\nAt a news conference at City Hall on Friday night about the chief’s departure, protesters interrupted Ms. Hodges and called on her to resign. “Bye, bye, Betsy,” they chanted when she tried to speak. Demonstrators had also gathered outside City Hall, chanting, “No justice, no peace.”\n\nAfter protesters left, Ms. Hodges returned to the lectern and said, “I will not be resigning.”\n“I hope people appreciate that there is no magic wand for public safety,” Ms. Hodges said.\nChief Harteau was the first woman to serve as Minneapolis police chief and is also openly gay. She worked her way through the ranks of the department after joining in 1987, and she was seen by some nationally as a police reformer who outfitted officers with body cameras and advocated restorative justice. But locally, her department faced frequent protests and criticisms for its use of force and treatment of black people.\nChief Harteau was also believed to have a strained relationship with Ms. Hodges. The two leaders faced criticism from the Justice Department for their coordination during 2015 protests. And earlier this year, Ms. Hodges publicly overruled the chief on a promotion decision.\nState investigators continue to probe Ms. Damond’s death. Both Ms. Hodges and Chief Harteau have said she should not have been shot. “Justine didn’t have to die,” Chief Harteau said on Thursday, citing information released by state officials investigating the case. “I believe the actions in question go against who we are as a department, how we train and the expectations we have for our officers.”\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["police chief"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Janee Harteau"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announces his intention to resign as White House Press Secretary due to Donald Trump's appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as the White House Communications Director, and will formally step down from the role in August 2017. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will take over as the White House Press Secretary in August 2017. (New York Times) (CNN)","document":"WASHINGTON — Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned Friday after telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with his appointment of Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, as his new communications director.\nAfter offering Mr. Scaramucci the job on Friday morning, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Spicer to stay on as press secretary, reporting to Mr. Scaramucci. But Mr. Spicer rejected the offer, expressing his belief that Mr. Scaramucci’s hiring would add to the confusion and uncertainty already engulfing the White House, according to two people with direct knowledge of the exchange.\nMr. Spicer’s top deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will serve as press secretary instead.\nThe long-anticipated resignation rattled an administration already reeling from the most trying two-week stretch of Mr. Trump’s presidency. The president’s health care effort foundered in the Senate last week, and next week promises no respite, with his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, due to testify before Congress on questions about their contacts with Russia.\nIf the moves amounted to a kind of organizational reset, it was not part of a pivot or grand redesign. The president, according to a dozen people familiar with the situation, meant to upgrade, not overhaul, his existing staff with the addition of a smooth-talking, Long Island-bred former hedge fund manager who is currently the senior vice president and chief strategy officer at the Export-Import Bank, which he joined just last month. His rapport with the president establishes a new power center in a building already bristling with rivalry.\n\nDespite the move, the immutable reality of the Trump White House remains the same: The president has no intention of changing his behavior — he merely believes his communications staff needs to defend him better — and Mr. Scaramucci even suggested his role would be to unshackle an already unfettered president.\n“I think there’s been, at times, a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president and the way some of you perhaps see the president,” Mr. Scaramucci said during a news conference that kicked off with his announcement of Ms. Sanders’s new job.\n“I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do,” he added, contradicting a raft of recent polls showing Mr. Trump’s approval rating below 40 percent nationally. “But we want to get that message out there.”\nIn a statement on Friday night, Mr. Trump said, “Anthony is a person I have great respect for,” and went on to describe the problem he hopes he will solve. “We have accomplished so much, and we are being given credit for so little,” he said. “The good news is the people get it, even if the media doesn’t.”\n\nIn a tweet late Friday, Mr. Trump also called Mr. Spicer “a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media - but his future is bright!”\nMr. Spicer’s departure ends an excruciating saga even for a highly factionalized White House riven with intrigue. He had hoped to last a year as press secretary. He quit after six months and a day.\nA former spokesman and strategist for the Republican National Committee, Mr. Spicer was a frequent target of the president’s ire during the first few months of the administration. He attained a notoriety unusual for a presidential spokesman, his combative style spawning a caricature on “Saturday Night Live.”\nMr. Trump expressed gratitude for Mr. Spicer’s service in a statement and predicted that Mr. Spicer will succeed in the future. “Just look at his great television ratings,” he said.\nThe resignation is a blow to the embattled White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman who brought Mr. Spicer into the West Wing despite skepticism from Mr. Trump, who initially questioned his loyalty. Mr. Scaramucci described his relationship with Mr. Priebus as a brotherly one where they “rough each other up,” and he called Mr. Priebus a “good friend.”\nMr. Spicer typically calls on media organizations outside the mainstream before getting to more traditional news outlets.\nDuring the transition, Mr. Trump had planned to appoint Mr. Scaramucci, 53, a Harvard Law School graduate, as the director of his office of public liaison, but the offer was revoked at the request of Mr. Priebus, who had concerns about Mr. Scaramucci’s overseas investments. An aide to Mr. Priebus said he had not blocked it, but merely tried to slow it down.\n\nMr. Scaramucci’s appointment came two months after the previous communications director, Mike Dubke, stepped down as the official in charge of Mr. Trump’s messaging. The eventual appointment of Mr. Scaramucci was backed by the president’s daughter Ivanka, Mr. Kushner and the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, officials said.\nMr. Kushner has grown increasingly critical of both Mr. Spicer and Mr. Priebus, whom he regards as party establishment figures who operate out of self-interest. He also supported Mr. Trump’s decision to supplant Marc E. Kasowitz as his lead attorney on matters pertaining to Russia, according to people familiar with the situation.\nMr. Priebus and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, both strongly opposed the appointment of Mr. Scaramucci — in large part because he enjoys an easy banter and direct line to Mr. Trump, potentially threatening their positions, four people briefed on the discussions said. People close to both men insisted they had not opposed the move by the president.\nMr. Trump, aggravated by their opposition, dressed the pair down in a testy Oval Office exchange around the time he decided to offer Mr. Scaramucci — known in Trump’s circle as “The Mooch” — the job.\nThe president, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, said one of the reasons he hired Mr. Scaramucci was to cut down on anonymous leaking — and took a swipe at his two advisers.\nHe asked them how the leaks were happening, according to a person familiar with the discussions, and called Mr. Spicer a “good guy” who leaks only when told to by Mr. Priebus.\nMr. Scaramucci met with Mr. Priebus on Friday, according to a West Wing official, and the two agreed to work together. When the pair joined Mr. Spicer in the second-floor office of the press secretary in a show of unity, applause could be heard echoing down the hallway.\n\nBut senior officials, including Ms. Sanders, were said to be stunned by the sudden shuffle.\nWhile Ms. Sanders will preside at the daily briefing most days, Mr. Trump has told his advisers he is open to rotating new people into the slot. He is said to be especially high on Sebastian Gorka, a blustery foreign policy official who has been accused of having ties to far-right groups in Europe.\nDuring the transition, Mr. Priebus and Mr. Spicer stocked the press shop with their associates from the Republican National Committee, rankling Trump campaign loyalists who reminded the president that Mr. Priebus had suggested he drop out of the race after an “Access Hollywood” tape of Mr. Trump’s comments about women became public.\nMr. Priebus urged Mr. Trump to hire Mr. Spicer and another lieutenant, Katie Walsh, as deputy chief of staff. But Ms. Walsh left the White House after a short time when Mr. Kushner and other West Wing officials forced her out, without Mr. Priebus objecting.\nMr. Trump and Mr. Spicer did not have a close relationship, but the two spent hours together and Mr. Trump said he felt sorry for the ridicule his press secretary received because of his portrayal on “Saturday Night Live.” He repeatedly told aides to convey to Mr. Spicer that he wanted him to stay.\nBut by the six-month mark of Mr. Trump’s presidency, both men had had enough of each other.\nIn recent weeks, Mr. Trump had told people that Mr. Spicer was no longer “tough,” one of the harshest insults he can level. And Mr. Spicer told friends he was tired of being blindsided by Mr. Trump, and weary of Mr. Trump’s constant criticism. He instituted the highly contentious practice of holding off-camera briefings, less so to snub reporters than to avoid Mr. Trump’s critiques of his performance, according to one of Mr. Spicer’s friends.\nThe end came in operatic fashion, befitting Mr. Scaramucci’s namesake — a stock character in Italian musical theater. As Mr. Scaramucci made his big entrance, Mr. Spicer exited quietly, disheartened that the president never quite appreciated his performance.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["he vehemently disagreed with his appointment of Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, as his new communications director"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Sarah Huckabee Sanders"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["White House press secretary"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Sean Spicer"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2017 The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif resigns after the Supreme Court disqualifies him from holding public office following a verdict that he had been dishonest in not disclosing his employment in the Dubai-based Capital FZE company in his nomination papers. (Dawn (Pakistan)) (BBC)","document":"Nawaz Sharif has resigned as prime minister of Pakistan following a decision by the country's Supreme Court to disqualify him from office.\nThe ruling came after a probe into his family's wealth following the 2016 Panama Papers dump linking Mr Sharif's children to offshore companies.\nMr Sharif has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the case.\nThe five judges reached a unanimous verdict in the Islamabad court, which was filled to capacity.\n\"Following the verdict, Nawaz Sharif has divested himself of his responsibility as prime minister,\" a spokesman for Mr Sharif's office said in a statement. However, it said he had \"serious reservations\" about the judicial process.\nThere was heightened security in the capital, with tens of thousands of troops and police deployed.\nThe court's ruling stated that Mr Sharif had been dishonest in not disclosing his earnings from a Dubai-based company in his nomination papers during the 2013 general election.\nOne of the judges, Ejaz Afzal Khan, said that Mr Sharif was no longer \"eligible to be an honest member of the parliament\". Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan earlier advised Mr Sharif to accept Friday's verdict.\nThe court has recommended anti-corruption cases against several individuals, including Mr Sharif, his daughter Maryam and her husband Safdar, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and others.\nBy M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Islamabad Pakistan has repeated history. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is resigning. He was the 18th prime minister of Pakistan. Not a single one of the 17 prime ministers that preceded him have completed their full term in office.\nMany believe that the Supreme Court has started a process of cracking down on corruption, which augurs well for democracy. Others see this as part of a long history of political manipulation through which the country's powerful military establishment has sought to control civilian decision-making.\nThe case hearings - spread over nearly 15 months - have been marred by controversy. The case belongs in a criminal court. The Supreme Court, which is an appellate body, initially refused to hear it. But then it not only admitted the petition for hearing, it also took the unusual step of instituting its own investigation into the case, with a dominant role for military intelligence services.\nMany believe that while across-the-board action against corruption may remain a pipe dream, this verdict will open the gates of power for a new set of politicians - as has often happened in the past.   Mr Sharif, who was serving as prime minister for a record third time, was less than a year away from becoming the first in Pakistani history to complete a full term in office.\nHe served as prime minister from November 1990 to July 1993 and from February 1997 until he was toppled in a bloodless coup in October 1999.\nAllegations of corruption have dogged Mr Sharif since the 1980s. And much of what the Panama Papers revealed was the subject of a federal inquiry in the mid-1990s.\nIt is not immediately clear who will succeed Mr Sharif, but his brother Shehbaz, who is chief minister of Punjab province, is seen as a strong contender for the job.\nPakistan's ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), will be permitted by the speaker of the National Assembly to select an interim prime minister to rule until the 2018 general election. The PML-N, which has the most seats in parliament, is expected to deliver a statement later on Friday.\nOpposition parties will also have the opportunity to put forward their own candidates for the position.\nMeanwhile, the court has directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the main anti-corruption body, to compile and send four references to accountability courts against Mr Sharif and others.\nThe NAB has been directed to file these references within six weeks. The accountability courts have been directed to complete hearings in these cases in six months.\nThe leaks in April 2016 revealed that three of Mr Sharif's children owned offshore companies and assets not shown on his family's wealth statement.\nThe companies were allegedly used to channel funds to acquire foreign assets, including some apartments along Park Lane in London's Mayfair area.\nDespite documents from the Panama Papers suggesting that the beneficial owner of the luxury central London flats was Mr Sharif's daughter Maryam, she later claimed that she was only a trustee - and that it was her brother who was the beneficial owner. To prove her point, Maryam Nawaz produced a trust deed signed by both her and her brother dated February 2006.\nBut a British forensic expert later said the document was \"fake\" or had been \"falsified\" because it was typed in the Calibri font, which was not commercially available until 2007.\nThe insinuation that the offshore companies were meant to hide or launder ill-gotten wealth or to avoid taxes called Mr Sharif's credentials into question.\nLocal media on Friday showed crowds assembled outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad cheering the court's verdict. As the verdict was announced, opposition supporters erupted in applause, rushing into the street chanting slogans and handing out sweets, according to reports. The vice-chairman of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, called it an \"historic day\" and praised the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) for \"not succumbing to the enormous pressure and serving the cause of justice.\"\nThe verdict was announced amid heightened security in the capital, with about 3,000 armed police and members of the Pakistan Rangers paramilitary force deployed near and around the Supreme Court. The ruling represents the peak of a drama that has fuelled news coverage and social media debates for months, attracting both scorn and ridicule as well as trenchant support for the prime minister. The divisions fall largely along party lines but amid the febrile accusations, many have also expressed concerns over Pakistan's political culture. The Wikipedia profile of the prime minister has also been littered with obscenities and accusations.\nMr Sharif is not the first prime minister to lose his position following the leaking of documents from the Panamanian law firm. Iceland's prime minister was forced to resign after documents appeared to reveal that he and his wife concealed millions of dollars' worth of investments in an offshore company.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["dishonest in not disclosing his earnings from a Dubai-based company in his nomination papers during the 2013 general election"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["prime minister of Pakistan"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Nawaz Sharif"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2017 Newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly fires Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci less than ten days after Scaramucci took up his post. (The New York Times) (BBC)","document":"White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has been fired after fewer than 10 days in the post.\nThe former Wall Street financier had drawn criticism after calling a reporter to give a profanity-laced tirade against his own colleagues.\nPresident Donald Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and spokesman, Sean Spicer, both left their posts after Mr Scaramucci's appointment.\nChief of staff Gen John Kelly, sworn in on Monday, sacked Mr Scaramucci. The president was also unhappy with Mr Scaramucci's performance, the White House confirmed.\nMr Trump's spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said the president thought Mr Scaramucci's comments to the reporter \"were inappropriate for a person in that position\".\nHe has not been moved to another White House role, she added.\nMr Trump had tweeted in the morning about job and wage figures, and insisted there is \"No WH chaos\", referring to reports about fighting among White House staff.\nMr Scaramucci had boasted of reporting directly to the president, rather than to his chief of staff.\nGen Kelly, who had formerly served as secretary of homeland security, was sworn in on Monday morning at the White House. By Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington\nStaff in this White House have the job life expectancy of mayflies. Only 10 days ago, Mr Scaramucci burst on to the scene as the fast-talking New Yorker whose fanatical devotion to the president was matched only by his distaste for the established order. Although his job tenure was short, he managed to do a lot of order-disrupting. Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned to give Mr Scaramucci a \"clean slate\". Then, like a heat-seeking missile powered by foul language, Mr Scaramucci went after Reince Priebus, who was unceremoniously cashiered on Friday.\nNow it is Mr Scaramucci's turn to wipe down the slate.\nIf Mr Scaramucci's exit was indeed orchestrated by John Kelly, it could be an indication that the former general is quickly asserting control over what has been a rancorous White House.\nPerhaps it is the first sign of order being established, even if the brevity of Mr Scaramucci's tenure - he wasn't officially set to begin until 15 August - will be a short-term embarrassment for the president.\nThen again, it could be that the pace of change is quickening as the Trump administration approaches the centre of the vortex. Only time will tell.\nA great night in W Va. we have great momentum. pic.twitter.com/2Cb4OBhsMf\nThe resignation of Reince Priebus came on Friday after Mr Scaramucci posted and then deleted a tweet which many interpreted as an accusation and a threat against Mr Priebus.\nMr Scaramucci also called a reporter to attack Mr Priebus as a \"paranoid schizophrenic\" and accuse him of leaking information to the media.\nDuring the on-the-record phone call, he also made vulgar statements about chief strategist Steve Bannon.\nHe also pledged to fire every member of the communications team, as part of his crusade against \"leakers\".","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["White House"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["had drawn criticism after calling a reporter to give a profanity-laced tirade against his own colleagues"]},{"role":"Successor","values":["Chief of staff Gen John Kelly"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["communications director"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Anthony Scaramucci"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["fewer than 10 days"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 Thousands of people celebrate the expected downfall of Robert Mugabe in the streets of Harare. (BBC) (Reuters)","document":"HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe’s ruling party will dismiss President Robert Mugabe on Sunday and reinstate Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice-president he fired, two party sources told Reuters on Saturday, as ecstatic crowds celebrated the expected downfall.\nZimbabweans celebrate Mugabe expected downfall\n01:47\nMugabe’s 37-year rule has been effectively at an end since the army seized control on Wednesday, confining him to his residence, saying it wanted to target the “criminals” around him.\nState television said Mugabe would meet military commanders on Sunday, quoting Catholic priest Fidelis Mukonori, who has been mediating in negotiations with the president.\nBut hundreds of thousands of people had no need for a formal signal that his time had ended as they flooded the streets of Harare, singing, dancing and hugging soldiers.\nIn scenes reminiscent of the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, men, women and children ran alongside the armoured cars and the troops who stepped in this week to oust the only ruler Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980.\nOthers marched towards his lavish ‘Blue Roof’ residence, but were kept away by soldiers.\nUnder house arrest in his compound, the 93-year-old has watched support from his party, security services and people evaporate in less than three days.\nThe sources said a ZANU-PF party central committee meeting scheduled for 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) would also dismiss 93-year-old Mugabe’s preferred successor, his wife Grace, from her role as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League.\nMugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao, speaking from an undisclosed location in South Africa, told Reuters the leader and his wife were “ready to die for what is correct” rather than step down in order to legitimise what he described as a coup.\nZhuwao also said that only Mugabe, who had hardly slept since the military took over but was otherwise in “good” health, could call a meeting of the central committee.\n“TEARS OF JOY”\nRelated Coverage\nSee more stories\nIt was not clear from reading the party’s constitution who is empowered to call such a meeting - but events appeared to have made the issue irrelevant.\nOn Harare’s streets, Zimbabweans spoke of a second liberation for the former British colony, alongside their dreams of political and economic change after two decades of deepening repression and hardship.\n“These are tears of joy,” said Frank Mutsindikwa, 34, holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last.”\nMugabe’s downfall is likely to send shockwaves across Africa, where a number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside.\nThe crowds in Harare have so far given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army’s intervention, backing its claims that it is merely effecting a constitutional transfer of power, which would help it avoid the diplomatic backlash and opprobrium that normally follows a coup.\nThe military had been prompted to act by Mugabe’s decision to sack Mnangagwa, Grace Mugabe’s main rival to succeed her husband. The next presidential election is due next year.\nZimbabweans abroad were also hailing the end of Mugabe’s rule, not least the hundreds living in Britain who gathered outside their embassy in central London.\n“I’m ecstatic to see people give Mugabe a reality check because he has been in his echo chamber for too long, lying to himself that people still want him,” said Ruva Kudambo, 37, who came to study technology and ended up staying.\nTasa, a 36-year-old who refused to give his family name, said he had brought his four young children, aged 5 to 9, to the protest “because they are the future of Zimbabwe”.\nFor some Africans, Mugabe remains a nationalist hero, the continent’s last independence leader and a symbol of its struggle to throw off the legacy of decades of colonial subjugation.\nBut to many more at home and abroad, he was reviled as a dictator happy to resort to violence to retain power and to run a once-promising economy into the ground.\nPolitical sources and intelligence documents seen by Reuters said Mugabe’s exit was likely to pave the way for an interim unity government led by Mnangagwa, a life-long Mugabe aide and former security chief known as “The Crocodile”.\nStabilising the free-falling economy will be the number one priority, the documents said.\nThe United States, a long-time critic of Mugabe, said it was looking forward to a “new era” in Zimbabwe, while President Ian Khama of neighbouring Botswana said Mugabe had no diplomatic support in the region and should resign at once.\nThe Herald, the state newspaper that has served as Mugabe’s loyal mouthpiece, said ZANU-PF had called on Friday for him to go. It said ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had also called for the resignation of Grace, the first lady whose ambitions to succeed her husband outraged the military and much of the country.\nTo many Zimbabweans, she is known as “Gucci Grace” on account of her reported dedication to shopping, or - in the wake of an alleged assault in September on a South African model - “Dis-Grace”.\nThe scenes in Harare reflect the anger and frustration that has built up among Zimbabwe’s 16 million people in nearly two decades of economic mismanagement that started with the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, the catalyst of a wider collapse.\nThe central bank tried to print its way out of trouble by unleashing a flood of cash but that only made matters worse, leading to hyperinflation that topped out at 500 billion percent in 2008.\nAt least 3 million Zimbabweans emigrated in search of a better life, most of them to neighbouring South Africa.\nAfter stabilising briefly when Mugabe was forced to work with the opposition in a 2009-2013 unity government, the economy has collapsed again, this time due to a chronic shortage of dollars.\nIn October, monthly inflation leapt to more than 50 percent, according to some economists, putting basic goods beyond the means of many in a country with 90 percent unemployment.\nMugabe’s only public appearance since the military took over was at a university graduation ceremony on Friday morning. Decked out in blue and yellow academic gowns, he appeared tired, at one point falling asleep in his chair.\nA senior member of ZANU-PF said it was only a matter of time before he agreed to go.\n“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["President"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Robert Mugabe"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["37-year"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is fired as the leader of ZANU–PF and replaced with former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. (The Guardian), (AP)","document":"President Robert Mugabe given midday deadline on Monday to resign after delivering a rambling address on live television that offered no concessions First published on Sun 19 Nov 2017 12.04 GMT\nZimbabwe’s ongoing crisis descended into outright chaos on Sunday after president Robert Mugabe failed to announce his resignation as widely expected in a national address on live television.\nInstead, in a rambling 30 minute address, Mugabe offered no concessions to his critics, the tens of thousands who marched calling for his resignation or the army commanders who led the military takeover last week.\nThe 93-year-old autocrat said that “we cannot be guided by bitterness or revengefulness which would not makes us any better ... Zimbabweans” and said that he would preside over a special congress of the ruling Zanu-PF party scheduled for next month – suggesting he has no immediate intention of stepping down. Mugabe, who repeatedly cited the legacy of Zimbabwe’s brutal liberations wars of the 1970s, said he believed that the military “operation” launched last Tuesday by army commanders was motivated by “a deep patriotic concern for the stability of the nation” and “did not amount to a threat to our well-cherished constitutional order”.\n“I am aware that many developments have occurred in the party, given the failings of the past, and anger they might have triggered in some quarters .... [but] I am confident that from tonight our whole nation will put shoulder to the wheel,” Mugabe said.\nHis once-loyal Zanu-PF party warned it would seek to impeach him if he fails to quit by midday (1000 GMT) on Monday.\nEarlier on Sunday, the veteran leader, who has been in power for 37 years, was sacked as leader of the Zanu-PF and told by 200 of the party’s top officials gathered at an extraordinary meeting in Harare to resign as head of state or face impeachment when parliament reconvenes on Tuesday.\nAfter the speech, the chief whip of Zimbabwe’s ruling party said the central committee would proceed with impeaching Mugabe on Tuesday.\nLovemore Matuke said: “the speech was just surprising. It is not in line with what we expected. We had understood that his resignation was coming to avoid the embarrassment of impeachment. “The army is taking its own route, and as politicians we are taking our own route, but the ultimate goal is to make sure he goes, which he should have done tonight.”\nEmmerson Mnangagwa, the vice-president whose sacking 13 days ago led to the military takeover, was appointed interim leader of the party.\nMnangagwa is widely expected to take over from Mugabe as president.\nThe moves by Zanu-PF follows huge demonstrations in cities across the country on Saturday demanding Mugabe leave power. His refusal to go plunges the country into deep uncertainty.\nThe leader of Zimbabwe’s influential war veterans said plans for impeachment would go ahead as scheduled. Chris Mutsvangwa, who has been leading a campaign to oust Mugabe, told Reuters in a text message moments after Mugabe finished his speech that people would take to the streets of Harare on Wednesday.\nObservers say Mugabe may hope to oblige the military to depose him by force, which could theoretically trigger an intervention by regional powers.\nThe South African Development Community (SADC), headed by South Africa, is to meet in Angola on Tuesday to discuss the situation.\nLast week the SADC called for a “constitutional” solution to the crisis, which was understood by some to be a call for the military to allow Mugabe to serve out his current electoral mandate as president. According to sources close to the military, the president, who has been kept under house arrest in his sprawling residence in Harare, wants to be allowed to remain in power until elections scheduled for next summer are held.\nThe military has said it has no intention of taking permanent control of government but has indicated it does not want to leave Mugabe in office. An array of senior commanders sat beside Mugabe as he made his speech. General Constantino Chiwenga, the general who led the takeover, turned the president’s pages as he speak. Many looked stunned when Mugabe finished his speech saying “Thank you, good night.”\nA microphone caught later muffled comments from the elderly leader referring to either a “long” or a “wrong” speech, leading to speculation that Mugabe may have deliberately or otherwise omitted pages or read content that varied substantially from that reportedly cleared with the military high command.\nZimbabweans who gathered at a bar in the capital to celebrate Mugabe’s expected announcement of his resignation said they were frustrated.\nOne named Nyasha said: “I would be happy for him despite everything he has done to leave with dignity and just walk away. ... He is so stubborn.”\nEarlier in the day Zanu-PF delegates had broken into cheers, song and dance when the motion was passed, removing Mugabe as the head of the party and appointing Mnangagwa to replace him.\nThe 200 or so members of the central committee leapt to their feet, many singing Mnangagwa’s name.\n“This is the day that is defining the new birth and development of our country,” said Mike Madiro, chairman of one of the provincial party branches that had formally set Mugabe’s dethroning in motion.\nZanu-PF also expelled Grace Mugabe, the divisive first lady, and 20 of her closest associates.\nThe military commanders claim last week’s takeover was necessary to remove “criminals” close to the president, a reference to Grace Mugabe and her “G40” faction.\nThe purge has in effect decimated the group and underlines the degree to which the overthrow of Mugabe’s 37-year rule has been driven more by competition for power within the Zanu-PF than popular anger at a dictatorial and corrupt regime.\nMugabe made some references to internal divisions in his speech, saying: “The way forward cannot be based on vying cliques that ride roughshod over rules and procedures.”\n“The party constitution must apply in all situations and to all members ... victimisation and arbitrary decisions must be put behind.\n“The party must have older players and newer entrants through a well defined sense of hierarchy. These matters will be discussed at forthcoming congress. I will preside over the congress processes.”\nGrace Mugabe, 52, has not been seen since the takeover. Sources told the Guardian she was in her husband’s Harare residence when he was detained on Tuesday and had not moved since.\nSince taking power, the military has arrested about a dozen senior officials and ministers. Several remain detained. Two senior politicians close to the first lady are believed to have taken refuge with their families in the president’s residence on the night of the military takeover. Few options are now open to Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe through a mixture of coercion, bribery and revolutionary rhetoric, beyond playing for time. Support in some branches of the security establishment – such as the police – has evaporated.\nArmy commanders have long had good relations with Mnangagwa, a former intelligence chief and veteran Zanu-PF official who was responsible for the repression of opposition parties in successive elections between 2000 and 2008.\nOpposition leaders in Zimbabwe have called for the formation of an inclusive transitional government but risk being sidelined by the powerful army and Zanu-PF.\nThere are also concerns that the military will maintain significant influence in the future.\n“The ruling party have allowed the military to taste political power [and] … We have to expect some role of the armed forces to continue for some time,” said Martin Rupiya, a former Zimbabwean army general.\nKnox Chitiyo, of London’s Chatham House, said it was a “momentous time”.\n“There is no question that there is a huge element of faction score settling in this but that has inadvertently triggered a military-guided popular revolt. The military are being held up as the liberators of the country. But it remains to be seen how long that will be the case,” Chitiyo said.\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Mnangagwa"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["leader of the Zanu-PF"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Robert Mugabe"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 Charlie Rose is suspended as host of Charlie Rose and anchor of CBS This Morning after allegations of sexual harassment and obscene phone calls and was later fired by the following day. (The Washington Post)","document":"Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. The women were employees or aspired to work for Rose at the “Charlie Rose” show from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011. They ranged in age from 21 to 37 at the time of the alleged encounters. Rose, 75, whose show airs on PBS and Bloomberg TV, also co-hosts “CBS This Morning” and is a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes.” There are striking commonalities in the accounts of the women, each of whom described their interactions with Rose in multiple interviews with The Post. For all of the women, reporters interviewed friends, colleagues or family members who said the women had confided in them about aspects of the incidents. Three of the eight spoke on the record. Five of the women spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of Rose’s stature in the industry, his power over their careers or what they described as his volatile temper. “In my 45 years in journalism, I have prided myself on being an advocate for the careers of the women with whom I have worked,” Rose said in a statement provided to The Post. “Nevertheless, in the past few days, claims have been made about my behavior toward some former female colleagues. “It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that, though I do not believe that all of these allegations are accurate. I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken. “I have learned a great deal as a result of these events, and I hope others will too. All of us, including me, are coming to a newer and deeper recognition of the pain caused by conduct in the past, and have come to a profound new respect for women and their lives.”\n Within hours of the publication of this article, PBS and Bloomberg LP immediately suspended distribution of the “Charlie Rose” show. CBS announced that it was suspending Rose as it looked into the matter. Most of the women said Rose alternated between fury and flattery in his interactions with them. Five described Rose putting his hand on their legs, sometimes their upper thigh, in what they perceived as a test to gauge their reactions. Two said that while they were working for Rose at his residences or were traveling with him on business, he emerged from the shower and walked naked in front of them. One said he groped her buttocks at a staff party. Reah Bravo was an intern and then associate producer for Rose’s PBS show beginning in 2007. In interviews, she described unwanted sexual advances while working for Rose at his private waterfront estate in Bellport, N.Y., and while traveling with him in cars, in a hotel suite and on a private plane. “It has taken 10 years and a fierce moment of cultural reckoning for me to understand these moments for what they were,” she told The Post. “He was a sexual predator, and I was his victim.”  [#MeToo: A movement or a moment?] Kyle Godfrey-Ryan, one of Rose’s assistants in the mid-2000s, recalled at least a dozen instances where Rose walked nude in front of her while she worked in one of his New York City homes. He also repeatedly called the then-21-year-old late at night or early in the morning to describe his fantasies of her swimming naked in the Bellport pool as he watched from his bedroom, she said. “It feels branded into me, the details of it,” Godfrey-Ryan said. She said she told Yvette Vega, Rose’s longtime executive producer, about the calls. “I explained how he inappropriately spoke to me during those times,” Godfrey-Ryan said. “She would just shrug and just say, ‘That’s just Charlie being Charlie.’ ”\nIn a statement to The Post, Vega said she should have done more to protect the young women on the show. “I should have stood up for them,” said Vega, 52, who has worked with Rose since the show was created in 1991. “I failed. It is crushing. I deeply regret not helping them.”\nGodfrey-Ryan said that when Rose learned she had confided to a mutual friend about his conduct, he fired her. Megan Creydt worked as a coordinator on the show from 2005 to 2006, overlapping with Godfrey-Ryan. “It was quite early in working there that he put his hand on my mid-thigh,” said Creydt, who agreed to be interviewed on the record to support other women who were coming forward with what she deemed to be more serious claims concerning Rose. She said that during the incident, Rose was driving his Mini Cooper in Manhattan while she was sitting in the passenger seat. “I don’t think I said anything,” she said. “I tensed up. I didn’t move his hand off, but I pulled my legs to the other side of the car. I tried not to get in a car with him ever again. I think he was testing me out.”\nHer then-boyfriend confirmed to The Post that she told him the story at the time. In addition to the eight women who say they were harassed, The Post spoke to about two dozen former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Six said they saw what they considered to be harassment, eight said they were uncomfortable with Rose’s treatment of female employees, and 10 said they did not see or hear anything concerning. [“I am not okay”: The remarkable response from Rose’s co-host on CBS] “He was always professional with me,” said Eleonore Marchand Mueller, a former assistant of Rose’s who worked for him from 2003 to 2005. “I never witnessed any unprofessional incidents.”\nThe show’s small, informal structure, with roughly 15 employees, and the centrality of Rose’s authority on a program he owns led to uncertainty over how to respond, said the women who felt victimized. “There wasn’t anybody to report this to if you felt uncomfortable,” one of them said. The employees worked for Charlie Rose Inc., and not Bloomberg LP or PBS, which said they did not provide human resources support for the show. The environment brimmed with the young and potentially vulnerable, hungry for scarce television jobs. “There are so few jobs,” said one of the women who said Rose groped her. “You know if you don’t behave a certain way, there’s someone else behind you.”\nRose traveled frequently, jetting off to interview world leaders across the globe and splitting time between two New York City residences and homes in Bellport — on Long Island — and North Carolina. Often at his side was a rotating cast of young assistants and producers. The young women who were hired by the show were sometimes known as “Charlie’s Angels,” two former employees said. Rose frequently gave unsolicited shoulder rubs to several of them, behavior referred to among employees as “the crusty paw,” a former employee said. Rumors about Rose’s behavior have circulated for years. One of the authors of this report, Outlook contributing writer Irin Carmon, first heard and attempted to report on the allegations involving two of the women while she was a journalist at Jezebel in 2010 but was unable to confirm them. In the past several weeks in the wake of accusations against Harvey Weinstein, Carmon and Post investigative reporter Amy Brittain jointly began contacting dozens of men and women who had worked on the “Charlie Rose” show or interviewed for jobs there. A woman then in her 30s who was at the Bellport home in 2010 to discuss a job opportunity said Rose appeared before her in an untethered bathrobe, naked underneath. She said he subsequently attempted to put his hands down her pants. She said she pushed his hands away and wept throughout the encounter. A woman who began as an intern in the late 1990s and was later hired full time described a “ritual” of young women at the show being summoned by Rose to his Manhattan apartment to work at a desk there. The woman described a day when Rose went into the bathroom, left the door open and turned on the shower. She said he began to call her name, insistently. She ignored him, she said, and continued working. Suddenly, he came out of the bathroom and stood over her. She turned her head, briefly saw skin and Rose with a towel and jerked back around to avoid the sight. She said he said, “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” She said she told someone in the office, and word got around. A few days later, she said, a male colleague approached her, laughing, “Oh, you got the shower trick.” The woman’s sister confirmed that her sibling had told her about the shower incident soon after it occurred. Another woman said that during her internship in the early 2000s, Rose groped her breasts and stomach as she drove him from Bellport back to Manhattan. Her then-boyfriend, now husband, confirmed that she described the incident to him immediately after it occurred. When Rose invited her to work regularly and stay overnight at Bellport, her boyfriend told her to refuse the offer, and she did, both told The Post. Rose’s eponymous show, with its trademark black background and round oak table, has been in production since 1991. What it lacks in mass viewership, the “Charlie Rose” show makes up for in prestige and high-profile bookings of the likes of former president Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett. Rose’s show is produced by Charlie Rose Inc., an independent television production company, and distributed by PBS. It is filmed at Bloomberg headquarters in Manhattan. Rose’s stature has only grown in recent years. CBS tapped him in 2011 to help revamp its ailing morning show, now called “CBS This Morning,” expanding his audience. He has also been a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes” for nearly a decade. His 2013 interview of Syria’s president won Emmy and Peabody awards. (None of the women who made accusations against Rose to The Post worked for PBS or CBS.) Representatives from PBS, CBS and Bloomberg said they have no records of sexual harassment complaints about Charlie Rose. When Time magazine named Rose one of its 100 most influential people in 2014, billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg described him as “one of the most important and influential people in journalism.”\nRose, who was divorced in 1980, has long had a reputation as a ladies man. His “CBS This Morning” co-host, Norah O’Donnell, introduced him at a 2014 fundraiser dinner by joking, “We’re all here because with Charlie Rose, one woman is never enough.” Rose graciously accepted honors that night by saying that he was lucky to have worked throughout his career with “women who were smarter, more thoughtful and more eloquent than I was.”\nThere was also less flattering coverage. The now-defunct Radar magazine in 2007 called him a “toxic bachelor” and repeated an unnamed woman’s claim that Rose had “palmed her buttock like a honeydew.” His then-attorney, David Boies, who has recently drawn criticism for his representation of Harvey Weinstein, demanded a retraction. The magazine refused. The “Charlie Rose” show prides itself on its highbrow intellectual ambition, but his life is glamorous, full of black-tie galas and famous friends. He can be charming and generous, consulting favored employees for their opinions on what to ask heads of state or whisking them off to exotic locations for interviews. But his wrath was swift and often fiercely personal, according to interviews with multiple former employees. “Everybody is terrified of him,” said one of the women who said that Rose groped her when she was an intern. “He creates this environment of constant fear. And then he’ll shine a spotlight on you and make you feel amazing.” Multiple women said they had at first been reassured by the presence of Vega, Rose’s executive producer, who has worked with him for decades. Two women who spoke to The Post said they repeatedly reported Rose’s inappropriate sexual behavior to Vega. Working for the “Charlie Rose” show was a longtime dream for Reah Bravo, who in 2007 was a 29-year-old graduate student studying international affairs at Columbia University. She struggled to make ends meet during her unpaid internship, accruing credit card debt and eating free cereal in the Bloomberg food court. One day, several months into the internship, Rose offered her a side gig at his home in Bellport on Long Island. “Here is the deal: I’ll pay you $2,500 for the week plus all expenses for food, movies etc.,” he wrote to her on Aug. 9, 2007. “You will be there from Monday August 13-Friday afternoon, August 17. Your primary responsibilities are to organize and catalogue all my books and tapes and files ... It will help me a lot, be fun for you, and you will have a car all the time for whatever you need to do.”\nBefore she left for Bellport, Bravo said Vega told her that personal time with Rose was a key to becoming part of the team. Bravo said she took the train to Bellport, where she said Rose met her at the Ronkonkoma station and took her to a bank to withdraw money to cover her expenses. She stayed at the Bellport home for about a week, sleeping in a bedroom in the main house. Rose was gone much of the time. While she was there, Bravo said she received a message from a male producer. If Rose did anything “sketchy,” she said he told her, she should not hesitate to call the show’s car service to return home. Late one night, Bravo said, Rose returned home after a night out. She said she tried to hurry out of the library in the guesthouse to return to her bedroom in the main house before Rose came in, but he intercepted her. She said he insisted that they have a glass of wine at the dining room table in the main house. Then, he suggested they walk out to his dock and look at the moon, Bravo said. Once there, “he came up from behind me and he put his arms around me,” she said, remembering that she felt a mix of apprehension and confusion. “It reflected his poor judgment. How could a man of his stature and his power be doing something so inappropriate? . . . It seemed reckless.”\nCaught off guard, she said she did not know how to respond and endured his embrace. A day or two later, Bravo said, Rose drove her back to Manhattan. She said he began to tell her that he felt very alone in life, despite his wealth and success. He recalled a brush with death a year earlier during heart surgery in Paris and began to tear up, and she said she patted him on the shoulder to console him. “I didn’t necessarily buy it,” she said.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["PBS and Bloomberg LP"]},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Within hours of the publication of this article"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Charlie Rose"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2017 John Conyers stands down as the ranking Democrat on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary following a series of sexual harassment allegations. (The Globe and Mail)","document":"In this April 4, 2017, photo, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is defending Conyers as an \"icon\" for women's rights and declining to say whether the longtime lawmaker should resign over allegations that he sexually harassed female staff members.\nAlex Brandon/The Associated Press\nThis article was published more than 3 years ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.\nMichigan Rep. John Conyers, under investigation over allegations he sexually harassed female staff members, said Sunday he will step aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee while fiercely denying he acted inappropriately during his long tenure in Congress.\nIn a statement, the 88-year-old lawmaker made clear he would prefer to keep his leadership role on the committee, which has wide jurisdiction over U.S. law enforcement, from civil rights and impeachment of federal officials to sexual harassment protections.\nBut Conyers acknowledged maintaining the post would be a distraction \"in light of the attention drawn by recent allegations made against me.\"\n\"I have come to believe that my presence as ranking member on the committee would not serve these efforts while the Ethics Committee investigation is pending,\" he said. \"I cannot in good conscience allow these charges to undermine my colleagues in the Democratic Caucus, and my friends on both sides of the aisle in the Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives.\"\nDenying the allegations, Conyers, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who was first elected to the House in 1964, urged lawmakers to allow him \"due process.\"\n\"I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family,\" Conyers said.\nNews website BuzzFeed reported last Monday that Conyers' office paid a woman more than $27,000 under a confidentiality agreement to settle a complaint in 2015 that she was fired from his Washington staff because she rejected his sexual advances. BuzzFeed also published affidavits from former staff members who said they had witnessed Conyers touching female staffers inappropriately — rubbing their legs and backs — or requesting sexual favours.\nConyers says he will fully co-operate with the Ethics Committee, which said it will review the allegations of harassment and age discrimination as well as using \"official resources for impermissible personal purposes.\"\nAt least one House Democrat, Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, has called on Conyers to step down from Congress. Two others, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., co-chairman of the largest group of congressional liberals, had said Conyers should at least step aside from his leadership role on the Judiciary committee.\nIn a statement Sunday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she welcomed Conyers' decision to give up the committee leadership post.\nStory continues below advertisement\n\"Zero tolerance means consequences,\" Pelosi said. \"Any credible accusation must be reviewed by the Ethics Committee expeditiously. We are at a watershed moment on this issue, and no matter how great an individual's legacy, it is not a license for harassment. \"\nThe California Democrat noted that the House in the coming week will vote on requiring anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training for all members and their staffs. She suggested that nondisclosure agreements like the one Conyers signed to settle the 2015 complaint should be made public.\nThe Senate has already approved a measure requiring all senators, staff and interns to be trained on preventing sexual harassment.\nThe flurry of activity Sunday comes as Congress prepares to return from its Thanksgiving break, amid increasing attention on the issue of sexual harassment with multiple men in entertainment, media and politics facing allegations of misconduct. On the congressional level, Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota and Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore also are the subject of accusations.\nEarlier Sunday, Pelosi defended Conyers as an \"icon\" for women's rights and told NBC's \"Meet the Press\" that he will do the \"right thing.\"\n\"This is about going forward,\" she said. \"We also have to address it for every person, every workplace in the country, not just in the Congress of the United States. And that's very important. And a good deal of that would be done by the Judiciary Committee.\"\nStory continues below advertisement\nRep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is the next most-senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee after Conyers, the only African-American to have held the position of chairman or ranking member on the panel.\n\"Even under these unfortunate circumstances, the important work of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee must move forward,\" Nadler said. \"I will do everything in my power to continue to press on the important issues facing our committee, including criminal justice reform, workplace equality, and holding the Trump administration accountable.\"\n\"Ranking Member Conyers has a 50-year legacy of advancing the cause of justice, and my job moving forward is to continue that critical work,\" he added.\nRep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who sponsored legislation to overhaul the system by which sexual complaints are made and settled on Capitol Hill, said Congress must show a greater commitment to addressing sexual misconduct. Last month, she shared her own story of being sexually assaulted by a high-level aide while she was a staffer.\n\"This is absolutely a priority that we must focus on in terms of fixing the system,\" she said on ABC's \"This Week.\" \"We say zero tolerance, but I don't believe that we put our money where our mouths are.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["88-year-old"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":["House Judiciary Committee"]},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["allegations he sexually harassed female staff members"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["top Democrat"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Rep. John Conyers"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2007 The President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva removes Defense Minister Waldir Pires, who is responsible for civil aviation, from his Cabinet and replaces him with former Justice Minister Nelson Jobim after two major crashes in ten months. (New York Times)","document":"The president of Brazil today fired the country’s defense minister, who also oversaw civil aviation, after the worst airline disaster in Brazilian history.\nPresident Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s move came after he had appeared on television last week to assure Brazilians that he had ordered immediate changes in the country’s flawed civil aviation system. ","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["oversaw civil aviation, after the worst airline disaster in Brazilian history"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":["president of Brazil"]},{"role":"Position","values":["defense minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2007 Steve Bracks resigns as the Premier of Victoria. John Thwaites, the Deputy Premier, announces his resignation later in the day. (Sydney Morning Herald) (Sydney Morning Herald)","document":"He will officially step down on Monday and has backed Treasurer John Brumby as his preferred successor.\nMr Bracks, 52, announced the shock decision to resign at a press conference at Melbourne's Treasury Place about 10.40am.\nHe said he had already informed colleagues and described it as the right decision.\n\"It's right for the state, it's right for the Government, and it's right for the Labor Party. And also it's the right decision for [wife] Terry and our family.\"\n\"I have given everything, body and soul to this job. I love the job, I love what we achieved. I couldn't have given any more than I have given over the past eight years to this state.\"\nDuring the 30 minute press conference, he thanked the people of Victoria.\n\"I thank them for the trust they have put in us and I believe we have repaid their trust.\"\nHe also made special mention of two of his ministers, Deputy Premier John Thwaite and John Brumby, whom he described as the best treasurer of any government in the country.\n\"John Brumby has been the architect of Victoria's economic success and establishing labor as responsible for the state's finances,\" Mr Bracks said.\nMr Bracks said he had discussions two weeks ago with the pair about his decision to resign.\nHe will remain leader until Monday and said he backed Mr Brumby as his successor.\nHe said he had no regrets about his time as premier.\n\"I actually don't have any regrets - isn't this odd?- it's been the best time of my life, it's been brilliant, I love the job ... I'll miss it, of course I will, but I knew I'd have to make a decision at some point in my life.\"\nEarlier, he said: \"You must make a total commitment to meet the demands and challenges of the job and that is an iron-clad rule of public life.\n\"So once you reach a point where you know you can no longer give the commitment the choice is clear.\n\"I have recently made that choice and now intend to leave public office and make a new and different life outside of politics.\n\"Inevitable questions will be asked ... about the events of recent weeks and the part they played in reaching this decision.\n\"The truth is they did, but only in confirming my course, not in setting it.\n\"In confirming that I had a decision to make and once made I should publicly explain my decision for the future.\"\nHis wife, Terry, said she backed Mr Bracks's decision and joked that he would now have to learn how to use a computer.\nIn a short speech, she described Mr Brack's job as \"relentless\" before pausing as her eyes filled with tears.\nMr Bracks said he informed the federal Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, just before holding the press conference.\nMr Rudd asked if he could talk him out of stepping down, Mr Bracks said.\n\"I said 'No, I'm about to go into a press conference, I've made that decision'.\"\nMr Bracks also declared he had no interest in running for federal office.\nMr Bracks defeated Jeff Kennett in an October 1999 election which pundits had said he had no chance of winning.\nInstead he led Labor to an emphatic victory which toppled the seven-year Kennett Government. He was re-elected in late 2002 and again in late 2006.\nAccording to his online biography, Mr Bracks was born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1954.\nHe is married to Terry and father to Nicholas, Amy and Will.\nNicholas, 20, was recently in the news, when he allegedly crashed a family car near the family home in Melbourne's southwest, after drinking in the city with friends on July 12.\nAfter police finalise charges, Nicholas will be summonsed to appear in court and will face a minimum penalty of a mandatory 12-month loss of licence, a $463 fine and loss of 10 demerit points.\n\"He is very remorseful, he's done the wrong thing,\" Mr Bracks said at the time.\n\"He's been an absolute idiot and of course he knows that and he knows the consequences are significant.\"\nMr Bracks also described the incident as one of the worst he had dealt with.\n\"I just felt hopeless and useless and you can't help feeling a bit of a failure in some ways as a parent,\" Mr Bracks said.\nThe crash was Nicholas's third alcohol-related incident in the past two years.\nHe claimed his drink was spiked when found wandering the beach in a confused state in Lorne in December 2005 and in March this year, he was caught trying to sneak bourbon into a sporting event at Melbourne's Olympic Park.\nMr Bracks today said: \"I knew I had to make this decision at some stage. The events of the last couple of weeks meant that I made that decision at an earlier juncture.\"","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":["52"]},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Bracks"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2007 Norihiko Akagi resigns as Japan's agriculture minister after scandals involving him adversely affected the Liberal Democratic Party's performance in the Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007. (ABC News Australia)","document":"He is the latest casualty of the weekend election result that saw Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Government lose control of the Upper House of Parliament.\nNorihiko Akagi has been Agriculture Minister for exactly two months, appointed after the incumbent committed suicide amidst a financial scandal.\nBut Mr Akagi brought controversy of his own, with questions raised about his use of office finances, and a bizarre appearance in public with facial injuries he refused to explain.\nNow, three days after the Government was comprehensively defeated in an Upper House election, Mr Akagi has tendered his resignation.\n\"The reports about me affected the election result,\" he said.\"And it's clear it's one of the reasons why we lost.\"\nMr Abe says Mr Akagi will not be immediately replaced as he has already flagged a Cabinet reshuffle in response to the election result.","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":["questions raised about his use of office finances, and a bizarre appearance in public with facial injuries he refused to explain"]},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Agriculture Minister"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Norihiko Akagi"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":["two months"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2007 Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim fires the head of the Brazilian airports authority, José Carlos Pereira for recent problems including the crash of TAM Linhas Aéreas Flight 3054 and hires Sergio Gaudenzi, the President of the Brazilian Space Agency. (New York Times)","document":"RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 4 — The political consequences of the worst plane crash in Brazil’s history continued Saturday as the new defense minister fired the president of the national airports authority. Defense Minister Nelson Jobim appointed Sergio Gaudenzi, the president of the Brazilian Space Agency, to replace Gen. José Carlos Pereira, according to Flávia Oliveira, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman. Mr. Pereira had overseen the airports authority for only 13 months.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":["Sergio Gaudenzi"]},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["president","national airports authority"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["replace Gen. José Carlos Pereira"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2007 Peter Beattie resigns as the Premier of Queensland effective from Thursday with Anna Bligh tipped to replace him. (ABC News Australia)","document":"\"I've indicated to my Cabinet colleagues and my caucus colleagues and my workmates that I'll be resigning as Premier at 10:00 on Thursday,\" Mr Beattie said.\nMr Beattie says he will also resign from his seat of Brisbane Central. He says he has been considering his future since June, but will retire as premier on Thursday and will resign his seat on Friday.\nHe has been in the top job for more than nine years and is the longest serving of all current state and territory leaders in Australia.\nMr Beattie says he believes leaders should stay in the top job for about eight years, but he stayed beyond that because he wanted to see three major projects completed or well under way - health, the water grid and council amalgamations.\nMr Beattie says he is proud of his Cabinet and the Labor caucus.\n\"We've got the team that can take us forward,\" he said.\nMr Beattie also endorsed current Deputy Premier Anna Bligh as his successor. He says he is happy to be leaving the government in the hands of his deputy and that his departure is about renewal.\n\"If governments don't renew, they die. If parties don't renew, they die.\"\nMs Bligh is likely to be elected as Premier by the Labor caucus on Wednesday, becoming Queensland's first female premier.\nMr Beattie says he does not want to be a troublesome backbencher in the Bligh government.\nHe says the real tipping point in his decision was when the government opened the first stage of the water grid earlier this month.\nMr Beattie says with the first stage of the water grid having been opened, now is the right time to go.\n\"I'm not going to deny I've waxed and waned about this a number of times,\" he said.\nHe thanked a range of people including his family members and the people of Queensland.\nHe says he has made his share of mistakes, but just wants to be remembered as someone who did his best.\n\"Sometimes it was good enough, sometimes it wasn't good enough - but I always did my best,\" he said.\nHe has ruled out a move into federal politics, saying he has no interest in it and his wife will not allow it.\n\"There would be a death in the family, and that would be me,\" he joked.\nMr Beattie says he spoke with federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd for \"an hour or so\" last night about retiring.\nHe says he thinks Mr Rudd will win the federal election, but there is still a long way to go.\nHeather Beattie paid tribute to her husband, saying it had been an honour being the Premier's wife.\n\"I'd just like to congratulate Peter - he has done his best and I think he's done a wonderful job,\" she said.\nShe says Queenslanders have made the journey enjoyable, and she has enjoyed meeting wonderful people up and down the state.\nMr Beattie says he and his wife Heather have not yet thought about what to do next, but will go on a long holiday and then consider the options.\n\"We are actually craving privacy and time with the kids and family,\" he said.\nMr Beattie first hinted at standing down at the ALP state conference in July and in a weekend newspaper article, his wife urged him not to contest the next state election.\nQld Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney says Mr Beattie has left Queensland in a state of turmoil that Ms Bligh is likely to inherit.\n\"We highlighted last week in the Parliament the extent to which the ambulance service is in crisis,\" he said.\n\"It follows on from the water crisis and the health crisis and the power crisis and the kids in care crisis, all of which will be part of Peter Beattie's legacy.\n\"But there's no indication that his staged handover to Anna Bligh will bring Queenslanders any closer to a resolution of any of those issues.\"\n","event_type":"Resignation_Dismissal","arguments":[{"role":"Age of the Resignated Person","values":null},{"role":"Employment Agency","values":null},{"role":"Resign Reason","values":null},{"role":"Successor","values":null},{"role":"Approver","values":null},{"role":"Position","values":["Premier"]},{"role":"Date","values":["10:00 on Thursday"]},{"role":"Resignated Person","values":["Beattie"]},{"role":"Term of Office","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Sudan Leaders Say They Thwarted Coup Attempt by Loyalists of Former Dictator","document":"Government officials blamed the bid on supporters of longtime ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019 by a military takeover prompted by widespread popular protests.  Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said the attempted coup was an effort by military and civilian elements to halt the transition to democracy.Credit...Ashraf Shazly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Declan Walsh Published Sept. 21, 2021Updated Oct. 29, 2021 NAIROBI, Kenya — Sudanese authorities said they thwarted an attempted coup by loyalists of the deposed dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Tuesday, the latest sign of instability in an African nation battling persistent economic hardship under a fragile transitional government. Soldiers tried to seize control of a state media building in the city of Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, but they were rebuffed and arrested, Sudanese officials said. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok described it as a near miss for Sudan ’s turbulent transition to democracy, which started in 2019 with the ouster of Mr. Bashir, the longtime ruler. The prime minister blamed the failed coup on Bashir loyalists, both military and civilian. “What happened is an orchestrated coup by factions inside and outside the armed forces,” Mr. Hamdok said. “This is an extension of the attempts by remnants since the fall of the former regime to abort the civilian democratic transition.” The possibility of another coup has haunted Sudan’s transitional government since 2019, when Mr. Bashir was overthrown in a military takeover prompted by widespread popular protests. Disgruntled officers have since hatched several plots, but all were foiled before they could come to fruition. Tuesday was the first time that an attempted takeover had spilled onto the streets, said Amjad Farid, a former deputy chief of staff to the prime minister. It underscored the urgent need to get Sudan’s military under full civilian control, he said. “There will be no stability without civilian oversight over all the state apparatus, including the military and intelligence agencies,” Mr. Farid said. “A genuine reform process needs to start now.” Understand the Sudan Coup On Oct. 25, a coup led by the military  derailed Sudan’s transition to civilian rule and plunged the country back into fear and uncertainty. Prime Minister Returns: Four weeks after he was detained, ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok struck a deal with the military  intended to end a bloody standoff that has led to dozens of protester deaths . Inside the Coup: What caused Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to call a halt to Sudan’s democratic transition? Simmering Tensions: In the weeks preceding the coup, the relations between the military and civilian leadership grew fraught. Here’s why. The thwarted coup was the latest drama in an increasingly turbulent part of the world. Ethiopia is embroiled in a vicious civil war in its northern Tigray region; Somalia is torn by power struggles between its president and prime minister, and the international isolation of Eritrea has deepened with American economic sanctions, imposed last month , against the country’s army chief. More broadly, it is part of an unusual surge in attempted putsches in Africa. On Sept. 6, the military seized power in Guinea, the third West African country to experience a violent transfer of power this year. Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, a body of civilian and military leaders overseeing the country’s transition to democracy, issued a statement insisting the situation was under control. But the dramatic events, which saw tanks rolling through downtown Khartoum early Tuesday, were a reminder of the deep political fissures that threaten the transition. Some military officers are unhappy with plans to send Mr. al-Bashir, currently in jail in Khartoum, to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He faces charges including genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur in the 2000s. The Sovereignty Council, which is headed by the army chief, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, did not specify how the coup attempt had been foiled or whether it had involved any violence. The military said that 21 officers and an unspecified number of soldiers had been detained, and a search for others was ongoing. Two officials with the Forces for Freedom and Change, a coalition of civil and political groups that led the uprising against Mr. al-Bashir in 2019, said the attempt had been orchestrated by the military commander in charge of the Omdurman region. It started at about 3 a.m. when officers tried, but apparently failed, to read a statement on the state radio station. It was not immediately clear what the statement would have said. The prime minister accused the coup plotters of laying the ground for their actions by stoking unrest in eastern Sudan in recent days. This week, members of the Beja tribe blocked Port Sudan, the biggest port, and cut off highways leading to the city. By midmorning, traffic was reported to be flowing normally in central Khartoum and the authorities said they had begun to question suspected mutineers. Street protests against the attempted coup erupted in several cities, including Port Sudan. The swift return to normalcy in Khartoum belied broader worries about Sudan, where the euphoric scenes of Mr. Bashir’s ouster in 2019 have given way to a sense of unease nourished by successive crises. Public confidence in Mr. Hamdok’s government has been undermined by persistent economic hardship — the spark for the protests that toppled Mr. al-Bashir. Some Sudanese also worry that the army is not truly willing to share power. In November, the army chief of staff is expected to hand over leadership of the Sovereignty Council to Mr. Hamdok — a largely ceremonial post, but nonetheless one that signifies full civilian control of Sudan for the first time in decades. Last year, Mr. Hamdok survived an assassination attempt when gunfire struck his convoy as he traveled to work in Khartoum. Although the United States lifted decades-old economic sanctions against Sudan last year in return for its government’s agreeing to recognize Israel, high inflation and soaring unemployment have driven popular discontent. Tough economic changes demanded by the International Monetary Fund to stem inflation, which is running at more than 300 percent a year, and to help the country qualify for new loans, have contributed to the sense of unease.","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":["Omar Hassan al-Bashir"]},{"role":"Country","values":["Sudan"]},{"role":"Army","values":["an attempted coup by loyalists of the deposed dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Oct. 29, 2021"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Afghanistan and the New Global (Dis)Order: Great Game and Uncertain Neighbours","document":"On 15 August 2021, the world watched anxiously as the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan and squandered the West’s US$2 trillion. [1] The Taliban rose to power in 1996 with the support of Pakistan. On par with its ideology, the group opposed all aspects of modernisation and clamped down on minorities, education, and women’s and human rights. [2] It also harboured and nurtured extremists, transnational criminals and traffickers for revenues, weapons, and ideological sustenance. This made the organisation a pariah and concern for the world. The US overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan in retaliation for the September 2001 attacks, but in the absence of a coherent strategy, the US and its allies dawdled in Afghanistan for 20 years. Originally, the aim was to eliminate al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. [3] It then became about defeating the Taliban; by 2002 the aim was to eliminate the extremist ecosystem through democracy. NATO and its allies thus began reconstructing the armed forces and civilian and military institutions. In 2009, the US’s priority yet again shifted to troop surge and aiding and launching airstrikes in Pakistan. [4] Finally, the US withdrew in 2021 stating that it has achieved its aim of dismantling the al-Qaeda and killing bin Laden. [5] Despite this dawdling, the US’s presence in Afghanistan had also provided security and stability for the region and beyond, by keeping the terrorists, transnational criminals, and traffickers preoccupied and checked. But this seems to be at stake with the Taliban now back in power. Several states have thus resorted to a wait-and-watch approach, hoping that a ‘reformed’ Taliban will build an ‘inclusive government’ that will not sideline women or people of other ethnicities. At the heart of this approach is the vested interests of these individual states. They remain cautious of the security vacuum, refugee crisis, attacks on minorities, transnational crime, and terror networks emanating from Afghanistan. The states would thus extend their recognition to the Taliban regime based on the group’s willingness and ability to mitigate the spillover of these threats. The Taliban’s return to power also coincides with a structural and geopolitical shift. Over the span of 20 years, the international structure has been tilting towards a multipolar world, where the US-China competition continues to take the high spot. The West and other regional allies that could not defend the values of democracy are now finding themselves in a tight spot as their influence and rules-based world order continues to be questioned by the revisionist trio of China, Russia and Iran. In this context, the geopolitical and economic positioning of Afghanistan matters significantly for all the regional and major powers. Therefore, setting the stage for the new great game. A lot seems to be at stake in the international order with this regime change in Afghanistan. This volume explores how the Taliban’s takeover will impact the prevalent world order. The essays in this series, updated as of 1 November 2021, will be divided into four broad sections. The first section, ‘The Unfolding Great Game’, discusses the new great game in Afghanistan. The West’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and incapability to stand up for human rights and democracy indicates the decline of the Western world order. On the other hand, China is wasting no opportunity to carve its spheres of influence and order. It will thus formulate its policies based on its realpolitik and approach towards international legal norms. The US’s withdrawal has also helped Russia belittle the West and show a commitment to the security of the Central Asian states. In this context, Russia’s role and involvement in Afghanistan will only increase. The US’s hasty withdrawal has also indicated how little the former understands the interests of regional allies like India, thus highlighting the weakness and challenges of its grand Indo-Pacific strategy. The second section, ‘The Future of Regional Organisations’, discusses how the Afghan crisis will impact regional organisations. The European Union lacks a coherent strategy to deal with illicit trafficking, terrorism, and the refugee crisis emerging from Afghanistan. The member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have also failed to build a coherent strategy as they have prioritised individual interests over collective benefits. The regime change has also begun to disrupt the functioning of the already decaying South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. These regional organisations should therefore act on the Afghanistan crisis to stay relevant and avoid any further damage to their functioning and cohesion. The third section, ‘The Neighbourhood’s Apprehensions’, explains why the Taliban’s revival worries the South and Central Asian states. In South Asia, all the small states, including the most vulnerable ones like Bangladesh, have resorted to a wait-and-watch approach against the Taliban regime. Their policies are a product of concerns like internal security, domestic politics, external factors, refugees, and economic implications . The US’s withdrawal has also jeopardised the economy and economic security of landlocked states such as Nepal. Similarly, extremism, drug trafficking, refugee crisis, cross-border terror attacks, economic cooperation and the plight of minority communities continue to dictate the Taliban policies of the Central Asian states, including Iran. The final section, ‘Proxies, Terror, and a Non-picturesque Neighbour’, evaluates the new, old, and thriving landscape of terrorism in Afghanistan. The country continues to witness the presence of the Pakistani deep-state, and the emerging cooperation and competition amongst various terror outfits. This is likely to impact the security of all neighbours, including in the long-protracted conflict in Kashmir. Thus, even two decades after the war on terror, transnational terror threats remain persistent, and this makes it more valuable for the world to learn strategical, tactical and political lessons from their failed war on terror. This volume, therefore, attempts to explain how the Taliban’s takeover has affected the prevalent world order by highlighting the new great game, the relevance of the regional organisation, the apprehensions of Central and South Asian states, and the terror landscape of the region.","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":null},{"role":"Country","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["15 August 2021"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":["Taliban"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mali delays talks that could decide post-coup election date","document":"Representatives of the signatory groups of the Algiers agreement are pictured during a meeting with the United Nations Security Council delegation in visit in Bamako, Mali October 24, 2021. REUTERS/ Paul Lorgerie/File Photo  BAMAKO, Nov 23 (Reuters) - National reform consultations in Mali that were scheduled for December have been postponed to an unspecified date, organisers said on Monday, likely further delaying a much-anticipated decision on the calendar for post-coup elections. The interim government, which took power following a military overthrow in August 2020, signalled last month that the December talks would decide the schedule for a return to constitutional rule via the ballot box. But the head of the high-level panel overseeing discussions said the date had been pushed back because participants wanted to find the broadest possible consensus. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register A new schedule will be announced in due course, the panel's president Zeini Moulaye said in a statement, without giving further details. West Africa's main political and economic bloc has already imposed sanctions against the transitional authorities after they told the organisation they would not hold presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 27, 2022 as they originally promised after the coup. read more Mali's transition is seen as a test of West African leaders' commitment to protecting democracy against a return to the frequent putsches that earned the region its reputation as a \"coup belt\" in the decades after colonialism ended.","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":["Feb. 27, 2022"]},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":null},{"role":"Country","values":["Mali"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["August 2020"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Taliban enter Afghan capital as US diplomats evacuate by chopper","document":"An Afghan soldier stands in a military vehicle on a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer  Taliban enter Kabul from all sides - interior ministry official U.S. diplomats evacuated by chopper President's office says firing heard but situation under control Eastern city of Jalalabad falls without a fight KABUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents entered the Afghanistan capital Kabul on Sunday, an interior ministry official said, as the United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter. The senior official told Reuters the Taliban were coming in \"from all sides\" but gave no further details. A tweet from the Afghan Presidential palace account said firing had been heard at a number of points around Kabul but that security forces, in coordination with international partners, had control of the city.  U.S. officials said the diplomats were being ferried to the airport from the embassy in the fortified Wazir Akbar Khan district. More American troops were being sent to help in the evacuations after the Taliban's lightning advances brought the Islamist group to Kabul in a matter of days. Just last week, a U.S. intelligence estimate said Kabul could hold out for at least three months. \"Core\" U.S. team members were working from the Kabul airport, a U.S. official said, while a NATO official said several EU staff had moved to a safer, undisclosed location in the capital. A Taliban official told Reuters the group did not want any casualties as it took charge but had not declared a ceasefire. There was no immediate word on the situation from President Ashraf Ghani, who said on Saturday he was in urgent consultations with local leaders and international partners on the situation. Earlier on Sunday, the insurgents captured the eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, giving them control of one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan. They also took over the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport the only way out of Afghanistan that is still in government hands. The capture of Jalalabad followed the Taliban's seizure of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif late on Saturday, also with little fighting. \"There are no clashes taking place right now in Jalalabad because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban,\" a Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters. \"Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives.\" A video clip distributed by the Taliban showed people cheering and shout Allahu Akbar - God is greatest - as a convoy of pick-up trucks entered the city with fighters brandishing machine guns and the white Taliban flag. After U.S.-led forces withdrew the bulk of the their remaining troops in the last month, the Taliban campaign accelerated as the Afghan military's defences appeared to collapse . President Joe Biden on Saturday authorised the deployment of 5,000 U.S. troops to help evacuate citizens and ensure an \"orderly and safe\" drawdown of military personnel. A U.S. defence official said that included 1,000 newly approved troops from the 82nd Airborne Division. Taliban fighters entered Mazar-i-Sharif virtually unopposed as security forces escaped up the highway to Uzbekistan, about 80 km (50 miles) to the north, provincial officials said. Unverified video on social media showed Afghan army vehicles and men in uniforms crowding the iron bridge between the Afghan town of Hairatan and Uzbekistan. Two influential militia leaders supporting the government - Atta Mohammad Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum - also fled . Noor said on social media that the Taliban had been handed control of Balkh province, where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, due to a \"conspiracy.\" read more POPULARLY ACCEPTED In a statement late on Saturday, the Taliban said its rapid gains showed it was popularly accepted by the Afghan people and reassured both Afghans and foreigners that they would be safe. The Islamic Emirate, as the Taliban calls itself, \"will, as always, protect their life, property and honour, and create a peaceful and secure environment for its beloved nation,\" it said, adding that diplomats and aid workers would also face no problems. Afghans have fled the provinces to enter Kabul in recent days, fearing a return to hardline Islamist rule . Early on Sunday, refugees from Taliban-controlled provinces were seen unloading belongings from taxis and families stood outside embassy gates, while the city's downtown was packed with people stocking up on supplies. Hundreds of people slept huddled in tents or in the open in the city, by roadsides or in car parks, a resident said on Saturday night. \"You can see the fear in their faces,\" he said. Biden said his administration had told Taliban officials in talks in Qatar that any action that put U.S. personnel at risk \"will be met with a swift and strong U.S. military response.\" He has faced rising domestic criticism as the Taliban have taken city after city far more quickly than predicted. The president has stuck to a plan, initiated by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan by Aug. 31. Biden said it is up to the Afghan military to hold its own territory. \"An endless American presence in the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable to me,\" Biden said on Saturday. Qatar, which has been hosting so-far inconclusive peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, said it had urged the insurgents to cease fire. Ghani has given no sign of responding to a Taliban demand that he resign as a condition for any ceasefire. ","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":null},{"role":"Country","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["ugust 15, 2021"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":["Taliban"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"‘Remembrance will be difficult’: Afghanistan veterans reeling from Taliban takeover","document":"Former major says withdrawal has prompted some British veterans to question value of time in country Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Sat 13 Nov 2021 08.00 GMT Last modified on Sat 13 Nov 2021 08.02 GMT This year’s Remembrance Sunday commemorations will be the first since last summer’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan , events that have prompted many British veterans to question the value of their time in the country. One of those is Rob Shenton, a former major who has suffered from bouts of depression and PTSD, and served two tours in the country before he was medically discharged by the army in 2016 after 25 years, after a period of poor mental health. Five years into civilian life, the unexpected Taliban takeover in August prompted a fresh bout of soul-searching. “Deep down, it has affected me. I asked myself: was it worth all that effort, did it lead to my medical discharge?” he said. It has meant that this year, the 49-year-old veteran, a spokesman for the Help for Heroes charity, isn’t planning to attend the Cenotaph or any other parade on Sunday – and is calling on the public to think differently about who British veterans are today. “The number of world war two veterans is now diminishing. Today’s veterans are much younger, people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; they could even be in their 20s. People who go to their local cenotaph should look around: there are going to be a few lost souls out there,” said Shenton, who served in the Engineering Corps. Charities reported a surge in contacts from Afghan veterans this summer as it became clear that the west’s former enemies in the country, the Taliban, were staging a high-speed takeover, culminating in the capture of Kabul. “My Afghanistan veteran patients are still fed up with the withdrawal,” said Dr Walter Busuttil, the director of research at Combat Stress, a charity that helps treat cases of PTSD. Many had now begun to come to terms with it, he said, but “the nature of the withdrawal will make remembrance this year even more difficult for some”. Read more Shenton worked as a community liaison officer in Musa Qala, Helmand on one of his tours in 2008, where he saw “post-suicide-bomb incidents – images that will always stay with you”. The tour as a whole was full of moments that were “heart-stopping, heartbreaking, heart-rending”, he added. A particularly memorable episode involved Shenton arranging the transportation of the body of an Afghan whom they had worked with, who had been killed by the Taliban. “We made the decision to respect Islamic custom and ensure he could be buried before sundown,” he said, which required a helicopter to take the body to the family. “It was not a difficult decision, but it was a difficult period. At the end of the day, he was a friend. What I just remember is, as local people were putting the body into a coffin, one of them shook my hand and said thank you.” Shenton says he felt proud of the work that he did on that tour, working closely with Afghans, and the UK Foreign Office and Overseas Development Agency, engaged in post-conflict reconstruction, and arranging the employment of locals in rebuilding programmes. “We always knew there would be a withdrawal, as long ago as 2012. But the surprise was what happened afterwards in terms of the Taliban takeover,” Shenton added, saying the events prompted an intense discussion among Afghanistan veterans at home. “There were lots of different opinions. Some said we did our job, others felt a sense of total loss; many were somewhere in the middle ground. But we’ve got to honour those people that didn’t come back – the sacrifices can’t have been in vain,” he said. However, for Shenton, the aftermath of August’s messy retreat has meant he will not be at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, where he has previously represented the Help for Heroes charity on parade, or any other formal memorial service this year. Instead, the former soldier has chosen to take part in a veterans event at a military orienteering competition in Aldershot, where “I’ll be around the armed forces community, around people who understand. Because of what’s been in the news, it’s just different.”","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":null},{"role":"Country","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["August"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":["Taliban"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Major coup for Taliban as fighters take Afghan city of Kunduz","document":"Sun 8 Aug 2021 22.49 BST First published on Sun 8 Aug 2021 15.51 BST The Taliban have claimed a huge symbolic victory after their fighters seized a large city for the first time in northern Afghanistan as part of a seemingly unstoppable offensive in which they have captured five provincial capitals in just three days. Armed men swept into Kunduz on Sunday, a strategic city close to the border with Tajikistan and an important political and military hub. By mid-morning they controlled the city centre while pro-government forces retreated to the nearby airport. Residents fled as smoke from the city’s burning market engulfed the sky . Videos posted by Taliban fighters showed the city’s abandoned police compound , complete with cars and its main security and intelligence buildings intact. “The enemy left behind vehicles, weapons and equipment,” tweeted the Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, promising further advances. ","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":null},{"role":"Country","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Army","values":["Taliban"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sun 8 Aug 2021"]},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":["Taliban"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Afghanistan crisis updates | September 2, 2021","document":"The question still remains if many countries across the world will recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and change the foreign policy accordingly. Here are the latest developments:   Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada to be named Supreme Leader The Taliban's top religious leader Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada as Afghanistan's supreme authority, a senior member of the group has said. “Consultations are almost finalised on the new government, and the necessary discussions have also been held about the cabinet,” Mufti Inamullah Samangani, a senior official in the Taliban's information and culture commission, said on Wednesday. He said the group is all set to announce the formation of the new government in Kabul in the next three days. In the new set-up, 60-year-old Mullah Akhundzada will be the Supreme Leader of the Taliban government, which will follow the pattern of the Iranian leadership. In Iran, the supreme leader is the highest political and religious authority of the country. He ranks above the president and appoints the heads of the military, the government, and the judiciary. The supreme leader has final say in the political, religious and military affairs of the country. “Mullah Akhunzada will be the leader of the government and there should be no question on this,” he said, indicating that the president will work under his oversight. Mullah Akhunzada is the top religious leader of the Taliban and has been serving at a mosque in Kachlaak area of Balochistan province for 15 years. - PTI Pakistan Pakistan shuts key border crossing with Afghanistan Pakistan on Thursday temporarily closed a key border crossing with Afghanistan, apparently due to fear of the influx of refugees eager to leave their homeland after the Taliban seized power last month. Chaman border crossing - the second-largest commercial border point with Afghanistan after the Torkham commercial town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - has been closed due to security threats, Geo News reported, citing sources. The crossing links Pakistan’s border town of Chaman with Spin Boldak in the Afghan province of Kandahar and is frequented by the Afghan as well as used for trade between the two countries. Thousands of Afghans have been amassing around the crossing to sneak into Pakistan which has already announced that it was not in a position to accept more refugees, according to security officials. Already around 3 million Afghan refugees have been living in Pakistan, some for more than three decades, since the invasion of their country by the erstwhile USSR in 1979.   China China reacts positively to Russian plan to hold first 'Extended Troika' meeting in Kabul after Taliban seizes power   China on Thursday reacted positively to a Russian proposal to convene a new meeting of the 'Extended Troika' on Afghanistan in Kabul - the first such conference since the Taliban seized power last month. Russia plans to convene a new meeting of the 'Extended Troika' on Afghanistan in Kabul after the resumption of commercial flights, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Sputnik. The \"extended Troika\" meeting was earlier held in Qatar on August 11. Talks under the format had earlier taken place on March 18 and April 30.   United Kingdom UK says there is scope for dialogue with Taliban The United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary says that although the U.K. won’t soon recognize the Taliban’s government, 'there is an important scope' for dialogue with Afghanistan’s new rulers. In a joint press conference in Doha with his Qatari counterpart, Dominic Raab said he supported the  'engagement' with the Taliban to test the group’s wide-ranging promises. He cited the Taliban’s pledges to protect freedom of travel for Afghans and foreigners, to form an inclusive government and, significantly, to prevent international terrorist groups from using the war-scarred country as a base. Mr. Raab said: “In all of these areas, we will judge them by what they do, not just by what they say.” Qatar Qatar working with Taliban to reopen Kabul airport 'as soon as possible' Qatar is working with the Taliban to reopen Kabul's airport as soon as possible, its foreign minister said on Thursday, urging the hardline Islamists to allow Afghans to leave. More than 123,000 foreign nationals and Afghans fled the country in the airlift operation, but many more are desperate to depart. \"It's very important... that the Taliban demonstrate their commitment to provide safe passage and freedom of movement for the people of Afghanistan,\" Sheikh Mohammed said. Qatar is \"engaging with (the Taliban) and also with Turkey if they can provide any technical assistance\", he added. Afghanistan Taliban close to forming government as women protest The Taliban on Thursday said that they were close to forming a new government, as dozens of women held a rare protest for the right to work under a new regime that faces enormous economic hurdles and deep public mistrust. The announcement of a cabinet, which two Taliban sources told AFP,  may take place on Friday following afternoon prayers. It would come just days after the chaotic pullout of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan, ending America's longest war with an astounding military victory for the Islamist group. Speculation is rife about the make-up of a new government, although a senior official said Wednesday that women were unlikely to be included. Senior leader Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai -- a hardliner  in the first Taliban administration -- told BBC Pashto in an interview that while women could continue working, there \"may not\" be a place for them in the cabinet of any future government or any other top post. In the western city of Herat, some 50 women took to the streets in a rare, defiant protest for the right to work and over the lack of women's participation in the new government. \"It is our right to have education, work and security,\" the protesters chanted in unison, said an AFP journalist who witnessed the protest. \"We are not afraid, we are united,\" they added. Afghanistan Afghan Paralympian makes debut after top-secret evacuation Afghan taekwondo athlete Zakai Khudadadi competed in the Paralympic Games on September 2, becoming the first female Afghan to do so since Athens 2004, after a secret international effort to help her get out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The 22-year-old and her compatriot Hossain Rasouli arrived in Tokyo on August 28 for help to leave Kabul after the Taliban swept to power. -REUTERS International U.K.'s Raab to discuss Afghanistan with Qatar's emir on September 2 British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will on September 2 visit Doha to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Mr. Raab's office said. \"The prospects of getting Kabul airport up and running and safe passage for foreign nationals and Afghans across land borders (are) top of the agenda,\" the Foreign Office said in a statement. Mr. Raab will also meet his Qatari counterpart and the British embassy to Afghanistan, which has temporarily relocated to Qatar, his office said. -REUTERS Afghanistan Taliban preparing to reveal new Afghan government amid economic turmoil Afghanistan's Taliban rulers were preparing on September 2 to unveil their new government as the economy teetered on the edge of collapse more than two weeks after the Islamist militia captured Kabul and brought a chaotic end to 20 years of war. Taliban official Ahmadullah Muttaqi said on social media a ceremony was being prepared at the presidential palace in Kabul, while private broadcaster Tolo said an announcement on a new government was imminent. -REUTERS USA 'It looked apocalyptic': Crew describes Afghan departure August 30 night were the five last C-17s to leave the country after a chaotic and deadly airlift evacuation that marked the end of America's involvement in the Afghanistan war. “It just looked apocalyptic,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Braden Coleman, who was in charge of monitoring the outside of his aircraft for artillery fire and other threats. “It looked like one of those zombie movies where all the airplanes had been destroyed, their doors were open, the wheels were broken. There was a plane that was burned all the way. You could see the cockpit was there, and the whole rest of the plane looked like the skeleton of a fish.” “It was just definitely very tense, and we were definitely all on edge watching everything going on to make sure that we were ready,” said Air Force Capt. Kirby Wedan, pilot of MOOSE81, who led the final formation of five aircraft out. -AP International Will run out of food stocks in Afghanistan by end of this month: senior UN official warns The United Nations' food stockpiles in Afghanistan could run out this month and there is a critical need for $200 million to provide food to the most vulnerable, a senior UN official has warned. Deputy Special Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said that at least one-third of the conflict-torn country's population currently is “not sure that they will have a meal every day or not. This is what is going on.” “By the end of September, the stocks which the World Food Programme has in the country will be out. We will be out of stock. We will not be able to provide those essential food items because we'll be out of stock,\" Alakbarov told reporters during a virtual press briefing from Kabul on September 1.","event_type":"Regime Change","arguments":[{"role":"Time for Dignitaries to Resign","values":null},{"role":"Commanders of the Army","values":["Mullah Akhundzada"]},{"role":"Country","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Head of the Government","values":null},{"role":"Provisional Government","values":["Taliban"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2015 Verizon employees in nine states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia) and Washington, D.C. vote to go on strike on August 1 if disputes between the union and the company result in no new contracts. (New Haven Register)","document":"Verizon workers in nine states have voted to go on strike if necessary over a dispute about a new contract, a union official said at a rally Saturday.\n“Our members are clear and they are determined,” said Dennis Trainor, an official with the Communications Workers of America union. “They reject management’s harsh concessionary demands.”\nAt the rally in New York, the CWA announced that 86 percent of Verizon workers who voted in a recent poll backed strike action if required. A contract that covers 39,000 workers represented by the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers expires at midnight on August 1.\nThe contract covers employees the nine states from Massachusetts to Virginia who work for Verizon’s wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service.\nThe unions say the telecom giant is demanding that workers sharply increase their health care contributions and make concession on pensions. Verizon spokesman Rich Young said that the company had made the unions “a solid proposal that recognizes the changing communications landscape and offers a path toward success.”\nMany of the aspects of the contracts that were set “decades ago” were no longer relevant in an industry that was facing increased pressure and structural change, Young said. He also said that the company had been training non-union employees to take on additional roles to ensure that there was no disruption to customers in the event of a strike.\nThe contract also affects wireline workers in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, as well as Washington, D.C.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["August 1"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers","the Communications Workers of America union"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Verizon workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["over a dispute about a new contract"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Verizon"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2015 150 million workers go on strike in India to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi's labour market reforms. (Voice of America)","document":"                Millions of workers in India held a one-day nationwide strike Wednesday to protest government plans for sweeping labor reforms that protesters say will put jobs at risk and hurt ordinary people. The shutdown highlights the hurdles the government is encountering in implementing economic reforms.\nAbout 150 million workers shut down several industries, coal and mining operations, and state-run banks. They demanded the government roll back plans to implement stricter labor laws and scrap its program to sell stakes in some state-owned industries.\nAs taxi and autorickshaw drivers joined the strike, transport also went off the roads in major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. Schools and colleges shut down in several cities.\nSporadic clashes between police and activists were reported in the eastern city of Kolkata.\nJob security\nThe strike was spearheaded by 10 major trade unions, who say the government’s planned overhaul of labor laws will risk the welfare of millions of workers in the country and lessen job security.\nSanjeeva Reddy, president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, told VOA they are protesting what he called the government’s pro-business policies.\n“Without any consultation and any discussion they want to bring new legislation against the laborers and against the trade unions, which is one-sided just to support employers and the capitalists,” said Reddy.\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi has mounted a huge campaign to implement business-friendly reforms to attract foreign investment and turn India into a manufacturing hub.\nTwo bills relating to labor have been drafted, but they have not yet been introduced in parliament.\nDiscussions with trade unions have stalled on issues such as retrenchment, closure of factories, formation of unions and a hike in minimum wage to $250 a month.\nSeeking consensus\nThe most contentious clause relates to permitting companies employing less than 300 workers to lay them off without government approval. The current cap is 100.\nThe strike demonstrated that bringing trade unions and opposition parties on board to change labor laws will be extremely tough. The opposition already has stalled key tax and land reforms in the upper house of parliament, where the government lacks a majority.  \nSatish Misra at the Observer Research Foundation said the government faces a tough task ahead. “Problem is labor reforms need a lot more consensus and the government has not been able to bring different stakeholders on board.”\nThe World Bank says India has one of the world’s most rigid labor markets. That has discouraged manufacturing, which accounts for 16 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["one-day"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Millions of workers in India"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["to protest government plans for sweeping labor reforms that protesters say will put jobs at risk and hurt ordinary people","demanded the government roll back plans to implement stricter labor laws and scrap its program to sell stakes in some state-owned industries"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2019 A pilots' strike over a pay dispute causes British Airways to cancel \"the vast majority\" of its 850 daily flights on Monday and Tuesday. It is the first pilots' strike action at the company since the 1970s. (Bloomberg via Gulf News)","document":"London: British Airways canceled hundreds of flights as chances dwindled for a breakthrough that would avert the first pilots’ strike in decades.\nAfter the weekend yielded little progress toward a resolution of the pay dispute, a British Airways spokeswoman said Sunday that the airline had canceled “the vast majority” of its 850 daily flights on Monday and Tuesday.\nThe disruptions will affect mainly London, where BA operates from its hub at Heathrow airport and also Gatwick. The outages will also extend to other locales such as Edinburgh, though London City, popular with business travelers, won’t be affected as those flights are operated BA’s CityFlyer affiliate.\nPilots vowed to strike following a breakdown in talks over a new contract. The airline has accused the British Airline Pilots’ Association union of not acting in good faith by making “an eleventh hour inflated proposal” which would cost an additional 50 million pounds ($62 million).\nBalpa had put forward a new contract proposal last week and pledged to call off the walkout if management returned to the bargaining table.\nBoth sides have said they’re open to more talks, though the airline insists that terms of the latest union proposal amount to preconditions it won’t accept.\nThe airline has sent an email warning the pilots that anyone who goes on strike will lose generous travel perks for themselves and their families for the next three years, the FT reported.\nThe strike would be the company’s first involving pilots since the 1970s and could cause travel chaos for customers at the tail end of the busy summer season. Passengers that are affected have been rebooked with other airlines or given alternate dates to fly, the BA spokeswoman said. Others have been given refunds.\nThe current demands relate to pay, profit sharing, and a share-awards program, and come after cockpit crew took salary cuts in the wake of the financial crisis to help bolster the airline’s finances, according to the union.\nThe union called for the action after mediated talks with management at the state-backed Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service ended without a deal. Cockpit crews voted to strike by a 93% majority in a poll in July, with the carrier saying the disruption could cost 40 million pounds a day.\nBalpa is also campaigning at Ryanair Holdings Plc, where U.K. pilots plan to walk out for an additional seven days. Five days of strikes failed to disrupt schedules or bring the discounter - which uses many non-unionized pilots on contract - back to the bargaining table.\n        \n   ","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":["the disruption could cost 40 million pounds a day"]},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["airline"]},{"role":"Duration","values":["Five days"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["British Airline Pilots’ Association"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["pilots"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["a resolution of the pay","demands relate to pay, profit sharing, and a share-awards program, and come after cockpit crew took salary cuts in the wake of the financial crisis to help bolster the airline’s finances"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["failed to disrupt schedules or bring the discounter - which uses many non-unionized pilots on contract - back to the bargaining table","ended without a deal"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["British Airways"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2019 Parisian metro workers launch a general strike, the largest of its kind since 2007, in protest at Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms. Ten of the sixteen metro lines and two major regional train lines are shut down during morning rush hour. (Reuters)","document":"PARIS (Reuters) - Parisian commuters faced travel misery on Friday as metro workers went on strike over plans to reduce their retirement privileges under President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms.\nTen out of the 16 metro lines in Paris and two major regional train lines were totally shut as the morning rush hour got under way, leaving commuters scrambling to find alternatives to get to work.\nAt the Gare Saint-Lazare in central Paris, commuters swarmed off trains operated by the state-run SNCF before stopping in their tracks to consult bus routes on the cell phones.\nLong queues backed up at bus stops as traffic was snarled at busy intersections. At the Gare du Nord train station, Europe’s busiest, commuters suffered crowded platforms and long waits on the few metro lines running a reduced service.\n“I am walking to work today and will be on the streets for at least four hours,” Anthony, 21, who works in a restaurant in West Paris, told Reuters on his way to start a shift running nearly to midnight.\nUnions want the strike, expected to be the largest since 2007 in Paris, to send a warning to Macron’s government as it launches one of the most perilous reforms of his presidency -- to merge France’s 42 different pension systems into a single points-based system.\nPrime Minister Edouard Philippe promised on Thursday to take the time to listen to unions and broader public opinion after criticism in the past for turning a deaf ear.\n“The prime minister’s announcements will not have any impact. The strike has been launched and participation will be massive,” Frederic Ruiz, who heads the CFE-CGC union at the Paris public transport company, RATP, told Reuters.\n‘TREADING CAREFULLY’\nThe government did not waver in the face of rolling strikes last year over a reform of the state rail company, but Macron has since been weakened politically by anti-government protests at the end of 2018 and early this year.\nThose protests, which shocked the nation with some of the worst street violence in decades, were triggered by anger over falling living standards and also concerns Macron was pushing his reform agenda too hard.\n“When you start messing with the pension system, it’s better to tread carefully,” Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin told Europe 1 radio.\nWhile promising to be open to external input on the pension reform, Philippe said that he was determined to see through the pension reform plan.\n“The country’s got to change. It’s a global world now and we can’t work in France like we used to,” said commuter Etienne Leblanc, a sales director in the finance sector.\nThe pension regime specific to RATP workers allows train drivers and other staff that work underground to retire at 52, a decade earlier than the normal legal retirement age for a full public pension.\nJunior budget minister Olivier Dussopt said that RATP workers’ pension contributions covered only 40% of payouts, leaving the state on the hook for the rest.\n“If the state stopped paying, the system would explode,” he added.\nPrevious reforms have already rolled back some of RATP workers rights and increased how long they have to pay into the system, but workers are worried they will have to make further sacrifices.\nAn Odoxa-Dentsu poll found that nearly three out of four people surveyed did not think that Macron’s government would come up with a good reform.\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["metro"]},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["the CFE-CGC union at the Paris public transport company"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["metro workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["over plans to reduce their retirement privileges under President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["Prime Minister Edouard Philippe promised on Thursday to take the time to listen to unions and broader public opinion after criticism in the past for turning a deaf ear"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["President Emmanuel Macron"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2019 Millions of young people take to the streets and numerous businesses worldwide go on strike days before the UN Climate Summit, demanding that further action be taken to confront climate change. (Reuters) (NBC News)","document":" Follow NBC News If you've got a hankering for an ice cream cone to cool off Friday, you won't be able to get one at Ben & Jerry's — at least for part of the day. The company, along with several other brands and retailers, will temporarily close its doors in support of the Global Climate Strike.\nThe strike, which begins three days before the U.N. Climate Summit, hopes to put pressure on politicians and policy makers to combat climate change. Sixteen-year-old Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, will lead the worldwide movement in New York on Friday. A second wave of protests is also scheduled for Sept. 27.\nOver 6,000 websites are also striking on Friday including Tumblr, Imgur and World Press. These websites are donating ad space, spreading the world on social media, and adding a banner to their websites in solidarity with Thunberg and other young people striking for climate change.\n\"It is becoming clear that climate is a crisis right now and it affects every single person. Every corner of the world needs to take action,\" said Shuo Peskoe-Yang, with Fight for the Future, a digital rights organization. \"Companies and websites are seeing the writing on the wall.\"\nCompanies like Burton and Patagonia will be shutting down both their online and physical stores. For 24 hours, Burton.com will not take orders or make any sales worldwide — the site will re-direct users to the Global Climate Strike website to help build awareness for the cause. In addition, all of their owned stores will be used as a community space for strikers. Patagonia will close its doors worldwide to empower employees to join their local demonstrations.\n\"For decades, many corporations have single-mindedly pursued profits at the expense of everything else — employees, communities and the air, land and water we all share,\" Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario wrote in a LinkedIn post. \"Now we face a dangerously hot and fast-changing climate that is exacerbating natural disasters, causing food and water shortages, and speeding us toward the biggest economic catastrophe in history. The plain truth is that capitalism needs to evolve if humanity is going to survive.\"\nShe says that while it is encouraging to see some of the world's most powerful corporations — including JP Morgan Chase & Co, General Motors, and Amazon — acknowledge that they have responsibilities to the state of the environment, they must put their words into action.\nAmazon employees are planning to take action against their employer. More than 1,400 Amazon employees are expected to strike against the company's practices that have contributed to the current climate crisis, marking the first walkout at the company's Seattle headquarters.\nAmazon Employees for Climate Justice, the group behind the protest, lists three specific demands: zero emissions by 2030, zero custom Amazon Web Services (AWS) for fossil fuel companies, and zero funding for climate politicians and lobbyists who deny climate change.\n\"Amazon is one of the world’s most innovative companies. We pride ourselves on being a leader. But in the face of the climate crisis, a true leader is one who reaches zero emissions first, not one who slides in at the last possible moment,\" the group wrote in a Medium Post. \"We know that reaching zero emissions by 2030 won’t be easy. But this is not the time to shy away from the challenge.\"\nGoogle and Microsoft employees are also planning to protest on Friday.\nAs of Tuesday afternoon, Google Workers for Action on Climate tweeted that over 400 employees have committed to join a local climate strike.\n\"I support climate actions because we only have one earth and keeping it alive and healthy is one of the biggest responsibilities that we have,\" one Google employee shared on the twitter account. \"I don't want my kids to look at me in 20 years asking how could you screw up like this.\"\nWhile few major companies have made the pledge to strike in solidarity with protesters, employees are hoping to send a message to their corporations: to take responsibility for their impact on the planet and its people.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Burton and Patagonia"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Greta Thunberg","Over 6,000 websites","More than 1,400 Amazon employees"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["company's practices that have contributed to the current climate crisis","climate change"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Amazon employees","young people"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["politicians and policy makers","employer"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2019 Millions of young people take to the streets and numerous businesses worldwide go on strike days before the UN Climate Summit, demanding that further action be taken to confront climate change. (Reuters) (NBC News)","document":"(Reuters) - Millions of young people flooded the streets of cities around the world on Friday to demand political leaders take urgent steps to stop climate change, uniting in a worldwide protest inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.\nThunberg on the climate march she inspired around the world\n01:03\nAlarmed by images of the Greenland ice sheets melting and the Amazon rain forests burning, students and workers abandoned schools, shops and offices in nearly every corner of the globe, aiming to stop what they see as a looming environmental catastrophe.\nThe protests started in the Pacific islands, where rising sea levels threaten a way of life, and followed the sun across Australia, Japan, Southeast Asia and on to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. The coordinated student “strike” culminated in New York’s Wall Street, where some investors have embraced the fossil fuel industry.\nMassive crowds overwhelmed the streets of lower Manhattan, chanting “Save our planet!” while anticipating an address by Thunberg, an international figure who sailed across the Atlantic in an emissions-free yacht ahead of next week’s climate summit at the United Nations.\n“Right now we are the ones who are making a difference. If no one else will take action, then we will,” Thunberg told tens of thousands of people gathered at a park with a view of the Statue of Liberty.\nOnce she took the stage, the crowd chanted her name, then went silent to hang on her every word. As she paused between sentences, people erupted into applause.\n“If you belong to that small group of people who feel threatened by us, then we have some very bad news for you. Because this is only the beginning. Change is coming whether they like it or not,” she concluded.\nDemonstrators in Paris raised a painting of Thunberg as the Virgin Mary, a halo around her head reading, “Our house is on fire.”\n“She’s like the icon of our generation,” New York protester Fiamma Cochrane, 17, said, highlighting the leadership role of young people in the international movement to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.\nRelated Coverage\nSee more stories\nFour million people participated worldwide including 300,000 in New York, organizers with the anti-fossil fuels group 350.org said. Reuters could not verify the crowd sizes.\nConcern has escalated since U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the international Paris Accord on climate change and took a series of steps to dismantle environmental protections, including moving on Thursday to block stricter vehicle emissions standards in California.\nTrump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are among the world’s only national leaders who publicly question the science of climate change, and they are not taking part in next week’s U.N. climate summit.\nThousands gathered across Brazil to take aim at Bolsonaro, who they say is allowing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest to clear space for soy beans and cattle ranching. In August, fires there surged to their greatest level since 2010.\n“The policy of the Bolsonaro government is the policy of environmental destruction and deepening the climate crisis ... this is why we’re on strike,” said Marcela Pimentel Miranda, an organizer for Youth for Climate’s affiliate in Brasilia.\nOne protester in Sao Paulo held up a picture of Bolsonaro and Trump beneath the hand-written “Abolish fossil fools!”\nDemonstrators in Thailand stormed the environment ministry and feigned death, while activists in Berlin and Munich stood on melting blocks of ice with nooses around their necks to symbolize the earth’s fate when the polar ice caps melt.\nProtesters in Warsaw staged a performance of people drowning in a sea of plastic waste.\n“The planet is getting hotter than my imaginary boyfriend,” read a poster held by a teenager in Thailand.\n“Make love, not CO2” signs were spotted in Berlin and Vienna.\nWhile Europeans filled the streets, students in the Solomon Islands gathered at the rising ocean water’s edge wearing traditional grass skirts. The issue is vital to low-lying Pacific islands, which have repeatedly asked wealthier nations to do more to prevent rising sea levels.\nGlobal warming caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels has already led to droughts and heat waves, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and floods, according to scientists.\n“There is no Planet B,” read a sign hoisted by a young woman in London.\nIn Kenya, around 500 activists marched to demand that the government cancel plans for a coal plant and investigate corruption in hydropower dams.\n“In Samburu there is a lot of heat, the grass has dried up, there is little water,” said Francis Lentel, a young herdsman in traditional beads, holding a picture of the Earth weeping.\nThe protest movement is putting increasing pressure on governments and companies to respond.\nGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel unveiled a new climate protection package thrashed out by parties in her coalition during all-night talks.\nPrivate industry has also responded. Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday pledged to make the largest U.S. e-commerce company net carbon neutral by 2040.\nHundreds of workers from Google, Amazon and other technology companies on Friday criticized their industry for being slow to tackle climate change and joined marches in San Francisco and Seattle calling for action.\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Millions of young people","Swedish activist Greta Thunberg"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["demand political leaders take urgent steps to stop climate change"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["young people","students and workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["political leaders"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2015 Staff workers for the London Underground begin a 27–hour strike after management and labor unions were unable to reach a deal regarding overnight train services.  (BBC)","document":"Tube staff have gone on strike across the entire London Underground network in a row over pay and conditions. The strike, which officially began at 18:30 BST, affects all Tube lines and will finish at 21:30 on Thursday.\nIt was called after London Underground (LU) and unions failed to agree a deal over pay and new night-time services. The rush hour started in the afternoon as commuters left work early to try to beat the strike. LU has warned there could be no services on Thursday.\nMembers of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and Unite started their 24-hour strike at 18:30. Aslef drivers were due to start their 24-hour action from 21:30.\nThe typical salary for a Tube driver is £50,000 a year, the RMT said.\nIn a separate dispute, First Great Western staff also walked out for 48 hours at 18:30, causing disruption to services between London, the west of England and Wales.\nA TfL spokesman said: \"On the buses everything is doing pretty well, people followed our advice and made their journeys earlier, there was some heavy loading but nothing extreme.\"\nHe said there were 100 extra buses on the network and 200 would be laid on for Thursday.\nTraffic delays around Euston Road through the evening peak time and a unrelated protest at Parliament Square were causing problems, he said.\nTaxi drivers have been busier than normal during the strike.\nBob Oddy, deputy general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, said: \"The public can rest assured they will not be ripped off by the licensed taxi trade who will only charge the normal fare which has been set with TfL.\"\nHis comments come after the BBC found that car service app Uber had raised its prices through the day as demand for alternative transport increased. A journey from Oxford Circus to Clapham Junction that cost between £10-£14 at 10:00 was priced at £25-£32 by 17:00 and a journey from Oxford Circus to Paddington that cost between £6-£9 at 10:00 cost £15-£19 by 17:00. The practice, called \"surge pricing\", is normal among some hotels and airlines and is explained on Uber's website, BBC transport correspondent Tom Edwards said.\nPeople had to beat the crowds by leaving work early and getting the last Tubes out of the city. But with noses pressed against backs and bodies crushed against the walls of shops, the realisation quickly dawned on them that everyone had had the same idea.\nThe pressure started early. From 4pm, people were sweeping down the street, almost jogging to reach the Tube entrance.\nBut the crowds grew too quickly and plans had to be changed. Commuters consulted their phones, hoping to find an alternative route.  Failing that, when buses were dismissed as too full, the favourite option seemed to be a resigned shrug of the shoulders and a plan to walk - trainers or not. Wimbledon spectators planning to use the Tube were warned to leave \"as soon as possible\" during Andy Murray's match. Ahead of the walkout, mayor of London Boris Johnson tweeted: \"Tube strike politically motivated - union bosses need to explain why they refuse to put new offer to members - disgraceful - call it off!\"\nBut the four unions involved maintain the new plans would be disruptive to their members' lives. This is what you need to know about the Tube strikes\nCommuter Billi-Jo Highdale said: \"I've got to get to the DLR somehow as I need to go from Greenwich to Mile End, or find a lift from someone. I had plans with a friend for tomorrow but I've had to cancel them.\n\"My parents are black-cab drivers so they will do well.  It's as good as a three-day weekend for them, although it sucks for everyone else.\"\nCamilla Fleury, a fashion retailer, said: \"I got out of work fine and I'll probably walk to a DLR line and then use that to get home. It's going to be a very long walk, but I hope I can do it within an hour.\" Another commuter said: \"I have no idea what to do tomorrow. My bosses are being understanding, but we have to show up in the office at some point.\" The disputed weekend night services are set to begin on 12 September on sections of the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines.\nThere are concerns some employees will have to work more overnight shifts and could have to work on their own in some stations.\nThis Tube strike is as much about personalities as it is about the deal they are trying to hammer out.\nThe team negotiating for LU is new at this. The chief operating officer, Steve Griffiths, joined from Virgin Atlantic earlier this year, and my understanding is that no-one on the management side of the table has experience dealing with rail deals. Not that long ago, bosses on both sides would have got together, informally, maybe over a beer, to see if they could smooth the path for an agreement.\nThat hasn't happened this time.\nSo, we've got a group of frustrated unions. A frustrated LU. And four million Tube passengers in the middle.\nBoth sides think the other is being unreasonable.\nUnfortunately, there don't seem to be any of those old, informal lines of communication open right now, which in the past might have just sorted this out.\nOn Monday, unions rejected LU's latest pay deal, which LU said was an increased but \"final\" pay offer made \"in an attempt to conclude five months of talks\".\nIt included a 2% rise this year and £2,000 for drivers on the weekend night Tube service.\nMr Johnson told the BBC: \"What we've done is made an extremely good offer, that I think most Londoners would think was more than handsome.\" Unions would \"not succeed\" in their aims, he said, and he urged them to accept the pay offer, which he described as \"final\".\nHe said it was \"absolutely wrong to hold London to ransom\" and apologised for the disruption, which he warned would be \"very considerable\".\nTransport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said the strike was \"unnecessary\" and of benefit to no-one. \"We stand shoulder to shoulder with workers, families and commuters who want to go about their lives without disruption. I urge the strikers to accept the good offer that employers have made and get back to work,\" he said.\nAslef organiser Finn Brennan said the responsibility of the strikes \"rests squarely with London Underground management\" who \"squandered the window of opportunity\" to resolve it. The TSSA union also rejected the offer and general secretary Manuel Cortes said: \"This dispute is not just about pay, but about how to run a safe and secure night Tube which serves the passengers as well as rewarding the staff.\"\nAbout 20,000 Tube workers are expected to walk out during the course of the strike.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["21:30 on Thursday"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["18:30 BST"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["24-hour strike"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT)","Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and Unite"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and Unite","Tube staff"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["over pay and conditions","failed to agree a deal over pay and new night-time services"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["London Underground (LU)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2005 In India, numerous bank workers take part in a one–day strike to protest government reforms and bank merges they say will lead to job cuts. (New Kerala) (Hindustan Times) (BBC)","document":"The government has been encouraging 27 state-run banks to merge in order to compete better in the global economy. Unions say the move will result in the closure of 22,000 branches nationwide.\nAbout 50,000 staff at foreign and some private banks did work, but trading volumes on the foreign exchange market were affected.\n\"Volumes are very thin with limited participation,\" a dealer at HDFC Bank told the Reuters news agency.\nChanges inevitable?\nIndia's booming economy has helped raise demand for banking services.\nLast month, the government loosened merger regulations on state banks, which are responsible for handling about 70% of loans and deposits.\nTuesday's strike was called by the United Forum of Bank Unions, made up of nine separate unions.\nEmployees at the country's largest bank, the State Bank of India, were among those who walked out. Workers at some of the older privately-run institutions such as Federal Bank and Karnataka Bank were also believed to have taken part.\nThe strike came after a \"sit-in\" demonstration in front of the Indian parliament building on 11 March.  A BBC correspondent said an official at a private bank described changes in the industry as \"inevitable\".\nUnions, however, are vowing to continue to protest and said they are deciding on their next course of action.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["March"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["11 March"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["the United Forum of Bank Unions"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Employees at the country's largest bank, the State Bank of India","Workers at some of the older privately-run institutions"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["27 state-run banks to merge in order to compete better in the global economy","the move will result in the closure of 22,000 branches nationwide"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Employees"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["The government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2005 In South Africa, Johannesburg's Labour Court rules that the mining strike of the 30,000 employees of mining company Gold Fields is \"unlawful and unprotected\" and orders them to go back to work. The National Union of Mineworkers states that it expects its members to obey the ruling (Reuters SA)[permanent dead link] (BusinessWeek, SA) (SA)","document":"Johannesburg's Labour Court ruled that the industrial action was \"unlawful and unprotected,\" the company said. About 50,000 South African miners have walked out in a dispute over pay, including living allowances, and planned redundancies. The strike started on Wednesday and includes about 21,000 workers from mining rival Harmony Gold.\n\"This means that all employees participating in the strike at all South African operations are required immediately to discontinue their strike action and return to work,\" Gold Fields said in a statement. 'We will retreat'\nGold Fields and Harmony Gold account for about half of South Africa's total gold output, and argue that job losses are necessary, while pay increases are not possible. The firms have said that their profits are being squeezed by the high value of the rand.\nUnions and workers argue that conditions need to be improved, and have complained that black workers are paid less than their white counterparts. Workers want their monthly living allowances raised to 1,200 rand ($190; £100) from the current 706 rand. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said that it expected its members to adhere to the court ruling. \"We will retreat,\" said NUM spokesman Moferefere Lekorotsoane. \"We must comply with the court order.\"","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["About 50,000 South African miners","about 21,000 workers from mining rival Harmony Gold"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["in a dispute over pay, including living allowances, and planned redundancies","conditions need to be improved, and have complained that black workers are paid less than their white counterparts"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["miners"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2005 11,000 journalists and other employees of the BBC go on a 24–hour strike to protest over approximately 4,000 planned job cuts. TV and Radio news output has been the worst affected, with few new stories materialising and only a skeleton service being offered. (BBC) (Reuters UK) (Bloomberg) (BBC strike Q&A)","document":"Director general Mark Thompson is cutting 3,780 jobs at the corporation - almost one in five of its UK public service staff.\nThat involves 15% cuts across most departments - with some sections suffering greater losses and others less affected.\nMr Thompson has said the cuts are necessary to streamline the BBC and take it into a rapidly-changing hi-tech broadcasting environment.\nThe unions called the strike because the BBC did not rule out compulsory redundancies and said the corporation refused to enter into \"meaningful negotiations\".\nThe BBC will do its best to keep a seamless service going - which may involve more pre-recorded and repeat programmes.\nWhen ITV staff went on strike last month, executives recorded \"live\" shows in advance and used external companies and studios to cover striking staff.\nBBC media correspondent Nick Higham said live programmes would be particularly affected, especially news - which cannot be prepared in advance.\nIf the unions are correct in their estimate of about 11,000 members supporting the strike, then Radio 4's Today programme, BBC2's Newsnight, Radio Five Live, and possibly coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show will be affected.\nNick Higham also added that a Paris concert by Oasis which he understood Radio 1 was planning to broadcast could be hit.\nAbout 5,000 of the BBC's 27,000-strong workforce are members of Bectu and another 3,500 are in the NUJ. A third union, Amicus, is also taking part.\nThe unions say \"many thousands\" of non-members could also walk out in sympathy.\nMr Thompson says he is trying to ensure there is still a strong BBC in five, 10 or 15 years time.\nSavings are being made to meet targets set by the government in 1999 and convince current politicians the corporation is providing value for money.\nIt is better that the BBC makes the cuts rather than have an unhappy government come in and do it for them, he argues.\nHe also wants to make sure the BBC is not left behind in broadcasting developments on the internet, mobile phones, TV, radio - and any other new technology else that may arise.\nAnd some money will go back into programmes.  By 2008, £355m a year will be available and priorities include TV drama, comedy, music and \"knowledge-building programmes\".\nThe cuts will \"rip the heart\" out of the BBC, according to the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).\nThe NUJ has joined forces with the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (Bectu) and manufacturing union Amicus for the campaign.\nThe unions called the strike ballot because the corporation could not rule out some compulsory redundancies - as well as voluntary redundancies and getting rid of staff on short-term contracts.\nIt was \"the worst package of change ever seen at the BBC\", the unions said. \"We're not against an efficient, productive, BBC - but many of Thompson's proposals are going to make it worse, not better,\" Bectu said.\nAnd the NUJ said remaining staff would have to work harder to maintain standards and the figures \"simply do not add up\".\n\"They are based on questionable assumptions and fail to take proper regard as to how money could be saved without axing jobs\", it said.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["news"]},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["NUJ","Bectu","Amicus"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["11,000 members supporting the strike"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["The unions called the strike because the BBC did not rule out compulsory redundancies and said the corporation refused to enter into \"meaningful negotiations","cutting 3,780 jobs at the corporation"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["ITV staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["BBC"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2018 French economy minister Bruno Le Maire says Air France may collapse over ongoing strike action and the state will not bail the firm out despite owning 14.3% of parent Air France-KLM. (BBC)","document":"The survival of strike-hit Air France is in the balance, according to the country's economy minister.\nBruno Le Maire's warning that Air France could \"disappear\" comes as staff begin another round of industrial action over a pay dispute.\nDespite the French state owning 14.3% of the Air France-KLM parent group, the loss-making airline would not be bailed out, he said.\nOn Friday Air France-KLM's chief executive quit over the crisis.\nAir France-KLM is one of Europe's biggest airlines, but has seen a series of strikes in recent weeks. Monday's walk-out is the 14th day of action, as staff press for a 5.1% salary increase this year.\nThe government's response is seen as a test of labour reforms launched by French President Emmanuel Macron. There have also been strikes at the state-owned SNCF rail company.\nOn Sunday, Mr Le Maire told French news channel BFM: \"I call on everyone to be responsible: crew, ground staff, and pilots who are asking for unjustified pay hikes.\n\"The survival of Air France is in the balance,\" he said, adding that the state would not serve as a backstop for the airline's debts.\n\"Air France will disappear if it does not make the necessary efforts to be  competitive,\" he warned.\nDespite the strike, the airline insisted that it would be able to maintain 99% of long-haul flights on Monday, 80% of medium-haul services and 87% of short-haul flights.\nOn Friday, Jean-Marc Janaillac, chief executive of parent company Air France-KLM, resigned after staff rejected a final pay offer from him, which would have raised wages by 7% over four years.\nAir France-KLM reported a net loss of €269m (£238m) in the first quarter of the year. British Airways and Lufthansa have already undergone heavy cost-cutting in recent years, amid rising competition from low-cost airlines and carriers from the Gulf states.\nBut many analysts say Air France has lagged far behind when it comes to restructuring and has failed to address its continued losses.\nThe group has already downgraded expectations of its financial performance for 2018. Air France merged with Dutch carrier KLM in 2004. The joint company flies tens of millions of passengers around the world every year.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["crew, ground staff, and pilots"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["over a pay dispute"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Air France"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2019 An estimated two million people across the world participate in strikes to encourage action on climate change, with a total of 6 million during the week, including up to 500,000 protesters in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (The Guardian) (CBC)","document":"Six million people have taken to the streets over the past week, uniting across timezones, cultures and generations to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency.\nA fresh wave of climate strikes swept around the globe on Friday with an estimated 2 million people walking out of schools and workplaces.\nOrganisers say that during the week of protests – that began with a global climate strike last week – a total of 6 million people, from trade unionists to schoolchildren, have taken part in thousands of towns and cities.\n“This week was a demonstration of the power of our movement,” said a spokesperson for the FridaysForFuture group which has helped coordinate the demonstrations. “People power is more powerful than the people in power. It was the biggest ever climate mobilisation, and it’s only the beginning. The momentum is on our side and we are not going anywhere.”\nOn Friday there were huge protests in Italy – where more than 1 million people were reported to have taken part – Spain, the Netherlands and New Zealand, where more than 3.5% of the country’s population joined the demonstrations.\nOrganisers said they were expecting more people to join as the day progressed. High turnouts were expected in Canada, where Greta Thunberg – who kickstarted the school strike movement with a solo protest in Sweden 12 months ago – was due to join demonstrators in Montreal.\nMay Boeve from 350.org, which has helped organise the demonstrations, said: “We will keep fighting until the politicians stop ignoring the science, and the fossil fuel companies are held responsible for their crimes against our future, as they should have been decades ago.”\nThe day of protests began in New Zealand, where an open letter was delivered to parliament on Friday morning calling on the government to declare a climate emergency – following the lead of numerous councils around the country.\n“Our representatives need to show us meaningful and immediate action that safeguards our futures on this planet,” Raven Maeder, the School Strike 4 Climate national coordinator, said. “Nothing else will matter if we cannot look after the Earth for current and future generations. This is our home.”\nStrikes and demonstrations followed in scores of other countries from Ghana to Samoa, the Philippines to Indonesia, South Korea to Taiwan.\nIn some countries, protesters have had to go to extraordinary lengths to express their message to resistant authorities or an indifferent public.\nMakichyan Arshak has been staging a solo school strike in Pushkin Square, Moscow, for 29 weeks.\n“In Moscow it is almost impossible to get permission for a mass demonstration so we protest in a queue. One person holds a poster for five minutes, then hands over to the next person who is waiting nearby. That way, we don’t have any problems because it is a series of solo strikes rather than a group gathering,” said the 25-year-old violinist, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory.\nDemonstrations also took place across South America, from Mexico City’s vast Zócalo square to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.\nOn Bogotá’s high Andean plain, the environmental movement has faced a severe crackdown. In July, protesters across Colombia pleaded for an end to the violence that has resulted in numerous activists being killed, with the peace and development thinktank Indepaz putting the figure at 734 deaths in the first seven months of 2019.\n“We want to keep fracking out of our country and demand an immediate change towards decarbonisation,” said the activist Susana Muhamad, who was planning to march past the offices of the country’s largest petroleum company, Ecopetrol.\nIn Brazil, organisers said there were climate protests in São Paulo and at least nine other cities. In Rio de Janeiro, a group of university students rallied in the city centre bearing banners urging: “System change not climate change” and chanted: “What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now!”\nNayara Almeida, a 21-year-old student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said the group’s demands to the government included greater protection of the Amazon rainforest. “Our future is threatened and they are insensitive to that. We need politicians to make this a priority.”\nThe global climate strikers say their action is a sign of the growing awareness and anger of the severity and scale of the climate crisis among people around the world.\nThis week Thunberg excoriated world leaders at the UN for their “betrayal” of young people after the New York summit failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating.\nThe climate activist told governments: “You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal.”","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Six million people","estimated 2 million people","more than 1 million people","more than 3.5% of the country’s population"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency","global climate"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["trade unionists to schoolchildren"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2005 The planned 48 hour strike at the BBC in Britain is called off, unions announce, following talks. (BBC) (ThisIsLondon)[permanent dead link]","document":"The two parties held talks through the night at conciliation service Acas to avert Tuesday and Wednesday's strike.\nThe BBC say they have made \"fresh commitments\" that include a one-year moratorium on compulsory redundancies.\nThe corporation also promised to review cuts in its content divisions, a move that could \"mitigate\" total job losses.\n\"This offer moves significantly to address the issues and concerns which the unions have raised with us,\" said director general Mark Thompson in a letter to BBC staff.\n                           \n                 \nHowever, he said the BBC had told the unions \"we have no further movement to make, no matter how long the dispute continues\".\nMr Thompson said he welcomed the decision to suspend the strike and that the corporation was having a \"productive relationship\" with unions.\n'Significant concessions'\nThe unions said the BBC had made significant concessions over privatisation but had not yet addressed fears over job losses.\nThe key points of the BBC's offer are:\nThe unions will meet on Tuesday to discuss their next step.\nGoodwill\nThe announcement that the strike had been suspended came after 20 hours of talks at Acas, and a face-to-face meeting between the director general and representatives of the unions.\nThe BBC has published plans that could see the loss of nearly 4,000 jobs, which resulted in a 24-hour strike by staff on Monday.\nA joint statement from Bectu, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Amicus  said the unions had agreed to put the corporation's latest proposal to a meeting of representatives on Tuesday. \"The unions are not recommending acceptance of this proposal,\" said the statement.\n\"However, in order to allow for proper consideration and as a gesture of goodwill, the planned strikes on 31 May and 1 June have been suspended.\"\nBBC director general Mark Thompson met with the unions\nThey said they reserved the right to call further strike action should the BBC's proposals be turned down by members.\nStephen Dando, the director of BBC People - the corporation's human resources division - said: \"The BBC believes an opportunity to resolve this dispute is now in sight. \"We welcome the union's decision to suspend next week's industrial action whilst they consult their members. \"The BBC has tried to be flexible in meeting the unions' concerns and we very much hope that is the first step in what will be a productive relationship with the unions in the coming months.\"\nIt said it would not comment further until the unions had consulted their members and formally responded on Tuesday.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["24-hour strike"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":null},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["the loss of nearly 4,000 jobs"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["BBC had made significant concessions over privatisation but had not yet addressed fears over job losses"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["The BBC"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2010 French unions continue mass strikes for a second day with over one million people protesting on Tuesday against pension reform. (CNN)","document":"Paris, France (CNN) -- French unions held a second straight day of strikes Wednesday, a day after more than 1 million people walked out to protest government pension reforms -- and at least some of them will stay off the job on Thursday.\nFrench workers are fighting government plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. Ten out of 12 French oil refineries were hit by the strikes Wednesday, with eight of them fully or partially stopped, according to the French Union of Petroleum Industries.\nAbout half of Paris Metro workers were on strike, and will stay off the job Thursday, a Metro-transport union spokesman said. About a quarter of French train operator SNCF's staff were on strike Wednesday, down from 40 percent on Tuesday, a company spokesman said. Tuesday's demonstrations were the biggest yet in a series of rolling strikes against the reforms -- specifically, plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.\nThe Ministry of the Interior said as many as 1.2 million people walked out of work Tuesday, while unions put the figure at 3.5 million.\nThere were about 250 demonstrations across the country, the government said.\nAbout 89,000 people took to the streets of the capital Paris, police said, while unions said it was 330,000.\nEither way, the numbers are bigger than the last protest in Paris, which police estimated to be 65,000 marchers.\nVehicle traffic on the streets of Paris seemed to flow as normal and businesses were open, but more disruption loomed.\nUnions have said this strike -- the fourth in the past month -- is open-ended, and that workers will vote each day whether to continue the strike the following day. Previous strikes have lasted for a 24-hour period.\nThe support for the strike from workers in French refineries -- for the first time -- raises the specter of fuel and gas shortages if the strikes continue.\nAbout a quarter of education workers were on strike, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday -- very slightly below the percentage who walked off the job September 23. Just over 14 percent of public hospital workers took to the picket lines, slightly higher than last month.\nRaising the retirement age is a key part of the government's pension reform plans, currently in the hands of the Senate after passing the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The Senate may vote on the full spate of reforms by the end of the week.\nPresident Nicolas Sarkozy has a majority in both houses of Parliament, meaning the measures are expected to pass.\nNearly 70 percent of the French public back the unions standing up to the reforms, according to polls published in French newspapers Sunday.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["more than 1 million people","1.2 million people","About 89,000 people"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["fighting government plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62","protest government pension reforms"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["French workers","education workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["The Senate may vote on the full spate of reforms by the end of the week"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2010 French strikes intensify ahead of Wednesday's Senate vote on pension reform, with a thousand petrol stations running out of fuel, rail strikes intensifying and truck drivers performing go–slows on highways. (Reuters), (CNN)","document":"PARIS, Oct 18 (Reuters) - French truck drivers staged go-slow operations on highways, trains were cancelled and petrol stations ran out of fuel on Monday as strikers dug in ahead of a Senate vote this week on an unpopular pension overhaul.\nWider strikes will hit everything from air travel to mail on Tuesday when unions opposed to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age have called for one more en masse street protest against the unpopular pension bill.\nWith a final Senate vote on the legislation expected from Wednesday, this could be a make-or-break week for Sarkozy.\nThe centre-right government, which has stood firm through months of anti-pension reform protests, assured the public infrastructure would not freeze up despite a week-long strike at refineries that has dried up supplies at hundreds of France’s roughly 12,500 petrol stations.\n \"The situation is critical,\" a spokeswoman at Exxon Mobil XOM.N said. \"Anyone looking for diesel in the Paris and Nantes (Western France) regions will have problems.\"\nSarkozy, in the northern seaside town of Deauville for talks with the leaders of Germany and Russia, said he would not back down. “The reform is essential and France is committed to it and will go ahead with it just as our German partners did,” he told reporters after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.\nOnly 13 percent of rail workers kept up a week-long strike on Monday but workers at France’s 12 refineries were in their seventh day of a strike and protesters blocked access at many fuel distribution depots around the country.\nThe UFIP oil industry lobby has said France could see serious fuel supply problems by mid-week, meaning the government may have to tap emergency reserves. The DGAC aviation authority urged airlines to reduce flights to Paris’s Orly airport by 50 percent and to all other airports by 30 percent on Tuesday.\nTuesday will be the sixth major work stoppage and street demonstration called by labour union confederations since June but the unrest has intensified since last week when unions at railways and refineries began open-ended industrial action, joined now by truck drivers and delivery workers.\nGovernment ministers stressed the country had plenty of fuel and that airports in particular have ample supply.\n“The government is in control,” Industry Minister Christian Estrosi said. “There will be no blockade for companies, no blockade for transport and no blockade for road users.”\n As many as 1,800 service stations have run short of fuel in recent days. A body representing supermarket fuel stations said 500-1,000 were hit on Monday. Total TOTF.PA said 400 of its stations had been affected and Esso reported a similar toll.\nAt an empty station on Paris’s Champs Elysees avenue, manager Paula said she spent much of her morning trying to stop drivers unhooking fuel pumps. “It’s madness, we’re submerged,” she said.\nThe International Energy Agency, which overlooks strategic oil supplies in OECD countries, said that France as of Friday had 98 days of fuel between industry reserves and government reserves and the country had started to tap the industry stocks.\nA majority of French people -- 71 percent in one poll -- back protests over the plan to raise the minimum and the full retirement ages by two years to 62 and 67 respectively, a move the government says is vital to stem a soaring pension deficit.\nJerome Sainte-Marie of CSA pollsters said that this showed the price the government would pay if it stayed the course but that presidential and legislative elections were some time off.\n“It’s not certain this political cost will last until 2012,” he told Le Parisien daily.\nThe bill’s main points have passed through both houses of parliament. The Senate will now vote on the entire package, which the lower house has approved. The Senate vote risked slipping by a day or more beyond Wednesday due to slow progress through 1,000 amendments tabled by the opposition.\nAnalysts anticipate a yes vote in the Senate after which the government hopes a vote by a committee representing both houses of parliament will take place by end-October.\nTruck drivers used vans to slow traffic on motorways around Paris and cities like Lille, Rennes and Lyon, but were not using fleets of large trucks to block roads.\nPrime Minister Francois Fillon has warned that people blocking fuel depots were breaking the law.\nTV stations broadcast footage of workers at the Grandpuits refinery saying they had been “requisitioned” under government orders to go to work or risk jail but that they could not work because co-workers had formed human chains at the site.\nThe government is not threatening more police action but unions are wary after police intervened last week at some depots.\nRiot police used teargas and rubber pellet guns in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to break up a crowd of youths who set fire to cars near an anti-reform protest by secondary school students. They intervened for similar reasons in the city of Lyon.\nSarkozy was greeted by 100 or so supporters as he arrived in the northern seaside town of Deauville for talks with his German and Russian counterparts Angela Merkel and Dmitry Medvedev.\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":["dried up supplies at hundreds of France’s roughly 12,500 petrol stations"]},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["air travel to mail"]},{"role":"Duration","values":["a week-long"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["refineries"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["workers at France’s 12 refineries"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2010 France faces another day of strikes with a quarter of petrol stations not having any fuel. (Reuters)","document":"PARIS (Reuters) - France’s main unions called on Thursday for two further days of strike action against a planned overhaul of the pension system that has triggered the biggest and most sustained anti-austerity protests in Europe.\nWith a final Senate vote on the bill drawing near, the country’s six main unions signaled their determination to fight on even after the passage of the legislation, calling a seventh and eighth day of protests for October 28 and November 6.\n“The government bears full and total responsibility for the further protests in light of its intransigent attitude, failure to listen and repeated provocations,” the unions said in a joint statement, after a day of negotiations in Paris.\nEarlier on Thursday, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government said it would use a special measure to speed the reform bill’s passage through the Senate with a final vote expected on Friday, to howls of foul-play from the opposition benches.\nSarkozy, a conservative who is determined to face down unions and force through an increase in the retirement age, is battling 10-day-old refinery strikes and fuel depot blockades that have dried up nearly a quarter of France’s fuel pumps.\nHis popularity at an all-time low 18 months before a presidential election, Sarkozy is fighting deep public opposition to a reform he says is the only way to stem a ballooning pension shortfall as the population ages.\n“The government remains intransigent. We need to continue with massive action as early as next week,” Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union, told RMC radio. Union leaders will meet on Thursday evening to agree on fresh action.\n“We will ask the unions for strong action that will allow people to stop work and go on to the streets,” Thibault said.\nSarkozy’s handling of the protests is being closely watched by other European governments implementing austerity measures, as well as by markets who see it as a test of whether France can enact other measures to protect its coveted AAA credit rating.\n\n\nPublic anger against austerity measures also flared in Greece, where some 2,000 students chanting “We want jobs not unemployment” marched through central Athens, while others wielding sticks clashed with police outside parliament.\nThe French president wants the bill to raise the minimum retirement age by two years to 62, and the maximum age for a full pension to 67 from 65, passed by the end of the month.\nHe ordered police this week to break blockades at fuel depots. On Thursday, authorities in two regions ordered rationing of fuel supplies for trucks and cars as strikers kept up the blockade of the country’s largest oil port.\n“We cannot be the only country in the world where, when there is a reform, a minority wants to block everyone else,” Sarkozy said. “By taking hostage the economy, companies and the daily lives of French people, we are going to destroy jobs.”\nFrench media commentators seized on the contrast with Britain, which has seen no comparable mass protests despite unveiling far harsher austerity measures on Wednesday with half a million public sector job cuts and a rise in the retirement age to 66. But French unions are sticking to their guns.\n“The French government is following the Anglo-Saxon economic model,” said Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the radical Force Ouvriere union. “It has to be wary of leading us into a wall.”\nStudents, who fear the reform will worsen youth unemployment by keeping older workers in jobs longer, hit the streets of Paris in the thousands in their first major autumn protests.\nIn the wealthy city of Lyon, clashes between youths and riot police, which began last week on the fringes of anti-pension protests, continued on Thursday. Sarkozy called the clashes “scandalous” and said rioters would be punished.\nBusiness leaders are voicing concern about the blow to an economy already struggling to rebound from the economic crisis.\nAn Air France-KLM spokesman said the strikes were costing the airline 5 million euros ($7 million) a day and Maurice Levy, head of the world’s third-biggest advertising agency Publicis, said the conflict was damaging France’s image.\nBrewer Brasseries Kronenbourg chief Thomas Amstutz warned beer deliveries could be hit if fuel shortages continue.\nThe strikes are beginning to hit tourism and cultural events ahead of half-term holidays beginning this weekend, with some travellers reconsidering holidays.\nOscar-winning actor Tim Robbins canceled a debut tour with his band in Paris and pop diva Lady Gaga also postponed gigs.\nTrains were returning to normal however, with three out of four intercity TGV services operating, and nearly all international trains and half of domestic ones running normally.\nOpposition senators have slowed the bill’s passage by handing in hundreds of amendments and demanding fresh dialogue.\nSenators voted late on Wednesday for an amendment leaving the door open to review the pension system after the 2012 presidential election, a move that may appease some unions.\nStreet protests have largely been peaceful except for sporadic violence in Lyon and in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The government said 245 people were arrested on Wednesday, taking the nationwide tally to almost 2,000 since October 12.\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Thursday","October 28","November 6"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["France’s main unions"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":null},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["a planned overhaul of the pension system that has triggered the biggest and most sustained anti-austerity protests in Europe"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2010 2010 strikes in France: Further, larger strikes are planned against government attempts to increase the age of retirement for the country's workers. (The Observer)","document":"A flurry of polls revealed yesterday that France is bitterly divided over continuing industrial action as the country braced itself for a further round of strikes, protests and blockades.\nOn Friday, the upper house of the French parliament voted in favour of a pension reform raising the retirement age to 62. Union leaders have called for two more general strikes and French schoolchildren have threatened continued protests through the holidays. As the authorities struggled to restore petrol supplies across the country following the blockading of France's 12 oil refineries, opinion polls gave a confused and contradictory picture of the level of support for more industrial action.\nIn an IFOP survey, 63% declared the two new days of strikes to be \"justified\", while a similar poll by Opinion Way found that, although around half of all French people sympathised with the strikes, 56% believed the parliamentary vote should be respected and the unions should stop industrial action.\nThe IFOP poll also found that 53% believed the raising of the pension age from 60 to 62 was acceptable, and Opinion Way declared that 59% disapproved of the action against petrol refineries and 63% believed the government was right to smash the blockades.\nFriday evening's vote by the Senate was a vital step in the government's reforms and came after three weeks of deliberations and the use of a controversial emergency constitutional measure to speed the bill through the upper house.\nThe move brought anger from the Socialist party opposition. \"You have not finished with pensions. You have ignored the French people. You have not listened to our proposals. Your reform is unfair,\" Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Socialist Senate group, said. Another opposition senator, Pierre Mauroy, 82, said he was \"dismayed\" by the vote but added: \"I don't consider myself beaten because this business is not finished.\"\nDominique Moisi, of the French Institute for International Relations, said it was impossible to predict what happens next. \"I'm fascinated to know myself,\" he said. \"I believe [President Nicolas] Sarkozy will win the pension battle but he risks losing the presidential war. People want things to return to normal. Everyone is aware our system of social protection will have to change, but what will remain in the public opinion is the image of an authoritarian, arrogant president who is reluctant to [engage in] dialogue and is very nervy.\"\nSarkozy, who has made pension reform the central measure of his first term in office, is determined that the final vote will take place on Tuesday after which the changes become law.\nOn the other side, union leaders have called for a massive mobilisation for two more days of strikes and protests, the first on Thursday, then on 6 November. Students have vowed to step up demonstrations that have already seen clashes with riot police, looting and arrests.\nAnger has been fuelled because in the runup to the presidential elections in France in the spring of 2007 and after his election, Sarkozy insisted: \"The right to retire at 60 years must remain.\"\nThe views of Robert Piot, a 58-year-old unemployed man, are typical of those determined to continue the protests. \"To me it's a simple question of balance and mathematics: there is a pot of jobs in France and either you make older people work longer or you let young people have those jobs.\"","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Friday","Thursday","6 November"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Union leaders","French schoolchildren"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["A flurry of polls revealed yesterday that France is bitterly divided over continuing industrial action as the country braced itself for a further round of strikes, protests and blockades","the upper house of the French parliament voted in favour of a pension reform raising the retirement age to 62"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 In the United Kingdom, members of the National Union of Journalists at the BBC begin a 48 hour strike in a dispute over proposed changes to the Corporation's pension scheme. BBC News operates a reduced service. (BBC) (The Guardian)","document":"Members of the National Union of Journalists at the BBC are taking part in a two-day strike in a dispute over proposed changes to the pension plan.\nThe NUJ, which has 4,100 members at the BBC, voted to reject the BBC's \"final\" offer on pensions.  Broadcasting union Bectu voted to accept the deal.\nRadio 4's Today programme was cancelled, but the BBC News at Six and Ten O'Clock went ahead in full.\nA further 48-hour strike is planned for 15 and 16 November. The BBC has published a page detailing changes to the schedule due to industrial action.\nThe journalists' union said the action, which began at midnight on Friday, was having a \"significant impact\" on news and current affairs programmes.\n'Inevitable disruption'\nNUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: \"It is a clear indication that BBC journalists will stand up for a fair pension deal.\n\"Programmes that are going out are being run by freelance staff or managers, using pre-recorded packages.\n\"The strike is incredibly solid and the impact will grow over the course of the next two days.\"\nBut BBC director general Mark Thompson said in his blog: \"We believe that much of the output on the BBC will be unaffected by this action.\n\"However, it is inevitable that some programmes and content will be disrupted. \"This has been a difficult period for staff. However, the people who lose out most in any strike action are the very people we are here to serve - our audiences.\"\nNUJ members at the BBC are also set to observe an indefinite work to rule from Sunday, ensuring they take full breaks and only work their minimum prescribed hours.\nThe dispute stems from the BBC's plans to reduce a £1.5bn pensions deficit by capping increases in pensionable pay at 1% from next April.\nUnder the BBC's revised offer, the amount employees would have to pay into the pension scheme has been reduced from 7% to 6%.\nIn return, they would get a career-average benefit pension - based on the average salary over an employee's entire career - that would be revalued by up to 4% each year. The previous offer was 2.5%.\nWhen employees draw their pension, payments will increase automatically each year in line with inflation, by up to 4% - again up from a previous offer of 2.5%.\nBectu, which represents technical and production staff, said after last month's ballot that the amended offer was \"the best that can be achieved through negotiation\".\nBut it added their position could be reviewed if the pensions deficit turned out to be less than £1.5bn. Fresh BBC strikes are announced\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["15 and 16 November","Friday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["two-day","48-hour strike"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["National Union of Journalists"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Members of the National Union of Journalists"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["in a dispute over proposed changes to the pension plan"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Journalists"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["they would get a career-average benefit pension - based on the average salary over an employee's entire career - that would be revalued by up to 4% each year"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["BBC"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2009 Teachers in Zimbabwe will end their strike action upon receiving government aid.  (BBC)","document":"Teachers in Zimbabwe have agreed to end their strike after the government promised to review salaries, and to appeal for substantial aid for schools.\nThe teachers had been demanding their salaries in foreign currency to get around Zimbabwe's massive inflation.\nBut they said the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had been willing to listen to their grievances.\nNew Education Minister David Coltart said he had asked for more than $450m (£310m) in overseas aid for schools.\n\"My single-minded goal is to get the schools reopened and teachers back at work,\" Mr Coltard told the London-based Short Wave Africa independent radio station.\nHe said the package offered to teachers included an amnesty for any who feared reprisals or dismissal for not having gone to work.\n\"I am very sympathetic to the fact that many of the teachers who didn't report for duty simply couldn't, because they didn't even have enough money for the bus fare,\" he said.\nRegional standards\nTendai Chikoore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association, told AFP news agency members of the union had \"agreed to go back to work solely on the good will shown by the government\".\nBut he said the union was still demanding that teachers' salaries must match those of other teachers in the region, a view echoed by the president of the Progressive Teachers' Union, Takavafira Zhou.\n\"We also agreed that after three months, teachers' salaries must be reviewed to meet regional standards of 15,000 South African rand[$1,500; £1,035] a month,\" said Mr Zhou.\nZimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation rate - estimated by some economists at 10 sextillion per cent - which has left the its currency all but worthless.\nEarlier this month, the central bank knocked 12 zeros off the local currency - reducing one trillion dollars to one dollar.\nThe country's new Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, announced last week that soldiers and civil servants were to be paid in US dollars to help revive the shattered economy.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Teachers in Zimbabwe"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["demanding their salaries in foreign currency to get around Zimbabwe's massive inflation"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Teachers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["the government promised to review salaries, and to appeal for substantial aid for schools"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2010 Cabin crew at British Airways begin a three–day strike. (BBC) (The Times) (The Guardian)","document":"The first day of a three-day strike by British Airways' cabin crew is under way with unions and management in dispute about its impact on passengers.\nThe airline said its contingency plans for dealing with the strike, which include using 1,000 volunteer cabin crew and 22 chartered jets, had got off to a \"good start\".\nBut the Unite union, which represents the crew, said the number of planes stacking up at airports across the country because of the strike was growing, with 85 parked at Heathrow, 20 at Cardiff and 20 in Shannon.\nThe union said its 12,000 members were solidly supporting the walkout and that none of the buses that normally transport crew to work had crossed picket lines.\nA BA spokeswoman said: \"We aim to fly as many customers as we can this weekend. At Heathrow and Gatwick we have got off to a good start. London City is operating as normal.\n\"Cabin crew are reporting as normal at Gatwick and the numbers reporting at Heathrow are above the levels we need to operate our published schedule.\n\"This is the biggest contingency plan we have ever launched.\"\nBA is planning to operate all long-haul flights to and from Gatwick plus around half of short-haul flights, while all flights to and from London City Airport are expected to fly as scheduled.\nBA said 65% of passengers would still be able to reach their destination during the strike, although 1,100 of the 1,950 scheduled flights would be cancelled. BA is using 1,000 volunteer cabin crew and 22 chartered jets, including three Ryanair planes complete with flight attendants.\nThe company said it was confident of handling around 49,000 passengers today and the same number tomorrow, as against about 75,000 for a normal weekend day in March. It has arranged with more than 60 other airlines to take BA customers on their flights.\nAnother four days of industrial action are set to begin on 27 March and further action is expected from mid-April unless the deadlock is broken.\nLast-ditch talks between BA and Unite collapsed acrimoniously yesterday, with the airline management warning that unless a new framework were drawn up it would scrap an agreement that gives shop stewards the use of company offices and time off to represent members.\nUnite's joint leader, Tony Woodley, accused BA of wanting a \"war\" with the union and complained that the BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, had tabled a worse offer than one withdrawn last week.\nWoodley said today that he had been set \"mission impossible\" because of the new offer, which included a four-year pay deal which the union maintained would at best freeze wages until 2014.\nThe union had offered a 2.6% pay cut this year as part of a three-year deal.\nWoodley said: \"The disruption that passengers will inevitably experience over the next three days could have been spared had BA grasped that you cannot put an offer on the table one day, take it off the next and then come back with a worse one a few days later.\"\nA Unite spokesman added: \"The support we are getting shows how strongly people feel about this and is in spite of the bullying by management.\n\"Willie Walsh's appeal for people to cross our picket lines has obviously not worked.\"\nOne industrial relations expert said if BA ended its current arrangement with Unite, which stipulates how much work airline employees can do for the union and what facilities they can use, it would reduce co-operation to the \"bare minimum\".\nThe failure of the peace talks is a bitter blow to Gordon Brown, who is desperate to banish the spectre of large-scale industrial action 46 days before the likely election date.\nThe prime minister has urged the two sides to resolve the dispute, but today the Conservative leader David Cameron accused him of failing to act because Unite is \"bankrolling\" the Labour Party.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["three-day"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["British Airways' cabin crew","12,000 members"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["in dispute about its impact on passengers"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["cabin crew"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["British Airways"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2010 At least 150,000 people gather in Kathmandu to support Maoists who want the Prime Minister to resign; a general strike is called for on Sunday, May 2. (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The News International) (CNN)","document":"Nepalese Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has refused to step down, despite a mass street protest held by the Maoists in the capital, Kathmandu.\nIn a televised address, Mr Nepal urged more than 100,000 demonstrators to continue talks to find a compromise. The Maoists, the largest party in parliament, want to lead a national unity government. They vowed to launch an indefinite strike on Sunday. Correspondents say the peace process may be in danger of collapsing. It ended 10 years of conflict. Trading accusations\nSaturday's march went ahead despite last-minute talks between Maoist leaders and senior government officials. \"I appeal to the Maoists to end their strike call,\" Mr Nepal said, accusing his opponents of trying to topple the government from the streets. \"Shutting down the nation is not the way to find a solution to this impasse,\" the premier added. In response, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal told his cheering supporters in Kathmandu that the party would launch an indefinite strike on Sunday. \"We're compelled to call for an indefinite strike from tomorrow because of the government's lack of concern about taking the peace and constitution-making processes forward,\" he said. \"Revolution and major political changes in Nepal have come through street protests,\" he added. Earlier this week he said he had \"no alternative\" but to increase pressure on the government, which he said had no intention of drawing up a new constitution by a deadline of 28 May. The Maoists say that the current cabinet is not supported by the people and that it must be replaced by a national unity government, the BBC's Joanna Jolly in Kathmandu reports. Peaceful rally\nIn disciplined groups, the Maoists marched from 18 points into a park in central Kathmandu, the BBC's Joanna Jolly in the capital reports. Many waved red flags and chanted: \"Dissolve this puppet government and set up a national government.\" AFP news agency quotes police as saying there were 150,000 demonstrators - much lower than Maoist estimates of 600,000. Security forces have been put on high alert, with 15,000 police patrolling the streets. There have been no reports of any violence. The Maoists, who ended their rebellion in 2006, have the largest number of seats in parliament. They resigned from government a year ago, after the president overruled their decision to sack the army chief. In recent months, Maoist-led strikes and protests have brought Kathmandu to a standstill.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["The Maoists"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["more than 100,000 demonstrators"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["because of the government's lack of concern about taking the peace and constitution-making processes forward"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["Maoist-led strikes and protests have brought Kathmandu to a standstill"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2008 South Korean construction workers join truck drivers in going on strike seeking higher pay and lower fuel costs. (Reuters)","document":"SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean construction workers joined striking truckers on Monday in the latest blow to new President Lee Myung-bak, whose repeated policy stumbles have seen his popularity plunge after less than four months in office.\nAdding to pressure on Lee was the lack of progress in talks overnight Sunday in Washington, although U.S. trade officials said negotiators were set to resume work on Monday. South Korean officials were trying to revise an April agreement on importing U.S. beef that triggered a wave of street protests against Lee’s government.\nCriticism of the beef deal, stemming from mad cow disease fears, has mushroomed into a wider attack against pro-business policies that helped give the conservative leader his landslide victory in December’s presidential election and ended a decade of left-of-centre rule in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.\nThe striking construction workers are pressing for cheaper fuel and higher pay.\nThe militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said it would announce on Tuesday the result of a vote by its more than 600,000 members on strike action over Lee’s privatization and pension reform plans.\nUnionized workers at Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s top auto maker, voted by a relatively narrow margin to join the KCTU if it does decide on a walkout.\nLee’s multiple missteps since his election win, such as having to withdraw his nominations for some top posts and the beef import debacle, have unleashed a torrent of criticism which has caught the government off-guard. Lee took office in February.\nLee is expected to ditch a number of top aides and ministers soon and may even face the humiliating prospect of inviting his chief conservative rival to become prime minister to help raise his popularity, which has tumbled to under 20 percent.\nThe protests have come as a global economic softening and surging inflation have combined to dash Lee’s hopes for six percent economic growth this year, part of his campaign vow to bring South Koreans greater wealth.\nMost economists say he will be lucky to even match last year’s five percent rise.\nSpeaking to Asian and European finance ministers on the resort island of Jeju, Lee warned that the world was facing its biggest economic crisis in 30 years.\n“It’s no overstatement to say that the world is faced with the gravest crisis since the oil shock in the 1970s, with oil, food and raw materials prices skyrocketing,” he said.\nOn Sunday, Finance Minister Kang Man-soo said the government was reviewing its policies in the face of mounting public anger.\nBut he did not say how far the government might be prepared to water down the sweeping reforms it said it would enact to boost local and foreign investment and make the country of 50 million people better able to compete with neighboring giants Japan and China.\nSo far, local financial markets have weathered the political storm.\n“(The truckers) strike is having little impact on the stock market today. But if it drags on longer -- say two weeks or more -- it will certainly affect sectors that rely heavily on road transport,” said Juhn Chong-kyu, a market analyst at Samsung Securities.\nSeoul shares closed higher on Monday with the Korea Composite Stock Price Index up 0.77 percent at 1,760.82 points.\nThe won also ended higher against the dollar with the government reported to have been selling dollars to prop up the currency and to curb inflation.\nThe latest round of beef talks between South Korean and U.S. officials ended without agreement but the two sides have said they want more talks.\nThe negotiations are addressing South Korea’s request to block shipments of U.S. beef from cattle older than 30 months, which are believed to carry a higher risk of mad-cow disease.\n“The two sides agreed to cooperate in seeking a mutually satisfactory solution...and noted that more time was needed to come up with practical steps,” South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement.\n\n\n.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["South Korean construction workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["South Korean officials were trying to revise an April agreement on importing U.S. beef that triggered a wave of street protests against Lee’s government.\nCriticism of the beef deal, stemming from mad cow disease fears, has mushroomed into a wider attack against pro-business policies that helped give the conservative leader his landslide victory in December’s presidential election and ended a decade of left-of-centre rule in Asia’s fourth-largest economy","for cheaper fuel and higher pay","Lee’s privatization and pension reform plans"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["construction workers","truckers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["Finance Minister Kang Man-soo said the government was reviewing its policies in the face of mounting public anger.\nBut he did not say how far the government might be prepared to water down the sweeping reforms it said it would enact to boost local and foreign investment and make the country of 50 million people better able to compete with neighboring giants Japan and China","the government was reviewing its policies in the face of mounting public anger","“The two sides agreed to cooperate in seeking a mutually satisfactory solution"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["President Lee Myung-bak"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2015 A French air traffic controllers strike causes the cancellation of hundreds of flights throughout Europe. (AFP via ABC News Australia)","document":"Hundreds of flights to and from France have been cancelled after air traffic controllers launched a two-day strike over working conditions.\nThe civil aviation authority had asked airlines to scrap about 40 per cent of flights, warning of \"disruption across the country\", and called on companies to increase cancellations to about 50 per cent on Thursday.\nFlag carrier Air France warned of \"very severe disruption\" to its flight schedule.\nAlthough it pledged to operate \"almost all\" long-haul flights, medium and short-haul services would be badly affected, it said.\n\"Last-minute delays and cancellations can also be expected,\" the airline said.\nLow-cost operator Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel more than 250 flights due to the industrial action.\n\"It's grossly unfair that thousands of European travellers will once again have their travel plans disrupted by the selfish actions of a tiny number of French ... workers,\" the Irish airline said.\nCompetitor easyJet said it had been forced to scrap nearly 200 flights and added it was cancelling over 220 on Thursday.\nThere were average delays of 30 minutes at the main Paris airport Charles de Gaulle, and 300 flights out of 700 were scrapped at the secondary airport of Orly.\nOn the whole, though, passengers had been warned well in advance and seemed to have made other plans.\n\"The companies have done what was needed,\" an airport source said. \"For the moment, there are no difficulties.\n\"There are a few people complaining, but no large-scale discontent.\"\nBut not everyone had been alerted.\n\"We weren't warned,\" frustrated tourist Audrey Trivel said at the desk of Portuguese carrier TAP Portugal.\nInstead of a direct flight to Madeira with her family, she appeared set for a \"grand tour\" of Europe, via Geneva and Frankfurt.\nThe strike was called by the main air traffic union SNCTA, which wants talks over the working conditions of its members.\nA particular bone of contention is the pushing back of the retirement age for air traffic controllers from 57 to 59.\nThe union insists that for the past 10 years, talks over working conditions have taken place outside the formal structure for union-management negotiations.\nThe FNAM aviation association strongly criticised the strike, saying it would \"essentially penalise French-based airlines and their sub-contractors\".\nTransport minister Alain Vidalies said he \"regretted\" that the union had chosen to call for strike action, and noted that a meeting was due to take place on April 13 to discuss working practices in the sector.\n\"We'll see what we're offered,\" SNCTA head Roger Rousseau said.\n\"Since 2013, we've been taken for a ride meeting after meeting.\"\nHe said he \"hoped to find a way out\" without resorting to strike action, which he said was the only way to \"make ourselves heard\".\nThe SNCTA had originally called the strike from March 25 to 27 but scrapped it after the Germanwings crash in the French Alps that killed 150.\nFurther industrial action is planned from April 16 to 18 and from April 29 to May 2, which are key holiday periods.\nAFP\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["27","18","May 2"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["March 25","April 16","April 29"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["airlines"]},{"role":"Duration","values":["two-day strike"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["SNCTA"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["air traffic controllers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["working conditions","over working conditions"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Air France"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 The 2005 New York City transit strike is halted as strikers agree to return to work when negotiations resumed. (BBC)","document":"The public transport network rumbled into life overnight on Friday and by mid-morning a full service had resumed.\nThe union had been faced with fines and jail terms for its leaders, as the law bans transport workers from striking.\nThe strike - the city's first in 25 years - is thought to have cost New York up to a billion dollars.\nWorkers returned to their posts  on the largest public transport system in the US after union leaders thrashed out a deal on Thursday.\nThe city's seven million commuters expressed relief that the strike had come to an end.\n'Disaster'\n\"I'm glad that it's over. I didn't think I'd be able to leave the city to go home to Virginia for Christmas,\" fashion stylist Christina Turner told the Reuters news agency.\nEven some of the city's cabbies - who have been doing a roaring trade during the industrial action - welcomed its end.\nMillions walked across bridges into Manhattan each day of the strike\n\"Thank God it's over,\"  Abdul Sukur, 32, told the New York Times. \"It's been kind of a disaster.\"\nLooking ahead to Friday, he added: \"For me it will be an average day. But for bus and train commuters, they are very pleased.\"\nUnion workers seemed willing to return to their jobs as soon as possible.\nMinutes after it was announced the unions would go back to work, Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged people to shop and visit theatres and museums.\nAnd he said the city had handled the strike well.\n\"This was really a very big test for our city. I think it's fair to say we passed the test with flying colours.\"\nMounting pressure\nOn the third day of the strike, the executive board of Transport Workers Union Local 100 voted overwhelmingly to return to work without a contract.\nNegotiations - which will not be made public - will now resume on pay and benefits.\nSome taxi drivers pitied their customers\nFiery union leader Roger Toussaint had recommended that the board end the strike.\n\"We thank all riders for their patience and forbearance and we will be providing various details regarding the outcome of this strike in the next several days,\" he said.\nRiders had in fact not been especially patient. A  WNBC/Marist opinion poll suggested more than half of New Yorkers opposed the strike, with more than a third backing it.\nThe unions had been facing mounting pressure to abandon the protest and was threatened with a fine of $1m (£600,000) for each day of the strike. It is not clear if the unions will have to pay the fine.\nWorkers who strike in violation of the law are fined two days' pay for each day they miss work.\nIn pictures: NY strike\nNew York State Governor George Pataki, an outspoken critic of the action, said its conclusion was \"very positive\" for all New Yorkers but added that striking workers should not expect to have their fines waived.\nUS stocks rose on news that union members would go back to work.\nThe Transport Workers' Union and Metropolitan Transport Authority are in dispute over wage rises, health care and pension costs and the retirement age of employees.\nNearly 34,000 workers went on strike on Tuesday after talks over their contracts collapsed.\nThey said they were \"tired of being underappreciated\" but transport bosses accused them of \"bullying tactics\".\nThis was the first mass transit walkout in New York since an 11-day strike in 1980, which was calculated to have cost the city billions of dollars.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":["a billion dollars"]},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Transport Workers' Union"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Nearly 34,000 workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["wage rises, health care and pension costs and the retirement age of employees","they were \"tired of being underappreciated\" but transport bosses accused them of \"bullying tactics\""]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["union leaders thrashed out a deal on Thursday"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Metropolitan Transport Authority"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2006 More than one million local government workers in the UK strike over cuts to pension schemes, in an action co–ordinated by eight trade unions. (BBC)","document":"The Local Government Association (LGA) estimated that around 400,000 council workers in England joined the strike.\nThe UK-wide strike is over government plans to scrap a rule allowing some people to retire at 60, without suffering a penalty for retiring early.\nThe government argues the current rule is discriminatory and hopes that an alternative solution can be found. Transport hit\nMinisters have called a meeting with employers and unions on Wednesday to try to break the deadlock.\nImpact across the UK\nUnison, the biggest of the 11 unions involved in Tuesday's action, said there had been \"solid\" support among members and it could be the biggest stoppage in the UK since the 1926 General Strike.\nWorkers supporting the strike include leisure centre workers, school staff including caretakers, cooks, cleaners and office workers, refuse collectors, housing officers, nursery nurses, youth and community staff and tourism officials. The strike has also affected traffic wardens, housing associations, the Probation Service, the Meat Hygiene Service, street sweeping, home care, occupational therapy and other social services.\nTransport has also been hit as some workers formerly employed by local councils, such as bus and subway drivers, remain members of the pension scheme. All bus and rail services are at a standstill in Northern Ireland, and the Mersey Tunnels in Liverpool, the Metro on Tyneside and Glasgow's subway network have all closed.\nStrike action is the only option left to local government workers\n Unison general secretary Dave Prentis\nWhat is the strike about? Do you support the strike?\nIn pictures: Pension strike\nAmong the unions taking part are the T&G, Amicus and the GMB.\nUnison general secretary Dave Prentis said: \"Strike action is the only option left to local government workers to demonstrate the burning resentment and anger they feel over the government and employers taking away their pension rights, when those same rights have been given to every other public sector pension scheme.\n \"They are understandably angry at being treated like second-class citizens.\"\nT&G general secretary Tony Woodley said: \"Three-quarters of those workers are women.\n\"Tony Blair and his colleagues think low-paid women workers are a pushover. Well, he's got that wrong.\"\nUnions have warned of further action in the run-up to the local council elections in May.\nAn LGA survey of councils in England suggested that though there had been strong support for the strike in London, Liverpool, Nottingham and the North East, in other areas the numbers were far fewer - with 150 staff out of 14,000 on strike at Buckinghamshire County Council.\nLGA chairman Sir Sandy Bruce Lockhart said: \"Council workers are continuing to do their important jobs well.\"\nRule 85\nAt the centre of the dispute is the so-called Rule of 85.\nThis allows council employees to retire at 60 without suffering a financial penalty for early retirement, provided their age and years of service add up to 85. Ealing Council workers join the protest\nThe government is planning to scrap the rule for all workers in April, but the unions say it should have been retained for existing workers, and stopped only for new recruits.\nEmployers say that with increasing life expectancy in the UK, the rule means they could face a rise in pension contributions of £5bn to £6bn in the next 20 years.\nOn the BBC's World at One, Local Government Minister Phil Woolas said he hoped an alternative solution could be found. \"The question is: Is it possible to replace the benefits that members of the scheme receive from rule 85 in a different way?\" \"If the unions and the local government leaders can find a way of doing that, our role and John Prescott's role as the regulator of the scheme is to put that into place.\" But the unions insist local government workers should be treated in the same way as uniformed police, NHS workers, civil servants and teachers - who can all retire on a full pension at 60.\nUnison says nearly three-quarters of contributors to the local government pension scheme are women, most of whom work part-time and who draw an average of £1,612 (£31 a week) upon retirement. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister held a three-month consultation on the issue, which finished on 28 February. Talks continued until 14 March when eight trade unions voted for strike action.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["14 March"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["400,000 council workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["over the government and employers taking away their pension rights","over government plans to scrap a rule allowing some people to retire at 60, without suffering a penalty for retiring early"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["council workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["The government","government and employers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 A general strike in Nepal called by political parties opposed to King Gyanendra enters its 12th day, with food shortages and price rises triggering panic buying in some areas. (BBC)  Security forces fatally shot a protester and wounded five in Nijgadh, 75 miles south of Katmandu. (CNN)","document":"Witnesses said troops opened fire on protesters in the town of Nijgadh, 200km (125 miles) south of Kathmandu.\nMeanwhile the army has been deployed to ensure food reaches the capital.\nNepal is experiencing food shortages and price rises because of the strike called by the opposition which has led protests against King Gyanendra.\nWe will provide armed escorts to trucks transporting essential goods to Kathmandu\n Dipendra ThapaMinistry of works and transport\nEyewitness: 'I was shot'\nNepalis on protest chaos\n\nThe strike coincides with an intensive campaign of anti-royal demonstrations around the country.\nOpposition parties have ordered shops and businesses, schools, colleges and motor transport to cease operations.\nReports from eastern Nepal say there are shortages of rice as mills close and people resort to panic buying.\nRush for goods\nIn the capital, Kathmandu, people are queuing for hours to buy petrol from the few pumps still open. \"Petrol supply has completely stopped,\" Harendra Bahadur Shreshtha, the head of a private consumers' forum, is quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.\nDelivery trucks have been obstructed, resulting in price rises for staples like rice and vegetables. Reports say vegetable markets across the country were crowded as people rushed to stock up.\nSeparately, the government said it would offer security to truckers and incentives to those who defy the strike.\n\"We will provide armed escorts to trucks transporting essential goods to Kathmandu,\" Dipendra Thapa, secretary at the ministry of works and transport, told the Associated Press news agency.\nClashes with police\nOn Monday, staff of Nepal's Supreme Court joined the protest against the king.\nThe BBC's Sushil Sharma in Kathmandu says the last time Supreme Court staff joined such a protest was in 1990, when the then monarch, King Birendra, was forced to give up absolute power and restore democracy.\nThe parties, which the king sacked from government last year, say the shutdown will continue and are now calling on people to withhold all tax and bill payments until what they call democratic government is ushered in. People around the country demonstrated against the monarch on Sunday. In one western town, scores were reported injured in police firing. In Kathmandu, a crowd of 10,000 threw stones when attempts were made to stop them advancing. Police responded with rubber bullets, injuring several. The king says he needs direct powers to tackle the Maoist insurgency, but rebel violence has increased under his rule.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Nepal's Supreme Court"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["the opposition"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":null},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["food shortages and price rises","shortages of rice as mills close and people resort to panic buying"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["King Gyanendra"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2017 Brazilian President Michel Temer deploys the Brazilian Army to the southeastern state of Espírito Santo, where a police strike has led to a wave of violence and looting, including dozens of murders in the state capital, Vitória. (Reuters) (The Guardian)","document":"RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil’s president on Monday ordered 200 troops to the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, where a police strike in recent days sparked a wave of violence including what is already believed to be dozens of murders.\nThe law enforcement stoppage in a state struggling with a budget shortfall is the latest example of how depleted public finances, amid Brazil’s worst recession on record, are crippling even basic health services, education and security in some states.\nThe crime surge in Espirito Santo, a small coastal state just north of Rio de Janeiro, began over the weekend, after police on Friday stopped work because of the pay dispute.\nSince then, local media and citizens with cell phone videos have broadcast scenes of chaos as thieves and other criminals appear to run rampant, particularly in state capital Vitoria and its suburbs, home to about 2 million people.\nLocal media reported that as many as 50 people have died during the period, an unusually high death toll for the state in such a short period. But a state security spokesman said the government has not been able to make an official tally.\nSchools in the area closed, as did public health clinics and other local offices. State officials, who argue they have no resources to raise wages, have already replaced the police commander and say they will not renew negotiations with officers until they return to work.\n“There is no way we can accept this attitude, leaving the population deprived of an essential service like public security,” Cesar Colnago, the state’s governor, told reporters after announcing the federal aid.\nPresident Michel Temer, who also authorized the use of federal troops to quell uprisings in prisons last month that led to around 140 deaths in various states, dispatched the country’s defense minister to Espirito Santo on Monday.\nThe state security spokesman said federal troops were expected to arrive by Tuesday.\nSeveral other Brazilian states are grappling with a financial crisis. In Rio de Janeiro, the state government has been struggling to pay expenses including salaries of police, teachers and doctors and basic supplies for schools and hospitals.\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["police"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["pay dispute"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the state government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2017 The Day Without a Woman general strike occurs. (The Verge)","document":"Today is the Day Without a Woman, a general strike initiated by the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington “in recognition of the enormous value that women of all backgrounds add to our socioeconomic system — and the pervasive and systemic gender-based inequalities that still exist within our society.” It’s the latest in a series of strikes aimed at protesting the policies and sympathies of the Trump administration, preceded by last month’s “Day Without an Immigrant” and the massive New York City bodega strike organized by Yemeni business owners.\nThat’s why I’m not at work today. I don’t think what I’m doing totally counts as striking — I told my manager ahead of time that I wouldn’t be coming in, both because Vox Media asked me to and because I work on an all-female team that I didn’t want to dump my work on without warning. (They’re all striking, too, it turns out.) I’m still going to log on to write if I see news about the strike itself that I want to cover. But those decisions were stickier than I expected: striking as a woman in an online space is not necessarily very visible, and striking as a woman in journalism means leaving all the talking space to the boys for a day. Women’s work in journalism — and especially in online media — while no more “important” than women’s work in any other sphere, is harder to reveal via absence. In a digital space, where often the only visible signifier of gender is a byline (not a reliable indicator, and in any case probably skimmed over), the question of how to be visible by leaving is pretty murky. So I asked women at all levels of dozens of online publications if they had thoughts on how to make this day a true statement, and what they felt their personal responsibilities were. Many hard news sites have ethics policies that forbid public political activity like protesting or striking, which means some substantial number of women will be online today by default. But of the women I spoke to (I reached out to around 60 directly, and received responses from about 20), most felt empowered to make their own decision about the day, and didn’t bring up fear of backlash from their employer. Only two said they feared jeopardizing an upcoming raise, or making a bad impression on a new manager. That, obviously, is one of the ways in which a strike like this exposes fault lines of privilege within the feminist movement. (Many of the women were quick to acknowledge that reality.) In education, health care, and nonprofit spheres, just to name a few that rely primarily on women’s labor, the result of women not showing up might be too catastrophic, possibly hurting other women and children the most. In areas like food service, retail, or domestic work — shift-based occupations that are also dominated by women — there is far less likelihood of a benevolent employer tolerating an unexcused absence, and far fewer have the luxury to jeopardize payment. Women who work in media, particularly those employed full-time, are probably safe if they choose to strike. In the case of my workplace, we’ve not only been encouraged to strike, but to hand our male co-workers anything we want to see published today.\nMore simply put, journalists face comparatively low risks if they participate today. That’s nice for individuals, but takes away at least some of the symbolic power of the collective action. One of the biggest questions women posed back at me was along these lines: for us, what counts as a strike in the way the word was intended? Should we stay off of Twitter, a major backchannel for discussion around journalism, politics, culture, and all the issues we write about? Should we avoid publishing new work so our absence is visible? At The Verge, our editor-in-chief expressed support for the strike and asked that we inform a manager and request the day off through our HR site. Vox Media has an unlimited vacation policy, so this isn’t a punishment, but it still undercuts, in a key way, what a strike is: a refusal to work that’s meant to raise visibility by seriously inconveniencing institutions. An editor from a major digital news outlet who wished to remain anonymous told me via Twitter DM that she doesn’t feel women in media need to take the strike 100 percent literally in order to participate: “[Today] isn't about not doing any work whatsoever, it's about not doing work you don't want to do. Maybe that means not showing up to work and not doing any writing — but if you like doing those things (I do), maybe it's just refusing to book conference rooms for men when it's not your job, refusing to take notes in meetings, refusing to smooth over interpersonal office issues created by men because ‘you're good with emotional stuff.’\"\nMy co-worker, senior reporter Adi Robertson, is one of the few women at The Verge who is at the office and working today. But she’s still participating in some way: “The women's strike is supposed to make women visible through invisibility, and however small my contribution is, I feel like I'm in a slightly unique position to signal-boost that effort by covering it.” Similarly, Mashable’s deputy managing editor, Alex Hazlett, said that her site will be shuffling news shifts to cover for women who plan to strike or attend protests, adding that many want to “still be involved in the coverage and attendant conversation.”  Lots of women told me they were wary of leaving that conversation for the day. Just last week, The Hollywood Reporter published a roundly criticized cover story about how “the future” of media at CNN is the vision of five men. (Only one of them was even a reporter.) Though things are undoubtedly improving for women in journalism, with concerted efforts toward gender parity slowly becoming the status quo, it’s a cold reality that the media is a boys’ club. The Women’s Media Center published a report in 2015 showing that men wrote 62 percent of all stories in 10 of the country’s highest-circulation newspapers the year before. Women produced only 37.3 percent of news for broadcast, print, and digital outlets taken together, and women and men were heavily segregated by subject matter. For example, women wrote only about 10 percent of sports news, 33 percent of criminal justice news, 35 percent of science news, 35 percent of political news, and 38 percent of tech news. Freelance journalist Lux Alptraum, in a phone call with The Verge, pointed out, “If all the women in the MTA strike, the MTA grinds to a halt. If all the women in media strike, it’s only men writing.” She also questioned whether removing women’s voices from the media, even just for a day, is useful: “Not to say that a general strike is a bad idea, but it’s more complicated in an industry where women’s voices are often ignored to begin with.” An anonymous senior editor from another publication told me, “We’re so used to hearing male voices that I don’t think it’ll register that on this day it’s only male voices. Put more simply: a mass protest or strike is a way of giving yourself and your values a platform. Journalists and people in media already have a platform — it’s literally our job to have a voice. When most women [outside of the media] step away from their jobs to join the protest, they’ll be doing it so their voice will be heard. If you’re in media and you step away from your job, your voice is silenced.” Britt Aboutaleb, the editor-in-chief of Racked, told me via Slack that she wouldn’t be striking, but that she remained cautiously optimistic about the effect the strike would have. “I’m not particularly thrilled by the idea of scrolling through a sea of men’s bylines [today], should it come to that, but I am sort of thrilled by seeing just how integral women are to keeping it all going when they are so visibly absent.”\nAboutaleb also said that while she didn’t think any of her staff planned on striking, she made it clear to them that they should feel free to do whatever they believed was right on strike day. Recode executive editor Kara Swisher told The Verge that she and editor-in-chief Dan Frommer have made the same clear to their staff, as did Curbed editor-in-editor Kelsey Keith. Eater editor-in-chief Amanda Kludt published a public letter about the issue: “The women at Eater outnumber the men about two to one. The majority of our bylines are female. The majority of the editors are female. I haven't gotten a strong sense from my team that they want to skip work on that day, especially because, to some, the silencing or their voices could lead to the amplification of mens’… That said, I'm encouraging whoever wants to stay home to stay home. And whoever wants to work should work.” Other sites with a largely female editorial staff said they would be striking, interpreting their responsibility to their readers as solidarity, then amplification in the days following. Jezebel editor-in-chief Emma Carmichael told The Verge that her site “will be operational [today], but will be written and edited by men of Gizmodo Media Group who want to help the women of the site stand in solidarity with the strike.” She also said that women writers at the site would file stories about the strike the following day. Jezebel staff writer Ellie Shechet said, “There was never really a question that we would be participating in the strike in some way and building this week's coverage around it, so it wasn't really a fraught decision in the way it might have been elsewhere. None of the women at the site will be blogging or filing stories that day, but technically, most of us will be working — I'll be reporting on the ground, likely covering the march, and publishing something on Thursday.”\nShechet said her only hesitation about the strike was around the idea of “striking without a measurable end-goal,” but also noted: “It’s an important opportunity for women to remind the country of our economic and social value, since the people in charge of running the country right now really seem to struggle with that concept.” Stella Bugbee, the editorial director of New York Magazine’s The Cut, gave a statement explaining that her site would be “going dark” and “publishing no new content for the day.” The Cut’s editorial plan she said, is to re-promote content about relevant issues, accompanied by a note to readers explaining that choice “to strike as a sign of solidarity with women everywhere as we face the potential rollback of fundamental rights.”  Bustle editor-in-chief Kate Ward has also published a public letter explaining why her site won’t be publishing today: “there's no time like the present to prove just how important ... women's voices are to the world — to media, to business, and beyond.” Kate Barnett, president of the fashion, culture, and humor site Man Repeller, said she’s made the day an optional paid day off for her 99 percent female staff. She added that Man Repeller will suspend all its normal publishing in favor of prewritten stories that contextualize the strike. “As one of the few women-owned and operated media companies, and particularly given our focus on community and the fact that 90 percent of our audience identifies as female, we're publishing a piece on why we're going dark, what that means to us, and opening the conversation up to our audience to discuss.”\nOther sites focused on women, like Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Marie Claire, will reportedly publish as usual, but pay special attention to the strike and coverage of women’s political issues.\nThe question of whether removing women’s voices from the internet will help or harm today’s cause probably does not have one clear answer. For sites like Jezebel or The Cut, where the staff and readership are both predominantly women, striking is a show of solidarity with the power to go both ways. Silence will be visible, though you could argue that it will be most visible to people who are already following women writers and being attendant to women’s issues. For tech- or sports-heavy sites, where removing women’s work for the day restores an antiquated status quo that many readers wouldn’t have any problem returning to, the remaining editorial staff need to make a conscious effort to highlight women’s voices in other ways. SB Nation editor-in-chief Elena Bergeron told me, “Women have touched every part of the sports we consume, and if women did not participate, you might not have, say, an NBA labor agreement, deep reporting about the effects of concussions on NFL players, or a functional Lakers organization.” So her site will fill in for striking employees by “resurfacing work that has covered women of note recently, all to underscore that sports would stink without women.”  Polygon’s Julia Alexander is striking from her job as a reporter in the gaming sphere — the piece of the internet that’s been arguably the most fraught for women in recent years. “As women at Polygon, we're able to critically examine a story or aspect of a game that our male co-workers might gloss over,” she said, explaining why the seven women on Polygon’s editorial team are all striking today. “[We’re] striking to prove to both our audience and ourselves just how important our roles are. It can be easy to forget, and we shouldn't.\" You can send photos to us on Twitter (we’re @verge) or via email (tips@theverge.com). You can also reach us on Signal: 646-412-7005.\nIt makes sense that this question of platform and voice is crucial to women who work in the digital space. We’ve grown used to having our work shouted down by the industry, by anonymous online trolls, and sometimes even the people we work with. Women, who receive the bulk of online harassment, are also aware that some men on the internet will celebrate their absence publicly. On Reddit (the only major social media platform that doesn’t have a female majority user base), there’s already a thread in the Men’s Rights subreddit featuring such astute observations as \"You know why men go under-appreciated for everything we do? It's because we don't organize things like this.\" At The Verge, our site-wide gender balance is good, but a day without women means no science section and only half our culture and transportation sections — with a robust tech section remaining. If our site is mostly tech coverage written by men for the day, there will be hundreds or thousands of readers — many of whom my female co-workers and I hear from every day — who are thrilled. Jezebel’s Emma Carmichael says she understands concerns about turning the internet over to men, but counters saying, “I think that relinquishing our collective voice on the internet for a day isn't so much about granting male voices more of a platform or less contested spaces, but about contextualizing the implicit value women bring to a workplace (or, in Jezebel's case, a rhetorical space) every day. Just as much as I hope women who participate in the strike get something out of the experience, I also want the men who have to step in to perform their labor or fill their roles to think about what's being asked of them, what parts of it are hard and uncomfortable… I'd argue that whether or not the internet feels ‘different’ or ‘lacking’ [today] would be a modest sign of the strike's success, not a sign of failure or concession.”","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Women’s March on Washington"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["organizers of the Women’s March on Washington","Yemeni business owners"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["in recognition of the enormous value that women of all backgrounds add to our socioeconomic system — and the pervasive and systemic gender-based inequalities that still exist within our society","the policies and sympathies of the Trump administration"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["a modest sign of the strike's success, not a sign of failure or concession"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2018 Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers begin a region-wide strike against the executions of Kurdish activists and the bombing of opposition parties in Koya in the neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan Region. (Kurdistan24)","document":"ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers on Wednesday began Rojhilat-wide (Iranian Kurdistan) strike against the executions of Kurdish activists and the bombing of opposition parties in Koya in the neighboring Kurdistan Region.\nOver the weekend six Kurdish political prisoners were executed, and, in a missile attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDK-I), at least 15 were killed and 42 injured.\nKurdish parties and Kurdish activists in Iran called for shop owners to strike in protest of the Iranian government’s actions. Protests are also expected to take place in Europe.\n“People in Kurdistan will stage a peaceful general strike to show the brutal Islamist regime in Iran that we will not accept more military attacks against our political parties and executions of our political activist,” Loghman H. Ahmedi, a senior member of the PDKI’s leadership, told Kurdistan 24.\n“This regime is on its last leg. With a combination of peaceful demonstrations and general strikes, together with the resistance of the Peshmerga Forces, the Kurdish people will be at the forefront to bring about change in Iran. The only factor that is missing is international support to end the rule of this brutal theocratic regime,” he added.\nAccording to the Kurdish Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, there were strikes in Kurdish cities, including Sanandaj, Mariwan, Saqez, Bane, Mahabad, and Piranshah.\n“The sources in these cities have reported a massive strike,” and people are rarely leaving their homes, Hengaw stated.\nThe organization also claimed that the internet was cut or restricted in most Kurdish cities.\nThe atmosphere in Iranian Kurdistan is also completely militarized, and many Kurdish activists are being summoned, interrogated, and even threatened by security agencies, Hengaw claimed.\nIts not the first time Kurdish shopkeepers strike against Iranian government policies.\nIn April, merchants and shopkeepers across several towns in Rojhilat held a weeks-long strike after the Iranian government launched a crackdown on Kurdish border couriers (Kolbar).\nResidents in Kurdish-populated cities of Iran rely on imported products and trade to make a living. \nEditing by Nadia Riva\nIran opens presidential vote with ultraconservative tipped to win Publisher works to bring Kurdish literature to the world stage Iraqi, Peshmerga officials meet to enhance security in disputed territories, along borders Companies operating in Kurdistan will soon use streamlined internet registry ","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday","April"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["a weeks"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["against the executions of Kurdish activists and the bombing of opposition parties in Koya in the neighboring Kurdistan Region","protest of the Iranian government’s actions"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["shopkeepers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2018 Workers of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests to the unpaid salaries for the 15th consecutive day. (Al Arabiya)","document":"Largescale strikes, protests continue in Iran’s ancient city of Shush Workers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests on Monday for the15th consecutive day, despite measures by authorities dispatching anti-riot units to prevent any such gatherings.\nAccording to reliable sources, 19 sugar cane mill, and factory workers have been arrested by the plain cloth of mullah’s secret service on Sunday, November 18. Following the day of arrests, the angry protestors launched demonstration in front of governance of Shush city, chanting, “Down with tyrants, viva workers”, “Do not be afraid, we are all together!”, “Neither threat nor prison is effective anymore!”\nThe Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Workers’ Union said that 19 workers were detained, identifying them by name.\nIn a statement issued today, the union also said that the labor activists were detained after the peaceful protests on their way back to the company.\nIt said that the families of the detainees were very concerned about their well-being and that they were demanding the immediate release of their loved ones.\nFounded half a century ago in the southern city of Shush, in Khuzestan Province, the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill is the oldest sugar factory in Iran. Some 5,600 workers are currently working at the company.\nState-run news sources said that only four people were detained.\nIRNA state-run News Agency quoted the governor of Khuzestan as saying that he was informed that four people were arrested. The strike on Tuesday was met with force by security forces who tried to prevent the gatherings in which thousands of workers and their families were participating, demanding the release of the arrested workers.\nWomen played a significant role in the protests and stood at the forefront of the gatherings.\nReports indicate that women’s participation in the protests drew national support from other workers and teachers in Iran. Merchants and shop owners in the Shush Bazaar also closed their shops in support of the workers.\nThe most well-known workers who were arrested on Saturday were Ismael Bakhshi and Moslem Armand, and they were both at the forefront of almost all the protests. Ismael Bakhshi is a labor activist and represents Haft Tappeh workers. In his last speech during one of the demonstrations, which was recorded and uploaded on social media, he said that the government did not listen to them despite two weeks of protests.\n“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit”\n“We are angry but instead of carrying out specific measures, they bring in riot police and the filthy Seda and Sima (state TV) and film the clashes and say that they (the workers) are seditionists,” he said. “They only lie instead of solving the problem. The governor and Minister say that this (Haft Tappeh) company was bankrupt even though they embezzled it themselves. Even if they pay our wages, the strike will continue while the company is privatized,” Bakhshi said.\nSince the privatization of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in a questionable 2015 privatization deal, the condition of workers has worsened. They have said that since the transfer of ownership to the present owners, the company’s debts have increased, with the employer only thinking of reducing the permanent workforce.\nAccusing the government of supporting the wealthy, the workers complain they have become poorer while the managers of the company have become richer.\nTrade unionist Jafar Azimzadeh, the leading member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, described the workers’ condition as “slavery.”\n“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit,” he said, explaining the plight of workers who have not received their wages for months.\nUnder such financial strain, some workers have even reached the point of committing suicide.\nAli Naghdi was the latest instance whose dead body was found afloat in a canal on February 27. It was said that Naghdi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages. Haft Tappeh workers have always had to fight for their wages, pensions and rights in the past years.\nIn recent months, they have been going on strikes periodically, protesting unfulfilled promises made by their employer.\nThe last time the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers went on strike was in mid-August when 500 workers protested not being paid for at least three months. Reports indicate that riot police attacked the striking workers with tear gas and beat the protesters. Five workers were also detained but were later released after being charged with “disrupting order”.\nThis was not an isolated case of persecution against these workers. Iranian officials have in the past also responded with force, arresting leaders and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’Syndicate. At least 100 workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill have been summoned or detained only for speaking out and demanding their rights.\nThe Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in Ahwaz announced on Sunday, February 4, that at least 34 of their workers were arrested by the police in their ongoing strike. Ismail Bakhshi, Karamat Pam, Rahim Besak and Ramadan Alipour were among the detainees.\nA number of workers, including Hassan Alkasir, Amir Alkasir, Majid Amiri, and eight others were summoned to the Shush Intelligence Department via telephone on Tuesday, March 6. Earlier, Ramadan Alipour and Rahim Beshagh, labor activists and members of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Union were summoned by the 3rd Branch of the Shush Court.\nSummonses were issued for about 20 Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers following a gathering outside of the governor’s office on March 28 in Ahwaz.\nThe summons said that the workers had to report to the Shush Prosecutor’s Office at 9am on Saturday, March 31. The workers who went to the Office on March 31 were told that it was closed for the holidays. According to reports, at 1pm on the same day, security forces came to the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill with arrest warrants for the workers and detained a number of them. The forces then went to the homes of other workers to detain them.\nWorkers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests on Monday for the 15th consecutive day, despite measures by authorities dispatching anti-riot units to prevent any such gatherings.\nAccording to reliable sources, 19 sugar cane mill, and factory workers have been arrested by the plain cloth of mullah’s secret service on Sunday, November 18. Following the day of arrests, the angry protestors launched demonstration in front of governance of Shush city, chanting, “Down with tyrants, viva workers”, “Do not be afraid, we are all together!”, “Neither threat nor prison is effective anymore!”\nThe Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Workers’ Union said that 19 workers were detained, identifying them by name.\nIn a statement issued today, the union also said that the labor activists were detained after the peaceful protests on their way back to the company.\nIt said that the families of the detainees were very concerned about their well-being and that they were demanding the immediate release of their loved ones.\nFounded half a century ago in the southern city of Shush, in Khuzestan Province, the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill is the oldest sugar factory in Iran. Some 5,600 workers are currently working at the company.\nState-run news sources said that only four people were detained.\nIRNA state-run News Agency quoted the governor of Khuzestan as saying that he was informed that four people were arrested. The strike on Tuesday was met with force by security forces who tried to prevent the gatherings in which thousands of workers and their families were participating, demanding the release of the arrested workers.\nWomen played a significant role in the protests and stood at the forefront of the gatherings.\nReports indicate that women’s participation in the protests drew national support from other workers and teachers in Iran. Merchants and shop owners in the Shush Bazaar also closed their shops in support of the workers.\nThe most well-known workers who were arrested on Saturday were Ismael Bakhshi and Moslem Armand, and they were both at the forefront of almost all the protests. Ismael Bakhshi is a labor activist and represents Haft Tappeh workers. In his last speech during one of the demonstrations, which was recorded and uploaded on social media, he said that the government did not listen to them despite two weeks of protests.\n“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit”\n“We are angry but instead of carrying out specific measures, they bring in riot police and the filthy Seda and Sima (state TV) and film the clashes and say that they (the workers) are seditionists,” he said. “They only lie instead of solving the problem. The governor and Minister say that this (Haft Tappeh) company was bankrupt even though they embezzled it themselves. Even if they pay our wages, the strike will continue while the company is privatized,” Bakhshi said.\nSince the privatization of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in a questionable 2015 privatization deal, the condition of workers has worsened. They have said that since the transfer of ownership to the present owners, the company’s debts have increased, with the employer only thinking of reducing the permanent workforce.\nAccusing the government of supporting the wealthy, the workers complain they have become poorer while the managers of the company have become richer.\nTrade unionist Jafar Azimzadeh, the leading member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, described the workers’ condition as “slavery.”\n“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit,” he said, explaining the plight of workers who have not received their wages for months.\nUnder such financial strain, some workers have even reached the point of committing suicide.\nAli Naghdi was the latest instance whose dead body was found afloat in a canal on February 27. It was said that Naghdi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages. Haft Tappeh workers have always had to fight for their wages, pensions and rights in the past years.\nIn recent months, they have been going on strikes periodically, protesting unfulfilled promises made by their employer.\nThe last time the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers went on strike was in mid-August when 500 workers protested not being paid for at least three months. Reports indicate that riot police attacked the striking workers with tear gas and beat the protesters. Five workers were also detained but were later released after being charged with “disrupting order”.\nThis was not an isolated case of persecution against these workers. Iranian officials have in the past also responded with force, arresting leaders and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’Syndicate. At least 100 workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill have been summoned or detained only for speaking out and demanding their rights.\nThe Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in Ahwaz announced on Sunday, February 4, that at least 34 of their workers were arrested by the police in their ongoing strike. Ismail Bakhshi, Karamat Pam, Rahim Besak and Ramadan Alipour were among the detainees.\nA number of workers, including Hassan Alkasir, Amir Alkasir, Majid Amiri, and eight others were summoned to the Shush Intelligence Department via telephone on Tuesday, March 6. Earlier, Ramadan Alipour and Rahim Beshagh, labor activists and members of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Union were summoned by the 3rd Branch of the Shush Court.\nSummonses were issued for about 20 Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers following a gathering outside of the governor’s office on March 28 in Ahwaz.\nThe summons said that the workers had to report to the Shush Prosecutor’s Office at 9am on Saturday, March 31. The workers who went to the Office on March 31 were told that it was closed for the holidays. According to reports, at 1pm on the same day, security forces came to the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill with arrest warrants for the workers and detained a number of them. The forces then went to the homes of other workers to detain them.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["15th consecutive day"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Shush Workers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["demanding the release of the arrested workers","the workers’ condition as “slavery."]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Workers","Employees"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Over 31,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians in Los Angeles, who have been without a contract for more than a year, go on a strike to demand higher pay after negotiations for improved compensation and work conditions failed. (CBS News) (Al Jazeera)","document":"        About 31,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians took to picket lines on a rainy Monday in Los Angeles, where the nation's second-biggest school system is using substitutes and staff to keep school doors open. \nCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom last Thursday unveiled a proposed budget that includes additional funding for public education, with the Los Angeles United School District sweetening its contract proposal to the teachers union the next day. The union, however, rejected the offer as insufficient.\nWith no bargaining done during the weekend, the union called the strike for Monday, its first walkout in nearly 30 years. LAUSD officials said classrooms would remain open for the 480,000 children impacted by the walkout.\nAbout 400 substitutes and 2,000 credentialed district staff are trying to cover for the union members, with a district guide informing parents that \"students are expected to attend school every day.\" The school district has financial incentive to encourage students to come to school, as the bulk of its funding is based on attendance.\nRoughly 81 percent of L.A.'s public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and LAUSD said it continues to serve meals during the walkout.\nNegotiations between the union United Teachers Los Angeles and the LAUSD began in early 2017, and union members have been working without a contract for more than a year. \nIn addition to higher pay and improved benefits, UTLA is demanding smaller classroom sizes and schools that are \"fully staffed\" with nurses, counselors and librarians. It wants a full-time nurse in every school, along with more counselors and librarians. \nThe union is also looking to cap the growth of privately operated charter schools, which competes for resources with public schools. \n\"Even with $1.86 billion [in] reserves, LAUSD says it does not have the money to improve our schools to include lower class sizes, accountability for charter schools and a real reinvestment in school safety, vital staffing and educational programs. Since 2008, the cost of living in L.A. has increased 27 percent yet the district offers stagnant wages and healthcare,\" the union said in a news release.\nLAUSD's latest offer builds on previous proposals and would reduce classroom sizes, but not to the extent the union is demanding. It also contends that budget restraints means it must any limit new hiring to one year. It's offering a 6 percent raise over the first two years of a three-year contract, while teachers want 6.5 percent retroactive to a year earlier.\nThe district, which has sought to limit the negotiations to wages, contends that it already faces possible insolvency in two to three years, even before meeting much of what the union is demanding.\n\"We did not want a strike, we tried our best to avoid it, and will continue to work around the clock to find a solution to end the strike,\" LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a video posted on the district's website. \nThe teachers' demands echo those made by educators in four states that staged mass walkouts in the spring of 2018. Beginning in West Virginia in February and followed soon after by walkouts in Oklahoma, Arizona and North Carolina, teachers were able to rally public support, with lawmakers in some states partially reversing course on years of cutbacks to education.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["United Teachers Los Angeles"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["About 31,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["rejected the offer as insufficient"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["LAUSD"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 Separatists in Catalonia launch a general strike in protest of the trial of Catalonia independence leaders, with major participation of the educational community. Demonstrators block major roads, highways, train tracks and the entrance to the port of Tarragona. (Time) (ABC News) (Cope)","document":"Strikers advocating for Catalonia's secession from Spain are blocking major highways, train lines and roads across the northeastern region\nMADRID -- Strikers advocating for Catalonia to secede from Spain are blocking major highways, train tracks and roads across the northeastern region.\nThursday's general strike has been organized bynions of pro-independence workers and students. On paper, they are demanding improved social policies including a 35-hour work week and a higher minimum wage but the protests are being fueled by outrage at Spain for putting on trial a dozen separatists who pushed for Catalan independence in 2017.\nCatalonia's transit authorities say the disruptions are affecting main thoroughfares in Barcelona and half a dozen major highways and railway tracks elsewhere in Catalonia. Protesters burned tires at one of the highways.\nIn Barcelona, students and the pro-secession group ANC are holding separate marches later Thursday. ANC's protest slogan is \"self-determination is not a crime.\"","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["nions of pro-independence workers and students"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["Catalonia's secession from Spain","demanding improved social policies including a 35-hour work week and a higher minimum wage"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers and students"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2017 Strikes continue in the University of Puerto Rico because of university budget cuts from the Puerto Rico Oversight Board (PROMESA). (Pasquines)","document":"The University of Puerto Rico has been on a systematic indefinite strike since April 5. On that day the strike was approved and since then ten out of eleven (with the Medical Science campus holding a 72 hour strike in lieu) campuses have joined in this strike as a sign of unity. Students have said that the strike will only be lifted until the following conditions are met:\nThese conditions are critical to understanding why the university student body has decided on an indefinite strike instead of the individual and shorter strikes that each campus has made.  \nThe University of Puerto Rico has been threatened by a budget cut suggested by the Oversight Board and enforced by the government. The students fear that the budget cuts will affect the university’s capacity to attend to student’s needs, to function at its full capacity and that it would mean the closing of campuses. Interim President Nivia Fernandez’s resignation has been solicited by student leaders due to her position in favoring the budget cuts. In February, then Interim President Celeste Freytes had asked as to how the Oversight Board had arrived at what was then a $300 million budget cut. Since then, there has been no answer as to what they are basing their budget cuts on.\nThere is also the matter of having tuition increased or having it exempted. 70% of the students are recipients of the Pell Grant, allowing them to attend the university at low or no cost. With Puerto Rico’s economy in crisis and a poverty rate of 46% it is important for many of these students, some being the first in their family, to attend a higher education institution as this will guarantee them a higher salary and more employment opportunities in and outside the archipelago. The auditing of the debt has been asked as a matter of transparency. As mentioned before, the budget cuts aren’t based on any study made by the Oversight Board. The government has insisted that the university do its part in paying the debt yet the students have asked that before doing so, they see where the borrowed money went.\nThe students of the University of Puerto Rico have decided to take a stance against the government’s attempt to cut education and to pay an unaudited debt as the people of Puerto Rico continue to live in possibly worsening conditions. Share:\nRate:\nDarmy Cortés Serra is an undergraduate student at the University of Puerto Rico pursuing a degree in Linguistics and Communication. She is a Puerto Rican Affairs Correspondent at Pasquines.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["April 5"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["The University of Puerto Rico"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":null},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["The students fear that the budget cuts will affect the university’s capacity to attend to student’s needs, to function at its full capacity and that it would mean the closing of campuses","a budget cut","having tuition increased or having it exempted","the government’s attempt to cut education and to pay an unaudited debt"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Students"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Oversight Board","the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2017 An air raid kills at least 24 civilians at a market in Houthi-held Saada Governorate, Yemen. (AFP via PRI)","document":"Conflict Agence France-Presse June 18, 2017 · 10:15 AM EDT A girl cries after her father was killed by a Saudi-led air strike in Yemen's capital Sanaa July 13, 2015. Yemen's war started in March of that year. \nKhaled Abdullah/Reuters\nAt least 24 civilians were killed in an air raid Sunday on a market in northern Yemen, a medical official and witnesses said, blaming the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels.\nMost of the casualties worked in the Mashnaq market in the rebel-controlled Saada province on the Saudi border, an official at a nearby hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.\nWitnesses said the market was a centre for trafficking in qat, a leafy stimulant plant that is widely used in Yemen but illegal in Saudi Arabia.\nOne of the witnesses said some of the casualties had \"just returned from a trip across the border.\"\nThe Saudi-led Arab military coalition has been accused of air strikes in Yemen for more than two years against areas controlled by the Shiite Huthi rebels.\nSaada itself has come under heavy bombing since 2015, when the coalition intervened to support the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in its fight against the Iran-backed Huthis. \n\nThe coalition claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on the rebel-held capital Sanaa in October 2016 which targeted a gathering of mourners at a funeral ceremony, killing more than 140 people.\nThe Huthis have also accused the Saudi-led coalition of a raid last month that killed 23 civilians, including women and children, in the southwestern city of Taez. \nThe Saudi-led coalition — which accused the rebels of using civilians as \"human shields\" — has not claimed responsibility for that attack.\nThe rebels, who control a string of strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline and the norther highlands that border Saudi Arabia, have sporadically launched rocket attacks across the border.\nNo paywalls, ever.\nIn late January, the Huthis attacked a Saudi warship in the Red Sea, killing two sailors.\nMore than 8,000 people have been killed in the past two years and tens of thousands wounded in the war in Yemen, according to the World Health Organization. \nThe UN has called Yemen the \"largest humanitarian crisis in the world\" and warns that 17 million people, or two-thirds of the population, face a serious threat of famine this year. \n \n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["March"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["more than two years"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Yemeni rebels"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":null},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":null},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2007 Industrial action in Nigeria over increases in fuel duty and a doubling of sales tax is stepped up to become a general strike. (BBC)","document":"Office blocks are empty in central Lagos, with long queues at petrol stations. Schools and offices are shut in the northern city of Kano.\nPolice have cleared some barricades in  the capital, Abuja, set up by strikers.\nThe government offered concessions on fuel and value-added tax rises on Tuesday, but the trade union federation said it was \"too little, too late\".\nNigeria's Labour Congress also want the government to reverse the sale of oil refineries.\nStrike voices\n\"Today's action is a boom for my business\" Abuja bus driver\nIn pictures\nThe strike is seen as the first major test for new President Umaru Yar'Adua since he took over last month.\nThe BBC's Alex Last in Lagos says that for the strike to really hurt the government, it has to have an impact on the oil industry which provides 90% of its revenues.\nLocal staff at oil companies in the Niger Delta have joined the strike, but it will probably be some time before oil production is affected.\nIn the past strikes have not lasted long. The government has already reached a separate deal with oil and transport unions who went on strike last Friday, leading to fuel shortages.\nBus fares doubled\nCorrespondents say in major cities, most schools, banks, businesses and government offices are closed.\nThose who are in power don't really know how the people feel\n Taiwo OgunloyeLagos resident\n'I will stay at home'\nLagos's streets are deserted and there is no public transport in Abuja where some strikers set up barricades to stop other traffic.\nPolice either dismantled the barricades or directed cars around them. At one barricade a small bonfire was lit by the strikers.\nThe unions were angry at a series of measures pushed though in the last days of the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, who stepped down last month.\nThe price of petrol was increased from 65 naira (51 US cents) a litre to 75.\nThe government has now reportedly offered to reduce this to 70 naira (55 cents).\nTransport fares have doubled in some areas following the fuel price hike.\nThe government has also offered toe seen from their oil wealth since the government has failed to provide even basic services.  This is why the unions are insisting in a complete reversal in the fuel price rise.\n\"Those who are in power don't really know how the people feel,\" Lagos resident Taiwo Ogunloye told the BBC's Network Africa programme.\nHe said he would join in the strike and stay at home and watch TV \"as long as there is light\", he said.\nTough choice\nDino Mahthani, West Africa correspondent of the UK's Financial Times, told the BBC that the government was stuck between a rock and a hard place on the refineries.\nThe strike could be Umaru Yar'Adua's first real test  He says that despite being a major oil producer, it has hardly any refining capacity because the equipment is in such a poor state.\nTo give the owners an incentive to put money into the refineries, the government should stop subsidising the price of fuel, he says. But this would lead to a lot of angry people in the cities, who would accuse the government of making their lives harder, he says.\nA further complication is that the new owners are among the richest people in the country, with strong links to the ruling party.\nNigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer but had to import most of its petrol because of the poor state of its refineries.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["Nigeria's Labour Congress"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Local staff at oil companies in the Niger Delta"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["want the government to reverse the sale of oil refineries","insisting in a complete reversal in the fuel price rise"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["The government has now reportedly offered to reduce this to 70 naira (55 cents)","The government offered concessions on fuel and value-added tax rises on Tuesday","offered toe seen from their oil wealth since the government has failed to provide even basic services"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2018 Iranian truck owners and drivers start striking in seven provinces to protest poor working conditions. (VOA) (The Washington Post)","document":"Iranian truck owners and drivers have launched a strike in seven of Iran's 31 provinces to protest poor working conditions.\nIranian social media users shared details and images of Tuesday's strike with VOA Persian. They said it involved truckers in the provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Isfahan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan and Qazvin. \nIn one video clip sent to VOA Persian and posted on the VOA Farsi Twitter account, a female truck driver says she is joining the strike in solidarity with her colleagues. She also identifies her location as a highway to the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.\n\nImages of the truckers shared on social media showed them holding signs complaining about their costs rising while their salaries stagnate. The truckers said the rising costs included insurance, road tolls, commissions, repairs and spare parts.\nIt was not clear how long the strike would continue. There was no immediate response to the truckers' demands from Iranian authorities on state media.\nVarious Iranian industries have seen an increase in strikes and protests this year by workers fed up with local and national officials and business owners, whom they accuse of mismanagement and corruption.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Iranian truck owners and drivers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["poor working conditions","costs rising while their salaries stagnate"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["truckers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["There was no immediate response to the truckers' demands from Iranian authorities"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Iranian authorities"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2018 Oil workers in Brazil start a 72-hour strike, amid the ongoing truck drivers' strike. (Reuters)","document":"RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A 72-hour strike by Brazilian oil workers halted refineries and rigs on Wednesday, union leaders said, a new blow to President Michel Temer on the heels of a trucker protest that has strangled Latin America’s largest economy for over a week.\nThe strike by workers demanding changes at state-led oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is the latest challenge for the company known as Petrobras, whose shares have tumbled nearly 30 percent in two weeks over fears that political interference would unwind recent investor-focused policies.\nThe economic and political storm has shaken the lame duck Temer government ahead of October elections and rattled nerves about the path forward for Petrobras, Latin America’s biggest oil producer.\nIt has also raised the specter of protests spreading to more sectors as Brazilians vent frustration with the unpopular government and an uneven economic recovery.\nWith truckers protesting over high diesel prices, government sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Temer had been considering scrapping a market-based fuel pricing policy at Petrobras. But by Wednesday morning the president’s office issued a statement saying he would preserve the policy.\nThe oil sector strike included workers on at least 25 of the 46 oil rigs Petrobras operates in the lucrative Campos basin, responsible for nearly half of Brazil’s petroleum production. FUP, Brazil’s largest oil workers’ union, said that seven of those rigs were paralyzed. Petrobras did not respond to requests for confirmation.\nPetrobras said before the strike that the disruptions would not have an immediate major impact on its output or overall operations. Brazil produces about 2.1 million barrels of oil per day.\nAccording to a source close to the company, Petrobras has a significant stock of fuel on hand, especially as the 10-day trucker protest prevented significant amounts of fuel from leaving refineries.\nThe truckers’ roadblocks and resulting fuel shortages have halted major industries and hammered exports of everything from beef and soybeans to coffee and cars.\nRelated Coverage\nSee more stories\nSteelmaker Cia Siderúrgica Nacional SA, Brazil’s second-largest iron ore exporter, declared force majeure for its mining products due to disrupted supplies of diesel, explosives and food to it mines.\nThe 10-day trucker protest left major cities running short on food, gasoline and medical supplies, and officials warned it would take days to restore supply lines.\nThe automakers industry lobby Anfavea said car assembly plants halted since Friday will start up again on Monday.\nPublic Security Minister Raul Jungmann said the numbers of roadblocks that exceeded 1,000 at the height of the strike had fallen to under 200 by Wednesday night.\n“Brazil is returning to normal,” he said at a news conference where he accused owners of transport companies of taking part in what he called a “lockout.” The companies have been slapped with 272 million reais ($73 million) in fines.\nMoody’s Investor Service warned that it will take weeks for operations to return to normal in sectors from meatpackers and automakers to airlines and retail.\nFUP union said workers did not show up to work on Wednesday at 10 refineries stretching from Manaus in the Amazon to Rio de Janeiro in the southeast. They also walked off the job at plants handling lubricants, nitrogen and shale gas, as well as in the ports of Suape and Paranagua.\nThe oil strike was declared illegal by Brazil’s top labor court late Tuesday, after Petrobras argued it was about politics rather than labor issues. FUP leader Jose Maria Rangel said by phone that the union “will not be intimidated” by judicial decisions, and called the three-day strike a “warning.”\n“Our members have already approved us declaring a strike without a fixed end date,” the union said, without providing details on when any longer stoppage may take place.\nUnions representing oil workers said they were demanding the resignation of Petrobras’ chief executive, Pedro Parente. They also want the end of the market-based fuel pricing policy and other changes made at Petrobras since Temer took power in 2016.\nPetrobras said on Wednesday that board member José Alberto de Paula Torres Lima had resigned, citing “personal reasons.” He was one of three board members recruited by an outside agency and added to the board in April in an effort to establish its independence.\nPetrobras did not respond to questions about his departure.\nParente, on a Tuesday conference call with analysts, said Petrobras was taking action so that any strike would have minimal or no impact on production and operations.\nThe company flexed its muscles a bit by announcing on Wednesday that it would raise gasoline prices at refineries by 0.7 percent starting Thursday.\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["oil sector"]},{"role":"Duration","values":["72-hour"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Brazilian oil workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["demanding changes at state-led oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA","over high diesel prices"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers","trucker"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2018 Truck owners' strikes continue for the tenth consecutive day in 177 cities. Fuel shortages and long lines at petrol stations are reported in all major Iranian cities. (Open Democracy)","document":"We’ve just won a three-year transparency battle against Michael Gove’s department. Can you help us keep fighting government secrecy? Please type and press enter\nAs the West\ndeliberates about dealing with Iran, take into account the desires of the people who are protesting on the streets\nof the country itself for an end to imposed religious rule.\nFor the seventh\nconsecutive day on Monday, Iranian truck drivers disrupted the nation's\ntransportation system and put Iran's already struggling and decrepit economy in\na stranglehold. On the face of\nit, the truckers are just one of many sectors of Iranian society who have risen\nin protest. Joining the victims of insolvent Iranian credit unions, teachers\nunions, bus drivers, metro workers, students, as well as adherents of various\nSufi orders, and also political prisoners and their families, the truckers are\nstriking a chord of dissent and resistance to regime authority in Iran. On Tuesday\ninitially truck drivers in over 22 cities spanning all of Iran launched a\nnationwide strike to protest excessive road haulage taxes, high cost of spare\nparts, and low wages. The move was in response to an increase in road fees in\nsome parts of the country, and low wages. Drivers demanded a 50% increase in\nwages to match Iran's inflation rate and high costs of living.\nThe Road\nMaintenance & Transportation Organization tried to mollify drivers by\nannouncing a 20% increase in their wages. The truckers demanded that the fees be\nrescinded and wages increased further. The strike\nquickly spread to over 177 cities in 29 provinces and caught Iran's security\nforces off guard. Thousands of truckers refused to transport loads or accept\nnew loads. Major arteries and highways have been blocked by parked tractor\ntrailers. Fuel shortages and long lines at petrol stations have been reported\nin all major cities now as fuel tankers have stopped deliveries. Extensive social\nmedia coverage of the strike has demonstrated the strike's organization,\nexpansiveness, staying power, and radicalization. What was\ninitially a one or two day protest action has now dragged into its seventh day.\nVideo has surfaced in social media of State Security Forces attacking striking\ntruckers but to no avail. In some videos that have been circulating in Twitter,\ntrucks with police and military escorts are shown being stopped and forced to\nthe roadside by striking truckers who admonish the drivers for breaking the\nstrike. On Friday,\nminivan drivers in Shiraz and Yazd joined the trucker strike in solidarity and\nto protest low wages. Import and\nexport operations in many border and customs agency locations have slowed down\nto a crawl or halted. The united strike\nof Iranian truckers follows an almost month-long uprising in the city of\nKazerun, starting on 16 April, where protestors defied all regime security\nmeasures and shouted for regime change. The Kazerun protests began seemingly in protest at rules over new districts in the region. This follows on the heels of\nthe recent nationwide uprising in late December and early January that shook\nIran. It would be a\nmistake to view the events of the last few months in Iran as isolated or purely\neconomic grievances. What is evident is that there is an organizational hand in\nthe protests. Iran's leader, Ali Khamenei, has alleged that a triangle of\nactors are backing his regime into a corner and seeking its overthrow: The US\ngovernment, regional allies, and the Iran opposition MEK movement (ISNA news agency, 9 January 2018). Though\nKhamenei's finger-pointing at the US and regional allies is politically\nmotivated for domestic consumption, his highlighting of MEK's organizational role\nin the protests warrants close attention. The MEK, and its umbrella organization, National Council of Resistance of Iran,","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["three-year"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Iranian truck drivers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["wages","fees","transportation system"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["truck drivers","eachers\nunions, bus drivers, metro workers, students"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["announcing a 20% increase in their wages"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Michael Gove’s department"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2018 Tehran's Grand Bazaar starts a large strike after Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar on the market. (Trend) (Al-Arabiya)","document":"Videos have surfaced across social media showing hundreds of protesters in Iran’s Tehran Bazaar on Monday, chanting slogans condemning the government’s failed economic policies.\nSeveral activists shared videos of angry crowds of protesters shouting economic and political slogans like “We don’t want the dollar to be at 100,000 riyals” and “Strike”. People are also seen chanting at merchants to close their stalls at the bazaar.\nThe Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Sunday, continuing its drop amid fears of returning US sanctions after President Donald Trump in May withdrew from a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.\nThe dollar was being offered for as much as 87,000 rials, compared to around 75,500 on Thursday, the last trading day before Iran’s weekend, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com, which tracks the unofficial market.\nAs the protests are ongoing, a picture of Rouhani taking a walk in a sporting outfit caused more anger among social media users, where Iranian activists criticized Rouhani’s ignoring of the country’s economic crisis.\nThere were also several reports of currency exchange offices in Tehran not buying or selling hard currencies, especially the US dollar, for fear of extreme currency fluctuations.\nSeveral Iranian citizens have also noted that this decline in the Iranian riyal is directly affecting their everyday lives, as food prices have steadily risen. Many have begun buying and storing food items in bulk for fear of a rise in prices in the coming period.\nTo back up protesters in Iran, the main Iranian opposition the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has dedicated this year’s meeting in Paris to the cause: “#Free Iran; the Alternative”.\nIn last year’s address, Maryam Rajavi, President of the NCRI said that the regime is “besieged by the poor and unemployed youths who additionally want regime change”.\nOn June 30, Iranians from all over the world will gather in Paris to show their support for protesters and strikers in Iran. According to media reports, the event has attracted over 100,000 Iranian diaspora each year.\nSimilar to the current protests, the Tehran bazaar strike of 1979, which was nicknamed the pulse of the Iranian economy, was one of the main factors in the fall of the Shah’s rule at the time, and contributed greatly to his departure from the country.\nVideos have surfaced across social media showing hundreds of protesters in Iran’s Tehran Bazaar on Monday, chanting slogans condemning the government’s failed economic policies.\nSeveral activists shared videos of angry crowds of protesters shouting economic and political slogans like “We don’t want the dollar to be at 100,000 riyals” and “Strike”. People are also seen chanting at merchants to close their stalls at the bazaar.\nThe Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Sunday, continuing its drop amid fears of returning US sanctions after President Donald Trump in May withdrew from a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.\nThe dollar was being offered for as much as 87,000 rials, compared to around 75,500 on Thursday, the last trading day before Iran’s weekend, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com, which tracks the unofficial market.\nAs the protests are ongoing, a picture of Rouhani taking a walk in a sporting outfit caused more anger among social media users, where Iranian activists criticized Rouhani’s ignoring of the country’s economic crisis.\nThere were also several reports of currency exchange offices in Tehran not buying or selling hard currencies, especially the US dollar, for fear of extreme currency fluctuations.\nSeveral Iranian citizens have also noted that this decline in the Iranian riyal is directly affecting their everyday lives, as food prices have steadily risen. Many have begun buying and storing food items in bulk for fear of a rise in prices in the coming period.\nTo back up protesters in Iran, the main Iranian opposition the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has dedicated this year’s meeting in Paris to the cause: “#Free Iran; the Alternative”.\nIn last year’s address, Maryam Rajavi, President of the NCRI said that the regime is “besieged by the poor and unemployed youths who additionally want regime change”.\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Monday","June 30"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["hundreds of protesters"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["the government’s failed economic policies"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["Iranians"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2018 The Eiffel Tower in Paris shuts down after workers go on a strike over ticketing changes. (Upi)","document":"Aug. 1 (UPI) -- The Eiffel Tower in Paris shut down on Wednesday afternoon after workers went on strike over ticketing changes.\nThe official Eiffel Tower Twitter account said the strike began at 4 p.m. and instructed visitors who had already purchased tickets to check their email accounts for further instruction.\n\"We are truly sorry for the inconvenience,\" the account wrote.\nGail Boisclair, a Condé Nast Traveler specialist and the owner and founder of the Perfectly Paris apartment rental service, said the strike began in response to a new access policy that resulted in long lines for tours of the tower.\nThe Eiffel Tower has two elevators, one for people who arrive without reservations and another for those who purchased their tickets in advance. In July, management increased the number of tickets available for advanced booking from 20 percent to 50 percent.\n\"The workers don't understand why, in non-peak hours, the people in the line without pre-booked tickets cannot use the lift for the people with a reserved time slot, since it will sometimes be going up only partially full while there is still a huge queue at the other lift,\" Boisclair said.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["4 p.m"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["response to a new access policy that resulted in long lines for tours of the tower","over ticketing changes"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2018 In the United States, inmates in 17 states go on strike to protest prison labor conditions. (The Guardian)","document":"Organisers say prisoners across the country are expected to refuse to work, hold sit-ins and even stage hunger strikes\nLast modified on Thu 16 Apr 2020 12.33 BST\nThe first part of the prisons likely to be hit will be the kitchens, where stoves will remain unlit, ready-meals unheated and thousands of breakfasts uncooked.\nFrom there the impact will fan out. The laundry will be left unwashed, prison corridors un-mopped, and the lawns on the external grounds ring-fenced with barbed wire will go uncut.\nOn Tuesday, America’s vast army of incarcerated men and women – at 2.3m of them they form by far the largest imprisoned population in the world – will brace itself for what has the potential to be the largest prison strike in US history.\nNineteen days of peaceful protest are planned across the nation, organised largely by prisoners themselves.\nThe strike is being spearheaded by incarcerated members of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of prisoners providing mutual help and legal training to other inmates. A few days ago they released an anonymous statement setting out their reasons for calling a protest that carries the risk of substantial penal retaliation.\n“Fundamentally, it’s a human rights issue,” the statement said. “Prisoners understand they are being treated as animals. Prisons in America are a warzone. Every day prisoners are harmed due to conditions of confinement. For some of us it’s as if we are already dead, so what do we have to lose?”\nOrganizers have put together a list of 10 national demands. They include improved prison conditions, an end to life without parole sentences or “death by incarceration” as the authors call them, increased funding for rehabilitation services and an end to the disenfranchisement of some 6 million Americans with felony convictions who are barred from voting.\nOne of the most passionately held demands is an immediate end to imposed labor in return for paltry wages, a widespread practice in US prisons that the strike organisers call a modern form of slavery. More than 800,000 prisoners are daily put to work, in some states compulsorily, in roles such as cleaning, cooking and lawn mowing.\nThe remuneration can be as woeful in states such as Louisiana as 4 cents an hour.\nThe idea that such lowly-paid work in a $2bn industry is equivalent to slavery is leant weight by the 13th amendment of the US constitution. It banned slavery and involuntary servitude, with one vital exception: “as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”.\nPrisoners, in other words, have no constitutional rights and can be blatantly exploited.\nIn addition to a refusal to work, inmates engaging with the strike plan to go on hunger strikes, hold sit-in protests and stage a boycott of commissaries, collect phone calls and other payment streams where private and state-owned companies make money out of them. The boycott was the brainchild of Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun of the Free Alabama Movement under the rubric Redistribute the Pain.\nHe called on fellow prisoners to stop channeling either their own or their relatives’ money to what he called the “prison industrialized complex”. He urged participants to spend 25% of what they saved from the boycott on books such as Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration.\nInmates who join the action know that they face potentially serious consequences. Participants face being placed individually into isolation cells, while past prison strikes have been met with lockdowns of entire institutions.\nCommunications too are certain to be blocked, leading potentially to a blackout of news on the protest.\nAccording to prison reform activists engaged in planning the strike, retaliatory measures have already started. Karen Smith, who runs the Gainesville, Florida chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee that is backing the strike, said that prison authorities have moved most of the local strike organisers into solitary confinement wings where they will be unable to communicate with others.\n“Other inmates have been warned that if they continue to contact advocacy groups they will be moved to the most brutal camps.”\nThe strike comes two years after the last major nationwide prison strike in September 2016 that saw more than 20,000 inmates refuse to show up for work across 12 states. That strike was co-ordinated out of Holman prison in Alabama, a state notorious for its overcrowded and dilapidated penal institutions, by a group of inmates styling themselves the “Free Alabama Movement”.\nThis year’s strike was triggered by the riot at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina in April in which seven inmates died in what was the most deadly prison unrest in a quarter of a century. The bloody melee, fueled by gang rivalry over contraband, lasted for seven hours while prison guards did next to nothing to stop it.\nWithin days of the South Carolina carnage, and the renewed spotlight it put on the gross overcrowding, understaffing and inhumane living conditions in American prisons, the idea of a nationwide strike began to form.\nAs inspiration for what promises to be a tough 20 days ahead, strike organizers are leaning on history. The nationwide action begins on Tuesday on the 47th anniversary of the death of the prominent Black Panther member, George Jackson, who was shot as he tried to escape in the prison yard of San Quentin in California.\nThe strike is then scheduled to close on 9 September, the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York. In an echo of today’s protest, the 1971 Attica riot was also framed by inmates as a push for humane conditions and basic political rights.\nBut after four days of negotiations it ended in a bloodbath when New York’s then governor, Nelson Rockefeller, sent in state police armed with shotguns and tear gas. Twenty-nine inmates and 10 of their hostages were killed.\nHeather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971, said that it was symbolically important that Attica was being invoked. “Attica drew a line in the sand – it was a recognition that people have a right to rebel, and will rebel, when they forced into unbelievably horrific conditions.”","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["Nineteen days"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["prisoners across the country"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["prisoners are harmed due to conditions of confinement","Prisoners, in other words, have no constitutional rights and can be blatantly exploited","the kitchens, where stoves will remain unlit, ready-meals unheated and thousands of breakfasts uncooked","human rights issue"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["prisoners"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2016 French labor unions, led by the CGT, implement a strike in protest of proposed reforms to labor laws. (BBC)","document":"Strike action over labour law reforms gripped France on Thursday, with oil refineries, nuclear power stations and transport hubs disrupted.\nRiot police battled protesters in Paris and other cities, making 77 arrests, while 15 officers were injured and cars and shops were vandalised.\nPrime Minister Manuel Valls insists the reforms will not be withdrawn but has suggested they could be \"modified\".\nFrance is due to host the Euro 2016 football championships next month.\nA state of emergency imposed after November's deadly attack by militants from the so-called Islamic State group in Paris remains in place.  The CGT union is leading the action, supported by six other unions including Force Ouvriere and Unef, whereas the more moderate CFDT union backs the labour reforms.\nTear gas filled the air as police in Paris struggled to contain a march which set off from Place de la Bastille. Of the arrests, 36 were made in the capital while other cities like Lyon and Bordeaux saw similar confrontations.\nOfficials say 153,000 people took part across France though union leaders put the number at nearly twice that.\nFlights to and from Paris, Nantes and Toulouse were affected, and a rolling strike by train drivers brought further disruption to regional and commuter rail services.       RTE, the body overseeing France's national power network, said stoppages at nuclear power stations were not having an immediate effect on electricity supply but warned, \"If it worsens, it will have an impact on the management of the network.\"\nA third of petrol stations were dry or dangerously low on fuel after days of blockades at refineries by union activists.\nFive of the country's eight refineries remained at standstill or were operating at reduced capacity on Thursday.\nMr Valls indicated there might \"still be changes, improvements\" made to the labour reform laws.\nBut he rejected Finance Minister Michel Sapin's suggestion that Article 2 of the bill could be rewritten. Article 2 gives individual companies the power to opt out of national obligations on labour protection if they feel they need to - something the CGT union fiercely opposes.  German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble backed the reform, saying: \"France can live with such disputes.\"\n\"A certain dissatisfaction of voters with their respective rulers isn't such a bad thing in principle,\" he added.\nUnions were enraged by the government's decision to use a constitutional device to allow its watered-down labour reforms to be made into law without parliamentary approval.\nThe government says the reforms, which make it easier for companies to hire and fire staff, are needed to bring down unemployment.\nThe CGT has called for another day of action on 14 June, four days after Euro 2016 opens.\n\"The government has the time to say 'let's stop the clock' and everything will be OK,\" CGT chief Philippe Martinez told Reuters news agency when asked if his union was willing to disrupt the tournament.\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Thursday","14 June"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":["CGT union","Force Ouvriere and Unef"]},{"role":"Strikers","values":["153,000 people"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["labour law reforms"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["labour"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["\"The government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2016 #ThisFlag protest leader Pastor Evan Mawarire says the movement, which uses WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter,  will hold a two-day strike next week if demands, that include sacking corrupt ministers,  payment of delayed salaries,  lifting of roadblocks that residents say are used by police to extract bribes, etc., are not met. A drought has  aggravated  the country's situation as have banks that have a daily withdrawal ceiling as low as  $50. (Reuters via CNBC Africa) (Ventures Africa)","document":"The streets of Harare, Zimbabwe were eerily silent on Wednesday as Zimbabweans organized a “stay away” strike. Shops, offices, banks were all closed as most workers heeded the call to stay away from work. This came after days of protests in Zimbabwe which saw clashes between the police and taxi drivers in the city. The “stay away” protests, using the #Zimshutdown #ShutdownZim hashtags, were organised on social media, and were done to protest against uncontrolled unemployment, corruption and the delayed salary payments of government workers, amidst rising inflation in the country. It was a classic “from the internet to the streets” protest after several weeks were spent, by an unlikely leader in a Pastor, Evan Mawarire, to get many Zimbabweans to stay home on Wednesday.\nThis is not Zimbabwe’s first “stay away” day. However, this was the first to be organised over the internet. Since April, the Baptist Pastor, Evan Mawarire, has used WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter to bring people together under his movement, #thisflag. On Wednesday, the pastor said “we have called for a complete shutdown of the country today in protest of the government that has completely failed to look after its citizenry‚ and failed to listen to the demands of its citizenry‚” according to CNN. Last week, Zimbabwe’s government, headed by Robert Mugabe, announced that there will be delays in the payment of salaries for government workers. In addition to the import ban placed on goods coming from South Africa, this appeared to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and the eventual impetus for the movement to spill into the streets. Despite the Zimbabwean’s government’s efforts to block the use of social media, the protests still went on as planned on Wednesday.\nThis protest in Zimbabwe seems to have been inspired by recent protests in the neighbouring country of South Africa. The #ZumaMustFall protests, which saw thousands of South African protesters on the streets calling for President Jacob Zuma’s resignation, did not yield the required result, that is, his resignation. Zuma, who has been dogged with various allegations of corruption and has overseen the some of the worst periods in the South African economy, believes in his absolute hold on power, with the support of his party, the ANC, of course. Some members of his party have likened him to Vladimir Putin, saying if Putin can survive, then so can Zuma. His resignation is a no-no.\nTill Death Do Us Part….\nZimbabwe’s situation is really not that different from South Africa’s. Though Mugabe is as powerful as Zuma, even more as he’s been president of Zimbabwe since its independence, the economic crisis in his nation, this time, may be too much for him. His rash and archaic economic policies have seemingly brought Zimbabwe, twice, to the point of extinction and frankly, Zimbabwe’s present problems seem to be beyond Mugabe’s scope. It will be wise for him to decide to step down from the helm of affairs in Zimbabwe.\nHowever, for a man who recently said he had no plans to step down, this protest might just be wishful thinking from Zimbabweans. What is best for him is quite different from what is best for the country. He has a good hold on facets like the political scene, having successfully rigged elections twice in previous elections, the police, who have been beating citizens since the protests started and information, with him threatening users of social media in the aftermath of the protests. He also has a good hold on his self-delusion that the protests were sponsored by foreign embassies. So, except Mugabe dies tomorrow (his wife has been groomed to replace him), there seems to be no scenario where he willingly steps down from his position.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Zimbabweans","Baptist Pastor","Evan Mawarire"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["uncontrolled unemployment, corruption and the delayed salary payments of government workers, amidst rising inflation in the country","the government that has completely failed to look after its citizenry‚ and failed to listen to the demands of its citizenry"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["the government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2016 #ThisFlag protest leader Pastor Evan Mawarire says the movement, which uses WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter,  will hold a two-day strike next week if demands, that include sacking corrupt ministers,  payment of delayed salaries,  lifting of roadblocks that residents say are used by police to extract bribes, etc., are not met. A drought has  aggravated  the country's situation as have banks that have a daily withdrawal ceiling as low as  $50. (Reuters via CNBC Africa) (Ventures Africa)","document":" Last Updated: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 05:43:20 GMT 0\nFrom tweets to streets, Zimbabwe social media anger erupts into anti-Mugabe protests. PHOTO: Kremlin\nOrganisers of a general strike against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe pledged on Thursday to continue action until he falls, as a spontaneous social media movement has coalesced into the biggest uprising against his rule in nearly a decade.\nZimbabweans have been using the Internet in recent weeks to mobilise for street protests against Mugabe's government, bypassing traditional opposition parties as anger grows over his administration's handling of a failing economy.\nMugabe, Africa's oldest leader at 92, has led the former British colony since independence in 1980.\nHis critics say he has presided over the destruction of a once-promising country with policies such as the seizures of white-owned farms; his government blames foreign powers for sabotaging the economy and stirring unrest.\nOn Wednesday, much of the country was shut down by a \"stay away\" general strike, organised by a social media movement that complains of poor public services, 85 percent unemployment, widespread corruption and delays in getting state salaries.\nThe unlikely protest leader is a pastor, Evan Mawarire, who launched the movement - #ThisFlag - to get Zimbabweans to rally round the national flag and speak out against Mugabe policies.\nHe told Reuters the movement had found its voice and was planning more action in the wake of the success of Wednesday's strike, which shut down much of the capital Harare.\n\"We are getting to a place where we are now expressing that we have had enough. What we are doing is about one action, one voice concerning our frustration. Enough is enough,\" he said.\nThe government blames Zimbabwe's precarious financial position on Western sanctions and a slump in prices of its export commodities.\nIgnatious Chombo, the ruling ZANU-PF party's administration secretary, blamed Western embassies in Harare and opposition parties late on Wednesday for trying to cause anarchy.\nA drought has compounded the hardship, while an acute cash shortage means those lucky enough to get paid are unable to get their hands on any money due to daily withdrawal limits at most banks of as little as $50.\nCentral bank plans to circulate local bank notes later this year have caused further anxiety among a population that lost savings and pensions in 2008 when rampant money-printing pushed hyperinflation to more than 500 billion percent.\nZimbabwe last witnessed protests on this scale in April 2007 when opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai led anti-Mugabe demonstrations.\nMawarire's #ThisFlag movement says it will hold another strike next week lasting two days if demands are not met, including the sacking of corrupt ministers, the payment of delayed salaries and the lifting of roadblocks that residents say are used by police to extract bribes.\nOther social media movements have also appeared, such as Tajamuka - 'We refuse' in Zimbabwe's Shona language - which launched spontaneous demonstrations in the last month.\nOn Monday, an impromptu protest by taxi drivers turned violent, with rock-throwing young men facing off against squads of riot police firing volleys of tear gas - scenes unseen since a government slum clearance campaign in 2005.\nLast week, half a dozen protesters stormed a hotel in downtown Harare protesting against Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko's stay there since December 2014, saying this was profligacy by a government which says it has no money.\n\"Clearly there is a coincidence or intersection of national grievances across the board, economic and political, and the immediate concerns of the public servants,\" Ibbo Mandaza, a leading academic and political commentator, said.\n\"That intersection has proved lethal in the last days. We are in a new phase of politics.\"\nDESPERATE FOR MONEY\nMugabe's government is desperate for money and is struggling to finance its $4 billion budget this year. The shortfalls have left soldiers, policemen, doctors and teachers being paid weeks in arrears.\nCitizens have taken to Twitter and Facebook to vent their anger against a ruling party they see as detached from their daily struggles, while it is consumed by internal fights over who will eventually take-over from the ageing Mugabe.\nForeign investment and donor support has dried up and the government in April halved its 2016 growth forecast to 1.4 percent. Independent economists see no more than 1 percent growth.\nHarare runs a hand-to-mouth budget, spending 82 percent of its revenue on wages. That leaves little for infrastructure, medicines in hospitals or books for schools.\nWhile a majority of Zimbabweans live on less than $2 a day and the government cries poverty, citizens complain of cabinet ministers and senior government officials driving fancy cars and jetting off on foreign trips.\n\"How does the government say it is broke when it buys expensive cars everyday? Every day we hear that ministers have stolen money, so it means the money is there,\" said Elen Chaduka, a mother of three, who sells food in central Harare.\nMawarire, the #ThisFlag leader, demanded an end to the lavish lives of party aparatchiks.\n\"We are saying no to government expenditure which is senseless. They are broke because they have mishandled the economy,\" he said.\nPolitical analysts say ruling party division over Mugabe's successor have spilled into state security organs and it may become more difficult to rely on the police to quell political unrest when officers themselves are angry at not being paid.\n\"We have a state which is fatally divided, a security sector which is fatally divided. I can see the government increasingly coming under siege, incapable of responding,\" Mandaza, the political scientist said. \"We are clearly going into a crisis.\"\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Evan Mawarire"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["against Mugabe's government, bypassing traditional opposition parties as anger grows over his administration's handling of a failing economy","poor public services, 85 percent unemployment, widespread corruption and delays in getting state salaries"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["pastor"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Over 19 flights are cancelled as a three–day strike at Lisbon Airport comes to an end. The strike was instigated when airport owner Vinci refused to unfreeze wages for the employees. (Reuters)","document":"LISBON (Reuters) - A three-day strike by workers at Lisbon airport led to the cancellation of several flights this weekend, with more likely before the action ends on Sunday, the workers’ union and Portuguese airport authority said.\nEasyJet EZJ.L, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Transavia France, and Wizz Air UK flights from and to Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany were canceled on Saturday and Sunday. SINTAC union spokesman Fernando Simoes said 19 flights had been canceled due to the strike, with seven redirected to Faro airport in the south of Portugal.\nPortugal’s airport authority’s website showed more than 25 flights to and from the airport had been canceled.\nA Lisbon airport spokesman declined to confirm the number of cancellations, but said a statement would likely be given at the end of the day.\nTalks between SINTAC and Vinci Group-owned Portway, which employs workers at Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Funchal airports, broke down in December when the company said it would not unfreeze salaries.\nIt had committed to do so by November 2019 when the freeze was implemented in 2016.\nPortway said in a statement on Sunday that it was ready to return to the negotiating table, with discussions already scheduled for January.\nHowever, SINTAC spokesman Fernando Simoes told Reuters that the union plans to carry on with another strike by overtime and weekend workers from Jan. 1 to the end of March.\nSINTAC said the company’s decision not to unfreeze salaries was intended to punish the union’s rejection of a revised work contract put forward by Portway in August.\n“For three years workers have seen their career progression and salaries frozen for the sake of the company’s financial health,” they said on Friday.\nPortway denied the allegations, Lusa reported on Friday, stating that they “scrupulously comply with regulations, including in relation to labor law”.\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":["Sunday","end of March"]},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":["Jan. 1"]},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":["three-day"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["workers at Lisbon airport"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":null},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":null},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2005 An unofficial strike by ground staff at Heathrow forces British Airways to cancel over 100 flights. Flights have resumed. (BBC)","document":"About 1,000 ground staff walked out in sympathy with workers sacked by BA's in-flight meals supplier Gate Gourmet.\nIt led to all BA Heathrow flights being cancelled until 2000 BST. Thirty one flights will take off later on Friday.\nTalks are under way at conciliation service Acas as passengers await news of exactly when flights will leave.\n\n                        Wed: Gate Gourmet's afternoon shift is sacked after workers miss a deadline to report to work. BA cancel four flights due to a lack of food\nThurs: Some BA staff stop work in sympathy with sacked staff. BA cancels all flights into and out of Heathrow until at least 1800 BST on Friday, after talks with unions break down\nFri: BA extends its flight cancellations until 2000 BST. Acas announces talks are to take place between TGWU and Gate Gourmet. BA staff start returning to work\nPassengers tell of disruption\nMartin George, a BA director, told BBC News the firm was doing everything in its power to get planes back in the air from 2000 BST. BBC correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said 31 flights would get away after 2000 BST on Friday, but only those people who had reserved tickets on those flights would be allowed on.\nNearly 100 BA aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew are still in the wrong place at sites around the world.\nAnd there is still a huge backlog of passengers from Thursday and Friday's cancelled flights, which could mean disruption for days to come.\nTwo unofficial strikes lie at the heart of the travel chaos. The first, by about 600 Gate Gourmet employees over the firm's restructuring plans, led to them being dismissed. Acas talks between Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) bosses and catering firm Gate Gourmet have begun.\nBut it is the second walk-out by BA baggage handlers and other ground staff, in sympathy with the catering workers, that caused the airline to cancel hundreds of flights on Friday.\nIt would usually run about 550 flights a day from Heathrow during the busy holiday season, involving 70,000 passengers. The dispute is thought to have cost BA £10m a day.\nBA Chief Executive Rod Eddington said: \"This is not our dispute. Our customers must come first and everyone involved in creating this chaotic situation must come to their senses.\"\n  \n                        British Airways:0800 727 800\nQantas:0870 000 0123 Sri Lankan Airlines:0208 538 2000 Finnair:08705 997711 GB Airways:0870 850 9850 British Med Airlines:0870 850 9850\nAdvice for stranded passengers\nMany disgruntled BA passengers, 1,000 of whom spent the night in the airport, have blamed airport staff for poor communication and say the advice line is constantly engaged.\nBA said they had extra staff on duty and were trying to answer people's calls as quickly as possible, but recommended people visit the BA website. Qantas, Sri Lankan, Finnair, GB and British Mediterranean, also serviced by BA ground staff, were also affected.\nGate Gourmet director Richard Wells denied being heavy-handed over the sacking of staff, saying they were spoken to and given written warnings before being dismissed.\nGate Gourmet has said it will not reinstate its sacked employees, but will look at \"other alternatives\".\nStaff at Heathrow - regarded as the world's busiest international airport - are trying to book travellers on flights with other airlines, while other services including Eurostar have reported a surge in business. Passengers due to travel on Friday were urged not to turn up at the airport, but to contact the airline or their travel agent for more information.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":null},{"role":"Duration","values":null},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["About 1,000 ground staff"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["sympathy with workers sacked by BA's in-flight meals supplier Gate Gourmet"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["ground staff"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["It led to all BA Heathrow flights being cancelled until 2000 BST. Thirty one flights will take off later on Friday","Talks are under way at conciliation service Acas"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2016 The Kuwait Oil Workers Union  ends their three–day strike  that had cut Kuwait's crude production by nearly half. (Gulf News)[permanent dead link] (CNBC)","document":"  Kuwaiti oil and gas workers have ended a three-day strike that  had temporarily cut the OPEC member’s crude production by nearly  half, the trade union said in a statement posted on its Twitter  account.   “In honor of his highness the Emir ... we have decided the  following. First, the cancellation of the general strike and the  attendance of all oil sector workers at their places of work  beginning at seven in the morning on Wednesday 20 April 2016,”  the Oil & Petrochemicals Industries Workers Confederation  wrote.   The union further pledged “to make every effort to immediately  return production to its previous level.”   News of the strike’s end came just hours after Kuwait’s oil  minister had ruled out negotiations with the employees until they  stopped their action, while one of the union leaders said the  thousands of workers would hold out until planned public sector  pay cuts were canceled.   U.S. oil prices fell slightly after the news. Oil markets had  rallied this week as the strike forced Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)  to cut output to as little as 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd),  down from a normal level of about 3 million bpd. By Tuesday  output had recovered to around 1.5 million bpd.   Workers fear reduced salaries, benefits and staff layoffs will be  part of a planned government overhaul of the payroll system in  the public sector.    In an interview with Kuwaiti TV channel al-Rai, Kuwait’s acting  oil minister, Anas al-Saleh, said production would continue and  that no talks would proceed during a strike.   “We cannot sit down at the negotiating table with the unions  during a strike. We will achieve the impossible to continue to  operate the oil sector despite the strike,” Saleh said.   Unions had not said how long the walkout would last. Non-Kuwaiti  oil workers are not on strike.","event_type":"Strike","arguments":[{"role":"End Date","values":null},{"role":"Economy Loss","values":null},{"role":"Start Date","values":null},{"role":"Strike Industry","values":["Oil & Petrochemicals Industries"]},{"role":"Duration","values":["three-day"]},{"role":"Strike Agency","values":null},{"role":"Strikers","values":["Kuwaiti oil and gas workers"]},{"role":"Strike Reason","values":["pay cuts","forced Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)  to cut output to as little as 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd)","reduced salaries, benefits and staff layoffs"]},{"role":"Strikers Status","values":["workers"]},{"role":"Strike Outcome","values":["The union further pledged “to make every effort to immediately  return production to its previous level.","negotiations with the employees"]},{"role":"Boycotted Institutions","values":["Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"UN World Food Programme Warns Of Approaching Hunger Catastrophe","document":" 9 days ago  Mon 08th November 2021 | 04:58 PM MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th November, 2021) The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday of an approaching hunger catastrophe as the number of people who find themselves at the verge of famine has risen to 45 million in 43 countries. \"The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that the number of people teetering on the edge of famine (IPC4/Emergency or worse) in 43 countries has risen to 45 million, as acute hunger spikes around the world. This number has risen from 42 million earlier in the year and 27 million in 2019,\" WFP said in a statement. WFP Executive Director David Beasley noted that conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are all factors affecting the worsening hunger situation globally. \"Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria,\" Beasley added. The head of WFP met with the second deputy prime minister of the Taliban (terrorist organization banned in Russia) movement, Abdul Salam Hanafi, in Kabul on Sunday where the organization is elevating its support to aid almost 23 million people on the brink of starvation. The UN organization estimated that the cost of ending famine now stands at around $7 billion, up from $6.6 billion last year. \"As the cost of humanitarian assistance rises exponentially, we need more funds to reach families across the globe who have already exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger,\" Beasley said. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food price Index found that food prices hit a ten-year high this month which means food production prices also rose. The WFP works with 139 million people across 85 countries with goal of providing food and building self-reliance of the poorest and most vulnerable individuals globally. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2021"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["7 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"UNWFP warns 3 million more now 'teetering on the edge of famine'","document":"ANI   Last Updated at November 8, 2021 10:01 IST The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday that the number of people teetering on the edge of in 43 countries, has risen to 45 million as acute hunger spikes around the world. This number has risen from 42 million earlier in the year, and 27 million in 2019, the agency said, in a news release. The increase is based on those who desperately living within the official hunger classification of IPC4 and above, in Afghanistan, alongside other increases in Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Angola, Kenya, and Burundi. \"Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We've got conflict, climate change and COVID-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry, and the latest data show there are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation,\" said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. He was speaking following a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, where WFP is ramping up its support to assist almost 23 million people in need there \"Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria,\" he added. The WFP said that together with humanitarian partners in hunger hotspots across the world, they are doing everything possible to increase aid for millions who risk starvation. However, available resources are unable to keep pace with demand, at a time when traditional funding streams are under huge strain. WFP estimates that the cost of averting globally now stands at $ 7 billion, up from some 6.6 billion, earlier in the year. \"As the cost of humanitarian assistance rises exponentially, we need more funds to reach families across the globe who have already exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger,\" added the WFP chief. The agency said families facing acute food insecurity, are being forced to make \"devastating choices to cope with the rising hunger.\" A vulnerability analysis across the 43 countries surveyed, shows families being forced to eat less, or skip meals entirely. Sometimes children are being fed, while parents sacrifice meals, and are forced to go hungry. In Madagascar, where pockets of are already a reality, some are being forced to eat locusts, wild leaves, or cactus to survive. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2021"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["7 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Sharp jump in number of people facing famine, says UN","document":"The jump to 45 million from 42 million people earlier in the year was largely down to a food security assessment that found another three million people facing famine in Afghanistan. The UN’s food agency said Monday the number of people on the edge of famine in 43 countries had risen to 45 million, as acute hunger spikes around the world. The jump from 42 million people earlier in the year was largely down to a food security assessment that found another three million people facing famine in Afghanistan, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. “Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We’ve got conflict, climate change and Covid-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley was quoted as saying. “And the latest data show there are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation,” he said after a trip to Afghanistan, where WFP is upping support for almost 23 million people. “Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertiliser is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria,” he added. WFP said the cost of averting famine globally now stands at seven billion dollars, up from 6.6 billion dollars earlier in the year, but warned that traditional funding streams were overstretched. Families facing acute food insecurity are being “forced to make devastating choices”, marrying off children early, pulling them out of school or feeding them locusts, wild leaves, or cactus. “Meanwhile media reports from Afghanistan point to families reportedly being forced to sell their children in a desperate attempt to survive,” it said. Multiple droughts in Afghanistan were combining with an economic meltdown to push families to the edge, while some 12.4 million people in Syria do not know where their next meal will come from – more than any time during the decade-long conflict, it said. Increases in acute hunger are also being seen in Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Angola, Kenya, and Burundi, the Rome-based agency said.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Afghanistan","43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["earlier in the year"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million","three million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and Covid-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["seven billion dollars"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"UNWFP warns 3 million more now ‘teetering on the edge of famine’-Business Journal","document":"   The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday that the number of people teetering on the edge of famine in 43 countries, has risen to 45 million as acute hunger spikes around the world.    This number has risen from 42 million earlier in the year, and 27 million in 2019, the agency said, in a news release.     The increase is based on those who desperately living within the official hunger classification of IPC4 and above, in Afghanistan, alongside other increases in Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Angola, Kenya, and Burundi.    “Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We’ve got conflict, climate change and COVID-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry, and the latest data show there are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley.    He was speaking following a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, where WFP is ramping up its support to assist almost 23 million people in need there    “Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria,” he added.    The WFP said that together with humanitarian partners in hunger hotspots across the world, they are doing everything possible to increase aid for millions who risk starvation. However, available resources are unable to keep pace with demand, at a time when traditional funding streams are under huge strain.    WFP estimates that the cost of averting famine globally now stands at $ 7 billion, up from some 6.6 billion, earlier in the year.    “As the cost of humanitarian assistance rises exponentially, we need more funds to reach families across the globe who have already exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger,” added the WFP chief.    The agency said families facing acute food insecurity, are being forced to make “devastating choices to cope with the rising hunger.”    A vulnerability analysis across the 43 countries surveyed, shows families being forced to eat less, or skip meals entirely. Sometimes children are being fed, while parents sacrifice meals, and are forced to go hungry.    In Madagascar, where pockets of famine are already a reality, some are being forced to eat locusts, wild leaves, or cactus to survive. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["earlier in the year"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["7 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"UN officials expelled from Ethiopia for 'meddling' in internal affairs after Tigray famine warning","document":"Ethiopia is expelling seven senior United Nations officials, two days after the UN aid chief warned hundreds of thousands of people in the northern region of Tigray were likely experiencing famine due to a government blockade of aid. The move comes amid increasing international criticism over conditions in Tigray, and as all parties to fighting in northern Ethiopia face the possibility of sanctions from the US government. Many nations fear the spreading conflict in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation and a regional diplomatic heavyweight, might further destabilise an already fragile region. The seven people being expelled include the country heads of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The seven have 72 hours to leave, the ministry said in a statement, accusing them of \"meddling\" in internal affairs. A statement from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was \"shocked\" by the expulsions and added: \"We are now engaging with the Government of Ethiopia in the expectation that the concerned UN staff will be allowed to continue their important work.\" Ethiopia's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Conflict erupted between federal forces and those aligned with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that controls the region, in November. Tigrayan forces retook most of the region at the end of June, and then pushed into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara, forcing hundreds of thousands of people there to flee their homes. On Tuesday, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths — the head of OCHA — said a nearly three-month long \"de-facto blockade\" of Tigray's borders had restricted aid deliveries. \"This is man-made, this can be remedied by the act of government,\" Mr Griffiths said. He said nearly a quarter of children in Tigray were malnourished. Aida travelled from Melbourne to Ethiopia's Tigray region to reconnect with her roots. Little did she know, it would become a war zone. Five of the seven people being expelled work for OCHA; a sixth works for UNICEF and the seventh works for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is conducting a joint investigation with Ethiopia's state-appointed human rights commission into reports of mass killings of civilians, gang rapes and other abuses in Tigray. Ethiopian authorities have previously accused aid workers of favouring and even arming Tigrayan forces, although they have provided no evidence to support their accusations. In August, Ethiopia suspended the operations of the Dutch branch of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières and the Norwegian Refugee Council, accusing them of arming \"rebel groups\". So far, 23 aid workers have been killed in Tigray. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["northern region of Tigray"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)","United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["hundreds of thousands"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["a government blockade of aid"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"The Indian Ocean Dipole is making Australian bushfires worse and increasing locust swarms in Africa","document":"The global weather event fuelling the catastrophic bushfires this summer is being blamed for massive locust swarms devastating parts of East Africa and creating a food security crisis. The phenomenon, known as the Indian Ocean Dipole, has been blamed for warmer waters in the western parts of the Indian Ocean and is the same weather event that contributed to extremely hot and dry conditions throughout the devastating bushfire season this summer. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are currently experiencing the worst locust swarms in decades, with the insects able to consume enough food for millions of people in a single day. Just like warnings of more severe bushfires in Australia, experts have warned climate change is likely to see Africa hit by more and more frequent locust invasions. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has described the current locust invasion as \"an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods\" in the East Africa and Horn of Africa regions. For Ethiopia and Somalia, it is the worst locust invasion for 25 years and it is the worst in Kenya for 70 years. Global weather conditions have created perfect conditions for large locust swarms. The Indian Ocean Dipole has played a significant role in creating conditions for the locusts, according to FAO locust expert Keith Cressman. \"Locusts are entirely integrated with nature, so they depend very much on weather and environmental conditions,\" he told the ABC's PM program. \"The increased frequency of cyclones in the Indian Ocean is a very significant factor in all of this — as you've seen in Australia, this has contributed to your wildfires that you've been facing for several months.\" Mr Cressman said that just like the prediction Australia would continue to see hotter, drier weather and worsening bushfire seasons due to climate change, Africa would see more locusts. \"I think we can expect to see an increase frequency of desert locust outbreaks, like what we're facing now.\" Climate change was driving extreme weather variability, according to climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker from the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. \"In 2019, we alerted people to the potential impact of drought and we ended the year with alerts for flooding and locusts and things like that,\" he said. \"We are seeing more things like that and they are definitely related to climate change.\" Mr Cressman said the danger of increased locust invasions was the threat to food security. He said 1 square kilometre of locusts could consume enough food for 35,000 people in one day. But most swarms were much larger. \"There was a swarm in Kenya earlier this year that was 40 kilometres long and 60 kilometres wide,\" he said. \"Its potential to eat food would be the equivalent to about 82 million people in a single day.\" In its latest assessment of the disaster, the FAO warned South Sudan and Uganda were also at risk and new swarms were forming in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. But the most pressing concern is the new locust breeding cycle, which is likely to hit the region in time for the start of the next growing season, in March. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["bushfires","locust invasion"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Saudi-led strike hits Yemen prison, killing more than 100 people","document":"Air strikes by a Saudi-led military coalition in southwest Yemen have hit a prison complex, killing scores of people, Yemen's Houthi movement and a Red Cross official said on Sunday. The Sunni Muslim coalition, which has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthis for over four years in Yemen, said it destroyed a site storing drones and missiles in Dhamar. Franz Rauchenstein, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, said after visiting the prison complex and hospitals on Sunday that a \"safe presumption is that over 100 had been killed\". The Houthi health ministry earlier said at least 60 bodies were pulled from the rubble at the detention centre, which officials said housed 170 prisoners. \"There are three buildings hit and the building where the detainees were located, most of them or the majority has been killed,\" Mr Rauchenstein said. \"The prisoners in that facility were prisoners that we had visited in relation to the conflict.\" He said the Yemeni Red Crescent Society was still trying to retrieve bodies and that around 50 injured people had been taken to hospital. Residents reported that there had been six air strikes. \"The explosions were strong and shook the city,\" a resident said. \"Afterwards ambulance sirens could be heard until dawn.\" The coalition, which has come under criticism by international rights groups for air strikes that have killed civilians, said it had taken measures to protect civilians in Dhamar and the assault complied with international law. The Western-backed alliance intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis after they ousted the internationally recognised government from power in the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014. The movement, which holds most major population centres in the Arabian Peninsula nation, has stepped up cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent months. The Saudi-led alliance has responded with strikes on Houthi targets. \"The crime of the aggressors against prisoners is additional proof that they are ready to violate all Yemenis, even those loyal to them,\" the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV quoted the group's leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi as saying. The head of the Houthis' national committee for prisoner affairs, Abdul Qader al-Mortada, said many of those held were due to be released in a local deal to exchange prisoners of war. The United Nations is trying to ease tension in Yemen to prepare for political negotiations to end the war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed the long-impoverished country to the brink of famine. The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis, who deny being puppets of Tehran, say they are fighting a corrupt system. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["The United Nations"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["the war"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Report: 150 starved to death in Ethiopia's Tigray in August","document":"Tigray forces in Ethiopia say at least 150 people starved to death last month in the Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities On Location: November 17, 2021 NAIROBI, Kenya -- A least 150 people starved to death last month in         Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities, the Tigray forces say, while close to half a million people face famine conditions. The starvation deaths occurred in six communities as well as in camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the town of Shire, according to a briefing late Monday by the Tigray External Affairs Office. It is the largest public assessment yet of starvation deaths, though The Associated Press reported         at least 125 deaths in a single district earlier this year. Food aid ran out last month in Tigray, a region of 6 million people, as the United Nations has described intense searches and delays of humanitarian cargo by Ethiopian authorities who fear aid will reach the Tigray forces who have been fighting Ethiopian and allied forces for the past 10 months after a political falling-out. “The complete depletion of food stocks has meant that IDP camps are receiving no aid and host communities, now running out of food themselves, are no longer able to support them,” the Tigray statement says. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has asserted that aid is reaching Tigray and has blamed Tigray forces and insecurity for any problems. The International Organization for Migration, which says more than 2 million people are displaced in Tigray, did not immediately respond to a question about starvation deaths, but the agency last month noted that “hosting capacity appears to have reached its limit” by the local population who support the majority of them. The first aid convoy in over two weeks arrived in the Tigray regional capital, Mekele, on Monday, but the World Food Program has said such a convoy of some 100 trucks is needed to arrive every day to meet the urgent needs of more than 5 million people. Telecommunications, electricity and banking services have again been cut off to Tigray since the Tigray forces retook much of the region in June. While witnesses have told the AP that access inside the region is safer and easier, they say dwindling supplies of food, fuel and cash make it increasingly impossible to help the hungry. The war has since spread into Ethiopia’s neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Health facilities supported by the International Committee for the Red Cross in those regions “have been receiving an increasing number of wounded people in the past few weeks,\" the ICRC said Tuesday. “Unless the fighting dies down, we can only see the situation deteriorating extensively in the next weeks or months,” WFP spokesman Gordon Weiss told the AP. “We knew that there were around 400,000 people on the edge of famine-like conditions (in Tigray) in June. We have not really managed to assess the situation since then, it has been too difficult to do so, but we can expect that that population has grown and that their conditions have deteriorated.” The U.N., the United States and others urge the warring sides to stop the fighting and find a way to negotiate for peace, but Ethiopia’s government this year declared the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which once dominated the national government, a terrorist group. Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael in a letter dated Sept. 3, seen by the AP, and sent to more than 50 heads of state and government and multilateral organizations calls for pressure on Ethiopia for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of the siege on Tigray” and “an internationally sponsored and all-inclusive negotiation” for a cease-fire.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray region"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the World Food Program","the International Committee for the Red Cross"]},{"role":"Date","values":["last month"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["at least 150"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["half a million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["blockade of food aid"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["100 trucks","Health facilities"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: TPLF says 150 have died of starvation","document":"About 150 people died of starvation in Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray region in August, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has said. These are the first hunger-related deaths that the TPLF has reported since its fighters recaptured most of the region from federal forces in June. There is no independent confirmation of its statement. The UN previously said that about 400,000 were already living in famine-like conditions in Tigray. The federal government has not responded to the TPLF statement. About 5.2 million people - or 90% of Tigray's population - urgently needed aid \"to avert the world's worst famine situation in decades\", the UN said last week. The TPLF and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed were once allies in the government, but fell out over his political reforms, triggering the war that has killed thousands and displaced millions since November. The rebels recaptured most of the region, including the capital, Mekelle, in June after losing control of most of it early in the war. The TPLF says it is the legitimate government of Tigray, having won regional elections in 2020. The Ethiopian government denounced the poll as illegal. It regards the TPLF as a terrorist organisation. In a statement on Monday, the TPLF said there was a \"complete depletion of food stocks\" in Tigray. People living in camps after being displaced by conflict were receiving \"no aid\" and host communities were running out of food, it said. The TPLF said the 150 deaths were recorded in the central, southern and eastern zones of Tigray, as well in camps in the city of Shire - the birthplace of the group's leader Debretsion Gebremichael. \"One million people are at risk of fatal famine if they are prohibited from receiving life-saving aid within the next few days,\" it added. In a BBC Tigrinya interview, TPLF agriculture chief Atinkut Mezgebo said that people were dying \"in front of our eyes\". \"In the villages and towns, there is a shortage of food and medicine, and the crisis might be bigger than what we know,\" he said. Dr Atinkut said that women and children were the main victims of hunger. \"Previously, people shared what they had, but now they don't have anything to eat,\" he added. It is hard to confirm details of what is happening in Tigray as telephone and internet communications have been cut. The BBC has asked the federal government for a reaction to the TPLF statement but has so far not got a response. However, in a statement on Monday, the foreign ministry said the TPLF had exacerbated the humanitarian problems by invading neighbouring regions and looting aid supplies. Last week, the UN's acting humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia, Grant Leaity, called on the Ethiopian government to allow the unimpeded entry of aid to Tigray. On Sunday, the World Food Programme said that more than 100 trucks of its aid had reached Mekelle for the first time in a fortnight. In the past, the government has denied that it is blocking aid but has said it is concerned about security. On Saturday, it announced that 500 trucks carrying supplies had entered the region, with 152 arriving in the last two days. Food prices soar as war ravages Ethiopia","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray region"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the World Food Programme"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["About 150"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["about 400,000","About 5.2 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["war"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["more than 100 trucks of its aid","500 trucks carrying supplies"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Report says 150 starved to death in Tigray last month","document":"A least 150 people last month starved to death in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities, the Tigray forces have said, while half a million people face famine conditions. The starvation deaths occurred in six communities, as well as in camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDP) in the town of Shire, the Tigray External Affairs Office said in a briefing late on Monday. It is the largest public assessment yet of starvation deaths, although The Associated Press reported at least 125 deaths in a single district earlier this year. Photo: AP Food aid ran out last month in Tigray, a region of 6 million people, as the UN has described intense searches and delays of humanitarian cargo by Ethiopian authorities who feared that aid would reach the Tigray forces, who have been fighting Ethiopian and allied forces for the past 10 months after a political falling-out. “The complete depletion of food stocks has meant that IDP camps are receiving no aid and host communities, now running out of food themselves, are no longer able to support them,” the Tigray statement said. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the government has asserted that aid is reaching Tigray, and blames Tigray forces and insecurity for any problems. The International Organization for Migration, which has said that more than 2 million people are displaced in Tigray, did not immediately respond to a question about starvation deaths, but the agency last month said that “hosting capacity appears to have reached its limit” by the local population who support the majority of them. The first aid convoy in more than two weeks arrived in the Tigray regional capital, Mekele, on Monday, but the World Food Programme (WFP) has said that a convoy of about 100 trucks is needed to arrive every day to meet the urgent needs of more than 5 million people. Telecommunications, electricity and banking services have again been cut off to Tigray since the Tigray forces retook much of the region in June. While witnesses have said that access inside the region is safer and easier, they added that dwindling supplies of food, fuel and cash make it increasingly impossible to help the hungry. The war has since spread into Ethiopia’s Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Facilities supported by the International Committee for the Red Cross in those regions “have been receiving an increasing number of wounded people in the past few weeks,” the Red Cross said on Tuesday. “Unless the fighting dies down, we can only see the situation deteriorating extensively in the next weeks or months,” WFP spokesman Gordon Weiss said. “We knew that there were about 400,000 people on the edge of famine-like conditions [in Tigray] in June... We can expect that that population has grown and that their conditions have deteriorated.”                                                                                 Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, spent much of his weekend sparring with US Senator Bernie Sanders on Twitter, after Sanders repeated his call for the ultra-rich to pay more tax. Musk even raised the notion of selling more of his Tesla shares, which would require him to pay taxes on the gains. On Saturday, the 80-year-old Sanders, who unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination of the US Democratic Party, wrote on Twitter: “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share.” Musk, whose US$286 billion fortune has made him a target for those who support a wealth tax, responded: “I keep                                    NEVER TOO OLD:                                         At 61, Thomas Marshburn, who joined NASA in 1994, would become the oldest person to live aboard the International Space Station and perform a spacewalk                                        A SpaceX rocket on Wednesday night carried four astronauts into orbit, including the 600th person to reach space in 60 years. The repeatedly delayed flight occurred just two days after SpaceX brought four other astronauts home from the International Space Station. They should have been up there to welcome the newcomers, but NASA and SpaceX decided to switch the order based on Monday’s ideal recovery weather in the Gulf of Mexico, and pulled it off. “It was a great ride, better than we imagined,” mission commander Raja Chari said shortly after the spacecraft reached orbit. The launch was just as riveting for spectators at                                    ONE LIFE, ONE LOVE:                                         Stress caused by rumors and media badgering pushed the controversial former royal to start a new life in the US, where here husband is a lawyer                                        Japan’s former princess Mako Komuro yesterday departed for the US with her husband, Kei Komuro, swapping ancient imperial rites for the bright lights of New York after leaving the royal family. The pair tied the knot in Tokyo last month in muted fashion, following years of tabloid gossip and online sniping over their union, which Komuro said caused her “sadness and pain.” A move to the US had long been rumored. The two 30-year-olds finally boarded a commercial flight yesterday from Tokyo to New York, where Kei Komuro attended law school and now works. Heavily guarded by police and airport officials, the couple                                                                                                                    This summer, the Uffizi Gallery threatened to sue Pornhub for using its masterpieces in a “classic nudes” video. “Some people think of museums as boring, stuffy or dull,” the adult streaming site wrote. “But what if we told you they housed a collection of priceless porn?” The video re-enacted erotic scenes from art history using works including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, housed in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. Pornhub swiftly took down the unauthorized nudes, prompting debate about who controls the copying of cultural artifacts that are long out of copyright and in the public domain.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray region"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the International Committee for the Red Cross","the World Food Programme (WFP)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["A least 150 people","at least 125"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["half a million people","more than 2 million","about 400,000"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["blockade of food aid"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["Food aid","a convoy of about 100 trucks","Facilities"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Yemen: An Additional One Million Children at Risk of Famine as Food and Fuel Prices Soar","document":"10-month-old Amara* is receiving treatment for severe acute malnutrition at a Save the Children-supported health facility in Yemen. Photo credit: Claire Nicoll/Save the Children  FAIRFIELD, Conn. (Sept. 18, 2018) – An additional one million severely food insecure children in Yemen risk falling into famine as families struggle to afford basic food and transport to health facilities for treatment. This brings the total number of children in Yemen at risk of famine to 5.2 million. Already, more than two-thirds (64.5 percent) of Yemen’s population don’t know where their next meal is coming from. As Hodeidah experiences renewed fighting there is a real risk its port – a vital lifeline for goods and aid for 80 percent of Yemen’s population – could be damaged or temporarily closed, reducing the supply of available of food and fuel as well as driving up prices even further. This would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in immediate danger while pushing millions more into famine. The United Nations has warned that failure to keep food, fuel and aid flowing into Yemen, particularly through Hodeidah, could result in one of the worst hunger crises in living history. A depreciating currency and collapsing economy are pushing communities to the brink of starvation. Food prices are up by an average of 68 percent since 2015. The Yemeni Rial (YER) has depreciated nearly 180 percent in the same period. It now costs 600 YER to buy one US dollar, up from 215 YER when the conflict escalated more than three years ago. The price of fuel has increased by 25 percent between November last year and September 2018. The price of food has doubled in some parts of the country in just a matter of days.  Though there are food supplies in the marketplace for now, families are unable to afford even the most basic items like bread, milk or eggs, making an already precarious situation even worse. Save the Children staff have heard that some households are being forced to make impossible choices like deciding to take a malnourished baby to hospital at the expense of feeding the rest of the family.  “I’ve noticed people’s deteriorating financial situation as it’s very common that parents don’t bring their children to health facilities to get treatment, simply because they can’t afford the transport costs,” Dr. Ali*, Save the Children’s Nutrition Adviser in Amran, said. “People haven’t received salaries for years and they don’t have another source of income, so they simply don’t have the money to get their children to hospital.”  A recent UN survey of 2,098 respondents across Yemen confirms the extent of the problem. An alarming 98 percent of households said food was their primary expenditure. Equally alarming, 93 percent named high commodity prices as their primary challenge, including food and fuel, while 72 percent of households said they’re cutting down on food consumption to cope with a lack of income.  Nutrition surveys conducted during the first half of 2018 confirm alarming rates of malnutrition. In Hodeidah for example, home to Yemen’s largest commercial port and the primary gateway for food and fuel to the rest of the country, one in every twenty children under five years is suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Half of all children in Yemen are stunted. “Severely malnourished children are 12 times more likely to die from preventable diseases like pneumonia, measles, cholera or diphtheria,” Carolyn Miles, President & CEO of Save the Children said. “Children who are stunted suffer physical and often irreversible long-term cognitive damage. It is essential that children get the food they need to survive and thrive. “What happens in Hodeidah has a direct impact on children and families across Yemen. Even the smallest disruption to food, fuel and aid supplies through its vital port could mean death for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children unable to get the food they need to stay alive. It could drive up the price of fuel – and as a result transport – to such an extent that families can’t even afford to take their sick children to hospital.” The brutal conflict in Yemen means communities across the country face huge barriers that prevent them from seeking care for their sick and undernourished children, including financial obstacles. The root causes of chronic and acute malnutrition and the factors leading to it are complex. But the current conflict creates conditions where malnutrition can take hold, exacerbated by poverty, lack of access to aid and low socioeconomic status. Women and girls and boys suffer disproportionately. “This war risks killing an entire generation of Yemen’s children who face multiple threats, from bombs to hunger to preventable diseases like cholera,” Miles added. All parties must agree a political solution to this conflict and give children hope of a brighter future. Let the immense suffering of children in Yemen end.” ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["children in Yemen at risk of famine to 5.2 million","more than two-thirds (64.5 percent) of Yemen’s population"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict in Yemen","depreciating currency and collapsing economy"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Yemeni children suffer record rates of acute malnutrition, putting ‘entire generation’ at risk","document":"Yemeni children are suffering acute malnutrition at unprecedented rates as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis grinds on and funding falls far short of what is needed to offset the effects of conflict and  economic collapse, UN agencies said in a statement on Tuesday.   New analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the global standard for gauging food insecurity, revealed that in some areas more than one in four children were acutely malnourished.  “Acute malnutrition rates among children below five years old are the highest ever recorded in parts of southern Yemen, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification”, said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson, Marixie Mercado. “This new analysis released today puts the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition this year at 587,573, which is an increase of around 10% since January this year.”   ? Yemen: nearly 100,000 children are at risk of death and need urgent treatment.Acute malnutrition rates among children under 5 are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen.  The IPC analysis looked at southern parts of Yemen, but a forthcoming analysis of northern areas is expected to show equally concerning trends.    Ms. Mercado said the most significant increase in southern areas was a 15.5% rise in children with severe acute malnutrition, a condition that leaves children around 10 times more likely to die of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, malaria or acute respiratory infections, all of which are common in Yemen.   World Food Programme (WFP) spokeperson, Tomson Phiri, said the IPC forecast showed that by the end of 2020, 40% of the population in the analysed areas, or about 3.2 million people, would be severely food insecure.  “Those predictions, from what we are gathering on the ground, are likely to be an underestimate. It is highly likely that the situation is worse than initially projected as conditions continue to worsen beyond the forecast levels. Why is this so? The underlying assumptions of the projections have either been, or are close to being surpassed”, he said.   At the time the data was gathered, it was assumed that food prices would be stable, but that was no longer the case.   “In fact, food prices have skyrocketed and are now on average 140% higher than pre-conflict averages. For the most vulnerable, even a small increase in food prices is absolutely devastating”, Mr. Phiri said.   “Our colleagues on the ground are also telling us that the situation is worse than in 2018 when WFP expanded assistance by over 50% and in the process averted a possible famine. Those gains in 2018-2019, I’m afraid we might be losing them as the conflict continues to intensify and economic decline continues unabated.”   Some families were being displaced for the third or even the fourth time, he said.  “And each time a family is displaced, their ability to cope, let alone to bounce back, is severely diminished.”  Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, said the UN had been warning since July that Yemen was on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis.  \"If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children”, she said in a statement.  Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the Geneva briefing that Yemen needed help.   “What can the world do right now? We have been warning for several months now that Yemen was heading towards a cliff. We are now seeing the first people falling off that cliff. Those are the children under five years of age. One hundred thousand of them are at risk of death, we are told. The world can help. The world can help by supporting the humanitarian response plan”, Mr. Laerke said.    “I’m sorry to keep repeating that over and over again. It is massively underfunded. It is only 42% funded. It asked for $3.2 billion. We are 10 months into the year. That is way below the funding levels we’ve seen in the past few years. So there is something the world can do. Money can help, and I think, of course, that now is the time to provide that money.”  A staggering 80 per cent of Yemen’s population – over 24 million people – require some form of humanitarian assistance and protection, including about 12.2 million children. A total of 230 out of Yemen's 333 districts (69 per cent) are at risk of famine.   Despite a difficult operating environment, humanitarians continue to work across Yemen, responding to the most acute needs. However, funding remains a challenge: as of mid-October, only $1.4 billion of the $3.2 billion needed in 2020 has been received.  Parties to the conflict in Yemen must do more to protect civilians, a senior UN humanitarian official there has said, as the number of civilian deaths has witnessed a sharp rise over the last few weeks in the war-ravaged country.  The global hunger crisis caused by conflict – and now compounded by COVID-19 – is moving into a dangerous phase, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday, stressing that without resources, a wave of famine could sweep the globe, overwhelming nations already weakened by years of instability. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemeni"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["by the end of 2020"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["nearly 100,000","about 3.2 million people"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict and  economic collapse","COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"COVID-19 pandemic increases global food insecurity","document":"Last updated August 12, 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic increased global food insecurity in almost every country by reducing incomes and disrupting food supply chains. The pandemic continues to create devastating effects on global hunger and poverty – especially on the poorest and most vulnerable populations. A July 2021 report by five UN agencies found that global hunger spiked in 2020, with 2.3 billion people lacking year-round access to adequate food. Additionally, more than 155 million people were suffering from acute hunger due to conflict and instability and projections for the rest of 2021 indicate that trend will continue, with climate shocks and the pandemic exacerbating the situation further. Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 and increased consumer demand for food drastically raised food prices across the globe – exacerbating the severity of food insecurity for 821 million hungry people in low-income countries who already spend most of their income on food. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated child hunger and malnutrition as the pandemic forced more than 1.6 billion children out of school in 199 countries, depriving nearly 370 million children in 150 countries access to nutritious meals. Working through Feed the Future programming and partnerships, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is addressing global food security: From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, The World Bank has been tackling rising food insecurity through tailored financing for new and existing projects:","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["150 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2020"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["2.3 billion","821 million","nearly 370 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["climate shocks and the pandemic","conflict and instability"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Yemen on the brink: conflict is pushing millions towards famine","document":"  Salah, 11, fled twice during the past four years of war. He witnessed conflict directly and saw people injured and killed. He stopped going to school because he has to work as shepherd or gather plastic to feed his family. Photo: Sami M.Jassar/Oxfam Today, two-thirds of Yemen’s population don't know where their next meal is coming from. The protracted and devastating conflict that began in March 2015 continues to ruin the lives of most Yemenis. A shattered economy, high unemployment and the non-payment of salaries have destroyed incomes and pushed people into debt. Millions of families are left with nothing to live on, experiencing catastrophic food gaps and malnutrition. If nothing is done immediately, the country risks becoming what the UN has described as the worst famine seen in decades. You can help. Yemen’s food crisis is a direct, man-made result of the war. Since 2015, the economy has halved, and more than 80% Yemenis now live below the poverty line. The collapse of incomes and increase in prices have pushed food beyond many people’s reach. Besides, as a food-deficient country, Yemen has always been heavily dependent on commercial imports. These have been knowingly undermined by parties to the conflict, causing major disruption to the food pipeline and other supplies. Hunger is rife across the country, even hundreds of miles from the front line. In less than four years, the number of people who are food insecure has risen from 11 million to nearly 20 million. According to the UN, 14 million people – half the population – face a clear and present danger of imminent famine. Families have no choice but to resort to desperate and harmful coping solutions to avert hunger or the looming threat of it. Many reduce the amount of food they eat or even skip meals. They feed what little they have to their children in priority before themselves. Some are also forced to run up debts, send household members to beg or sell their assets to buy food. Women suffer disproportionately from these dramatic levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. They eat last and least, giving priority to children and other family members, or using money for other household needs. They are increasingly struggling to access hospitals and medical services, are further exposed to risks and experience the highest levels of all forms of violence. One-quarter of Yemeni women between the ages of 15 and 49 are acutely malnourished. 2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are at grave risk of death if famine strikes. 3 million women and girls are at risk of gender-based violence and incidents of violence against women have increased by more than 63 percent over the last two years. Early marriage, already a dire problem in Yemen, has increased again since the escalation of the conflict. Girls as young as eight or 10 years old are married off to reduce the number of family members to feed, but also as a source of income in order to feed the rest of the family and pay off debts. Mona's family have fled the fighting frontlines and living with no breadwinner, as the father was psychologically affected by war, went mad, and left the family. Mona’s youngest baby has malnutrition along with other illnesses. Photo: Sami M. Jassar/Oxfam Since July 2015, Oxfam has reached more than 3 million people in nine governorates of Yemen. Our work includes: Yemen is currently facing the world’s largest food security emergency. This is not a future threat. Without immediate action to tackle this crisis, thousands of people will die, even before famine is declared.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["Oxfam"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["20 million","14 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["The protracted and devastating conflict"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Yemen sees return to alarming levels of food insecurity","document":"It offers analysis and trends on indicators across eight SDGs, highlighting areas of progress and areas where further effort is needed. FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) are sites that have survived ... 22 July 2020, Sana'a - Economic shocks, conflict, floods, desert locusts and now COVID-19 are creating a perfect storm that could reverse hard-earned food security gains in Yemen, warns the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners. The analysis carried out so far in 133 districts in southern Yemen[1] forecasts an alarming increase of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity, i.e. in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) and Emergency (IPC Phase 4) by the end of the year.   Acute food insecurity in these areas eased last year thanks to a massive scale-up of humanitarian assistance but all the good work could quickly be undone as the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity is forecast to increase from 2 million to 3.2 million in the next six months. This would represent an increase from 25 percent (in February-April) to 40 percent of the population (in July-December) suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity even if humanitarian food assistance and access to those in need are maintained.   Drivers of acute food insecurity: \"The IPC is telling us that Yemen is again on the brink of a major food security crisis. Eighteen months ago, when we faced a similar situation, we were generously funded. We used the resources we were entrusted with wisely and massively scaled-up assistance in the districts where people were the hungriest and most at risk. The result was tremendous. We prevented famine. Unless we receive the funding we need now, we won't be able to do the same this time,\" said Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen. \"The people of Yemen have already been through a lot and are resilient. But they are facing now too many hardships and threats all at once - from COVID-19 to Desert Locusts invasions. Small-holder farmers and families who depend upon agriculture for their livelihoods need our support now more than ever,\" said Hussein Gadain, FAO Representative in Yemen.   \"Yemen is facing a crisis on multiple fronts,\" said Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director in Yemen. \"We must act now. In 2019, thanks to a massive scale-up, WFP and partners were able to reverse the deterioration in the worst hit areas of Yemen. The warning signs have returned and with Coronavirus pandemic added to the mix, it could get a lot worse if humanitarian action is delayed.\" \"A dangerous combination of conflict, economic hardship, food scarcity and a crumbling health system has pushed millions of children in Yemen to the brink, and the COVID-19 crisis could make things even worse,\" said Sherin Varkey, UNICEF's acting Representative in Yemen. \"More and more young children are at risk of becoming severely malnourished and requiring urgent treatment. Increased and sustained support is vital if we are to save these children's lives.\" What do we need to do now? The IPC analysis's recommendations for urgent actions include: [1] The IPC analysis is based on data gathered in March 2020 in 133 districts across 13 governorates in southern Yemen as well as a review of hunger drivers and their impacts in these areas in the second quarter of 2020. These include flash floods, Desert Locusts and Fall Armyworm invasions, and a wave of conflict in Al Jawf and Marib. A full IPC analysis including data from the rest of the country is expected to be released in a few months.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP and partners"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["3.2 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["Economic shocks, conflict, floods, desert locusts and now COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"WFP ramps up support to Yemen's famine risk areas","document":"“The continued fragility in Yemen, compounded by the persistent driving factors of food insecurity has left Yemen acutely vulnerable to worsening levels of hunger – and famine conditions,” said Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director for Yemen. “Escalating conflict, economic decline, rising global commodity prices and COVID-19 have all contributed to an alarming increase in acute hunger over the last year.” Nearly 50,000 people in Yemen are already living in famine-like conditions and 5 million people are in immediate danger. A child dies every 10 minutes of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malnutrition and respiratory tract infections. Responding to these acute needs, WFP resumed monthly distributions to 350,000 people in 11 districts facing famine-like conditions (IPC5) in February. In April and May this year, after new funds were confirmed, WFP began increasing assistance to nearly 6 million people in the nine governorates with the highest rates of ‘emergency’ food insecurity (IPC4): Hajjah, Al Jawf, Amran, Al Hodeidah, Raymah, Al Mahwit, Sa’ada, Dhamar and Taiz. From June, these people will again receive the full ration every month. WFP supports a total of 12.9 million people with food assistance in Yemen, prioritising areas with the highest rates of food insecurity and providing rapid support to families displaced by conflict, such as in the Marib governorate. But in April 2020, in a challenging operating environment and facing reduced funding, WFP was forced to stop providing assistance every month, and instead provide it every two months, in the northern areas of Yemen. This year, donors have so far stepped up with nearly $947 million for WFP’s famine prevention effort in Yemen, including large-scale support from the US, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and European Union. WFP’s food security monitoring, which tracks food consumption, dietary diversity and food-related coping strategies, will soon show the impact of the gradual scale up of assistance, as seen following the significant increase of assistance in 2019 when famine last threatened. “We will start seeing the impact in the coming months, but initial gains will be fragile”, warned Bukera, “WFP’s ability to maintain this level of response until the end of the year hangs in the balance. Sustained, predictable and flexible funding is required immediately, otherwise we will see any progress undone and needs rapidly rise in what is an unpredictable and challenging operational environment”.  Hunger has increased in Yemen as the conflict has escalated, displacing families for the third or even fourth time as the war grinds into its seventh year. Rising food prices – up to 200 percent above pre-war levels – have made food unaffordable for millions. On top of this, a deadly second wave of COVID-19 is sweeping across Yemen and the healthcare system is unable to cope. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["A child dies every 10 minutes"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["Nearly 50,000 people","350,000","nearly 6 million","12.9 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["Escalating conflict, economic decline, rising global commodity prices and COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["nearly $947 million","the full ration","food assistance"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Displaced Yemenis flee clashes, face imminent risk of hunger","document":"This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.  Displaced Yemeni mother, Gabra (in pink) and her family, in a hosting site in Sana’a.  © UNHCR/Ahmed Haleen Amid intensified clashes in Yemen’s Marib region UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency is calling for a safe passage for the fleeing civilians. Fighting parties must spare no effort to protect the population caught in the conflict and ease its impact on civilians. Insecurity is increasingly hindering the delivery of aid to civilians in Marib, with dire consequences for the most vulnerable among them. The latest clashes are just a few kilometers from Marib city and people had little choice but to flee to relative safety in the urban areas. The existing sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) are already overcrowded, and the humanitarian response is overstretched. More than 800,000 displaced Yemenis have been taking refuge in this part of the country. Most of them have been sheltering there since the start of the conflict in 2015. Unimpeded access to affected areas must be granted to aid agencies so that critical lifesaving assistance can be delivered to the displaced and other families in Marib and elsewhere in the county where the needs are dire. Ahead of a major donor pledging conference for Yemen on Monday 1 March, we are also warning that the growing number of displaced Yemenis are now facing severe food insecurity. Out of four million IDPs in Yemen, nearly 2.6 million are just a step away from famine. Most IDPs are sheltering in parts of the country assessed to have acute food shortages or famine-like conditions. Conflict, protracted displacement, as well as lack of access to services and livelihoods are the main reasons for growing poverty and food insecurity among the displaced communities. Many of them have been displaced for more than two years, while some had to flee multiple times, straining their meager resources, and increasing their dependency on humanitarian aid. Life in Yemen is getting more desperate and dangerous by the day. Based on UNHCR’s assessments, 64 per cent of displaced families have no sources of income. Others earn less than US$50 a month to make ends meet. Consequently, two out of three displaced families say that they resort to harmful coping practices to survive. They limit or skip their meals, take children out of school and forego medical attention. Some end up begging or selling whatever they have left. Child marriages are on the rise. To mobilize international support for the people of Yemen, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi will attend Monday’s virtual high-level pledging event to call for robust international support for life-saving humanitarian response. UNHCR seeks US$271 million for its 2021 operations in Yemen. So far only six per cent of that amount has been received and we may be forced to reduce drastically the number of people receiving aid, with dramatic consequences notably for displaced children, women, and other vulnerable people.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["UNHCR"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["nearly 2.6 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["intensified clashes"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["US$271 million"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Rising Hunger: Facing a Food-Insecure World","document":"Global food insecurity has surged amid the coronavirus pandemic, threatening to worsen humanitarian crises and spur further mass migration.                            In 2019, an estimated 135 million people faced life-threatening food insecurity, according to the World Food Program (WFP), the UN food assistance agency. Now, that number is projected to nearly double due to the coronavirus pandemic, with food emergencies afflicting countries that have not required interventions in the past. Pandemic restrictions have made it more difficult to access food, and economic downturns around the globe could mean long-lasting inability to afford food for hundreds of millions of people. The hunger crisis will have dramatic implications in many areas. It threatens to unravel decades of progress in global health: poor diets are the leading contributor [PDF] to the world’s disease burden, including childhood conditions such as stunting and chronic illnesses caused in part by obesity. Hunger, both acute and chronic, can also impede children’s education and career prospects. In extreme cases, it can roil the political landscape. Surging food prices helped fuel recent protests in Lebanon, while shortages led to demonstrations in Chile earlier this year. Many without access to food flee home in search of it; the WFP estimates that for every 1 percent increase in hunger, there is a 2 percent increase in migration. At the same time, the pandemic has mobilized international institutions, governments, and aid organizations to take action. The coronavirus has laid bare widening gaps in food access and affordability, two areas where experts are focusing their efforts to make food systems more resilient. Global hunger had been rising for years before the pandemic. Last year, almost one-tenth of the world’s population was exposed to severe food insecurity, the most extreme level of insecurity as measured by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This means a person has run out of food or at some point gone an entire day without eating. Asia has the largest population of undernourished people, at more than 380 million, followed by Africa and Latin America. As with poverty, often mutually reinforcing factors drive food insecurity. These include conflict, uneven food distribution, poor governance, economic challenges, and population displacement. Environmental issues—such as extreme weather events, water scarcity, and pollution—threaten food production, and climate change is adding a new level of danger. Food security is not just about consuming enough calories but also adequate nutrition. This means taking in macronutrients—carbohydrates, fats, and proteins—as well as micronutrients, which are vitamins and minerals. Such diets are far out of reach for people living on less than $1.90 per day at 2011 international prices, which aid officials define as the threshold for extreme poverty. “If you’re living in poverty, you might have enough to purchase rice for the day, but it’s nowhere near enough for you to purchase a meal that provides all the nutrients necessary to meet your dietary needs,” says Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Roughly 690 million people are undernourished globally, but more than three billion [PDF] can’t access the cheapest healthy diets. Additionally, obesity is of growing concern in low- and high-income countries alike, as families turn to cheap foods that are high in fat, salt, and sugar. Despite the pandemic, the global food supply has remained relatively strong, with the production of major staples such as rice and wheat staying above average in 2020. But lockdowns and other containment measures have driven up unemployment, disrupted food supply chains, and cut off the flow of remittances around the globe. Hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, making food—particularly nutritious food—unaffordable for many even where it is available. Ultimately, the health crisis could force up to 132 million more people globally to become undernourished this year, UN experts say, due to inequalities in food access. The countries at greatest risk of worsening food crises are those that are heavily dependent on imports; lack a diversity of food suppliers; are landlocked; or were already facing shocks due to conflict, climate events, or economic troubles. Low-income countries, which typically have more labor-intensive food supply chains involving planting or harvesting, have seen significant disruptions. Though some countries imposed export restrictions, a move meant to cushion domestic food supplies, food export bans have been rare compared to during the 2008 global financial crisis. Nations, including those in the Group of Twenty (G20), have pledged to keep trade open. Wealthy nations, too, have been seriously challenged, despite having more capital-intensive, mechanized supply chains. Many of these countries rely on foreign agricultural workers to harvest delicate crops by hand, but pandemic-related travel restrictions have prevented or hindered the movement of migrant laborers. Income losses have devastated urban communities in particular. “When we think of hunger, we often think of rural communities and subsistence farmers—places and groups disproportionately hit by food insecurity in the past,” says Chase Sova, senior director of public policy and research at World Food Program USA. “But COVID-19 is an altogether new threat, affecting the urban poor in great numbers.” Women and children are disproportionately affected by hunger. The health crisis is intensifying gender inequalities [PDF], as women are more likely to skip meals or eat smaller portions and face more restrictions on food production. Roughly ten thousand additional children under five years old are projected to die per month in 2020 due to pandemic-linked nutritional issues, potentially undoing decades of progress toward reducing child deaths globally. An estimated 5.2 million children under age five died in 2019, with nutritional factors contributing to roughly 45 percent of deaths in this age range. Insecurity is also higher among racial and ethnic minority groups, highlighting long-standing economic disparities. Since first emerging in the region, the novel coronavirus has escalated food security risks across Asia and the Pacific. Pandemic-related factors have throttled every stage of the food supply chain. Some countries—including Cambodia and Vietnam [PDF]—have restricted food exports, and food has piled up at Philippine ports. A nationwide lockdown rocked India’s already shaky food infrastructure, warping supply chains and raising food prices. A pandemic-related lack of migrant laborers hamstrung India’s food production, further limiting supplies in one of the world’s hungriest countries. Moreover, the poultry industry took a massive hit following unsubstantiated rumors that the coronavirus can be transmitted through chicken. In Afghanistan, the pandemic’s economic fallout has worsened already rampant poverty and food insecurity, creating a humanitarian challenge aid workers say they have not seen in nearly two decades. Life-threatening malnutrition in children under five spiked 13 percent between January and May, and movement restrictions mean fewer malnourished children are receiving medical care. Generally water-stressed and reliant on food imports, the region is naturally vulnerable to food insecurity. Pandemic-related drops in oil prices, remittances, and tourism are expected to increase poverty and make it harder for people to access food. The wealthy states of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have so far avoided food shortages. But conflict-wracked Yemen, where food programs have been cut and border restrictions have impeded aid deliveries, is on the verge of famine. Nearly half of children under five could be malnourished by the end of 2020. In Lebanon, the pandemic has aggravated economic issues, including rising import costs and currency depreciation, that make it difficult to procure agricultural and food products. The country faced a possible food crisis even before August explosions ravaged Beirut’s port, destroying the country’s primary grain silos and further raising concerns about food security. The number of undernourished people is growing faster on the African continent than anywhere else in the world. Approximately 22 percent of people in the sub-Saharan region were undernourished in 2019, according to the FAO, and that proportion is now projected to jump to nearly 30 percent by 2030. Countries that were already in the midst of crises now face even more dire situations. In Zimbabwe—plagued by drought and decades of economic mismanagement—the number of food-insecure people could rise to 60 percent of the population by the end of 2020. In Sudan, which was rocked by massive protests in 2019 as it neared economic collapse, pandemic restrictions have put more people out of work as prices for basic goods have skyrocketed. Even in countries with relatively strong economies, such as Nigeria, shocks to household incomes are putting food out of reach for more and more families. Ethiopia, Kenya, and other countries in East Africa and elsewhere were suffering their worst locust swarms in decades before the pandemic hit. The insect invasions, which experts have linked to climate change, have depleted large swaths of vegetation and led to the deaths of livestock; amid pandemic closures, the delivery of pesticides has slowed and in some cases halted altogether. The pandemic could unravel fifteen years of hunger reduction in the region, as unemployment and rising food prices have left millions of people unable to buy sufficient or nutritious food. In a region where much of the economic activity is informal, pandemic lockdowns hit incomes hard. Together, Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to see a 269 percent jump [PDF] in the number of people who are acutely food insecure in 2020, as compared to before the coronavirus. The coronavirus is also compounding the existing crisis in Venezuela, where one-third of people were hungry pre-pandemic. Millions of people who fled Venezuela have lost their jobs in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and are now among the Latin Americans most at risk of starvation. Haiti, the region’s poorest country, was already dependent on food imports and now faces rising hunger. The pandemic has forced Haiti’s schools, where many children get meals, to close; it has also caused a drop in critical remittances. Meanwhile, debt-saddled Argentina has seen a nearly 40 percent increase in people who depend on the government for a daily meal. Mexico City food kitchens have likewise begun serving roughly 20 percent more meals. The pandemic has created a recession worse than the 2008 financial crisis, which caused 13.5 million European households to become food insecure. More than 80 percent of the European Food Banks Federation’s member countries saw a rise in demand for emergency aid by late March, indicating both food shortages and unequal food distribution. Vulnerable groups include refugees in Turkey, nearly two-thirds of whom have struggled to access food during the pandemic. Meanwhile, other Europeans, including in Italy, have rushed to stockpile food. The pandemic has hindered food production, in part because agriculture in countries such as Germany relies on foreign laborers who are subject to travel restrictions. Coronavirus outbreaks have also shuttered meat factories across the continent. Prince Charles urged students and furloughed workers to help harvest food in the United Kingdom, though the country’s Brexit-related stockpiling of food has helped it meet a rise in demand. U.S. food insecurity has swelled amid the pandemic, which triggered record unemployment, raised grocery prices, and shrank individuals’ purchasing power. As of late summer, almost one in eight households lacked enough to eat, and food insecurity is far higher among Black and Hispanic communities. Demand at food banks has surged to unprecedented levels, with almost half of beneficiaries receiving food assistance for the first time. Still, unlike during previous eras of hunger, the United States has an abundance of food. Some farmers even destroyed their products after restaurant closures upended supply chains and coronavirus outbreaks forced meat plants to suspend operations. Even if economies recover in 2021, experts say severe food insecurity will persist, pressing governments, multilateral organizations, and aid groups to rethink the world’s food systems. This could expand the number of short-term interventions that provide more immediate relief from food insecurity during the pandemic, as well as lead to long-term reforms that address persistent drivers of hunger and streamline global supply chains. “In a way, it will help,” says Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition. “There’s a lot of talk now about building back better.” Short term. Experts including Sova and Welsh say that successful interventions have built on countries’ existing social safety nets. Such tactics include assistance for farmers, unemployment benefits, and public food programs. “Food banks are meant to be the emergency stopgap. But programs like [the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)] are much more sustainable and have better impacts on local economies, and on household food security,” Welsh says. She adds that it is important for governments to reduce the transaction costs of remittances, which would give people more purchasing power. Countries can also work to ease supply chain disruptions. Experts point to China’s so-called green lanes as a template for exempting food-related activities and workers from lockdowns. Early in the pandemic, the Gulf Cooperation Council enacted a similar joint food supply network, and, in a separate effort, seven countries made a cross-regional pact to maintain open trade and supply chains. Avoiding food export restrictions is needed to help prevent food prices and insecurity from rising further. In some countries, such as Yemen and Syria, underlying crises make international aid critical to address pandemic-related food insecurity. The WFP alone needs $13 billion to administer food programs this year. But this may be a tall ask for donor countries facing pandemic-induced economic recessions and shifting investments toward health systems. Long term. Food security experts also urge more transformative policies and initiatives. Progress toward global poverty reduction has allowed some households to spend smaller portions of their incomes on food and decrease their vulnerability to food price shocks, though the pandemic appears to be undoing some of those gains. The agricultural sector can take steps to fortify supply chains against future disruptions, particularly through diversification. This could mean food companies source raw food materials from a diverse group of farms across multiple regions, or individual farmers expand their variety of crops and livestock. As the need for climate action takes on increasing urgency, food and environmental experts have stressed the importance of transforming food systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These efforts include reducing food waste and emphasizing plant-based or nutrient-dense diets. Amid the pandemic lockdown, farmers in India used social media to redirect their produce directly to consumers. On a larger scale, China launched its “clean plate” campaign, aimed at pressuring citizens not to throw away food. Beijing is also implementing a national nutrition plan. Some countries, including India, Mexico, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, have taxed or banned sugary foods and drinks. One important new multinational initiative is the COVID-19 Food Coalition, proposed by Italy and led by the FAO, which has brought together dozens of countries to tackle the pandemic’s long-term impacts on food systems and agriculture. “What is clearly changing now is the thinking about how to make these systems more resilient,” Swinnen says.","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["clean plate","taxed or banned sugary foods and drinks"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Global"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP","Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)","the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)","the Gulf Cooperation Council"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2019"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["5.2 million"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["135 million","690 million","more than three billion","132 million more"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["coronavirus pandemic","conflict, uneven food distribution, poor governance, economic challenges, and population displacement","climate change","Environmental issues"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["13 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Millions ‘one step away’ from famine in Yemen, UN warns","document":"Some five million people are facing imminent famine and disease as the war drags on, the UN says. Ending Yemen’s ongoing famine is an “overarching humanitarian priority” amid a litany of crises, the UN’s outgoing special envoy for the country said. Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Monday that roughly two-thirds of the war-ravaged country’s population – about 20 million people – rely on humanitarian aid for their day-to-day needs. Roughly five million people “are one step away from succumbing to famine and the diseases that go with it”, he warned. An additional 10 million people “are right behind them”, added Griffiths. “Famine isn’t just a food problem. It’s a symptom of a much deeper collapse. In many ways, it is all of Yemen’s problems rolled into one, and it demands a comprehensive response,” he said.    Much of the country’s starvation is tied to the extreme depreciation of Yemen’s national currency and the collapse of the economy, with GDP plummeting 40 percent since 2015 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the country. The Yemeni riyal, meanwhile, is trading at record lows to the US dollar. Khaled Mohamed Khiari, assistant UN secretary-general for the Middle East, raised further alarm over widespread fuel shortages that are worsening in Houthi-controlled territories. Only three ships carrying oil supplies were allowed to dock at Yemen’s strategic port city of Hodeidah since July, while four others remain in a holding area controlled by the Saudi Arabia-led, anti-Houthi coalition, Khiari said. The port of Hodeidah – which has remained largely shut over the years – is Yemen’s main port and a major lifeline for humanitarian supplies entering the country, which the UN has described as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”. All but one Yemen Petroleum station in Houthi-controlled territories have closed because of the shortages, and waiting times to refill gas canisters used for cooking have reached one month, according to the UN. “We reiterate our call on the government of Yemen to urgently allow the entry of all essential commercial supplies, including fuel ships to Hodeidah without delay,” said Khiari. “All parties must prioritise civilian needs and abstain from weaponising the economy, particularly in light of the critical humanitarian situation in the country.” In March, Saudi Arabia offered a nationwide ceasefire in Yemen, but the Houthis rejected the proposal, calling for a complete end to the Saudi-led blockade on the country’s ports and Sanaa airport first. Saudi Arabia says the Houthis are proxies of its regional rival, Iran. But the rebels deny receiving material support from Tehran.  This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window.  Meanwhile, Griffith called for an end to “profiteering” and the implementation of a definitive ceasefire, which would give “desperate civilians a break and create the space needed to address the drivers of the crisis”. Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014 when Houthi rebels overran much of the country. The conflict intensified in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its regional allies launched a military campaign against the Houthis, who had taken over the capital Sanaa and expelled the Riyadh-backed government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The violence spurred an enormous humanitarian crisis that has killed at least 233,000 people, according to UN estimates, and left millions on the verge of starvation. Yemen’s government and the Houthi rebels continue to battle a currency war that has opened up a gulf in riyal values.  Fuel shortages force people to turn to firewood to cook food, and logging as a source of work in a ravaged economy. Support aims to prevent ‘very real threat’ of famine in Yemen, US special envoy says, amid ongoing effort to end war. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Yemen"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["at least 233,000"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["Some five million","10 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["war","extreme depreciation of Yemen’s national currency and the collapse of the economy"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Tigray mothers share shocking accounts of dire famine conditions","document":"Testimonies from parents of severely malnourished children, medics, IDPs and residents who beg for food suggest dramatic worsening of situation in Ethiopia’s war-hit region. Eighteen-month-old Haftom Hailay is too weak to cry. All the boy, weighing three kilogrammes, can do is sigh in pain. His mother, malnourished herself, has no milk to breastfeed him. Where they came from in Aragure, a village east of Mekelle, the capital Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, the need for food is desperate. “One month ago, everything ran out,” Haftom’s mother, Girmanesh Meles, 30 told Al Jazeera. More than 10 months into the conflict, the famine-like conditions, which up until early July were limited to rural areas of Tigray, have now reached the outskirts of Mekelle. “It became normal to spend four days eating nothing,” said Girmanesh, who like others tried to survive by eating sparingly whatever crops her relatives from Mekelle could donate. “I waited for two weeks in the village … hoping someone would help,” she added. “But no one was able to help. Everyone was like us.” Worried about her son’s wellbeing, Girmanesh on September 11 embarked on foot from Aragure to bring Haftom to Tigray’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle. “My relatives told me to stay in the village, that there is nothing the hospital can do,” said Girmanesh. “[But] watching my boy getting weaker each day, I could not sit and wait until he dies in my hands.” During the past two months, the main hospital in Mekelle has received 60 children with severe acute malnutrition. Of those 60, six have died, according to Dr Abrha Gebregzabher, a paediatrician supervising the treatment of malnourished children at Ayder hospital. Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in November 2020 launched a military offensive to remove the governing party of Tigray, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, accusing it of attacking federal forces. The continuing conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced more than two million – and more recently, has expanded to the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar. Communications have been cut off across Tigray since June 29, when Tigrayan fighters retook most of the region. However, Al Jazeera managed to contact people in Mekelle and gather exclusive footage showing the extent of the humanitarian crisis. Interviews with 12 people in the city – including first-hand testimonies of parents currently caring for severely malnourished children, doctors, nurses, internally displaced people (IDPs) and residents trying to survive by begging for food – as well as videos and images taken from inside Ayder hospital suggest the dire humanitarian conditions are worsening. In one image, a small emaciated boy is crying, a feeding tube going into his nose, his skeletal feet covered in wounds. The others show similar scenes. According to the United Nations, more than 400,000 people are facing famine-like conditions and 1.8 million are on the brink of famine across Tigray. The region of some six million people remains under a “de facto humanitarian blockade”, the UN said earlier this month, warning of a “looming catastrophe” and urging all warring sides to allow and facilitate the unimpeded passage of aid. The September 2 statement by Grant Leaity, the UN’s acting humanitarian coordinator for Ethiopia, said a minimum of 100 trucks of food, non-food items and fuel must enter the region every day – but access has been extremely difficult. “Stocks of relief aid, cash and fuel are running very low or are completely depleted. Food stocks already ran out on 20 August,” it added. Separately, the World Food Programme said last week that, since July 12, 445 contracted non-agency trucks have entered Tigray, but only 38 have returned, calling their disappearance “the primary impediment” to stepping up humanitarian response. Ethiopian authorities and Tigrayan officials have traded the blame for the blocking of aid convoys attempting to enter Tigray. According to the United States officials, less than 10 percent of needed humanitarian supplies reached Tigray over the past month due to obstruction of aid access.    In Mekelle, people interviewed by Al Jazeera said the deteriorating humanitarian situation was due to the blockade following the withdrawal of federal troops from the city in late June. “Up until the siege, we were in a relatively better condition because the residents of Mekelle used to bring us food,” said Tesfay Gebretsadik, who fled to the capital from Humera, in western Tigray. “After the siege, all donations stopped. The inflation, and everything gets heavy. Residents are focused on saving their own life.” Al Jazeera reached out to the spokesperson of the Ethiopian prime minister’s office, Billene Seyoum, for a comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. While aid corridors and telecommunications remain shut, Tigray’s banks have also been cut off from the federal system. This means that it is impossible to send remittances into the region, where cash is running out. “Economic activities are stuck,” Micheal Gebreyesus, 35 a resident in Mekelle told Al Jazeera. “Since early September, we are only allowed to withdraw 1,000 birr (approximately $22; previously 2,000-birr withdrawals were permitted) per month,” he added, lamenting that the sum cannot cover the skyrocketing prices of basic food items. “Teff (essential grain to bake injera) is 6,000 birr ($130.43) per quintal (220 pounds). Cooking oil is 700 ($15) birr and that is if you are lucky to get it in the market. Essential vegetables like tomato and onion are 100 birr ($2.17) per kilo.”  This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window.  The crisis is driving residents to beg for food, including those like Worknesh Welday who were better off a few months ago. The 25-year-old mother-of-two said she was ashamed she had to go from house to house, knocking on strangers’ doors to ask for a loaf of bread or a small portion of injera. “I am used to spending two days eating nothing. But my children cannot spend more than one day. They cry; I beg so that they stop crying,” said Worknesh. Since the fighting erupted, thousands of people from across Tigray have fled to Mekelle in search of safety. Sheltered in schools, these IDPs people are waiting for food aid. During the past two weeks, four people in Mai’woyni secondary school have died, residents said. “They died … after weeks of starvation. Two of them were elderly and the remaining [were] children,” said Tesfay, the IDP from Humera who spends his days begging outside the school. Meanwhile, in Ayder hospital basic medical supplies and medicines are also running out. Doctors and nurses who spoke to Al Jazeera called on regional authorities and international aid group to support them, warning that most services have been suspended and the food stock for patients has finished. “We are struggling to continue with extremely limited resources. We are struggling to provide food to patients,” said Dr Sentayhu Mesgana, the hospital’s deputy medical head. “We have suspended further diagnosis due to electric interruptions and lack of spare parts. By now, the hospital is only providing basic services.” According to Dr Sentayhu, health centres across Tigray are unable to send patients to the referral hospital due to a lack of fuel affecting ambulance services. “We don’t know how many people are dying across the region from malnutrition. We are disconnected with the health centres due to the telecommunications blackout. We could only know about patients who managed to arrive here. Only a few can make it,” said Dr Sentayhu. “We cannot do adult nutritional support to the general public which is very costly and ineffective given the dire situation we are in.” Inside the hospital, another boy, 13-month-old Gebreanannya Tesfay, cries relentlessly. Doctors weighted him four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) when he was brought there on August 22. His father, Tesfaye Hiluf, who used to make a decent living as a farmer in Mai’alem, a village on the outskirts of Mekelle, could no longer feed his family. “We ran out of food two months ago. We tried to survive by asking friends for help. There was nothing to eat for three weeks. I could not afford to buy milk for my son when the mother failed to breastfeed him. He cries non-stop,” Tesfaye said. “Listening to his cries, there are days when I contemplate killing myself.” With medical supplies running out, Dr Abrha, the paediatrician looking after malnourished children, feared the worst is yet to come. “The stock of therapeutic milk will run out in three weeks given there are no new cases,” Dr Abrha said. “That means we will suspend the treatments after three weeks.” For now, Haftom and Gebreanannya are still getting the therapeutic milk. Food insecurity in conflict-hit Ethiopian region remains dire, with increasing reports of people dying of hunger. War-hit region facing severe shortage of aid, cash and fuel due to ‘de facto humanitarian aid blockade’, UN says. Since July, 445 trucks have entered Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray, but only 38 returned – hampering future aid deliveries. The US pressures all sides to stop fighting and negotiate peace in northern Ethiopia. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray region"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the residents of Mekelle","the UN","the World Food Programme"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["six"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["more than 400,000","1.8 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["the conflict"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["a minimum of 100 trucks of food, non-food items and fuel","food"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"UNWFP warns 3 million more now ‘teetering on the brink of famine’","document":"2 Views  The UN World Food Program (WFP) warned on Monday that the number of people affected by the end of famine in 43 countries, has risen to 45 million as extreme hunger rises around the world.  This number rose from 42 million the previous year, and 27 million in 2019, the agency said, in a news release.  The increase is based on people desperately living within the official hunger classification of IPC4 and higher, in Afghanistan, along with other increases in Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Angola, Kenya, and Burundi.  “Tens of millions of people are staring into the abyss. We’ve had conflict, climate change and COVID-19 driving up the number of hungry people, and the latest data shows that there are now more than 45 million people marching towards brink. of hunger, “said WFP Executive Director David Beasley.  He spoke following a fact-finding mission in Afghanistan, where WFP is increasing its support to help nearly 23 million people in need there.  “Fuel costs are rising, food prices are rising, fertilizer is more expensive, and it’s all turning into new crises like what’s happening now in Afghanistan, as well as long -standing emergencies like Yemen. and Syria, “he added.  WFP said that along with humanitarian partners in hunger hotspots around the world, they are doing everything to increase aid for the millions at risk of hunger. However, the available resources cannot keep pace with demand, at a time when traditional funding flows are under great difficulty.  WFP estimates that the cost of global hunger prevention now stands at $ 7 billion, up from approximately 6.6 billion, earlier in the year.  “As the cost of humanitarian assistance rises sharply, we need more funding to reach families around the world who have exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger,” the WFP chief added.  The agency said families faced with severe food insecurity, are being forced to make “destructive choices to cope with rising hunger.”  The vulnerability analysis in the 43 countries surveyed, shows that families are forced to eat less, or completely skip meals. Sometimes children are fed, while parents sacrifice food, and are forced to starve.  In Madagascar, where pockets of famine are already real, some are forced to eat locusts, wild leaves, or cactus in order to survive. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["around the world","Afghanistan","43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million","nearly 23 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and COVID-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["7 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Group Pioneers Use of NFTs to Help Famine Victims in Tigray, Ethiopia","document":"MEKELLE, Ethiopia, July 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As the war-torn Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia continues to experience extreme food shortages (tens of thousands have died, 1.8 million are on the verge of famine, according to UNICEF; 400,000 are already there), one group is using a relatively new way to support aid efforts: NFTs. According to Mirna Saraswati of SaveTigray, \"Last year we planned to create NFTs from Fair Trade Art created by women from Tigray. But the advent of the war in November put an end to those plans. So instead, we are making NFTs based on interpreted photos of the tragedy. We will sell them on our NFT marketplace, and donate the proceeds equally to four groups: the World Food Program, International Rescue Committee, UNICEF, and Save the Children.\" An example can be seen on their website, savetigray.net. Using NFTs to support charities is something that has never been done before. The group hopes to use the Tigray project as a prototype, so that they can later create similar projects to address Climate Change, Racial Injustice, Disease, and other issues. \"We believe that NFTs are here to stay,\" says the group's COO Savannah Partridge. \"We've solved the biggest problem associated with them, which is energy usage. Our platform uses 10 million times less energy than the standard Etherium-based ones. Like any NFT, the provenance of each work can be easily traced through the Blockchain. And buyers can continue to use each image to raise more for the cause, if they so choose. NFTs earn Royalties every time they are sold, so they can keep fundraising forever.\" SaveTigray also plans a publicity drive to make the public aware of the Famine and quasi-Genocide in Tigray. \"Most people in the West, including celebrities who usually rally round for a tragedy this big, are not involved,\" says Partridge. \"As much as we want to raise funds for victims, we really want to spread the news to millions. The Ethiopian government has announced that aid flights can resume from the capital, but so far none have been given approval. An outcry from the public can compel them to act.\" ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the World Food Program, International Rescue Committee, UNICEF, and Save the Children"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["1.8 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["the war"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Conflict, Covid driving 45 mn globally to edge of starvation","document":"New Delhi, Nov 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday warned that the number of people teetering on the edge of famine in 43 countries has risen to 45 million, as acute hunger spikes around the world. This number has risen from 42 million earlier in the year and from 27 million in 2019.   \"Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We've got conflict, climate change and Covid-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry, and the latest data show that there are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation,\" said WFP Executive Director David Beasley after a trip to Afghanistan, where WFP is ramping up its support to assist almost 23 million people. \"Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertiliser is more expensive, and all of these feeds into new crises like the one unfolding in Afghanistan now, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria,\" he added. WFP and its humanitarian partners are ramping up efforts to assist millions of people facing starvation. However, the needs are vastly surpassing the available resources at a time when traditional funding streams are overstretched. The cost of averting famine globally now stands at $7 billion, up from $6.6 billion earlier in the year. Families facing acute food insecurity are also being forced to make devastating choices to cope with the rising hunger. WFP's vulnerability analysis across the 43 countries shows families being forced to eat less, or skip meals entirely, feeding children over adults, and in some extreme cases being forced to eat locusts, wild leaves or cactus to survive -- as in Madagascar. In other areas, families are forced to marry off children early or pull them out of school, sell off assets like livestock or what little else they have left. Meanwhile, media reports from Afghanistan point to families reportedly being forced to sell their children in a desperate attempt to survive. Food prices hit a 10-year high this month, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index. This not only pushes food out of reach for millions of the poorest around the globe, but also increases the cost of procuring food on global markets. Adding to this are the high prices of fuel which also increase transportation costs and place a further strain on the global supply chains. For example, shipping a container cost $1,000 a year ago, but now it costs $4,000 or more.  Download logoThe United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that famine – already present in four countries – could become a reality for millions of people around the world, without urgent funding to stave off a catastrophe, and without access to families cut-off by conflict. “I am heartbroken at… In \"Africa News\" Download logoThe COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today as it and other partners released a new report on food crises… In \"Africa News\" Nearly half of the population - 47 percent - suffers from high and surging acute food insecurity in the Central African Republic as the country reels from the impacts of ongoing conflict and COVID-19, and braces for another harsh May-August lean season, warn the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United… In \"Africa News\" Rome, Jan 2 (IANS/AKI) Millions of people will require life-saving food assistance in sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of this year amid surging hunger levels that will stretch the United Nations World Food Programme and its partners to the limit, WFP said in a statement. Worst hit by food… In \"Diplomacy\" Significant funding shortfalls across East and Southern Africa as well as the Middle East have forced ration cuts upon some of the world’s most vulnerable people who rely on WFP food to survive. In East Africa alone, almost three-quarters of refugees have had their rations cut by up to 50…","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Afghanistan","43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["45 million","23 million"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["got conflict, climate change and Covid-19"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["7 billion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Famine knocking at the door of 41 million worldwide","document":"Famine is already present in four countries but millions more people are at risk, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday, underscoring the need for urgent funding and humanitarian access to reach those in need.  Recent analysis by the UN agency reveals 41 million people in 43 countries “are teetering on the very edge of famine”, up from 27 million two years ago.  “I am heartbroken at what we’re facing in 2021. We now have four countries where famine-like conditions are present”, WFP chief David Beasley told its Executive Board on Monday, according to a press release.  He described the situation as “just tragic”, as “these are real people with real names.”   WFP said 584,000 people are already experiencing famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen.    Nigeria and Burkina Faso are also of particular concern as they have pockets where famine-like conditions are present.  “In Somalia in 2011, 260,000 people died of hunger – and by the time the famine was actually declared – half of that number had already died,” Mr. Beasley recalled. “We can’t debate the numbers to death when people need our help now.”  Hunger has risen due to conflict, climate change and economic shocks, WFP said.  However, soaring prices for basic foods have also compounded the situation, with the global cost of maize rising almost 90 per cent year-on-year, for example.  In many countries, currency depreciation is also a factor, the agency added.  This has driven prices even higher, stoking food insecurity in places such as Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.  WFP is this year mounting its biggest operation ever, targeting 139 million people.  With sufficient funding and access, the agency said it can provide them with lifesaving food and nutritional assistance.  Mr. Beasley underlined the urgent need for support.  “I want to emphasize just how bad it is out there. Today, 41 million people are literally knocking on famine’s door. The price tag to reach them is about $6 billion. We need funding and we need it now,” he said Famine risk spikes amid conflict, COVID-19 and funding gapsJune 20, 2021In \"Human Rights\" Aid agencies call for urgent action to prevent famine in hunger hotspotsNovember 8, 2020In \"Africa Today\" Conflict, COVID, climate crisis, likely to fuel acute food insecurity in 23 ‘hunger hotspots’August 2, 2021In \"Human Rights\" ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe","43 countries"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["WFP"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2011"]},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":["260,000"]},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["41 million","584,000"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["conflict, climate change and economic shocks"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Hundreds of aid trucks have failed to return from Tigray, UN says","document":"Since July, 445 trucks have entered Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray, but only 38 returned – hampering future aid deliveries. Hundreds of aid trucks have not returned from Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region, and their disappearance is “the primary impediment” to ramping up the humanitarian response, the United Nations has said. The disclosure on Friday from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) comes amid rising fears of starvation deaths in Tigray, where the UN has previously estimated that about 350,000 people faced famine-like conditions. Since July 12, 445 contracted non-WFP trucks have entered Tigray, but only 38 have returned, WFP spokeswoman Gemma Snowdon said in a statement. “At the moment this is the primary impediment to moving humanitarian aid into Tigray. We are unable to assemble convoys of significant size due to lack of trucks,” Snowdon said. “We are continuing to work with transporters and local authorities in Tigray for trucks to be released.” WFP has no information about where the trucks are or what they are being used for, Snowdon said.    Northern Ethiopia has been racked by violence since last November when President Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, sent troops into Tigray, saying the move was in response to attacks on army camps by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF, which dominated national politics until Abiy came to power in 2018, said federal forces and its allies launched a “coordinated attack” against it. The 10-month war has killed thousands of people and forced more than two million to flee their homes. There have been myriad reports of massacres and atrocities, including rape and extrajudicial killings, and hundreds of thousands of people suffering famine. In July, after the TPLF had recaptured the regional capital of Mekelle and seized back most of Tigray, its forces advanced into Afar and Amhara regions, marking an expansion of the conflict into previously untouched areas. Since then, the government estimates that about 450,000 people have fled fighting in those two regions.  This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window.  According to the UN, Tigray remains under a “de facto blockade” and has warned of a “looming catastrophe” as fighting has dragged on and spread to neighbouring regions. The Ethiopian authorities and Tigrayan rebels have blamed each other for obstructing humanitarian convoys trying to reach Tigray. A government Twitter account on Thursday referred to “suspicions that TPLF [is] seizing trucks for own logistics”. But TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda cited obstacles drivers faced while entering Tigray from the neighbouring Afar region, adding they have “nothing to do” with Tigrayan officials. “Drivers of trucks that UN has commissioned complain about fuel availability, [security] concerns, harassment at checkpoints, being stranded at Afar for months, etc,” he said on Twitter. A humanitarian official in Tigray, speaking to the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, said many truck drivers were Tigrayan and had faced ethnically motivated harassment at checkpoints while heading into the region.  This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window.  Rival sides offer conflicting accounts as 10-month conflict in northern Ethiopia drags on. UN human rights investigators unable to deploy to site of alleged massacre of several hundred people in holy city. Eritrean soldiers and Ethiopian rebel fighters raped and killed refugees in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, rights group says. ","event_type":"Famine","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Tigray region"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Casualities and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Number of Influenced People","values":["350,000 people"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["war"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":["445 trucks"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Italian social protests","document":"In 2013, protests occurred in many parts of Italy, starting on 15 November and ending on 18 December although several protests continued until February. Usual targets have been the government, high taxation, red tape, established parties, the European Union, the Euro, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Globalization. [7] The protesters' goals include the overthrow of Enrico Letta's government, the resignation of President Giorgio Napolitano and the dissolution of Parliament. Some went so far as to propose the formation of a military junta to lead the country out of Eurozone. [8][9]\n\nThe whole protests, including rallies, demonstrations and blockades of highways and rail service, were dubbed by journalists Pitchfork protests[10][11][12] from the name of one of the leading participants: the Sicilian-based \"Pitchfork Movement\", which has been active in Sicily since 2011 and was characterised by an autonomist streak. [13] In the 2012 Sicilian regional election the Pitchforks supported either Mariano Ferro (candidate for \"People of Pitchworks\") or Cateno De Luca (candidate for \"Sicilian Revolution\"),[14] who both hailed from the Movement for the Autonomies and received a combined 2.5% of the vote. [15]\n\nSeveral groups, sometimes in conflict one with another, have animated protests, benefiting from a loose or non-existent coordination. They included a diverse bunch of groups: the original Pitchfork Movement, associations of truck drivers, environmental activists, farmers, entrepreneurs, unemployed people, football fans, minor political parties (including New Force and CasaPound, two far-right movements), and a plethora of local groups. [7] The European Federalist Free Entrepreneurs (LIFE), a libertarian and mainly Venetian nationalist[16] organization led by Lucio Chiavegato (a former president of Veneto State), has been playing a big role in Veneto. [17][18][19][20]\n\nThe committee which organized the first protests, the \"National Coordination 9 December 2013\",[21] was led by Mariano Ferro, Lucio Chiavegato and Danilo Calvani (a farmer from Lazio). [22]\n\nIn December 2013, Pitchfork spokesman Andrea Zunino claimed that Italy was a \"slave\" to Jewish bankers; this anti-Semitic remark was widely condemned. [23][24] As a result of this and of neo-fascist infiltrations, Ferro and Chiavegato, who distanced himself from neo-fascists and Italian nationalists, decided not to take part to the 18 December demonstration in Rome. [25]\n\nIn March 2014 Chiavegato announced that the 9 December Movement had been dissolved and that he would concentrate again on Veneto only. [26]\n\nIn April, Chiavegato and other leading members of the LIFE were arrested, along with other Venetian separatists (including Franco Rocchetta and two members of the Venetian Most Serene Government), for suspected crimes including criminal association for terrorism and subversion of the democratic order. [27] Chiavegato, who endured a 17-day hunger strike in jail,[28][29] was released on 18 April, along with Rocchetta and most of the others, as the tribunal of Brescia did not uphold the accusations. [30][31]\n\nThousands of students protested in major university centers in the country against proposed spending cuts in the 2014 budget. Scuffles broke out with riot police at some marches as protesters rallied in Rome, Turin and Palermo. [32]\n\nOn 26 November 2013 Trasportounito, a truckers' union, announced a strike which would take place from 9 December through 13 December. [33] On 4 December 2013 thousands of people gathered in Brenner, the Austrian-Italian border, to protest the counterfeited goods imported abroad. [34]\n\nThousands of farmers, lorry drivers, pensioners and unemployed people have taken to the streets in Italy as part of a series of protests against the government and the European Union. [35] Demonstrators stopped train services by walking on the tracks while striking lorry drivers disrupted traffic by driving slowly and blocking roads. [36]\n\nIn Turin, police officers used tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had been throwing rocks and bottles at the headquarters of Italy's tax collection agency. Two demonstrators were arrested for violence. An additional number of 32 people were given police warnings for blocking roads. In Savona, near Genova, protesters broke into a bookshop urging the owner to \"shut down the store and set fire to the books\". On 11 December, violence erupted in Milan when 20 Ajax fans, who had arrived in the city for the Champions League game against AC Milan, got off their bus and hurled beer cans and insults at the demonstrators in the central Loreto Square. Police intervened quickly to break up the fighting, but five Ajax supporters and an Italian peddler were injured. [37][38]\n\nIn Rome, hundreds of students clashed with police and threw firecrackers outside a university where government ministers were attending a conference. \"Our university isn’t a catwalk for those who peddle austerity\" read a banner. Clashes have been also reported in Ventimiglia, a locality on the Italian-French border. [39]\n\nA group of protesters of the neo-fascist movement CasaPound attacked the headquarters of the European Union in Rome. The leader of the movement, Simone Di Stefano, ripped the EU flag from the balcony of the building and replaced it with the Italian one. The protesters have been charged by the police and, after tough fighting, ten of them, including Di Stefano, have been arrested. [40]\n\nAfter the renouncement of Mariano Ferro and Lucio Chiavegato to take part to the demonstration in Rome, Danilo Calvani, the leader of Lazio's factions of the movement, remained the only one to participate to it. [41] Simone Di Stefano, the Vice-President of the neo-fascist CasaPound said that his movement will take part to the protest. [42] The Ministry of the Interior deployed 2,000 police officers to maintain security. [43]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["rallies, demonstrations and blockades of highways and rail service"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the government, high taxation, red tape, established parties, the European Union, the Euro, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Globalization"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["starting on 15 November and ending on 18 December"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Italy"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1990–1991 Togo protests","document":"\n\nThe 1990–1991 Togo protests was a protest movement against then-president Gnassingbe Eyadema and his reforms. Strikes and demonstrations began by students on 5 October and soon became a daily movement which saw deaths and beatings while shootings and clashes between pro-government and anti-government demonstrators took place. Mass protests ended violently with clashes in November 1991. Gnassingbé Eyadéma helped lead two military coups, one in 1963 and another in 1967, in which he became the President of Togo. Opposition to Eyadéma's regime grew in the late 1980s as many people believed he was only working to benefit cronies from the army, his tribesmen, and his political allies. [1] Inspired by anti-communist revolutions throughout Europe starting from 1989, and sparked by the trial of students for distributing anti-government material, Togolese students held demonstrations and strikes on 5 October 1990. [1][2] This protest marked the start of a protest movement against Eyadéma's military regime. [3]\n\nDuring a wave of protests against Eyadéma, the government established a curfew, and announced it on 10 April 1991, one hour after it went into force. The next day, inhabitants of Lomé found 28 bodies on the lagoon of Bé. The National Human Rights Commission determined that thd Togolese Armed Forces had carried out the massacre. [4]\n\nThe Togolese government held a constitutional referendum in 1992 which included a two-term presidential limit, and Togo started holding multi-party elections in 1993. In December 2002, Eyadéma removed the presidential term limits, allowing him to run indefinitely. [5]\n\nProtests re-erupted in 1992 demanding a new constitution which led to a constitutional referendum. The crisis in 1990 saw closures of schools and ghost towns nationwide. Rallies in support of the government was held in December 1991. As a result of the movement, the government made a ban on demonstrations and made restrictions thus tightening normal life with restrictions. Security forces and the military stepped up their force against protestors as a result of the protests of 1990–1991.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["made a ban on demonstrations and made restrictions thus tightening normal life with restrictions"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against then-president Gnassingbe Eyadema and his reforms","many people believed he was only working to benefit cronies from the army, his tribesmen, and his political allies"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["28 bodies"]},{"role":"Date","values":["5 October"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["students"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Baku protests","document":"A protest took place on January 12, 2013 in Baku, Azerbaijan after Azerbaijani Army soldier Ceyhun Qubadov was found dead on January 7, 2013. It was first reported that the cause of death was heart attack. Qubadov's family asked for an investigation as they believed it was a murder. [1][2]\n\nOn January 10, 2013, a Facebook event was created. A day later about 13,600 joined it, the next day the number of users joined was 20,000. [1][3]\n\nHundreds of protesters gathered at the Fountains Square on January 12 with demands of resignation of Safar Abiyev, the Azerbaijani Defense Minister. [1] They held slogans such as \"Stop killing our soldiers\" and \"You must answer to us. \"[1]\n\nImmediately after the investigation the Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev was fired by the order of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Colonel General Zakir Hasanov took his place.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["after the investigation the Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev was fired by the order of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Azerbaijani Army soldier Ceyhun Qubadov was found dead on January 7, 2013"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["January 12, 2013"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Baku, Azerbaijan","Fountains Square"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"Stop killing our soldiers\" and \"You must answer to us."]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Hundreds"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1971 May Day protests","document":"Protesters\n\nThe 1971 May Day Protests were a series of large-scale civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C., in protest against the Vietnam War. These began on Monday morning, May 3rd, and ended on May 5th. More than 12,000 people were arrested, the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. [1]\n\nMembers of the Nixon administration would come to view the events as damaging, because the government's response was perceived as violating citizens' civil rights. [2]\n\nBy the middle of 1970 many leaders of the anti war movement had come to believe that tactics of mass marches that had been used during the past six years would not end the war, and that more aggressive actions were needed. Rennie Davis and David Dellinger of the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice and Jerry Coffin of the War Resisters League began planning the actions; later in 1970 Michael Lerner joined their number. [3] A group known as the \"May Day Tribe\"[4] was formed: it was made up of Yippies and others among the more militant members of the anti-war movement. It was decided that small groups of protesters would block major intersections and bridges in the capital, under the slogan, \"If the government won't stop the war, we'll stop the government.\" More than 40,000 protesters camped out in West Potomac Park near the Potomac River to listen to rock music and plan for the coming action. [5]\n\nThe Nixon administration secretly canceled the protester's camping permit. U.S. Park Police and Washington Metropolitan Police, dressed in riot gear, raided the encampment. The police gave the campers until noon to clear out. Some protesters abandoned the demonstration and left the city. The remaining protesters, estimated at 12,000, regrouped at various churches and college campuses in the area. [6]\n\nThe U.S. government had put into effect Operation Garden Plot, a plan it had developed during the 1960s to combat major civil disorders. Over the weekend, while protesters listened to music, planned their actions or slept, 10,000 federal troops were moved to various locations in the Washington, D.C. area. At one point, so many soldiers and Marines were being moved into the area from bases along the East Coast that troop transports were landing at the rate of one every three minutes at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, about 15 miles east of the White House. Among these troops were 4,000 paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. Troops from the Marine Barracks lined both sides of the 14th St bridge. These troops were to back up the 5,100 officers of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, 2,000 members of the D.C. National Guard and federal agents that were already in place. [7] Every monument, park and traffic circle in the nation's capital had troops protecting its perimeters. Paratroopers and Marines deployed via helicopter to the grounds of the\nWashington Monument. Protesters announced that because the government had not stopped the Vietnam War they would stop the government[4] and told troops, many of whom were of similar age, that their goal was to prevent the troops from being sent to Vietnam. While the troops were in place and thousands held in reserve, the police clashed with members of the May Day tribe. The protesters engaged in hit\nand run tactics throughout the city, trying to disrupt traffic and cause chaos in the streets. President Richard Nixon, who was at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, refused to give Federal workers the day off, forcing them to navigate through police lines and May Day tribe roadblocks. Most commuters who tried arrived at their jobs, despite being delayed somewhat. Federal Employees for Peace held a rally the following day in Lafayette Park. While the troops secured the major intersections and bridges, the police abandoned their usual arrest procedures, roaming through the city making sweep arrests and using tear gas. They detained anyone who looked like a demonstrator. By 8 am thousands of people had been arrested, including many who had not been breaking any law. The city's prisons did not have the capacity to handle that many people thus several emergency detention centers were setup including the Washington Coliseum and another one surrounded by an 8-foot-high (2.4 m) fence was set up next to RFK Stadium. The prisoners massed against the fence, pushed it over, and were tear-gassed. No food, water, or sanitary facilities were made available by authorities but sympathetic local residents brought supplies. Skirmishes between protesters and police occurred up until about mid-day. In Georgetown, the police herded the protesters and onlookers through the streets to the Georgetown University campus. The police then engaged in a back and forth with the protesters outside the university's main gate on O Street, lobbing tear gas over the gate each time they pushed the crowd back. Other forms of gas were used including pepper based and one that induced vomiting. Police helicopters also dropped tear gas on the university's lower athletic field where protesters had camped the night before. Numerous people were injured and treated by volunteers on campus. By afternoon the police had suppressed the protest and held more than 7,000 prisoners. [8]\n\nOn Tuesday, May 4, another 2,000 people were arrested at a sit-in outside the headquarters of the Justice Department. On Wednesday, May 5, 1,200 more people were arrested at a legal rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, bringing the total to 12,614 people, making this the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. [4][9]\n\nThe Justice Department filed conspiracy charges against May Day leader Rennie Davis, as well as against two other activists who had been members of the Chicago 7, John Froines and Abbie Hoffman. The charges were eventually dismissed. Out of the 12,000 demonstrators arrested most were released without charges. Only 79 were eventually convicted. [10] The ACLU pursued a class action suit on behalf of thousands of detained protesters and ultimately the federal courts, recognizing the illegal nature of the arrests, ordered the government to pay a settlement to those arrested, making them some of the only citizens in US history to receive financial compensation for violation of the constitutional rights of free assembly and due process. [11]\n\nRichard Helms, who was Central Intelligence Agency director at the time, said \"It was obviously viewed by everybody in the administration, particularly with all the arrests and the howling about civil rights and human rights and all the rest of it...as a very damaging kind of event.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["More than 12,000 people were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Vietnam War"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday morning, May 3rd, and ended on May 5th"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Washington, D.C"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"If the government won't stop the war, we'll stop the government."]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["More than 40,000 protesters"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Sistan and Baluchestan protests","document":"The 2021 Sistan and Baluchestan protests, are a series of ongoing protests in the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran. The protests started on 23 February 2021 after multiple Balochi fuel traders were killed at the Iran-Pakistan border. After at least ten fuel traders were shot and killed by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic on 22 February 2021, protests and strikes erupted across Sistan and Baluchestan province on 23 February. In Saravan, protesters were met with live ammunition after they occupied the governor's office. [3]\n\nOn 24 February, protests intensified across the province. In Zahedan, protesters clashed heavily with the security forces, and over ran a police outpost. [4] Demonstrations were also reported in Khash, Iranshahr, and Saravan. [5] Internet service in various areas of the province, including Zahedan and Saravan, was completely cut[6]\n\nDespite a complete internet shutdown, and heavy security presence, protests and strikes continued into 25 February in various cities in the province. In neighbourhoods of Zahedan, protestors set up roadblocks and clashed with the security forces. [7]\n\nRupert Colville of The UNOHCHR condemned the killing of estimated 23 people by Sepah. [8]\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["Internet service in various areas of the province, including Zahedan and Saravan, was completely cut"]},{"role":"Method","values":["set up roadblocks and clashed with the security forces"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["multiple Balochi fuel traders were killed at the Iran-Pakistan border"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["23 February 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran","Zahedan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Language Movement Day","document":"\n\n\n\nLanguage Movement Day (Bengali: ভাষা আন্দোলন দিবস Bhasha Andolôn Dibôs), also called State Language Day or Language Martyrs' Day (Bengali: শহীদ দিবস Shôhid Dibôs), is a national holiday of Bangladesh taking place on 21 February each year and commemorating the Bengali language movement and its martyrs. On this day, people visit Shaheed Minar to pay homage to the movement's martyrs, and arrange seminars discussing and promoting Bengali as the state language of Bangladesh. Then After the partition of India in 1947, Bengali-speaking people in East Bengal, the non-contiguous eastern part of the Dominion of Pakistan, made up 44 million of the newly formed Dominion of Pakistan's 69 million people. [2] The Dominion of Pakistan's government, civil services, and military, however, were dominated by personnel from the western wing of the Dominion of Pakistan. [3] In 1947, a key resolution at a national education summit in Karachi advocated Urdu as the sole state language, and its exclusive use in the media and in schools. [4][5] Opposition and protests immediately arose. Students from Dhaka rallied under the leadership of Abul Kashem, the secretary of Tamaddun Majlish, a Bengali Islamic cultural organisation. The meeting stipulated Bengali as an official language of the Dominion of Pakistan and as a medium of education in East Bengal. [6] However, the Pakistan Public Service Commission removed Bengali from the list of approved subjects, as well as from currency notes and stamps. The central education minister Fazlur Rahman made extensive preparations to make Urdu the only state language of the Dominion of Pakistan. [7] Public outrage spread, and a large number of Bengali students met on the University of Dhaka campus on 8 December 1947 to formally demand that Bengali be made an official language. To promote their cause, Bengali students organised processions and rallies in Dhaka. The language movement prompted the people of East Bengal (later East Pakistan) to establish a separate national identity, distinct from that of the remainder of Pakistan (later West Pakistan. [8])\n\nAt nine o'clock on the morning of 21 February 1952, students began gathering on the premises of the University of Dhaka in defiance of Section 144 of the penal code. The university vice-chancellor and other officials were present as armed police surrounded the campus. By a quarter past eleven, students gathered at the university gate and attempted to break the police line. Police fired tear gas shells towards the gate to warn the students. [2] A section of students ran into the Dhaka Medical College while others rallied towards the university premises cordoned by the police. The vice-chancellor asked police to stop firing and ordered the students to leave the area. However, the police arrested several students for violating Section 144 as they attempted to leave. Enraged by the arrests, the students met around the East Bengal Legislative Assembly and blocked the legislators' way, asking them to present their insistence at the assembly. When a group of students sought to storm into the building, police opened fire and killed a number of students, including Abdus Salam, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abul Barkat and Abdul Jabbar. [2][9] As the news of the killings spread, disorder erupted across the city. Shops, offices and public transport were shut down and a general strike began. [10] At the assembly, six legislators including Manoranjan Dhar, Boshontokumar Das, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Dhirendranath Datta requested that chief minister Nurul Amin visit wounded students in hospital and that the assembly be adjourned as a sign of mourning. [11] This motion was supported by some of the treasury bench members including Maulana Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish, Shorfuddin Ahmed, Shamsuddin Ahmed Khondokar and Mosihuddin Ahmed. [11] However Nurul Amin refused the requests. [2][11]\n\nOn 7 May 1954, the constituent assembly resolved, with the Muslim League's support, to grant official status to Bengali. Bengali was recognised as the second official language of Pakistan on 29 February 1956, and article 214(1) of the Constitution of Pakistan was amended to provide that \"The state language of Pakistan shall be Urdu and Bengali.\" However, the military government formed by Ayub Khan made attempts to re-establish Urdu as the sole national language. On 6 January 1959, the military regime issued an official statement and reinstated the official stance of supporting the 1956 constitution's policy of two state languages. [12]\n\nAlthough the question of official languages was settled by 1956, the military regime of Ayub Khan promoted the interests of West Pakistan at the expense of East Pakistan. Despite forming the majority of the national population, the East Pakistani population continued to be under-represented in the civil and military services, and received a minority of state funding and other government help. This was mainly due to lack of representative government in the fledgling state. Mainly due to regional economic imbalances sectional divisions grew, and support for the Bengali ethnic nationalist Awami League, which invoked the 6-point movement for greater provincial autonomy. One demand was that East Pakistan be called Bangladesh (Land/Country of Bengal), which subsequently led to the Bangladesh Liberation War. [3]\n\nTo commemorate this movement, Shaheed Minar, a solemn and symbolic sculpture, was erected in the place of the massacre. [citation needed]\n\nFollowing the formation of local government by the United Front in April 1954, the anniversary of 21 February was declared a holiday. [1] The day is revered in Bangladesh where it is a public holiday and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in West Bengal as the Martyrs' Day. [citation needed]\n\nUNESCO decided to observe 21 February as International Mother Language Day. [13] The UNESCO General Conference took the decision that took effect on 17 November 1999,[14] when it unanimously adopted a draft resolution submitted by Bangladesh and co-sponsored and supported by 28 other countries. [citation needed]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demand that Bengali be made an official language"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["nine o'clock on the morning of 21 February 1952","8 December 1947"]},{"role":"Location","values":["University of Dhaka","University of Dhaka campus"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Bengali students","Students from Dhaka","Abul Kashem"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"COVID-19 anti-lockdown protests in the United States","document":"\n\n\n\nBeginning in mid-April 2020, there were protests in several U.S. states against government-imposed lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. [1][2] The protests, mostly organized by conservative groups and individuals,[3][4] decried the economic and social impact of stay-at-home orders, business closures, and restricted personal movement and association, and demanded that their respective states be \"re-opened\" for normal business and personal activity. [5]\n\nThe protests made international news[6][7] and were widely condemned as unsafe and ill-advised,[8] although some political figures expressed support for the protests. [9][10] They ranged in size from a few hundred people to a few thousand, and spread on social media with encouragement from former U.S. President Donald Trump. [9]\n\nBy May 1, 2020, there had been demonstrations in more than half of the states; many governors began to take steps to lift the restrictions as daily new infections began decreasing due to social distancing measures. [11]\n\nOne of the first protests was in Michigan on April 15, 2020. It was organized via a Facebook group called \"Operation Gridlock\", which was created by the Michigan Freedom Fund and the Michigan Conservative Coalition. A spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition encouraged groups in other states to copy the Operation Gridlock wording and templates. Protesters in numerous other states said they were inspired by Michigan, and they used Michigan's material on their own websites, Facebook groups, and Reddit pages to promote their protests. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called attention to the fact that the Michigan Freedom Fund is funded in part by the DeVos family, but a spokesman said the family had nothing to do with the protests. [12]\n\nThe Trump campaign declined to answer whether it was directly involved with organizing the protest in Michigan, but key protest organizers who did identify themselves were Meshawn Maddock, the wife of Republican state representative Matt Maddock and a member of the national advisory board for Women for Trump, and Marian Sheridan, who serves as a vice chair on the Michigan Republican Party. [3][13] The protest in Washington State was organized by a county Republican Party, and speakers included three Republican state legislators. [14] FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group associated with the Tea Party movement, published a \"#ReOpenAmerica Planning Guide\". [15]\n\nProtesters opposed the shelter-in-place orders in their states for various reasons. Many said they want businesses reopened so they can go back to work. Many others displayed pro-Trump banners, signs, and MAGA hats. [16] Still others insisted the lockdowns were a violation of their constitutional rights. One militia leader told a reporter, \"Re-open my state or we will re-open it ourselves. \"[17] The anger driving the protests was called \"both real and manufactured\", with conservative groups engaging in astroturfing via centralized organization backed by anonymous donors. [18][19]\n\nThe reopen protests have generally been small, with protester numbers ranging from a few dozen to the low hundreds; the first protest in Michigan drew several thousand. [20] Protesters included mainstream Republicans,[21] but also far-right groups including Proud Boys and armed militia movement supporters. [4] A large number of \"anti-vax\" advocates have attended, and some have been the organizers of local protests. [22][23] Ben, Chris and Aaron Dorr, three guns-rights activist brothers, are the organizers of protests in several midwestern states. [24][25]\n\nHistorians have noted that the protests are similar to those who grew tired of restrictions from the 1918 pandemic. [26]\n\nAfter the murder of George Floyd on May 25, many of the Facebook groups created to organize protests over COVID-19 expanded their focus to attack the protests organized by Black Lives Matter[27]\n\nOn May 1, hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters displaying the Confederate Flag, a sign written in German that read \"work will set you free\", Nazi symbols[28] and signs with slogans like \"Give me liberty or give me COVID-19\" gathered for a \"Re-open Illinois\" rally in Springfield organized by \"Freedom Movement USA.\" Protesters and counter-protesters met in Chicago where two arrests were made for disorderly conduct. [29][30]\n\nApproximately 250 people gathered in front of the Governor's Mansion in Indianapolis on April 18, 2020 to protest Governor Eric Holcomb's stay at home order. [31] The protesters did not follow social distancing guidelines, although some wore face masks. The protesters called for the governor to appear and explain himself, and said they were willing to be arrested if necessary. [32]\n\nMichigan was the site of the largest of the \"re-open\" protests. The first confirmed case of coronavirus was recognized in Michigan on March 10, 2020. [33][34] On April 15, the day of the protest, Michigan had at least 28,059 confirmed cases—the third highest number of cases in the United States—and 1,921 deaths had been attributed to the disease in the state. [35] Metropolitan Detroit had been pronounced a \"hot spot\". [36] Initial state actions to limit spread of the virus included closure of all K-12 schools, closure of bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues, and a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. [37] On March 24 a statewide stay-at-home order was issued which limited non-essential travel and ordered all non-essential business services and operations to close. [38] The order was extended in early April with additional restrictions included. [39][40]\n\nOn April 15, 2020, an estimated 3,000 people took part in a protest they called \"Operation Gridlock\" in the area surrounding the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing. [41] Most protestors remained in their vehicles, jamming the streets around the capitol building, although around 150 protested on the capitol lawn. [20] The protest lasted eight hours. [42] The protest caused delays during a shift-change at Sparrow Hospital. [43] Police described the protesters as respectful, with most trying to maintain social distancing; no arrests were made. [44]\n\nProtesters complained of loss of work and other economic hardship caused by the state government's coronavirus response. Some felt that if they were not sick, that they should have the freedom to continue with their normal routine. [45] Others claimed violation of their civil liberties or expressed opposition to Governor Gretchen Whitmer's administration. [46] Some protesters lived in more rural areas of Michigan that had not seen as many coronavirus cases as the cities of Detroit or Flint. [47]\n\nOn April 30, a second protest occurred when hundreds of protesters, many carrying firearms, gathered at the Michigan Capitol. Many protesters were able to enter the building. The demonstration was organized by the conservative group American Patriot Council . [48] The protest was much smaller than the one on April 15, but the show of firearms and the violent tone of some of the signs indicated that things were changing. [49] Some protesters compared the Governor to Adolf Hitler while children danced in masks of Donald Trump and Barack Obama on the steps of the Capitol.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["two arrests"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against government-imposed lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States","the economic and social impact of stay-at-home orders, business closures, and restricted personal movement and association, and demanded that their respective states be \"re-opened\" for normal business and personal activity","the shelter-in-place orders in their states","Governor Eric Holcomb's stay at home order","loss of work and other economic hardship caused by the state government's coronavirus response"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["April 15, 2020","April 30","Beginning in mid-April 2020","May 1","April 18, 2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the United States","several U.S. states","Michigan","in front of the Governor's Mansion in Indianapolis"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"work will set you free\"","\"Give me liberty or give me COVID-19\""]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["conservative groups and individuals","ranged in size from a few hundred people to a few thousand","ranging from a few dozen to the low hundreds","several thousand","anti-lockdown protesters","Approximately 250 people","estimated 3,000 people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Croatian protests","document":"The 2019 Croatian protests was an influx of movements and peaceful demonstrations in Zagreb, as part of a popular uprising against a surge in Violence against women and participated in rallies as part of the Spasime movement. The protests have been nicknamed the #Justice for Girls, #Save Me! Movement and #Me too! Movement. [1]\n\nIn Croatia, protesters were on the streets after a wave of Violence against women and injustice against young girls. Girls and women has suffered a history of violence in Croatia, so they called on Marches and Rallies to be held in public in protest. [2]\n\nMass rallies was held in Zagreb on 16 March, in protest at violence against women. Thousands rallied in town squares and city-centres in streets for a day. Justice rallies and different street protests grew in late-October, when justice for girls rallies were taking place across Zagreb at protest against violence. [3]\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against a surge in Violence against women","a wave of Violence against women and injustice against young girls"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["Violence against women and injustice against young girls"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2019","16 March"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Croatia","Zagreb"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Croatian","Thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Mexican protests","document":"The 2020 Mexican protests were massive demonstrations and increasingly violent clashes against violence against women and demanded the country to end feminist violence. Suicides and Homicides also triggered mass protests by women and activists nationwide, but the epicentre of protests and riots was in Mexico City. Mexicans have been on the streets since 9 March, when a nationwide strike by hundreds of thousands of Women went ahead. Anti-govt mass protests also took place on 10 March nationwide. Rallies were held in August by activists against the government's handling of the Coronavirus pandemic in Mexico. On 21 October, a mass protest by tens of thousands of demonstrators was held against restrictions and the government. On 10 November, police opened fire on demonstrators as street protests was held for 1 day. Outrage erupted in Mexico after shots were fired in squares in Mexico City by police forces. Police brutality sparked outrage as well for a couple of days online in Mexico. Protesters also rallied peacefully on the last rally on 10 December against violence against women. [1][2]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against violence against women and demanded the country to end feminist violence","Suicides and Homicides"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2020","since 9 March"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Mexico City"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds of thousands","women and activists","Mexican"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Kobanî protests","document":"\n\nThe 2014 Kobanî protests in Turkey refer to large-scale protests by pro-YPG kurds in Turkey in autumn 2014, as a spillover of the crisis in Kobanî. Large pro-Kobanî demonstrations unfolded in Turkey, and quickly descended into violence between protesters and the Turkish police. Several military incidents between Turkish forces and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in south-eastern Turkey, resulting in several mortal casualties, contributed to the escalation. Protests then spread to various cities in Turkey. Protesters were met with tear gas and water cannons, and initially 12 people were killed. A total of 31 people were killed in subsequent protesting up to 14 October. [1]\n\nAs a result of the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Kobanî that began 13 September 2014, more than 200,000 Syrian refugees flowed into Turkey. [2] However, Turkish security forces did not allow People's Protection Units (YPG) militants and other volunteers to go the other way, using tear gas and water cannons against them. [3] There were several causes for the protests. Turkish authorities forbade Kurdish volunteers to cross the border into Kobanî was one,[4] that Turkey refused to launch a military operation in defense of Kobani even though the Turkish parliament has passed a law authorizing one another. [4] On 30 September, errant shells landed on Turkish soil and the Turks shot back into Syrian territory, with Turkish armor being brought to the border to deter further incursions. [5] Five civilians in Turkey were injured when a mortar hit their house. Turkey evacuated two villages as a precautionary measure. [6] While dispersing Kurdish crowds near the border, Turkish police fired tear gas directly into a BBC news crew van, breaking through the rear window and starting a small fire. [7]\n\nAs a result of the crisis in Kobanî, massive pro-Kobanî demonstrations unfolded in Turkey and quickly turned into violence between protesters and the Turkish police. Several military incidents between Turkish forces and  militants in south-eastern Turkey, resulting in several mortal casualties, contributed to the escalation. Protests then spread to various cities in Turkey. Protesters were met with tear gas and water cannons, and initially 12 people were killed. A total of 31 people were subsequent rioting up to 14 October. [1] On the 8 October Mark Lowen from the BBC reported that 19 people shall have died and that the Turkish authorities imposed curfews in several cities with a majorly Kurdish population. [8]\n\nOn 1 November 2014, multiple protests took place to support the Kurds of Kobanî. 5,000 people demonstrated in the Turkish town of Suruç, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the border. At least 15,000 marched in Turkey's largest Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır and 1,000 protested in Istanbul, all peaceful. [9]\n\nAfter on the 7 November Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Kobanî would fall to ISIL,[4] the protests took up force. [10] On the same day, there were reports that a 28-year-old Kurdish woman activist had been shot in the head by Turkish soldiers on the Turkish side of the border near Kobanî. She was reportedly part of a peaceful group of demonstrators who wanted the Turkish government to allow volunteers from Turkey to join the fight against ISIL in Kobanî. [11]\n\nPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he was not ready to launch operations against ISIL in Syria unless it was also against the Syrian government. [12]\n\nErdoğan has repeatedly blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) for the deaths during the Kobanî protests. [10] Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, Co-Chairs of the HDP in 2014, were arrested due to other charges in November 2016 but from September 2019 onwards, were also prosecuted for the Kobani protests. [13] The prosecutors initiated the investigation against Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ the same day Demirtaş demanded his release due to a courts verdict, that he was to be released pending trial. [14] In September 2020, the investigations were expanded onto the leading politicians of the HDP and the Democratic Regions Party (BDP) at the time of the protests. [13] Sirri Süreyya Önder,[15] and Ayhan Bilgen were detained on the 25 September 2020. [16] The prosecution of 82 supporters of the protests during September 2020, has led to other protests against the prosecution. [17] During October, Sebahat Tuncel, Aysel Tuğluk[18] and Gültan Kişanak, all imprisoned at the times, received new arrest warrants due to the protests. Gülser Yıldırım was also summoned to deliver a statement, following which she was released into house arrest. [13] In the trial of Kişanak, secret witnesses are being used. [19] The HDP has called several times for a parliamentary commission which would investigate the events causing the protests, but their demands were rejected by politicians of the AKP and their political ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). [20] In January 2021, the president of the MHP Devlet Bahçeli, called for the closure of the HDP due to its involvement in the Kobanî protests. [21] On the 2 March 2021, the Court of Cassation requested the file regarding the Kobani protests[22] and on the 17 March the State Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court demanding the closure of the HDP. [23]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["to support the Kurds of Kobanî"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A total of 31 people were killed","28-year-old Kurdish woman activist had been shot in the head"]},{"role":"Date","values":["autumn 2014","1 November 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Turkey","Turkish town of Suruç, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the border","Diyarbakır","Istanbul"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["pro-YPG kurds","5,000 people","At least 15,000","1,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2012–2014 Romanian protests against shale gas","document":"Shale gas in Romania has been prospected, licenses were given to several companies, but no exploitation has yet started. The current government led by Victor Ponta supports extraction of shale gas through fracking, but there have been protests against it. Romgaz discovered non-conventional gas resources (including shale gas) in 1994-1995 in Transylvania; however, they were only accidentally exploited. [1]\n\nWhen the Democratic-Liberal government began supporting shale gas extraction in 2012, the Social-Democratic Party voiced its opposition. In April 2012, a motion of no confidence written by the Social-Democrats led to the fall of the Ungureanu government. The motion of no confidence blamed the government for approving shale gas extraction without an appropriate legislative framework and without any geological studies. [2]\n\nWhen the Social-Democratic Party took power, its May 2012 party programme proposed the \"immediate establishment of a moratorium on shale gas until the studies that are ongoing at European level on the environmental impacts of hydraulic fractionation process\". [3]\n\nIn June 2012, a proposal by several Vaslui County deputies to ban shale gas extraction through fracking was rejected by the Victor Ponta government, being also rejected by the Senate. [3] Soon after, Ponta announced that the government would re-analyze its position on shale gas. [2] In July 2012, PM Ponta announced that retired general Wesley Clark (who was working for shale gas company BNK Petroleum) would become an adviser of the Romanian government, fueling speculations of a change of policy regarding shale gas and fracking. [2]\n\nFollowing negotiations with petroleum corporation Chevron in December 2012, Ponta announced in January 2013 a reversal of the policies, saying that shale gas extraction \"should be considered as something positive\". [2] The first permissions for the exploration of shale gas were given a few days later in January 2013. [2]\n\nAmerican corporation Chevron has the rights to extract shale gas from a combined area of 870,000 hectares[4] around Bârlad, as well as from several areas in Dobruja (Adamclisi, Vama Veche and Costinești), under 30-year contracts that can be extended for another 15 years. [5]\n\nThe gas extraction rights for the Bârlad area were sold by Frank Timiș's Regal Petroleum to Chevron in 2010 for $25 million. [6] Chevron was given in January 2013 the permission for exploration of shale gas in Bârlad and a few months later, in May 2013, it was also given permission for the exploration of the gas fields along the southern Romanian Black Sea coast. [2] The royalties given to the Romanian state are between 3.5% and 13%, depending on the sizes of the deposits. [5]\n\nThe exploratory drillings were supposed to start in October 2013 in Pungești, Vaslui County, however, following protests both in the village and in Bucharest, Chevron decided to suspend its activities. [7] The Pungești local council announced the organization of a non-binding local referendum on the issue. [7]\n\nProtests against shale gas were held in several major cities including Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanța,[8] as well as in the areas where the exploitations will be done, including in the city of Vaslui and the village of Pungești. A small village in Vaslui County became a center of resistance against exploitation of shale gas.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["decided to suspend its activities"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["shale gas"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Pungești, Vaslui County","both in the village and in Bucharest","A small village in Vaslui County","several major cities including Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanța","the city of Vaslui and the village of Pungești"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017 Belarusian protests","document":" :\n\n :\n\nThe 2017 Belarusian protests were a series of demonstrations and street protests against President Alexander Lukashenko that broke out in late February 2017. Protesters mobilized against a tax levied against the unemployed in Belarus. Demonstrations and marches were held in sites throughout the country with sizes of several hundred to several thousand gathering at a given time. Belarus has been described for several years as Europe's \"last dictatorship\" with no genuine political opposition against Lukashenko possible. [4] Previous protests in 2011 and 2015 resulted in mass arrests. The country has also been in an economic recession since 2015 due to falling gasoline prices and that year a law was passed taxing the unemployed. [1] Roughly 470,000 Belarusians are obliged to pay the tax but only about 10% have since it was issued. [1]\n\nApproximately 2,500 protesters[5] filled the streets in Minsk on 17 February to protest a policy that required anyone who works for less than 183 days[6] per year to pay USD$250 for \"lost taxes\" to help fund welfare policies. [7] This converts to approximately p.5 million—a half-month's wages. [1] The law has proven unpopular and has been mocked in the public as the \"law against social parasites\". [1] On 19 February, another 2,000 demonstrated in the second city of Gomel. [7] Both gatherings were peaceful. Smaller demonstrations were held in other cities. [5]\n\nOn 25 March, opposition leader Vladimir Nekliayev, who was set to speak at the main protest, was stopped in the morning on his way to Minsk, his wife said. [8]\n\nThe government defended the mass arrests and beatings against citizens by alleging that the police had found \"petrol bombs and arms-laden cars\" near a protest in Minsk. [9]\n\nThe mayor of Brest met with the protesters. After the rally, the organizers received 15 days of arrest. [17]\n\nTo the protesting crowd came member of parliament Ihar Marzaliuk, five people arrested [26]\n\nAbout 40 people were detained in Minsk. [27]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["the organizers received 15 days of arrest","five people arrested","About 40 people were detained"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["a policy that required anyone who works for less than 183 days[6] per year to pay USD$250 for \"lost taxes\" to help fund welfare policies"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["late February 2017","17 February","19 February"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Minsk","the second city of Gomel"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Approximately 2,500 protesters","2,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018 Chemnitz protests","document":"\n\nRight-wing and Nationalist rioters\n\nThe 2018 Chemnitz protests took place in Chemnitz, in the German state of Saxony. In the early morning of 26 August, after a festival celebrating the city's founding, a fight broke out resulting in the death of a Cuban-German man and serious injuries to two other people. Two Kurdish immigrants, one from Iraq and the other from Syria, were named as suspects. The incident reignited the tensions surrounding immigration to Germany, which had been ongoing since 2015, and the European migrant crisis. In response, mass protests against immigration were ignited by groups of German civilians. The protests spawned riots and were followed by counter-demonstrations. Chemnitz was named Karl-Marx Stadt when it was part of East Germany, from 1953 to 1990. In 2017, almost a quarter of the city's residents voted in elections for the right wing to far right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). [1]\n\nIn 2015, the German borders remained open during the European migrant crisis, and nearly 1 million migrants applied for asylum by the end of 2016. [2] Over 12% of the German population is foreign-born;[3] some German people are suspicious or wary of immigrants, and a few hold anti-immigration sentiments. [4]\n\nAt 03:15 am on Sunday 26 August, a brawl erupted in the street of Brückenstraße in Chemnitz. According to police, the fight was between \"several people of various nationalities. \"[5] Up to 10 people were at the scene. [6] Three of them were stabbed and seriously injured; one of the three, Daniel Hillig, later died in the hospital. [6]\n\nDaniel Hillig, who was stabbed and died in the hospital, was a 35-year-old German carpenter, the son of a German mother and a Cuban father. [6] He had a seven year-old son, and a wife. [7] Hillig, who grew up in Chemnitz, was apparently well-known by many people and various political groups in the city. [8]\n\nThe two other people who were seriously injured were Russian Germans (that is, Russian immigrants to Germany). [6]\n\nAt the location where Hillig was stabbed, a large memorial was set up, where people gathered to mourn. [1][8][9]  Hillig was a football supporter of Chemnitzer FC, and some have speculated that this might have contributed to the strong fan reaction; the Chemnitzer fan club representative and local politician Peggy Schellenberg (SPD) visited the crime scene immediately on Sunday. [10]\n\nSuspects include a 23-year-old Syrian and a 22-year-old Iraqi, who were taken into custody near the scene. [11] The German district court issued an arrest warrant for them on 27 August. [12] The same day, the prosecutors said that the two men were suspected of having stabbed Hillig several times \"with no justifiable reason. \"[13] One of these suspects was named in the days after the attack as Yousif Ibrahim Abdullah from Bashiqa, and the arrest warrant for him was leaked in multiple newspapers on August 28, which went against German privacy regulations. [14][15] Abdullah was accused of stabbing Hillig five times, including the fatal hits to his pericardium and lung. [clarification needed] The other suspect was identified as Alaa Sheikhi, although his motivations have yet to be revealed. [16]\n\nYousif Abdullah has a criminal record with six offences, which include fraud and drug possession. He was most recently sentenced in July 2018 to a suspended sentence of eight months for dangerous bodily harm. [16] He came to Germany in 2015 via the Balkans and was to be deported in 2016 to Bulgaria, where he had first applied for asylum, but a six-month deadline for the deportation was missed by the German authorities. [17] His application for asylum was rejected,[clarification needed] but he won in the legal proceedings afterwards; he used an alleged love affair as the justification for this later rejected application for asylum, saying that the brother and uncle of a girl he was in love with had beaten him up and injured him with a knife. [18] Three days after the stabbing of Hillig, his application for asylum was rejected again. [18] He has also used two different identities and forged documents, during the asylum proceedings. [18] He was known for always carrying a knife with him. [16][17][19]\n\nPolice in Saxony announced on 4 September that they were \"urgently\" seeking a third suspect in the murder, Farhad Ramazan Ahmad, listing him as a 22-year-old Iraqi citizen who was possibly armed and dangerous. [20]\n\nThe festival during which the stabbing happened ended earlier than planned because of the stabbing. It was on this day that protests began in the city. [21][22] Chancellor Angela Merkel's office condemned the demonstration on Twitter. [23] German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) expressed his condolences to Hillig's family. Seehofer said that the \"consternation\" of the people was \"understandable,\" but on the other hand he condemned the violence. He also stated that the local police were in a \"difficult situation,\" and offered Federal Police help to Saxony. [24]\n\nOne German politician, Martina Renner (Die Linke), accused right-wing people of exploiting the apparent murder to their own political ends, also reminding people that in the days following the attack, the motivation was still unclear. [9]\n\nOn 31 August 2018, Franziska Giffey, German Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, visited the crime scene of the stabbing, being the first member of the German federal government to do so. [25] The media asked why Merkel \"sent the Family Affairs Minister\" on such an errand. [26]\n\nFriends of the victim criticised the police in Chemnitz for their \"failure to control the three-day city festival.\" Some of the leftist protesters used slogans that criticised police for not being there when Hillig was stabbed but appearing at the protests, with journalists noting that there had been fighting before the attack at the festival. [8]\n\nThere were several rumours circulating after the stabbing, including that the attack was in response to sexual harassment, and that another of the injured men had died. Chemnitz police took to social media to stop these. It was reported that the misinformation and inability to stop its spread contributed to the strength of the riots. [8]\n\nThe politician Kerstin Köditz [de] said that the police took too long to react, and questioned how they didn't have any action or even a plan to put into action once they knew that somebody had been killed at a festival. [13]\n\nPolice arrested a 22-year-old Iraqi national and a 23-year-old Syrian on suspicions of manslaughter.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["European migrant crisis","a fight broke out resulting in the death of a Cuban-German man and serious injuries to two other people"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2018"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Chemnitz, in the German state of Saxony"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["German civilians"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Republic Protests","document":"Anti-government protesters\n\n59th government of Turkey\n\nThe Republic Protests (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Mitingleri) were a series of peaceful mass rallies that took place in Turkey in 2007 in support of a strict principle of state secularism. [1]\n\nThe first rally took place in Ankara on 14 April 2007, just two days before the start of the presidential election process. [1] The second one took place in Istanbul on 29 April. [14] The third and fourth rallies took place consecutively in Manisa and Çanakkale on 5 May. [11] The fifth rally took place in İzmir on 13 May. [2]\n\nThe number of people gathering for the first protest in front of Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara, was cited as ranging from \"hundreds of thousands\" to 1.5 million people. [5] In the second protest, more than one million people gathered for the protests in Çağlayan square, Istanbul according to AFP[6] and Reuters. [7] The BBC reported hundreds of thousands of people. [15] Over one million people reportedly participated in the fifth rally. [9]\n\nTurkey's preservation and maintenance of its secular identity has been an issue and source of tension long before the demonstration. In the past, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken out against the active restrictions on wearing the Islamic-style head scarves in government offices and schools, and taken steps to bolster religious institutions. According to the Guardian Unlimited, Erdoğan showed his Islamist nature when he initiated a move in 2004 to criminalize adultery, which eventually failed under intense pressure from the secularist forces in the country and the European Union, which Turkey has been trying to join. [16]\n\nGeneral Yaşar Büyükanıt, Chief of the Turkish General Staff, warned against Islamic fundamentalism in October 2006. Prime Minister Erdoğan replied that there was no such threat. [17] In a press conference two days prior to the demonstration, Büyükanıt stated: \"We hope that someone is elected president who is loyal to the principles of the republic — not just in words but in essence.\" This statement was widely interpreted as a hint from the General urging Erdoğan not to run. [16]\n\nThe serving president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, aimed a clear swipe at Erdoğan the day before the demonstrations by stating, \"The threat which Islamic fundamentalism poses to the country is higher than ever. \"[18] Although the post is mainly ceremonial, the Turkish president has the power to veto laws if he holds them to be in violation of the Constitution of Turkey, as well as to veto appointments to the highest positions of the state administration, such as the presidencies of universities and many public institutions. Sezer, a former chief of the Constitutional Court, did so many times during his years in office. [10][19] In a recent poll by Hürriyet, a majority of the participants agreed with the president's assessment. [20]\n\nOn April 24, foreign minister Abdullah Gül was announced as the official candidate of Justice and Development Party, by Erdoğan. His candidacy was controversial from the beginning due to his background of two proscribed Islamic political parties, and his statement \"We want to change the secular system\", in an interview published by the Guardian in 1995. [21] Nevertheless, additional concerns were also present, including the effect of the hijab-style clothing of his spouse on Turkey's image,[22] who previously filed a case against Turkey for the ban in the public buildings. [23]\n\nOn 14 April the first protest took place in Tandoğan square in Ankara. The number of people gathering in front of Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara, was cited as ranging from \"hundreds of thousands\" to 1.5 million people. The first protest was one of the largest that Turkey had seen in years until then. [24] The target of the first protest was the possible presidential candidacy of the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (the outcome of which will be determined by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (unless the recent modifications on the constitution become ratified on time), in which Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has a healthy majority). Erdoğan decided not to run for president after the rally. The slogan of the protest was Claim Your Republic (Turkish: Cumhuriyetine Sahip Çık). [5][25] According to the Ministry of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, who administer Anıtkabir, 370,000 people visited the monument on that day,[26] but eyewitness accounts from those who participated say that at least twice that amount was not able to enter the crowded grounds (see photo). Police announcements gave conflicting numbers ranging from about 70,000 to 150,000 participants which was criticized among police officials themselves stating \"such announcements hurt the credibility of the department. \"[27] CNN Türk spoke of more than 650,000 at the meeting. [28]\n\nThe demonstrators had different motives, including the suspicion that Erdoğan, who is thought to be attached to political Islam, will alter the secular state. Erdoğan's government denies having an Islamic agenda, but according to CNN, some critics argue that the government is inching the country towards increased religious rule. [3] Erdoğan has had run-ins with the law in the past: He was tried and convicted for \"inciting religious hatred\" and had consequently served a four-month jail term in 2000 while he was the Mayor of Istanbul, Turkey's most populous city. [29] According to the Guardian Unlimited, the pro-Islamic prime minister's party has been eroding secularists' longtime grip on power. [16]\n\nThe protest was initiated by the \"Atatürk Thought Association\" (Turkish: Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği) and supported by around 300 non-governmental organizations in Turkey. First some 60,000 people who travelled from all over Turkey by bus arrived to the protest in the early hours of Saturday, 14 April. People travelled by train and the residents of Ankara joined the protest overfilling Tandoğan Square and the nearby streets two hours before the official beginning. Among the protesters were also leaders of the opposition parties, Deniz Baykal (CHP), Zeki Sezer (DSP) and some professors of various universities wearing academic regalia. Protesters, waving the Turkish flag and carrying banners depicting Atatürk, chanted \"Turkey is secular and will remain secular\" (Turkish: Türkiye laiktir laik kalacak) and \"We don't want an imam as president!\" (Turkish: İmam cumhurbaşkanı istemiyoruz). The demonstration in downtown Ankara ended at 13:00 local time (10:00 GMT). Afterwards, the crowd marched to the Anıtkabir to pay their respect to the founder of the republic. [4]\n\nDuring the demonstrations, flight above Tandoğan Square and Anıtkabir was banned. Twelve ambulances and eleven police APCs were kept at standby in the surrounding streets. [5] A contingent of 10,000 police officers watched over the crowd,[10] but the demonstration ended peacefully. [4]\n\nAlthough the demonstrations received international media attention,[30] all but one (Kanal Türk) of the local networks gave the demonstrations very little coverage. Habertürk director Melih Meriç said the lack of local coverage is because of political pressure. [31]\n\nOn 16 April in an interview en route to Germany on board the prime minister's jet, Erdoğan said that the demonstration would not affect his decisions (at the time he had not yet decided whether to run).","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["in support of a strict principle of state secularism"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["14 April 2007","29 April","5 May","13 May"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ankara","Istanbul","Manisa and Çanakkale","İzmir"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["more than one million people","\"hundreds of thousands\" to 1.5 million people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1996 Quebec student protests","document":"The 1996 Quebec student protests were a result of an increase in post-secondary tuition fees. Between the early 1980s and 1990s, average Canadian university tuition fees more than doubled. Before this time, there had been talk of eliminating tuition fees altogether. In 1976, the Canadian government signed the United Nations'  International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This promised free education at all levels. However, in 1995, the Liberal Government announced a $7 billion funding cut to provincial programs, which includes tuition. Between this time, it was decided by Canadian government and education officials that free education was not feasible, and that to provide free education would mean providing nothing else for its citizens. In 1996, it was announced that over a period of four years, tuition was going to be raised $280 from its current $500 rate. Students organized themselves into student unions, and fought against this increase by protesting in the streets. There were also several 'walk-outs' performed by high school students. As a result of these protests, the tuition freeze remained in effect. However, a $500 penalty was placed on students who failed more than five classes. ","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["an increase in post-secondary tuition fees"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1996"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Quebec"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Students"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Venezuelan protests","document":"\n\n\n\nIn 2014, a series of protests, political demonstrations, and civil insurrection began in Venezuela due to the country's high levels of urban violence, inflation, and chronic shortages of basic goods[11][12] attributed to economic policies such as strict price controls. [13][14] Mass protesting began in earnest in February following the attempted rape of a student on a university campus in San Cristóbal. Subsequent arrests and killings of student protesters spurred their expansion to neighboring cities and the involvement of opposition leaders. [15][16] The year's early months were characterized by large demonstrations and violent clashes between protesters and government forces that resulted in nearly 4,000 arrests and 43 deaths,[7][8] including both supporters and opponents of the government. [17]\n\nSince Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, he and his political ambitions proved to be controversial. Under Chávez, oil revenues in the 2000s brought funds not seen in Venezuela since the 1980s, with Chávez's government becoming \"semi-authoritarian and hyper-populist\", investing heavily in public works which initially benefited Venezuelans. [18][19] His government failed to save funds earned while oil prices were high and soon after his death, Venezuela's economy became dilapidated. [19][20] Also under Chávez's tenure, corruption in Venezuela,[21] as well as crime in Venezuela,[22] had greatly increased, causing more frustration among Venezuelans.[which?] Frustrations were seen in the polls when during the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election, Nicolas Maduro narrowly won the election with 50.6% of the vote, ahead of the 49.1% of candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, surprisingly close compared to previous elections in the country. [23] The opposition's defeat in the 8 December 2013 municipal elections,[24] which it had framed as a 'plebiscite' on Maduro's presidency,[25] would later ignite an internal debate over strategy. Moderate opposition leaders Henrique Capriles and Henri Falcón argued for 'unity' and dialogue with the government, and attended meetings held by the President to discuss cooperation among the country's mayors and governors. [26][27][28] Other opposition leaders, such as Leopoldo López and Marina Corina Machado, opposed dialogue[29] and called for a new strategy to force an immediate change in the government. [30][31]\n\nAccording to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS), 9,286 protests occurred in 2014, the greatest number of protests occurring in Venezuela in decades. [32] The majority of protests, 6,369 demonstrations, occurred during the first six months of 2014 with an average of 35 protests per day. [33] SVCO estimated that 445 protests occurred in January; 2,248 in February; 1,423 in March; 1,131 in April; 633 in May; and 489 in June. [33] The main reason of protest was against President Maduro and the Venezuelan government with 52% of demonstrations and the remaining 42% of protests were due to other difficulties such as labor, utilities, insecurity, education and shortages. [32] Most protesting began in the first week of February, reaching peak numbers in the middle of that month following the call of students and opposition leaders to protest. [33] The number of protests then declined into mid-2014 only to increase slightly in late 2014 into 2015 following the drop in the price of oil and due to the shortages in Venezuela. Demonstrations against violence in Venezuela began in January 2014 following the murder of actress and former Miss Venezuela Mónica Spear,[34][35] and continued, when former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles shook the hand of President Maduro;[35] this \"gesture... cost him support and helped propel\" opposition leader Leopoldo López Mendoza to the forefront. [35]\n\nAccording to the Associated Press, well before protests began in the Venezuelan capital city of Caracas, the attempted rape of a young student on a university campus in San Cristóbal, in the western border state of Táchira, led to protests from students \"outraged\" at \"long-standing complaints about deteriorating security under President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez. But what really set them off was the harsh police response to their initial protest, in which several students were detained and allegedly abused, as well as follow-up demonstrations to call for their release\". These protests expanded, attracted non-students, and led to more detentions; eventually, other students joined, and the protests spread to Caracas and other cities, with opposition leaders becoming involved. [15]\n\nLeopoldo López, a leading figure in the opposition to the government, began to lead protests. [36] During events surrounding the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt, Lopez \"orchestrated the public protests against Chávez and he played a central role in the citizen's arrest of Chavez's interior minister\", Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, though he later tried to distance himself from the event,[37] López, alongside María Corina Machado launch a campaign on 23 January 2014 to remove Maduro from office, named La Salida (The Exit), with an intent to have President Maduro resign through protests with Machado publicly stating “We must create chaos in the streets through responsible civic struggle”. [38][39]\n\nOn 1 February, López called upon students to protest peacefully against the scarcity, insecurity, and shortages. [40] The next day, opposition leaders call for a march on 12 February in recognition of National Youth Day. [41]\n\nOn 12 February, major opposition protests began with student marches led by opposition leaders in 38 cities across Venezuela simultaneous with the national celebrations for the bicentennial year anniversary of Youth Day and the Battle of La Victoria. [42][43] After the protests, smaller groups remained and threw stones at government forces. [44] The protests turned more violent after government security forces used excessive force on protesters and shot at groups of unarmed people. [45][46] Bassil Da Costa was the first protester to die after getting a bullet to the head. Later that day, another protester, Robert Reddman, and a pro-government activist were also killed in Caracas. [47] President Maduro blamed \"fascist\" groups for the deaths caused that day, including opposition leader Leopoldo López, during his closing address in the Youth Day parade that evening in La Victoria, Aragua state. [48]\n\nThe next day on 13 February following the death of a colectivo member Juan \"Juancho\" Montoya, members of colectivos \"went on television to call for calm and called for the arrest of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. [49] Judge Ralenys Tovar Guillén accepts the Public Ministry's petition to detain Leopoldo López in connection with the unrest that resulted in the death of the colectivo leader and two students. [50][51][52]\n\nLeopoldo López delivers a speech on 18 February in Plaza Brión where he pointed out that its necessary to build \"a peaceful exit, inside the constitution but in the streets\" and assured that \"there isn't free media anymore to express themselves and if the media stays silent they must go to the streets\". He declared that \"if his imprisonment allows Venezuela to wake up definitely and for the Venezuelans that want a change, his imprisonment will be worth it.\" He turned himself to the National Guard at 12:24 P.M., Venezuelan time, and said he was turning himself to a \"corrupt justice\". [53] After Lopez turned himself in, the opposition protesters blocked the Francisco Fajardo Highway. [54][55][56][57]\n\nMiss Tourism Venezuela Génesis Carmona is killed by colectivo gunfire on 19 February after being shot in the head while supporting an opposition protest. [58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66] MUD leader Henrique Capriles breaks his silence and confronts Francisco Ameliach, government officials and denounced the violence the government was using on the protesters. [67]\n\nOn 23 February, about 30 military units arrived at the residence of retired brigadier general Ángel Vivas to arrest him for allegedly \"training\" protesters to place barbed wire over the roads to injure government forces and pro-government protesters, resulting in one fatality in the process and many more wounded. [68] According to CBC, Vivas \"rose to prominence in 2007 when he resigned as head of the Defence Ministry's engineering department rather than order his subalterns to swear to the Cuban-inspired oath 'Socialist Fatherland or death'. \"[69] Vivas reported that \"Cubans and thugs\" were attacking his house and moments later appeared atop the roof of his house wearing a flak jacket along with an assault rifle saying \"Come find me Maduro!\". National Guardsmen made a barricade in front of Vivas' house but neighbors and supporters defended Vivas by placing a barricade of vehicles in front of the troops. The troops retreated without arresting Vivas after the citizens refused to leave the area. [70][71][72][73] Vivas later explained why he thought Venezuelans needed to defend the country from foreigners, saying \"Cubans are in all structures of the Venezuelan state\" and also explained that he told protesters to set up barricades in order to defend themselves against attacks from the National Guard. [74]\n\nOn 29 February, Sukhoi fighter jets of the Venezuelan Air Force were seen flying over  San Cristóbal, Táchira, Venezuela on 20 February and President Nicolás Maduro ordered paratroopers of the 41st Airborne Brigade, 4th Armored Division, Venezuelan Army on standby on recommendations from the Minister of Interior and Justice, Lieutenant General Miguel Rodríguez Torres. [75][76]\n\nIn March 2014, paramilitary groups acted violently in 437 protests, about 31% of total protests in March, where gunshot wounds were reported in most protests they were involved in. [9] According to a correspondent from Televen, armed groups attempted to kidnap and rape individuals in an apartment complex in Maracaibo on 27 March without intervention from the National Guard. [77][78][79][80]\n\nOn 16 April, colectivos in several trucks allegedly attacked an apartment complex known for protesting damaging 5 vehicles, leaving 2 burnt, and fired several shots into the apartments leaving one person injured from a gunshot wound.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["nearly 4,000"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the country's high levels of urban violence, inflation, and chronic shortages of basic goods[11][12] attributed to economic policies such as strict price controls"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["43 deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2014","began in earnest in February"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Venezuela"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2009 Iranian presidential election protests","document":"\n\n Government:\n\n Opposition:\n\nProtests against the results of the highly controversial 2009 Iranian presidential election (Persian: پیامدهای انتخابات ریاست‌جمهوری دهم ایران‎), a disputed victory by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, occurred in major cities nationwide from 2009 into early 2010. [36] The protests were titled the Iranian Green Movement (Persian: جنبش سبز‎ Jonbesh-e Sabz) by its proponents, reflecting Mousavi's campaign theme, and Persian Awakening, Persian Spring or Green Revolution, reflecting the \"Persian identity\" of Iranians and the so-called \"colour revolution\" theme. [37][38][39]\n\nProtests began the night of 12 June 2009, following the announcement that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won nearly 63 percent of the vote, despite several reported irregularities. However, all three opposition candidates claimed the votes were manipulated and the election was rigged, with Rezaee and Mousavi lodging official complaints. Mousavi announced he \"won't surrender to this manipulation\", before lodging an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on 14 June. [38] Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an investigation into the claims of electoral fraud and irregularities, as requested by Green Movement leaders. [40][41][42] Ahmadinejad called the election \"completely free\" and the outcome a \"great victory\" for Iran, dismissing the protests as akin to little more than \"passions after a soccer match\". [43]\n\nDue to the sporadic cases of violence present at the protests, the government had the police and paramilitary Basij violently suppress them; protesters were beaten, pepper sprayed, arrested and tortured, and even shot in some cases. The most widely known firearm victim was Neda Agha-Soltan, whose last moments were uploaded to YouTube and broadcast around the world. [44][45][46] Opposition groups also reported thousands more were arrested and tortured in prisons around the country, with former inmates alleging mass rape of men, women and children by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, in prisons such as Kahrizak and Evin. [47][48] The Iranian government confirmed the deaths of 36 people during the protests,[32] while unconfirmed reports by Mousavi supporters allege at least 72 deaths (over twice as many) in the three months following the election. They claimed relatives of the deceased were forced to sign documents citing death by heart attack or meningitis. [49][50] Iranian authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked websites, cutoff mobile signals[51] and banned rallies. [41]\n\nThe creation of the Iranian Green Movement developed during these protests. It was also termed the \"Twitter Revolution\", due to protesters' reliance on Twitter and other social media to communicate. [52]\n\nSince 1980 following the collapse of the Shah's regime in 1979. The government is based on the concept of Velayat-e Faqih, which is a system of governance in which a faqih was to serve as the Supreme Leader. However, following calls that this idea was undemocratic, the system was moderately altered into the current \"Islamic Republic\", in which a council of clerics, who are elected by the people, choose the Supreme Leader who, per the constitution, has to be a cleric (though this was altered in 1988). The Supreme Leader, in turn appoints the members of the twelve member Guardian Council, who approve laws and candidates for elections, even at the presidential level. The President of Iran is not the commander-in-chief, and the control of the military, police, and the parallel Revolutionary Guards is under the control of the Supreme Leader. The Revolutionary Guards is a constitutionally protected paramilitary force that operates alongside the regular Armed forces, whose primary function is to protect the Islamic Republic. The Revolutionary Guards also have an auxiliary wing called the Basij, who provide support in enforcing religious laws and suppressing dissidents. [53][54] They are not considered full members of the Revolutionary Guards, and lack the training given to full-time members, although they can be called up at any time to assist the regular forces in times of trouble. Though Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor Ayatollah Khamenei, claimed that this system was democratic and the Revolutionary guards are necessitated to protect the government from military coups and foreign interference, critics contend that this system only serves to keep like-minded conservatives in power and marginalize any opposition, while using the Revolutionary guards to silence any dissidents. [55][56][57][58][59]\n\nThe Islamic Republic has not escaped popular opposition in the past. During the 1980s, the Marxist-Islamist, Mojahedin Khalq was instrumental in opposing Ayatollah Khomeini through large protests and bombings against politicians such as Mohammad-Ali Rajai, Shahid Beheshti, and Khamenei himself, who escaped an assassination attempt that left his right arm paralyzed. [60][61][62] Following the 1981 Hafte Tir bombing, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Mojahedin and anyone opposed to the Islamic republic, \"enemies of god\" and pursued a mass campaign of torture, rape, and execution against members of the Mojahedin, Fadaiyan, and Tudeh parties as well as their families, close friends, and even anyone who was accused of insufficient Islamic behavior, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iranians who were usually tried in secret kangaroo courts run by hard line clerics. [63] Following Operation Mersad in 1988, Khomeini ordered all prisons to execute those still in captivity, resulting in an estimated 3,000[64] to 30,000[65] dead. Since then, no organized opposition has surfaced in Iran and following this experience, the Iranian Government usually employs heavy handed tactics to marginalize any attempt at regime removal and usually justifies this with the \"enemy of god\" classification. In 1997, following the unexpected victory of a before-little-known reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami, there was a revival of a moderate faction within the government whom the public believed had the ability to reform and curb the power of the conservatives and make the system somewhat democratic, and that Khamenei was willing to trust this faction in the hopes that it could recover the country after the eight-year war with Iraq, which Rafsanjani and the conservatives had failed to do. [66] However, rather than promoting a reform of the system, the reformists began questioning the concept of the Islamic republic itself and following the exposure of the murders of dissidents by the intelligence services in reformist newspapers (which were run by former Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agents now turned reformists), the government began to distrust Khatami and his faction, a conflict which reached the breaking point after the 1999 student protests, after which hardliners such as Mohammad Ali Jafari, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Qasem Soleimani were promoted to take control of the Revolutionary Guards and the Security Services to crack down on most reformist movements. Despite reformists gaining a majority in the Majlis in 2000 and Khatami winning the 2001 election as well, Khamenei would oppose any attempts at liberalization of the government or society. [67] Most Iranians and observers in general have regarded the reform movement to have been a failure with Saeed Hajjarian, the main theorist behind the movement, declaring in 2003 that \"the reform movement is dead. Long live the reform movement\". [68]\n\nIn 2005, Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to the presidency, defeating now reformist Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani, placing the conservatives in charge of the government once more. Ahmadinejad would focus his presidency on confronting Israel. His speeches gained international infamy, which usually called for the destruction of Israel and claimed that the Holocaust was fabricated. The funding of anti-Israeli groups went up exponentially, particularly towards Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been labeled as terrorist groups by the United States. Despite Iran's huge oil and gas reserves, those sectors have been relatively neglected in favor of a nuclear energy program that has cost billions of dollars and has been condemned by Israel and the United States, who claim that the program is a cover up for a much larger nuclear weapons program. As a result, the United Nations has placed sanctions on the Iranian government, which has had a heavy impact on the economy, reducing the value of the rial from a low of 8,000 to the dollar in 2005 to 10,000 to the dollar in 2009. [69]\n\nIran has been experiencing high birth rates since 1988, both due to an increase in standard of living and government encouragement of large families, with an estimated 60 percent of the country being under the age of 30. [70][71] However, the economy has failed to keep pace with the number of people entering the job market and Iran has been experiencing high unemployment rates since early 2000. Ahmadinejad began a campaign of privatization of state enterprises, but most companies ended up in the hands of government-connected officials and foundations (bonyads) operated by wealthy clerics and the Revolutionary Guards. [72] Estimates by the Los Angeles Times suggest IRGC has ties to over one hundred companies and annual revenue in excess of $12 billion, particularly in construction. [73] The Ministry of Petroleum awarded IRGC billions of dollars in contracts as well as major infrastructure projects. [74] Most government-issued contracts were awarded to these companies, and private enterprise in Iran has been struggling heavily against these groups. The election of the president of Iran in 2009 was preceded by many Iranian surveys and a survey by the US-based Terror Free Tomorrow organization. [75] The Terror Free Tomorrow opinion poll, conducted from 11 to 20 May 2009, predicted the high participation and showed similar ratios for the candidates to the later official result, with over a quarter yet undecided. [76][77] The many Iranian surveys show a wide range of differing results. An opinion in the New York Times claims that this is due to the high fluctuation among voters during the campaign season.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["had the police and paramilitary Basij violently suppress them"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["thousands more were arrested and tortured"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the results of the highly controversial 2009 Iranian presidential election"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 72 deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["the night of 12 June 2009"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011–2013 Sudanese protests","document":"\n\nVarious opposition groups\n\n Sudanese Government\n\nThe 2011–2013 protests in Sudan began in January 2011 as part of the Arab Spring regional protest movement. Unlike in other Arab countries, popular uprisings in Sudan had succeeded in toppling the government prior to the Arab Spring in 1964 and 1985. Demonstrations in Sudan however were less common throughout the summer of 2011, during which South Sudan seceded from Sudan, but resumed in force later that year and again in June 2012, shortly after the government passed its much criticized austerity plan. President Omar al-Bashir had been the Sudanese president since he led a bloodless coup in 1989. Bashir began instituting Sharia and abolished political parties in 1990. He appointed himself president in 1993 and won a presidential election in 1996 as the only candidate. [4] In 2008, the International Criminal Court called for his arrest for alleged genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Sudan rejected the indictment, saying the decision was an affront to Sudan's sovereignty. [5] The political system of Sudan under his rule was widely regarded by both the domestic and the international community as a totalitarian system, due to the National Congress Party's control of all three branches of government and use of the National Intelligence and Security Service as a secret police force responsible for the repression of political opponents. [6]\n\nSudan has lost billions of dollars in oil revenues since South Sudan gained independence in July 2011, about three-quarters of Sudan's oil fields falling within the territory of the new country. The north has been left struggling for revenue, plagued by inflation, and with a severe shortage of dollars to pay for imports. The landlocked South depended on the north's pipeline and port to export its crude, but Khartoum and Juba could not agree on how much South Sudan should pay to use the infrastructure. Sudan's already depleted oil revenues shrank by a further 20 per cent after its main Heglig oil field was damaged and shut down in fighting with invading South Sudanese troops in April 2012. [7]\n\nIn an attempt to address the economic meltdown, the Sudanese government has announced a new austerity plan on 18 June 2012, which includes raising taxes on consumer goods, cutting the number of civil servants on its payroll, raising the price of a gallon of petrol by 5 Sudanese pounds, pushing it up to 13.5 pounds from 8.5 pounds, and lifting the fuel subsidies. The plan did not gain much acceptance among common Sudanese as it is believed that the prices of every commodity will get hikes in effect from transport to domestically produced food and other goods. [8]\n\nThe protests in Sudan were influenced by the revolutionary wave that started in Tunisia and later spread to other Middle Eastern and North African nations. The protests followed shortly after a successful independence referendum in January 2011, on whether South Sudan should secede from Sudan and become an independent nation. Following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia on 17 December 2010, Al-Amin Moussa Al-Amin set himself ablaze on 23 January 2011 in Omdurman. [9]\n\nOn 30 January 2011, protests took place in Khartoum and Al-Ubayyid (el-Obeid). [10] In Khartoum, police clashed with demonstrators in the town centre and at least two universities. Demonstrators had organized on online social networking sites since the Tunisian protests the month before. Hussein Khogali, editor in chief of the Al-Watan newspaper stated that his daughter had been arrested for organizing the protest via Facebook and opposition leader Mubarak al-Fadil's two sons were arrested while on their way to the main protest. Pro-government newspapers had warned that protests would cause chaos. [11] Some protesters called for President Omar al-Bashir to step down. Activists said that dozens of people had been arrested. The protests came on the same day the preliminary results for the referendum indicated some 99% of South Sudanese voted to secede. [12] One student died in hospital the same night from injuries received in the clashes. [13] Students threw rocks at police officers while chanting \"No to high prices, no to corruption\" and \"Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan together as one.\" Police officers arrested five and put down the protest. [14]\n\nIn the Al-Ubayyid 30 January demonstration, about 500 people protested \"against the government and demanding change\" in the market. Police broke up the demonstration using tear gas. [10]\n\nOn 1 February 2011, about 200 students demonstrated[15] in front of Al-Neelain University in Khartoum. Police stopped the demonstration. [16]\n\nFurther protests, scheduled for 21 March[17] were violently suppressed as they were beginning. [18]\n\nOn 1 November, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the eastern town of Kassala. [19][20]\n\nStudents protested at the Red Sea University in Port Sudan after the arrest of several Darfuri student leaders on the night of 21 December, with many Darfuri student activists calling for a revolution and declaring their open support for the Sudan Revolutionary Front fighting the government in the south. [21] On 26 December 42 Darfuri students left the Red Sea University in protest over their treatment, Radio Dabanga reported. [22]\n\nStudents also clashed with riot police wielding batons after security forces stormed the University of Khartoum on 22 December to break up a rally by about 700 student demonstrators protesting the displacement of the Manasir community caused by the construction of the Merowe Dam. Twenty were injured and at least four were arrested, activists told media. [23] On 24 December, approximately 16,000 students attempted to launch a sit-in at the university to protest the police, the university administration, and the federal government, but they were dispersed by riot police who deployed tear gas, dealt out beatings, and arrested at least 73. Leaders of the student movement warned that they would continue to organize and demand the overthrow of the government despite security officers' violent tactics. [24] On 30 December, thousands of students successfully launched a sit-in protest, the Associated Press reported. [25]\n\nAt Sudan University of Science and Technology in Khartoum, fighting between student supporters of Khalil Ibrahim and the ruling National Congress Party broke out on 28 December, days after the Sudanese government announced Ibrahim's death in a battle between his Darfuri rebel group JEM and the Sudan People's Armed Forces. Twelve were injured in the brawl, which police used tear gas to disperse. [26]\n\nThe student protests, in particular those at the University of Khartoum, have been blamed by police on the influence of unnamed Sudanese opposition parties. [27]\n\nHundreds of female students in the University of Khartoum protested peacefully in the surroundings of their hostels at the central campus on the evening of 16 June. The protesters voice opposition against the escalation of prices and economic hardship in Sudan. [28] The next day, students took to the streets, denouncing the austerity measures one day ahead of plans announced by the Sudanese government. [29][30]\n\nAs Omar Al-Bashir has formally announced a series of deep budget cuts while addressing the National Assembly in Khartoum, about 250 students held anti-austerity protest in the Khartoum University. [31] Riot police used tear gas and batons against the protesters who in turn threw stones at police.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["a sit-in at the university"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["arrested five","at least four","at least 73"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["calling for a revolution and declaring their open support for the Sudan Revolutionary Front fighting the government in the south","the escalation of prices and economic hardship in Sudan","the displacement of the Manasir community caused by the construction of the Merowe Dam"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Twenty were injured","One student died"]},{"role":"Date","values":["30 January 2011","January 2011","1 November","the evening of 16 June","1 February 2011","22 December","24 December"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Khartoum and Al-Ubayyid (el-Obeid)","in front of Al-Neelain University in Khartoum","University of Khartoum","Red Sea University in Port Sudan","streets in the eastern town of Kassala"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["students","Hundreds","about 500 people","about 200","about 700 student","16,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Armenian protests","document":"\n\n\n\n\n\nThe 2011 Armenian protests were a series of civil demonstrations aimed at provoking political reforms and concessions from both the government of Armenia and the civic government of Yerevan, its capital and largest city. Protesters demanded President Serzh Sargsyan release political prisoners, prosecute those responsible for the deaths of opposition activists after the 2008 presidential election and institute democratic and socioeconomic reforms, including the right to organise in Freedom Square in downtown Yerevan. They also protested against Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan for banning the opposition from Freedom Square and barring vendors and traders from the city streets. The opposition bloc Armenian National Congress, which has played a major role in organising and leading the demonstrations, had also called for a snap election and the resignation of the government. The government granted several concessions to the protesters, including agreeing to the opposition's terms for an inquiry into the 2008 protest deaths, granting them a permit to rally in Freedom Square, and releasing several imprisoned opposition activists. Street vendors in Yerevan, angry over Mayor Karapetyan's decision on 13 January to start enforcing a strict ban on street trading,[10] protested outside the municipal offices of the capital city on 19 January. City officials insisted the ban was necessary for public health and safety,[11] but demonstrators shouted slogans criticizing Karapetyan, a Republican Party of Armenia official elected by the municipal assembly in December 2010 to finish out an incomplete term,[12] and complaining that the municipality's ban has prevented many of them from making enough money to pay for food and shelter for themselves and their families. [3][11] Some protesters, many of whose signs emphasized their peaceful intentions, called upon Karapetyan to either meet with them or resign. [13] The protests in front of the municipal offices soon became a daily phenomenon stretching into February. [14]\n\nWith minor protests in Yerevan continuing and a revolutionary wave spreading throughout North Africa and Western Asia, opposition politicians like Stepan Safaryan of the Heritage party and former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was defeated by now-President Sargsyan in the disputed 2008 election, of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) suggested in early February that political upheaval could come to Armenia. Ter-Petrosyan called for an opposition rally in Yerevan's Freedom Square on 18 February not just to protest the Karapetyan administration, but to protest the government of President Serzh Sargsyan. The government responded by saying Liberty Square would be off-limits due to \"sports and cultural events\". The HAK said it planned to rally in the square regardless of whether the city government and the national government allowed it to do so. Political analysts said national opposition leaders like Ter-Petrosyan were harnessing an existing wave of unrest inspired by the Tunisian Revolution and protests in Egypt and evident in such events as the ongoing street vendor protests, with some predicting that the conditions were right for major protests to gain traction. [15]\n\nOn 18 February, the Armenian National Congress held a major protest drawing between 5,000 and 10,000 in the city center of Yerevan. The protesters, including Ter-Petrosyan, complained of low wages, unemployment, inflation, corruption, and a falling quality of living. Speakers at the rally also invoked the specter of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and Ter-Petrosyan compared the Sargsyan administration to those fallen regimes. \"The plight of our people is no better than the plight of the peoples of those countries, and Armenia's regime is no less dictatorial and hated than the regimes in those countries,\" the former president said. He urged the government to resign and called for an uprising similar to those seen in Arab countries near Armenia. [1][2] Ter-Petrosyan also called on street vendors and others already organizing in protest of government policies to \"politicize\" their rallies and join with the national opposition in calling for sweeping changes. [16]\n\nThe Armenian National Congress organized another rally in Yerevan on 1 March. According to estimates of the opposition, the rally was attended by over 50,000 citizens. The rally marked the third anniversary of post-election violence after Sargsyan's disputed victory in 2008, when 10 protesters were killed. [17] Protesters again demanded early elections and called for Sargsyan to resign. [18] Ter-Petrosyan spoke at the rally, calling the government a \"bandit regime [that] seized power through falsified parliamentary and presidential elections and the bloody crime committed on 1 March 2008\" and reiterating the demands aired at the 18 February protest. He also publicly called for the ban on street trading to be lifted and demanded economic reforms, including a higher minimum wage and unemployment benefits. [19]\n\nAbout 50 street vendors backed by members of both the opposition party Heritage and the Armenian National Congress, including members of parliament, gathered outside a government building in Yerevan. Police moved to disperse them, resulting in a number of clashes. One HAK activist was arrested and one of the Heritage MPs was hospitalized with injuries. In defiance of a statement from Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan promising an internal investigation into the allegations of police brutality, the police publicly blamed the MPs for inciting violence. The incident prompted renewed comparisons of the Karapetyan and Sargsyan administrations' policies to pre-revolutionary Tunisia by some analysts and opposition parliamentarians. [5]\n\nArmenian Minister of Parliament and Former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian, a leader of Heritage, began a hunger strike in Freedom Square on 15 March to protest the government and advocate for snap elections. [20]\n\nOn 17 March, protesters continued to demand the resignations of the government, many members of which were elected in the disputed elections, in the evening at Freedom Square citing a will to replicate the Arab world protests. [21][22] Ter-Petrosyan, again a featured speaker at the rally, said that the demonstrations were \"peaceful\" in intent. [23] As many as 20,000 Armenians attended the rally, though the government said 9,000 attended and organizers claimed a turnout of 100,000. [24][25] Hovannisian, now on the second day of his hunger strike, was present in Freedom Square with his supporters but was sidelined by Ter-Petrosyan and other Armenian National Congress leaders, straining relations between Heritage and the HAK. [20]\n\nBefore the rally, opposition activist Samson Khachatrian was arrested after two plainclothes police officers alleged he assaulted them at the 1 March rally, a move one HAK leader called \"a provocation\". [26] Khachatrian was later convicted of the assault, spurring mass outcry from the opposition. [27]\n\nIn a ceremony at Freedom Square, Hovannisian ended his public hunger strike by eating a hunk of bread symbolically blessed by an Armenian Orthodox priest. He said health concerns, including warnings from his doctor, as well as the arrival of his daughter's 18th birthday prompted him to call off the 15-day hunger strike, but he claimed the strike had affected \"the public consciousness\" even if it had not moved authorities to change their \"consciousness and policies\". Hovannisian also acknowledged cracks in the opposition to Sargsyan and the government, but he did not specifically acknowledge the simmering dispute between Heritage and the Armenian National Congress. [20] A Republican Party of Armenia MP criticized the hunger strike, saying it was not the best means of enacting change. [28]\n\nSeveral female intellectuals, including a Heritage MP, held a sit-in each day in Freedom Square starting on 2 April as a \"logical continuation\" of Hovannisian's protest action the month before. During the sit-in, attended by a handful of women each day, protesters sat silently for five hours before departing the square. Some critics within the opposition decried the sit-in as a gimmick, with one calling it a \"waste of time\". [29][30]\n\nOn 8 April, Ter-Petrosyan gave a 35-minute speech in Yerevan. The rally, organized by the Armenian National Congress, drew 12,000 attendees to Freedom Square in the city center in violation of an official ban. Despite the ban by the Yerevan city council,[31] police ultimately stood aside in the face of the crowd and permitted the gathering. [32] Ter-Petrosyan said that the Sargsyan administration must fulfill three demands by 28 April: promising an \"objective inquiry\" into post-election violence in 2008, giving the HAK the permanent legal right to demonstrate in Yerevan's Freedom Square, and securing the release of political prisoners. [33] The former president also warned the opposition would \"drastically change\" its methods of resistance unless its demands were met.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan for banning the opposition from Freedom Square and barring vendors and traders from the city streets","Ter-Petrosyan, complained of low wages, unemployment, inflation, corruption, and a falling quality of living","Mayor Karapetyan's decision on 13 January to start enforcing a strict ban on street trading"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["18 February","1 March","17 March","19 January"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the city center of Yerevan","outside the municipal offices of the capital city","Yerevan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Street vendors","over 50,000 citizens","between 5,000 and 10,000","20,000 Armenians"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2010 Bangladeshi protests","document":"The 2010 Bangladeshi protests is a wave of garment worker's demonstrations and strikes across Bangladesh that began on 19 June, when hundreds of workers took to the streets for an 8-day strike over wages and low salaries in Ashulia and lasted for 11 days, smashing windows and burning tyres and trucks. Violent protests and street demonstrations occurred again on 30 July, when thousands rioted against low wages. 15,000 took part in the rioting and demonstrations and was mainly beaten and arrested, including 10 children. The protesters overturned vehicles, burned tyres, smashed shop windows and blocked traffic in the Bangladeshi capital's Mahakhali and Gulshan districts. Several people were injured with scores detained. On 16 August, protesters again marched and held rallies over low pay for workers, 21 were arrested and in Dhaka, demonstrators clashed with the security forces. [1][2][3][4]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["took to the streets"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["21 were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["wages and low salaries in Ashulia"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["overturned vehicles, burned tyres, smashed shop windows"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2010","began on 19 June","30 July","16 August"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds of workers","thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2008 Tunisian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2008 Gafsa strikes, also referred to as the Gafsa Social Movement, Gafsa events or the revolt in the Gafsa mining basin is an important social movement that shook the mining region of southwestern Tunisia - particularly the town of Redeyef but also Moularès, Métlaoui and Mdhilla - for almost six months in 2008. These events take place in the phosphate-rich Gafsa mining basin, 350 kilometers southwest of Tunis, in a region hard hit by unemployment and poverty. These are the most important social unrest known by Tunisia since the “bread riots” in 1984 and since the coming to power of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 1987. [1]\n\nThe 2008 Gafsa protests were city-wide rioting and violent demonstrations against the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the poverty, unemployment in the city. Riots erupted in small villages across mines, demanding an end to unemployment. [2]\n\nAn Anti-government uprising soon erupted throughout towns and rural, poor areas across the country. As soon as security forces and the army was sent in, protesters started to rebel and called on a rebellion against president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. [3]\n\nThousands protested against illegal mining and poverty in Kasserine, Tataouine, Hammamet, Sfax and Tunis. These protests was met with live ammunition, tear gas, water cannon and birdshot. It is often said that the Gafsa movement is the spark and the seeds sown into the Tunisian Revolution. [4]\n\n[5]\n\nThese events are considered as the beginning of the process leading to the Tunisian Revolution, a year and a half later, at the end of 2010, the strikers victims of the repression being concerned by the decree 97 compensating the martyrs of the revolution. [6]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the poverty, unemployment in the city"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2008"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Gafsa mining basin, 350 kilometers southwest of Tunis","Kasserine, Tataouine, Hammamet, Sfax and Tunis"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Protests regarding the Russo-Georgian War","document":"\n\nDuring the Russo-Georgian War, demonstrations were held all over the world to protest the Russian invasion of Georgia. Manifestations were also held in support of Russia and the separatists of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Pro-Georgian demonstrations received the largest turnout in the Baltic States, where thousands marched in protest, whereas large pro-Russia camps were observed in Russia and Serbia. On 1 September 2008, tens of thousands formed a human chain in Tbilisi and also in other towns of Georgia to protest the Russian military presence in the country. Georgian officials said it was the biggest protest in the ex-Soviet republic's history. [17][18]\n\nAbout 500 pro-Georgian demonstrators marched in Athens in early September 2008. [17]\n\nOn 14 August 2008, people gathered at the UN headquarters and the Russian Consulate in New York City to protest against the presence of Russian forces in Georgia. [44]\n\nSimilar protests were made by people in support of Georgia in other US cities, including Chicago,[45][46] Seattle,[47] and Los Angeles. [48]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["formed a human chain"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["protest the Russian invasion of Georgia"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["14 August 2008","1 September 2008"]},{"role":"Location","values":["all over the world","the Baltic States","Tbilisi","Athens"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["tens of thousands","thousands","500 pro-Georgian demonstrators"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Muslim Youth uprising","document":"The Muslim Youth uprising is the official name given to an unsuccessful[1] \"Islamic revolution\" that was set to take place in Egypt on November 28, 2014. The Salafist Front, an Islamist organization which is part of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood-led Anti-Coup Alliance, had initially planned for the uprising earlier in November. The protests' main goal was to establish the \"Islamic identity\" in Egypt, which they claim to have been hijacked by \"secular conspiracies\". [2]\n\nOn November 25, Egypt's interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, vowed to use lethal force against any attempts to assault public facilities. He said that his forces would use \"all means\" necessary to fight \"terrorist factions\". [3] The same day, Ibrahim held a meeting with heads of different police departments and security directors of Greater Cairo to discuss plans to counter any anticipated acts of violence. The meeting also included other government departments such as communications, information technology and transportation. [4]\n\nSecurity officials have been mainly worried that the supposed protests would be used as a cover by the insurgent group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, to carry out bombings and attacks on this day. [3]\n\nTwo senior army officers were killed,[5] including a brigadier-general who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Abu Zaabal. [6] Two army conscripts were also injured. [5]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["use lethal force against any attempts to assault public facilities"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["establish the \"Islamic identity\" in Egypt"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two senior army officers were killed","Two army conscripts were also injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November 28, 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests","document":"\n\n\n\nThe 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protest was part of a series of events during the civil rights movement in the United States which occurred on June 18, 1964, at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida. The campaign in June – July 1964 was led by Robert Hayling, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, C. T. Vivian, Fred Shuttlesworth, among others. St. Augustine was chosen to be the next battleground against racial segregation on account of it being both highly racist yet also relying heavily on the northern tourism dollar. Furthermore, the city was due to celebrate its 400th anniversary the following year, which would heighten the campaign's profile even more. Nightly marches were organized to the Slave market, which were regularly attacked and the marchers were beaten. Meanwhile, the civil rights bill was being filibustered in the U.S. Senate. On June 10, the filibuster collapsed. The following day, King was arrested in St. Augustine. King had attempted to be served lunch at the Monson Motor Lodge, but the owner, James Brock—who was also the president of the St. Augustine Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Owners Association—refused to serve him. King was arrested for trespass and jailed; while imprisoned, he wrote a letter to leading Jewish reformer, Rabbi Israel Dresner, urging him to recruit rabbis to come to St. Augustine and take part in the movement. This they did, and at another confrontation at the Monson, 17 rabbis were arrested on June 18. This was the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history. At the same time, a group of black and white activists, protesters who had arrived from Albany, Georgia, JT Johnson, Brenda Darten, and Mamie Nell Ford, jumped into the Monson's swimming pool. Brock—by now on edge from the constant picketing of his business—appeared to pour hydrochloric acid into the pool to burn the protesters. Photographs of this, and of a policeman jumping into the pool in everything but his shoes to arrest them, made headline news around the world. By now the Civil Rights Act had been passed, but St. Augustine businesses—particularly in the restaurant and culinary trades—were slow at desegregating. Eventually the courts forced Brock and his colleagues to integrate their businesses, and soon after he did, the Monson was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), who violently opposed desegregation. The state judge was unsympathetic to his predicament, however, feeling that Brock and his colleagues had brought the violence of the KKK upon themselves; they had taken advantage of it while it was in their favor, and could not stop it now that it was not. On June 30, Florida Governor Farris Bryant announced the formation of a biracial committee to restore interracial communication in St. Augustine. Although the Civil Rights Act had passed, there were further problems for both Brock personally and Florida particularly. He had been repeatedly refused bank loans to pay for the damage caused by the protests, and declared himself bankrupt the following year. Also in 1965, although the city celebrated its quadricentennial, there was still a palpable underlying racial tension; the tourist trade had been badly damaged and it has been estimated that St. Augustine lost millions of dollars in tourism. Hotel, motels, and restaurants were especially badly hit. St. Augustine, Florida, a beautiful town and our nation’s oldest city, was the scene of raging tempers, flaring violence, and the most corrupt coalition of segregationist opposition outside of Mississippi. It was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. There the Klan made a last-ditch stand against the nonviolent movement. They flocked to St. Augustine’s Slave Market Plaza from all across north Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Klansmen abducted four Negroes and beat them unconscious with clubs, ax handles, and pistol butts...St. Augustine was a testing ground. Can the Deep South change? Could southern states maintain law and order in the face of change? Could local citizens, black and white, work together to make democracy a reality throughout America? [1]\n\nMartin Luther King on St. Augustine, Florida\n\nThe Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had decided to renew their campaign against segregation,[2] and give \"new dignity to the movement\". [3][note 1] The leadership was originally divided on where to target. James Bevel, for example, wanted to focus on one state—Alabama—whereas Hosea Williams advocated the Floridian seaside holiday town of St. Augustine. [5] St. Augustine was approaching its 400th anniversary. [note 2] Although much smaller than previous civil rights battlegrounds, such as Birmingham, Alabama, it was no less—and probably more—violently segregated, argues author Jim Bishop. Unlike Birmingham, racial power lay not with the mayor and chief of police, he says, but in[11]\n\nH. E. Wolf, banker and bigwig in the Democratic Party; it was the St. Augustine Record, a mirror for white faces; it was an organization called the Ancient City Hunting Club, composed of rifle experts who sometimes made a sport of hunting two-legged \"coons.\" Politics was divided between two political groups: the far right and the ultra-far right. Anyone who was plain right risked being called a Communist. [11]\nFor King—recently named Time Magazine's Man of the Year[12]—it was his preferred choice of \"non-violent battlefield\" for \"expos[ing] Klan savagery to the eyes of the world\". [2] It was a highly segregated town, argues the author Thomas E. Jackson, and its celebrations would be restricted to whites only. It was deliberately chosen, continues Jackson, as it had \"a business elite vulnerable to negative publicity because it was dependent on northern tourist dollars, a police force with close ties to the Klan, and a reputation for brutal extralegal violence\". [13] Social ethicist and theologian Gary Dorrien has described St. Augustine as Florida's \"most violently racist city...a Klan stronghold policed by unabashedly racist thugs\", where \"Blacks who tried to enroll their children in public schools got their homes bombed\". [5] scholar Stephen B. Oates says of St. Augustine's law enforcement:[9] However, suggests Webb, this was known to be a dangerous strategy. The Florida Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights informed them that St. Augustine was a \"segregated superbomb...with an extremely short fuse\". [10]\n\nHere Sheriff L. O. Davis, \"a buffoonish, burly, thuggish man\", employed an auxiliary force of one hundred deputies, many of them prominent Klansmen, to \"keep the niggers in line.\" Here barrel-chested Hoisted \"Hoss\" Manucy, dressed in cowboy paraphernalia, led a bunch of Klan-style bullyboys who called themselves the Ancient City Gun Club. They patrolled the county in radio cars with Confederate flags on their antennas. harassing Negroes at will.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["17 rabbis"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against racial segregation on account of it being both highly racist yet also relying heavily on the northern tourism dollar"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["June 18, 1964"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida","United States"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Robert Hayling, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, C. T. Vivian, Fred Shuttlesworth"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Afghanistan protests","document":"The 2014 Afghanistan protests was a series of pro-government and anti-electoral fraud protests by hundreds, then tens of thousands of demonstrators from 21–27 June, during the 2014 Afghan presidential election campaigns was taking place. Mass protests and Civil disobedience has rocked areas across Afghanistan in June, demanding free elections in support of the Democracy. Protesters rallied against blasphemy laws in October 2014, and a wave of protests also hit Afghanistan in March 2015. Protesters also protested against fraud and electoral suffrage and mistrust, rallying in support of main candidate Abdullah Abdullah and chanted slogans on 27 June. Protests did remain largely bloodless and led to no police intervention however. [1][2]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["rallying in support of main candidate Abdullah Abdullah and chanted slogans"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["fraud and electoral suffrage and mistrust","blasphemy laws"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["21–27 June, during the 2014 Afghan presidential election campaigns was taking place"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds, then tens of thousands of demonstrators"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"18F (demonstration)","document":"The 18F was a demonstration that took place in Argentina on February 18, 2015, one month after the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman. Nisman was investigating the 1994 AMIA bombing, a terrorist attack, and accused the president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of covering up Iranian suspects. He was found dead at his home the day before he could address the Congress, and his death was still an unsolved case at the time of the demonstration. It was attended in Buenos Aires by 400,000 people, during a torrential storm. [1]\n\nAlberto Nisman was a prosecutor working on the AMIA bombing case. It was a terrorist attack against a Jewish community center that took place in 1994, and which is still unsolved. Nisman prepared a criminal complaint against president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of covering up the involvement of Iranian suspects. He was found dead at his house on January 18, one day before he would report his progress to the Congress. As of February 18, the date of the demonstration, the investigation of his death had not settled if it was a suicide or a murder. [1]\n\nThe demonstration was organized by a group of prosecutors, and attended by Nisman's relatives, including his former wife, judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado. [1][2]\n\nThe protest in Buenos Aires took place under a torrential storm. It was attended by thousands of people anyway, and the street was filled with umbrellas and Argentine flags. It started at 19:00 at the Congressional Plaza, continued through Avenida de Mayo with a stop at Nisman's working place, and ended at Plaza de Mayo. It was organized as a silent demonstration, only as an homage to Alberto Nisman, and devoid of political flags or banners. The rule was followed, with occasional exceptions for waves of spontaneous clapping or people singing the Argentine national anthem. The city police estimated that the demonstration was attended by 400,000 people. [1]\n\nThere were similar demonstrations at other populated places of Argentina, such as Mar del Plata, Córdoba and Rosario. [1]\n\nPresident Kirchner led the opening of the Atucha II Nuclear Power Plant on the same day, with a speech delivered though the emergency population warning. Contrary to expectations, she did not mention the demonstration at all. [1] She stayed at her private home in El Calafate during the demonstration. [3]\n\nCabinet chief Jorge Capitanich considered that the demonstration was a coup d'état attempt by the judiciary. [1] He said that the government respected popular demonstrations, and then said that the people who called it were both supporters of baby theft during the National Reorganization Process and lawyers of drug dealers. [3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["a silent demonstration"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 18, 2015","started at 19:00"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Nisman's working place","Buenos Aires","Argentina","the Congressional Plaza","Avenida de Mayo","Plaza de Mayo"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["400,000 people","Sandra Arroyo Salgado"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"The wave of civil demonstrations started in January 2012, once with the introduction of a new health reform legislation","document":"\n\n\n\nThe 2012–2015 unrest in Romania refers to a prolonged period of civil unrest and political scandals in Romania, which took magnitude after the second half of the 2000s. The wave of civil demonstrations started in January 2012, once with the introduction of a new health reform legislation. The protests were fueled by the austerity measures applied in May 2010, but also by the unpopularity of Băsescu-backed Boc government. The demonstrations were characterized by widespread rioting and acts of vandalism. The political situation precipitated, so Prime Minister Emil Boc decided to step down on 6 February 2012. In the first six months of the year, three governments have been changed. The summer of 2012 was marked by a large-scale political crisis, fed by accusations of plagiarism to PSD-backed Prime Minister Victor Ponta and culminating with the suspension of President Traian Băsescu. Although the presidential impeachment referendum showed that over 80% of the voters wanted his dismissal, the referendum was invalidated by the Constitutional Court due to presence below 50% at polls. During this period, Romania was warned by Western powers about the state of democracy, inasmuch as the dismissal of the presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies was made in a shady manner, and prominent figures of PSD, including Vice-President Liviu Dragnea, were accused of vote rigging in the referendum. After sweeping victory in legislative election on 9 December 2012, Victor Ponta – supported by the Social Liberal Union – was named Prime Minister of Romania. His mandate was marked by corruption scandals and street protests. The demonstrations had various causes, among them the tax hikes, the exploitation of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing and the Roșia Montană Project. Hundreds of thousands of people, including doctors, teachers, students and laborers, took to the street to shout their dissatisfaction regarding his policies. Employees in transport and health system triggered several strikes in this period. Although mainly peaceful, the protests degenerated in some cases in clashes between demonstrators and law enforcers. Ponta Government was accused by national and international organizations of excessive use of force in the Revolt of Pungești. Ethnic Hungarians started a series of protests for the autonomy of Szeklerland, while the unionist movements (see Action 2012) demanded the unification of Romania and Moldova, both in Romania and over the Prut. In the winter of 2014, the ruling alliance collapsed, after internal tensions between PSD and PNL. The National Liberal Party left the alliance and merged with the Democratic Liberal Party to form the largest right-wing party in Romania in the post-revolutionary period. In the summer of the same year, Victor Ponta from PSD and Klaus Iohannis from PNL launched their candidatures for the presidential election. To everyone's surprise, ethnic German Klaus Iohannis won the election. Ponta's failure was mainly due to irregularities concerning the voting process in diaspora and numerous corruption scandals involving figures from the party he leads. During the electoral campaign, people protested against Victor Ponta and members of his government, inasmuch as thousands of Romanian citizens in diaspora were prevented from exercising their right to vote due to bad organization of the election process. [6]\n\nRomania is the country with the highest poverty levels in the European Union. [7] More than 30% of the population lives on less than $5 per day. In a report conducted by the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of Social and Demographic Risks is specified that there are visible discrepancies between social strata, privileged groups benefiting of higher wages and pensions in comparison with the rest of the population. [8] Bankruptcy of many companies thickens the unemployment rate, in July 2013 reaching the value of 7.6%, highest since onset of the economic crisis in 2010. [9] Other companies, including state companies – Romanian Post, Romanian Railways, are on the verge of bankruptcy, being forced to make cutbacks. After application of drastic austerity measures in 2010, the Romanian economy recovered. Thus, in 2013, Romania recorded the highest economic growth in the EU. [10] Despite this growth, the standard of living is decreasing,[11] many Romanians being unable to endure everyday expenses. Poor working conditions, mass layoffs and tax hikes displease the population that is filling the squares of main cities to shout their grievances. Over the past 25 years, Romania has experienced a complex process of democratization with moments of crisis, economic stagnation, radical nationalism and extreme polarization. [12][13] Despite Romania's admission into NATO in 2004, and into the European Union in 2007, the political situation remained unstable, with recurrent institutional clashes between the President, Prime Minister and Parliament, such as in 2007 and 2012[14] and tough austerity measures that fuelled social tensions. These were the first events of the two-year civil unrest. They were triggered by the introduction of a new health reform legislation and worsening standard of life. President Traian Băsescu's popularity collapsed mainly after imposing austerity measures in 2010, year when Romania also confronted with short living but large street demonstrations. The attempted privatization of SMURD and the denigration by Traian Băsescu of Raed Arafat, its founder, was vehemently criticized by people on the streets. [15]\n\nThe protests started with a 3,000-large demonstration in Târgu Mureș on 12 January, as a sign of solidarity with Raed Arafat. [16] In the following weeks, protests spread to other sixty Romanian cities and dozens of cities in the Romanian diaspora. [17] In Bucharest, the largest protest took place on 19 January, when up to 20,000 people expressed their disagreements with Băsescu regime. Several days, Bucharest faced widespread rioting and acts of vandalism. Thousands of policemen and gendarmes were deployed on the streets to confront angry demonstrators that stoned the vehicles of the law enforcers, vandalized shops and burned cars. Riot police used tear gas and flares to repel demonstrators who blocked traffic in the center of Bucharest. [18] According to the Gendarmerie, destructions were caused by football ultras infiltrated among peaceful demonstrators. [19] During these days of turmoil, several protesters entered the Romanian Television headquarters to blame the broadcaster for censorship. Official figures indicated over 60 injuries during clashes between police and protesters, while up to 283 arrests were made. [20] Several journalists were injured while transmitting live the events. South East Europe Media Organisation, a NGO that has its headquarters in Vienna, expressed concern about the level of violence against reporters who covered the protests. [21]\n\nOn the morning of 6 February 2012, Prime Minister Emil Boc announced his resignation, in an attempt \"to ease the social situation\".","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["Thousands of policemen and gendarmes were deployed"]},{"role":"Method","values":["widespread rioting and acts of vandalism"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["up to 283 arrests"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Băsescu regime"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["over 60 injuries"]},{"role":"Date","values":["12 January","19 January"]},{"role":"Location","values":["spread to other sixty Romanian cities and dozens of cities in the Romanian diaspora","Bucharest","Târgu Mureș"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["3,000","up to 20,000 people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2007–2009 university protests in France","document":"This article is about the university strike movement in France during 2007 and 2009. Since Valérie Pécresse was appointed Minister for Higher Education and Research, the mood had been tense in the French university system. Several reform projects had led to protest movements, including that of 2009, the longest-lasting yet since 1968, still on-going after several months. It had put a heavy strain on France's political environment, even within the leading UMP party, and led to a reconsideration of the Bologna process within intellectual circles. A similar movement has simultaneously taken place in Spain. Shortly after Valérie Pécresse was appointed Minister for Higher Education and Research, she announced the launch of a reform that President Nicolas Sarkozy had evoked in his election program: the so-called Law for the Freedom and Responsibility of Universities (\"Liberté et Responsabilité des Universités\") – shortened as \"LRU law\" – aimed at  radically renewing French universities. [1]\n\nUnder this legislation, budgets would no longer be allocated to individual university departments directly by the Ministry. Instead, universities would receive a lump sum, and the academic committee would then choose how to allocate funding to different departments and projects. This would also lead to an alteration in the rules regulating the committee's decisions, and the establishment of a majority voting system in both teacher categories (lecturers and professors). The Chancellor of the university would take personal responsibility for overseeing this new structure. The purpose of the LRU law is to bring universities into line with European and Anglo-Saxon standards, in accordance with the Bologna process. With reduced bureaucracy, universities would be allowed more personal initiative. Furthermore, the draft law would enable Chancellors to enter into partnerships with private companies, thereby mobilising further funding for research. However, given that President Sarkozy has drastically reduced public spending and official posts in the public sector as part of the fundamental basis for his financial policy, enemies of the draft law consider it would lead to the neglect of universities by the State and ultimately possible privatization. The contempt displayed by Nicolas Sarkozy during his election campaign speeches when referring to humanities courses, in particular, appeared to confirm this impression, and the opposition found strong support within the Arts and Humanities faculties, whose fear of extensive neglect is equal to their lack of profitability. This is why opponents of the draft law have spoken of a \"mix of feudalism (with the increase power of university management) and neoliberalism\". The government, however, has argued that this is a \"necessary modernization\". Initially, however, the opposition suffered a severe setback when the social-democratic student's union UNEF expressed its approval of the proposed law, once the idea of a Numerus Clausus for the Master's course had been abandoned. The law was passed by parliament during a special sitting in July, and signed into law by Nicolas Sarkozy in August (i.e. during the parliamentary recess). In October, a protest movement began in several universities, mostly in the Humanities Departments, and UNEF briefly became involved, but following the promise of the introduction of a support plan (\"Plan Campus\") this came to an end. [2][3]\n\nDisapproval increased when Valérie Pécresse presented her plan for restructuring research. In France, the National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS) plays an essential role in research. The CNRS has its own budget, but also collaborates with lecturers and professors working in the Mixed Research Units (Unités Mixtes de Recherche UMR). Despite relatively low levels of State investment, this system ranks sixth in the world according to the Shanghai Ranking (universities receive much lower marks, which has led to sharp criticism within the university community of the Ranking's impartiality and methods). The creation of the National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR), the introduction of funding for individual projects, and the restructuring of the CNRS into several specialized institutes has led to suggestions of a potential fragmentation of public means, and all the more so since Minister Valérie Pécresse suggested promoting partnerships with private sector companies, and creating special lecturer and professor posts (\"Chaires d'excellence\"). Research funding which is not dependent on the ANR would also be included in each university's lump sum allocation, thereby strengthening the power of both Chancellors and the Mandarins. All this generated widespread support for anti-LRU lists at university committee elections held at the beginning of 2008. The defeat of Jean-Robert Pitte, the incumbent Sorbonne-university (Paris IV) Chancellor, thought of as a liberal-conservative, was a symbol of this dissatisfaction. A geography scholar and UMP sympathizer, he was beaten by a left-wing coalition, led by his predecessor, the Romance studies scholar Georges Molinié. [4] In the course of 2008, anti-LRU lists became increasingly successful. [5]\n\nWithin the space of a few weeks, three reforms were introduced, all of which helped to spark off a brewing crisis. None of these projects had involved negotiations or discussions with any representatives of the academic community. Education Minister Xavier Darcos, who was already caught in an impasse following the failed introduction of a reform for secondary schools (ultimately shelved), presented a plan in October that would affect the training of primary and secondary school teachers. Until that point, teachers had enjoyed the status of public servants. They first had to successfully pass a national exam with entry quotas (numerus clauses), after which they spent a year in a university teacher training institute (Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres IUFM) with numerous work placements, and finally became fully qualified teachers. [6] There were two such exams: the CAPES (following a bachelor's degree, or more often a Master's) and the Agrégation, following a master's degree and an additional preparatory year. Those who passed the Agrégation had a direct route into Higher Education teaching. Most university lecturers, especially in humanities departments, are former Agrégés who have been awarded a doctorate. Following the reform, they would have to take a master's degree in theory of education (Master Enseignement). Preparation for the exam would then become part of the second year's syllabus, during which there would also be work placements, in order for teachers to access teaching posts immediately after qualifying. However, the technical implementation of this plan has proved to be extremely complex, and opponents have stressed the fact that there would be many more candidates than work placements on offer. Moreover, the training they would receive in their original area of interest would suffer, since the hours of educational theory and exam preparation would leave less time available time for the coursework for the master's degree. Union members denounced the draft law as an attack against teachers' status as public servants and stated that Graduate students who failed the numerus clausus would then become \"crowds of precariously employed teachers without any status\". The academic community had already begun fighting this proposal, which they saw as threatening the status of French teachers. [7] Meanwhile, Valérie Pécresse unveiled her own proposals. The Minister for Higher Education's two proposals relate to the status of university lecturers and doctoral candidates. For doctoral candidates, a \"general doctoral contract\" (\"Contrat doctoral unique\") would be introduced. [8]  Without this, it would become impossible to obtain a doctorate at a French university. It would therefore become much more difficult for secondary school teachers to become university lecturers.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Law for the Freedom and Responsibility of Universities (\"Liberté et Responsabilité des Universités\") – shortened as \"LRU law\""]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2007 and 2009"]},{"role":"Location","values":["France","everal universities, mostly in the Humanities Departments"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1907 Sydney bathing costume protests","document":"\n\nThe 1907 Sydney bathing costume protests were a response to a proposed ordinance by the Waverly Shire Council to require the wearing of a skirt-like tunic by male bathers. On the morning of Sunday 20 October, thousands of surf bathing enthusiasts poured onto the sands of Bondi, Manly, and Coogee beaches in various types of feminine dress enacting a humorous mockery of the proposed regulations. The protest at Bondi was reportedly the largest of the three, with a \"swarm of humanity\" participating in and observing the protests. The positivity with which the protests were regarded by both the general public and the media proved the end for the Waverly council's costume proposal; the tunic/skirt ordinance was not included in the beach ordinances promulgated in the following months. [1]\n\nThis protest was separate to the 1935 NSW state ordinance relating to the Spooner bathing costume mostly directed at male wearers as bathing trunks were considered 'disgraceful'. As beachgoing, and especially swimming in the ocean, became more popular at the end of the Victorian era, there arose a question as to proper dress for participants. [2] While some concessions had to be made to allow for movement, the abbreviated clothing brought out a backlash by those offended by such \"exhibitionism\". [3] Numerous localities passed and enforced laws setting minimum standards for beach attire. [4]\n\nThe Waverley Municipal Council decided that male surf bathers should be as well clothed in the surf as females. Their proposal was to require that a skirt reaching at least to the knees must be added and the arms concealed to near the elbows. The mayor of Waverley described the costume as: \"A combination, consisting of guernsey with trouser legs and reaching from near the elbow to the bend of the knee, together with a skirt not unsightly but simply attached to the garment and covering the figure below the hips to the knee.\" Loitering on the beach was also to be prohibited and all communication between bathers and the general public forbidden. The penalties for a breach of the regulation were proposed to be from £1 to £20. [5][6]\n\nThe protests against the skirt proposal marked the first representative actions of the Surf Bathing Association of New South Wales, the precursor to Surf Life Saving Australia, formed only days before on 18 October. Members of the Association, outraged by what they saw as their impending emasculation at the hands of the new bathing costume laws, organised the protest in less than two days. The rushed preparations undoubtedly accounted for the dishevelled state of dress in which many of the \"ladies\" appeared on the day. The beach protests were described as having a \"carnival atmosphere\", especially at Bondi. In a procession from the northern end of Bondi Beach, men wearing their sisters' or grandmothers' underwear, ballet frills, curtains or tablecloths followed a banner upholding a dead seagull. [7]\n\nThe Skirt Scare at Manly by \"Crow's Nest\"\nIn the land of Topsy-Turvy\nThe women are donning shirts\nAnd the men in the sea-side places\nHave taken to wearing skirts... Sing hey, for the whiskered women\nIn trailing skirts encased\nSing ho, for the dainty fellows\nAnd clasp them round the waist. [8]\n\nOpposition to the proposal has been described as \"prompt, universal and absolute\" and it was quickly dropped. [9] The Sydney Morning Herald declared the regulations to be \"an instance of the official mind run mad\", arguing that if \"both male and female bathers of all ages must be clad in a species of skirt [it] would be too ridiculous for comment were it not that many thousands of persons will immediately become the sufferers, some by the legal penalty, others by abandoning the surf, unless public opinion is enabled to express itself quickly and forcibly\". [10]\n\nCouncils beyond Sydney also found themselves referring to the skirt for men proposal as they deliberated on appropriate clothing for both sexes at the beach. One Councillor at Euroa, Victoria for example, suggested the enforcement of a proper costume, from neck to knee, but \"did not go as far as the Bondi mayor in New South Wales, in advocating a short skirt in addition\". [11]\n\nBoth individuals and city councils took the opportunity in different forms of writing to laugh at themselves and the absurdities associated with regulating such matters. One person was moved to write a comic poem and councillors in Victoria, for example, bantered. It was pointed out that while \"a regulation was in force dealing with the whole matter – hours, costume, etc., ... 'proper costume' varied so much that it was well nigh impossible to get a proper legal definition.\" Councillor Cole said that he \"had defended youngsters who had produced little trunks; but such small articles adorning the fine manly physique of a gentleman of Cr [Councillor] Eddy's Herculean proportions for instance would probably not be deemed at law to be adequate covering. They might, perhaps, emulate the Sydney example of requiring such cases to be met by the adoption of frilled skirts (laughter) – something of the neck and knee order might be more indecent than skirts. \"[12]\n\nPeople generally agreed with strict regulations about dress but the idea of men wearing women's clothing was \"going altogether too far\", especially as male bathers were considered the \"most manly of men\" and sea-bathing both pleasurable and healthy. [13] The \"skirt\" ordinance and the consequent demonstrations culminated decades of protest from conservative beach goers who decried the 'exhibitionism' of scantily clad surf bathers. However, the demonstration against the proposal by three Sydney mayors to introduce skirted bathing costumes on Sydney's main beaches showed the resistance particularly of middle-class men who were members of the newly established Surf Bathers Association of New South Wales. [14]\n\nThe spirit in which the protests were conducted contributed greatly to a general acceptance of surf bathing on Sydney's beaches. It was also indicative of changing attitudes toward body image and masculinity in a fledgling nation. [1]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["poured onto the sands of Bondi, Manly, and Coogee beaches in various types of feminine dress enacting a humorous mockery of the proposed regulations"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["a response to a proposed ordinance by the Waverly Shire Council to require the wearing of a skirt-like tunic by male bathers"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["morning of Sunday 20 October","1907"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bondi, Manly, and Coogee beaches","Sydney"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["thousands of surf bathing enthusiasts"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1977 Pakistan uprising","document":"The 1977 Pakistan uprising, also known as the Pakistani Revolution of 1977, was a long act of growing street protests and a long series of countrywide demonstrations against the results of the 1977 Pakistani general election and against prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. The protests first erupted against prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the results of the 1977 Pakistani general election. After a wave of popular uprisings and massive demonstrations, the government ordered tanks and the military to be deployed to crack down on demonstrators. Violent anti-Bhutto protests continued for 2 months without any violence until June, when 50 were killed in clashes and intense violence at protests. The increasingly violent street demonstrations were characterised by riots and street protests while police clashed and ordered a crackdown on the demonstrators, using Live ammunition, Pellet (air gun) and Rubber bullets to disperse protesters while protests consisted of Looting, Arson attacks and Violence. 100+ protesters were killed in Strike actions and massive labour unrest during the bloody crisis and the uprising ultimately led to the Operation Fair Play. [1][2][3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["ordered tanks and the military to be deployed to crack down on demonstrators"]},{"role":"Method","values":["Looting, Arson attacks and Violence"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the results of the 1977 Pakistani general election and against prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["100+ protesters were killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1977"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Pakistan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2016 Oromo protests","document":"The 2015–16 Oromo protests[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] were a series of peaceful protests and nonviolent resistance[37] first sparked on 25 April 2014. The initial actions were taken in opposition to the Addis Ababa Master Plan,[38]  and resumed on 12 November 2015 by university students and farmers in the town of Ginchi, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa city, encircled by the Oromia region. [39][40][41] The plan was to expand the capital into the Oromia special zone, leading to fears that native Oromo farmers would lose their land and be displaced. The plan was later dropped but protests continued, highlighting issues such as marginalization and human rights. [5] Mulatu Gemechu, Deputy Chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, expressed to Reuters: \"so far, we have compiled a list of 33 protesters killed by armed security forces that included police and soldiers but I am very sure the list will grow\"[7] Protesters demanded social and political reforms, including an end to human rights abuses like government killings of civilians, mass arrests, government land seizures, and political marginalization of opposition groups. The government responded by restricting access to the internet[42][43] and attacking as well as arresting protesters. [43][44][45]\n\nIn the three days leading up to 8 August 2016, Reuters reported that at least 90 protesters[18] had been shot and killed by Ethiopian security forces, marking the most violent crackdown against protesters in sub-Saharan Africa since at least 75 people were killed during protests in Oromia Region in November and December 2015. [46][47]\n\nAccording to Human Rights Watch, at least 500 people are estimated to have been killed as of October 2016. [48][49]\n\nIn 1991, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) captured the capital Addis Ababa and ended the Ethiopian Civil War. The EPRDF was led by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front and was dominated by those belonging to the Tigray ethnic group, which is a minority group comprising only about six percent of the country's population. However, members of this ethnic group have traditionally dominated senior positions in the country's military and political system, while those belonging to the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups, who comprise a majority of the population, have felt rather marginalized over the past few decades. [43][50] Ethnic divisions are not as sharp in Ethiopia as might be indicated by statistics; intermarriage is extremely commonplace, and the actual disparity and disaffection between groups are not great. Furthermore, following the death of Meles Zenawi in 2012, the influence of the Tigray ethnic group became lower than in previous decades. Subsequent to his death neither of the two main political positions–President (head of state) and Prime Minister (head of government)–were occupied by a Tigrayan. Then-President Mulatu Teshome belonged to the Oromo ethnic group and then-Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to the Wolayta ethnic group. Nevertheless, the perceived domination of the Tigray people had been in the back of the minds of some people and was a factor in the disturbances. [citation needed]\n\nProtests were first sparked on 25 April 2014 against expansion of boundaries Addis Ababa city and government responded  by shooting at and beating peaceful protesters[51] and embarked in full blown strike and streets protests on 12 November 2015 by university student in Ginchi town, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa city, encircled by Oromia region. [52][53][54] protests spread throughout 400 different locales across 17 zones of Oromia region[55] according to Amnesty International 800 Oromo protesters killed since started[56]\nThe 2016 Oromo youth demonstrations started because Addis Ababa's new city master plan proposed including farmlands from the surrounding Oromia region to cope with the city's rapid expansion. Amhara ethnic youth also followed the Oromos because of old bitterness towards the governing EPRDF (a party founded by the TPLF) who have abolished the century-old Amhara dominance in Ethiopian governance. [57]\n[58]\n[59][60]\nAfter deadly Oromo protests started since 25 April 2014, controversial master plan was cancelled on 12 January 2016 after 140 protesters were killed. [61][62][63]\n\nIn 2014, both rainy seasons in Ethiopia saw irregular rainfall. In 2015, due to an extremely strong El Niño event, both rainy seasons in Ethiopia almost did not happen at all. That resulted in an acute drought in particular in the Highlands of Ethiopia, crops and pastures dried up and herds were dying. It was considered to be the worst drought in 50 years. [64] The drought did hit particularly hard in Amhara Region and Oromia Region. [65] After 18 months of severe drought with almost nothing left over to eat for drought-affected people, very strong torrential rains that started in April 2016 did worsen the situation until October 2016. The flooding displaced people for months in exactly the same regions, that were most affected by the long drought. [66] Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic state. UNICEF experience in Ethiopia has shown such droughts and floods often result in humanitarian shocks and tensions between ethnic groups. [13]\n\nThe country has been experiencing rapid economic growth since the 2000s and is one of the world's fastest-growing economies and is Africa’s second-most populous country. [67] But while economic development and growth and industrialization are supported a lot by the authoritarian government, often the needs of the rural population remain unconsidered, the freedom and civil rights of farmers and pastoralists in particular are often neglected. They are left behind. [14]\n\nThe November and December 2015 protests in the Oromia Region that resulted in the killings of over 100 people by government forces. The 2015 protests were later followed by a police crackdown and the arrests of hundreds of opposition members. [68]\n\nAccording to diplomatic, NGO, and opposition sources, hundreds of thousands of people marched in more than 200 towns and cities in the vast Oromia State,[69][70] in protest at \"the government's draconian and ever-escalating repression. \"[71] This resulted in at least 148 people being killed on 5 and 6 August. [72]\n\nOn 2 October 2016, more protests occurred where an estimated two million people were attending the annual Irreechaa festival in Bishoftu in the Oromia region. [48] The festival is attended by Oromos from all walks of life to celebrate life and nature. An anti-government protest disrupted the event, with some claiming they involved peacefully chanting slogans against the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization,[48][73] while others claim stones and bottles were thrown. [73][74] People died in a stampede as a result of police using tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges,[48][73][74] falling into a deep ditch and being crushed,[74] or drowning in a lake. [49] While the Oromia regional government confirmed the deaths of 52 people, rights groups, the opposition leader, and local reports claim various numbers up to nearly 300 people dead. [48][49][71][73][74][75] On August 6th, hundreds of protesters marched on Meskel Square in Addis Ababa and shouted \"we want our freedom\" and \"free our political prisoners\". [72] Dozens of protesters were arrested by Addis Ababa's police. [76]\n\n23 imprisoned Oromo protesters died in Kaliti Prison after a fire broke out, wherein 21 died from carbon monoxide poisoning and 2 were killed by security force after an attempt to escape. [77]\n\nProtests in the Oromia region spread to Amhara Region in the summer of 2016[78]\nIn July 2016, the Anti-terrorism task force detained members of the Wolqayt Amhara Identity Committee (WAIC), a legally registered organisation. Soon after, protests erupted in many areas of the Amhara Region, the historic ethnic center of the Ethiopian state and home to the spectacular monolithic rock-cut churches of Lalibela and medieval castles of Gondar that attract tourists from all over. [79] One of the biggest demonstrations took place was on August 1st, 2016 in Gondar city. Hundreds of thousands of people held a peaceful demonstration over the arrest of the WAIC members, government repression and protest Federal government encroachment in regional affairs. Protesters carried placards expressing solidarity with the Oromo people. [80] As they marched, they were heard to be chanting in Amharic \"በኦሮምያ የሚፈሰዉ ደም ደማችን ነዉ\" [81] which translates to “the pouring of blood in Oromia is our blood” [82][83] and “the killings of our brothers in Oromia needs to stop”.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["peacefully chanting slogans against the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization","shouted \"we want our freedom\" and \"free our political prisoners\""]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Addis Ababa Master Plan"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["33 protesters killed","nearly 300 people dead"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2 October 2016","12 November 2015","August 6th"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Meskel Square in Addis Ababa","the town of Ginchi, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa city, encircled by the Oromia region"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["university students and farmers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 protests in Kosovo","document":"\n\n Kosovo Serbs\n\n Kosovo\n\n 1 Kosovan policeman killed and 7 others non-fatally injured[2][3][4]\n\nClashes between the Republic of Kosovo[a] and ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo  began on 25 July 2011 when the Kosovo Police crossed into the Serb-controlled municipalities of North Kosovo, in an attempt to control several administrative border crossings without the consultation of either Serbia or KFOR/EULEX. [2][6] Though tensions between the two sides eased somewhat after the intervention of NATO's KFOR forces, they continued to remain high amid concern from the European Union, who also blamed Kosovo for the unilateral provocation. [7] On 19 April 2013, an agreement was signed in Brussels between representatives of Kosovo and Serbia. The 15-point document granted devolved powers to North Kosovo regarding economic development, education, healthcare and urban planning, and a number of mechanisms that allowed a certain degree of autonomy in justice, policing and electoral matters. [8]\n\nThe clashes occurred due to a long stand-off over cross-border trade. Since the declaration of independence, Kosovo has been unable to export anything to or via territories directly controlled by Serbia's government. [2] There was disruption to cross-border trade[6] following Serbia's ban on Kosovar imports,[9] even though many jobs on both sides depended on cross-border trade[10] Serbia also stationed troops in the northern region to enforce a boycott of goods from Kosovo proper. [11]\n\nAlthough KFOR had made implementation of the \"vague ultimatums\" to remove the barricades, Kosovar Serbs had in the past used mountainous tracts to cross between northern Kosovo and Serbia proper. At the same as the bridge dividing Mitrovica was closed from transport to the south, the daily train to southern Serbia was packed. The EU also demanded that Serbia dismantle \"the parallel structures\" of government in Northern Kosovo. Serbia's Secretary of State for Kosovo, Oliver Ivanović said: \"We don't see these as 'parallel structures', we see these as the only structures, because we do not recognise the independence of Kosovo.\" He also said that a partition of Kosovo is out of the question, even though Serbian President Boris Tadić said he was open to the possibility. The Serbs of North Kosovo do not acknowledge or cooperate with the government of Kosovo. [10]\n\nPrior to the Kosovo Police's attempt to take over the administrative border crossings on 26 July, they were controlled by EULEX and Serb members of the Kosovo Police. [7]\n\nNorth Kosovo, as part of the Assembly of the Community of Municipalities of Kosovo, observes United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and defies the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence (the Kosovo Serb enclaves had been under local control, disputed by the Kosovar Albanian Assembly). The government of the Republic of Kosovo sought to install customs officials at the administrative border crossings with Central Serbia. [12] Kosovar Serbs opposed the presence of Kosovar Albanians at the crossings. As such, they erected road blocks to make movement difficult for KFOR personnel. [13]\n\nOn 26 July 2011, during the operation to take control of the administrative border posts, Enver Zymberi, a member of the Kosovo Police's Special Intervention Unit, was killed by a Serb sniper. Twenty five more policemen were wounded, with at least one being treated in hospital for severe wounds. [2] The KFOR Mi-17 helicopter that had moved the 16 Kosovo special police personnel belonged to the Croatian Army. [14] Later that day the same helicopter had been fired at. [14] An hour later 14 new Kosovo police officers and three customs officers were located in Brnjak. [15] Though the Kosovo police later withdrew and there was a lull in tensions, some Serbian protesters returned in the evening and attacked the post. [16]\n\nClashes continued on 27 July after armed Kosovar police took over two administrative border posts to enforce the writ of the central government in Pristina; ethnic Serbs burned down the administrative border post at Jarinje. The mob, which reportedly included \"dozens of masked men, armed with crowbars, clubs, axes, Molotov cocktails and handheld flares,\"[17] as well as rocks and other debris,[18] were said to have attacked the NATO troops who were a part of KFOR operations. Reports also suggested the troops may have been fired upon. [17] This was the same administrative border post that had been burned down in 2008 after Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. [11] Following the intervention of KFOR's NATO troops, a NATO operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ralf Adametz, said that \"the situation is now under control, but tense. \"[18]\n\nThere was a thaw in tensions on 28 July, after all Kosovar units withdrew from North Kosovo, leaving KFOR's NATO troops in charge of maintaining peace in the region. In return, the Serbs removed most of the roadblocks they had created. [19] KFOR took full control of the two crossings and General Erhard Bühler declared the area around the two crossings to be military areas, therefore giving shoot-at-sight orders to his soldiers for anyone crossing the area. [20]\n\nA Serbian man was later beaten up in Štrpce (an ethnically mixed area), allegedly due to being Serb; however this has not been confirmed. [21]\n\nAs of 29 July, NATO units remained in control of the two administrative border posts. However, they were prevented from returning to their bases by some of the roadblocks set up by hundreds of Serb protesters. The column of American and Slovenian[22] 30 armoured vehicles then withdrew from the barricade, even though they were given permission to move against the protesters using force, if necessary. The decision was made to avoid further bloodshed. [23]\n\nOn 31 July, the Serbs continued to man their roadblocks and KFOR soldiers remained isolated at the administrative border crossings they were manning. The Kosovars then organised burnings of Serbian products and General Buhler sent an ultimatum to the Serbs blocking the road. [clarification needed]\n\nOn 1 August, NATO said that Swiss Army sappers, supported by other KFOR troops[24] had cleared three of the roadblocks but claimed that there were still at least five blocks remaining on the two roads leading to Serbia. [25] The Kosovar Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi ordered Serbia's Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanović and the head of the Serbian negotiation team, Borislav Stefanović, to be deported after allegedly having entered Kosovo illegally. [26] The next day, however, some roadblocks remained in place with all major roads being completely sealed off. Agence France Press reported of a severe food crisis and a shortage of medicines in the North. [27] KFOR then requested a battalion of 550 German soldiers, assisted by 150 Austrian troops, to reinforce its presence in the north in order to deal with a possible future unrest. [28]\n\nOn 3 August, Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi reiterated a refusal to back down on his trade ban as some of the roadblocks remained in place across the North. [citation needed] A deal was later struck to allow KFOR to control the administrative border crossings in return for the dismantling of the blockades. [9] KFOR helicopters were then used to bypass the roadblocks and establish a skeletal EULEX and Kosovo Police and Customs presence at the administrative border crossings. [29]\n\nOn 16 September tensions reignited after the Kosovo Police, EULEX and NATO units airlifted troops from Kosovo-proper to the two administrative border posts in an effort to re-establish control over the North. Local Serbs then blocked all the major routes leading to the two administrative border crossings, including two major bridges connecting the divided town of Mitrovica and vowed to stay there \"until the bitter end,\"[who?] causing all the troops at the administrative border crossings to be virtually isolated from the rest of Kosovo.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["14 new Kosovo police officers and three customs officers were located"]},{"role":"Method","values":["attacked the post"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["administrative border post that had been burned down"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Enver Zymberi, a member of the Kosovo Police's Special Intervention Unit, was killed by a Serb sniper. Twenty five more policemen were wounded, with at least one being treated in hospital for severe wounds"]},{"role":"Date","values":["26 July 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kosovo"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds of Serb protesters"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Bangladesh anti-Modi protests","document":"\n\n\n\n\n\nA series of rallies, demonstrations, and blockades opposing the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were held in Bangladesh from 19 to 29 March, on the celebration of the birth centenary and the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan. Accusing Narendra Modi of committing crimes against humanity during the 2002 Gujarat riots, the protesters agitated against what they alleged were India's anti-Muslim policies and India's interference in Bangladeshi politics. [3][4] Protesters demanded the cancellation of the Bangladesh government's invitation to the Indian Prime Minister. The otherwise peaceful protests turned violent when the protesters were attacked by the supporters of the ruling Awami League party along with a crackdown by the law-enforcement agencies, causing deaths of several protesters throughout the last week of March 2021 in Bangladesh. [5] Initially launched by progressive student organizations including the Bangladesh Students Union, Bangladesh Sadharon Chhatra Odhikar Songrokkhon Parishad, and the Socialist Students' Front, the demonstrations were later joined by the Islamic group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh. [6]\n\nThe deadly conflict chiefly began when supporters of Awami League tried to stop the protesters from waving their shoes as a sign of discontent to Modi at Baitul Mukarram mosque, Dhaka. This resulted in violent clashes from both sides. After the incident, the violence then spread to several key districts in the country, leading to damages on public properties. [7][8][9]\n\nAmnesty International in a statement criticized the Bangladesh government for using excessive force on the protesters and urged the government to \"respect the right to freedom of assembly and protect peaceful protesters\", on 26 March 2021. [10]  After the killings of its supporters on Friday, Hefazat called the strike protesting the killing of its activists by police, and the attack on them by supporters of the ruling party on Sunday, 28 March. \"Police opened fire on our peaceful supporters,\" the group's organizing secretary Azizul Haque told a rally in Chittagong. \"We will not let the blood of our brothers go in vain. \"[11] As of now, the clashes resulted in at least 14 people killed and many injured with Brahmanbaria alone accounted for 10 killed. [12]\n\nBangladesh declared independence from Pakistan on 26 March 1971, with the diplomatic and military support of India. The 50th instance of 26 March since then marked the golden jubilee of Bangladesh's independence and to celebrate the day Bangladesh government invited the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Soon after the Indian Prime Minister decided to join the celebration, Bangladeshi students and Islamists declared to resist him from visiting Bangladesh. [13]\n\nFormer Vice-President of Dhaka University Central Students' Union Nurul Haq Nur in a rally in front of the Press Club on 12 March 2021, terming Narendra Modi the \"Butcher of Gujrat\", said that he is unwelcomed in Bangladesh. [14][15] On the other hand, the Police chief of Bangladesh declared restrictions on movement during the visit of foreign guests including the Indian Premier on March 15, 2021. He also requested the political parties not to hold programs during the visit of Narendra Modi. [16]\n\nOn 18 March 2021, progressive students' organizations declared a series of protests against the visit of Narendra Modi to Bangladesh including rally, demonstration, effigy burning, and torch-march and on the same day, leaders of the Awami League government-backed students' wing Bangladesh Chhatra League, known for hooliganism and terrorism,[17][18] declared to deal the protesters and threatened to 'peel off the skin' whoever protests. [19]\n\nThe first demonstration against the visit of Narendra Modi was held on March 19, 2021, and it has been going on. Bangladesh Police, as well as ruling party-backed organizations Bangladesh Chhatra League, Jubo League, and Bangladesh Awami Swechasebak League, have swopped on the protesters triggering violence, in retaliation from the protesters. [20]\n\nOn 28 March, after the strike, Hefazat leaders claimed 17 people died across the country, with around 500 people receiving injuries during the protests, in a press conference. According to their claim 12 people died in Brahmanbaria, 4 at Hathazari in Chittagong and one at Signboard area in Narayanganj. [44][45] Local news outlets, however, have reported 14 death counts as of March 28, 2021. [46][47][48]\n\nDuring and after the protests, opposition activists were detained and kept in secret detentions. According to the activists they were tortured in custody. Shakil Uzzaman and Mina Al Mamun, the joint-convenors of Bangladesh Chatra Odhikar Parishad, were picked up in suspicious circumstances from the capital Dhaka’s Savar area on March 26. On the next day, the joint convenor of Bangladesh Jubo Odhikar Parishad, Nadim Hasan, was abducted from Lalbag area by people who identified themselves as police. [49] Two leaders of the same organization were picked up respectively from Rajshahi and Sylhet reportedly by law enforcers and remained untraceable, on March 28. [50] After more than 24 hours of detention at unknown places, Nadim Hasan, Shakil Uzzaman, Mina Al Mamun, and Md Mazharul Islam were placed in court and charged with violence. More than 100 Islamists were arrested by Bangladesh police during 12 April - 19 April over alleged participation in the violence. [51][52]\n\nTo stop the spread of news and cut off communication across the country, the government of Bangladesh blocked Facebook on March 26, from the afternoon. Facebook in a statement claimed that \"We are aware that our services have been restricted in Bangladesh.\" \"We’re working to understand more and hope to have full access restored as soon as possible,\" they added. [53]\n\nInternational rights group Amnesty International termed the Bangladesh government response to the protest as \"Bloody Crackdown\" and said, \"The Bangladeshi authorities must respect the right to freedom of assembly and protect peaceful protestors. \"[54]\n\nTwenty eminent citizens of Bangladesh demanded punishment for those responsible for attacking anti-Modi protesters and carrying out violence in Chattogram's Hathazari, in a joint statement. Among the M Hafizuddin Khan, Ali Imam Majumder, Professor Anu Muhammad, Badiul Alam Majumdar, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Sara Hossain, CR Abrar, Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury, Asif Nazrul, Shahidul Alam, Hasnat Quaiyum, Nur Khan Liton, Shireen Huq, Jakir Hossain, Perween Hasan, Lubna Marium, Sharmeen Murshid, Firdous Azim, Naila Zaman Khan and Rahnuma Ahmed. [55]\n\nBangladesh's main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party protested the killing of people on the country's independence day for protesting the visit of a foreign national. They declared a countrywide demonstration on March 29 and March 30. [56][better source needed]\n\nProminent Hefajat leader Abdual Awal resigned, the decision was said to have been taken due to difference in opinion with other Hefajat leaders during the protests. [57]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["blocked Facebook on March 26, from the afternoon"]},{"role":"Method","values":["waving their shoes"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["More than 100 Islamists were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["opposing the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi","demanded the cancellation of the Bangladesh government's invitation to the Indian Prime Minister"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["17 people died","around 500 people receiving injuries"]},{"role":"Date","values":["from 19 to 29 March"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019–2020 Colombian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2019–2020 Colombian protests were a collection of protests that began on 21 November 2019. [2] Hundreds of thousands of Colombians demonstrated for various reasons. Some protested against income inequality, corruption, police brutality and various proposed economic and political reforms proposed by the government of Iván Duque Márquez, others against the few violent protestors and in favor of the Colombian peace process. [1][6]\n\nWhile mostly peaceful in nature, a few violent incidents took place throughout the protests, leading to overnight curfews in Cali and Bogotá. It is \"one of the largest mass demonstrations Colombia has witnessed in recent years\". [7] The second phase of the protests, which started on 10 September 2020, were more violent and resulted in 17 deaths. [4]\n\nAccording to 2018 Corruption Perception Index data released by Transparency International to measure public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, giving each a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), Colombia scores 36 points. [8] This is below the global average of 43 points, and makes Colombia the 99th most corrupt country in the world. [8]\n\nProtesters have expressed anger at corruption perception in the country. [9]\n\nRumors of possible austerity measures, denied by President Duque, angered left-wing groups, students and indigenous groups. [1][10] The idea of such measures originated from the introduction of a bill by Álvaro Uribe, mentor of President Duque. [1]\n\nDuque has been criticized strongly by human rights organizations for his opposition and ambivalence to the Colombian peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as violence occurring in rural areas of Colombia resulted with the deaths of indigenous leaders. Also both FARC and the right-wing Colombian government have been accused repeatedly of human rights violations and of violating the peace treaty signed by both parties in Havana, Cuba in 2016. [1]\n\nInequality in Colombia refers to the existing economic and social inequality in the country. According to World Bank figures, in 2017, Colombia was the second most unequal country in Latin America and the seventh in the world, out of the total of 194 countries that exist on the planet. Despite sustained economic growth of gross domestic product, which stood at 6.6% between 2006–2014, the inequality index did not drop enough during the peak of the oil boom. [11]\n\nAs a means of demonstrating, labor unions organized a twelve-hour nationwide strike that was to be held on 21 November 2019, with other groups such as Indigenous leaders, students, and anti-corruption activists. [1]\n\nTime reports that the protesters in Colombia come from all backgrounds, and that they are protesting because of a general displeasure with government actions across a range of issues, triggered to action by rumors of pension cuts. These protests follow smaller student protests earlier in the year that failed to attract many supporters or attention, and have been inspired by the other protests across Latin America. [7]\n\nOn 21 November, many Colombians, estimated between 200,000 and over 1 million, protested throughout the country, with the government responding by deploying 170,000 troops. [10] The Colombian government also closed all of its borders. Following similar demonstrations throughout Latin America, protesters displayed flags of Chile and Ecuador and banners reading \"South America woke up\", and chanted anti-violence slogans. [1] Demonstrations turned violent, with clashes between police and protesters occurring later in the day and some groups attempting to storm Capitolio Nacional, the building that houses the Congress of Colombia. [10] Fights broke out near the country's international airport, and tear gas was also fired at people at the National University of Bogotá. [7]\n\nDuring the protests on 21 November, 68 out of 138 TransMilenio stations were vandalized, 48 percent of the system infrastructure. [12] The mayor of Cali imposed a curfew from 19:00 local time until 6:00 the next morning (UTC−5) as a response to violence. [6] In the evening, a spontaneous cacerolazo happened in the capital and several other cities, after which senator Gustavo Petro encouraged more protests. [13] On the first day of protests, three people were killed,[14] with 98 arrested and 273 combined protesters and security forces injured. [13]\n\nThe following day, thousands of protesters gathered at Plaza Bolívar in the capital Bogotá, where they were later dispersed with tear gas. [13] In response to the protests, President Duque said that he would open a \"national conversation\" after the weekend; the Defence Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said that 11 investigations into \"alleged misconduct by members of the security forces\" had begun. [15]\n\nTransportation in the capital was largely closed, and road blockades had been built in some areas. [13] Many protests were peaceful, while some instances of looting and the theft of a public bus occurred in the capital city, where a curfew was enforced in the evening. [13] Some protesters ignored the curfew, with others protesting outside of Duque's house through the night. [15] In Santander de Quilichao in the southwest of the country, three police officers were killed, and ten more injured, by a car bomb. [13]\n\nAfter the initial anti-austerity and anti-corruption protests had begun, other groups joined in demonstrations, including environmental action groups, animal rights groups, and women's rights groups. [7] The lootings happening in poorer areas have contributed to an increase in anti-Venezuelan sentiment, with some suspecting Venezuelan migrants to part of the perpetrators. [16]\n\nGoing into the morning of 23 November, Duque said that he would not recall troops that had been patrolling in the streets, and that the measure was to maintain order. [9] After the previous night's curfew, protesters returned to the streets, with hundreds in the capital's National Park being dispersed with tear gas, and to Plaza Bolívar and the Capitol building. [9] When looting happened through protests and rioting, the government referred to the actions as an \"orchestrated terror campaign\". [17]\n\nOne protester was critically wounded on Saturday after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister, prompting other protesters to hold a vigil. [18] The protester died two days later. [19]\n\nOn 1 December, the so-called Continental Cacerolazo was held, in Bogotá the Andean cacerolazo was held in Park Way[20] and popular assemblies began in neighborhoods of Bogotá. [21] A week later the so-called \"Concert of the Strike\" or \"A Song for Colombia\" was held in Bogotá on 8 December at the Simón Bolívar Park with artists such as Doctor Krapula, Bomba Estéreo, Adriana Lucía, Diamante Eléctrico, Totó la Momposina, among others. [22] On 10 December, mobilizations were held for International Human Rights Day,[23] 82 holding sit-ins in front of the National University of Colombia and the National Center for Historical Memory, ending in Disturbances. On the other hand, ESMAD made two illegal arrests. [24] On 16 December, a cacerolazo was held in front of the Congress of the Republic when the tax reform or \"Economic Growth Law\" was debated in rejection of it. In Cali there were riots in the Juanchito sector. [25] Three days later, a demonstration was held in the north of the country's capital, riots broke out in front of the Colombian Stock Exchange and a young man loses an eye when fleeing to the National Pedagogical University. [26]\n\nOn 13 January, meetings were held between the national government and the union, student and social organizations promoting the National Strike, without results. [27] On 21 January, the National Strike Committee calls for a new pot and a national strike day.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["closed all of its borders","deploying 170,000 troops"]},{"role":"Method","values":["displayed flags of Chile and Ecuador and banners reading \"South America woke up\", and chanted anti-violence slogans"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["income inequality, corruption, police brutality and various proposed economic and political reforms proposed by the government of Iván Duque Márquez"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["68 out of 138 TransMilenio stations were vandalized"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["17 deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["21 November 2019"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Colombians","Hundreds of thousands","between 200,000 and over 1 million"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Bangladesh protests","document":"The 2020 Bangladeshi protests were protests by hundreds of thousands of protesters against France[1][2] and rape. Protests in Bangladesh erupted on 7 October after a video of a group of men attacking, stripping, and assaulting a woman went viral, Human Rights Watch said. Protesters called for the resignation of Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal over the government's failure to address an alarming rise violence against women and girls. Rape protests continued and demonstrators threatened to escalate the protests. Demonstrations by schoolgirls took place on 11 October and soon, police tried to break up the protests with water cannon. At the end of the month and in November, tens of thousands of protesters marched daily against the regime of Emmanuel Macron and his discrimination of Islam. [3] The protesters burned pictures of Emmanuel Macron and Charlie Hebdo and used slippers at police. [4] Police opened fire on demonstrators and one death was reported and soon, Clashes broke out by November. After violence, protests turned peaceful and men dominated demonstrations. Protests ended on 3 November. ","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["burned pictures of Emmanuel Macron and Charlie Hebdo and used slippers at police"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["France[1][2] and rape","a video of a group of men attacking, stripping, and assaulting a woman went viral","the government's failure to address an alarming rise violence against women and girls","the regime of Emmanuel Macron and his discrimination of Islam"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["one death"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November","7 October","11 October"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["tens of thousands","hundreds of thousands of protesters","schoolgirls"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020–2021 Slovenian protests","document":"OPS - Aware people of Slovenia organization\n\n2+ OPS protestors \n\nThe 2020 Slovenian protests are ongoing mostly peaceful protests against Janez Janša's government. Protests are held every Friday in the capital city of Ljubljana, they started during lockdown with people displaying banners and flags on their windows and balconies. At the end of April protests moved to the streets with most people being on bicycles. [1] At the end of October Friday protestors cancelled further street protest due to spread of COVID-19, but they continued to protest from their homes. In November two new groups who are not associated with Friday protestors staged street protests and caused violence. Police used tear gas and water cannons in intervention against those protestors. [2]\n\nJanez Janša has been accused of eroding freedom of media since assuming office. According to a report by International Press Institute Slovenia has experienced a swift downturn in media and press freedom. IPI accused Janša of creating a hostile environment for journalists by his tweets, which IPI described as \"vitriolic attacks\". [1][3] He has also been accused of usurping power and corruption. He is often compared to Viktor Orbán because of his authoritarianism. [4][5]\n\nAfter formation of 14th government of Slovenia people started displaying flags and banners on the balconies and windows. Street protests were not organized in March because of COVID-19 pandemic. On 27 April, first street protests occurred in Ljubljana, Maribor, and few smaller cities. Protests were organized by facebook group \"Resistance to government of Slovenia\". [6]\n\nOn 1 May, around 3,500 cyclist held a peaceful protest in Ljubljana. On 8 May, around 7,000 people, mostly on bicycles protested in front of National Assembly Building. Former prime minister Marjan Šarec showed sympathies towards protestors, he also said that protests were organized by activists and not by politicians. [7]\n\nOn the night of 14 May, police placed a fence in front of national assembly. Next day protestors jumped over the fence and wrote \"our property\" inside the fenced area. Youth for Climate Justice environmental group joined today's protests. One person was arrested. [8]\n\nOn 22 May, protest was held in front of National Assembly Building, environmental groups joined the protests. [9]\n\nOn 29 May, protestors turned their back to National Assembly and stood in silence for 2 minutes. Few protestors were fined for writing with chalk on sidewalk, including theater director Jaša Jenull. Police estimated that around 5,000 people gathered on the protest while some estimated number of 10,000. [10]\n\nOn 5 June, many protestors started writing with chalk on sidewalk like few last Friday, police decided to not fine protestors anymore. [11]\n\nOn 12 June, protestors built paper airplanes and threw them at the police officers who were guarding fenced area in front of National Assembly. On paper planes was a writing, reading \"Death to Janšism, freedom to everyone\" (a play on words on popular anti-Axis resistance slogan), this slogan was also shouted by some of the protestors. Around 8 PM local time, police clashed with protestors who tried to remove fence which was place in front of National Assembly, some protestors jumped over the fence but they didn't manage reach the National Assembly. Seven people were detained, they were taken to the police station and fined. Among those who jumped over the fence was artist Jaša Mrevlje Pollak, he was arrested and held in police van, he was released after 30 minutes with no criminal charges. [12][13][14]\n\nOn 19 June, peaceful protests were held in Ljubljana, Maribor and Celje. Protestors called police to join them. [15]\n\nOn 25 June, Statehood day of Slovenia 2 hours before national celebration, protestors organized \"alternative celebration\". Protestors were met by around 30 anti-protestors in yellow vests, police created corridor between two groups to prevent their confrontation. These anti-protestors called themselves \"yellow vests\" [16] Eight of anti-protestors were later identified to be members Slovenian neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour. On 26 June, on peaceful protests in Ljubljana protestors put chains on hands of France Prešeren statue, symbolizing decreasing civil liberty in Slovenia. [17]\n\nDuring whole July no incidents occurred on the protests. On 3 July, pro government anti-protestors yellow vests again showed up in counter of peaceful protest in Ljubljana, almost 100 organizations and initiatives have strongly condemned yellow vests' rally. Yellow vests told the media that they want \"to prevent coup\". From this day onward yellow vests were present as anti-protestors on every protest. [18]\n\nOn 10 July, after a long time National Assembly wasn't fenced for the protest but there was large police presence. [19]\n\nOn 17 July, protestors created \"protest Protest people's assembly\" in order to establish clearer demands. [20]\n\nOn 24 July, some protestors gathered earlier to protest for women's rights and express support for MeToo movement. Protest people's assembly continued to form demands and made expectations for future of Slovenia. [21]\n\nOn 31 July, protestors made a giant puppet of Janez Janša to mock him. Protest people's assembly made 245 proposals, ideas and demands about change in education, health, changes in electoral legislation, workers' rights and environmental protection. [22]\n\nThere were no incidents on protests during August. On 7 August, protests started in coastal town of Izola after a report that town paid two hotel rooms for Agriculture Minister Aleksandra Pivec.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["displaying banners and flags on their windows and balconies"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Janez Janša's government","Janez Janša has been accused of eroding freedom of media","He has also been accused of usurping power and corruption"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["the end of April","27 April","every Friday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["capital city of Ljubljana"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2015 Macedonian protests","document":"\n\nIn May 2015, protests occurred in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, against the incumbent Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his government. [1][2] Protests began following charges being brought up against Zoran Zaev, the Social Democratic opposition leader, who responded by alleging that Gruevski had 20,000 Macedonian officials and other figures wiretapped, and covered up the murder of a young man by a police officer in 2011. [8][9] A protest with up to 2,000 attendees occurred on May 5, seeing clashes between activists and police. [9]\n\nSeveral ministers, including the interior minister, resigned during the protests. [10] Gruevski himself refused to step down, saying on May 16 that \"if I back down it would be a cowardly move. I’ll face down the attacks.”[11]\n\nProtests continued through the month, and a large gathering of anti-government protestors was held in Skopje on May 17. [11] The number of protesters that turned up on Sunday, May 17 is estimated in the tens of thousands (40,000+). [12] Zaev claimed that the number of attendees at the rally on Sunday was more than 100,000 (between 100,000 and 120,000). [13] On May 18, a large pro-government rally occurred of Gruevski's supporters, said to be in the tens of thousands. [6] Estimates put pro-government supporters at around 30,000. [7] On May 19, Gruevski and Zaev met for talks, with several members of the European Parliament also present, in Strasbourg. The negotiations lasted for twelve hours but resulted in no agreements. On his return flight to Macedonia, Gruevski's plane made an emergency landing in Zurich after decompression in the air occurred. [14][15]\n\nEvents escalated after the April 2014 general election, in which Nikola Gruevski and his ruling party defeated Zoran Zaev and his Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. Zaev stated that SDSM would not recognize the elections as legitimate and claimed that the government abused the system. [16] Later, the government accused Zaev of planning a coup on January 31, 2015, and conspiring with a foreign intelligence service. They claimed that they obtained documents in which he conspired with the British ambassador. [17] He responded by releasing information which alleged that Gruevski had 20,000 Macedonian citizens wiretapped[18] and covered up the murder of a young man after the election in 2011, amongst other claims. [8] The beginning of the protest further set back Macedonia on its path of joining the European Union, which it has been attempting to do since 2005. [19]\n\nOn 10 October 2014, thousands of students took to the streets against a government plan to replace university-run examinations with state 'testing', accusing the government of infringing the autonomy of the country's universities[20] Similar protests also happened on 17 November and 10 and 25[21] December 2014. Academics supported the students' claims and Students Plenum, an ad hoc organizing committee, denied government claims that Zaev's opposition Social Democrats were behind the protests. [22] High school pupils have also protested against the changes on 19 March, 1 April, 6 May and 7 June 2015, and boycotted the classes in April and May 2015. Between 5,000—6,000 people showed up in a protest in Skopje on Tuesday, 5 May 2015. Protestors demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Gruevski and his cabinet. Police responded by clearing out the protest with tear gas. [23] A number of police officers were injured, with conflicting reports putting the figure between 10—38. [1][2] At least 19 protestors were injured. [8] Protests continued across the country, and a skirmish occurred on May 9 in the town of Kumanovo, northwestern Macedonia, between Albanian militants and Macedonian police. The skirmish resulted in several deaths. [24] On May 16, the government prepared for more actions as protests continued. [10] Gruevski stated to the pro-government Sitel TV on Saturday that \"if I back down it would be a cowardly move. I’ll face down the attacks.”[11]\n\nLarge crowds gathered to protest on May 17, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Gruevski, who refused and said a rally of supporters will occur on May 18. [11] The number of protesters was estimated to be in the tens of thousands, more than 30,000. [5] Zaev claimed that the protesters numbered 50,000, and said that some of them would remain there for days until Gruevski resigns. [13] European Union diplomats offered to mediate a solution to the crisis. [6]\n\nLater, tens of thousands appeared on the streets on Monday, May 18, at a pro-government rally. The total count of pro-government supporters was estimated to be between 30,000 and 70,000. The rally appeared to be peaceful and no clashes occurred between the two. [7]\n\nGruevski and Zaev met in Strasbourg for talks on May 19, held for about twelve hours, along with several members of the European Parliament. They made no progress, and a new meeting was scheduled for a later date. [15] Gruevski (VMRO-DPMNE), Zaev (SDSM), Ahmeti (DUI) and Thaci (DPA) met on 2 June in Skopje mediated by the Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn. Early general elections in April 2016 were announced. Three government officials, two ministers and the intelligence chief, resigned during the protests. [10] Those three included Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska, Transport Minister Mile Janakieski and intelligence chief Saso Mijalkov, who is also the Prime Minister's cousin. In his resignation letter, Mijalkov said that he hoped it would \"help in overcoming the political crisis imposed by the opposition\". [25] Gruevski refused to step down, and said on May 16, \"if I back down it would be a cowardly move. I’ll face down the attacks.”[11] Gruevski appeared at the head of a large pro-government rally on May 18 in Skopje, with tens of thousands showing up in support of the government. [26]\n\nThe political crisis which began with the wiretapping incident continued into 2016, with Gruevski ultimately resigning and being replaced by Emil Dimitriev as the Prime Minister of Macedonia as a result of the EU-brokered Pržino Agreement. The investigation into Gruevski and other politicians from VMRO-DPMNE was stopped in April 2016 by President Gjorge Ivanov, which resulted in several protests. [27]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the incumbent Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his government","a government plan to replace university-run examinations with state 'testing', accusing the government of infringing the autonomy of the country's universities"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 19 protestors were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday, 5 May 2015","May 5","Sunday, May 17","Monday, May 18","10 October 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Skopje","Skopje, Republic of Macedonia"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["thousands","the tens of thousands (40,000+","up to 2,000","students","5,000—6,000","between 30,000 and 70,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2007–2008 Senegalese protests","document":"\nThe 2007–2008 Senegalese protests were ongoing opposition protests and civil demonstrations, riots and strikes in Senegal over many issues. One of the main issues were deteriorating economic conditions and food price hikes due to the 2007–2008 world food price crisis. Hundreds attended rallies from January, March and September, before the biggest wave of protests. Demonstrators were met with bullets and tear gas. Water cannon was also shot at demonstrators demanding democratic reforms and justice from the government, yet the resignation of president Abdoulaye Wade. Thousands threw stones on demonstrators in November 2007, after a week-long uprising and bloody crackdown nationwide. Clashes between protesters and security forces, who launched strike action. After protests in December, protests calmed and ceased for 2–3 months until March–April 2008 when tanks was deployed after opposition protests and food riots in Dakar. Four people were killed in the uprising and ensuing clashes. Violent protests rocked the country until 28 April 2008, when two demonstrators were killed in clashes. [1][2][3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["deteriorating economic conditions and food price hikes due to the 2007–2008 world food price crisis"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two demonstrators were killed in clashes","Four people were killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["January, March and September"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Senegal"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Hundreds"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2006 Indian anti-reservation protests","document":"\n\nThe 2006 Indian anti-reservation protests were a series of protests that took place in India in 2006 in opposition to the decision of the Union Government of India, led by the Indian National Congress-headed multiparty coalition United Progressive Alliance, to implement reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in central and private institutes of higher education. These protests were one of the two major protests against the Indian reservation system, the other one being the 1990 anti-Mandal protests. The government proposed to reserve 27% of seats in the premier educational institutions of India like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and other central institutions of higher education for the OBCs in order to help them gain higher levels of representation in these institutions. This move led to massive protests, particularly from students and doctors belonging to the forward castes, who claimed that the government's proposal was discriminatory, discarded meritocracy and was driven by vote-bank politics. [1][2]\n\nIndia is divided into many endogamous groups i.e. castes and sub-castes, as a result of centuries of following Varnashrama Dharma, a social system which translates to \"types\" or \"order\". In olden times, the castes which were considered high in the Hindu caste hierarchy i.e. Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, Shudras. [3]\n\nDuring the British Raj, some methods for upliftment of these lower castes were introduced by the British, progressive thinkers and Hindu reformers. These included reservations in the legislature and in government jobs. [4] After independence, the Indian constitution introduced provisions for reservations for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST) in government institutions, to give a fair representation to the weakest sections of society i.e. Dalits and Adivasis. 22.5% of the seats (SC- 15%, ST- 7.5%) in higher education institutes and public sector undertakings at both state and central level were set-aside for them. Uplifting the SC/ST's representation par with the upper castes has not yet been achieved. In 1989, the then-Prime Minister of India V. P. Singh accepted and implemented nationwide the proposals of the Mandal Commission, which had been established by the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government in 1979. The proposals of this commission recommended 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in public sector undertakings and state-level educational institutions. OBC's were a group of castes which fell in-between the upper castes and Dalits; they were historically not oppressed and socially boycotted as the Dalits and Adivasis, but were still socially, educationally and economically backward compared to the upper castes. Though some Indian states such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had already implemented the OBC reservations earlier in their higher educational institutions, this decision now forced every Indian state to implement OBC reservation. By combining this 27% quota for OBC's and the earlier 22.5% reservation for the SC/ST's, the percentage of general (unreserved) seats in any medical, engineering or other institute falling under the state government reduced to 50.5%. This included even the unaided private colleges. As a result, there was widespread protests from the students belonging to the unreserved category (forward castes), claiming that they were being discriminated and that merit was being discarded. On 5 April 2006, Congress leader and then-Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, promised to implement a 27% reservation for OBCs in institutes of higher education (twenty central universities, the IITs, NITs, IIMs and AIIMS) after the State Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal, in accordance with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment which was passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament. [5] The 93rd Constitutional Amendment allows the government to make special provisions for the \"advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens\", including their admission in aided or unaided private educational institutions. Gradually this reservation policy is to be implemented in private sector institutions and companies as well. [6] Private sector institutions and companies had never come under the purview of reservation. The text of the 93rd amendment reads-\n\nGreater access to higher education including professional education, is of great importance to a large number of students belonging to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and other socially and educationally backward classes of citizens. The reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes of citizens in admission to educational institution is derived from the provisions of clause(4) of article 15 of the constitution. At present, the number of seats available in aided or State maintained institutions, particularly in respect of professional education, is limited, in comparison to those in private aided institutions. Clause(i) of article 30 of the Constitution provides the right to all minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. It is essential that the rights available to minorities are protected in regard to institutions established and administered by them. Accordingly, institutions declared by the State to be minority institutions under clause(1) of article 30 are excluded from the operation of this enactment. To promote the educational advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes of citizens,i.e., the Other Backward Classes or of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in matters of admission of students belonging to these categories in unaided educational institutions, other than the minority educational institutions referred to in clause(1) of article 30, the provisions of article 15 were amplified. The new clause(5) of said article 15 shall enable the Parliament as well as the State legislatures to make appropriate laws for the above mentioned purpose. [7]\nThis move led to opposition from students, as the proposal would reduce seats for the general category from the existing 77.5% to less than 51% (since members of OBCs are also allowed to contest in the General category), despite assurance from the government that the number of seats in these educational institutes will be increased so that effectively there will be no reduction in the number of seats available for the general category. The opposing students also felt that the government's move was merely to placate and consolidate the OBC vote bank. The private sector organisations too opposed the move, saying it would impede merit and reduce the competitiveness of the students. [8]\n\nThe protests began from 26 April 2006 with medical students protesting in New Delhi against the government's proposal, where students were lathi-charged and water cannons and tear gas were fired on the students. [9][10] Another such protest was carried out by medical students in New Delhi on 13 May 2006 where students were again lathi-charged and detained for few hours. [11] Medical students held a protest in Mumbai on 14 May 2006, where students were lathi-charged, despite the protest being banned by the Bombay High Court. [12] They were lathi-charged by the police. [12] In retaliation of the police action toward the anti-reservation protestors, a nationwide strike was launched by the \"anti-reservation\" medical students. Doctors from all over India who opposed the government's proposal too joined the protest. The government took measures to counter the protesting doctors by serving them with suspension letters and asking them to vacate the hostels to make way for newly recruited doctors. Some states invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) and gave notices to the doctors to return to work, failing which legal action would be taken against them. The government also put on alert 6,000 men from the Rapid Action Force to take care of any untoward incident. However, in most places the protesters remained defiant despite ESMA. Most forward caste students across India took to the streets, boycotting classes. In Delhi, a human chain rally was organized on 20 May by the students of IIT Delhi with the support of PanIIT, the IIT alumni organisation, to protest the OBC reservation. Nearly 150 students of New Delhi's 5 Medical Colleges went on a 'relay' hunger strike in AIIMS which lasted for about a month. A resolution signed by 2,500 IIT Roorkee students expressing their opposition to the OBC reservation, was sent to the then-President Abdul Kalam, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the then-Chief Justice of India Y. K. Sabharwal and the Election Commission of India.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the decision of the Union Government of India, led by the Indian National Congress-headed multiparty coalition United Progressive Alliance, to implement reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in central and private institutes of higher education"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2006","26 April 2006","20 May"]},{"role":"Location","values":["India","Delhi","New Delhi","Mumbai"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["students of IIT Delhi","medical students"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2005 Quebec student protests","document":"The 2005 Quebec student protests were a series of student strikes and student protests in opposition to budget cuts of C$103 million in the Grants and Loans program by the Charest government. It occurred between February 24 and April 2005 and involved thousands of CEGEP and universities students from across Quebec. During the 2003 Quebec general election campaign, the Liberal Party of Quebec, led by Jean Charest, made a promise to freeze education cost. Having to deal with a rough budget, and because of the election promise, the Quebec government changed the Grants and Loans program by transforming $103 million of grants into loans, nearly doubling the debt of the poorest students. Coalitions representing most CEGEPs and universities started to negotiate with the government. Talks and protests, in the form of marches, went on for over a year. Students from most CEGEPs and universities took the streets on April 14, 2004 (the first anniversary of the Charest government's election) and November 10, 2004. During their January 29–30, 2005 congress, the students' unions members of the ASSÉ (Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante) and other independent students' unions decide to form the Coalition de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante Élargie (CASSÉÉ) to coordinate the upcoming strike campaign. (\"Cassé\" is a French word equivalent to \"broke\".) The strike was initiated on February 21, by a member of the CASSÉÉ, the anthropology students' association from University of Montreal (Association étudiante d'anthropologie de l'Université de Montréal). But the real start was given on February 24 when over 30,000 students members of the CASSÉÉ, and a few other unions joined the strike. The FECQ and the FEUQ, federations of CEGEP and university unions, called for a student strike on March 4 and March 9[1] respectively. By March 15, over 100,000 students were on strike. This turn of events surprised many, as these organizations were traditionally opposed to strikes/boycotts as a negotiation tactic. [citation needed]\n\nOn March 16, 2005 students from traditionally more moderate institutions like École Polytechnique de Montréal, as well as from Concordia University and McGill's Post-Graduate Student Society joined the strike for 24 hours. Between 10,000 and 100,000 students (80,000 being the number most reported)[citation needed] took the streets for a peaceful march in Montreal, creating the largest student protest staged in Quebec until March 22, 2012. The École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal and McGill University undergraduates Students' Society of McGill University joined the strike on March 18 for 24 symbolic hours, though the McGill boycott went largely unobserved and further action was rejected by the student body through an online poll. This constituted the first strike since 1967 for the HEC and the first strike in 40 years for Polytechnique. On April 2, the student federations and the government reached an agreement that was still left to be voted on by the individual student associations during the week. This agreement consists of a CAN $70M refunding for 2005–2006 and a return of the $103M for the next 4 years, totaling $482M. This money comes from 3 levels: the millennium grant foundation, the federal government and the provincial government. The FEUQ officially endorsed the agreement, while the FECQ maintained a neutral position, saying it was \"interesting enough\" to be voted on by the individual members' unions. The CASSÉÉ rejected it. Over the next week, the movement mostly ended, with over two thirds of the students voting for a return to class during the week. However, at least 20 unions representing over 100,000 students rejected the offer and by April 11, there were still approximately 20,000 students boycotting class. During the following 2 weeks, most associations ended or suspended the boycott to allow the students to complete their semester. The symbol of support for the student strike was a small square of red cloth worn upon clothing as a kind of ribbon. The Parti Québécois MNAs, then in opposition, wore the red square to demonstrate their support for the striking students. On March 30, a group of students hoisted the symbol opposed to student poverty on Mount Royal Cross. It took a full day before authorities were able to remove it. On its lower panel, it was written: \"Arrêtons de sacrifier nos enfants\", which means: \"Let's stop sacrificing our children.\"","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["opposition to budget cuts of C$103 million in the Grants and Loans program by the Charest government"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["between February 24 and April 2005"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["The FECQ and the FEUQ, federations of CEGEP and university unions","thousands","CEGEP and universities students from across Quebec"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2006 student protests in Chile","document":"The 2006 student protests in Chile (also known as the Penguins' Revolution or The March of the Penguins, because of the students' uniform) were a series of ongoing student voice protests carried out by high school students across Chile from late April to early June 2006. The protests peaked on May 30 when 790,000 students adhered to strikes and marches throughout the country, becoming Chile's largest student demonstration of the past three decades and the first political crisis of president Michelle Bachelet's administration. Amongst the students' short-term demands were free travel passes on buses and the waiving of the university admissions test (PSU) fee, while the longer term demands included: the abolition of the Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching (LOCE), the end to municipalization of subsidized education, a reform to the Full-time School Day policy (JEC) and a quality education for all. On June 1, Bachelet addressed the nation by television, announcing several new measures for education that met most of the students' demands. On June 7 the president announced a 73-member presidential advisory committee – promised by Bachelet on her speech to discuss the students' long-term demands – which included six seats reserved for high school students. Initially hesitant to join the committee, on June 9 the student assembly finally accepted the invitation and called for an immediate end to strikes and school take-overs. On August 23, around 2,000 students were marching in Santiago and other cities in the country, in protest of the slow speed that the reforms were taking place. The rally eventually got violent when small groups turned away from the peaceful demonstrations and started throwing rocks at the police. The police responded with tear gas and water cannons. More than 200 of the demonstrators were arrested and over a dozen were injured. [1]\n\nThe Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching or LOCE (Act Nº 18,962) was enacted on March 7, 1990, and came into force on March 10, the last day of Pinochet's 16½ year dictatorship. Despite being widely criticized by both students and teachers as well as the ruling coalition (Concertación), it has remained largely unmodified since the restoration of democracy. Critics of LOCE point out that it reduces the state's participation in education to a solely regulatory and protective role, whilst the true responsibility of education has been transferred to private and public corporations (public schools being managed by local governments — Municipalidades), thus reducing the participation that students, parents, teachers and non-academic employees had previously enjoyed in their schools. During the 1990s, one of the main objectives of the Concertación administration was a so-called Educational Reform. One of the main pillars of this reform, launched during the Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle administration, was the Jornada Escolar Completa, JEC (Full-time School Day policy) — a plan to increase the hours that high school students actually spend in classrooms (in many cases not increasing the number of additional classrooms and other infrastructure required). However, many consider that the quality of education has dropped to worrying levels despite the high level of government spending on public education. Studies have showed that the JEC still has not been correctly implemented nor has it achieved the desired results. [2]\n\nSince 2000 a new demand has emerged with respect to the transport system's school pass and the new University Selection Test, and although much progress was made in some areas, the core of the students' demands have remained unsolved as of 2006. Following the announcement on April 24 of a new increase in fees for the PSU (up to $28,000 Chilean Pesos or around US$50) and the rumored introduction of a new restriction in the students' transport pass (Pase Escolar) that would limit reduced bus fares to only two travels per day, several public schools in Santiago organized demonstrations in the Alameda Avenue (Santiago's main street) demanding gratuity for transport passes, bus fares and university admissions tests. These demonstrations ended in some outbursts of violence — the Carabineros (the uniformed police) subsequently arrested 47 secondary students on April 26. [3]\n\nIn the following days, new demonstrations took place without the permission of the regional authority. Despite the Ministry of Education acceding to minor demands, the students were left unsatisfied. [4]\n\nOn May Day, secondary students of Santiago took part in a massive demonstration on Parque Almagro, near downtown Santiago. Violence again erupted and 1,024 students were arrested by the police in Santiago as well as in other cities throughout the country. [5] The violence was consequently condemned by the Government. Nothing justifies violence, violence is not the way and the government backs the actions of the police. The students have accomplished nothing\nFollowing three weeks of protests, little progress for the students' demands had been achieved. A turning point arose when students of the prestigious school Instituto Nacional and Liceo de Aplicación overran the school campuses during the night of May 19, 2006[6] demanding an improvement in the educational reform including: the ending of the system of schools being run by municipalities (present since 1982), the abolition of the LOCE, as well as a clear declaration by President Bachelet in her traditional May 21 speech to the National Congress. In her speech, the President only indirectly referred to the students' demands and instead focused in condemning the students' recent acts of violence. I want our citizens to be critical, self-conscious, and to express their ideas and demands. However, the criticism must be expressed in a constructive manner, laying clear proposals upon a table, and most importantly, with an unveiled face without resorting to violence. I want to be crystal clear in this, what we have witnessed in the past weeks is unacceptable. I shall not tolerate acts of vandalism or intimidation. We won democracy without resorting to concealing our faces and we shall continue [enjoying it] without doing so (this was in reference to the practice of certain individuals who anonymously partook in violence under the cover of hoods). The government's reply did not satisfy the students' leaders who called for the continuation of demonstrations, even though the Instituto Nacional students desisted in its school take-over in exchange for a school strike which was supported by teachers, parents and the school administrators alike. [8] Occupations of several Liceos (public high schools) continued — among others Liceo A-13 (formerly, Confederación Suiza) and Liceo Carmela Carvajal — and two failed attempts to occupy the Liceo José Victorino Lastarria in Providencia. [9] Although peaceful, the occupations were rejected by the government and the Education Minister Martín Zilic, broke off negotiations stating that he would not come back to the table as long as the mobilizations continued. [10]\n\nIn order to move forward in a discussion about quality, we need everybody's participation (...) that's a dialogue, not with occupations of schools, not with violence on the streets, not with covered faces. The president said we won democracy with uncovered faces and we are going to maintain talks with an uncovered face as a lesson to some youths in Santiago who have occupied their schools; that's not the way. The path is through dialogue, that is the way you build a better education and make a big leap to the future\nHowever, the ministerial strategy of avoiding dialogue did not work out. Since April 24, there were fourteen schools either occupied or on strike including the Liceo Nº1 de Niñas — the school that President Bachelet herself attended as a student. [11]\n\nWhat is not understandable is that while trying to talk, there's also the applying of pressure. That is not the way to create dialogue in a democracy. It is terrific that they have chosen to reveal their faces. Now what they must do is to be able to dialogue seriously, but with a will to negotiate from both sides. The government is willing to discuss many topics, but it must be done with respect and without pressure. The government has already shown that it agrees to seek a solution on the PSU and the school bus pass, jointly with the ministries of Transportation, Education, and Finance, and they know this...regarding the JEC, they know that I am interested in knowing their evaluation of the JEC, if they consider that it isn't fulfilling its objective, what we want is to improve the quality of education, we are completely available to listen to everything. That same night, eleven schools in Santiago downtown, Ñuñoa, Estación Central, La Cisterna, Maipú, Providencia and Recoleta were occupied by students. [12] The students received political support from deputies from the governing coalition, the College of Teachers and other institutions, leaving Minister Zilic in a fragile position. He finally called for a new round of negotiations with \"all representatives of schools in conflict\" which was scheduled for the following Monday May 29.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["Bachelet addressed the nation by television, announcing several new measures for education that met most of the students' demands. On June 7 the president announced a 73-member presidential advisory committee – promised by Bachelet on her speech to discuss the students' long-term demands – which included six seats reserved for high school students"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["More than 200 of the demonstrators were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["short-term demands were free travel passes on buses and the waiving of the university admissions test (PSU) fee, while the longer term demands included: the abolition of the Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching (LOCE), the end to municipalization of subsidized education, a reform to the Full-time School Day policy (JEC) and a quality education for all"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["over a dozen were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late April to early June 2006","peaked on May 30"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Chile"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["790,000 students","high school students across Chile"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mexican Indignados Movement","document":"\n\nThe Mexican Indignados Movement (Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad) is an ongoing protest movement  that began on 28 March 2011 in response to the Mexican Drug War, government and corporate corruption, regressive economic policies, and growing economic inequality and poverty. The protests were called by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia in response to the death of his son in Cuernavaca. [1] The protesters have called for an end to the Drug War, the legalization of drugs, and the removal of Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Protests have occurred in over 40 Mexican cities, including an estimated 50,000 in Cuernavaca and 20,000 in Mexico City. [2]\n\nThe protests continued in Cuernavaca on 5 May, when over 600 marched against the Drug War. [3]\n\nThe movement headed by Javier Sicilia may have had a role in the rejection in 2011 of a reform to the National Security Act that would have granted more attributions related to public security to the Mexican Armed Forces. [4]\n\nFollowing Javier Sicilia's sons death on 28 March, and open letter \"To Mexico's Politicians and Criminals\"[5] a silent protest took place in Zócalo, Mexico City on 8 May. The protest began in Cuernavaca, Morelos where more than 200,000 protesters walked 100 km to Mexico City. [6] Some protesters were covered in blood, while others carried pictures of their dead family members. The slogans in these protests include \"Estamos hasta la madre!\" (\"We've had it!\") and \"No más sangre\" (\"No more blood\"). [7]\n\nOn September 5, 2011, President Felipe Calderon gave the fifth state of the nation address since his contested election in 2006. More than 50,000 people attended a demonstration to the Zócalo main square in Mexico City. More than half the square has been occupied since May 2011. [8]\n\nDemonstrations occurred throughout Mexico as part of the 15 October 2011 global protests. Hundreds of people marched at the Monument to the Revolution at one of the smaller protests of the day. This protest was connected to the world Occupy Movement, which although centres around the world financial imbalance, carries multiple causes. The protest held in Mexico contained signs that read; No blood or STOP the war on drugs. [9]\n\nThe organizers of the main protests, also known as the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity were able to voice their concerns to the Federal Cabinet in June 2011. [10] In response to the protests anti-military concerns Calderon explained \"Violence does not occur in a particular place because the Federal Forces are there. The opposite is true: the Federal Forces are there because that is where there is violence. It is the violence of criminals that kill and abduct rather than the state's response to combat them that has caused this situation. \"[10]\n\nThe main goals of these protests are to 'pull the army off the streets',[11] decrease the death number specifically of innocent bystanders by ensuring the safety of citizens. [12] The protesters are not in favour of President Calderon's drug-cartel dismantling policies, namely his national security strategy creating 'militarization of the war on drugs', where cities became reminiscent of battle grounds between battling cartel and government militia. [7]\n\nDespite the many deaths of political figures, the protesters brought to light the heavy civilian death toll, carrying pictures of loved ones who have been killed in the country's drug related violence. The numbers are not concrete due to lack of police records and discrepancy but estimates but the number to the tens of thousands. [13] This discrepancy points to police corruption as authorities are being accused of \"under-reporting the number of deaths or deliberately changing the details of those killed to make it appear that the victims are criminals rather than civilians\". [11]\n\nAdditionally, Calderon's National Security Strategy was heavily debated as it sanctions 'warrantless searches, the detention of suspects without charges; the collection of intelligence and counterintelligence \"using any method; and electronic surveillance of citizens\". [7]\n\nA Nation Pact, signed 14 June was a collaborate effort to set out an outline for the civilians demands. These demands follow the outline of the goals of the protests and include ' giving more visibility to the victims of violence and their families, ending the administration's \"militarized approach\" to combating crime, punishing corruption and impunity, working to address the social and economic causes of organized crime. '[14]\n\nThe influence and growth of these protests have led to smaller demonstrations held in cities all over the world. Cities with Mexican sub-communities such as Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Montreal, The Hague, and Frankfurt have held their own protests in support of crisis in Mexican cities. Protests were also coordinated in Washington, D.C., as U.S. policy supports and supplies Calderon's policies. [15]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Mexican Drug War, government and corporate corruption, regressive economic policies, and growing economic inequality and poverty"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["began on 28 March 2011","5 May"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Cuernavaca","Mexico City","over 40 Mexican cities"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["50,000","20,000","over 600"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Kyrgyzstani protests","document":"\n\n Government of Kyrgyzstan\n\nAlmazbek Atambayev\nAdakhan Madumarov\n\nThe 2020 Kyrgyzstani protests (or Kyrgyz Revolution of 2020) began on 5 October 2020 in response to the recent parliamentary election that was perceived by protestors as unfair, with allegations of vote rigging. [7][8] The results of the election were annulled on 6 October 2020. [9] On 12 October 2020, President Jeenbekov announced a state of emergency in the capital city of Bishkek,[10] which was approved by Parliament the following day. [11] Jeenbekov resigned on 15 October 2020. [12]\n\nKyrgyzstan had faced two revolutions during the early 21st century, including the Tulip Revolution in 2005 and the Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010. [13] In August 2020, Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov indicated that the parliamentary elections would not be postponed despite the coronavirus pandemic. [14] During the elections, several parties were accused of buying votes. [15] Several journalists also reported that they had been harassed or attacked. [16] Out of the parties that made it into parliament, only United Kyrgyzstan consistently opposes the incumbent government led by Jeenbekov. [17]\n\nPolitical analysts have tied the 2020 protests to a socio-economic divide between Kyrgyzstan's agrarian south and more-developed north. Of the initial election results, 100 of the 120 seats were filled by southerners who supported Jeenbekov. [18]\n\nThe protests began on 5 October 2020, with a crowd of 1,000 people,[7]  that grew to at least 5,000 people by evening in Bishkek (the capital of Kyrgyzstan) in protest against results and allegations of vote-buying in the October 2020 parliamentary election. [8] After nightfall, following a police operation to clear the Ala-Too Square of protesters with tear gas and water cannons, protesters allegedly attacked police officers with rocks and injured two of them. [19][20] Former President Almazbek Atambayev was freed from prison. [21]\n\nIn the early morning of 6 October 2020, the protesters reclaimed control of the Ala-Too Square in central Bishkek. [22] They also managed to seize the White House and Supreme Council buildings nearby, throwing paper from windows and setting them on fire,[4] also entering the President's offices. A protestor died and 590 others were injured. [23]\n\nOn 6 October, following the protests, the electoral authorities in the country annulled the results of the parliamentary elections. [9] Central Election Commission member Gulnara Jurabaeva also revealed the commission was considering self-dissolution. [24]\n\nIn the meantime, opposition groups claimed to be in power after seizing government buildings in the capital, in which several provincial governors have reportedly resigned. [4] President Sooronbay Jeenbekov said that he faced a coup d'état,[4] then he told the BBC, that he was \"ready to give the responsibility to strong leaders\". [25]\n\nProtestors freed former president Almazbek Atambayev and opposition politician Sadyr Japarov from prison. [3][26]\n\nLikely due to pressure from the protest, Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov resigned, citing parliamentary deputy Myktybek Abdyldayev as the new speaker. [27]\n\nOpposition parties were unsuccessful at forming a new government on Wednesday, 7 October. Following the resignation of Prime Minister Boronov, former lawmaker Sadyr Japarov was appointed to replace him. Opposition parties rejected the legitimacy of Japarov's status and instead put forward their own candidate for prime minister, Tilek Toktogaziyev. Japarov claimed that he was already the \"legitimate prime minister\" and that he was appointed by \"the parliament's majority.\" Boronov's resignation, however, had yet to be confirmed by President Jeenbekov, and government websites continued to list him as the prime minister on 7 October. [28]\n\nCrowds gathered to protest the nomination of Japarov and demand the resignation of Jeenbekov. According to the Ministry of Healthcare, no fewer than 768 people injured during the protests have been treated by the country's hospitals and clinics as of Wednesday morning. [29] According to Reuters, at least three distinct groups have now attempted to claim leadership. [30]\n\nMeanwhile, Kyrgyz parliamentarians launched impeachment procedures against Jeenbekov, according to a parliamentarian from the opposition party Ata-Meken, Kanybek Imanaliev. [31]\n\nJeenbekov declared a state of emergency, ordering troops to deploy in Bishkek. The declaration imposes a 12-hour curfew until October 21. [32] Gunfire was heard during violent clashes in Bishkek that broke out after Jeenbekov's declaration. [33] Jeenbekov formally accepted Boronov's resignation. [34]\n\nKyrgyzstani special forces detained former President Almazbek Atambayev in a raid on his compound. [35] Former Member of Parliament Sadyr Japarov, who was freed from prison on October 5 by protesters, was nominated as interim Prime Minister by Parliament. [36]\n\nA second state of emergency was declared by President Jeenbekov in Bishkek from 12 October to 19 October. [10][37] Opposition parties announced their intentions to oust Jeenbekov; Jeenbekov stated that he would consider resigning, but only after the political crisis is resolved. A curfew was put in place, in effect from 10 pm to 5 am. Convoys of troops from the Kyrgyz military were sent into the capital city to control the situation. [37]\n\nKanat Isaev was elected as the new Speaker of the Supreme Council, as there were no other candidates seeking the position. [38] Parliament endorsed Jeenbekov's second declaration of a state of emergency, after previously rejecting his first. [11] President Jeenbekov formally rejected the nomination of Sadyr Japarov to the position of Prime Minister. [39]\n\nSooronbay Jeenbekov resigned as President of Kyrgyzstan in an attempt to end the political unrest, while also stating that he \"Calls on Japarov and the other politicians to withdraw their supporters out of the capital of the nation and to return the people of Bishkek to peaceful lives\". [40][41] Japarov declared himself as acting president. [12][42][43] Despite the Kyrgyzstan Constitution stating that the speaker of the Supreme Council should succeed the role, Kanatbek Isaev refused to assume office, resulting in Japarov becoming the acting president. [44][45]\n\nOn 7 October, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, \"As a friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner, China sincerely hopes that all parties in Kyrgyzstan can resolve the issue according to law through dialogue and consultation, and push for stability in Kyrgyzstan as soon as possible. \"[46]\n\nOn 7 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed that Russia is concerned by the political unrest taking place in nearby Kyrgyzstan and hoped for a swift return to stability.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["response to the recent parliamentary election that was perceived by protestors as unfair, with allegations of vote rigging"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["5 October 2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kyrgyzstani"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2009 Georgian demonstrations","document":"\n\nIn 2009, a mass rally by a coalition of opposition parties in took place in Georgia against the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Thousands of people demonstrated, mainly in the capital, Tbilisi, starting on 9 April 2009, demanding Saakashvili's resignation. [1] On the first day of demonstrations, up to 40,000 people gathered in Tbilisi. [2] Opposition activists had expected some 100,000 – 150,000 participants. [3][4] Protests continued for over three months, although fewer people participated as time passed than during the first days. On 26 May 2009, the Georgian Independence Day, 60,000 protesters took part. [5] Although peaceful at first, there were incidents of fighting between the Georgian police and protesters. [6][7]  The daily rallies gradually dwindled and ended, without achieving any tangible results, on 24 July –107 days after they kicked off. [8]\n\nOn 27 March 2009, 13 opposition parties agreed to hold a joint rally to demand Saakashvili's resignation in an announcement named Manifesto of Unity. It was signed by Alliance for Freedom (uniting Party of Freedom; Party of Women for Justice and Equality; Traditionalists and Party of Future); Conservative Party (leaders – Kakha Kukava and Zviad Dzidziguri); Democratic Movement–United Georgia (led by Nino Burjanadze); Georgia's Way (led by Salome Zourabichvili); Industrialists Party (led by Zurab Tkemaladze and beer magnate Gogi Topadze); Movement for United Georgia (founded by ex-defense minister Irakli Okruashvili); Party of People (led by Koba Davitashvili); and the Alliance for Georgia, uniting New Rights, Republican Party and a political team of Irakli Alasania, who had earlier showed reservations about joining the manifestations. Levan Gachechiladze, a former opposition presidential candidate, has joined the document as an individual politician. [9]\n\nAccording to Eka Beselia, a spokeswoman for the For a United Georgia party, the protest is intended to change power in a constitutional way. \"The action will be halted only when the power of Saakashvili comes to an end. We'll force him by a peaceful but nation-wide protest to resign,\" Beselia said on 13 March. [10] Salome Zourabichvili stressed on 8 April, that the demonstrators will remain on the streets until the president steps down. [3]\n\nThe date of 9 April 2008, was chosen because it will be the 20-year anniversary of the day when 20 people died as Soviet Red Army troops dispersed a pro-independence rally in Tbilisi. [1]\n\nOpposition parties have accused Saakashvili of concentrating power to himself, using riot police to crush opposition rallies in 2007 and for the disaster of the 2008 South Ossetia war. \"I don't think that it should be a surprise that after we lost 20% of Georgian territory and have no democracy in the country, we are asking for the resignation of the president,\" opposition leader Nino Burjanadze said. [1][4]\n\nOn 8 April, the Tbilisi-based pro-opposition Maestro TV aired a brief video, informing the public that the opposition and their supporters will start gathering at three various venues in the capital city – in Avlabari Square, Tbilisi State University and at the public broadcaster’s office subsequently to join outside the Parliament in Rustaveli Avenue. [11]\n\nForeign diplomats have called for a dialogue between the government and opposition,[12] and the Georgian Orthodox Church has urged the opposition, the government and the Georgian army not to resort to force. [13]\n\nOn 8 April 2009, Georgian police set up a Monitoring Center to oversee the rallies and invited foreign diplomats to keep a close eye on police and protesters’ actions. The office of Georgian public defender Sozar Subari and a group of local non-governmental organizations will also monitor the events. Irakli Alasania, leader of the Alliance for Georgia, said that the opposition was willing to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies to provide security during the rallies. [14]\n\nPresident Saakashvili has stated there was \"no alternative to dialogue\" and the government was ready to talk even \"with the smallest and the most radical group\". [15] The Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said that the authorities would show \"maximum tolerance\" towards the protesters and police would retaliate in case of the opposition attempts at storming the government buildings. [16] Fire crews and hundreds of police in full riot gear were positioned on the courtyard of the parliament in central Tbilisi in early 9 April. [17]\n\nOn the morning of 9 April, the Democratic Movement–United Georgia party claimed that 60 of its members had been arrested in overnight raids. [1][18] Up to 40,000 people gathered in Tbilisi on 9 April. The protesters gave Saakashvili time until 11:00 GMT on Friday, 10 April to stand day and agree to the demands. [2] A few hundred protesters stayed the night outside the parliament. Opposition leaders asked people to meet again at afternoon next day. Eka Beselia said he did not expect Saakashvili to adhere to the deadline, and that concrete action was planned for Friday. [19]\n\nOn 10 April, about 20,000[citation needed] people took part in the rally in Tbilisi. The opposition announced the start of a national disobedience campaign. Major roads in Tbilisi were blocked off for six hours, causing the traffic in the city to paralyze. The opposition said that the same action will be repeated every day. [20]\n\nThe Georgian opposition said on 12 April 2009 it would continue its peaceful protest demanding the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili, despite its previous decision to hold a break for a religious holiday. [21]\n\nOn 13 April 2009 the protesters set up camp outside President Saakashvili's office. [22] and the opposition leaders stated they were ready to hold talks with the president but that an election was the only way out of the deadlock. [22]\n\nOpposition leaders have pledged to keep the protests peaceful[22] but on 6 May 2009 protesters and police clashed near a police base. The Interior Ministry said 22 protesters and six policemen were injured. The opposition said several of its leaders were also treated in hospital. Protesters appeared to have converged on the police base to demand the release of three opposition activists detained over the beating of a journalist on 5 May 2009. [23]\n\nOn 26 May 2009, the Georgian independence day, 60,000 protesters gathered to demand Saakashvili's resignation. [5] The opposition has also forced the government to cancel the annual military parade. [5] Opposition leaders still insisted that protests will continue until Saakashvili resigns. Saakashvili, on his part, reiterated his refusal once again. [5]\n\nOn 28 May 2009, several protesters and five policemen were injured in a clash close to the protest venue outside the Parliament. [6] According to the Georgian government, least one police officer was stabbed and others were beaten. However, the opposition denied the report, saying some 20 plainclothes police attacked its supporters with batons.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2009"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tbilisi","Georgia"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["a coalition of opposition parties","Thousands of people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Khuzestan protests","document":"\n\nThe 2011–2012 protests in Iran were a series of demonstrations in Iran which began on 14 February 2011, called \"The Day of Rage\". [9] The protests followed the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests and were influenced by other concurrent protests in the region. [10]\n\nFollowing the highly controversial 2009 Iranian presidential elections, massive protests erupted across Iran. The Iranian government suppressed the protests and stopped the mass demonstrations in 2009, with only very minor flare-ups in 2010. However, not many of the protesters' demands were met. Then, the Arab Spring spread across the West Asia and North Africa. After the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia on 14 January 2011, millions of people began demonstrating across the region in a broad movement aimed at various issues such as their standards of living or influencing significant reforms, with varying degrees of success. With the successful ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011 following that of President Ben Ali of Tunisia, renewed protests began in Iran. On 27 January, the opposition Green Movement of Iran announced a series of protests against the Iranian government scheduled to take place prior to the \"Revolution Day\" march on 11 February. [11]\n\nOn 9 February, various opposition groups in Iran sent a letter to the Ministry of Interior requesting permission to protest under the control of the Iranian police. Permission was refused by the relevant government officials. [12] Despite these setbacks and crackdowns on activists and members of opposition parties, opposition leaders such as Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi called for protests. [13][14] According to BBC, supporters of the opposition argued that Ahmadinejad’s re-election as president in June 2009, was rigged. [15]\n\nThis date was chosen for protests to coincide with 25 Bahman, the 11th month of the Persian calendar,[16] and was publicized as \"The Day of Rage\". [9] The day before the protests were due to begin, opposition leaders Mousavi and Karroubi were placed under house arrest and denied access to telephones and the Internet. Their homes were blockaded and they were not allowed visitors. [17][18] On 14 February 2011, thousands of protesters began to gather in a solidarity rally with Egypt and Tunisia. There was a large number of police on the streets to keep an eye on the protesters, but thousands were still able to gather together in Tehran's Azadi Square. [19]\n\nThe solidarity protests turned into an anti-government demonstration during which the police fired tear gas and paintballs at protesters. [20][21] To protect themselves, protesters responded by setting fires in garbage bins. [22] Video footage showed one civilian being violently beaten by a group of protesters. [23] Two protesters were killed in Tehran, both university students. Sane Jaleh during the protest, and Mohammad Mokhtari the next day from his wounds. According to reporter Farnaz Fassihi, Jaleh and Mokhtari were both shot by men on motorcycles who their friends identified as Basij members. [24]\n\nProtests were also reported in the cities of Isfahan and Shiraz, which police forcibly dispersed,[22] as well as in Rasht, Mashhad, and Kermanshah. [25]\n\nThe protests that occurred on this day marked a setback for the government of Iran, as the regime has campaigned that Mousavi's Green Movement had lost momentum, but the revived uprisings helps prove otherwise. [26]\n\nAccording to some reports, 1,500 Hezbollah fighters assisted in the suppression of the protests in Azadi Square. Following the initial protests, Hezbollah fighters allegedly continued to participate, assisting local forces in suppressing protests. [27][28]\n\nProtests on 15 February were not as intense as the day before. [29] On 16 February, there were sporadic clashes between protesters and pro-government forces. Karroubi and Mousavi responded to calls for their execution by saying they are willing to die for change. [30]\n\nThousands of pro-government supporters turned up in Tehran for several state sponsored rallies on 16 February. [31]\n\nOn 17 February, it was reported that opposition leader Mousavi had been missing since Tuesday, 15 February. [32] Mousavi's daughters stated that they had had no contact with their father for over two days after security forces had put him under house arrest. His daughters feared that both Mousavi and their mother \"had been detained\". [33] Mousavi's website stated that the \"normal\" guards that had been surrounding his home during his house arrest over the past week had been replaced with \"masked security forces\". [34] Karroubi reported that one of his son's homes had been raided in an attempt to arrest his eldest son, but he was not in the building at the time. [33]\n\nOn 18 February, thousands of pro-government supporters called for the execution of opposition leaders after Friday prayers. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said that the opposition leaders had lost their reputation and are as good as \"dead and executed.\" He said there should be more restrictions on Mousavi and Karroubi. \"Their communications with people should be completely cut. They should not be able to receive or send messages. Their phone lines and Internet should be cut. They should be prisoners in their homes. \"[35]\n\nOn 19 February, the Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar stated that the protests set for Sunday, 20 February, will \"be confronted as per the law\". [36]\n\nProtests were also planned for 20 February, to mark a week since the deaths of those killed in the 14 February protests. [37]\n\nThe Fars News Agency released a report in the morning warning that \"armed opposition groups plan to shoot at people in [the] protest rally set for Sunday afternoon.\" The agency claimed that this group was Mujahideen-e Khalq, an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group, which had entered the country for the sole purpose of attacking the protesters. [38]\n\nProtesters began gathering in the tens of thousands throughout Iran and especially in Tehran. The protesters were seen occupying government buildings, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting building.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["armed opposition groups plan to shoot at people in [the] protest rally"]},{"role":"Method","values":["occupying government buildings"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two protesters were killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["14 February 2011","march on 11 February"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Iran","cities of Isfahan and Shiraz"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"The Day of Rage\""]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["millions of people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2008 protests in Burkina Faso","document":"The 2008 Burkina Faso protests was rioting and violent mass demonstrations against food prices hikes in Burkina Faso in 2008, leading to the deaths of 3 demonstrators, who stormed government buildings amid drought and violence with troops. 7 days of protests and violent resistant explosions occurred in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso, where demonstrators clashed with government troops demanding an end to inflation and the decrease of food prices as part of the 2007-2008 world food price crisis. Protesters were also angry about low wages and unemployment skyrocketing, but euro win demands was an end to price rises, which led to the withdrawal of the plan set by president Blaise Compaore. A wave of student protests rocked the country as countrywide anti-government sentiment for the next couple of months was taking place. Protesters attacked buildings and set fire to cars, being close to killed by the military as they fired into the air to quell protesters. The unrest was eventually crushed, leading to the deaths of 3 protesters. No concessions were made apart from price decreases. However, 2 months of general strikes and nonviolent protests occurred. [1][2][3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against food prices hikes in Burkina Faso in 2008"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["deaths of 3 demonstrators"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2008"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Burkina Faso"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2015 Ethiopia uprising","document":"The 2015 Ethiopian uprising was mass protests and riots as a wave of unprecedented protests that swept Ethiopia after the Addis Ababa Master Plan was announced on 12 November. [1]\n\nAfter years of drought, conflict, wars and marginalisation among communities, the community of Oromo and Amhara came out onto the streets demonstrating the government’s proposals. Demands quickly grew and protests spiralled out of control from peaceful, sustained opposition anti-government rallies to violent riots. Mass protests rocked Oromia and Amhara regions while riot police, the military and security forces was deployed to disperse and crush the protests. Protesters called on the resignation on prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn. Rallies, bitter clashes and marches was taking place nationwide amid growing opposition and increasingly violent street demonstrations and battles against the military, who fired live ammunition and rubber bullets to disperse protesters. [2]\n\nPoor living standards and marginalisation of Oromo people in the country sparked ethnic tensions and sour clashes between groups. 140 protesters have been killed in the popular uprising which ultimately led to the 2015–16 Oromo protests. [3]\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demonstrating the government’s proposals"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["140 protesters"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2015"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ethiopia"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["community of Oromo and Amhara"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Myanmar protests","document":"\n\nProtesters:\n\n National Unity Government\n\nSupported by:\n\n Government of Myanmar\n\nSupported by:\n\nBombings and attacks\n\nProtests and government changes\n\nAnti-Muslim violence\n\nProtests in Myanmar, known locally as the Spring Revolution[12][13] (Burmese: နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး, Burmese pronunciation: [nwè.ú.tɔ̀.l̥àɰ̃.jé]), began in early 2021 in opposition to the coup d'état on 1 February, staged by Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. [14] As of 23 May 2021[update], at least 818 protesters and bystanders, of which at least 44 were children, have been killed by military or police forces and at least 4,296 people detained. [6][15][16]\n\nProtesters mostly employed peaceful and nonviolent forms of protest,[17] which include acts of civil disobedience, labour strikes, a military boycott campaign, a pot-banging movement, a red ribbon campaign, public protests, and formal recognition of the election results by elected representatives. The colour red, which is associated with the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been donned by many protesters. [18] \"Kabar Ma Kyay Bu\" (ကမ္ဘာမကျေဘူး), a song that was first popularised as the anthem of the 8888 Uprising, has been revitalised by the civil disobedience movement as a protest song. [19][20][21] The three-finger salute has been widely adopted by protesters as a protest symbol. [22]\n\nIn response to the growing protest movement, the military leaders of the coup enacted a number of countermeasures. These include internet and social media blackouts, a media blackout, pursuit of arrests and criminal sentences against protesters, the spread of disinformation, political overtures to competing political parties to participate in the self-appointed State Administration Council (to replace the elected government body), deployment of pro-military protesters and instigators, and the violent use of force to suppress protests. The 2021 Myanmar coup d'état began on the morning of 1 February 2021 when democratically elected members of Myanmar's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw – Myanmar's military – which vested power in a stratocracy, the State Administration Council. The Tatmadaw declared a year-long state of emergency and declared power had been vested in Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Min Aung Hlaing. The coup d'état occurred the day before the Parliament of Myanmar was due to swear in the members elected at the November 2020 general election, thereby preventing this from occurring. [23][24][25] President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi were detained, along with ministers and their deputies and members of Parliament. [26][27]\n\nThe coup took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Myanmar was struggling with one of the most severe outbreaks in Southeast Asia, owing to its poor health infrastructure and ongoing internal conflict. The country had begun its COVID-19 vaccination deployment a few days before the coup. [28][29][30] The country's economy had also been greatly affected by the pandemic, shrinking by 5% during 2020. [31]\n\nRepresentatives elected in the November 2020 elections have not officially recognised the legitimacy of the coup d'état. On 4 February 2021, around seventy MP-elects from the NLD took an oath of office in Naypyidaw, pledging to abide by the people's mandate, and serve as lawmakers for a five-year term. [32] The following day, 300 elected legislators formed a committee to conduct parliamentary affairs, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH). [33][34] The committee held its first session on Zoom. [35]\n\nOn 6 February 2021, several political parties, including the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS), the Karen National Party, and Asho Chin National Party, announced they had rejected the military's offer to participate in the State Administration Council. [36] The Karenni National Progressive Party has publicly denounced the military coup and the coup's detrimental effect on controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing peace talks, and called for the NLD and Armed Forces to compromise, in order to resolve the country's political stalemate. [37]\n\nOn 7 February, the parliamentary committee condemned the military coup as a \"criminal act\" and dismissed Min Aung Hlaing's military cabinet as being illegitimate. [33] The committee cited the military with violating Chapter 6 of Myanmar's penal code in overthrowing the civilian government. [33] CRPH has advised UN diplomats and the international community to contact the committee to discuss official government business. [33]\n\nOn 14 February, the Karen National Union issued a statement announcing its public support for the ongoing protests, and characterised the military's seizure of power as a step toward military dictatorship, contrary to the vision of national reconciliation. [38]\n\nOn 15 February, the Committee for Shan State Unity, a coalition of Shan ethnic armed groups and political parties that includes the Restoration Council of Shan State, the Shan State Progress Party, the Shan National League for Democracy, and the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, and the Sin Kyawt Militia, publicly opposed the coup, announcing its support of the ongoing protests, and calling for the abolition of the 2008 constitution and restoration of civilian-led government. [39]\n\nOn 2 February 2021, healthcare workers and civil servants across the country, including in the national capital, Naypyidaw, launched a national civil disobedience movement (အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု), in opposition to the coup d'état. [40][41] A Facebook campaign group dubbed the \"Civil Disobedience Movement\" has attracted more than 230,000 followers, since its initial launch on 2 February 2021. [42][43][44] Min Ko Naing, an 8888 Uprising leader, has urged the public to adopt a \"no recognition, no participation\" stance to the military regime. [45] One expert on the government's civil service system estimated that the country had about one million civil servants and that about three-quarters of them had walked off their jobs. [46]\n\nHealthcare workers from dozens of state-run hospitals and institutions initiated a labour strike starting 3 February 2021. [43][30] As of 3 February 2021, healthcare workers in more than 110 hospitals and healthcare agencies[47] have participated in the movement. [42] Six of the thirteen-member Mandalay City Development Committee, including vice-mayor Ye Mon, resigned on 3 February 2021, in protest against the coup d'état. [48] Labor strike participants have faced intimidation and threats from superiors. [49] By 9 February, COVID vaccination had been suspended, the country's testing system had collapsed and most hospitals in Myanmar had shut down. [50][28]\n\nThe labour strikes have quickly spread to other sectors. Seven teacher organisations, including the 100,000-strong Myanmar Teachers' Federation, have pledged to join the labour strike. [42] Staff in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, formerly led by Aung San Suu Kyi, have also joined the strike. [47] On 4 February 2021, in Naypyidaw, civil servants employed at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation staged a protest. [51] On 5 February 2021, three hundred copper miners at the Kyisintaung copper mines joined the strike campaign. [52] Miner Sithu Tun stated that the strike would continue until the \"elected leaders receive[d] their power back\". [52]\nBy 5 February 2021, the civil service strike included administrative, medical, and educational sector staff and students at \"91 government hospitals, 18 universities and colleges and 12 government departments in 79 townships\". [53] Nan Nwe, a member of the psychology department at Yangon University stated, \"As we teach students to question and understand justice, we can't accept this injustice. Our stand is not political. We only stand up for the justice. \"[54][55]\n\nOn 8 February, news emerged that state-run newspapers Kyemon and the Global New Light of Myanmar intended to halt publications to protest the coup. [56] On 8 February, all of workers from Myanmar railways participated in the movement and so, the railway transportation is completely stopped. On 8 February, Kanbawza Bank temporarily closed its branches due to staffing shortages resulting from KBZ staff participating in the civil disobedience campaign. [57] Other banks were also impacted by staff participation in the ongoing campaign.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["4,296 people"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["in opposition to the coup d'état on 1 February, staged by Min Aung Hlaing"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["early 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Myanmar"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["44 were children"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Bahraini uprising of 2011","document":"The following is a timeline of the Bahraini uprising from February to March 2011, beginning with the start of protests in February 2011 and including the Saudi and Emirati-backed crackdown from 15 March. Several hundred Bahrainis gathered in front of the Egyptian embassy in Manama to express solidarity with anti-government protesters there. [1] According to The Wall Street Journal, this was \"one of the first such gatherings to be held in the oil-rich Persian Gulf states. \"[1] At the gathering, Ibrahim Sharif, the secretary-general of the National Democratic Action Society (Wa'ad), called for \"local reform. \"[1]\n\nOn 14 February, an estimated 6,000 people participated in many demonstrations and political rallies throughout Bahrain. The protesters' demands varied, and included constitutional reform, political reform, and socio-economic justice. No permits were sought by protesters, as is required by Bahraini law. The earliest demonstration was recorded at 05:30 in the mainly-Shia village of Nuwaidrat, where 300 people are said to have participated. [2](pp68–9)  The marchers were demanding the release of those detained during earlier protests. [3] Police dispersed this rally, resulting in some injuries, and the hospitalization of one demonstrator. Police continued to disperse rallies throughout the day with tear gas, rubber bullets, and shotguns, resulting in additional injuries, and the hospitalization of three more demonstrators. [2](p68)\n\nOne major demonstration took place in the Shi'a island of Sitra, where several thousand men, women, and children took to the streets. According to witnesses interviewed by Physicians for Human Rights, hundreds of fully armed riot police arrived on the scene and immediately began firing tear gas and sound grenades into the crowds to cause panic. They then fired rubber bullets into the unarmed crowd, aiming at people in the front line who had sat down on the street in protest. [4]\n\nIn the evening of 14 February, Ali Mushaima died from police shotgun wounds to his back at close range. The government says that Ali was part of a group of 500 protesters that attacked 6 policemen with rocks and metal rods. The government claims that the police exhausted their supply of tear gas and rubber bullets in a failed attempt to disperse the crowd, and resorted to the use of shotguns. Witnesses say that there were no demonstrations at the time Ali was shot. They say Ali was seen walking with a group of officers who were pointing their guns at him. As Ali walked away, he was shot in the back by one of the officers. Later, several hundred demonstrators congregated in the car park of the hospital where Ali was taken. [2](pp69,229)  The Ministry of Interior expressed its regret at the incident and announced that his death would be investigated. [3]\n\nThousands of mourners participated in Ali Mushaima's funeral. During the funeral, Fadhel Al-Matrook was shot by police in the back at close range, and he died within the hour from his shotgun wounds. The government says that Fadhel was part of a group of 400 mourners that attacked 7 policemen with rocks and metal rods. The government claims that the police exhausted their supply of tear gas and rubber bullets in a failed attempt to disperse the crowd, and resorted to the use of shotguns. Witnesses say that police shot Fadhel in the back as he bent over to help a mourner who collapsed when police fired tear gas at Ali's funeral. [2](pp70,229–30)  Protesters, angered by this second death, marched to Pearl Roundabout around 15:00, and began to set up tents. [5]  The number of demonstrators swelled to up to ten thousand by nightfall. [6]  Police did not attempt to disperse demonstrators at the roundabout, as Bahrain's King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, had ordered that people be permitted to occupy the Pearl Roundabout to express their sadness. [2](p71)\n\nMohammed Albuflasa, a former officer in the Bahrain Defence Force, disappeared after he gave an evening speech at the roundabout calling for national unity between Sunnis and Shia, and expressing support of the protests. [7]  The speech was noteworthy because Mohammed is a religiously conservative Sunni Muslim, whereas most of the protesters were Shia or secular Sunnis. [8]  The government first acknowledged on 4 March that he was in their custody. [7]\n\nIn reaction to the two deaths, Bahrain's main trade union federation, the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions, called for a general strike beginning on 17 February, and Al Wefaq, the party with the largest number of seats in Bahrain's parliament, announced it would suspend its participation in Parliament. [2](p71) In an evening address on state television to mark the occasion of Mawlid, King Hamad offered condolences for the two deaths, and announced the establishment of a committee to investigate the events of the past two days. Throughout the day, 25 people were said to have been injured,[9] and hospital records at Bahrain's main public hospital show seven admissions related to the protests. [2](p172)\n\nOn 16 February, thousands of protesters continued to occupy Pearl Roundabout. [10]  Witnesses described the mood at the roundabout as \"festive,\" with protesters distributing tea, coffee, and food while discussing the situation in Bahrain. Various political figures gave speeches at the roundabout. Elsewhere in Bahrain, a funeral procession was held for Fadhel Al-Matrook, and a vehicular procession comprising around 100 cars was held by supporters of King Hamad. Police did not interfere with these events. [2](pp72–3)  Two individuals were admitted to Bahrain's main public hospital for injuries related to ongoing protests on 16 February. [2](p172)\n\nThe scheduled GP2 Asia Series race at the Bahrain International Circuit was cancelled, after a practice had to be called off due to the redeployment of the circuit's medical staff to hospitals in the capital. A practice session for the 2011 Formula One season Bahrain Grand Prix was also called off, and officials expressed concern that the race would need to be moved or cancelled. [11]\n\nAt about 3:00 am local time on 17 February, around 1,000 police were dispatched to clear the Pearl Roundabout of an estimated 1,500 individuals staying overnight in tents. Police were armed with sticks, shields, flash grenades, tear gas, and shotguns. [2](p73)  Two hundred and thirty one individuals were said to have been injured during the raid,[12] and seventy individuals were reported missing. [13][14]  Three individuals were killed by police using shotguns. Of these three, two were shot in the back at close range, and one was shot in the thigh at close range. The government claims that the lethal shots were fired at protesters who attacked police officers with swords, daggers, and other weapons.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["some injuries, and the hospitalization of one demonstrator"]},{"role":"Date","values":["February to March 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bahraini"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Bahrainis","6,000 people participated"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014–2020 Nicaraguan protests","document":"\n\nOpposition\n\nCivil society\n\nGovernment of Nicaragua\n\nSandinista National Liberation Front\n\nStudents\n\nPrivate sector\n\nThe 2014–2020 Nicaraguan protests are a series of protests against President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega and actions performed by his government, the dismantling of the opposition, and violence against peaceful protesters. The protests began in 2014, when the construction of the Nicaragua Canal was about to begin, and several hundred protesters blocked roads and clashed with police during the groundbreaking of the canal. [8] Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans began to protest against President Ortega for what they believe to be a corrupt electoral system. [9][10]\n\nThe protests were renewed in April 2018 following the Ortega administration's decree of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute's social security reform increasing taxes and decreasing benefits. Police and the paramilitary groups attacked and killed unarmed protesters, which made people to stand-up. After five days of deadly unrest, Ortega announced the cancellation of the reforms. Since then, Ortega faced the largest protests in his government's history, with the protest movement spreading to denounce Ortega in general and demanding his resignation. [11]\n\nIn 2014, Steven Levitsky of Harvard University stated: \"Only under the dictatorships of the past ... were presidents reelected for life\", with Levitsky further saying that while Latin America experienced democracy, citizens opposed \"indefinite reelection, because of the dictatorships of the past. \"[12] About Nicaragua, Levitsky stated: \"In Nicaragua ... reelection is associated with the same problems of 100 years ago. \"[12] That same year, The Washington Post stated that \"Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua ... used the ballot box to weaken or eliminate term limits. \"[13]\n\nEarly in Ortega's presidency, he allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his regional block which provided $500 million in oil subsidies annually to Ortega's government. [14] Critics stated that the subsidies worked as a slush fund and helped President Ortega maintain political strength. [14] Going into the 2010s, Venezuela began to experience economic difficulties. [15][16][17][18] On 15 June 2013, President Ortega announced that his government was partnering with Chinese billionaire Wang Jing to construct the Nicaraguan Canal, a plan to construct a canal through Lake Nicaragua and the surrounding area that the Nicaraguan government claimed would benefit the economy of the country. [14] Sergio Ramírez, a former vice president of President Ortega, \"suspected Ortega of using the canal to keep himself in office and also, possibly, to enrich himself\", with Ramírez stating that \"Ortega wants to make it appear that his tenure in power is indispensable in order to consummate this long-term project. \"[14]\n\nAccording to the Business-Anti-Corruption Portal, corruption among political circles within the Nicaraguan government \"impairs the functioning of state institutions and limits foreign investment\", while multinational companies \"report widespread favouritism and impunity among public officials. \"[19] The Business Anti-Corruption Portal added that \"[t]he protection of property rights is weak due to public authorities' failure to enforce court orders. \"[19] Many campesinos near the canal's path began to protest against President Ortega and the plan due to the Chinese firm's ability to expropriate their land, possibly displacing over 100,000 Nicaraguans. [9][20] Such expropriations were granted by President Ortega's government in 2013 after only three hours of debate, allowing HKND, the developer of the canal, power to confiscate any property it needs in Nicaragua. [21] Some Nicaraguans believed that President Ortega gave up Nicaragua's sovereignty and environment to the Chinese, with one newspaper reminding Nicaraguans that in 2007, President Ortega stated that he would not risk Lake Nicaragua's stability \"for all the gold in the world. \"[8]\n\nProtests began on 24 December 2014 with clashes ensuing, with campesino protesters being arrested and allegedly beaten by Nicaraguan authorities, with 47 of the protesters and their leaders being arrested. [6] It was reported that the government was searching each home in the area to find those who participated in the protests. [6] On 26 December, protesters demonstrated outside of El Chipote Prison and were confronted by Sandinista Youth on motorcycles, with some protesters being released later that day. [6] On 30 December 6 of the campesino leaders were released from El Chipote Prison. [6]\n\nMembers of the Independent Liberal Party also began protesting every Wednesday demanding electoral law reforms. [22] According to Nicaraguan sociologist Manuel Ortega Hegg, the protests against President Ortega \"involve a wider range of groups, like campesinos\" who were formally allied with Ortega, along with \"many who are sympathetic to the government\", noting that those who are demonstrating are from \"beyond political parties. \"[21] He further states that since Nicaraguans were left out of the dialogue, that \"their only recourse is to take to the streets. \"[21]\n\nIn Ometepe, residents greeted a Nicaraguan government medical team with a banner that read \"Traitor Ortega, no more lies\", with activists in the area stating that the medical team only wanted their identification numbers so they could show that \"you're in favor of the canal. \"[21]\n\nOn 14 June, thousands of Nicaraguans protested with about 15,000 and 30,000 demonstrating in Juigalpa. [9] The protest consisted mostly of \"peasants\" with organizers surprised that the number of protesters was larger than the 10,000 they had anticipated. [23]\n\nOn 8 July, about 200 protesters in Managua demonstrated against what they called electoral rules that \"favours Ortega's Sandinista party. \"[10] Clashes then erupted between authorities and protesters when protesters grew close to the electoral offices, with police beating protesters and journalists, breaking one Associated Press photographer's camera lens. [10][22][24] About nine lawmakers from the Independent Liberal Party were also arrested and later released. [24] On 15 July, the weekly protest in Managua was attended by about 300 protesters, with not only the Independent Liberal Party participating but members of the Sandinista Renovation Movement, among others upset with government actions. [22] Multiple buses full of protesters destined to participate at the protest were also stopped by Nicaraguan authorities, with some individuals being temporarily detained. [22][25]\n\nAccording to the Economist Intelligence Unit in their August 2016 Nicaragua: Country Outlook report, \"management of rural protests, particularly those related to nascent plans for a transoceanic canal, have damaged his support, and complaints about a lack of accountability and transparency in government will intensify. \"[26]\n\nThe 56th protest occurred on 9 January, with hundreds of farmers gathered in La Fonseca, demanding that Law 840, the law that granted the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, be revoked. The collection of signatures representing the dissatisfaction with the canal also took place during the demonstrations. [27]\n\nOn 22 April, thousands of Nicaraguans protested in Managua, with Jose Chavarria, a farmers group leader, stating that protesters would continue to fight the Nicaragua Canal. [28]\n\nTwo United States diplomats and a professor were expelled from Nicaragua on 14 June due to their studies on the canal, with President Ortega stating, \"Our government has been forced to remove two people who, being United States government officials with official passports, carried out in Nicaragua without the knowledge of or coordination with our authorities tasks that are the purview of the Nicaraguan government. \"[29]\n\nOn 25 June, five foreign activists were deported for alleged possession of explosives after a small fire occurred at a home that was teaching about wood stoves. [30]\n\nThe United States government then issued a travel warning to its own visitors on 29 June due to the Nicaraguan government's reactions to protest, which included the deportation and expulsion of foreign visitors. [30]\n\nOn 29 November 2016, a protest destined to the capital city of Managua was met with roadblocks from Nicaraguan authorities. [31] At the starting point 300 kilometres (190 mi) from Managua in Nueva Guinea, protests turned to clashes resulting in eleven injured. [32]\n\nPolice in the city of Juigalpa east of Managua prevented vehicles involved in protests from traveling on 22 April 2017, with at least 20 protesters arrested. [33]\n\nBy February 2018, many analysts viewed the canal project as defunct, with the main investor having lost much of his fortune in the 2015–2016 economic crisis, and other Chinese investment having turned to focus on Panama, the Nicaragua project's main competitor. Nonetheless, the head of the canal authority in Nicaragua insisted work on the project was slow due to the project's size but still on-going. The Chinese company that had been granted the concession for the canal maintains legal rights to it and to side projects in the country, short of a 60% vote to revoke the legislation. [citation needed] As of August 2019, the project remained in a state of limbo. [34]\n\nOn 16 April 2018, demonstrators marched in the capital of Managua to protest what they regarded as an insufficient government response to forest fires that burned 5,500 hectares (13,600 acres) of the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve,[36] a tropical nature preserve that is home to Rama and Kriol indigenous people, as well as significant biodiversity and endangered species.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega and actions performed by his government, the dismantling of the opposition, and violence against peaceful protesters"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2014–2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Anti–Sri Lanka protests","document":"\n\nThe 2013 Anti–Sri Lanka protests are a series of student protests and agitations initiated by the Students Federation for Freedom of Tamil Eelam in Tamil Nadu, India, against war crimes committed against Sri Lankan Tamil people by Sri Lankan army during the Eelam War IV. The protesters demanded that the Government of India vote in support of a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution censuring the Government of Sri Lanka for war crimes. [4] Some radical groups even demanded the prosecution of the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse for his role in the alleged genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils. Apart from college students, doctors, film personalities and employees of IT companies also participated in the protests. [5]\n\nThe agitations started on 11 March 2013 when eight students of Loyola College, Chennai, who fasted in condemnation of alleged atrocities committed on Tamils in Sri Lanka were arrested by the Tamil Nadu police. [6] The arrest was criticised by student organisations as well as the Loyola College management and nine colleges across the city went on strike. [6] The following protests see students from all over Tamil Nadu take into streets, it was a massive outrage of Tamil Nadu people and students against sinhala government after 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom. From school to colleges a mass number of students participated in the protest. Students from other states lik who are studying in Tamil Nadu colleges too participated. Numerous protests, rallies held in marina beach which saw huge number of students. The anger and anguish of students turned against DMK and Congress which is the ruling party during 2009 Eelam war. A statewide general strike declared on 12 March 2013 by the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) evoked a mixed response with most of the political parties in the state keeping aloof alleging inaction on the part of the main participant Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which was in power during the decisive stages of Eelam War IV. [7][8] Student organisations called for statewide agitations on Monday, 18 March, forcing arts and science colleges in the state to close down for an indefinite period. [9] As colleges and schools remained closed student groups organised protest through social media, Tamilandu people who themselves are sympathetic towards Sri Lankan Tamils sent their children to take part in the protests. As protests peaked in Tamil Nadu national and international media provided good coverage. One remarkable effect of this protest is DMK chief Karuna fearing students outrage pulled out of congress alliance, On 19 March DMK chief announced withdrawal from UPA alliance citing Congress disregard to the suffering of Eelam Tamil. [10] When DMK pulled out of UPA it was well received by DMK supporters. Congress was isolated in Tamil Nadu in 2014 general elections it contested in 40 seats alone and lost in all constituencies. But ironically DMK formed alliance with congress again in May 2016 Tamil Nadu state elections showing its own colors. [11]\n\nOn 18 March 2013, large-scale agitations were held outside Raj Bhavan, Chennai resulting in the arrest of over 500 students. [12][13] A Sri Lankan Buddhist monk was attacked in the Brihadeeswara Temple, Thanjavur on 16 March 2013[14] and another at Chennai Central on 17 March 2013. [15] The Government of Tamil Nadu declared the indefinite closure of 525 engineering colleges affiliated to the Anna University. [16]\n\nOn 2 April 2013, actors from Tamil film industry staged a one-day token fast in support of student protests in Tamil Nadu. [17]\n\nThe Tamil Nadu State Legislative Council passed legislation on 27 March 2013 urging the Indian Government to slap economic sanctions on Sri Lanka and demand for the formation of a separate state for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. The resolution which was proposed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha was unanimously passed at the Assembly. The resolution was passed following the debate in the Council regarding the ongoing statewide students protests in Tamil Nadu. [18][19]\n\nThe resolution demanded the formation of a separate state in Sri Lanka, through the means of a referendum by a resolution at the UN Security Council which should be conducted among Tamils in Sri Lanka and other displaced Tamils across the world. [19]\n\nMoving the resolution, Jayalalithaa said the ongoing students protest was reflective of her government's initiative on the Sri Lankan issue even as she requested them to withdraw the stir and resume classes. [20]\n\nThe resolution also called on the Indian Government to stop considering Sri Lanka as a 'friendly country' and impose economic sanctions, as well as calling for an international inquiry in \"genocide and war crimes\" against Sri Lankan Tamils. [18][19]\n\nOn 20 June 2013, during 2013 ICC Champions Trophy semi final match between India and Sri Lanka at the SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff, Tamil Eelam supporters invaded the pitch with the flags of the Tamil Eelam. [21] After the match, at least 400 protesters held up the Sri Lankan team bus and raised anti-Sri Lankan government slogans. [22]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["arrested by the Tamil Nadu police"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["arrest of over 500 students","eight students"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Government of India vote in support of a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution censuring the Government of Sri Lanka for war crimes","Freedom of Tamil Eelam"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 March 2013"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Students Federation"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Malian protests","document":"\n\n National Committee for the Salvation of the People[1]\n\nGovernment of Mali\n\nProtests in Mali began on 5 June 2020 when protesters gathered in the streets of Bamako, calling for Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to resign as president of Mali. The protests ended after a coup d'état on 18 August. Both the president and prime minister of Mali were detained that afternoon, and in the evening they announced their resignations. [2][3][4][5][6]\n\nNumerous factors led to the formation of the 5 June Movement and the August coup d’etat. Tensions had been seething ever since irregularities were reported during the 2018 Malian presidential election. [7] The on-going Mali War in the Tuareg-controlled northern region intensified the situation. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports have documented army abuses against civilians in the central Mopti and Segou regions,[8] dozens of attacks by armed groups in 2019 that resulted in 456 civilian deaths and hundreds of injuries. [9]  Another twelve people were killed due to dissident Fulani in Mopti attacks in April. [10]\n\nDissidents also questioned the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first two cases were reported on 25 March 2020,[11] and by the end of May, there were 1,265 cases and 77 deaths. [12]\n\nAfter repeated postponements,[13][14][15] the first round of the 2020 Parliamentary election was finally held on 29 March 2020. Opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé and members of his electoral team were kidnapped by jihadists three days before the election. [16] He was released on 6 October. [17] Polling stations were ransacked, village leaders were kidnapped, and a roadside bomb killed nine people including three soldiers on election day, 29 March. [18] Voter turnout was only 12% in Bamako. [19]\n\nAt least 25 soldiers were killed in an attack on a military base in the northern town of Bamba, Gao Region, on 6 April,[20] and concerns about violence dominated the second round of the elections. [7]\n\nIncidents on 19 April prevented some people from casting votes, and on 30 April the Constitutional Court overturned the results in 31 districts, giving Rally for Mali, which is led by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, ten more seats than originally expected. [7] Opposition parties led by Iman Mahmoud Dicko established the Mouvement du 5 juin - Rassemblement des forces patriotiques (in French) (5 June Movement - Rally of Patriotic Forces) on 30 May, and thousands took to the streets in protest on 5 June. [7]\n\nFrench forces fought the Battle of Talahandak, killing Abdelmalek Droukdel of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb near Tessalit, Kidal Region, 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the Mali-Algeria border. [21]\n\nBoubou Cisse was reappointed Prime Minister on 11 June, when he was instructed to form a new government. [7]\n\nTens of thousands of Malians protested again on 19 June, demanding the resignation of President Keïta. [22]\n\nOn 20 June, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called for new elections to be held. [22]\n\nPresident Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Imam Mahmoud Dicko met on 5 July,[23] but the opposition continued to call for civil disobedience to force Keïta's resignation and the dissolution of Parliament. [7]\n\nProtests turned violent on 10 July. [7] For the next three days, protesters in Bamako clashed with security forces,[24] and security forces reportedly fired live rounds at the protesters, killing at least 11 and injuring 124. [25]\n\nOn 23 July, Presidents Muhammadu Buhari (Nigeria), Mahamadou Issoufou (Niger), Nana Akufo-Addo (Ghana), Alassane Ouattara (Côte d'Ivoire), and Macky Sall (Senegal) arrived in Bamako to meet with President Keïta and opposition leaders after a failed ECOWAS mediation mission. [26]\n\nOn 27 July, ECOWAS called for the creation of a unity government and warned of sanctions. [7]\n\nNine new judges, said to be Keïta supporters, were appointed to the Constitutional Court on 10 August, in response to ECOWAS' demands for reform. [7]\n\nThousands gathered in Independence Square in Bamako on 11 August, where they were met with tear gas and water cannons. [27]\n\nThe opposition announced daily protests starting 17 August. [7]\n\nMutinying soldiers arrested President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé after taking over a military camp near Bamako on the morning of 18 August. [28]\n\nEarly in the morning of 19 August, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta announced his resignation and dissolved parliament. [29] Mahmoud Dicko announced that he was leaving politics. [30] Colonel Assimi Goïta is appointed to head the new government, the Comité national pour le salut du peuple (in French) (National Committee for the Salvation of the People, CNSP). [31][32]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["calling for Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to resign as president of Mali"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["5 June 2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Mali","streets of Bamako"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Haitian protests","document":"\n\n2021 phase\n\nProtests began in cities throughout Haiti on 7 July 2018 in response to increased fuel prices. Over time, these protests evolved into demands for the resignation of Jovenel Moïse, the president of Haiti. Led by opposition politician Jean-Charles Moïse (no relation), protesters state that their goal is to create a transitional government, provide social programs, and prosecute allegedly corrupt officials. The protests and civil unrest that paralysed Haiti hit hard. Since the 14 January protest, hundreds of thousands have taken part in weekly protests calling for the government to resign. [3][4][5][6][7]\n\nReleased in November 2017, a Senate probe of the period 2008–2016 (concerning the René Préval and Michel Martelly administrations as well as the chief of staff of then-sitting President Jovenel Moïse) revealed significant corruption had been funded with Venezuelan loans through the Petrocaribe program. [8]\n\nA new round of protests broke out in February 2021 amid a dispute over Moïse's presidential term. The protesters claimed that Moïse's term officially ended on 7 February 2021 and demanded that he step down. Moïse said that Haitian presidents have five years to serve according to the constitution and he has one more year to serve since he became president in February 2017. Protesters have also expressed concerns about the 2021 Haitian constitutional referendum, a referendum proposed by Moïse which would reportedly scrap the ban on consecutive presidential terms and enable Moïse to run again. [9]\n\nMonique Clesca of the Americas Quarterly described it as \"a three-year protest movement led by young people that has its roots in 2018 riots over high fuel prices and a lack of jobs and health care. They have made state corruption and President Jovenel Moïse the target of escalating protests. \"[9]\n\nWhen Venezuela stopped shipping oil to Haiti in March 2018, this led to fuel shortages. With the removal of government subsidies in July, kerosene prices went up over 50 percent, with similarly steep hikes on other fossil fuels. [10] These rises in taxes on gasoline, diesel, and kerosene that went into effect on 7 July 2018 brought Haitians into the streets. Flights were canceled into and out of Haiti by U.S. airlines. [11][12] The government backed down on the tax increases, and the President accepted the resignation of the inexperienced Jack Guy Lafontant as Prime Minister on 14 July 2018, replaced one month later by Jean-Henry Céant. [13][14]\n\nIn mid-August 2018, Gilbert Mirambeau Jr. tweeted a photo of himself blindfolded holding a cardboard sign with \"Kot kòb PetwoCaribe a ?\" (\"Where did the PetroCaribe money go?\") written on it. The hashtag petrocaribechallenge was soon widely circulated on social media. [15][14]\n\nAnger over the revelations and accusations from the continuing investigation simmered through social media into the autumn and boiled over again, first in October 2018, with tense scenes and violence in Les Cayes, in Jacmel, and in Saint-Marc. [16] A week of protests in November 2018 led to 10 deaths, including several killed when a government car \"lost a wheel and plowed into a crowd. \"[17]\n\nSignificant protests broke out again in February 2019 following a report from the court investigating the Petrocaribe Senate probe. [1][18][19] Economic problems and the increased cost of living helped fuel the protests. [19]\n\nOn 7 February, protesters targeted and damaged wealthy Haitians' luxury vehicles. [19] The following day, the mayors of Petion-ville and Port-au-Prince announced the cancellation of pre-Haitian Carnival events. [19] Two days later protestors clashed with police, with demonstrators throwing stones at the home of President Moïse, after one of his allies' security personnel struck a woman's car and began to beat her. [20] On 12 February, protesters burned down a popular market, looted stores and assisted with a prison break in Aquin that freed all of the facility's prisoners. [18][21] In Port-au-Prince, the building housing the Italian and Peruvian consulates was looted by protesters. [22][23]\n\nPresident Moïse addressed the country on 14 February, saying he would not step down and \"give the country up to armed gangs and drug traffickers. \"[24] During a funeral procession on 22 February, Haitian police fired tear gas at a crowd of about 200 people carrying the casket of a man killed during protests days earlier. [25] Opposition leader Schiller Louidor called for future protests, though the overall size of protests began to subside that day. [25]\n\nThree days after the lower house voted a censure motion against Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant's government on 18 March 2019,[26] President Moïse replaced Céant with Jean-Michel Lapin. [27] As of mid-November 2019, this change had not been ratified by the Haitian Parliament. Lacking a government because of the impasse between the President and the Parliament, Haiti has had hundreds of millions in international aid—for which having a sitting government was a prerequisite—suspended. [28]\n\nDuring escalating protests on 10 June, journalist Rospide Petion was shot in a company car on his way home from Radio Sans Fin in Port-au-Prince, where he had criticized the government on air before leaving the station. [29][30]\n\nOn 4 October, thousands protested across Haiti. In Port-au-Prince, the mayor joined the protestors in calling for President Moïse to step down. Two days earlier, the opposition sent a letter by delegation to the UN Secretary General denouncing the sitting President's role in the Petrocaribe affair, and the government's role in a massacre in La Saline. [31][32] Lyonel Trouillot wrote in L'Humanité that \"[w]ithout dipping into conspiracy theory, there is something worrying about the international community's silence about the Haitian situation. \"[33][34]\n\nOn 11 October, Néhémie Joseph, a second radio journalist critical of the government, was found dead in the trunk of his car in Mirebalais. [35][36] On 22 October, thousands of Catholics demonstrated in the capital. Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor asked Haitian leaders to heed the people who \"cannot go on any longer. We are fed up.\" Energy crises, road blockages, and widespread unrest have led to massive drops in tourism, causing the closure of hotels in Petion-ville, where the Best Western Premier closed permanently,[37] and in Cap-Haïtien, where Mont Joli was closed. [38] Two people were killed in protests in Port-au-Prince on 27 October. Masked police officers were themselves out on the streets demonstrating that day because of low salaries and lack of health insurance. [39]\n\nAlthough the Haitian constitution calls for legislative elections in October, none were held in October 2019.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["amid a dispute over Moïse's presidential term"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Haiti"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"December 2016 Polish protests","document":"Protesters\n\nPolish Government\n\nThe Polish Sejm crisis, 16 December 2016—12 January 2017, was a period of political stalemate in Poland's national legislature, resulting from an attempt to limit freedom of the press at the Sejm buildings in Warsaw, Poland. The attempt to restrict press access to Sejm members and deliberations led to protests by opposition-party Sejm members, and by citizens of Poland's major cities, including Warsaw. [2]\n\nOn 16 December 2016 during the session of Polish parliament, the Sejm, opposition deputy Michał Szczerba (from Civic Platform party) came to the stage with the card which read \"#WolneMediawSejmie\" (hashtag \"Free press in Sejm\") and attempted to fix it to the rostrum. After warnings, Marshal of the Sejm, Marek Kuchciński, excluded him from debate for disturbance and announced a break. [3]  As planned before, opposition deputies started the occupation of the podium and the plenary hall. [3][4] Subsequently, the MPs of ruling party, Law and Justice, moved the meeting to the Hall of Columns, where the deputies voted on, among other topics, the budget for 2017. [2][1] A number of MPs from the opposition who still occupied the plenary hall did not participate in the voting, and the vote count was done by show of hands. [1][2][4]\n\nFirst groups of protesters appeared in front of the parliament before locking the plenary hall in the protest against restrictions for press in Sejm buildings. [4] It included dozens of journalist from mainstream Polish media, including from Gazeta Wyborcza, Newsweek Polska and TVN24. [5] The protest was supported by many people associated with the opposition, including Deputy Marshal of the Sejm Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Civic Platform leader Grzegorz Schetyna, Modern leader Ryszard Petru, Committee for the Defence of Democracy leader Mateusz Kijowski, civic movement Citizens of Poland. [6]\n\nOn 16 and 17 December protests were held in many of big cities in Poland including Wrocław, Kraków, Gdańsk, Poznań, Szczecin, Katowice, Olsztyn, Białystok, Lublin, Kielce and Płock. [7][8]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["The attempt to restrict press access to Sejm members and deliberations"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["16 December 2016—12 January 2017"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Polish"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["opposition-party Sejm members, and by citizens of Poland's major cities, including Warsaw"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Eritrean uprising","document":"The Eritrean Uprising was massive Student protests in Asmara, Eritrea in November 2017 against the government and bad living conditions and severe working life. Anti-government protests escalated on 1 November, when police clashed with protesters and fired Live ammunition to disperse protesters. On 2 November, groups of protesters rallied in downtown Asmara, using Placards and Slogans against the government and demanded better conditions and the resignation of the government. On 3 November, rallies and small-scale dissent was heard throughout the city as protesters rallied in a university against the government’s reign. Tear gas was seen being fired on 5-7 November, while demonstrators were adamant. Police opened fire on demonstrators almost daily, killing 28 protesters in Rallies. [1][2]\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Anti-government","against the government and bad living conditions and severe working life","against the government and demanded better conditions and the resignation of the government"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing 28 protesters"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November 2017"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Asmara, Eritrea"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Student"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2016 Azerbaijani protests","document":"The 2016 Azerbaijan Protests - Protests against price increases, unemployment and the social situation in Azerbaijan since January 12, 2016. On January 12, 2016, protests were held in Lankaran, Fizuli and Siyazan in connection with the social situation. Residents of Lankaran's Liman settlement closed the Alat-Astara road. Residents protested against rising prices and unemployment. According to RFE / RL, police were called in to prevent the protest. In Siyazan, residents gathered in front of the district executive power to protest against the rise in prices. Residents said it was impossible to live in the current conditions. [1]\n\nAnother protest was held in Agjabadi. Residents protested against the rise in prices. In addition, three Agjabadi residents reportedly attempted to commit suicide by climbing on top of the building. Rising prices and unemployment have also reportedly sparked protests in the village of Hindarkh. According to the BBC, about 200 residents gathered at noon and closed the Agdash-Barda road. The meeting was held at the stadium in the village. [2]\n\nResidents of Bala Bahmanli village of Fuzuli region also protested against the rise in prices. Bagir Aslanov, the first deputy head of the Fuzuli District Executive Power, confirmed that the price increase was the reason for the protest in Fuzuli. A day after protests against rising food prices in Azerbaijan, the government has reduced value added tax on imports and sales of wheat, production and sale of wheat flour and bread. [3]\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against price increases, unemployment and the social situation in Azerbaijan since January 12, 2016"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["January 12, 2016"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Lankaran, Fizuli and Siyazan","Agjabadi"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"8888 Uprising","document":"\n\nOpposition:\n\n Government:\n\nBombings and attacks\n\nProtests and government changes\n\nAnti-Muslim violence\n\nThe 8888 Uprising (Burmese: ၈၈၈၈ အရေးအခင်း), also known as the People Power Uprising[6] and the 1988 Uprising,[7] was a series of nationwide protests,[8] marches, and riots[9] in Burma (Myanmar) that peaked in August 1988. Key events occurred on 8 August 1988 and therefore it is commonly known as the \"8888 Uprising\". [10] The protests began as a student movement and were organised largely by university students at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University and the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT). Since 1962, the Burma Socialist Programme Party had ruled the country as a totalitarian one-party state, headed by General Ne Win. Under the government agenda, called the Burmese Way to Socialism, which involved economic isolation and the strengthening of the military, Burma became one of the world's most impoverished countries. [11][12][13] Many firms in the formal sector of the economy were nationalised, and the government combined Soviet-style central planning with Buddhist and traditional beliefs. [13]\n\nThe 8888 uprising was started by students in Yangon (Rangoon) on 8 August 1988. Student protests spread throughout the country. [4][11] Hundreds of thousands of monks, children, university students, housewives, doctors and common people protested against the government. [14][15] The uprising ended on 18 September after a bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Thousands of deaths have been attributed to the military during this uprising,[4][3][5] while authorities in Burma put the figure at around 350 people killed. [16][17]\n\nDuring the crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a national icon. When the military junta arranged an election in 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, won 81% of the seats in the government (392 out of 492). [18] However, the military junta refused to recognise the results and continued to rule the country as the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Aung San Suu Kyi was also placed under house arrest. The State Law and Order Restoration Council would be a cosmetic change from the Burma Socialist Programme Party. [14] Suu Kyi's house arrest was lifted in 2010, when worldwide attention for her peaked again during the making of the biographical film The Lady. Before the crisis, Burma had been ruled by the repressive and isolated regime of General Ne Win since 1962. The country had a national debt of $3.5 billion and currency reserves of between $20 million and $35 million, with debt service ratios standing at half of the national budget. [19]\n\nIn the years leading up to the crisis, General Ne Win had imposed two instances of sudden currency demonetization that declared certain circulated denominations of currency invalid. These instances led to instantaneous loss of savings for many Burmese citizens and economic instability. On 3 November 1985, the Burmese government declared notes of 20, 50, and 100 kyats invalid, without prior warning to the public. [20] Prior to this, circulated denominations were of 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 kyats. The stated reason for the demonetization was to combat black market activity. The public was given only a short period of time to exchange their 20, 50, and 100 kyat bills, and only 25% of the value of surrendered bills were reimbursed. [20] On 10 November 1985, a week after the initial announcement of demonetization, new denominations of 25, 35, and 75 kyat bills were announced, with the 75 kyat denomination chosen to commemorate Ne Win's 75th birthday. In November 1985, students gathered and boycotted the government's decision to withdraw Burmese local currency notes. Economic problems coupled with counter-insurgency required continuous involvement in the international market. [21]\n\nOn 5 September 1987, Ne Win announced the demonetization of the 25, 35, and 75 kyat notes, leaving only the 1, 5, and 10 kyat bills valid. [22] This announcement was also with no prior warning, and this time no exchange for valid tender was allowed. Roughly 60–80% of circulated legal tender was declared invalid without warning, and millions of Burmese citizens had their savings eliminated by this action. [20] On 22 September 1987, the Burmese government introduced new denominations of 45 and 90 kyat notes. The 45 and 90 kyat denominations were chosen because the two numbers are divisible by 9, which was considered lucky by Ne Win. [23]\n\nStudents in particular were angry at the 1987 demonetization as savings for tuition fees were wiped out instantly. [24] Students from the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) rioted throughout Rangoon, smashing windows and traffic lights down Insein Road, and universities in Rangoon temporarily closed. [25][page needed] The government later allowed for reimbursement of up to 100 kyat so that students could return home instead of rioting in the cities. [20] With the re-opening of schools in late October 1987, underground groups in Rangoon and Mandalay produced dissident leaflets which culminated in bombs exploding in November. [26] Police later received threatening letters from underground groups, who organised small protests around the university campus. [27] Meanwhile, larger protests in Mandalay involved monks and workers, with some burning government buildings and state businesses. [26] Burmese state media reported little on the protests, but information quickly spread through the students. [26]\n\nAfter receiving Least Developed Country status from the United Nations Economic and Social Council in December 1987, government policy requiring farmers to sell produce below market rates to create greater revenue for the government sparked several, violent rural protests. [28][page needed] The protests were fanned by public letters to Ne Win by former second in command General Brigadier Aung Gyi from July 1987, reminding him of the 1967 riots and condemning lack of economic reform, describing Burma as \"almost a joke\" compared to other Southeast Asian nations. He was later arrested. [21][29]\n\nOn 12 March 1988, students from the RIT were arguing with out-of-school youths inside the Sanda Win tea shop about music playing on a sound system. [6][26] A drunken youth would not return a tape that the RIT students favoured. [30] A brawl followed in which one youth, who was the son of a BSPP official, was arrested and later released for injuring a student. [26] Students protested at a local police department where 500 riot police were mobilised and in the ensuing clash, one student, Phone Maw, was shot and killed. [26] The incident angered pro-democracy groups and the next day more students rallied at the RIT and spread to other campuses. [31] The students, who had never protested before, increasingly saw themselves as activists. [26] There was growing resentment towards military rule and there were no channels to address grievances, further exacerbated by police brutality, economic mismanagement and corruption within the government.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["nationwide protests,[8] marches, and riots"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["August 1988"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Burma (Myanmar)"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["university students at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University and the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1982 demonstrations in Poland","document":"\n\nMartial law in Poland (Polish: Stan wojenny w Polsce) was declared in the period between 13 December 1981 and 22 July 1983. The government of the Polish People's Republic drastically restricted everyday life by introducing martial law and a military junta in an attempt to counter political opposition, in particular the Solidarity movement. Thousands of opposition activists were imprisoned without charge, and as many as 91 killed. [2] Although martial law was lifted in 1983, many political prisoners were not released until a general amnesty in 1986. Since the 1970s, communist Poland was in a deep economic recession. First Secretary Edward Gierek took out a series of large loans from western creditors to achieve a better economic output that instead resulted in a domestic crisis. Essential goods were being heavily rationed, which acted as a stimulus to establish a first anti-communist trade union in the Eastern Bloc, known as Solidarity, in 1980. Gierek, who permitted the trade union to appear per the Gdańsk Agreement, was dismissed from his post less than a month later under pressure from the USSR and confined to house arrest. Poland's already somewhat liberal policies concerning the opposition were worrisome for hardliners in the neighbouring Soviet Union. The latter feared that the Poles might overthrow communism and ally themselves with the Western Bloc. The Soviets were particularly uneasy as the departure of the most populous nation from Comecon would trigger further financial and economic problems that would bring an end to communist rule in the Eastern Bloc. After a series of strikes and demonstrations by employees of chief industrial regions, Poland was directly heading towards bankruptcy. The Military Council of National Salvation was formed by the new First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was determined to put an end to the demonstrations and crush the opposition by force if necessary. There is speculation whether Jaruzelski instigated martial law to prevent bloodshed if the Soviets and other Warsaw Pact countries were to enter Poland under the mutual assistance treaty, like in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On the 13th December 1981, Jaruzelski announced the introduction of martial law in a televised speech addressed to the entire nation. The Polish People's Army, Citizens' Militia (MO), ZOMO special units and tanks rolled onto the streets to scare off demonstrators, begin regular patrols and maintain curfew. Intercity travelling was forbidden unless a permit was granted by the authorities, food shortages intensified and censorship was placed again on all media and post. The secret services (SB) wiretapped phones in public booths and state institutions. On 16 December, pro-Solidarity miners organized a strike against the declaration of martial law at the Wujek Coal Mine in the industrial city of Katowice. The ZOMO squads harshly pacified Wujek, which resulted in 9 miners' deaths. All other demonstrations across Poland were met with an armed force, which utilized water cannons, tear gas, batons, truncheons and clubs to disperse crowds and beat protesters. Thousands were detained, and some were tortured in state prisons. On the 31 August 1982, in the copper-mining town of Lubin, three people were mortally wounded. Until the end of Martial Law on the 22 July 1983, approximately 91 people were killed, though this figure varies and is still debated among historians. [2]\n\nWhen Edward Gierek succeeded Gomułka as the head of state in 1970, he took decisive measures to boost economic growth and develop modern infrastructure. [3] Gierek, a more liberal figure than his predecessor, was determined to make Poland the wealthiest and most economically significant communist country of the Eastern Bloc. [4] However, these ideas prompted resistance from hardline communist leadership as the reform would effectively abandon the fundamental principles of a centrally planned Marxist economy. The grip and emphasis on state-owned enterprises and state-controlled prices or trade were eventually loosened. Small private businesses began to appear and Poland recorded temporary growth in GDP and an improvement in living conditions. [5][6]\n\nGierek maintained close ties with the United States, which he subsequently used for diplomatic and economic purposes. [6] In order to continue with the reforms, large sums of money were borrowed from creditors in the Western Bloc. [7] These sequential and uninterrupted loans were primarily targeted at establishing heavy industry, mines or manufacturing facilities that would produce goods for export. [7][8] The projected income from the exports would then be used to pay off the debt. Apart from financing the economic sector, the money was spent on social housing and on expanding road connections, for example the first fully operational highway linking Warsaw with industrial Silesia was opened for traffic in 1976. [9] Furthermore, over 1.8 million plattenbau flats were constructed to house the growing population. Agricultural output rose by nearly 22% between 1971 and 1975, and industrial production by 10.5% annually. [10][11] Gierek also initiated the construction of Warszawa Centralna, Europe's most modern railway station at the time. [12][13][14][15]\n\nAs expenditures increased and debts accumulated, the West would no longer grant Poland loans. Moreover, the 1973, June 1976 protests and 1979 oil crises affected the fragile economy. Due to previous GDP growth, higher income and expanded industries, the demand for certain goods and consumption surged. [16][17] New factories and state enterprises required imported fuel, materials and a workforce to operate production lines. [18] Soon, the country started exporting locally-produced stock designated for the Polish populace, thus resulting in widespread shortages. [19] Because the remaining assets were directed at production, exports and debt repayment, the state also reduced imports to minimize expenses. In 1976, the communist government introduced ration cards for sugar,[20] meat, processed food and dairy followed. [21] Confectionery, cocoa, coffee, rice, tobacco and other goods not produced in Poland were so heavily rationed that they were almost permanently unavailable. [22][21] Due to the constant lack of tobacco, ordinary cigarettes became a form of new currency on the black market. [23] The living standards began to sharply decline; the supply of imported goods was kept to a low minimum and the country was forced to export everything it could, including coal necessary for basic heating and power plants. Power outages were commonplace. [24] By 1980, the debt accounted to over US$23 billion, then almost half of Poland's nominal GDP. [25]\n\nAt the same time, the newly-founded Solidarity movement encouraged farmers to refrain from selling agricultural products (wheat, grain, fruit and others) to the state as a sign of protest.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["met with an armed force, which utilized water cannons, tear gas, batons, truncheons and clubs to disperse crowds and beat protesters"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["Thousands of opposition activists were imprisoned"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["91 killed","9 miners' deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["13 December 1981 and 22 July 1983"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Poland"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Autumn Harvest Uprising","document":" Nationalist government\n\n Soviet Zone\n\nThe Autumn Harvest Uprising (simplified Chinese: 秋收起义; traditional Chinese: 秋收起義; pinyin: Qīushōu Qǐyì) was an insurrection that took place in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, China, on September 7, 1927, led by Mao Zedong, who established a short-lived Hunan Soviet. After initial success, the uprising was put down. Mao continued to believe in the rural strategy but concluded that it would be necessary to form a party army. [1]\n\nIn support of the Northern Expedition, Mao was sent to survey conditions in his home province of Hunan. His Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan urged support for rural revolution. [2]\n\nInitially, Mao struggled to garner forces for an uprising, but Li Zhen rallied the peasantry and members of her local communist troop to join. [3] Mao then led a small peasant army against the Kuomintang and the landlords of Hunan. The Soviet government he established there lasted two months. The uprising was eventually defeated by Kuomintang forces within two months after the Soviet was established and Mao and the others were forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, where emerged an army of miners which would help him in later battles. This was one of the early armed uprisings by the Communists, and it marked a significant change in their strategy. Mao and Red Army founder Zhu De went on to develop a rural-based strategy that centered on guerrilla tactics. This paved the way for the Long March of 1934 (the first Long March in 1918 not accountable). Communist Party /  People's Republic of China ( Red Army →  8th Route Army, N4A, etc. →  People's Liberation Army)","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["September 7, 1927"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, China"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Communists"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1999 Surinamese protests","document":"The 1999 Surinamese protests was massive anti-government protests and carnival-style wave of demonstrations calling on the fall of the government of Jules Wijdenbosch amid economic deterioration and political deadlock in Suriname. Protesters marched and participated in nonviolent festivals, carnivals, clapping strikes, human chains, gatherings, gathered in speeches, chanted and used peaceful tactics as a form of rallies and peaceful actions during protests. Large-scale demonstrations occurred due to the dire conditions and poor living standards, calling on the government to step down immediately. Concerns was shared and the protesters shared their dissatisfaction with the government while voicing their opposition and anger at the government's handling of the economic situation. Thousands participated in the next 2 months of protest movement, democratic rallies and demonstrations against the regime in mainly Paramaribo and other cities. 10,000-50,000 participated in protests calling for wage increases and decrease of food Costa and protested rising costs. Unions, students, workers and teachers planned and staged mass strikes and waves of demonstrations across May, June and July, led by the opposition, but by July, the opposition called off the street protests, commenting that Jules Wijdenbosch would stay in power until the next elections. [1][2][3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["calling on the fall of the government of Jules Wijdenbosch","anti-government","against the regime"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1999"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Suriname","Paramaribo and other cities"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["10,000-50,000 participated"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June 2013 Egyptian protests","document":"\n\n\n\nThe 2012–2013 Egyptian protests (sometimes called the Hirak Uprising) were part of the crisis in Egypt including the June 2013 protests, the July 2013 coup d'état, and part of the post-coup unrest. They saw varying opposition against three contiguous heads of state; namely, SCAF, Muslim Brotherhood, and the de facto ruling Egyptian Armed Forces. Beginning with the anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, small-scale protests took place in January demanding the military to step away from power. Those protests saw at least 7 protesters killed. Increasing violence, however, began in February 2012 with the massacre of Port Said, where 74 people (72 of which being Al-Ahly fans) were killed and hundred were injured by purported fans who were armed with knives, batons and swords, while the sparse security present stood idly. The lack of police intervention and alleged political involvement sparked a number of protests. [26] Subsequent protests in March saw 1 killed after demands for the return of football matches for El Masry after the riots last month. Mass demonstrations in April demanding a transfer of power were attacked by the military. In June, riots and violent demonstrations against the delay of the trial of those responsible for the killings of protesters since 2011 took place and demands for the parliament to be dissolved was heard. From 16 June-30 July, strikes and major protests against the continued lack of freedom of speech and the apparent power grab by the SCAF. Workers protested in major strikes in July against unemployment and the economic situation. Protests against the film discriminating Islam took place from 11-14 September. It was suppressed. Doctors and nurses protested in October for weeks demanding better wages. Protests against the resignations of members of the armed forces in august were carried out by supporters of the military. During Morsi's reign, the demonstrations were organized by Egyptian opposition organizations and individuals, mainly liberals, leftists, secularists and Christians. [27][28] They resulted in violent clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters, with dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. [29] Demonstrators gathered outside the Heliopolis Palace, which in turn was surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles of the Republican Guard. [1] The anti-Morsi protesters in Cairo were estimated at 200,000, while over 100,000 supporters of Morsi gathered in Cairo to show support. [30]\n\nA number of Morsi's advisers resigned in protest, and many judges spoke out against his actions as well. [1] Resignations were tendered by the director of state broadcasting, Rafik Habib (Christian vice president of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party), and Zaghloul el-Balshi (general secretary of the commission overseeing the planned constitutional referendum). [31] Seven members of Morsi's 17-member advisory panel resigned in December 2012. [32]\n\nOn 8 December 2012, Morsi annulled his temporary decree which had expanded his presidential authority and removed judicial review of his decrees, an Islamist official said, but added that the results of the temporary declaration would still stand. [33]\n\nOn 22 December, the Constitution supported by Morsi was approved in a national referendum by 64% of the voters, with 33% of the electorate voting. The opposition claimed fraud in the process and called for an inquiry. [34][35][36][37]\n\nOn 30 June 2013, prior to the anti-government protests, Morsi supporters gathered in Rabaa el-Adaweya square to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Morsi's inauguration. In turn, tens of thousands of Morsi opponents massed in Tahrir Square and outside the Heliopolis palace demanding Morsi's resignation and pre-term presidential elections. [38] Demonstrations were also reported in 18 locations across Cairo[39] and in other different locations across the country including Alexandria, El-Mahalla and cities in the Suez Canal region. [40][41] Various political organizations supported the demonstrations, including the Tamarod movement formed by members of the Egyptian Movement for Change, which claimed to have collected 22 million signatures calling for Morsi's resignation. [42][43]\n\nOn 3 July 2013 the Egyptian Armed Forces released a statement announcing the end of Morsi's presidency, following a 48-hour deadline demanding that Morsi \"responds to the demands of the people. \"[44][45] In the same statement, the military announced the constitution was suspended for amendments and that new elections would be held at a future date. The chief justice of the constitutional court, Adly Mansour, became head of a transitional government. [44]\n\nProtesting Morsi's overthrow,[46] his supporters staged large demonstrations in the Nasr City district of Cairo, and in Alexandria, Luxor, Damanhour, and Suez. [47] In the aftermath, massacres[48][49] were perpetrated during clashes between Morsi supporters and Egyptian soldiers and security forces, including the Rabaa massacre and the Republican Guard clashes. [50][51][52] In many cases, the Armed Forces denied shooting at demonstrators with live ammunition, contrary to claims by the Brotherhood, its supporters, and several Western media outlets. [53][54][55]\n\nOn 22 November 2012, Morsi issued a constitutional declaration purporting to protect the Constituent Assembly of Egypt from judicial interference. The declaration stated that it only applied until a new constitution was ratified. [56] The declaration also required new trials for people acquitted of Mubarak-era killings of protesters, and extended the mandate of the constituent assembly by two months. Additionally, the declaration authorized Morsi to take all measures necessary to these ends. [57]\n\nIn effect, the declaration made all constitutional declarations, laws and decrees made since Morsi assumed power immune to appeal by any individual, political or governmental body. [58][59][60][61][62] Demonstrations both in support of and opposing Morsi broke out around Egypt after the declaration was made. On 1 February 73 people were killed at a football game, in a stadium in Port Said. The riots began when fans of the team El Masry invaded the stadium, some of them carrying knives, and attacked fans of the rival team, Al Ahly. Initial media reports stated that more than 70 people were killed, with the death toll rising. Numerous protests then took place, following this event. On Thursday, 2 February, protesters took to the streets of Cairo, enraged by the fact that the lax security had failed in preventing this tragedy from happening. Some of the protesters were heard chanting that Tantawi should be executed. The police then deployed tear gas, on the protesters. On 24 March, numerous protesters took to the streets, angry that the football team El-Masry was banned for two more seasons, following the riots last month. The army then attacked the protesters.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["police then deployed tear gas, on the protesters"]},{"role":"Method","values":["gathered outside the Heliopolis Palace"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["angry that the football team El-Masry was banned for two more seasons, following the riots last month"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["74 people (72 of which being Al-Ahly fans) were killed and hundred were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["24 March"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Libyan protests","document":"\n\nThe 2020 Libyan protests consisted of street protests over issues of poor provision of services in several cities in Libya, including cities controlled by the Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west (Tripoli, Misrata, Zawiya)[1] and by the Libyan National Army (LNA) in the east (Benghazi)[2] and south (Sabha)[3] of Libya. On 23 and 24 August 2020,[4] protests took place in Tripoli, Misrata and Zawiya over issues of power and water cuts, lack of fuel and cooking gas, cash shortages, poor security, and the COVID-19 pandemic. [1]\n\nArmed forces associated with the GNA shot at the demonstrators, causing injuries. [5] The Interior Ministry stated that demonstrators had the right to peacefully protest and that the ministry had opened criminal investigations into the shootings. The Tripoli Protection Force also declared its support for the right of citizens to carry out street protests. [1] The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) also called for an investigation. [5] Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha criticised the gunmen, stating that live ammunition was used \"indiscriminately\", and that the gunmen had kidnapped demonstrators and \"[sowed] panic among the population and [threatened] security and public order\". [6]\n\nPrime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj responded to the protests with a long speech,[4] with the suspension of Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha,[6] and with a Cabinet reshuffle. Salah Eddine al-Namrush became Defence Minister and Mohammad Ali al-Haddad, from Misrata, became the head of the army. [7]\n\nProtests over \"living conditions and power cuts\" took place in Benghazi on 11 September 2020, including tyre burning and road blocks. [2] Protests continued in Benghazi on 12 and 13 September, and started in Bayda, Sabha and Marj. Benghazi protestors set fire to a building used as headquarters by the LNA-associated authorities. The de facto LNA-associated government led by Abdullah al-Thani offered its resignation on 13 September 2020 in response to the protests. [8]\n\nOn 13 September, two hundred protestors demonstrated in Tripoli in front of the Presidential Council against poor living conditions and calling for elections and political reform. Speakers at the protest objected to the appointment of Mohammed Bayou as head of a state-supported media organisation, claiming that he supported Khalifa Haftar. [9]\n\nOn 16 September, Fayez al-Sarraj, head and prime minister of the Government of National Accord, stated that he would resign from his position by the end of October 2020. [10][11]\n\nProtests continued on 21 September in Benghazi by the Residents of the City of Benghazi calling for democracy and opposing corruption[12] and on 24 September in Sug Juma, Tripoli and Zliten against cuts in electric power. [13] The Benghazi protestors were attacked by Haftar supporters and one organiser went missing. [12] The 24 September protests included road blocks and tyre burning. [13]\n\nA protest in Gharyan on 23 September called for the Gharyan municipal elections to be held. [14]\n\nA protest in Sabha on 16 October criticised Haftar for poor living conditions in Sabha and the southern region in general, citing control of fuel supplies, growth of the black market and the shutdown of Sabha Airport. [3]\n\nProtests and strikes were seen as widespread and nationwide with riots being held and the country seen at risk of a revolution by unknown commentators.[who?] Between 19-20 October, protests and riots against the government and the shortages on the nation occurred with no police involved but then, riot police took control of the protests in Tobruk and clashing with protesters in Benghazi. Peaceful demonstrations occurred throughout Libya between 22-27 October and led to shootings and quelling. Anti-France and a 2-day anti-govt movement was held in Tripoli. [citation needed]\n\nStrikes against power cuts saw hundreds attend on 29-30 October. It was met with tear gas and plastic bullets and riots was met with rubber bullets. Riots occurred on 29 October by workers and ended violently with clashes. The general strikes was the worse since August. Benghazi and Sirte was the areas that experienced the unrest, according to local Libyan media. [citation needed]\n\nOn 31 October 2020, Fayez al-Sarraj rescinded his decision to resign. [15]\n\nThe riots and protests in Libya has made the United Nations and Amnesty International to express \"grave concern\". The rival government to Khalifa Haftar resigned but on 31 October, refused and didn't accept the resignation. At least 4 deaths, according to CNN, were committed and blood was also seen by witnesses on the streets of Benghazi. 13 injuries were reported in October alone by Libyan media and the opposition. [citation needed]\n\nRevolution was being shouted on the streets of Misrata as police entered the critical stage of the protests. Amnesty international and the USA and the European Union has condemned the protests[dubious  – discuss] and has considered protesters to stay calm. Fears of a revolution was sparked by the slogan \"Thawra Liban Libia\" meaning revolution in Libya, Libya and \"Allahu Akbar\" was heard during gunfire in clashes in early September. The protests has been described numerously by international media and the western world as \"uprising against presidents Haftar and Al Sarraj\" or the \"revolt of victory\" after the resignation of the eastern-backed government. [citation needed] Another popular slogan throughout the south of Libya which was heard after poor living conditions protests was Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam referring to the popular slogan of the Arab summer and Arab spring. [16]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["power and water cuts, lack of fuel and cooking gas, cash shortages, poor security, and the COVID-19 pandemic","poor provision of services"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["23 and 24 August 2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tripoli, Misrata and Zawiya","Libya"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Sunflower Student Movement","document":"\n\nStudents and civic groups\n\nRepublic of China Government\n\nLegislative Yuan\n\nThe Sunflower Student Movement is associated with a protest movement driven by a coalition of students and civic groups that came to a head between March 18 and April 10, 2014, in the Legislative Yuan and, later, also the Executive Yuan of Taiwan. [3][4][5] The activists protested the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the then ruling party Kuomintang (KMT) at the legislature without clause-by-clause review. The Sunflower protesters perceived the trade pact with the People's Republic of China (China; PRC) would hurt Taiwan's economy and leave it vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing, while advocates of the treaty argued that increased Chinese investment would provide a necessary boost to Taiwan's economy, that the still-unspecified details of the treaty's implementation could be worked out favorably for Taiwan, and that to \"pull out\" of the treaty by not ratifying it would damage Taiwan's international credibility. [6][7][8] The protesters initially demanded the clause-by-clause review of the agreement be reinstated,[9] later changing their demands toward the rejection of the trade pact, the passing of legislation allowing close monitoring of future agreements with China, and citizen conferences discussing constitutional amendment. [10] While the Kuomintang was open to a line-by-line review at a second reading of the agreement,[11][12] the party rejected the possibility that the pact be returned for a committee review. [13] The KMT backed down later, saying that a joint review committee could be formed if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) agreed to participate in the proceedings. This offer was rejected by the DPP, who asked for a review committee on all cross-strait pacts, citing \"mainstream public opinion. \"[14] In turn, the DPP proposal was turned down by the KMT. [15][16]\n\nThe movement marked the first time that the Legislative Yuan had been occupied by citizens. [17][18]\n\nThe term \"Sunflower Student Movement\" referred to the use of sunflowers by the protesters as a symbol of hope as the flower is heliotropic. [19] The movement's name in Chinese is (Chinese: 太陽花; pinyin: taì yáng hua), a calque of the English word \"sunflower\", rather than the native term, (Chinese: 向日葵; pinyin: xiàng rì kuí)[20] This term was popularized after a florist contributed 1000 sunflowers to the students outside the Legislative Yuan building. [21] \"Sunflower\" was also an allusion to the Wild Lily Movement of 1990 which set a milestone in the democratization of Taiwan. [22] The movement is also known as the \"March 18 Student Movement\" (318學運) or \"Occupy Taiwan Legislature\" (佔領國會事件). The movement's anthem was \"Island's Sunrise\" by the indie band Fire EX. from Kaohsiung. [23][24]\n\nOn March 17 2014, Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) attempted a unilateral move in the Legislative Yuan to force the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) to the legislative floor without giving it a clause-by-clause review as previously established in a June 2013 agreement with the opposing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Previously, in September 2013, the two parties had agreed to hold 16 public hearings over the details of the trade agreement with academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and representatives of trade sectors impacted by the agreement. The KMT had chaired eight public hearings within a week, and several members of social groups, NGOs, and business representatives from impacted industries were either not invited or were informed at the last minute. [9] When academics and business sector representatives gave their opinions at the hearings, the presiding chair of the legislature's Internal Administrative Committee, KMT legislator Chang Ching-chung [zh], said the agreement had to be adopted in its entirety and could not be amended. [25] Legislative gridlock followed, as the opposing DPP had not completed the eight hearings they had agreed to chair by March 17. Chang, citing Article 61 of the Legislative Yuan Functions Act, announced that the review process had gone beyond the 90 days allotted for review. The agreement, in the KMT's view, should therefore be considered reviewed and should be submitted to a plenary session on March 21 for a final vote. [9]\n\nOn March 18 around 9:00 p.m. local time, crowds of students, academics, civic organizations, and other protestors climbed over the fence at the legislature and entered the building. In the melee, one window of the Legislative Yuan was smashed and a police officer suffered serious injuries. A lawyer who was assigned to the protesters stated that six individuals had been arrested over the protest so far. While several hundred protesters remained outside the building, about 300 protesters occupied the legislative floor overnight and succeeded in preventing several attempts by police to expel them. The protesters demanded that the clause-by-clause review of the agreement be reinstated, otherwise they vowed to occupy the legislature until March 21, when the Yuan had scheduled to vote and pass the CSSTA. As night approached, the authorities cut water and electricity to the building. Premier Jiang Yi-huah ordered riot police be sent in to evict the protesters, but that directive was not implemented. [9][26]\n\nShortly after the movement began, thousands of riot police from the National Police Agency were mobilized across the country to surround the protesters. [27][28] On March 20, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng promised not to use force on the protesters. [29]\n\nOn March 21, Speaker Wang refused to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Jiang Yi-huah to discuss a response, stating that the president should listen to the people and that a compromise was needed between the lawmakers first. [30] Premier Jiang met with demonstrators outside the legislature on March 22 but stated that the executive branch had no intention of dropping the trade pact. [3] At a press conference on March 23, President Ma restated his resolve in passing the trade pact and affirmed he did not act according to orders from Beijing. [31][32]\n\nIn response to the press conference, a group of protesters led by Dennis Wei[33] stormed and occupied the Executive Yuan around 7:30 p.m. local time on March 23. [34] The protesters were evicted from the Executive Yuan by 5:00 a.m. on March 24, but some congregated again on Zhongxiao East Road. [35] During the 10-hour eviction process, around 1000 riot police and other law enforcement personnel reportedly used excessive force, including water cannon and baton strikes to the head against the nonviolent protesters, while journalists and medics were ordered to leave. [36] More than 150 people were injured and 61 were arrested. [37] The Association of Taiwan Journalists accused the police of using violence against the media during the eviction process and violating freedom of the press, citing more than 10 cases of attacks on media reporters. [38]\n\nOn March 25, President Ma invited representatives of the student protests to his office for a dialog over the controversial trade agreement \"without any preconditions\", after the president said earlier he would not hold face-to-face talks. [39] One of the student leaders Lin Fei-fan accepted the invitation initially and agreed no preconditions should be set for the meeting, but he said the students wanted to discuss whether Taiwan needed new legislation to monitor all cross-strait agreements, and whether the CSSTA should be postponed until that legislation was introduced. [25] However, one day later, on March 26, the protest leaders rebuffed the invitation to meet despite earlier calling on President Ma to meet with them to answer their demands, as they feel Ma, who was the Chairman of the Kuomintang, was still controlling the Kuomintang legislators via the party regulations, so that the cross-party negotiations failed once again to reach a consensus on the protests and the pact. [40][41]\n\nOn March 26, student protesters called for all legislators to support the establishment of a law for supervising cross-strait agreements before passing the recent trade in services pact. The student activists drafted an undertaking document and asked all lawmakers to sign the document to show their approval. [42]\n\nOn March 27, Lin Fei-fan called for a March 30 rally filling the Ketagalan Boulevard leading from the Presidential Office to the legislature to put pressure on President Ma to heed the demonstrators' demands. [43][44] The organizers behind the demonstration said around 500,000 people massed in the March 30 rally, while the police estimated the figure to be 116,000. [45] Twenty-two NGOs also took part in the rally. [46] Hundreds of people opposing the movement held a concurrent rally in the same area, but left before the students dispersed. [47]\n\nOn April 1, hundreds of pro-China activists supporting the trade pact rallied against the parliament seizure. The group was organized by Chang An-lo, a prominent Taiwanese gang leader also known as \"White Wolf\", who was on bail after being arrested on his return to Taiwan from China, where he had fled 17 years previously.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the then ruling party Kuomintang (KMT) at the legislature without clause-by-clause review"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["March 18 and April 10, 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Legislative Yuan and, later, also the Executive Yuan of Taiwan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Sunflower protesters"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018 Jordanian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2018 Jordanian protests started as a general strike organized by more than 30 trade unions on 30 May 2018 after the government of Hani Mulki submitted a new tax law to Parliament. The bill followed IMF-backed austerity measures adopted by Mulki's government since 2016 that aimed to tackle Jordan's growing public debt. Although Jordan had been relatively unscathed from the violence that swept the region following the 2011 Arab Spring, its economy had taken a hit from the surrounding turmoil and from an influx of a large number of Syrian refugees into the country. Jordan also hosts a large contingent of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, further straining its finances. The UNHCR places Jordan as the world's second largest host of refugees per capita. [1]\n\nThe day following the strike on 31 May, the government raised fuel and electricity prices responding to an increase in international oil prices. This led to crowds of protesters pouring onto the 4th circle, in Amman, near the Prime Ministry's offices that night. Other Jordanians also gathered across the country in protest of the measure in unprecedented large numbers. On 1 June King Abdullah intervened and ordered the freeze of the price hikes; the government acquiesced but said the decision would cost the treasury $20 million. The protests continued for four days until Mulki submitted his resignation to the King on 4 June, and Omar Razzaz, his Education Minister, became Prime Minister. Protests only ceased after Razzaz announced his intention of withdrawing the new tax bill. The protests have not been led by traditional opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or leftists, but by diverse crowds from the middle and poor classes. Although some protesters set aflame tires and blocked roads multiple nights, protests were largely peaceful and few casualties were reported. They were staged after daylight hours as it was during the month of Ramadan. Jordan's total foreign debt in 2011 was $19 billion, representing 60% of its GDP. In 2016, the debt reached $35.1 billion representing 93% of its GDP. [2] This substantial increase is attributed to effects of regional instability stemming from the Arab Spring causing: decrease in tourist activity; decreased foreign investments; increased military expenditure; attacks on Egyptian gas pipeline supplying the Kingdom; the collapse of trade with Iraq and Syria; expenses from hosting 1.4 million Syrian refugees and accumulated interests from loans. [2] According to the World Bank, Syrian refugees have cost Jordan more than $2.5 billion a year, amounting to 6% of the GDP and 25% of the government's annual revenue. [3] Foreign aid covers only a small part of these costs, while 63% of the total costs are covered by Jordan. [4]\n\nKing Abdullah had warned in January 2016 that Jordanians have reached “a boiling point”, and called on donor countries to provide more to Jordan to help it cope with the crises. He told the BBC in an interview that \"in the psyche of the Jordanian people I think it's gotten to a boiling point, sooner or later the dam is going to burst. \"[5] Jordan has historically welcomed refugees—Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, Iraqis during the American invasion and now Syrians, who make up about 20 percent of Jordan's then 9.5 million population—and, according to Abdullah, \"For the first time, we can't do it any more. \"[6][7] The UNHCR places Jordan as the world's second largest host of refugees per capita. [1]\n\nRising Jordanian public debt led Prime Minister Hani Mulki in 2016 to negotiate a 3-year program $732 million loan facility with the International Monetary Fund, which would see the public debt falling from 95% of the GDP to 77% by 2021. [8] The austerity program raised prices on several food staples in 2016 and 2017, making him very unpopular in the country. [9] The programme succeeded in preventing the debt from rising above 95% in 2018, however, it strained Jordan's weak economy. [10]\n\nFurthermore, worsening Jordan's conditions is a decision by Persian Gulf countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to withhold $1 billion in annual economic assistance that were directed towards the creation of jobs and economic growth hampered the finances of Jordan, which lacks the natural resources of its neighbors, amassing an unemployment rate of 18% and a much higher poverty rate. [11]\n\nA 22 March 2018 report by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace commented on Mulki's policies: \"Mulki declared openly that his predecessors had left the country at the brink of insolvency and that the failure to take tough revenue-raising measure would lead to a debt crisis which would destroy the country. And he is correct. What is more doubtful is Mulki’s assertion that Jordan “will get out of the bottleneck” in 2019. While the measures to raise taxes and reduce subsidies buy time, they leave Jordan struggling to stay afloat and dependent on the continued flow of extensive aid. \"[12]\n\nOn 22 May, the Jordanian Cabinet approved a new draft law proposing changes to the 2014 income tax law. The draft aimed to fight tax evasion and to raise taxes on some sectors and individuals. [13]\n\nThe protests started as a general strike organized by more than 30 trade unions on 30 May 2018 after the new tax bill was submitted to Parliament. The day following the strike on 31 May, the government raised fuel and electricity prices responding to an increase in international oil prices. [14] This led to crowds of protesters pouring onto the 4th circle, in Amman, near the Prime Ministry's offices that night. Other Jordanians also gathered across the country in protest of the measure in unprecedented large numbers. Although protests have been largely peaceful and staged after daylight hours during Ramadan, some protesters set aflame tires and blocked roads multiple nights. These protests have not been led by traditional opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or the leftists, but by diverse crowds from the middle and poor classes. [11] On 1 June King Abdullah intervened and ordered the freeze of the price hikes; the government acquiesced but said the decision would cost the treasury $20 million. [15] The protests continued for four days until Mulki submitted his resignation to the King on 4 June, and Omar Razzaz, his Education Minister, was appointed Prime Minister. [16]\n\nIt was reported on June 6 that hundreds were still protesting in Amman. [17] The same day, some trade unions organized a national walkout, while others pulled out following the appointment of Razzaz. [17]  This walkout included shops, universities, offices, schools and hospitals. [18][19][17]\n\nOn June 7, Omar Razzaz met with the trade union leaders and agreed to withdraw the proposed tax bill as soon as a new cabinet was sworn in. [20] Following this announcement, protests in Amman's 4th circle area came to a halt. [21]\n\nLeaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait invited King Abdullah on June 11 to a summit in the Saudi capital. It was announced that the Gulf countries promised $2.5 billion in direct and indirect aid over the course of 5 years. Most of the amount was promised to be deposited at the Central Bank of Jordan to support Jordan's share of foreign currency, while the rest would go to development projects and a smaller portion to direct budgetary support. [22]\n\nQatar, which Jordan withdrew its ambassador from in June 2017 as part of the boycott of Qatar led by Saudi Arabia, sent its foreign minister three days later to announce $500 million worth of investments in Jordan.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["a general strike"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["government raised fuel and electricity prices responding to an increase in international oil prices"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Jordan","Amman"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["diverse crowds from the middle and poor classes"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2010 Mozambican protests","document":"The 2010 Mozambican protests were a series of food riots and deadly mass demonstrations sparked by spiralling food inflation and unemployment. Bread riots erupted on 1 September after a week of small strikes and turned into a street uprising, turning against the government, poverty, unemployment, inflation and hunger. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were told to March and rally for their freedom and break the fear barrier. After 4 were killed in riots in Maputo, hundreds then thousands turned up in protest movements nationwide. 13 were killed in the next few days of general strikes and Riots. The wave of unprecedented violence was the biggest since the end of the Mozambican Civil War. [1][2][3]\n\nThis African history–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["food riots and deadly mass demonstrations sparked by spiralling food inflation and unemployment"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["4 were killed","13 were killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2010"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Bulgaria antiziganist protests","document":"\n\nThe 2011 Bulgaria antiziganist (anti-Gypsy) protests started during the night of 23 to 24 September 2011 in the village Katunitsa and later spread to other locations all over the country, including Plovdiv, Sofia, Varna, Burgas, Pleven, Ruse, Pazardzhik, Stara Zagora and others. The reason for the unrest was the murder of a local youth, who was run over by a car by the close associate of local Roma boss Kiril Rashkov. These protests were accompanied with racist chants and called for violence against Romani. [1][2] The riots in Katunitsa led to the burning of two cars and four houses, owned by different members of the family of the alleged Romani crime boss Kiril Rashkov, also known as \"Tsar Kiro\". [3][4] The United Nations[5] and the OSCE[6] condemned the demonstrations and the violence. The protests started in response to the vehicular homicide of 19-year-old Angel Petrov in Katunitsa. The murder was committed by 55-year-old Simeon Yosifov,[7] who is believed to be a close associate of crime boss Kiril Rashkov. [8] The death of Angel Petrov was preceded by death threats involving a \"car accident\", which were published in the Bulgarian video-sharing website \"vbox7\". [9]\n\nProtests continued on 1 October in Sofia, with 2000 Bulgarians marching against the Romani and what they viewed to be the \"impunity and the corruption\" of the political elite in the country. [10]\n\nVolen Siderov, leader of the far-right Ataka party and presidential candidate, spoke to a crowd at the Presidential Palace in Sofia, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated, as well as Romani ghettos to be dismantled. [10]\nMany of these organized protests were accompanied by ethnic clashes and racist violence against Romani. The protesters shouted racist slogans like \"Gypsies into soap\" and \"Turks under the knife. \"[11] Many protesters were arrested for public order offenses. [12][13] The news media labelled the protests as anti-Romani Pogroms. [11]\n\nAccording to the BBC, President Georgy Parvanov called on the protesters for \"an end to the language of hatred\". [10] Parvanov and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov called a meeting of the national security council to address the issue. These protests came before the presidential elections on 23 October. Far-right Ataka party leader Volen Siderov tried to capitalise on the tensions and called for the death penalty to be reinstated and for Romani \"ghettos\" to be dismantled. [14]\nThe United Nations[5] and the OSCE[6] condemned the demonstrations and the violence. Reuters attributed the protests and civil disturbances to the lack of an effective justice system in the country. [15] Russian media emphasized the ethnic nature of the societal polarizations, expressing the belief that the Roma are indirectly benefiting due to a positive discrimination on the part of law enforcement agents. [16]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the murder of a local youth, who was run over by a car by the close associate of local Roma boss Kiril Rashkov"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["four houses"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["23 to 24 September 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["village Katunitsa and later spread to other locations all over the country, including Plovdiv, Sofia, Varna, Burgas, Pleven, Ruse, Pazardzhik, Stara Zagora and others","Bulgaria"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1992 Tajikistan protests","document":"\n\nThe 1992 Tajikistan protests, also known as the Tajikistani Revolution, were nonviolent, bloodless protests and demonstrations against the results of the 1991 Tajik presidential election. These results were thought to be rigged and in favour of the president Rahmon Nabiyev. Opposition rallies erupted in March 1992 but demonstrations became large-scale by May, at the onset of violence. These series of peaceful protests would lead to the bloody Tajikistani Civil War. [1]\n\nTajikistan was part of the Soviet Union as the Tajik SSR. It wasn’t struggling until the perestroika and glasnost policies was set in place by Mikhail Gorbachev, last president of the USSR, which made Tajik life struggle. Since then, Tajikistan has been arguing and complaining over the Situation. In 1990, the 1990 Dushanbe riots was taking place against Armenia and the government. Independence arrived, with Tajikistan being an independent nation. A Large-scale peaceful opposition uprising was held after the August coup, in which Moscow forces led a insurrection against Mikhail Gorbachev. These events were took place before the 1991 Tajik presidential election. [2]\n\nProtests surrounding the election results escalated in March, with clashes but they soon subsided. Quiet Revolutionary protests and small anti-govt demonstrations took place in April, after March’s protests. Mass strikes and major demonstrations re-erupted throughout the country against the government, demanding the resignation of the government and the president, Rahmon Nabiyev. Soon, firearms was armed with pro-government militants, and soon staring to quell the crowds in town squares with the firearms and tanks, sparking more anger. Angry protesters threw stones and these peaceful street protests turned into a violent crackdown and battleground. The unrest has spiralled out of control, with others struggling to contain the anger and demands for new elections in cities so they started to clash in Khujand sparking the Tajikistani Civil War. After weeks of a new wave of mass strikes and anti-government demonstrations, the protesters captured the president and forced him to resign. [3][4]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the results of the 1991 Tajik presidential election"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["March 1992 but demonstrations became large-scale by May"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tajikistan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2003 Iranian student protests","document":"The 2003 Iranian student protests was a series of nationwide rallies and student protests in Iran against president Mohammad Khatami and demanded more liberal democratic reforms and justice over the deaths in the Iran student protests, July 1999. Massive protests and General strikes first began on 12 June, when anti-government demonstrators chanted slogans against president Mohammad Khatami and his reign in power. The wave of popular, chaotic demonstrations became the most violent and most biggest since 1999. Protesters had a clear demand, a more liberal democratic government and fresh Elections to be held. Fresh street protests culminated into violence as Riots broke out in Tehran, Abadan and teachers also started to rally. The student demonstrations consisted of Lobbying, Looting and Picketing. Mass protests strengthened and brewed, drawing international attention, and protesters also demanded Democracy, an end to Police brutality, Unemployment and Poverty to be curbed, Free speech and Free rights, Independent Media and free student education. Protests continued daily, triggering the Iran Revolutionary Guards to be sent to disperse protesters. Protesters chanted slogans and anti-corruption chants as marchers clashed with police at peaceful demonstrations in Mahshahr, where protest sites have been located, as well as Qom. Police tackled the Civil disobedience and nonviolent uprising by using Live ammunition and Rubber bullets to disperse protesters. The security forces managed to quell the mass uprising using brutal tactics after more demands was met in growing opposition street demonstrations by teachers and workers to president Mohammad Khatami. [1][2][3] The protests first began after new plans to privatise universities by thousands of civilians and citizens, mainly young people, then turned into sustained anti-government rallies calling for the overthrow pd the regime. The anti-regime protests was the biggest since 1999, but protests was suppressed by the security forces, their demands was suppressed.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against president Mohammad Khatami and demanded more liberal democratic reforms and justice over the deaths in the Iran student protests, July 1999"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2003","12 June"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Iran"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Iranian student"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Sri Lanka worker protests","document":"\nThe 2011 Sri Lanka worker protests were a series of violent and non-violent protests involving workers from the Free Trade Zones (FTZ) of Sri Lanka against the government. Approximately 250,000 workers took part in the protest against the Sri Lankan government's Private Sector Pension Bill (PSBP) which lasted two weeks, from 24 May – 6 June 2011. [1] The pension bill was effectively cutting wages and limiting employee benefits, which had a negative effect on the FTZ workers and prompted the mass protest. [2] The protests were the largest that the FTZ had seen since its establishment in 1978. The protests started as non-violent demonstrations in the cities of Negombo and Katunayake, however, they quickly turned violent, as the Sri Lanka Police struggled to contain the large crowds. On 30 May 2011, a 21-year-old man, Roshen Chanaka was killed by police gunfire. The death of Chanaka prompted widespread discontent with the Sri Lankan Police, and as a result, the Sri Lanka Army were deployed to deal with the developing situation. [3]\n\nThe protests ended on 6 June with President Mahinda Rajapaksa announcing substantial amendments to the PSBP, which included a revised saving scheme for all workers in the FTZ. In early May 2011, the Sri Lankan government was set to pass a Private Pension Bill that would break down fund contributions into three separate deposits; for employees, migrant workers and the self employed. [4]\n\nWhile this was the official description provided by the Sri Lankan government, the proposed scheme was in fact formulated around employees allocating a fixed percentage of their income to a membership fund, which would make up their pension. Once this reserved money had been depleted, the employers were longer entitled to any pension and may have even be forced back into the workforce as a result. [5] This was the primary motivation for the subsequent protests, the Sri Lankan Workforce, particularly those working in the FTZ, were disenchanted and demanded a fairer scheme that would ensure that their retirement is secure. [6] The proposed bill would effectively introduce compulsory saving for retiring FTZ workers, a notion that spearheaded the protests to follow. Prathiba Mahanamahewa, a Sri Lankan Lawyer at the time, described the bill as unfair in an interview with AsiaNews; \"But once they retire, and the money spent from the individual account is finished the person ceases to be a member of the fund, in short, they are no longer entitled to a pension. This is unacceptable, because everyone should be able to enjoy life after their retirement. \"[1]\n\nBoth employers and employees expressed disdain for the proposed bill, which would decrease their base salaries by 2%. [2] A female garment worker in the Katunayake FTZ stated during the protest; \"They are going to give a pension to us only at the age of 60. The girls come to the FTZ to earn some money for their marriage dowry. After working about five years, they get their provident fund and the gratuity fund for that. We are not prepared to give that money to the government after shedding sweat for years\". [2]\n\nFTZ workers began non-violent demonstrations on 24 May 2011 in Negombo and Katunayake. Approximately 200,000 FTZ workers, mostly female garment workers, marched in the streets chanting and expressing their discontent with the government's new pension bill with a number of banners. [3] The protestors tore down a large picture of President Mahinda Rajapaske at the Katunayake Junction. The protestors expressed their discontent with the Rajapaske government with a number of chants which included; \"Ask the Great King [Rajapakse] to come here and answer these questions! Ask the labour minister to come and answer these questions!” \"Whose force is this! The workers' force!”. [1]   While the protests were originally intended to be non-violent, as police attempted to contain the protests in the following days, the large crowds became increasingly more violent. Outnumbered, the police were forced to physically separate the crowds, as they were disrupting traffic and other workers in the area. The police fired intimidation shots to disperse the large crowds, however, they were using live ammunition. [7]\n\nOn 30 May, Roshen Chanaka, a 21-year-old FTZ worker, was shot by police on the streets of Katunayake. Chanaka's death sparked widespread outrage amongst the already disenchanted protestors as the level of violence at each protest began to increase dramatically. Police in the areas were now intent on breaking up the protests and were more willing to use violent dispersion tactics. [1]\n\nRetired Sri Lanka High Court judge Mahanama Tilakaratne was tasked with leading a commission into the events of Chanaka's death in 2017. Through his research he contended that the death of Chanaka could have easily been avoided through legitimate orders from Sri Lankan police hierarchy. Tilakaratne's findings also revealed that the police acted with extreme prejudice against the protesting FTZ workers, many of the police officers were using excessive force with weapons that included iron rods, chains and clubs. The police were also accused of beating women and children in the protests, as well as stealing personal items from the protestors. It was also concluded that over 800 police officers failed to wear their identification numbers on their uniforms during the protests. [8]\n\nTilakaratne described the police's conduct as \"deplorable'; \"The report further states \"In the circumstances, Police Officers acted contrary to the law, the superior officers were indifferent and failed to issue proper orders which enabled those of lower ranks to behave like thugs. Behaviour of the workers inside the Zone was such that Police in the circumstances acted in excess of the powers given to them by law, and deserve to be punished\". [8]\n\nFollowing the death of Chanaka, the Sri Lanka Army were deployed by President Rajapaske to end the protests. The Sri Lanka Army were effective in their ability to diffuse the developing situation. The Army set up multiple physical deterrents including blockades and reinforced patrols which substantially decreased the influx of protestors into Negombo and Katunayake. [8]\n\nRoshen Chanaka's death had a substantial impact on the subsequent events of the protests. The Sri Lankan government issued an apology regarding his death, and soon authorised for the Sri Lankan Army to replace the police force in dealing with the protestors. The Army were substantially more effective in dealing with the situation than the police, crowds were quick to disperse and compliant with the Army's directives. As a result, the protests came to an end on 6 June. A public funeral service was held for Chanaka towards the end of the protests. The funeral was attended by approximately 5000 FTZ workers as well as Chanaka's family and friends. The parents of Chanaka were vocal about their discontent regarding the proposed private pension bill, and spoke about this in depth during the funeral. Towards the end of the service, the funeral had effectively become a non-violent protest of its own, with thousands chanting and rallying against the Rajapaske government.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the Sri Lankan government's Private Sector Pension Bill (PSBP)"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Roshen Chanaka was killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["24 May – 6 June 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Sri Lanka","Negombo and Katunayake","ri Lankan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["workers from the Free Trade Zones (FTZ)","250,000 workers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Kansat Palli Bidyut protests","document":"Kansat Palli Bidyut protests were a series of protest in Kansat against the Kansat Palli Bidyut Samity which are subsidiaries of Rural Electrification Board that resulted in 13 deaths. The protests ranged from January to April 2006. [1]\n\nKansat is located in Shibganj Upazila, Chapai Nawabganj District, Northern Bangladesh. [2] Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram Parishad stands for 'the action committee for rural power development' in Bengali. [3] It was created to demand reliable supply of electricity for the locality. [4] According to the Parsihad, the local Palli Bidyut Samity was illegally taking extra money with the electricity bills. [5] The protests were led by farmers who were frustrated by the lack of proper electricity supply hampering their harvest. [1]\n\nOn 4 January 2006, two people were killed in the protests and on 23 January 2006, eight more were killed in protests in Kansat. [4] They had died after police fired at a protest in Kansat Bazar. Bangladesh Police arrest leaders of Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram Parishad, Golam Rabbani, Zahir Chowdhury, and Manirul Islam Manna. More than a hundred were injured and six police vehicles damaged in the clashes[6]\n\nOn 7 April saw clashes breakout between protestors and Bangladesh Police supported by activists of Bangladesh Nationalist Party. [3] Security forces were deployed to protect Kansat Palli Bidyut Samity. [3] Mizanur Rahman Minu blamed Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh and Shahjahan Miah blamed Awami League. [7]\n\nOn 8 April 2006, protestors attacked members of the police injuring an superintendent of police Mahbubul Alam and nine others. They also damaged three police vehicles. According to importers 5 thousand tonne of onions were rotting at the Sonamasjid Land Port. [8] Bangladesh Nationalist Party politician Mahbubul Alam, president of Krishak Dal Upazila unit,[3] was killed in the protests and his family members filed a case against Golam Robbani and others. Mizanur Rahman Minu called activists of Kansat Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram terrorists. [8]\n\nOn 9 April 2006, Section 144 was imposed in the area. Bangladesh High Court sought an explanation over the police firing that resulted in 10 casualties following a petition represented by Dr Kamal Hossain. Armed Police Battalion members were deployed. All activities were stopped at the Sonamasjid Land Port connecting India and Bangladesh. [2]\n\nOn 10 April 2006, protests continued in Kansat along with frequent clashes with the police. Shops in the area were forcefully closed by the police who also assaulted one of the shopkeepers. Golam Robbani blamed the local Member of Parliament for directing the police action and the ensuing violence. Bangladesh Rifles were also deployed in the area to control the protests. The local administration declared curfew under section 144. [9]\n\nConvenor of Kansat Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram, Golam Robbani, blamed Bangladesh Nationalist Party politician Mizanur Rahman Minu and Shahjahan Miah for the violence during the protest which resulted in 13 deaths. He also said he feared for his life after he heard credible information that a local Member of Parliament sought to have him killed extrajudicially through using law enforcement. [10]\n\nA three member committee was formed to create a list of individuals injured in the protest in May 2006. The committee was composed of convener Golam Rabbani, Upazila Nirbahi Officer Dewan Mohammad Abdus Samad, and Chapai Nawabganj District civil surgeon Md Golam Mortuza. Victims received free treatment from Bangladesh Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma Victims. [11] The previous Shibganj Upazila Nirbahi Officer Md Rafiqul Islam was withdrawn in February following the death of 10 protestors. [12]\n\nMd. Golam Rabbani, who had served as Convenor of Kansat Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram, announced on 18 August 2006 he intended to contest the upcoming parliamentary elections. He stated that the kansat movement had achieved its aims and was a successful movement. [13] Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh claimed in 2009 that they participated in the protests and had contact with a leader of the Kansat Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram. [14] Robbani's house was burned down by Bangladesh Nationalist Party activists in December 2013. [15] He was elected to Parliament in the 10th parliamentary election in 2014 from Chapai Nawabganj-1 as a candidate of Awami League. [16][17]\n\nTareque Masud and Catherine Masud made a documentary on the incident called The Road to Kansat based on the protests. [18][19]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["Bangladesh Police arrest leaders of Palli Bidyut Unnayan Sangram Parishad, Golam Rabbani, Zahir Chowdhury, and Manirul Islam Manna"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["13 deaths","More than a hundred were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["January to April 2006"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kansat is located in Shibganj Upazila, Chapai Nawabganj District, Northern Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Worldwide Protests for Free Expression in Bangladesh","document":"\n\nThe Worldwide Protests for Free Expression in Bangladesh were a series of rallies outside Bangladeshi embassies and consulates to demand the release of four Bangladeshi bloggers who had been arrested on charges of blasphemy. The protests took place on 25 April – 2 May 2013 and were organised by the Center for Inquiry (CFI), American Atheists, and the International Humanist and Ethical Union. [1][2] Demonstrations were held in Dhaka, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa and other cities around the world. [2] Secularists sought to express their solidarity with those jailed for speaking their minds about religion. Protesters drew attention to those who were being persecuted for exercising free speech, seeking to convince the international community to exert influence to have the bloggers set free by the Bangladeshi government. [3]\n\nThe events that sparked the rallies began during the shahbag protest when Bangladeshis rallied on the streets to demand capital punishment for Abdul Quader Molla, a war criminal of the Bangladesh liberation war and a leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. During the protests, Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who was critical of Jamaat-e-Islami, was stabbed to death by Jamaat activists[4] Another controversial author, blogger & online activist named Sunnyur Rahman, popularly known as 'Nastik Nobi' (Atheist Prophet) in the blog community, was also stabbed on 7 March 2013. [5]\n\nMembers of hardline Muslim group, Hifazat-e-Islam, backed by Jamaat, began a violent protest demanding authorities enact harsh anti-blasphemy laws to punish those who insult Islam, calling the bloggers \"anti-Islamic\" and terming all participants of the shahbag movement \"atheists. \"[6]\n\nIn response to these events, the government of Bangladesh set up a panel to monitor blasphemy on social media and blocked a number of blogs and websites. [7] Four bloggers were arrested for posting \"anti-religious\" comments on their blogs. [8] Rasel Pervez, a science teacher, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob were arrested at their homes on 1 April 2013. Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, a masters student at the University of Dhaka was arrested on the same day at his dormitory. [9] Asif Mohiuddin was arrested on 3 April 2013 at his sister's home where he was staying after having been stabbed by Islamist fanatics in January. [10]\n\nThe Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission compelled the Bengali blog somewhereinblog.net to remove the writings of Asif Mohiuddin. [11] The current blog page reads: \"blog has been withdrawn or cancelled for violating terms and conditions\" (transl. )[12] The move was criticised by Human Rights Watch,[13] Amnesty International, the Center for Inquiry, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and several other bodies. [2] Prominent Bangladeshi blog sites organized the 2013 Bengali blog blackout to protest the government's decision to arrest the bloggers. They were able to garner attention from western media, which eventually led the secularist and humanist bodies to organize the worldwide protests. [14]\n\nParvez and Shuvo were released on bail on 12 May and Biplob on 12 June. Asif secured bail on 27 June after spending three months in jail. [15]\n\nThe protests were organised by Michael De Dora, the director of the CFI's Office of Policy and the organization's representative to the U.N.,[1] and coordinated by Avijit Roy, the founder of Mukto-Mona, an independent site for free thinkers and skeptics of Bengali origin. [16] Maryam Namazie, an Iranian-born activist, independently called for 25 April to be an international day to defend Bangladesh's bloggers and activists. [17] Many writers, activists, and prominent intellectuals around the world including Taslima Nasrin, Hemant Mehta, PZ Myers publicly expressed their solidarity and support. [2]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["set up a panel to monitor blasphemy on social media and blocked a number of blogs and websites"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["Four bloggers"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demand the release of four Bangladeshi bloggers who had been arrested on charges of blasphemy"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who was critical of Jamaat-e-Islami, was stabbed to death","Sunnyur Rahman, popularly known as 'Nastik Nobi' (Atheist Prophet) in the blog community, was also stabbed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["25 April – 2 May 2013"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bangladesh","Dhaka, New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa and other cities around the world"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"anti-religious\""]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Center for Inquiry (CFI), American Atheists, and the International Humanist and Ethical Union"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1970 Polish protests","document":"\n\nThe 1970 Polish protests (Polish: Grudzień 1970, lit. 'December 1970') occurred in northern Poland during 14–19 December 1970. The protests were sparked by a sudden increase in the prices of food and other everyday items. Strikes were put down by the Polish People's Army and the Citizen's Militia, resulting in at least 44 people killed and more than 1,000 wounded. In December 1970, the government suddenly announced major increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs, especially dairy products, after bad harvests throughout the  year. The increases proved to be a major shock to ordinary citizens, especially in the larger cities. [1]\n\nDemonstrations against the price increases broke out in the northern Baltic coastal cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg, and Szczecin. The regime was concerned about an emerging wave of sabotage, which may have been inspired by the secret police, who wanted to legitimize a harsh response to the protestors. [2] Another possible reason why the secret police would instigate sabotage and violence would be to precipitate a change in the leadership of the ruling party, by causing violent deaths among the workers and then blaming the party for them. [3] It is known that the secret police had their agents among the striking workers (and recruited more in the aftermath). Actions of the secret police before and after the protests were codenamed akcja \"Jesień '70\". Protests started on 14 December. When a party official tried to convince the strikers to return to work, addressing them using loudspeakers on a police car, the strikers took over the police car and used the loudspeakers to announce a general strike, and to call for a manifestation in front of the party building to be held the same day. Fighting against the police started in the afternoon, and widespread fighting and rioting, including arson, continued until late in the evening. [4]\n\nThe police started rounding up workers, often random ones who did not participate in protests or rioting, and brutally beating them, commonly using a technique where the detainee was forced to move along a long row of policemen, all of them beating the detainee with their batons. [5]\n\nOn 15 December in Gdańsk, strikers set fire (reportedly twice) to the building of the Provincial Committee of the ruling party, which became an iconic moment of the protests. They also took some policemen prisoner, transported them to the shipyard, forced them to change into the workers' work clothing, and then transported them to a police station. Fire consumed the roof of the Provincial Committee's building until the protesters were repelled by a column of twenty OT-62 military armored personnel carriers. At least six people are known to be killed on December 15 in Gdańsk. Two more were shot to death the next morning, at or near the shipyard. [4][6]\n\nIn Gdynia, a neighboring city with its own shipyard, the protests were generally more peaceful than in Gdańsk - until the events of 17 December. Vice prime minister Stanisław Kociołek, in his televised speech on the evening of 16 December, condemned the protesters but also called for the workers to get back to work. However, on the 16–17 December night, the shipyard in Gdynia was surrounded by the police and the military, including tanks. Responding to the vice PM's appeal proved deadly to some of the workers. In Gdynia, the soldiers had orders to stop workers returning to work and on 17 December fired into the crowd of workers emerging from their trains; at least 11 of them were killed. Then, in other parts of Gdynia, people were shot dead while protesting, bringing the official death toll in Gdynia to 18. The number of the wounded in Gdynia is far from certain but is estimated to be in the hundreds. [7][8][9][10][11]\n\nThe protest movement then spread to other cities, leading to strikes and occupations. The government mobilized 5,000 members of special squads of police and 27,000 soldiers equipped with heavy tanks and machine guns. Overall, more than 1,000 people were wounded and at least 44 killed,[9][12][13] and 3,000 arrested, by modern accounts. Only six people were initially reported dead by the government. All who died were buried overnight, with only the closest relatives present or no relatives present at all, in order to avoid spreading the riots. [citation needed]\n\nThe Party leadership met in Warsaw and decided that a full-scale working-class revolt was inevitable unless drastic steps were taken. With the consent of Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow, Gomułka, Kliszko, and other leaders were forced to resign: if the price rises had been a plot against Gomułka, it succeeded. Since Moscow would not accept Mieczysław Moczar, Edward Gierek was drafted as the new leader. The price increases were reversed, wage increases announced, and sweeping economic and political changes were promised. Gierek went to Gdańsk and met the workers, apologised for the mistakes of the past, promised a political renewal and said that, as a worker himself, he would now govern for the people. [14]\n\nStanisław Kociołek lost the position of vice prime minister. For a short time he remained a member of the Central Committee, but in February 1971 he was reassigned to diplomatic service. That was soon after in January 1971, in a reversal of the previous policy of secrecy, government-controlled media published the list of 44 people who were killed during the protests. [9] Kociołek is vilified in a song related to the events of December 1970, Ballada o Janku Wiśniewskim, as the person responsible for deaths of children and women. When workers were shot dead after listening to his appeal (seemingly being lured into a trap), the blame fell on him. Although the aims of the protesters were mostly social and economic rather than political, the riots reinvigorated the dormant political activity of Polish society. [15] Nevertheless, the workers from the coast did not prevent the government from implementing its goal of increased food prices, which was achieved a few weeks later, after the 1971 Łódź strikes. [citation needed]\n\nThe Polish protests elicited broad sympathy and support, both in Western Europe and the Soviet bloc. There were copycat strikes on the Kühlungsborn Pier in East Germany and in Riga; Russian sailors on stranded Soviet ships shared their food with the citizens of Gdansk and Szczecin, while Polish strikers shielded Russian families in Poland from reprisals. [16]\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["police started rounding up workers, often random ones who did not participate in protests or rioting, and brutally beating them"]},{"role":"Method","values":["fighting and rioting, including arson"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["3,000 arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["sudden increase in the prices of food and other everyday items"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 44 killed","at least 44 people killed and more than 1,000 wounded"]},{"role":"Date","values":["14–19 December 1970","afternoon"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Baltic coastal cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg, and Szczecin","Poland"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Timeline of the 2016 Venezuelan protests","document":"\n\nThe 2016 Venezuelan protests began in early January following controversy surrounding the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary elections and the increasing hardships felt by Venezuelans. [1] The series of protests originally began in February 2014 when hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans protested due to high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods because of policies created the Venezuelan government[2][3][4][5][6] though the size of protests had decreased since 2014. In the first two months of 2016, over 1,000 protests and dozens of looting incidents were recorded throughout Venezuela. [1] Much of the looting occurred due to shortages in Venezuela with Venezuelans forced to stand in the sun for hours while waiting in line for scarce products. [1] By September, Venezuela saw some of its largest protests in the country's history with over one million demonstrating on 1 September 2016 and 26 October 2016. Into November, protests ceased due to the Vatican-backed dialogue between the opposition and the Bolivarian government, though the talks began to fall apart by the end of December. The protests are listed below according to the month they had happened.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["forced to stand in the sun for hours while waiting in line for scarce products"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["high levels of criminal violence, inflation, and chronic scarcity of basic goods"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 2014","early January"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Venezuela"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans","Venezuelans"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2006–2008 Lebanese protests","document":" March 14 Alliance\n\n March 8 Alliance\n\nThe 2008 Lebanon conflict (Or the 7 May 2008 clashes, Arabic: أحداث 7 أيار) was a brief intrastate conflict in May 2008 in Lebanon between pro-government and opposition militias after its 18-month-long political crisis spiraled out of control, pitting both sides against each other in fighting along sectarian lines. [1]\n\nThe fighting between pro-government and opposition militias affiliated to respectively the Future Movement and PSP political parties on one side and Hezbollah, Amal, SSNP, LDP and the Arab Democratic Party on the other side, was sparked by a government move to shut down Hezbollah's telecommunication network and remove Beirut Airport's head of security after the discovery of a hidden remote-controlled camera monitoring one of the airport's runway and his alleged ties to Hezbollah. [2] Clashes first occurred on May 7 after a general strike called for by the country's union federation to demand higher wages and decry high consumer prices became overshadowed by the government's decisions and escalated into low-level violence between pro-government and opposition protesters. Violence severely escalated the next morning on May 8 after a televised speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In his speech, Nasrallah responded to the government's decision to declare the organization's telecommunication network illegal by calling it a declaration of war on the organization, shortly after which fighting between pro-government and opposition militias broke out in Beirut. [2] Within two days, Hezbollah-led opposition fighters had seized control of several West Beirut neighbourhoods from pro-government Future Movement militiamen. [3] In the following days, fighting between pro-government and opposition militias spread to other parts of the country with major clashes in the Aley District and Tripoli. [4] On May 15, an intervention by the Arab League brokered an immediate end to hostilities and a pledge from warring parties to send emissaries to Doha for a mediation process. [5] The resulting Doha Agreement, reached on May 21, 2008, brought an end to the 18-month political feud that exploded into fighting and nearly drove the country to a new civil war. [6]\n\nOn December 1, 2006, a series of protests and sit-ins began in Lebanon, led by the March 8 political coalition which opposed the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Formed after the Cedar Revolution in 2005, the March 8 coalition was up of the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal, the Christian Free Patriotic Movement and a number of smaller parties such as the SSNP, LDP and the Arab Democratic Party. On the other side of the political divide stood the March 14 coalition, at the time holding the majority of cabinet and parliamentary seats. The March 14 coalition was made up of the primarily Sunni Future Movement and a number of smaller parties including the Druze Progressive Socialist Party and the Christian Lebanese Forces. [7]\n\nAt the core of commencement of the protests was the unhappiness of Hezbollah with the division of power under the current status quo and the pro-Western course of the Lebanese government. [8] It argued that too much executive power was in the hands of the Future Movement, the primary political party of March 14, which it in their view misused by too closely aligning with Western states, most notably the United States, thereby compromising Lebanon's sovereignty and security. [8] In addition, the period was marked by political strife between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions over the international investigation on the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri, the creation of the future Lebanon Tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators this assassination and the question of Hezbollah's armed status. [9][10][11][12] Hezbollah was the only organization allowed to retain its weapons after the ratification of the Taif Agreement, which brought an end to the Lebanese Civil War, although UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004 denied the organization the right to retain its arms. [10][11] By 2008, the military strength of the organization had grown to such levels that it was widely considered to be stronger than the Lebanese Armed Forces. [10] To ensure its interests, Hezbollah demanded a new national unity government in which March 8 would have at least a third plus one of the cabinet seats in order to grant them the ability to veto cabinet decisions. [8][13]\n\nAfter Shi'a ministers of Hezbollah and Amal had resigned from the cabinet in December 2006 in protest against a decision concerning the Lebanon Tribunal, the opposition demanded the immediate resignation of the cabinet as it now was unbalanced with regard to the proportional representation of religious groups as stipulated by the Lebanese Constitution and therefore was deemed illegitimate. [14][15] When Prime Minister Siniora refused to resign his cabinet, Hezbollah and its allies on March 8 called on its supporters in early December 2006 to protest against the perceived illegitimacy of the cabinet of Siniora to increase pressure on it. [13][16] In the face of massive protests, Siniora and the remaining ministers in his cabinet still refused to step down as long as they enjoyed the support of the majority of the parliament. [16] As protestors kept up the pressure on the government with their encampment near the Grand Serail, the prime ministerial office in downtown Beirut, Siniora and his minister were under virtual house arrest due to security concerns since the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, one of Siniora's ministers, in late 2006. [16][17] With Siniora not giving in, the opposition organized a general strike in January 2007, which ended in sectarian clashes leaving multiple dead and hundreds wounded. [16][18][10] Political deadlock took a new turn with the end of term of President Émile Lahoud in late 2007 as the March 8 and March 14 blocs could not agree on his successor, leaving the country in a presidential vacuum further worsening the political crisis. [19][20]\n\nIn May 2008, the tensions between the pro-government and opposition parties escalated when the cabinet announced a series of security decisions. Tensions began with revelations on Friday May 2 made by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, a key politician in the ruling March 14 alliance. He announced that a remote-controlled camera had been set up in a container park overlooking Beirut international airport's runway 17, which was frequently being used by March 14 politicians. [21][22] In March 14 circles, fear was that the monitoring could be used for a possible attack on its leaders, as Lebanon had faced a series of political assasIsinations in recent times. [23] Although Jumblatt did not accuse the party directly, he made clear that he thought March 8's Hezbollah was behind the monitoring system's installment. [21] Hezbollah dismissed the accusations, calling the allegation a product of Jumblatt's imagination and saying that those who leveled them were scaremongering and simply parroting a US campaign against it and other groups which are resisting Israel. [22][23] In addition to the monitoring system, Jumblatt stated that Hezbollah had laid down a fiber optic telecommunication network connecting its powerbase in Dahiya in South Beirut with cities and towns in South and East Lebanon in predominantly Shiite areas. [22] Although this was known to the government, it was now claimed that the network was being extended to the predominantly Christian and Druze areas of Mount Lebanon. [2][22]\n\nIn its response to these allegations, the Lebanese cabinet announced that it regarded the telecommunication network and the monitoring system as a breach of law, undermining the state's sovereignty and the security of its citizens. [21][2] Therefore, it declared that the matter would be referred not only to the Lebanese judicial system, but also to the Arab League and the United Nations. [21][2] In addition to infringing state sovereignty, the network was regarded by the government as an infringement on public funds since it claimed that it competes with its own and used the Lebanese infrastructure. [citation needed] The cabinet announced that it would uproot the telecommunication network and in addition also ordered the removal Brigadier General Wafic Shkeir, head of security at Beirut's international airport and considered to be sympathetic to Hezbollah and Amal, on account of failing to deal with the monitoring system. [2][24] These moves severely antagonized Hezbollah, bringing tensions between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions to a boiling point. [2]\n\nCoincidentally, a day after the cabinet's decision, on Wednesday May 7, the Lebanese General Workers Union had planned a general strike to demand higher wages and decry high consumer prices. [25] The strike turned violent as the opposition threw their weight behind the strike, paralyzing large parts of Lebanon's capital Beirut. [25][26] Instigated by the recent developments and the strike, pro-government and opposition supporters took the streets coming into conflict with each other at multiple places. Clashes were first reported when government and opposition supporters in a pro-government sector of Beirut exchanged insults and began throwing stones at each other after Hezbollah supporters insisted on blocking the roads. [citation needed] Witnesses said security forces intervened and gunshots were heard, apparently troops firing in the air to disperse the crowds. [citation needed] In the afternoon, verbal violence and stone throwing turned into more violent clashes, with gunfire sporadically going off in the city. [25][27] Around the city, armed opposition supporters blocked roads including the strategic road towards Beirut international airport, cutting it off from the rest of the city, and roads to the city's sea port. [25][27]\n\nAfter a tense night with sporadic gunfire, Hezbollah's secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah addressed the country in a speech televised on Hezbollah affiliated al-Manar station in the morning of May 8. [28] He referred to the cabinet's decisions of that week as \"despotic\" and having inaugurated a new phase in Lebanese history, similar to the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. [29][28] He stated that the telecommunication network was not a simple commercial operation aimed merely at generating profit for the organization, but \"integral and fundamental\" as part of its military apparatus. [29][28] He claimed that his opponents had already known about the existence of the telecommunication network years before and in drawing attention to the timing of the decision, insinuated that the cabinet's actions were aimed at obstructing the forces of the Resistance (against Israel) in the region. [29][28] Hezbollah had the right to defend itself, he argued, and metaphorically stated that they would cut-off the hand of anyone that would touch the Resistance.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["addressed the country in a speech televised on Hezbollah affiliated al-Manar station"]},{"role":"Method","values":["blocking the roads"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demand higher wages and decry high consumer prices"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["multiple dead and hundreds wounded"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May 2008","May 7","May 8"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Lebanon","Beirut"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Lebanese General Workers Union"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2009 cow head protests","document":"\n\nThe Cow head protests were held in front of the Selangor state government headquarters at the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Building, Shah Alam, Malaysia on 28 August 2009. The protest was called so because the act of a few participants who brought along a cow head, which they later desecrated. [1] The cow is considered a sacred animal to Hindus. The protest was held due to Selangor state government's intention to relocate a Hindu temple from Section 19 residential area of Shah Alam to Section 23. The protesters were mainly Muslim who opposed the relocation because Section 23 was a Muslim majority area. On 28 August 2009, a group of 50 or so Malaysian Muslims marched from the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque to the Selangor state government headquarters at the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Building with the head of a cow – an animal deemed sacred in Hinduism – and \"stomped on the head and spat on it before leaving the site\". [1] The protest leaders were also recorded saying there would be blood if a temple was constructed in Shah Alam. [2]\n\nThe protest was caught on video by the popular Malaysian online news portal Malaysiakini. [3]\n\nMalaysia’s Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein defended the protest, arguing that building a Hindu shrine is unsuitable because the neighbourhood is Muslim, and that “the residents only wanted their voices to be heard [and] it was unfortunate that 'the publicity they received was negative because it was linked with racial and religious sentiments. '\"[4]\n\nIn response, Hishammuddin invited the protesters to a discussion. In a press conference later, Hishammuddin defended the actions of the protesters saying that they cannot be blamed. He cited several reasons:[5]\n\nThe press conference which was also recorded by Malaysiakini, was almost as controversial as the protest; opposition politicians came out to denounce the Minister's actions and called for his resignation. Embarrassingly for Hishammuddin, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), the government multimedia agency, sent a letter to Malaysiakini.com appealing for it to take down both videos of the cow head protests and the press conference by the minister. This has been interpreted by some as damage control by the government due to Hishammuddin's embarrassing press conference. [6]\n\nMany criticised the response of the police who were seen to just been standing by the side and allowing the protesters to stomp and spit on the head of the cow. This can be seen from the video clip of the protest caught by the popular Malaysian news online portal Malaysiakini. [3]\n\nThis is in comparison to the 2007 HINDRAF rally where police brutality were obvious. Five thousand members riot police dispatched to the scene used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowds. [7]\n\nAl-Jazeera's coverage of the 2007 HINDRAF rally[8] showed police officers using tear gas to disperse the protesters in spite of the civil nature of the rally and the participants carrying life-size portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Mahatma Gandhi, to indicate the nonviolent nature of their protest. [9] The police arrested 240 people. [10]\n\nRodziah Ismail, who is the Selangor State Assemblywoman for Batu Tiga, which includes Section 23 Shah Alam was directly criticised and insulted by the protesters for not stopping the relocation of the temple. [11] She is also the Welfare, Women's Affairs, Science, Technology and Innovation Committee Chairman in the Selangor State Executive Council which oversaw the relocation of the temple. Rodziah expressed her opinion that the relocation of the temple was guaranteed by freedom of religion and advised the protesters to respect other's beliefs and religions. The Selangor Pakatan Rakyat state government organised a townhall meeting following the incident but was forced to end it abruptly due to the meeting being hijacked by protesters believed to be from UMNO and became rowdy. Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim was forced to temporarily shelve the relocation of the 150-year-old Sri Mahamriamman temple following the failed town hall meeting. [11]\n\nThe Selangor state government has announced on 19 October 2010 to be proceeding with the relocation of the Sri Mahamariamman Temple from Section 19 Shah Alam to Section 23. [11]\n\nIn July 2010, 12 protesters were fined RM 1,000 each for illegal assembly by the sessions court in Shah Alam. Two of the protestors were fined RM 3,000 for sedition while one of the two was also ordered to serve a week in jail. [11] Eyzva Ezhar Ramly, 31, was charged under the Section 4(1)(a) of the Sedition Act 1948 for “inciting racial animosity with carrying a cow-head”  along with the other accused, Mohd Azmir Mohd Zain. [11] Mohd Azmir was also charged under the same act for carrying and stepping on a cow-head with “the intention to create racial tension” and was fined RM 3,000. [11]\n\nFour others who were also originally charged under the Sedition Act were given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal after they pleaded not guilty to the charges.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["invited the protesters to a discussion"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["because the act of a few participants who brought along a cow head, which they later desecrated","Selangor state government's intention to relocate a Hindu temple from Section 19 residential area of Shah Alam to Section 23"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["28 August 2009"]},{"role":"Location","values":["in front of the Selangor state government headquarters at the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Building, Shah Alam, Malaysia"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Muslim who opposed the relocation","a group of 50 or so"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"17 November 2014 global students protests","document":"\nMonday 17 November 2014 saw hundreds of thousands of students participate in demonstrations around the world on the occasion of International Students' Day. [1] On 17 November, students mobilised in more than 40 countries to demand free education. In addition, commemorations were held for the anniversaries of Nazi repression of student activists in Prague of 1939, the Athens Polytechnic Uprising of 1973 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The 17 November was first marked as International Students' Day in 1941 in London by the International Students' Council (which had many refugee members) in agreement with the Allies, and the tradition had been kept up by the successor International Union of Students. Following IUS' decline, the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions and the European Students' Union agreed, at the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai, to coordinate future observances of the date. [2]\n\n2014 being the tenth anniversary of the occasion's reestablishment, the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU) and the European Students' Union (ESU) decided, ambitiously, to launch a global call for action aiming to bring student organisations around the world. The call was published on 17 October 2014[3] and demanded an education free of costs and fees, free of discrimination, and free of fear. It was initially signed by OBESSU, ESU, United States Student Association and Canadian Federation of Students and called on national governments and United Nations institutions to commit to prioritising free, equal access to education and safe learning environments in the United Nations' Post-2015 Development Agenda. [4] In the weeks up to 17 November more than thirty additional student organisations signed the call, making the final declaration representative of students from a total of ninety-seven countries across every continent. [5]\n\nIn Czech Republic and Slovakia thousands of people took to the streets to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, where there were also demonstrations against the Czech President Zeman. [6] In Greece, 20,000 took to the street to commemorate the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. [7] In the weekend leading up to 17 November 100,000 students mobilised across Italy against Matteo Renzi's Buona Scuola reforms and the Jobs Act, demanding instead a free education that guaranteed student rights;[8][9] whilst on the 17 November itself, thousands of students joined occupations and symbolic actions at universities and schools across the country. [10][11] In Macedonia, thousands mobilised against changes to student evaluation [12][13] and in Norway there was a national demonstration against the introduction of tuition fees for non-EU students. [14][15] In Spain and Austria symbolic actions were taken around the country,[16][17][18] in Slovenia student unions drew attention to deteriorating conditions for students[19] and in Serbia school students presented their demands to officials. [20]\n\nIn the Philippines, student activists demanded an end to tuition hikes and called for the resignation of President Aquino[21] whilst in Myanmar, students continued demonstrations against a proposed new education law. [22] In India, school students challenged the education minister on a proposed new evaluation system. [23]\n\nIn Egypt demonstrations were held across the country to call for the demilitarisation of university campuses. [24] Meanwhile, in Ghana, the All Africa Student Union organised events to promote quality assurance in education[25] and commemorations were held in Uganda. In Cuba more than 50,000 students joined a national day of student celebration. [26][27] In Mexico a large number of activists protested against the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping, demanding educational environments free from fear. [28] In Uruguay, thousands demonstrated in solidarity with Mexican protesters. [29] In Canada, the Canadian Federation of Students held a national lobby for free education at the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, whilst hundreds of students protested tuition hikes in Alberta. [30]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demanded an education free of costs and fees, free of discrimination, and free of fear","demanded an end to tuition hikes and called for the resignation of President Aquino","against a proposed new education law"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday 17 November 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Greece","Philippines","Egypt"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["students","hundreds of thousands of students","20,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Israeli protests","document":"In 2013, several independent protests occurred in Israel. In May, the Tal Law ruling in 2012 led to protests by Haredi against conscription. Again in November, Bedouins in the Negev called for a Day of Rage against their displacement. Following announcements that the new government plans to gradually incorporate the Haredi Jewish population of Israel into the country's armed forces, there were widespread protests against the government and the draft. On 16 May of that year, between 15,000 and 30,000 Haredim demonstrated outside an IDF recruiting office in Jerusalem. Some allegedly threw stones and bottles at police and called them Nazis. [1][2][3]\n\nThe Prawer-Begin plan to move Bedouins out of unrecognised villages, which the government has termed \"illegal\" and a \"land grab,\" is intended to move them to state-planned towns. Former General Doron Almog, who is tasked with implementing the plan, said: \"The idea is to ... better integrate Jews and Bedouins; to bring many more Bedouins to our work force; to employ and educate many more women for employment; and to build new communities; and to expand some of the current communities and make them modern.\" Its stated aim is also to \"modernise\" the Bedouin and improve their quality of life. US$340m has been allocated over five years for the project. A Day of Protest was called against the plan that organisers said would evict 40,000 Bedouin citizens from their homes and into impoverished townships. The main protest was scheduled to be held near the Bedouin township of Hura on 30 November, with other protests planned in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in several other cities across Europe, North America and the Middle East. Bedouin activist Huda Abu-Obeid said: \"The government is trying to present the plan as 'in the best interest of the Bedouin', while with one hand it is acting to destroy Bedouin villages… and with the other it is building new Jewish localities in the Negev, some of these in the very same places where the [Bedouin] villages stand today. \"[4]\n\nFollowing expectation the plan would fail a Knesset vote it was canceled. Benny Begin, who jointly formulated the plan, said: \"Right and left, Arabs and Jews joined forces - while exploiting the plight of many Bedouin - to heat things up for political gain. There is no majority in the coalition for the bill. [But Netanyahu agreed to] carry out the development plan for Bedouin settlements in the coming years. \"[5]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["threw stones and bottles at police and called them Nazis"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against conscription","against their displacement"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["destroy Bedouin villages"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["May","2012","November"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside an IDF recruiting office in Jerusalem"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Haredi","between 15,000 and 30,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Brazilian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2021 Brazilian protests are popular demonstrations that took place in different regions of Brazil, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Protests both supporting and opposing government happened. [4]\n\nIt was also the first time when sectors linked to the two antagonistic sides, such as the left and the right, began to protest against the government over a common goal, holding caravans on January 23 and 24, 2021. [5][6][7]\n\nIn January 5, 2021, Bolsonaro, meeting with supporters, affirmed that “the country is broken” and “I can’t do anything about it”. He also attacked the press, affirming that it “gave power to the [corona]virus”. [8] There were many specialists talking about it the next day, and Bolsonaro said, in an irony, that the country “is well, is in a marvel”, and that the press made a “terrible wave” of his affirmation. [9][10][11] While Bolsonaro’s opposition claims he’s “playing with the country”,[12] his supporters claim he was talking about the federal income tax exemption ceiling, that he can’t increase it because of the tax cuts to fight COVID-19. [13]\n\nOn January, a health crisis happened in the State of Amazonas, and one of the crisis’ effects was the depletion of oxygen at the state. On January 18, the Attorney General of the Union (AGU) said to the Federal Supreme Court that the government knew about the possibility of crisis, and the Union sent to the state 120,000 tablets of hydroxychloroquine, a drug with disputed efficacy for COVID-19. [14][15] The AGU also said, however, that the Health Ministry only knew about the oxygen depletion on January 8. [16]\n\nOn June 23, Federal Deputy Luís Miranda (DEM-DF) denounced a corruption scandal involving Covaxin’s buy contract by Bolsonaro’s government, in a live national transmission of CNN Brasil. He affirmed that he got the information with his brother, Ricardo. [17] The same day, a press conference at the Planalto Palace was organized, aired live by TV Brasil, where the Federal Government confronted Miranda’s claims,[18] and Bolsonaro affirms that it was all a typo. [19] The scandal was named “Covaxingate” by some press corporations. [20][21][22] Precisa Medicamentos’ owner (the company that intermediated Covaxin’s contract), Francisco Emerson Maximiano, sent to the COVID-19 CPI a letter that, according to CNN Brasil itself, “deny brothers”,[23] while Bharat Biotech said Brazil bought Covaxin by the same price as other countries[24][25] with better purchasing conditions, denying any overpricing. [26][27]\n\nOn June 29, the Brazilian journal Folha de S.Paulo published an interview with Luiz Paulo Dominguetti Pereira, a Davati Medical Supply’s representative. Luiz Pereira said that, on February 25, he met with Roberto Ferreira Dias, Logistics Director at the Health Ministry, in a Brasília shopping, to negotiate 400 million doses of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. According to VEJA’s reporting on the interview, “To make up such 'group', said the representative of Davati Supply, the representative of the Ministry of Health would have stated that it would be necessary to \"add 1 dollar\" per dose of vaccine, for bribes. […] He claims that he refused the request for a bribe. After the case, he would have had contact with the representative of the Ministry of Health on other occasions, but the agreement did not go forward”. [28] However, Davati said Dominguetti Pereira is neither a company’s representative nor an employee,[29] and AstraZeneca denied having any intermediaries in Brazil, or negotiating with the private market, state governments and municipalities. [30][31][32]\n\nSince 2014, Brazil is in an economical crisis, caused mainly by a political crisis that culminated in the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff, but also by the 2014 commodity price shock, which had a negative impact on exportations. The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns made this situation get worse: the country’s GDP decreased by 4.1% in 2020,[33] while 18 million became poor, making poverty triplicate in one year,[34] and unemployment reached 36.6 million brazilians, equivalent to one Canada unemployed. [35] In 15 days during the pandemic, 522,000 businesses broke. [36]\n\nOn March 14, 2019, the then-STF president, Minister Dias Toffoli, opened an inquiry (Inquiry n. 4781) to investigate fake news against the Court’s members, indicating Minister Alexandre de Moraes as rapporteur. [37] The inquiry was labeled ‘inquisitorial’,[38] ‘unconstitutional’[38][39] and ‘illegal’. [40] The Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) asked the STF, on May 2020, to archive the case,[41] but this didn’t happen. [42]\n\nOn April 12, 2019 (effective April 15), Moraes censored Revista Crusoé’s article about Dias Toffoli, based on documents obtained by Operation Car Wash, where, in July 13, 2007, Marcelo Odebrecht asked to Adriano Maia and Irineu Meireles, via message, if they reached an agreement about Madeira River’s hydroelectric plants with “the friend of my father’s friend”. The Operation asked to Odebrecht about these messages, and Odebrecht answered:\n\nIt refers to discussions that Adriano Maia had with the AGU on issues involving the hydroelectric dams of the Madeira River. ‘Friend of my father's friend’ refers to José Antônio Dias Toffoli. The nature and content of these discussions, however, can only be properly clarified by Adriano Maia, who led them. [43]\nMoraes, the next day after the reporting was published, censored the reporting, affirming that there was a “clear abuse at the content of the reporting”. [44] The decision was widely criticized by the Brazilian press, being labeled by it unconstitutional,[45] and by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil,[46] and the censorship heated discussions about the creation of an Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the Superior Tribunals (STF, Superior Tribunal of Justice - STJ, Superior Military Tribunal - STM, Superior Electoral Court - TSE and Superior Labor Court - TST), often called the “Lava Toga CPI”. [47][48] Even STF ministers, such as Marco Aurélio Mello[49] and Celso de Mello,[50] criticized Moraes’ decision. Moraes later revoked his order. [51]\n\nOn February 16, 2021, Moraes arrested Federal Deputy Daniel Silveira, for unbailable crime, based on the Fake News inquiry,[52] after he criticized the STF, decision unanimously confirmed by the Court[53] and later approved by the Chamber of Deputies. [54] The decision was labeled unconstitutional by jurists Dircêo Torrecillas Ramos and Matheus Falivene. [55]\n\nOn November 7, 2019, the STF, by 6 votes against 5, vetoed second instance arrest, affirming that someone may only be arrested after the res judicata. The decision paved the way to former president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva be free, and 5,000 others. [56] STF’s critics claimed the Court “finished with second instance arrest”. [57] The day after, Lula was released. [58] At that time, a Real Time Institute research affirmed that 50% of the brazilians disagreed with Lula’s release, and 56% disagreed with the Court’s decision. [59]\n\nOn March 8, 2021, Minister Edson Fachin nullified Lula’s sentences on Operetion Car Wash,[60] decision soon criticized by many deputies. [61] The decision would be later confirmed by the STF plenary, in an 8x3 vote, defeated Ministers Nunes Marques, Marco Aurélio Mello and the Court’s President, Luiz Fux. [62] According to a Paraná Pesquisas search, 57.5% of the brazilians disagreed with the decision. [63] In parallel, on March 23, the 2nd Class of the STF formed a majority to declare then-Judge Sérgio Moro biased when judging Lula, after Lula-appointed Minister Cármen Lúcia reverted her vote, reverting the class’ 3x2 majority against Lula to a 3x2 majority in favor of Lula. [64] The decision was later confirmed by the Court, forming a majority on April 22 in Lula’s favor. The plenary’s judgment, however, was suspended, after Minister Marco Aurélio Mello asked more time to make an analysis. Minister President Luiz Fux, then, suspended rapidly the judgment, because Ministers Luís Roberto Barroso and Gilmar Mendes started a discussion. At that time, the vote was 7x2 in Lula’s favor.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["holding caravans"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["COVID-19 pandemic"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["January 23 and 24, 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["regions of Brazil"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Brazilian"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018–2019 Japanese protests","document":"The Anpo protests, also known as the Anpo struggle (安保闘争, Anpo tōsō) in Japanese, were a series of massive protests in Japan from 1959 to 1960, and again in 1970, against the US-Japan Security Treaty, which is the treaty that allows the United States to maintain military bases on Japanese soil. [1] The name of the protests comes from the Japanese term for \"Security Treaty,\" which is Anzen Hoshō Jōyaku (安全保障条約), or just Anpo (安保) for short. The protests in 1959 and 1960 were staged in opposition to a 1960 revision of the original 1952 Security Treaty, and eventually grew to become the largest popular protests in Japan's modern era. [1] At the climax of the protests in June 1960, hundreds of thousands of protestors surrounded Japan's National Diet building in Tokyo on nearly a daily basis, and large protests took place in other cities and towns all across Japan. [2] On June 15, protestors smashed their way into the Diet compound itself, leading to a violent clash with police in which a female Tokyo University student, Michiko Kanba, was killed. [1][3] In the aftermath of this incident, a planned visit to Japan by US president Dwight D. Eisenhower was cancelled, and conservative prime minister Nobusuke Kishi was forced to resign. [4]\n\nA second round of protests occurred in 1970, at the time of the 1960 treaty's automatic renewal. Although shorter in duration, these later protests also achieved significant size. The original US-Japan Security Treaty had been forced on Japan by the United States as a condition of ending the US military occupation of Japan following the end of World War II. [5] It was signed on September 8, 1951, in tandem with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty ending World War II in Asia, and went into effect on April 28, 1952, in tandem with the end of the occupation of Japan. [5] The original Security Treaty had no specified end date or means of abrogation, allowed US forces stationed in Japan to be used for any purpose without prior consultation with the Japanese government, had a clause specifically authorizing US troops to put down domestic protests in Japan, and did not commit the United States to defend Japan if Japan were attacked by a third party. [5]\n\nThe Japanese government began pushing for a revision to the treaty as early as 1952. However, the Eisenhower administration resisted calls for revision until a growing anti-US military base movement in Japan culminated in the Sunagawa Struggle of 1955-1957 and popular outrage in Japan in the aftermath of the Girard Incident in 1957, which made deep dissatisfaction with the status quo more apparent. [6] The United States agreed to a revision, negotiations began in 1958, and the new treaty was signed by Eisenhower and Kishi at a ceremony in Washington D.C. on January 19, 1960. From a Japanese perspective, the new treaty was a significant improvement over the original treaty, committing the United States to defend Japan in an attack, requiring prior consultation with the Japanese government before dispatching US forces based in Japan overseas, removing the clause preauthorizing suppression of domestic disturbances, and specifying an initial 10-year term, after which the treaty could be abrogated by either party with one year's notice. [7]\n\nBecause the new treaty was better than the old one, Kishi expected it to be ratified in relatively short order. Accordingly, he invited Eisenhower to visit Japan beginning on June 19, 1960, in part to celebrate the newly ratified treaty. If Eisenhower's visit had proceeded as planned, he would have become the first sitting US president to visit Japan. [8]\n\nMany on the Japanese left, and even some conservatives, hoped to chart a more neutral course in the Cold War, and thus hoped to get rid of the treaty and the U.S.-Japan alliance entirely. [9] Therefore, even though the revised treaty was manifestly superior to the original treaty, these groups decided to oppose ratification of the revised treaty. Kishi anticipated that such protests might arise, and in the fall of 1958 attempted to pass a \"Police Duties Bill\" which would have given police in Japan new powers of warrantless search and seizure in order to target protesters ahead of treaty ratification. [10] However, this proved to be a miscalculation, as the law reminded many in Japan of pre-World War II authoritarianism and provoked widespread popular outrage. A nationwide coalition of political and civic organizations coalesced to oppose the Police Bill, and Kishi was forced to withdraw it. [10]\n\nThis victory emboldened the protestors, and rather than disbanding, the anti-Police Bill coalition remained active and recruited new member organizations to oppose the revised Security Treaty, which was in the final stages of negotiation. [11] Rebranding itself the People's Council for Preventing Revision of the Security Treaty (Anpo Jōyaku Kaitei Soshi Kokumin Kaigi) in the spring of 1959, the coalition coordinated a series of \"united actions\" in which thousands of local \"joint struggle councils\" around the nation would take part in coordinated protest activity on specified days. [12]\n\nOver the rest of 1959 and into 1960, the protest movement continued to gradually grow larger, especially as heightening Cold War tensions inspired fear that the new treaty would lock Japan into one side of a dangerous global conflict. The April 1960 revolution in Korea that forced US-backed strongman Syngman Rhee from power proved an inspiration to Japanese protesters, as it showed that autocratic governments could be defeated by popular protests, even if they had the backing of the United States. [13]\n\nThen on May 1, the U-2 Incident shattered the amiable \"Spirit of Camp David\" that had prevailed between the United States and the Soviet Union since Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States the previous September. [13] In the aftermath of the incident, the Soviet Union disinvited Eisenhower from his planned visit to the USSR the coming summer and the brief thaw in the Cold War came to an end. [14] It also came to light that some of the U-2 spy planes that were used to surveil the Soviet Union were based at US bases in Japan, further fueling fears that in the case of a nuclear war, Japan might become a target. [15]\n\nMeanwhile, in the National Diet the revised treaty faced an arduous path to ratification. Although the opposition Japan Socialist Party (JSP) controlled only about a third of the seats in the Diet, and thus lacked the votes to prevent ratification, the Socialists used a variety of parliamentary tactics to drag out debate, in hopes of preventing ratification before Eisenhower's planned arrival on June 19, and giving the extra-parliamentary protests more time to grow. [13]\n\nWith Eisenhower's visit approaching, Kishi became increasingly anxious to ratify the treaty in time. [15] Moreover, the Diet session was scheduled to end almost a month earlier, on May 26. [15] Late in the evening on May 19, Kishi took the desperate measure of suddenly and unexpectedly calling for a 50-day extension of the Diet session, in defiance of longstanding parliamentary norms and over the opposition of many members of his own ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). [15] When Socialist Diet members staged a sit-in in the halls of the Diet, Kishi took the unprecedented step of calling 500 police officers into the Diet chambers and having opposition lawmakers physically removed from the premises. [16] Thereafter, with only members of his own party present, he passed the extension of the Diet Session. A final shock came after midnight, just after the extension was approved, when Kishi then called for immediate ratification of the treaty. With only members of Kishi's own party present, the revised Security Treaty was approved by the Lower House of the Diet with no debate and only a voice vote. [17] According to Japanese law, if the Upper House failed to vote on the treaty, which seemed highly likely given the political chaos, the treaty would automatically take effect 30 days later on June 19, just in time for Eisenhower's arrival. [17]\n\nKishi's \"anti-democratic\" actions during this May 19th Incident (五・一九事件, Go-ichi-kyū jiken) stunned the nation and even much of his own party. [2] Kishi received criticism from across the political spectrum, with even conservative newspapers calling for his resignation. [18] In late May and into June, the anti-Treaty protests greatly increased in size, as many ordinary citizens took to the streets to express their outrage, and the aims of the protests expanded from protesting the Security Treaty to ousting Kishi and \"protecting democracy. \"[19]\n\nLarge protests around the National Diet, the US Embassy, and the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo occurred on a near daily base, and large-scale protests were staged in city centers all over Japan. [2][20] In June, the Sōhyō labor federation carried out a series of nationwide general strikes. The June 15 strike involved 6.4 million workers across the country, making it the largest strike in Japan's history. [21]\n\nOn June 10, Eisenhower's Press Secretary James Hagerty arrived at Tokyo's Haneda Airport to make advance preparations for Eisenhower's impending arrival. Hagerty was picked up in a black car by US Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II (the nephew of the famous general),[20] who deliberately provoked an international incident by ordering that the car be driven into a large crowd of protesters. [21] The protesters surrounded the car, cracking its windows, smashing its tail lights, and rocking it back and forth for more than an hour while standing on its roof, chanting anti-American slogans and singing protest songs. [22] Ultimately, MacArthur and Hagerty had to be rescued by a US Marines military helicopter,[21] creating indelible imagery of the so-called Hagerty Incident (ハガチー事件, Hagachii jiken) that was transmitted by newswires around the world.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["pushing for a revision to the treaty as early as 1952"]},{"role":"Method","values":["smashed their way into the Diet compound itself"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the US-Japan Security Treaty"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Michiko Kanba, was killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1959 to 1960, and again in 1970","June 15"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Japan's National Diet building in Tokyo"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Japanese","thousands of protestors"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2015 Kosovo protests","document":"\n\nIn early January 2015, a series of anti-governmental protests began in Kosovo, as a result of the statements by Aleksandar Jablanović, a Kosovo Serb politician, Member of Parliament and Minister of Communities and Returns in the Republic of Kosovo. On 6 January 2015, a group known as Thirrjet e nënave (The call of mothers), whose members are mostly mothers of victims from the Kosovo War, protested in front of the Orthodox Church in Gjakova before Christmas,[12][13] to block adherents to enter, due to Serbia's ongoing refusal to apologise for the victims. Later that day, Aleksandar Jablanović, Minister of Communities and Returns and member of the Parliament of Kosovo branded as \"savages\" and \"freaks\" [14] a group who stoned and blocked the way for buses driving displaced Serbs to Christmas mass in Gjakova. [15][16][17][18] Most of Kosovo citizens were overwhelmingly offended, including the opposition who immediately asked for Jablanović's resignation. The protests after his statements began in Gjakova and continued until 17 January, where around 10,000 people turned to the city center. [19][20] The demonstrations shortly expanded to Peja,[21] Deçan,[22] Gjilan,[23] and the whole territory of Kosovo. On 19 January, Jablanović formally apologised for his statements. [24]\n\nOn 24 and 27 January 2015, national-level protests took place in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, where roughly 50,000 people turned to streets to demand Jablanović's resignation and the return of Trepča as a public institution of the Republic of Kosovo. [9] However, the protests turned violent due to the clash with the police. [25] It was internationally proclaimed as the worst unrest since 2008. [26]\n\nOn 3 February 2015, Prime Minister Isa Mustafa announced that Aleksandar Jablanović would no longer be part of the cabinet, and therefore his resignation was confirmed. [1][2] His resignation was welcomed by the opposition and other citizens,[27] but criticized by the Government of Serbia. [28]\n\nPrior to the local and national protests and the formation of the new government on 9 December 2014, disapproval and anti-governmental actions had already started. At least 20,000 people from Kosovo,[29] whose vast majority were youth, were instantly trying to illegally emigrate to the European Union, through Serbia and Hungary,[30] due to the high unemployment rate. According to a 2014 report by the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, the unemployment rate in the country is 30%, of whom, the unemployment from the age of 15–24 is at 55.9%. [31] Due to the high number of unemployment and the current poverty, roughly 50% of the emigrants were youth between the age of 15–24,[29] who were seeking a better life in the European Union through illegal emigration. Most of them, would enter Serbia and then illegally move to Hungary. [30] The situation gained national attention, and most citizens would blame the government, due to its failure to prevent the emigration and to shrink the unemployment rate. [32] President Atifete Jahjaga and other government official expressed their concern. [32]\n\nOn 14 January 2015, the Government of Kosovo passed a bill to the parliament to return the Trepča Mines, as a public institution of the Republic of Kosovo. [33][34] The decision was revoked, due to the Serbian government threats; although the government had denied Serbia's intervention, by justifying the decision, saying that a similar move would leave thousands of people unemployed,[35] and announced they would shortly return the mines as an institution of Kosovo. [36]\n\nThe move to revoke the bill was widely opposed by Kosovo's citizens and the Kosovan opposition, saying that it was damaging the sovereignty of Kosovo. [37] At the following parliament sessions, opposition's reaction was extremely negative, with most of them, either leaving the assembly, or constantly threatening the position. [38][39]\n\nUnited Kingdom's ambassador to the Republic of Kosovo, Ian Cliff said that \"Trepça is a property of Kosovo\", because it's located in the territory of Kosovo and should therefore be a public institution of the Republic. [40] He was also against putting Trepča as a topic in the Belgrade–Pristina negotiations because it was a matter for  Kosovo. [41]\n\nKosovan opposition Vetëvendosje!, Alliance for the Future of Kosovo,[42][43] Initiative for Kosovo, New Kosovo Alliance[44] and others demanded Jablanović's resignation and the return of the Trepča Mines as a public institution of the Republic of Kosovo. They called for the first national-level protest on 24 January 2015,[45] where thousands of protesters turned to streets,[46][47] with the motto Jabllanoviq jashtë! Trepça është e jona! (Jablanovic out! Trepça is ours!). [48] The building of the government was damaged. [49] The vandalism was condemned by President Atifete Jahjaga. [50]\n\nThe second national-level protest was held at the Mother Teresa square in Pristina on 27 January, supported by Vetëvendosje, AAK, NISMA, Thirrjet e nënave, and most Kosovo Albanian citizens. It began as a quiet and peaceful demonstration with the same requests and motto as the first protest. However, it became very violent when protesters clashed with Kosovo Police. [51] Shpend Ahmeti, Mayor of Pristina was arrested, although he was immediately freed, and other politicians as well. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy PM Hashim Thaçi condemned the protests and the violence. [52] Dozens of protesters were injured,[25] and it was later confirmed that the Kosovo Police had used tear gas. [citation needed]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["Kosovo Police had used tear gas"]},{"role":"Method","values":["block adherents to enter"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["Serbia's ongoing refusal to apologise for the victims"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Dozens of protesters were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["6 January 2015"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kosovo","in front of the Orthodox Church in Gjakova"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["50,000 people","anti-governmental","Thirrjet e nënave (The call of mothers)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 United States inauguration week protests","document":"\n\nSupporters of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, held small scale armed protests and demonstrations at U.S. state capitols in the five days leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, in opposition to the results of the 2020 United States presidential election, which continued after the failure of the violent January 6 attempt to overturn the election in Trump's favor. Pro-Trump groups failed to stage organized dissent or affect the transition of power in an environment of deterrence and heightened security. Fears of violent protests after a January 11 FBI warning led to a drastic increase in security at state capitols and the United States Capitol, which served as the site of the presidential swearing-in ceremony. Increased monitoring and police presence, closures of public buildings, curfews, temporary fencing, and other security measures were employed in response to the security threat. The United States Capitol was put under the protection of members of the National Guard,[7][4] which was additionally activated in at least 19 states, to protect state capitols. [5]\n\nThe protests featured the participation of far-right militia groups that follow right-libertarianism, neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, white supremacism, and other ultranationalist or right-wing ideologies, as well as members of the New Black Panther Party, and the QAnon and boogaloo movements. [1][8] On January 31, 2021, detailed overviews of attempts to subvert the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Biden's inauguration were published by The New York Times. [9][10]\n\nFollowing the 2020 United States presidential election between incumbent President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, Biden's victory became clear, and on December 14 the electoral college voted formalizing Biden's victory. [11]  Before and after the election, Trump, his presidential campaign, and his allies challenged the legitimacy of the election and baselessly claimed widespread electoral fraud. [12] Trump and his allies filed dozens of legal challenges to the results, but the courts found that his claims had no factual or legal basis. [13][14] His unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voting fraud were also refuted by state election officials. [15]\n\nPro-Trump protesters engaged in multiple demonstrations in Washington, D.C., state capitals, and other locations nationwide decrying the election results and echoing Trump's claims of election fraud. [16] In November and December 2020, there were nighttime clashes and street scuffles in Washington, D.C. between Trump supporters who refused to accept the president's defeat, including the Proud Boys, and counterprotesters. [17][18]\n\nOn January 6, 2021, when the United States Congress convened to certify the electoral votes of the presidential election, supporters of Trump stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to prevent the tabulation of votes and protest Biden's win, which was preceded by an earlier speech from Trump that called on them to protest the results and support those opposing Biden's win. Demonstrators unlawfully entered the U.S. Capitol Building and gathered on both its eastern and western fronts, including on the inaugural platform constructed for the upcoming January 20 inauguration of Joe Biden. [19]\n\nA Capitol police officer and four rioters died,[20] and two pipe bombs were found at nearby buildings. [21][22] Another Capitol police officer who was on duty during the riots died by suicide days later. [23] In the early morning hours of January 7, the electoral votes were certified, and Trump released a statement stating that there will be an \"orderly transition\" of power on Inauguration Day. Trump was impeached for \"incitement of insurrection\". Word of a \"Million Militia March\" and \"Million Martyr March\" in honor of Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who was fatally shot during the storming of the Capitol, spread in online chats between people associated with the protests. [24]\n\nOne of the most militant demonstrations of Trump supporters that would take place in the subsequent weeks, and leading up to Biden's inauguration, had already occurred – prior to the January 11 FBI warning. In Frankfort, on January 9, approximately 100 heavily armed protesters assembled for a \"patriot rally\" outside the Kentucky State Capitol while both chambers of the General Assembly were in session. One of the armed protesters was wearing camouflage from head to toe and carrying several zip ties, explaining that he brought them \"just in case.\" Some of the protesters carried militia flags, pro-Trump insignia, and Three Percenters symbols. \"Three days after domestic terrorists attacked our U.S. Capitol, there was a militia rally in Frankfort. They brought zip ties. We will not be intimidated\", Governor Andy Beshear tweeted in response. [25]\n\nIn response to calls for further protests and violence in Washington, D.C., and states across the U.S., the FBI, Secret Service, and state law enforcement agencies began conducting threat assessments and tracking extremist rhetoric online. [26] CNN reported on January 11 that an internal FBI bulletin warned that \"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the US Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,\" continuing, \"an identified group calling for others to join them in 'storming' state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event POTUS is removed as President prior to Inauguration Day. This identified group is also planning to 'storm' government offices including in the District of Columbia and in every state, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump, on 20 January. \"[27][28][29][30][31][32] It was reported that members of far-right online forums planned to attend. Some groups also organized on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and on alt-tech communication apps like Telegram, Gab, and Parler. [33] Chatter obtained by law enforcement agencies found that participants planned to \"storm\" government offices, such as state and federal administrative buildings, in response to the 117th United States Congress' certification of presidential electoral votes on January 6, 2021. [34] Protests were set for the days leading up to Biden's inauguration, with a \"Million Militia March\" planned for January 20. [35] The FBI reported that protests were likely to take place at the national capitol from January 17 to 20, and at state capitols from January 16 to 20. [36] The 20th was the day of the inauguration, while the 17th was a symbolic date for followers of the conspiracy QAnon, as \"Q\" is the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. [37]\n\nIn a January 11 briefing, Capitol Police informed House Democrats they were prepared for \"tens of thousands of armed protesters\" in the coming days, and that they were aware of and monitoring three separate plots: one in honor of killed rioter Ashli Babbitt, another promoted as the United States' \"largest armed protest ever\", and a third \"would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House[,] and the Supreme Court\" before \"blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government\". On January 11, a House lawmaker told HuffPost that insurrectionist groups, now left without sites like Parler to use as recruitment platforms, sought media attention for their planned demonstrations or attacks \"as a way to further disseminate information and to attract additional support for their attacks. \"[38]\n\nSignificant efforts were made to deter people from visiting Washington, D.C. during the week of the inauguration out of the concern that assemblies may become violent. This prompted a strengthening of security in the city, and an introduction of many restrictions on travel, both by state and private entities. [39][40][41][42][43][44] The Biden Inaugural Committee and Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies urged people not to gather in the city for the ceremony. [45] City Mayor Muriel Bowser urged tourists not to visit the city during the week of the event and requested all demonstration permits processed by the Department of the Interior be rejected. [46] Initially planning for 10,000 National Guard troops in D.C. for the protests,[47] the Pentagon upped the number to over 20,000, and authorized the use of lethal force, around January 14. [48] Troops came from 46 U.S. states and three territories. [5] The incidents that occurred in this period in Washington D.C. included an instance of police impersonation[2] and a bomb threat. [49] The inauguration itself proceeded without incident. [50]\n\nCalifornia officials increased security in Sacramento ahead of planned protests. The California State Capitol had additional security, including dozens of California Highway Patrol officers, mounted police, and uniformed and plainclothes officers. The California Assembly and State Senate monitored potential threats and put in place additional security. The California National Guard did not expect large crowds in the city, though troops were ready for deployment in case it becomes necessary.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["United States Capitol was put under the protection of members of the National Guard","increased security in Sacramento ahead of planned protests"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["inauguration of Joe Biden"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["U.S. state capitols"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Supporters of Donald Trump","far-right militia groups that follow right-libertarianism, neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, white supremacism, and other ultranationalist or right-wing ideologies"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Shahbag protests","document":"\n\n\n\nOn 5 February 2013, protests began in Shahbag, Bangladesh following demands for[13] capital punishment for Abdul Quader Mollah, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and convicted on five of six counts of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh. [14][15][16][17] Later demands included banning the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party from politics including election and a boycott of institutions supporting (or affiliated with) the party. [18]\n\nProtesters considered Mollah's sentence too lenient, given his crimes. [19][20] Bloggers and online activists called for additional protests at Shahbag and joined the demonstration. [21][22][23]\n\nRuling party Awami League supported the protests. [24][25] However, main opposition party the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) initially expressed its support for Jamaat-e-Islami, a political ally. [26] But, the BNP cautiously welcomed the Shahbag protest, while warning the government not to make political mileage from a movement demanding capital punishment for war criminals. [27] A counter-protest, questioning the validity of the tribunal and the protest movement and demanding release of those accused and convicted, was called by Jamaat-e-Islami. [28]\n\nDuring the protests, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was killed outside his house. [29] On 1 March, five students of North South University were arrested who 'confessed' involvement in Rajib's killing. [30][31] From the killing of Haidar, his and his fellow bloggers' writing regarding prophet Muhammad made public by Amaar Desh. [32] Therefore, against those bloggers Hefazat-e-Islam was formed. [11]\n\nOn 27 February 2013, the tribunal convicted Delwar Hossain Sayeedi of war crimes and sentenced him to death. Jamaat followers protested and there were violent clashes with police. About 60 people were killed in the confrontations; most were Jamaat-Shibir activists, and others were police and civilians. [28]\n\nThe movement received considerable criticism in Bangladesh and abroad for encouraging the revival of fascism in the country[33][34][35][36][37][38][39] by the use of slogans inciting violence,[40][41][42] being politically motivated, forcing students of the University of Dhaka to join, blocking the road to hospitals, violating dead bodies,[43][44] and so on. In 1971 Bangladesh was the portion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan known as East Pakistan. In the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, East Pakistan fought West Pakistan for nine months. During this period the Indian Army which provided guerrilla training to Mukti Bahini, joined the war on 3 December 1971 in support of the liberation of East Pakistan. Armed conflict ended on 16 December 1971 through surrender of the Pakistani Armed Forces to the joint force of Bangladesh and India, resulting in the formation of the People's Republic of Bangladesh as an independent state. According to the famous Blood telegram from the United States consulate in Dhaka (formerly known as 'Dacca') to the State Department, many atrocities had been committed by the Pakistan Army and its supporter Razakars and Al-Badar militia. [45][46][47][48] Time reported a high-ranking US official as saying, \"It is the most incredible, calculated killing since the days of the Nazis in Poland. \"[49] Estimates are that one to three million people were killed, nearly a quarter of a million women were raped and more than ten million people fled to India to escape persecution. [50][51]\n\nA paramilitary force known as the Razakars was created by the May 1971 Razakar Ordinance promulgated by Tikka Khan, the governor of East Pakistan. The ordinance stipulated the creation of a volunteer force, trained and equipped by the provincial government. [52] Razakar (Bengali: রাজাকার), originally meaning volunteer, became a derogatory term among Bangladeshis due to the widespread killings of civilians and atrocities committed by the paramilitary during the war. The majority of East Pakistanis supported the call to create a free and independent Bangladesh during the Liberation War. However, Pakistani supporters and members of Islamic political parties, particularly Jamaat-e-islami(JIP) and its east Pakistan student wing Islami Chatra Sangha (ICS, Bengali: ইসলামী ছাত্র সঙ্ঘ, romanized: Islami Chhatro Shônggho), the Muslim League, the Pakistan Democratic Party (PDP) Council and Nezam-e-Islami, collaborated with the Pakistani army to resist the formation of an independent Bangladesh. The students belonging to Islami Chatra Sangha were known as the Al-Badr force; people belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Muslim League, Nizam-e-Islami and similar groups were called Al-Shams, and the Urdu-speaking people (generally known as Bihari) were known as Al-Mujahid. [53]\n\nAfter the independence, Bangladesh government locked up  many Rajakars and defenders of Pakistan. However, In November 1973 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman issued a general pardon for all people who opposed the independence and helped the Pakistani Army, and eventually  all prisoners were let go. [54]  However, Rahman banned all kinds of Islamic parties including the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. Eventually the ban was lifted, and under  Ershad Jamaat-e-Islami participated in 1986 election. They got 10 seats with 4.6% vote. [55] In the 1991 election, which was the first free and fair election after independence, Jamaat got 18 seats out of 300 and gained 12.2% of vote. [56]\n\nAgainst Ghulam Azam who was Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami, Jahanara Imam organized the Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee (Committee for Eradicating the Killers and Collaborators of '71),[57] and she become a public face. The committee called for the trial of people who committed crimes against humanity in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War in collaboration with the Pakistani forces. The Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee set up mock trials in Dhaka on 26 March 1992 known as Gono Adalat (People's Court) and symbolically 'sentenced' persons they accused of being war criminals. [58] Imam and others were reportedly charged with treason during the government of Bangladesh Nationalist party. [59] In 1996 election, Jamaat's public support decreased and they got only 3 seats in that election. In 2001 Election, BNP with 3 others parties including Jamaat-e-Islami wins the election. [60] Jamaat got 17 seats. From 2001 to 2003, Amir of Jamat-e-Islami Motiur Rahman Nizami served as the Minister of Agriculture, then as the Minister of Industry from 2003 to 2006. [61] And general secretary of Jamaat Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed served the Ministry of Social Welfare between 2001 and 2006. [62]\n\nSince 2000, there has been growing demands in Bangladesh for justice related to war crimes committed during the 1971 struggle; the issue was central to the 2008 general election. [63][64] The Awami League-led, 14-party Grand Alliance included this issue in its election manifesto. [65] Its rival, four-party alliance (which included the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami) had several leaders alleged to have committed war crimes. [66]\n\nThe Grand Alliance won the election (held on 29 December 2008) with a two-thirds majority, based in part on its promise to prosecute alleged war criminals. [67][68][69]\nOn 29 January 2009 the new Parliament unanimously passed a resolution to prosecute war criminals. [70] The government intended to use the 1973 law: the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["five students of North South University were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demands for[13] capital punishment for Abdul Quader Mollah"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing of Haidar"]},{"role":"Date","values":["5 February 2013"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Shahbag, Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Burkinabé uprising","document":"\n\n\n\nThe Burkinabé uprising was a series of demonstrations and riots in Burkina Faso in October 2014 that quickly spread to multiple cities. They began in response to attempts at changing the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaoré to run again and extend his 27 years in office. Pressure for political change came from civil society and in particular from the country's youth. [6] Following a tumultuous day on 30 October, which included the involvement of former Defence Minister Kouamé Lougué and the burning of the National Assembly and other government buildings as well as the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress party's headquarters, Compaoré dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency before eventually fleeing to Côte d'Ivoire with the support of President Alassane Ouattara. General Honoré Nabéré Traoré announced that a transitional government would run the country until an election within 12 months. After another day of mass protests and initially refusing to resign, after mounting domestic pressure Compaoré resigned from his 27-year presidency on 31 October and Traoré took over as the interim head of state. However, Lieutenant Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida also staked a claim to be interim head of state citing Traoré's unpopularity. A statement by military chiefs asserted that Zida had their unanimous backing. A coalition of unnamed opposition parties rejected the military takeover. Further protests were called for the morning of 2 November,[7] but were smaller yet there was at least one casualty amidst a police response. The African Union gave the country a fortnight to end military rule from 3 November. By mid-November, a framework was agreed upon unanimously for a transitional executive and legislative administration. Following an amendment in 2000, the constitution limits presidents to two terms of five years. However, the restrictions were not applied retroactively, allowing President Blaise Compaoré, who had been in office since 1987, to run for a further two terms and be re-elected in 2005 and 2010. [8]\n\nIn regards to the 2015 presidential election, Compaoré tried to extend his 27 years in power by enacting a constitutional amendment to lift term limits. As a result, the opposition called for protests against the measure that was sitting in parliament. [1] Some people suggested the move could \"spark an uprising. \"[9]\n\nThe Burkinabé Spring also called for change amid a stagnant economy and a non-responsive state, which was met with some concessions. The events magnified a divide, and distrust, between the regular army and the special units, such as the Regiment of Presidential Security. [10]\n\nProtests started in late October. [1] Unnamed opposition called for a blockade of parliament. [11] On 28 October, there were street battles during an anti-government rally by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. The next day, though, banks, shops and markets reopened. Movement of People for Progress (MPP) member Pargui Emile Paré said that \"one thing is certain: we'll march on the parliament [on 30 October]. \"[3] On 29 October, a mass rally accompanied by street battles took place against a \"constitutional coup\" involving hundreds of thousands of people. [12]\n\nThe most serious events occurred on 30 October with the gathering of tens of thousands of people. [13] Protesters also compared Compaoré to the Ebola virus amidst the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak. [5] Police used tear gas to deter the demonstrators, yet they broke through police lines[13] to torch government buildings, including the city hall building, and the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) party's headquarters. The crowd headed to the presidential palace, while the military fired rubber bullets at about 1,500 people storming the National Assembly of Burkina Faso. Protesters burnt documents and stole computer equipment, while cars outside the building were set ablaze. [8] Parts of the parliament building were also on fire, including the Speaker Soungalo Ouattara's office, but the main chamber was untouched. [12] The presidential guard fired on civilians charging into the home of the President's brother, François Compaoré, leading to at least three deaths. [13] The state broadcaster RTB's[12] building for its radio unit, Maison de la Radio (which was under renovation),[14] and television were also stormed. [1] At the television unit's building, protesters posed on the set of the evening news programme, while soldiers were deployed outside the Maison de la Radio with an armored personnel carrier to defend it from the crowd. [15] Five people were reported killed during the day. Some soldiers, including former Defence Minister General Kouamé Lougué, joined the protests. [8] Unnamed opposition activists claimed there had been 30 deaths. [16]\n\nThe BBC reported that in an area where MPs live two houses were burning and smoke was billowing from two or three more, while Hotel Azalai was on fire. State-television was off-air, while the 3G network and SMS services were blocked, but internet access and telephones were available. Violent protests also occurred in the country's second largest city Bobo-Dioulasso,[8] including the toppling of statues[1] and the local CDP headquarters,[12] and in Ouahigouya, in the north. [15] Ouagadougou airport was closed and all arriving and departing flights were canceled until further notice. [17]\n\nMany MPs also fled to an unnamed nearby hotel. Opposition MP Ablasse Ouedraogo said: \"I was inside when the demonstrators stormed in. I was put in secure place by security people of the parliament. Now it is difficult to say what happens next but things are out of control because the demonstrators do not listen to anyone. \"[18] General Honoré Nabéré Traoré imposed a night curfew. [19]\n\nFollowing Diabré's call, the next day, protesters then gathered at Ouagadougou's central Place de la Nation and outside the army headquarters amidst reports of a tense standoff at the latter with chants of \"fulfill your responsibilities or we will do so ourselves. \"[20] By the end of the day Compaoré had resigned and, though there was an initial dispute in the presidency, by 1 November, Zida was declared interim president. On 1 November, Ouagadougou Mayor Simon Compaoré led volunteers on \"Operation Mana Mana\" (Operation Clean-Clean in Dyula) to clear the streets, which earned him praise on social media. [10] A coalition of unnamed opposition parties also issued a statement that read:[7]\n\nThe victory of the popular uprising - and consequently the management of the transition - belongs to the people and should not in any way be confiscated by the army.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["Police used tear gas to deter the demonstrators"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["attempts at changing the constitution to allow President Blaise Compaoré to run again and extend his 27 years in office"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["30 October","October 2014"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Burkina Faso"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["tens of thousands of people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ele Não movement","document":"The #EleNão (Portuguese for \"not him\") movement, also known as the protests against Jair Bolsonaro, were demonstrations led by women which took place in several regions of Brazil and, with less intensity, in other countries. The main goal was to protest against Jair Bolsonaro and his presidential campaign. The protests, which occurred on September 29, 2018,[1][2] were the most numerous protests by women in Brazil and the largest popular concentration during the 2018 Brazilian general election. [3][4]\n\nThe protests began to be organized in the Social networking services, mainly in the Facebook group \"Mulheres contra Bolsonaro\" (women against Bolsonaro). [5][6] They were motivated by the sexist declarations of the candidate and his threats to democracy. Social movements, feminist groups and political parties also supported and took part in the demonstrations. [5][7][8]\nCities in other countries, such as New York City, Barcelona, Berlin and Paris also held some smaller protests. [9][10][11] Bolsonaro was elected with over 55% of the popular vote on October 28, 2018. [12]\n\nBolsonaro is famous for his disparaging remarks concerning women as well as some minorities, such as homosexuals and people of different ethnicities. In an interview with Zero Hora in 2015, Bolsonaro argued that men and women should not receive the same salaries, because women get pregnant, adding that he believes federal law mandating paid maternity leave harms work productivity. [13] Bolsonaro has denied saying that women should receive less than men; he claims it was statistical data by IBGE, a Brazilian research institute. [14]\n\nBolsonaro already had four sons when his first daughter was born. In a public speech in April 2017, Bolsonaro said that he produced a daughter out of \"a moment of weakness\". [15]\n\nBolsonaro provoked controversy for a series of remarks made to and about Federal Deputy and former Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosário. During a Congressional debate, Bolsonaro said that minors should be treated as adults if they commit heinous crimes such as murder or rape, to which Maria do Rosário responded by calling him a \"rapist\". [16][17][18] Bolsonaro then stated that Congresswoman Rosário was \"not worth raping; she is very ugly\". [19] The remarks drew considerable condemnation throughout Brazil. In the aftermath of these remarks, Bolsonaro was tried and convicted in a Federal court in September 2015 on counts of hedonic damages against Rosário. [20] In June 2016, the Federal Supreme Court responded to a complaint filed by the Attorney General and decided to open two criminal actions against Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court ruled that he had potentially incited rape and defamed the honor of his fellow Deputy. He faced a penalty of up to 6 months of jail and a fine. [21] Ultimately in August 2017, an appeal court upheld a lower court's verdict which found Bolsonaro guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine to Rosário of R$10,000 (roughly equivalent to US$2,500). [22] This lawsuit was dismissed by the Supreme Federal Court as Bolsonaro was inaugurated as president in 2019 and acquired immunity from prosecution. [23]\n\nThe hashtag #EleNão was created in Brazil on 12 September, 2018, by the facebook group \"Mulheres Unidas Contra Bolsonaro\" (women united against Bolsonaro). [24] Within only 12 days, the hashtag was used more than 1.2 million times in tweets pro and against Bolsonaro. [25] It was being used even among national and international celebrities. On September 16th, the usage of the hashtag reached its peak soon after a hacker attack against the \"Mulheres Unidas Contra Bolsonaro\" facebook group. [26][27]\n\nMadonna was one of the international celebrities who endorsed the movement. She posted in her Instagram, where she has more than 12.1 million followers, a picture in which she appears with her mouth sealed by a tape with the saying \"freedom\". Above, it reads in Portuguese \"Ele não vai nos desvalorizar, ele não vai nos calar, ele não vai nos oprimir” (He won't devalue us, he won't silence us, he won't oppress us)”. [28]\n\nProtesters in Largo da Batata, São Paulo. Protest in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. \"Women against fascism\" in Portuguese.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["she appears with her mouth sealed by a tape with the saying \"freedom\""]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["protest against Jair Bolsonaro and his presidential campaign"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["September 29, 2018"]},{"role":"Location","values":["city of Porto Alegre, Brazil"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"freedom\""]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["women in Brazil"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2021 Colombian protests","document":"\n\n\n\nA series of ongoing protests began in Colombia on 28 April 2021 against increased taxes, corruption, and health care reform proposed by the government of President Iván Duque Márquez. The tax initiative was introduced to expand funding to Ingreso Solidario, a universal basic income social program established in April 2020 to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic in Colombia, while the legislative Bill 010 proposed several changes in the health care system in Colombia. [6][7][8][9][10]\n\nAlthough the courts had anticipated the protests would be widespread, having annulled all existing permits out of fear of further spread of COVID-19, the protests began in earnest anyway on 28 April 2021. In large cities such as Bogotá and Cali, thousands to tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, in some cases clashing with authorities, resulting in at least six deaths. Protests continued to grow over the coming days, and amidst promises by the president to rework his tax plan, they culminated into a large protest on 1 May, International Workers' Day. On 2 May, President Duque declared that he would fully withdraw his new tax plan, though no new concrete plans were announced. Despite policy adjustments, protests continued, fueled by intense crackdowns and reports of police brutality. [11] By 21 May, protesters had alleged more than 2,000 instances of police brutality, including 27 cases of sexual violence, and around 200 people had been reported missing. [12]\n\nThe Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch noted abuses by police against protesters, while former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez called on the people to support the actions of police and soldiers during the protests. [13]\n\nIn April 2021, President Iván Duque proposed increased taxes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic in Colombia was beginning to worsen as various healthcare systems were failing throughout the country. [6][14] The pandemic had also hurt the Colombian economy, with 42% of Colombians earning less than US$90 per month, and with one in four Colombians under the age of 28 unemployed. [12] The tax reform was also devised to reduce Colombia's increasing fiscal deficit, which had resulted in international credit rating agencies downgrading the Colombian government's bonds thus raising the cost of borrowing. [15]\n\nIngreso Solidario, a universal basic income social program introduced by the Duque government during the pandemic,[9] had already provided at the time thirteen monthly payments of around US$43 to low-income populations since April 2020. [9] Three million of about fifty million Colombians were eligible for Ingreso Solidario payments, with the program being at a smaller scale when compared to other Latin American countries. [9] According to Merike Blofield, director of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies' Latin American division, \"Compared to other countries in the region, the coverage that Ingreso Solidario offers is extremely weak [...]. For the 3 million people that got it, it certainly made a difference. But there were five times as many households that needed it. \"[9]\n\nThe Duque government, seeking to expand the program to include 1.7 million more people and to establish a permanent basic income program, chose to pursue a tax reform for funding. [9] The tax increase on many Colombians was presented as a way to provide US$4.8 billion for Ingreso Solidario. [9] Duque's tax reforms included the expansion of value-added taxes on more products such as food and utilities, the addition of some middle-class earners into a higher tax bracket and the removal of various income tax exemptions. [14][9][16]\n\nA controversial legislative bill, Bill 010, proposed to reform health care in Colombia. Plans to privatize Colombia's health care system amid the pandemic, as well as the hasty method used to file the bill through a special committee in the House of Representatives that did not require congressional debate, also fueled discontent among Colombians. [10]\n\nColombians were simultaneously experiencing the third-highest number of COVID-19 deaths in Latin America, the worst economic performance in fifty years with a gross domestic product decreasing 6.8 percent in 2020, and an unemployment rate of fourteen percent. Colombians were also angered by the proposed tax increase and organized a national labor strike similar to the 2019–2020 Colombian protests. [6][16][17] In addition to the tax and healthcare reforms, strike organizers demanded a universal basic income at the nation's minimum wage level, additional support for small businesses and the ban on using glyphosate-based herbicides, including other requests. [18]\n\nIn preparation for protests, Judge Nelly Yolanda Villamizar de Peñaranda of the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca ruled on 27 April that permits to demonstrate in cities across the country be annulled, banning public demonstrations due to health risks related to COVID-19. [19] Disgruntled citizens, however, ignored the public bans on protests. [16]\n\nTens of thousands of protesters began demonstrating on 28 April 2021, with strong protests occurring in Cali where the statue of Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar was torn down by Misak protesters. [6][20][21] In Bogotá, tens of thousands protested and clashes with authorities began later in the day, with four thousand protesters maintaining their activities throughout the night. [20] Two were killed on the first day of protests. [6]\n\nPolice presence increased on 29 April when General Eliecer Camacho of the Metropolitan Police of Bogotá announced that 5,800 police would be deployed during the demonstrations. [20] Some TransMilenio stations were also closed prior to further protests, with the government stating the closures were due to damage. [20] The leader of the Central Union of Workers (CUT) described the 28 April demonstrations as a \"majestic strike\" and called for further protests throughout Colombia. [14] Protests overall were in smaller numbers across the nation. [14]\n\nProtests would continue throughout Colombia on 30 April, especially in Cali, Bogotá, Pereira, Ibagué, and Medellín, with some demonstrations occurring in other smaller cities as well. [22][23][24] President Duque first announced that he would not remove the tax reform, although he later stated that his government would consider removing some of the more controversial proposals from the tax reform plans. [17] The mayor of Cali, Jorge Iván Ospina, responded to President Duque, stating: \"Mr. President, the tax reform is dead. We don't want it to cause more deaths. Please, withdraw it, I am asking you for this on behalf of the people of Cali\". [25] In preparation for Workers' Day protests, the government deployed 4,000 troops and police officers to Cali. [25]\n\nOn 1 May, International Workers' Day, tens of thousands of people protested in one of the largest demonstrations during the wave of protests, with cacerolazos heard in various cities. [17][26] Minister of National Defense Diego Molano, a business administrator, said in Cali \"according to intelligence information, criminal and terrorist acts in Cali correspond to criminal organizations and terrorists\", relating the protesters to splinter groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). [25][27] During the evening, President Duque said during a speech that he would increase the deployment of troops to cities experiencing violence. [28]\n\nPresident Duque announced on 2 May that he was withdrawing the tax reform, although he stated that reform was still necessary. [29][30] Duque said that the tax reform \"is not a whim, it is a necessity. \"[31] Despite the elimination of the tax reform, protests continued to be promoted by organizers. [32]\n\nThe National Strike Committee announced on 3 May that another day of protests would be held on 5 May, criticizing the Duque government for not convening with groups to make negotiations. [18] During the first week of May, hundreds of university students turned off their webcams during virtual classes and shared posts online in solidarity with the strike. [12]\n\nPresident of Ecuador Lenín Moreno and Vice President of Colombia Marta Lucía Ramírez released statements on 5 May 2021 alleging that the protests were organized by Venezuela, stating that they were supported by President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro. [33] President Moreno, speaking at an Inter-American Institute for Democracy (IID) meeting in Miami beside Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro, stated that \"the intelligence organizations of Ecuador have detected the gross interference of dictator Maduro, ... in what is happening right now in Colombia\".","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against increased taxes, corruption, and health care reform proposed by the government of President Iván Duque Márquez"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least six deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["28 April 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Colombia","Bogotá and Cali"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["thousands to tens of thousands of protesters"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2016 Macedonian protests","document":" Government of Macedonia(led by VMRO-DPMNE)\n\n United opposition and NGOs, including: \n\nAnd others... Supported by:\n\n Nikola Gruevski (former Prime Minister and leader of VMRO-DPMNE)\n\n Radmila Šekerinska  (Deputy leader of SDSM)  \n Oliver Spasovski  (Minister of Interior)\n Andrej Žernovski (Mayor of municipality of Centar)  \n Stevo Pendarovski (former candidate for President of Macedonia)\n Tito Petkovski  (Leader of NSDP)  \n Zdravko Saveski \n\nIn April 2016, protests began in the Republic of Macedonia against the incumbent President Gjorgje Ivanov and the government led by the interim Prime Minister Emil Dimitriev from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party. Referred to by some as the Colorful Revolution[2][3] (Macedonian: Шарена револуција), the protests have started after the controversial decision by President Gjorgje Ivanov to stop the investigation against former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and dozens of politicians who were allegedly involved in a wiretapping scandal. [4][5] The demonstrations were organized by \"Protestiram\" (I protest) and supported from coalition led by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, and other opposition parties, also the newly formed Levica (The Left)[6][7] demanding that the government resigns for the formation of a technical government, and that the parliamentary elections planned for 5 June 2016 are cancelled, on the grounds that the conditions for free and transparent elections are not in place. [8] The government and its supporters, who have organized pro-government rallies, maintain that the elections on June 5 are the only solution to the political crisis, with some observers blaming the opposition for creating a \"Ukraine scenario\" in Macedonia. [9][10][11][12][13]\n\nInitially taking place in Skopje, the capital, both anti- and pro-government protests have also occurred in other cities in the country, including Bitola, Kicevo, Kočani, Veles, Strumica, Prilep, Kumanovo and Tetovo. [3][14] Thousands of people have taken part in the demonstrations. [9] The European Union and the United States criticized the government of Macedonia for the pardon of the politicians and stated that Macedonia's prospects of becoming a member of the EU and NATO were under threat because of it. [15][16][17] In an official statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia labelled the Macedonian opposition as a tool of foreign powers being used to destabilize the political situation in the country. [11]\n\nLarge protests occurred in May 2015 in the Republic of Macedonia against the government of Prime Minister of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, following the publication of information by opposition leader Zoran Zaev that suggested Gruevski had thousands of Macedonian citizens wiretapped. [5] Many people protested against alleged government corruption, with estimates putting the number of demonstrators in the tens of thousands, demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister. [18][19][20] Pro-government rallies occurred as well, which also had tens of thousands attendees. [21] An agreement, brokered by the European Union and the United States, was worked on in June and July 2015. As part of the agreement, Gruevski resigned in January 2016 and pledged to hold early elections, which were decided on later that year to be held on June 5. [22]\n\nOn 12 April 2016 President of Macedonia Gjorge Ivanov halted judicial inquiries into 56 officials suspected of involvement in the wiretapping scandal. Ivanov stated to have done so in the best interest of the country, and to end the political crisis. [17][23][24] His party of appointment, the VMRO-DPMNE allegedly did not agree with his action. Opposition leader Zoran Zaev  subsequently called for supporting anti-government protests organized by NGOs. [23]\n\nDemonstrations have begun on 12 April 2016, with reports suggesting that about 4,000+ people took part. Crowds broke through a police cordon towards government buildings, throwing flares at President Ivanov's offices and burning portraits of him. More actions occurred on 14 April, with five police officers being injured from people throwing rocks and one protester being detained. [25][26] The demonstration that occurred on 16 April and ended peacefully, but on 17 April protesters threw eggs and stones at the triumphal arc on Skopje. [8] Thousands of people demonstrated in Skopje on 15 April, carrying white flags and banners. [27] On 18 April, it was reported that more than ten thousand people took part in demonstrations in Skopje, with protests also happening in other cities of Macedonia (including Bitola, Strumica and Veles). [14]\n\nThe protest on 19 April began in front of the special prosecutor's office, preceded to parliament and was stopped by police before reaching the EU mission. It numbered in the thousands. [28] Several thousand people turned out for demonstrations on the eighth day of the protest, 20 April. [29] At this point, throwing colours at various governmental buildings and monuments of the Skopje 2014 project had become a regular feature at the protests, and the term „colourful revolution“ gained some popularity among the protesters and the social media. The eight day journalists began referring to the protests as „colorful revolution“ - with Kristina Ozimec's article for Deutsche Welle being the first to use the term. [30] Also on that day, Zaev announced that he would not be willing to take part in EU-brokered talks in Vienna (proposed by European Commissioner Johannes Hahn two days earlier) unless certain conditions are met. [31] On 21 April, two rallies were held near each other in Skopje, each attended by thousands of people. One was anti-government, organized by the SDSM and the \"Protestiram\" (I Protest) organization, while the second was organized by the Citizens for Macedonian Defense (GDOM, in Macedonian), supported by the ruling VMRO party. The anti-government protest started in front of the special prosecutor's building, where protesters shouted \"No Justice No Peace\" and \"Support the SJO\" (special prosecution). The pro-government protesters shouted \"No one can harm you Nikola\" and carried anti-NATO banners. [32] On 22 April in 11 cities in Macedonia there was big anti government demonstrations organized by \"Protestiram\" (I Protest) organization and supported by united opposition of Macedonia. [33] On the same day European Union announced sanctions for politics and persons from VMRO-DPMNE. [34]\n\nOn 23 April the anti-government protests continued in several cities in the country. [35] Next day, Zdravko Saveski, member of the collective presidency of the left-wing party Levica (the Left) and one other member of the same party were put in house custody. [36] Previously, three more protesters were put in house custody. The protests organized by \"Protestiram\" (I protest) and supported by the opposition and nongovernmental organizations continued in several cities and the between 15,000 and 20,000 demonstrators in Skopje protest in front of the parliament, the several ministry, and in front of the government. [37] On 25 April a large pro-government rally occurred in Bitola, organized by the Citizens for Macedonian Defense (GDOM, in Macedonian), with thousands in attendance. They rallied in support of the planned parliamentary elections on June 5. [9] On Tuesday, 26 April the anti-government protests begin in new 3 cities: Tetovo, Kicevo and Radovis, and this day there was protest in 15 cities in Macedonia. [3] There was a pro-government rally on April 27, organized by GDOM in the city of Kicevo in support of the planned parliamentary elections on June 5. [10] The anti-government protests continued after the holidays on 2 and 3 May in Skopje, Tetovo, Bitola, Prilep, Strumica, Kumanovo and Gevgelija. [38] In Skopje demonstrators protests in front of parliament, government and courts. [39]\n\nOn 4 May farmers join the \"Protestiram\" (I protest) movement with road block in the country. [40] Also on that day, mass pro-government demonstrations organized by the GDOM occurred in Bitola, Stip, Veles, Delcevo, Gevgelija, Strumica, Kumanovo, Tetovo and Radovis, in support of the June 5 elections. A spokesperson for the GDOM told the media that they needed to prevent destructive scenarios and allow the people to make their decision by voting in the scheduled elections. [41] On 6 May 2016 there were anti-government protests in 14 cities around the country.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the controversial decision by President Gjorgje Ivanov to stop the investigation against former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and dozens of politicians who were allegedly involved in a wiretapping scandal","demanding that the government resigns for the formation of a technical government, and that the parliamentary elections planned for 5 June 2016 are cancelled"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["April 2016"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Republic of Macedonia","Skopje, the capital","Bitola, Kicevo, Kočani, Veles, Strumica, Prilep, Kumanovo and Tetovo"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018 Venezuelan protest movement","document":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe 2018 Venezuelan protests began in the first days of January as a result of high levels of hunger by desperate Venezuelans. Within the first two weeks of the year, hundreds of protests and looting incidents occurred throughout the country. [1] By late-February, protests against the Venezuelan presidential elections occurred after several opposition leaders were banned from participating. Into March, the Maduro government began to crack down on military dissent, arresting dozens of high-ranking officials including former SEBIN director Miguel Rodríguez Torres. [2]\n\nThe NGO Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict (OVCS) reported that there were 12,715 registered protests in Venezuela in 2018. [3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["as a result of high levels of hunger by desperate Venezuelans","against the Venezuelan presidential elections occurred after several opposition leaders were banned from participating"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2018","first days of January","late-February"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Venezuela"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019–2020 Catalan protests","document":"\n\n Kingdom of Spain\n\nPolice forces:\n\n Supporters of Catalan independence or referendum\n\n Government of Catalonia\n\nThe sentencing of nine Catalan independence leaders in a 2019 trial by the Supreme Court of Spain triggered protests in Catalonia. They were convicted of sedition and other crimes against the Spanish state for their role in the organization of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. [6]\n\nThe Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia has a long established independence movement, which seeks to establish Catalonia as an independent and sovereign republic, thus breaking off from the Kingdom of Spain. A non-binding 2014 Catalan self-determination referendum resulted in a victory for proponents of Catalan independence (although with a turnout of 37%), which emboldened Catalan authorities to conduct the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which they deemed would be binding and result in the independence of Catalonia. The Spanish Government, then led by Mariano Rajoy, however, considered this an act of illegal separatism and appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court to block the referendum. The Supreme Court concurred and ordered Catalonia to cancel the referendum. The autonomous Catalan government, however, refused and held the referendum despite the Supreme Court's binding order. The Spanish Government launched Operation Anubis, in which it attempted to forcefully stop the referendum from taking place by raiding polling stations, preventing the printing and publication of electoral materials, taking down websites advocating or providing information for the referendum and prosecuting its organizers. The Catalan government resisted the police operation and carried through with the referendum. By the end of the polling day, the Catalan government had declared that the referendum had been successfully held and announced that over 90% of voters had voted for independence with a 43% voter turnout. Nine days later, citing the result of the referendum, the Parliament of Catalonia voted for and issued the Catalan declaration of independence, which declared an independent Republic of Catalonia. The declaration, however, was in direct contradiction to Article 115 Spanish Constitution, as well as the orders of the Spanish Supreme court and Spanish Government. For this reason, the Spanish government ended the region's autonomy and imposed direct rule over Catalonia, seizing control of the entirety of the autonomous government's institutions and infrastructure. The Spanish Government, along with the far-right Vox Party, then began to prosecute a case against several of the autonomous region's leaders, as well as the organizers of the referendum. They were brought before the Spanish Supreme Court in the trial of Catalonia independence leaders. On 14 October 2019, nine of the Catalan independence leaders were sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison, with another three being fined. The demonstrations erupted to protest the Supreme Court's ruling shortly thereafter. [6][7][8][9][10]\n\nProtests against the sentencing of the Catalan independence leaders began on 14 October at Barcelona-El Prat Airport just hours after the Spanish Supreme Court announced its verdict. By the afternoon, thousands of protesters had already gathered at the airport, effectively forcing the airport to close. Clashes erupted between protesters and police forces after the latter charged at and attempted to disperse the former with police batons. The Catalan Government, led by the pro-independence Quim Torra called for both the amnesty of the convicted leaders and a renewed attempt to realize Catalan independence. [9][11]\n\nClashes erupted into open violence, as protesters reacted violently at police efforts to end the demonstration, with some demonstrators reportedly throwing rocks and using fire extinguishers against police officers. The Catalan Law Enforcement agency Mossos d'Esquadra, which had previously been accused of aiding the independence movement, replied by firing tear gas at the demonstrators. The pro-independence speaker of the Catalan Parliament condemned the violent incidents and called for peaceful protests against the ruling. [12] The protests grew larger, as more and more Catalans took to the streets. Some demonstrators attempted to storm buildings belonging to the Spanish Government and clashed with police forces. [13] The Spanish Police announced that 51 protesters had been arrested. [14]\n\nOn 17 October, the pro-independence President of the Catalan Autonomous government, Quim Torra, called for an immediate halt to violence and disassociated himself from violent protesters, while at the same time calling for more peaceful protests. Nevertheless, the situation in Barcelona had evolved into open street battles between protesters and police, as both violent demonstrators attacked and provoked police forces, and police officers charged peaceful protesters for their proximity to violent ones. [15]\n\nShortly thereafter, the Catalan President attempted to rally the crowd by stating that he will push for a new independence referendum as large scale protests continued for the fourth day. [16]\nOn 18 October, Barcelona became paralyzed, as tens of thousands of peaceful protesters answered the Catalan President's call and rallied in support of the jailed independence leaders. [17] The demonstration grew quickly, with the Barcelona police counting at least 525,000 protesters in the city. [1]\n\nBy late 18 October, minor trade unions (Intersindical-CSC and Intersindical Alternativa de Catalunya [ca]) linked to pro-independence movement called for a general strike. However, major trade unions (UGT and CCOO) did not endorse the event as well as representatives of the latter contested its very nature as \"strike\". [18] Five peaceful marches converged on Barcelona's city center, essentially bringing the city to a halt. Protesters further blocked the road on the French-Spanish border. At least 20 other major roads were also blocked. Clashes nevertheless took place, with masked protesters confronting riot police by throwing stones and setting alight rubbish bins. [19] 25,000 university students joined in the protest movement by declaring a peaceful student strike. [20]\n\nAs a result of the strike, trains and metro lines saw a reduction to 33% of their usual capacity, while buses saw a reduction to 25-50% of their usual capacity. The roads to the French border remained blocked and all roads leading into Barcelona were also cut. 190 flights in and out of the city were cancelled as a result of the strike. Spanish car manufacturer SEAT further announced a halt in the production of its Martorell plant and most of Barcelona's tourist sites had been closed and occupied by pro-independence demonstrators waving estelada independence flags and posters with pro-independence slogans. [20] The El Clásico football match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF was postponed due to the strike. [21]\n\nBy the end of the day, just like the previous days, riots developed in the centre of Barcelona. Masked individuals blocked the boulevard close to the city's police headquarters. Withdrawn to the vicinity of the Plaça Urquinaona, protesters erected barricades setting trash bins in fire and hurled rubble (shattered from the pavement) and other solid objects at riot policemen. [22] The riot units responded with non-lethal foam and rubber bullets, tear gas and smoke grenades. The Mossos used for the first time the water cannon trunk acquired in 1994 from Israel in order to make way across the barricades. [23] The clashes spread to cities outside Barcelona, with Spain's acting interior minister stating that 207 policemen had been injured since the start of the protests, while also noting that 128 people had been arrested by the nation's police forces.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["The sentencing of nine Catalan independence leaders in a 2019 trial by the Supreme Court of Spain","against the sentencing of the Catalan independence leaders","called for both the amnesty of the convicted leaders and a renewed attempt to realize Catalan independence"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["14 October 2019","14 October","afternoon"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Catalonia","Barcelona-El Prat Airport"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["pro-independence Quim Torra","thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Gabonese protests","document":"The 2011 Gabonese protests is mass protests and violent protests against the government of Ali Bongo and his cabinet in Gabon, inspired by the Tunisian Revolution and 2011 Egyptian Revolution, mainly the Arab Spring, will calls for pan-Sub-Saharan reforms and calling for the government to step down. [1]\n\nThe wave and period of massive anti-government protests and street demonstrations started as an opposition rally and unprecedented announcement of the instatement of opposition activist Andre Mba Obame as president; supporters came onto the streets in support of the plan. The protests was also dispersed and met with extreme force, like Tear gas and Rubber bullets. [2]\n\nThe protesters was marching first in Libreville, demonstrating against the federal government of Ali Bongo and calling on him to resign. The protest movement gained momentum, gaining attention on international outlets. The protests erupted in support of the opposition and solidarity marches was scheduled nationwide, despite a crackdown on sustained nationwide anti-government rallies. As soon as the protests began, the security forces responded to the anti-government street protests by Tear gas. After a tide of protests, the demonstrations was quelled by the police and opposition was banned. No concessions was made and the demands with protesters was suppressed. [3][4]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the federal government of Ali Bongo and calling on him to resign"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Gabon"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2016 Moroccan protest movement","document":"The Hirak Rif Movement or The Rif Movement (Berber languages: ⴰⵎⵓⵙⵙⵓ ⵏ ⴰⵕⵉⴼ, Arabic: حراك الريف‎, meaning \"Movement of the Rif\") is a popular mass protest movement that took place in the Berber-speaking Rif region in northern Morocco between October 2016 and June 2017 as a result of the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fishmonger who was crushed to death in a garbage truck after jumping in the back, following the confiscation of his allegedly illegal fish merchandise—of which he was selling on the local market—by local authorities. The mass protest movement was met with repression, with many violent clashes between police and protesters in various cities and towns, such as the Al Hoceima, Driouch, Nador provinces and led to the arrest of more than 150 Moroccans, seen by the regime as protagonists/leaders or media activists in the movement. The leader of the Rif mass protests, Nasser Zefzafi, was arrested by Moroccan law enforcement and intelligence operatives using telephone tracing technology on May 29, 2017, close to a beach near Al Hoceima. Right after his arrest, Zefzafi was flown in a military helicopter directly to Casablanca (500 km away), where he is being held and tried by a court of law for charges of sedition and conspiracy as of March 10, 2018. The Moroccan authorities chose to detain him away from his native city and his popular base to defuse the protest movement and to avoid mass escalations in his home city. Mouhcine Fikri, a 31-year-old fish seller, was crushed to death in a rubbish bin on October 28, 2016 in the city of Al Hoceima after trying to recover his confiscated merchandise. This death led to a set of protests that were regularly held and included more and more demands. The protests were led by activist Nasser Zefzafi. The protests were described as \"the largest display of public anger in Morocco since the Arab spring in 2011. \"[1]\n\nThe list of demands is the ground of the protests and includes:[2]\n\nOn May 29, 2017, Nasser Zefzafi was arrested in Al Hoceima. [3] Following this arrest came hundred others. [4] Following these arrests, daily protests began in Al Hoceima, Imzouren and other neighboring cities demanding the release of Zefzafi and the other activists. On Monday 26 June, which coincided with the celebration of Eid el-Fitr, the  security forces (police, gendarmerie and auxiliary forces) launched a vast crackdown in Al Hoceima and the surrounding areas, to disband a planned march in solidarity with the detainees. [5] This resulted in widespread violence and beating. [6] The crackdown started early on the day of the feast by surrounding places of prayer, and preventing people from gathering in large numbers for the Eid's prayer. [6] The gendarmerie and police then completely surrounded and blocked all accesses to the city of Al Hoceima, including patrolling the surrounding hills and mountains and stopping people trying to get to the city on foot. [5] The police forces strictly prevented all cars and taxis from entering Al Hoceima, fearing a potential influx of protestors to the city from neighbouring populous areas such as Nador and El Aroui. The violence of the day resulted in the arrest of about 60 people, and many more unaccounted for and a large number of injuries amongst the population, also unaccounted for because of the media blockade. [5] The government official press then published various stories in its media claiming that 39 members of police were injured. [5]\n\nA central person in the conflict about free speech is the journalist Hamid El Mahdaoui. Born in 1979, he graduated from college in 2004 and from the journalism institute in 2010. He worked in various publications, where he was known as a go-to-guy for sensitive issues that are generally avoided by the average reporter. He championed advocacy journalism, freely expressing his views and criticizing the government. He has also once said, \"… a journalist has to shape public opinion by reporting the news but also by giving his own views.\" Since he launched the news site \"Badil.info\" in 2014, El Mahdaoui has become one of the most prominent faces in the media world in Morocco, not only because of his iconoclastic personality, but also because of a series of lawsuits that have been filed against him by various state security services and ministries. In June 2016, a court in Casablanca sentenced him to a four-month suspended sentence and $1000 fine for defamation over his report on corruption by then-Minister of Justice. El Mahdaoui's journalism became more opinionated. Through critical reports and long format videos posted on his news site and on YouTube, his followers base grew with each video that gets viewed by several hundred thousands soon after its posting. His profile continued to grow during the latest flare up of protests in the Rif, when he posted several critical videos supporting demands by the peaceful protesters and decrying repression by security forces. El Mahdaoui was eventually arrested, mistreated, denied health treatment, sentenced to three months then to one year in jail, and accused of a felony that will likely end up with a heavy sentence. Speaking on El Mahdaoui's arrest and mistreatment by Morocco's police, M. Aabid, a fellow reporter, said, \"This is not about one single person, this is about the issue of freedom of expression.\" \"El Mahdaoui has personified the idea that you can criticize the policies of the king without fear and the authorities don't like this idea.\" King Mohammed VI's only official direct response came in a communiqué read on Sunday 25 June 2017, by the spokesperson of the Palace, Abdelhak El Mrini. [7] The king's statement was framed as part of a routine council of ministers, which the king presided over the same day. In this statement the king alluded to what he described as \"delays\" in a project he claims to have launched for the development of Al Hoceima in October 2015, while he was in Tétouan. [7] The king then blamed his ministers for presenting projects to him which do not have realistic expectations and budgets, and added that \"he would not allow those ministers to go on vacation this summer\". [7] The king then went on, in what looked like blame directed at the protestors, when he stressed that his \"development and social projects should not be politicised\". [7]\n\nThe king's first direct response was when the issue was brought up by French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited him on 14 June. [8] During the brief press conference held after Macron's arrival, the French President said that he questioned the king in a direct and frank manner about the turbulence in the Rif, and that he sensed in the king's response a \"will that goes in the sense of appeasement and not escalation of the situation\". [8] Macron also reported that the king said to him, that \"he inaugurated the practice of spending vacations in Al Hoceima\", and the king claimed to Macron, that \"contrary to other countries, people in the Rif were free to protest\". [8]\n\nOn 28 June 2017, speaking on behalf of the king, Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani issued a video statement,[9] in which he commended the king's directives to conduct development projects in all of Morocco, not just Al Hoceima, while he expressed his regrets regarding the crackdown of El Eid, and regretted the injured amongst the police and population. [9] In the statement, Othmani also reported the king's wish for a very strict respect of the conditions of a fair trial of the 150 arrested in the Hirak, while also calling for respect of the law in dealing with claims of torture reported by the Rif detainees. [9]\n\nOn July 23, 2017, in a speech commemorating his 18th anniversary of his ascension to the throne, King Muhammad VI rebuked local officials in northern Morocco for their failure to implement development projects in a timely manner. [10] He also pardoned a number of activists who had been detained, including the singer Silya Ziani. [10]\n\nIt was reported that US Senator Tim Kaine issued a letter regarding the situation in Morocco in August 2017. In his letter, Kaine wrote that Moroccan citizens were \"not fully protected with respect to expressing themselves, independent media outlets are significantly restricted, and members of the opposition are often unjustly targeted for their political beliefs.\" He also added, \"In the past several months, tens of thousands of Moroccans joined protests calling for economic opportunity, political rights, and an end to corruption. In response, the government has arrested over 100 leaders of the protest movement. […] I am very concerned about these developments and strongly support the right of all people to peacefully express their grievances. \"[11]\n\nAt international level, the repression of the Popular Movement to the Rif has had serious consequences on the population, forcing many young people to emigrate outside Morocco and this made the Riffian movement continue mainly in Europe where there is a large community of Riffian origin.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["more than 150 Moroccans"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["the death of Mouhcine Fikri","the confiscation of his allegedly illegal fish merchandise—of which he was selling on the local market—by local authorities"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["October 2016"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Berber-speaking Rif region in northern Morocco"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2005 Yemeni uprising","document":"\nThe 2005 Yemeni uprising was a nationwide revolution and popular protest movement against president Ali Abdullah Saleh after fuel price hikes on 19 July. Mass protests first broke out in Aden on 20 July, but spread nationwide between 20 and 23 July. Growing mass street protests, massive civil disobedience and disturbances, and increasingly violent street demonstrations characterised by riots and Civil disorder hit and rocked Yemen, mainly Sanaa and Aden. The rioting and uprising consisted of lobbying, rallies, looting, arson attacks and battles between police and demonstrators. In Hudaydah, thousands demonstrated against fuel price hikes and soon, Stone-throwing took place and 8 were killed. 36 were killed in the bloody crackdowns, in which the military was deployed to disperse and quell the mass uprising by using live ammunition and rubber bullets to dispel the fuel price hike movement and anti-government revolt. [1][2][3]\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against president Ali Abdullah Saleh after fuel price hikes on 19 July"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["36 were killed"]},{"role":"Date","values":["20 July","20 and 23 July","2005"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Aden","Yemen"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Nashville sit-ins","document":"\n\n\n\nThe Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and its emphasis on disciplined nonviolence. It was part of a broader sit-in movement that spread across the southern United States in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina. [1]\n\nOver the course of the Nashville sit-in campaign, sit-ins were staged at numerous stores in the central business district. Sit-in participants, who mainly consisted of black college students, were often verbally or physically attacked by white onlookers. Despite their refusal to retaliate, over 150 students were eventually arrested for refusing to vacate store lunch counters when ordered to do so by police. At trial, the students were represented by a group of 13 lawyers, headed by Z. Alexander Looby. On April 19, Looby's home was bombed, although he escaped uninjured. [1] Later that day, at least 3,000 people marched to City Hall to confront Mayor Ben West about the escalating violence. [2] When asked if he believed the lunch counters in Nashville should be desegregated, West agreed that they should. [3][1] After subsequent negotiations between the store owners and protest leaders, an agreement was reached during the first week of May. On May 10, six downtown stores began serving black customers at their lunch counters for the first time. [1]\n\nAlthough the initial campaign successfully desegregated downtown lunch counters, sit-ins, pickets, and protests against other segregated facilities continued in Nashville until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended overt, legally sanctioned segregation nationwide. Many of the organizers of the Nashville sit-ins went on to become important leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the doctrine of \"separate but equal\". This decision led to the proliferation of Jim Crow laws throughout the United States. These laws mandated or explicitly allowed segregation in virtually all spheres of public life and allowed racial discrimination to flourish across the country, especially in the southern United States. [4][5]\n\nIn Nashville, like most Southern cities, African Americans were severely disadvantaged under the system of Jim Crow segregation. Besides being relegated to underfunded schools and barred from numerous public accommodations, African Americans had few prospects for skilled employment and were subject to constant discrimination from the white majority. [6][7]\n\nAlthough serious efforts were made to oppose Jim Crow laws in Nashville as early as 1905,[note 1] it was not until 1958, with the formation of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, that Nashville's African American community would lay the foundation for dismantling racial segregation. [8]\n\n\"We decided with great fear and anticipation we would desegregate downtown Nashville. No group of black people or other people anywhere in the United States in the 20th century, against the rapaciousness of a segregated system, ever thought about desegregating downtown.\" — James Lawson, 2020[9]\n\nThe Nashville Christian Leadership Council (or NCLC), was founded by the Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill. This organization was an affiliate of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and was established to promote civil rights for African Americans through nonviolent civil disobedience. Smith believed that White Americans would be more sympathetic to desegregation if African Americans obtained their rights through peaceful demonstration rather than through the judicial system or violent confrontation. [10]\n\nFrom March 26 to 28, 1958, the NCLC held the first of many workshops on using nonviolent tactics to challenge segregation. [8][11] These workshops were led by James Lawson, who had studied the principles of nonviolent resistance while working as a missionary in India. Later workshops were mainly attended by students from Fisk University, Tennessee A&I (later Tennessee State University), American Baptist Theological Seminary (later American Baptist College), and Meharry Medical College. Among those attending Lawson's sessions were students who would become significant leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, among them: Marion Barry, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, John Lewis, Diane Nash, and C. T. Vivian. [12]\n\nDuring these workshops it was decided that the first target for the group's actions would be downtown lunch counters. At the time, African Americans were allowed to shop in downtown stores but were not allowed to eat in the stores' restaurants. The group felt that the lunch counters were a good objective because they were highly visible, easily accessible, and provided a stark example of the injustices black Southerners faced every day. [13]\n\nIn late 1959, James Lawson and other members of the NCLC's projects committee met with department store owners Fred Harvey and John Sloan, and asked them to voluntarily serve African Americans at their lunch counters. Both men declined, saying that they would lose more business than they would gain. The students then began doing reconnaissance for sit-in demonstrations. The first test took place at Harveys Department Store in downtown Nashville on November 28, followed by the Cain-Sloan store on December 5. [14][15] Small groups of students purchased items at the stores and then sat at their lunch counters and attempted to order food. Their goal was to try to sense the mood and degree of resistance in each store. Although they were refused service at both lunch counters, the reactions varied significantly. At Harveys, they received surprisingly polite responses, while at Cain-Sloan they were treated with contempt. [16][17] These reconnaissance actions were low-key and neither of the city's newspapers was notified of them. [18]\n\nBefore the students in Nashville had a chance to formalize their plans, events elsewhere brought renewed urgency to the effort. During the first week of February 1960, a small sit-in demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina, grew into a significant protest with over eighty students participating by the third day. Although similar demonstrations had occurred previously in other cities, this was the first to attract substantial media attention and public notice. [19] When Lawson's group met the subsequent Friday night, about 500 new volunteers showed up to join the cause. Although Lawson and other adult organizers argued for delay, the student leaders insisted that the time had come for action. [20]\n\nThe first large-scale organized sit-in was on Saturday, February 13, 1960. At about 12:30 pm, 124 students, most of them black, walked into the downtown Woolworths, S. H. Kress, and McLellan stores and asked to be served at the lunch counters. After the staff refused to serve them, they sat in the stores for two hours and then left without incident.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["to end racial segregation"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["from February 13 to May 10, 1960"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Nashville, Tennessee"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council","at least 3,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Iran student protests, July 1999","document":"Government paramilitaries\n\nThe Iranian student protests of July 1999 (Also known as 18th of Tir and Kuye Daneshgah Disaster (Persian: فاجعه کوی دانشگاه‎) in Iran) (7–13 July)[1] were, before the 2009 Iranian election protests, the most widespread and violent public protests to occur in Iran since the early years of the Iranian Revolution. [2]\n\n\nThe protests began on 8 July with peaceful demonstrations in Tehran against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam. Following the demonstrations, a student dormitory was raided by riot police that night during which a student was killed. [3]\n The raid sparked six days of  demonstrations and rioting throughout the country, during which at least three other people were killed and more than 200 injured. [1]\n\nIn the aftermath of these incidents, more than seventy students disappeared. In addition to an estimated 1,200–1,400 detainees, the \"whereabouts and condition\" of five students named by Human Rights Watch who are believed to be detained by Iranian authorities remain unknown. [4]\n\nThe protests began on the eve of 9 July 1999 after a peaceful demonstration by a group of students of Tehran University against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam, by the press court. The Salam newspaper (Persian: روزنامه سلام)  was operated by the Association of Combatant Clerics, the reformist political party to which the then president, Mohammad Khatami belonged. The student groups, which at the time were considered one of the major supporters of Khatami and his reform programs, were protesting in support of Khatami against the closure of the newspaper by the judiciary, which was controlled by the hardline opponents of President Khatami. On the evening of the protests, \"about 400 plainclothes paramilitaries descended on a university dormitory, whispering into short-wave radios and wielding green sticks.\" The paramilitaries, thought to be Ansar-e-Hezbollah and Basij, began attacking students, kicking down doors and smashing through halls, grabbing female students by the hair and setting fire to rooms. Several students were thrown off of third story balconies \"onto pavement below, their bones crushed,\" and one student paralyzed. According to students' accounts, uniformed police stood by and did nothing. [5] \"Witnesses reported that at least one student was killed, 300 wounded, and thousands detained in the days that followed. \"[6]\n\nThe next day, unrest began in earnest, spreading through Tehran and to other cities and continuing for almost a week, with unemployed youths joining the students. The Basij are reported to have disguised themselves as students (wearing jeans, T-shirts, and shaving their faces) and thrown bricks into shop windows to discredit the student demonstrators. [7] The five days of rioting \"turned Tehran into a battlefield,\" and was \"inarguably the worst mass disturbance\" the Islamic Republic had seen in its 20 years of existence. Running street battles left downtown Tehran \"gutted,\" with burned-out buses, and smashed storefronts. [8]\n\nThere were many arrests and injuries, and at least one confirmed fatal shooting, namely that of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad. The death of Ebrahim-Nejad was the only one acknowledged by the state-controlled Iranian television, however, major student groups and the foreign media have claimed more than 17 dead during the week of violent protests. Another student Saeed Zeinali has been disappeared after his arrest by security forces. Major Iranian cities such as Tabriz, Mashhad, Shiraz and Esfahan were scenes of violent and widespread demonstrations as well. The protests continued at Tabriz University on 11 July 1999 (20th of Tir) and police and hardliners responded similarly in Tabriz universities and schools, entering the universities and brutally attacked students. Four students died in the unrest and many were beaten while in custody. [9]\n\nAccording to The Economist magazine, the demonstrations \"took a more violent turn on 13 July, when some of the students, deeply dissatisfied with the official response, tried to storm the Ministry of the Interior, the perceived seat of their troubles. \"[10] On July 13 President Khatami issued a statement \"disowning\" the demonstrators, stating that continued defiance of the ban on demonstrations was \"an attack on the foundations of the régime. \"[11]\n\nThe next day, 14 July, \"Tens of thousands of supporters\" of Supreme Leader Khamenei rallied in Tehran in a demonstration called by the Organization for Islamic Propagation (Keesing's July 1999). \"Reports characterize the demonstration as the régime's counterattack, claiming that the demonstrators include tens of thousands government employees who have been brought to Tehran by bus. \"[12]\n\nThe Iranian student protests of July 1999 is considered to be the first massive uprising initiated by the generation born under the Islamic Republic Regime. The protest grew out of response to the Islamic Republic's violent attack on Tehran University's student dormitory on July 9, 1999, in which  numerous students were seriously injured and several killed. Over the next five days proceeding the attack, approximately 50,000 students protested in Tehran, in addition to thousands more in various universities across Iran, against both conservatives and reformists under the Islamic Republic Regime and The Supreme Leader Khamenei, in particular. Student protester's main demand called for the replacement of the Islamic Republic with a government that upheld the ideals of secular democracy. The student protests of July 1999 is considered to be a foundation for the Green Movement of 2009. The presidential election of Mohammad Khatami on 23 May 1997 is symbolic of Iran's desire for reform. The elections resulted in higher voter turnout as a result of Khatami's liberal views that attracted large number of youth and women specifically. In fact, \"Iran's youth…reportedly made up a large part of the 20 million who gave Khatami his victory. They were joined by large numbers of women.\" The election of Khatami brought hope of economic, political and societal reform to Iranian citizens. One of the ways that Khatami appealed to women was by stating his belief that, \"women should be active in all social, political and economic activities, and said he would welcome qualified women in his cabinet if he should win the presidency. Efforts should be made to do away with male supremacy\". By holding such liberal ideas, Khatami sets himself up for battle against conservative ideology within the judicial sector of the government. In addition, \"the Islamic Republic in 1997 was still an oligarchy, controlled by a network of Shi'ite clerics who were disciples of Ayatollah Khomeini\" and loyal followers of Islam. Therefore, the liberal views of Khatami did not coincide with those of the clerics. Still, it seems as if Khatami strategically attracts votes from youth and women through his liberalistic views. In fact he \"distanced himself from the faltering and unpopular campaign to 'Islamize' the universities, a goal of the conservative faction\". This quote indicates that Khatami noticed the dissatisfaction with the conservative's agenda and consequently used this to his advantage. As a result, the election of Khatami publicized the Iranian citizens need for reform, especially in regards to freedom of the press. The control of the press that the Iranian government had was a result of the \"dysfunctional dualism of political and ideological institutions\". The struggle between conservative and moderate reform administration resulted in restriction of the press. During this time period, Iran experienced an apparent struggle of power between reformist president Muhammad Khatami and the conservative leader of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least three other people were killed and more than 200 injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["July 1999","7–13 July"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Iran"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Iranian student"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017 St. Louis protests","document":"Beginning on the afternoon of September 15, 2017, a series of protests took place in St. Louis, Missouri, following the acquittal of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley in the Shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man. [1] Over 160 people were arrested during the first three days of demonstrations, with largely peaceful protests. There has been significant criticism around the police and governmental response to protests, resulting in lawsuits from the ACLU. [10][11]\n\nRoughly 200-300 demonstrators assembled in downtown St. Louis near the city courthouse. [12] The protests were mostly peaceful. Police used pepper spray to drive back protesters on at least two occasions: after protesters responded angrily to the approach of buses filled with police in tactical armor (riot gear), and after individuals mounted an abandoned police vehicle and damaged its windshield. [13]\n\nDemonstrations later moved to the Central West End neighborhood, where they swelled to over 1,000 people. They were peaceful until about 9:45 pm, after protesters made their way to the home of mayor Lyda Krewson. Despite urgings from demonstration leaders, at least one protester put a rock through the mayor's window. [12][5] The mayor is believed not to have been home. Although most demonstrators dispersed immediately, police deployed pepper spray and tear gas, driving back remaining demonstrators and onlookers through the Central West End's commercial area. There, angered protesters damaged several businesses. A total of 33 people,[14] 32 of whom were local,[14] were arrested and charged with crimes ranging from peace disturbance to destruction of property. [14] The US Justice Department announced that no federal investigation will take place. [15]\n\nOn the afternoon of September 16, protesters marched through a shopping center in the St. Louis suburb of Des Peres and blocked a road. [16] As the sun set a peaceful march made its way through the St. Louis suburb of University City. As night fell, however, demonstrators threw projectiles at police and smashed storefront windows as police drove them down Delmar Boulevard. 23 businesses and a police vehicle were damaged. [17][18] Police made nine arrests. [16]\n\nAbout 1,000 people protested outside police headquarters in downtown St. Louis. The event was peaceful until a small group of protesters started smashing the windows of a Marriott hotel and other businesses. Police arrested 123 people. [19][20][21] Police also said unknown chemical substances were thrown at them and that an officer on bike was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. [8] Among those arrested included an undercover St. Louis police officer, a Getty Images photojournalist, and an Air Force lieutenant. [22]\n\nProtestors gathered outside the downtown St. Louis jail. [23]\n\nPolice in Richmond Heights shut down the St. Louis Galleria after a group of protesters blocked the intersection of Brentwood Boulevard and Galleria Parkway. [24]  Protests started outside Busch Stadium in downtown St Louis, as a Billy Joel concert took place. [25]\n\nProtesters marched through the Saint Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights before St. Louis County Police said it ordered the demonstrators to disperse. [26] Police made 22 arrests. [26] One officer and two protesters were injured during the incident. Some protesters alleged that the police did not give the dispersal order. [26]\n\nA group of protesters attending a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium unfurled a banner which depicted a cardinal, to match St. Louis' baseball mascot, with #ExpectUs written across the bird's jersey and the bird holding a \"Black Lives Matter\" sign, and read at the bottom \"Stop Killing Us. \"[27] The protesters were removed from the stadium by police. [28] At least two protesters were arrested as ongoing demonstrations outside Busch Stadium continued as well. [29]\n\nProtesters returned to the St Louis Galleria, though only briefly,[30] and chanted \"Black lives matter\" and \"If we don't get it, shut it down!\" while marching through the mall. [30]  They also addressed shoppers and onlookers. [30]\n\n143 were arrested after a group of protesters blocked and briefly closed the eastbound lanes of Interstate 64 at Kingshighway. [31] This marks the highest total number of arrests in one night since the protests began. [31]\n\nOn this day,[32] and made public October 6,[32]  local U.S. Attorney Carrie Costantin sent a letter to US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division asking to implement a request by St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and Interim Police Commissioner Lawrence M. O'Toole for an independent federal investigation. [33]\n\nA group of protestors blocked traffic at Hampton Avenue and Chippewa Street on Thursday evening before marching to the nearby St. Louis Police Officers Association and calling for its spokesman to be fired. [34]\n\nProtests returned to the nearby city of Ferguson three years after the shooting of Michael Brown. [35]  The Ferguson protesters first stopped outside the Ferguson Market,[35] where Brown had a run-in with the store owner before he was stopped by the officer who later shot him, and later moved to the Ferguson police headquarters on South Florissant Road. [35]  A video of Ferguson protestors carrying Black Lives Matter signs and standing around the burning flag while repeatedly chanting \"we can't take it no more\" is also leaking online as well. [36]\n\nMore Ferguson protests take place and 5 out of 50 protesters are arrested for refusing to obey two or three police warnings to leave the street in front the police headquarters and move onto the sidewalk 40 minutes after protests begin at night. [37]\n\n200 peaceful protestors march through the streets of downtown St. Louis in the afternoon. [37]\n\nProtesters accompany State Representative Bruce Franks to the AFL–CIO Convention in downtown St. Louis. The convention center staff refused entry to the demonstrators, including Rep. Franks, who was scheduled to speak. Trade unionists attending the conference joined the demonstration and demanded that all protesters be given entry. Seven protestors, including Franks, were arrested following an attempt to disrupt Black Friday sales at the St. Louis Galleria.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["Over 160 people"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Beginning on the afternoon of September 15, 2017"]},{"role":"Location","values":["St. Louis, Missouri","Saint Louis","Central West End neighborhood"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["over 1,000 people","200-300 demonstrators"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"15 October 2011 global protests","document":"\n\nThe 15 October 2011 global protests were part of a series of protests inspired by the Arab Spring, the Icelandic protests, the Portuguese \"Geração à Rasca\", the Spanish \"Indignants\", the Greek protests, and the Occupy movement. The protests were launched under the slogan \"United for #GlobalChange\", to which the slogan \"United for Global Democracy\" was added by many people's assemblies. [3][4][5] The protest was first called for by the Spanish Plataforma ¡Democracia Real YA! in May 2011 and endorsed by people's assemblies across the world. [6] Reasons were varied but mainly targeted growing economic inequality, corporate influence over government and international institutions, and the lack of truly democratic institutions allowing direct public participation at all levels, local to global. Global demonstrations were held on 15 October in more than 950 cities in 82 countries. [7][8][9][10] The date was chosen to coincide with the 5-month anniversary of the first protest in Spain. General assemblies, the social network n-1,[11][12] mailing lists, Mumble voice chat, open pads such as Pirate Pad and Titan Pad, and Facebook were used to coordinate the events. Some protests were only a few hundred in number, whereas others numbered in the hundreds of thousands, with the largest in Madrid numbering half a million and the second largest city Barcelona with 400,000. [13][14]\n\nAs a continuation of the 2011 Spanish Protests, the largest protests took place in Spain, where more than a million people took the streets on 15 October, including 500,000 in Madrid,[13] 400,000 in Barcelona, and 150,000 in Zaragoza. In Madrid, protesters reoccupied the Puerta del Sol square where the Indignados had camped five months earlier on 15 May. As in protests elsewhere, slogans on signs included \"We are the 99%\", \"United for Global Change\" and \"Human Rights for Everybody\". [15]\n\nAt least 300,000 under the banner of \"People of Europe: Rise Up!\" gathered in the centre of Rome, according to the organizers. [16] During the peaceful march against corporate greed and austerity measures, a group of people broke away from the main demonstration and threw rocks, bottles and incendiary devices at banks and riot police. Riot police charged and clashed with the protesters repeatedly, firing water cannons and tear gas. At least 135 people were injured, including 105 police officers. 12 people were arrested. [17]\n\n5,000 people gathered outside the London Stock Exchange, ending up setting a camp that remained there for three months, in what became known as Occupy London. In the following weeks, camps were set up in dozens of cities around the UK. 10,000 people gathered at the Neptune Fountain in Alexanderplatz between 13:00 and 14:00. At 14:00 the march set off towards the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor), arriving to a police barrier at the Pariser Platz square at about 15:00. The march thus made a detour around Brandenburger Tor and marched towards the Kanzleramt, the seat of the federal government of Germany. In front of the Kanzleramt, an open microphone was put in place where anybody could come up and give their thoughts. The sound system was not loud enough for such a big gathering and so it was proposed to use the human microphone (das menschliche Megaphone in German) technique of Occupy Wall Street. The plan had been for everyone to go to Mariannenplatz in the evening where stages, music and food had been prepared. However the people spontaneously decided to assemble in front of the Reichstag and held an assembly there. Tents were put out, and the food was brought from Mariannenplatz. The police came and told the people to disperse. The people refused to disperse and continued their assembly using the human mic. The police then proceeded to destroy the tents which had been put up. After all the tents had been destroyed or confiscated by the police, the police made rounds around the assembly and stole the blankets and mats of the people. At around midnight the police made a final call to disperse and threatened serious consequences for those who stayed. The people decided to stay. The police then proceeded to violently and forcibly remove the peaceful gathering of people in the park in front of the parliamentarian. The police then told the dislodged people on the streets around Platz der Republik to go to Brandenburgertor. More than 100 people then regrouped at Pariserplatz near Brandenburgertor to make a new assembly. In that assembly it was decided to come back the next day at 13:00 at Pariserplatz to continue the movement. As soon had this decision been made that the police made renewed threats to the people. The people then decided to leave for the moment and come back the next day. People from the protest reported that the police blocked sms and Twitter communication containing certain key words such as \"occupyreichtag\" or \"occupywallst\" during periods of the day. The protest became ongoing and continues as Occupy Berlin. [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]\n\nFrankfurt in Germany, where 8000 people gathered in front of the European Central Bank\nFrankfurt headquarters on the first day of a worldwide protest against income disparity and corporate greed. Organizers declared they would occupy and blockade the square in front of the ECB \"for an undefined period of time.\" Demonstrators set up a protest camp like those in Madrid and New York with 109 tents and 9 pavilions, soup kitchen and bread line, facility's, generators, W-Lan and live stream and a media team with its own podcast called Klargestellt (German for clarified). [25]\n\nAround 5000 people supported the global protest at the \"schlossplatz\"\n\nBetween 2,000 and 5,000 people joined the rally on 15 October. [26] Since then, a protest camp with currently around 15 tents (as of 22 Oct) is located in front of the HSH Nordbank headquarter. [27]\n\nA small number of Greek and Turkish Cypriot activists gathered in Eleftheria Square in Nicosia as a response to the global call for a protest. Through discussion, they decided to move their protest to the buffer zone located in the Ledra/Lokmacı street. [28] This started the Occupy Buffer Zone movement in Cyprus.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["12 people were arrested"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["135 people were injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["15 October 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Spain","Madrid","Barcelona","more than 950 cities in 82 countries","Zaragoza","Rome"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"United for #GlobalChange\"","\"United for Global Democracy\"","United for Global Change"]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["more than a million people","500,000","400,000","150,000","At least 300,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Djiboutian protests","document":"The 2011 Djiboutian protests were widespread demonstrations and riots that took place between January and March 2011 in Djibouti, situated in the Horn of Africa. A member of the Arab League, the protests in Djibouti showed a clear influence from the concurrent Arab Spring protests in North Africa and the Arabian peninsula. The demonstrations ended after mass arrests[1] and the barring of international observers. [2][3]\n\nPresident of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh has been in office since 1999, but his government has been in power for 34 years. Recently, Guelleh changed the constitution so that he could have a third term in office. This proved unpopular with the Djiboutian population. [4]\n\nThese protests occurred in the months leading up to the 2011 Djiboutian presidential election. On January 25, thousands of people turned out to protest in Djibouti City. Similar to the events on January 28, only smaller. 300 people gathered in a square in the capital, Djibouti. On February 18, thousands rallied against the president, gathering at a stadium with the intention of staying there until their demands were met. However, the demonstration escalated into clashes after dusk, as police used batons and tear gas against stone-throwing protesters. Officials from the Union for Democratic Change, an umbrella group of three opposition parties, gave speeches at the demonstration calling for Guelleh to step down. [5]\n\nOn February 19, clashes were reported to be intensifying. [6] Anti-government protestors clashed with security forces 24 hours after hundreds of demonstrators demanding the president step down hurled stones at riot police who fired back with tear gas. At least one policeman was killed, and sources said one protester had also been killed. [7] The protest leaders were arrested[8] The next day, Djiboutian authorities released three opposition leaders as opponents of President Ismail Guelleh clashed with police. [9]\n\nLeaders of the United Sun Nations, opposition parties and protest organisers were set to meet on February 24 to plan mass protests for the following day. Police acting on behalf of Gulleh arrested 300 organisers during and after the mass protests on February 18, with reports of torture being used to sedate the activists. After the failure of the leaders to turn up on February 24, opposition leader Bourhan Mohammed Ali stated he feared the protests had lost momentum. [1] Protests had been planned for March 4, but it remained to be seen if the Djiboutians would be able to coordinate themselves without the 300 arrested leaders. [1]\n\nOn March 3, Djibouti ordered its opposition party to cancel its anti-government protests which were to be held on March 4, 2011 due to a previous rally a month earlier turning violent. Mohammed Daoud, head of the opposition Djibouti Party for Development, said that protests will occur as scheduled. [10] On the 4th soldiers and police filled the streets to prevent the planned demonstration blocking the route to the city's main stadium where they were to have taken place and preventing the protest. [4] A protest was planned for March 11, but security forces scuppered the protest and detained 4 opposition leaders. [11]\n\nOn February 9, the President of the Djibouti League of Human Rights was arrested. [3]\n\nOn March 21, US election monitors were expelled from the country, whose task would have been to observe the April 2011 presidential election. [2]\n\nThe United Kingdom's Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned against travel to Djibouti. [12]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["between January and March 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Djibouti"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011–2012 Kurdish protests in Turkey","document":"\n\n\n\nThe 2011–2012 Kurdish protests in Turkey are ongoing protests in Turkey, led by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), against restrictions of Kurdish rights by of the country's Kurdish minority's rights. [14] Although they are the latest in a long series of protest actions by Kurds in Turkey, they are strongly influenced by the concurrent popular protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa,[15][16][17][18] and the Turkish publication Hürriyet Daily News has suggested that the popularly dubbed \"Arab Spring\" that has seen revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia may lead to a \"Kurdish Summer\" in the northern reaches of the Middle East. [19] Protesters have taken to the streets both in İstanbul and in southeast Turkey, with some demonstrations also reported as far west in Anatolia as İzmir. From 24 March and 10 May, a total of 2 protesters were killed, 308 injured and 2,506 detained by Turkish authorities. [12]\n\nThe protests declined in July after a new breakout of violence between state forces and Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels. [20]\n\nThere are currently 14 to 20 million Kurds in Turkey, living predominantly in the southeast of the country. The Kurdish people are a unique ethnic group with their own language and customs. In Turkey, the Kurdish uprising dates back to at least 1925, but the most recent major rebellion started in 1978 and has crossed the border into adjacent Iraqi Kurdistan on a number of occasions. Over 3,000 Kurdish villages have been \"evacuated\" by the Turkish armed forces since the conflict began. [21]\n\nThe Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group listed as a terrorist organization by the governments of Turkey and the United States, demands autonomy for Turkish Kurdistan. It has also called upon Turkish authorities to release Kurdish prisoners and detainees, overturn a ban on Kurdish-language education, and cease military action against Kurdish groups. [22] In 2009, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a \"Kurdish initiative\" aiming to broaden cultural rights for Kurds, but many Kurdish protesters have said this does not go far enough. [23]\n\nOn 28 February 2011, the PKK announced an end to a unilateral ceasefire it had declared in August 2010, prompting Erdoğan to comment on the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) over its alleged collusion with the militant group. \"A political party that is in Parliament hurling out threats ... during every election period puts pressure on people who want to exercise their democratic will and serves no other purpose,\" the prime minister said. [24]\n\nInternet censorship is practiced by the government of Turkey. A number of websites, including those of pro-Kurdish and alternative news outlets such as Voice of America, Bianet, and Azadiya Welat, are subject to a filter imposed by the Turkish Council of State. Bianet reported that according to new regulations adopted by the government in late February, this filter will be expanded from blocking access to certain websites from Internet cafés to affect all Internet access points and ISPs in Turkey sometime in the near future. [25]\n\nOn 13 March 2011, The New York Times reported a turnout of \"thousands\" for a march in İstanbul protesting censorship of the press and the arrest of over a dozen journalists by Turkish authorities since the start of the month. The Turkish media advocacy group Freedom to Journalists Platform said Turkey held 68 journalists as of mid-March, including many on charges of \"inciting public hatred\" and similar offenses, though the government maintains only 27 journalists are incarcerated on unrelated charges. [26]\n\nIn a statement published online on 24 March, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) announced the immediate beginning of a civil disobedience campaign, beginning with a strike and sit-in in Diyarbakır, the largest city in the Kurdish region. [27] The government responded by deploying soldiers and Army vehicles to break up the unsanctioned demonstration, which drew about 3,000 participants. Just a fraction of these participants—a few dozen MPs and Kurdish city officials, including the mayor of Diyarbakır—were permitted to proceed to the sit-in venue, while thousands more demonstrators thronged outside and shouted angry slogans. Police clashed with demonstrators, some of whom attempted to attack officers with fireworks, and detained five. A similar scene erupted in Batman, where a larger number of protesters were reportedly detained and protest tents were forcibly taken down. [22]\n\nDemonstrations spread to İstanbul, İzmir, Silopi, and Antalya by 27 March. Protest camps also sprang up in Tunceli, Muş, Van, and Ağrı. [28] Several dozen protesters were arrested. [29]\n\nProtest leader and MP Selahattin Demirtaş said that the Peace and Democracy Party was determined to carry out civil disobedience actions across the Kurdish region and condemned the governor of Diyarbakır Province for declaring the protests unlawful. Fellow Kurdish leader Ahmet Türk said they will continue the sit-in action despite the pressure from the Turkish authorities. [3][22] \"The prime minister who sends greetings to Tahrir Square while sending tanks and gas bombs at us should know that the [Kurdish] people have been seeking their freedom in their [own] Tahrir Squares,\" said Demirtaş, referring to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his favorable stance toward Egyptian revolutionaries. [29]\n\nAbout 40,000 people marched to the alleged site of mass graves of Kurds in Siirt Province on 28 March. The protest march spun off into rioting in the province. In Batman and Diyarbakır, two of the original sites of protests as part of the civil disobedience campaign, media reported Turkish security forces detained several more protesters. [30]\n\nDemirtaş ratcheted up the civil disobedience campaign by Kurdish protesters on 6 April by accusing imams sent by the government to lead prayers in Turkey's southeast of supporting and spying for the ruling Justice and Development Party and urging Kurds not to pray behind them. Demirtaş also said that sermons in Kurdish parts of the country should only be given in Kurdish, a policy Erdoğan opposes. [31]\n\nAt Friday prayers in Diyarbakır on 8 April, a number of Kurds boycotted in solidarity with the BDP, with many holding signs and banners supporting Demirtaş and the protests as others prayed. At least one newspaper ran photographs of the boycott. [32]\n\nOn 11 April, the conservative Turkish weekly Aksiyon published allegations that \"militant imams\" loyal to the PKK intend to promote terrorism among Kurds by portraying PKK fighters killed in clashes with government forces as martyrs. According to the report, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan devised the plan from behind bars. It also alleged that the banned PKK is using the BDP as a political front. [32]\n\nOn 19 April, Turkey's elections board ruled that 12 Kurdish politicians who had registered as independent candidates were barred from running in the June parliamentary elections. The politicians included Leyla Zana, who has spent ten years in prison for alleged PKK membership despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that her imprisonment violated freedom of speech. [33]\n\nKurds angry over the ban rallied in Hakkâri, Şırnak, İstanbul, Van, and Diyarbakır. More than 2,000 protesters gathered in Taksim Square on the European side of İstanbul, Turkey's largest city. [4] Police used tear gas to disperse the protest, which reportedly injured several, including at least one police officer. Shopkeepers and workers went on strike in Hakkâri and Van. Van also saw clashes between protesters and Turkish gendarmes, with its Kurdish mayor being among the demonstrators injured in the fighting, and scuffles were also reported in Diyarbakır, where a 15-year-old boy was reportedly hospitalized after being shot and injured by police. The semi-official Anatolian Agency claimed significant property damage in the city of Diyarbakır and said police confiscated several Molotov cocktails brought to the demonstration by Kurdish protesters. [34]\n\nOn 20 April, police fired live rounds at protesters in Bismil. One protester was killed, four were injured, and at least 16 were arrested.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["2,506 detained"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against restrictions of Kurdish rights by of the country's Kurdish minority's rights"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["2 protesters were killed, 308 injured"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2011–2012"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Turkey"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["led by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2015 Ecuadorian protests","document":"\n\nCorrea opponents\n\nGovernment of Ecuador\n\nSocial Christian Party\n\nFrente Unitario de los Trabajadores\n\nConfederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador\n\nHundreds of thousands\n\nThe 2015 Ecuadorian protests were a series of protests against the inheritance tax laws introduced by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. The protests began during the first week of June; becoming more organized and growing to hundreds of people on 8 June 2015. [2] Since then, hundreds of thousands of Ecuadorians protested throughout Ecuador against President Correa and the controversial inheritance tax laws he introduced. [1] The opposition and demonstrators protested stating that Correa wanted to follow \"the same path as Venezuela’s government\", creating a \"criminal war of classes\" while President Correa stated that the protests were aimed at destabilizing the government and such measures were for combatting inequality. [3]\n\nThroughout his presidency, Correa has been a controversial figure. Correa describes himself as an advocate of \"socialism of the 21st century\", a term referring to a form of democratic socialism previously used by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. [4] though he has also been described Correa as \"a left-wing populist\". [5] Political science scholars George Philip and Francisco Panizza also claimed that like his allies Morales and Chávez, Correa should be categorized as a populist,[6] because he appealed \"directly to the people against their countries' political and economic order, divided the social field into antagonistic camps and promised redistribution and recognition in a newly founded political order. \"[7]\n\nThe Washington Post characterized Correa's ideological approach as having contradictions however, and compared him to other pink tide presidents such as Bolivia's Evo Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. [8] Though Correa, an economist, did not attack Ecuador's private sector like Chávez and Ecuador's socioeconomic environment flourished with decreased poverty, he did follow Chávez's example of filling the Supreme Court of Ecuador with his allies and attempted to silence critics. [8] Such actions have resulted in Correa being accused of authoritarianism, nepotism, attacking dissidents and curtailing freedom of speech. [9][10][11][12]\n\nThough Correa had brought stability to the poor who supported him, he combatted with other social groups such as the media, the Catholic Church, bankers and indigenous groups, saying that those who protested against him were part of \"a wealthy oligarchy\", a similar approach to what his ally Nicolás Maduro did to those who opposed him. [13][14]\n\nFollowing years of heavy revenues from high oil prices that Correa experienced during his eight years as president, Ecuador experienced a 50% reduction in oil revenues. [3] The government then cut its 2015 fiscal budget by 4% and initiated controversial economic measures that affected most Ecuadorians; both the middle class and the poor. [3] In March 2015 when constitutional changes were proposed to allow the re-election of the president and government officials indefinitely while other labor and land ownership rules were submitted, protests numbered in thousands occurred in Quito that were organized by indigenous communities, unions and students. [15] In June 2015, when the government proposed bills to tax inheritances up to 77.5% and a 75% tax on real estate capital gains to counter loss in oil revenue, protests in Ecuador became widespread, with protesters demanding Correa out and compared actions by the government to that of the Venezuelan government. [1][2][3] According to economists, the proposed policies would damage Ecuador's economy and population since 95% of businesses are family owned. [3]\n\nProtests began on 8 June 2015 and continued after President Correa temporarily withdrew the proposed bills from legislation on 15 June. [16][17]\n\nNear the headquarters of Correa's party, Alianza País, about 1,000 people, both opposition and pro-government demonstrated with 100 police on standby. [18]\n\nThousands of protesters wearing black in \"mourning\" demonstrated in the capital city of Quito for the second time in a week. [2][19] Government supporters confronted the opposition protesters leading their own chants under an Alianza País banner. [2] In other parts of the city, opposition and pro-government groups clashed. [2]\n\nGuillermo Lasso led a march to the National Assembly of Ecuador to demand the permanent withdrawal of the proposed taxes instead of a temporary shelving of the legislations. [20] The Ecuadorian government stated that the leaders of the protests held the following day would be responsible for any \"vandalism\". [20]\n\nWorkers and trade unionists, mainly from the Frente Unitario de los Trabajadores (FUT), demonstrated in Quito denouncing Correa's policies, calling them \"anti-popular\" and were planning a national strike. [21] Mesías Tatamuez, leader of FUT stated that the protests were not related to those concerned about taxes and that the protests were not aimed at the \"destabilization\" of the Ecuadorian government as President Correa had stated. [21] The workers protests involved the sweeping of streets to represent the \"cleansing\" of corruption from the Ecuadorian and the burning of an Alianza País flag. [21]\n\nIn Guayaquil, Correa's birthplace, Mayor Jaime Nebot invited demonstrators of all ages to participate with about 400,000 people, or about 20% of the city's population participating. [1] The demonstrators gathered in light blue and white colors of Guayaquil's flag with Nebot stating that he was not protesting against Correa but the \"totalitarian system\" he said Correa wanted to \"impose\". [1] Public buildings near the march were decorated by the Ecuadorian government with the Central Bank office building having a banner denouncing the accumulation of wealth and while Nebot was speaking, the volume of the building's loudspeakers that was sending pro-government messages was turned higher. [1]\n\nIn Quito, demonstrated congregated on Shyris Avenue and Mayor Mauricio Rodas denounced the new taxes that were promoted by President Correa. [1]\n\nIn Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and other cities, thousands protested against Correa days before Pope Francis' visit to the country. [13] The Ecuadorian government held a countering rally at the president's palace. [13]\n\nHundreds protested outside of the Alianza País headquarters protesting against the taxes along with what they called autocratic and corrupt actions performed by the Ecuadorian government. [14] The protesters waited for Pope Francis to complete his visit to Ecuador before protesting again. [14]\n\nAccording to Cedatos-Gallup International polls from six major cities in Ecuador between 10 and 11 June, 70% of Ecuadorians disapprove of the real estate tax and 72% disapprove of the inheritance tax. [3] Cedatos also observed President Correa's popularity drop from around 60% in recent years to 42% in 2015. [14]\n\nWhile protesters were demonstrating in Quito and Guayaquil, some internet users were unable to connect to a network with explanations ranging from network over-saturation to the use of signal jammers by the Ecuadorian government. The use of peer-to-peer applications increased during the protests due to the network problems with Opposition Senator Andres Paez recommending the use of the FireChat app. The media also reported Denial-of-service attacks and the creation of fake media accounts to falsify reports. [17] It has also been reported that the Ecuadorian government uses \"troll centers\" to attack their opposition. [17][22]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the inheritance tax laws introduced by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa","against President Correa and the controversial inheritance tax laws he introduced"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["8 June 2015","during the first week of June","2015"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Near the headquarters of Correa's party, Alianza País","capital city of Quito","throughout Ecuador"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["hundreds of people","hundreds of thousands","Thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2002 Moldovan protests","document":"The 2002 Moldovan protests were a series of mass protests and growing street opposition demonstrations against the socialist regime and the opposition's ban in elections in Moldova. However, initial protests first began after the government banned Russian and Latin languages[clarification needed] in Moldova, triggering strikes and popular demonstrations across Chișinău and other major cities nationwide. Protests also occurred in 2001, when angry pro-communist protests occurred. In 2002, 11 weeks of medical students, teachers and students protests have been occurring, with flags and banners waved by demonstrators, who waged occupations, bloodless disturbances and nonviolent boycotts. Peaceful rallies, picketing, roadblocks, lobbying and marches also took place on small lanes and massive roads. After months of opposition protests, the protests ceased after the government proposed it will withdraw the plan. [1][2]\n\nMoldovan protests of 2002 was anonymous and not only student-led, it was medically, it was part of the public and private sector and poor people to protest against communism, and coming to the press, journalists have taken to the streets to protest in demonstrations for press freedom over no coverage of the protests, but president Vladimir Voronin thought the opposite, and it was in the midst of a \"war of words\" with Romania. [3]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["flags and banners waved by demonstrators"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the socialist regime and the opposition's ban in elections in Moldova"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 weeks"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["teachers and students"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1969 Curaçao uprising","document":"\n\nThe 1969 Curaçao uprising (known as Trinta di Mei, \"Thirtieth of May\", in Papiamentu, the local language) was a series of riots on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, then part of the Netherlands Antilles, a semi-independent country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The uprising took place mainly on May 30, but continued into the night of May 31 –  June 1, 1969. The riots arose from a strike by workers in the oil industry. A protest rally during the strike turned violent, leading to widespread looting and destruction of buildings and vehicles in the central business district of Curaçao's capital, Willemstad. Several causes for the uprising have been cited. The island's economy, after decades of prosperity brought about by the oil industry, particularly a Shell refinery, was in decline and unemployment was rising. Curaçao, a former colony of the Netherlands, became part of the semi-independent Netherlands Antilles under a 1954 charter, which redefined the relationship between the Netherlands and its former colonies. Under this arrangement, Curaçao was still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Anti-colonial activists decried this status as a continuation of colonial rule but others were satisfied the political situation was beneficial to the island. After slavery was abolished in 1863, black Curaçaoans continued to face racism and discrimination. They did not participate fully in the riches resulting from Curaçao's economic prosperity and were disproportionately affected by the rise in unemployment. Black Power sentiments in Curaçao were spreading, mirroring developments in the United States and across the Caribbean, of which Curaçaoans were very much aware. The Democratic Party dominated local politics but could not fulfill its promise to maintain prosperity. Radical and socialist ideas became popular in the 1960s. In 1969, a labor dispute arose between a Shell sub-contractor and its employees. This dispute escalated and became increasingly political. A demonstration by workers and labor activists on May 30 became violent, sparking the uprising. The riots left two people dead and much of central Willemstad destroyed, and hundreds of people were arrested. The protesters achieved most of their immediate demands: higher wages for workers and the Netherlands Antillean government's resignation. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Curaçao and of the vestigial Dutch Empire. New parliamentary elections in September gave the uprising's leaders seats in parliament, the Estates of the Netherlands Antilles. A commission investigated the riots; it blamed economic issues, racial tensions, and police and government misconduct. The uprising prompted the Dutch government to undertake new efforts to fully decolonize the remains of its colonial empire. Suriname became independent in 1975 but leaders of the Netherlands Antilles resisted independence, fearing the economic repercussions. The uprising stoked long-standing distrust of Curaçao in nearby Aruba, which seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. Papiamentu gained social prestige and more widespread use after the uprising. It was followed by a renewal in Curaçaoan literature, much of which dealt with local social issues and sparked discussions about Curaçao's national identity. Curaçao is an island in the Caribbean Sea. It is a country (Dutch: land) within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 1969, Curaçao had a population of around 141,000, of whom 65,000 lived in the capital, Willemstad. Until 2010, Curaçao was the most populous island and seat of government of the Netherlands Antilles, a country and former Dutch colony composed of six Caribbean islands, which in 1969 had a combined population of around 225,000. [1]\n\nIn the 19th century the island's economy was in poor shape. It had few industries other than the manufacture of dyewood, salt, and straw hats. After the Panama Canal was built and oil was discovered in Venezuela's Maracaibo Basin, Curaçao's economic situation improved. Shell opened an oil refinery on the island in 1918; the refinery was continually expanded until 1930. The plant's production peaked in 1952, when it employed around 11,000 people. [2] This economic boom made Curaçao one of the wealthiest islands in the region and raised living standards there above even those in the Netherlands. [3] This wealth attracted immigrants, particularly from other Caribbean islands, Suriname, Madeira, and the Netherlands. [4] In the 1960s, the number of people working in the oil industry fell and by 1969, Shell's workforce in Curaçao had dropped to around 4,000. This was a result both of automation and of sub-contracting. Employees of sub-contractors typically received lower wages than Shell workers. Unemployment on the island rose from 5,000 in 1961 to 8,000 to 1966,[5] with nonwhite, unskilled workers particularly affected. [6] The government's focus on attracting tourism brought some economic growth but did little to reduce unemployment. [7]\n\nThe rise of the oil industry led to the importation of civil servants, mostly from the Netherlands. This led to a segmentation of white, Protestant Curaçaoan society into landskinderen—those whose families had been in Curaçao for generations, and makamba, immigrants from Europe who had closer ties to the Netherlands. Dutch immigrants undermined native white Curaçaoans' political and economic hegemony. As a result, the latter began to emphasize their Antillean identity and use of Papiamentu, the local Creole language. [8] Dutch cultural dominance in Curaçao was a source of conflict; for example, the island's official language was Dutch, which was used in schools, creating difficulties for many students. [9]\n\nAnother issue that would come to the fore in the uprising was the Netherlands Antilles', and specifically Curaçao's, relationship with the Netherlands. [10] The Netherlands Antilles' status had been changed in 1954 by the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["widespread looting and destruction of buildings and vehicles"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["May 30"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Caribbean island of Curaçao","Curaçao's capital, Willemstad"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["workers in the oil industry"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Albanian protests","document":"\n\nStarting from 16 February 2019, the opposition parties organized a series of protests and rallies against the government to demand new elections and the formation of a technocrat government that would ensure the fairness of the electoral process, citing electoral fraud and corruption in the government as the main reasons for the need for change. The opposition coalition consists of the Democratic Party of Albania, the Socialist Movement for Integration, the Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, the Republican Party and other minor opposition parties. After the first protests opposition MPs decided to resign in mass from parliament. Following a 6-month boycott period, the opposition parties returned to parliament in January and announced mass protests to be held against the Rama Government. Meanwhile, the government was reshuffled as an aftermath of the student protests. In a similar rhetoric as in 2017 the opposition coalition accused the government of corruption and electoral fraud. The first nationwide protest was announced on 16 February 2019 in Tirana. Prior to that, the State Police issued a warning about the presence of criminal elements in the protest which was condemned as a form of intimidation by the opposition coalition. [4]\n\nOn 16 February 2019, opposition supporters from different cities gathered in Tirana demanding new elections and the resignation of the Rama Government. The protest turned violent as there were clashes with the police and use of tear gas and water cannon against the protesters. Some of them tried to enter the Prime Minister's Office as they broke through police ranks. [5] Thousands of opposition supporters attended the protest that was considered as being one the biggest protests that the country had seen in years. [6]\n\nIn the aftermath, the opposition parties announced that all their MPs in the parliament would resign from the parliament in an unprecedented act. On 22 February 2019 another protest was announced outside the parliament's building, while other MPs were attending the plenary session. The peaceful demonstration culminated in a march led by opposition leader Lulzim Basha and members of the opposition parties in the parliament, to hand over signed statements giving up their parliamentary seats and demanding fresh elections. [7] More than 40 seats were vacated and the Central Elections Commission started in the following days the procedures to replace the MPs with mostly unknown and inexperienced figures that were part of the candidate lists during the 2017 election. Some MPs from opposition parties refused to resign their mandate, among them the daughter of one of the founders of the Democratic Party, Rudina Hajdari. On 16 March 2019, another big demonstration was announced. It started outside the Prime Minister's Office building and continued outside the parliament, where once again protesters clashed with police and water cannons and tear gas were used to controlling the situation. [8]\n\nAnother big protest was called on 18 April 2019, this time in the afternoon. In the days prior to the protest, the two main opposition parties have refused to enlist in the local elections of 30 June, signaling a boycott. [9]\n\nThe opposition parties decided to boycott the local elections previously set to be held on 30 June. Wiretaps part of an investigation still on process by the prosecution office in Albania, were released by Bild on June, where government and socialist party officials were taped dealing with vote buying and forcing people to vote for the Socialist Party in the elections of Dibra. Among the officials in the tapes was also the Prime Minister Edi Rama, former minister of Energy Damian Gjiknuri and former minister of interior Saimir Tahiri. [10][11]\n\nAfter the protest of 16 February turned violent, the US Embassy in Tirana issued a press statement condemning the violence and destruction. Other foreign embassies issued similar statements condemning the violence and calling for political dialogue to solve the situation. The mission of OSCE in Albania called the instigators and the perpetrators to \"bear the responsibility for the incidents\". [6]\n\nFollowing the mass resignation of the opposition MPs, the European Union condemned the extreme action through a joint statement issued by the EU Diplomatic Chief Federica Mogherini and Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, considering the acts as counterproductive and against the democratic choice of Albanian citizens, undermining progress in the path to accessing the European Union and hindering the functioning of democracy in Albania. [7][12]\n\nA protest movement erupted in May after the demolition of a theatre. Police dispersed the demonstrators with tear gas and pepper spray. Another movement erupted in December after a shooting of a man. Tear gas was fired to disperse protesters while protests dwindled.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["accused the government of corruption and electoral frau","against the government to demand new elections and the formation of a technocrat government that would ensure the fairness of the electoral process, citing electoral fraud and corruption in the government as the main reasons for the need for change","demanding new elections and the resignation of the Rama Government"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["16 February 2019","Starting from 16 February 2019"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tirana"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Democratic Party of Albania, the Socialist Movement for Integration, the Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, the Republican Party and other minor opposition parties","Thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1999 Seattle WTO protests","document":"\n\nThe 1999 Seattle WTO protests, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Seattle,[1] were a series of protests surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999,  when members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington on November 30, 1999. The Conference was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations. The negotiations were quickly overshadowed by massive street protests outside the hotels and the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The protests were nicknamed \"N30\", akin to J18 and similar mobilizations, and were deemed controversial by the media. The large scale of the demonstrations, estimated at no fewer than 40,000 protesters, dwarfed any previous demonstration in the United States against a world meeting of any of the organizations generally associated with economic globalization (such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, or the World Bank). [2]\n\nPlanning for the actions began months in advance and included local, national, and international organizations. Among the most notable participants were national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Global Exchange[3] (especially those concerned with labor issues, the environment, and consumer protection), labor unions (including the AFL-CIO), student groups, religion-based groups (Jubilee 2000), and anarchists (some of whom formed a black bloc). [4]\n\nThe coalition was loose, with some opponent groups focused on opposition to WTO policies (especially those related to free trade), with others motivated by prolabor, anticapitalist, or environmental agendas. Many of the NGOs represented at the protests came with credentials to participate in the official meetings, while also planning various educational and press events. The AFL-CIO, with cooperation from its member unions, organized a large permitted rally and march from Seattle Center to downtown. However, others were more interested in taking direct action, including both civil disobedience and acts of vandalism and property destruction to disrupt the meeting. Several groups were loosely organized together under the Direct Action Network (DAN), with a plan to disrupt the meetings by blocking streets and intersections downtown to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center, where the meeting was to be held. The black bloc was not affiliated with DAN, but was responding to the original call for autonomous resistance actions on November 30 issued by People's Global Action. [5]\n\nOf the different coalitions that aligned in protest were the \"teamsters and turtles\" – a blue-green alliance consisting of the teamsters (trade unions) and environmentalists. [6][7][8]\n\nCertain activists, including locals and an additional group of anarchists from Eugene, Oregon[9] (where they had gathered that summer for a music festival),[10] advocated more confrontational tactics, and conducted vandalism of corporate properties in downtown Seattle. In a subsequent communique, they listed the particular corporations targeted, which they considered to have committed corporate crime. [11]\n\nOn July 12, the Financial Times reported that the latest United Nations Human Development report advocated \"principles of performance for multinationals on labour standards, fair trade and environmental protection ... needed to counter the negative effects of globalisation on the poorest nations\". The report itself argued, \"An essential aspect of global governance is responsibility to people—to equity, to justice, to enlarging the choices of all\". [12]\n\nOn July 16, Helene Cooper of The Wall Street Journal warned of an impending \"massive mobilization against globalization\" being planned for the end-of-year Seattle WTO conference. [13]  Next day, the London Independent newspaper savaged the WTO and appeared to side with the organizers of the rapidly developing storm of protest:\n\nThe way it has used [its] powers is leading to a growing suspicion that its initials should really stand for World Take Over. In a series of rulings it has struck down measures to help the world's poor, protect the environment, and safeguard health in the interests of private—usually American—companies. \"The WTO seems to be on a crusade to increase private profit at the expense of all other considerations, including the well-being and quality of life of the mass of the world's people,\" says Ronnie Hall, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth International. \"It seems to have a relentless drive to extend its power. \"[14]\nOn November 16, two weeks before the conference, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13141—Environmental Review of Trade Agreements,[15] which committed the United States to a policy of \"assessment and consideration of the environmental impacts of trade agreements\" and stated, \"Trade agreements should contribute to the broader goal of sustainable development.\" Activists staged a spoof of Seattle daily newspaper the Post-Intelligencer on Wednesday November 24, inserting thousands of hoax editions of a four-page front-page wrap-around into piles of newspapers awaiting distribution to hundreds of street boxes and retail outlets. The spoof front-page stories were \"Boeing to move overseas\" (to Indonesia) and \"Clinton pledges help for poorest nations\". [16] The byline on the Boeing story attributed it to Joe Hill (a union organizer who had been executed by firing squad in Utah in 1915). On the same day, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development reported:\n\ndeveloping countries have remained steadfast in their demand that developed countries honour Uruguay Round commitments before moving forward full force with new trade negotiations. Specifically, developing countries are concerned over developed countries' compliance with agreements on market access for textiles, their use of antidumping measures against developing countries' exports, and over-implementation of the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). [17]\nThis ominously foreshadowed the impending conflict of the North-South divide which was to result in the collapse of the forthcoming WTO talks. Previous mass protests against APEC summits in Vancouver, Canada and Manila, the Philippines also provided information about globalization policies, free trade and the situation in developing countries that likely encouraged further protests to confront international economic forums. In 1997, the APEC Canada meeting was held at the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus on November 24 and 25 in Vancouver. Protesters on the campus and in downtown Vancouver were treated with some repressive measures by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while they were experiencing splits among themselves on questions of tactics and the limits of civil disobedience. That mass response of a few thousand included leaders of protests previously held in Manila where APEC had held a summit in 1996, when tens of thousands of labor, peasant and social justice groups had marched to oppose free trade. UBC may have welcomed the filming of Battle in Seattle on its grounds in the light of this past. [citation needed]\n\nOn the morning of Tuesday, November 30, 1999, the DAN's plan was put into effect. Several hundred activists arrived in the deserted streets near the convention center and began to take control of key intersections. Over the next few hours, a number of marchers began to converge on the area from different directions. These included a student march from the north, a march of citizens of the developing world who marched in from the south and, beginning around 09:00, militant anarchists (in a formation known as a black bloc) marching down Pike Street from 6th Avenue, blockading the streets with newspaper boxes and smashing windows. [18] Some demonstrators held rallies, others held teach-ins and at least one group staged an early-morning street party. Meanwhile, a number of protesters still controlled the intersections using lockdown formations. The control of the intersections, plus the sheer numbers of protesters in the area, prevented delegates from getting from their hotels to the convention center. It also had the effect of cutting the police forces in two: the police who had formed a cordon around the convention center were cut off from the rest of the city. The police outside of the area eventually tried to break through the protesters' lines in the south. That morning, the King County Sheriff's Office and Seattle Police Department fired pepper spray, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades[19] at protesters at several intersections in an attempt to reopen the blocked streets and allow as many WTO delegates as possible through the blockade. [20]  At 6th Avenue and Union Street, the crowd threw objects back at the police. [21]\n\nBy late morning, the black bloc had swelled to 200 people and smashed dozens of shops and police cars. This seems to have set off a chain reaction of sorts, with previously nonviolent protesters throwing bottles at police and joining in the vandalism shortly before noon. [18] Some protesters tried to physically obstruct the activities of the black bloc; however, Seattle police (led by Chief Norm Stamper) did not react immediately. Protest organizers had convinced Seattle police during the protest-permit process that peaceful organizers would quell these kinds of activities.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["November 30, 1999","1999","Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Trade Center in Seattle","Seattle"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["40,000","Global Exchange[3] (especially those concerned with labor issues, the environment, and consumer protection), labor unions (including the AFL-CIO), student groups, religion-based groups (Jubilee 2000), and anarchists (some of whom formed a black bloc)","Several hundred"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017–2018 protests in France","document":"\n\n\n\n\n\nThe yellow vests protests, or yellow jackets protests  is a series of populist[66] grassroots[67] weekly protests in France, at first for economic justice[68] and later for institutional political reforms, that began in France 17 November 2018. After an online petition posted in May 2018 had attracted nearly 1 million signatures, mass demonstrations began on 17 November. [69] The movement was initially motivated by rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality; it claims that a disproportionate burden of taxation in France was falling on the working and middle classes,[70][71][72] especially in rural and peri-urban areas. [33][73] The protesters have called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum wage increase,[41] among other things. On 29 November 2018, a list of 42 demands was made public and went viral on social media, becoming de facto a structuring basis for the movement, covering a wide range of eclectic topics, mostly related to democracy, and social and fiscal justice. [40][74] After President Emmanuel Macron made an address on TV on 10 December announcing the cancellation of the fuel tax increase and other social measures, the movement evolved, and the citizens' initiative referendums became its unique revendication. [41] The participation in the weekly protests diminished due to the violences, in particular the loss of eyes or hands or neurological disorders by protesters due to the controversial use of blast balls by the police,[75][76][77] and the protests eventually stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France. The movement spans the political spectrum. According to one poll, few of those protesting had voted for Macron in the 2017 French presidential election; many had showed political alienation by not voting, or had voted for far-right or far-left candidates. [78] Rising fuel prices initially sparked the demonstrations. Yellow high-visibility vests, which French law requires all drivers to have in their vehicles and to wear during emergency situations, were chosen as \"a unifying thread and call to arms\" because of their convenience, visibility, ubiquity, and association with working-class industries. [79] The protests have involved demonstrations and the blocking of roads and fuel depots, some of which developed into major riots,[80] described as the most violent since those of May 68. [81] The police action, resulting in multiple incidences of loss of limb, has been criticised by politicians and international media; it has sometimes resulted in police officers being charged for their violent behaviour. [82] The movement has received international attention. Protesters in many places around the world have used the yellow vest as a symbol. [83][84] About 3 million people participated in the yellow vests movement. [85]\n\nThe issue on which the French movement centred at first was the projected 2019 increase in fuel taxes, particularly on diesel fuel. [86] The yellow vest was an accessible symbol for the protests, as all French drivers have been required to have one in their vehicles since 2008. [79]\n\nAlready low in early 2018 (47% approval in January 2018),[87] French president Emmanuel Macron's approval rating had dipped below 25% at the beginning of the movement. [88] The government's method of curbing the budget deficit had proven unpopular, with Macron being dubbed président des très riches (\"president of the very rich\") by his former boss François Hollande. [89]\n\nLate in June 2017, Macron's Minister of Justice, François Bayrou, came under pressure to resign, due to the ongoing investigation into the financial arrangements of the political party (MoDem) he leads. [90][91] During a radio interview in August 2018, Nicolas Hulot had resigned from the Ministry of the Environment, without telling either the President or the Prime Minister of his plans to do so. [92] Criticized for his role in the Benalla affair, Gérard Collomb tried to resign in October 2018 as Minister of the Interior—leaving himself with only two jobs, as senator and mayor of Lyon—but saw his resignation initially refused, then finally accepted. [93][94]\n\nIn the 1950s, diesel engines were used only in heavy equipment so, to help sell off the surpluses in French refineries, the state created a favorable tax regime to encourage motorists and manufacturers to use diesel. [95] The 1979 oil crisis prompted efforts to curb petrol (gasoline) use, while taking advantage of diesel fuel availability and diesel engine efficiency. The French manufacturer Peugeot has been at the forefront of diesel technology, and from the 1980s, the French government favoured this technology. A reduction in VAT taxes for corporate fleets also increased the prevalence of diesel cars in France. [96] In 2015, two out of every three cars purchased consumed diesel fuel. [95]\n\nThe price of petrol (SP95-E10) decreased during 2018, from €1.47 per litre (USD $6.24/gallon) in January to €1.43 per litre (USD $6.07/gallon) in the last week of November. [97]\n\nPrices of petrol and diesel fuel increased by 15 percent and 23 percent respectively between October 2017 and October 2018. [98] The world market purchase price of petrol for distributors increased by 28 percent over the previous year; for diesel, by 35 percent. Costs of distribution increased by 40 percent. VAT included, diesel taxes increased by 14 percent over one year and petrol taxes by 7.5 percent. [98] The tax increase had been 7.6 cents per litre on diesel and 3.9 cents on petrol in 2018, with a further increase of 6.5 cents on diesel and 2.9 cents on petrol planned for 1 January 2019. [99][100]\n\nThe taxes collected on the sale of fuel are:\n\nThe protest movement against fuel prices mainly concerns individuals, as a number of professions and activities benefit from partial or total exemptions from TICPE. [31][101]\n\nThe protesters criticized Édouard Philippe's second government for making individuals liable for the bulk of the cost of the carbon tax. As the carbon tax had progressively been ramping up to meet ecological objectives, many who have chosen fossil fuel-based heating for their homes, outside of city centres—where a car is required—are displeased. President Macron attempted to dispel these concerns in early November by offering special subsidies and incentives. [102][103]\n\nDiesel prices in France increased by 16 percent in 2018, with taxes on both petrol and diesel increasing at the same time and a further tax increase planned for 2019, making diesel as expensive as petrol. [104] President Macron is bearing the brunt of the protesters' anger for his extension of policies implemented under François Hollande's government. [104]\n\nThe government decided in 2017 to cut the speed limit on country roads from 1 July 2018 from 90 to 80 km/h (50 mph) with the aim to save 200 lives each year, after research found that \"excessive or unsuitable\" speed was involved in a third (32 percent) of fatal road accidents. The change was opposed and was a factor in the rise of the yellow vest movement. It was seen as another tax via citations [105] and a failure to understand the needs of rural residents who are totally reliant on their cars. Vandalism of traffic enforcement cameras grew significantly after the yellow vest movement began. [106][107][108]\n\nSparked by claims that the fuel tax was intended to finance tax cuts for big business[109] (a characterization that French President Emmanuel Macron has objected to, stating that the fuel tax was intended to discourage fossil fuel use as a way to combat climate change[110][102]) and including many people motivated by economic difficulties due to low salaries and high energy prices,[111] the yellow vests movement has called for redistributive economic policies like a wealth tax, increased pensions, a higher minimum wage, and reduced salaries for politicians. [112][113] While some commentators have claimed that the movement was a backlash to policies meant to combat climate change,[114][115] a communique released by the movement calls for a \"real ecological policy\", including fuel and kerosene taxes for ships and airplanes, but objects to policies like the gas tax that hit the poor and working class most heavily. [116][117]\n\nNo one knows how the high-visibility yellow vest came to be chosen as the symbol and uniform for the movement, and no one has claimed to be its originator. [79] The movement originated with French motorists from rural areas who had long commutes protesting against an increase in fuel taxes, wearing the yellow vests that, under a 2008 French law, all motorists are required to keep in their vehicles and to wear in case of emergency. [80] The symbol has become \"a unifying thread and call to arms\" because yellow vests are common and inexpensive, easy to wear over any clothing, associated with working class industries, highly visible, and widely understood as a distress signal. [79] As the movement grew to include grievances beyond fuel taxes, non-motorists in France put on yellow vests and joined the demonstrations, as did protesters in other countries with diverse (and sometimes conflicting) grievances of their own.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["17 November"]},{"role":"Location","values":["France"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Kurdish protests in Sulaymaniyah Governorate","document":"The 2020 Kurdish protests were a series of demonstrations and riots against the Kurdistan Regional Government in Sulaymaniyah Governorate in Iraqi Kurdistan. The demonstrations started on 2 December 2020. [3] Demonstrators have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the political leadership, high unemployment rate, lack of public services and employs was not get salary from few months. [4][5] Demonstrators set fire to several government buildings and headquarters of political parties. [6][7] The Kurdish security forces killed and arrested many protesters. [8]\n\n\n\n.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the Kurdistan Regional Government","against the political leadership, high unemployment rate, lack of public services and employs was not get salary from few months"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":["several government buildings and headquarters of political parties"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Sulaymaniyah Governorate in Iraqi Kurdistan"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Kurdish"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018–2019 Nigerian protests","document":"\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd SARS is a decentralised social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The slogan calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigerian Police with a long record of abuses. [2][3] The protests which takes its name from the slogan started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #EndSARS to demand the disbanding of the unit by the Nigerian government. [4][5][6] After experiencing a revitalisation in October 2020 following more revelations of the abuses of the unit, mass demonstrations occurred throughout the major cities of Nigeria, accompanied by vociferous outrage on social media platforms. About 28 million tweets bearing the hashtag have been accumulated on Twitter alone. [7] Solidarity protests and demonstrations by Nigerians in diaspora and sympathizers occurred in many major cities of the world. The protests is notable for its patronage by a demographic that is made of entirely young Nigerians. [8][9] The movement has since expanded to include demands for good and accountable governance. Within a few days of renewed protests, on 11 October 2020, the Nigerian Police Force announced that it was dissolving the unit with immediate effect. The move was widely received as a triumph of the demonstrations. [10] However, it was noted in many quarters that similar announcements had been made in recent years to pacify the public without the unit actually being disbanded, and that the government had merely planned to reassign and review SARS officers to medical centres rather than disband the unit entirely. [11] Protests have continued accordingly, and the Nigerian government has maintained a pattern of violent repression including the killing of demonstrators. [12] There have been international demonstrations in solidarity with those happening in the country, and the movement has also grown increasingly critical of Muhammadu Buhari's government response to the protests. [13]\n\nSARS officers have been alleged to profile young Nigerians, mostly males, based on fashion choices, tattoos and hairstyles. They were also known to mount illegal road blocks, conduct unwarranted checks and searches, arrest and detain without warrant or trial, rape women, and extort young male Nigerians for driving exotic vehicles and using laptops and iPhones. [14] Nigerians have shared both stories and video evidence of how officers of SARS engaged in kidnapping, murder, theft, rape, torture, unlawful arrests, humiliation, unlawful detention, extrajudicial killings and extortion of Nigerian citizens. A large section of the victims of the abuses of SARS have been young male Nigerians. [15][better source needed]\n\nThe Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was a branch of the Nigeria Police Force under the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID). It was founded in late 1992 as one of the 14 units in the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, which was established to detain, investigate, and prosecute people involved in crimes like armed robbery, kidnapping, and other violent crimes. [16] The squad was created as a masked police unit to perform undercover operations against violent crimes like armed robbery, car snatching, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and the bearing and use of illegal firearms. [17]\n\nSARS had been accused of several human rights violations, illegal \"stop and searches\", illegal arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, sexual harassment of women and brutalising of young male Nigerians. The human rights abuses were documented in trending videos on social media. [18]\n\nIn 2017, Nigerian activists, youth and celebrities across the nation took to the streets in a peaceful protest to spread awareness of SARS brutality and extortions and to demand its disbanding. The protests also moved to social media using the hashtag #EndSARS. [19][20][21]\n\nA 2016 report by Amnesty International, indicted SARS maintaining that the squad was responsible for human rights abuses, cruelty, degrading treatment of Nigerians in their custody, and other widespread torture. Some of the human rights abuses by SARS include the shooting of their detainees in the leg, mock executions and threats of execution, hanging and physical assault. [22] A 2020 publication by the organisation documented 82 cases of abuses and extra judicial killings by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020. [23]\n\nAmnesty International accused the SARS officials of regularly detaining young male Nigerians illegally and extorting money from their relatives. [4] In 2016, a human rights activist, Segun Awosanya popularly known as Segalink started EndSARS campaign on Twitter prompting police authority to announce reform of the police unit but nothing was achieved at the time. [24] In 2018, Nigerian rapper Michael Ugochukwu Stephens professionally known Ruggedman joined the campaign to end police brutality by releasing a single titled, Is Police Your Friend? [25] In 2017, a petition signed by 10,195 people was submitted to Nigeria's National Assembly calling for a total disbandment of SARS. [26] A few Senators backed the call for total disbandment of the unit. [27] Consideration was given to reforming the force, rather than full disbandment due to the number of cases falling. [28][29]\n\nThe campaigners moved from social media using the #EndSARS hashtag to organised, peaceful protests in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Osun, Benin, Ughelli, Warri, Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Owerri, Jos, Kaduna, Calabar[30][20] and other Nigerian cities and states, threatening to continue if the government refused to disband the force. [31][32][33]\n\nNot only were there campaigners in Nigeria utilising the hashtag and having protests but they were also done in London and some parts of America recognising this situation as a global event. In response to the campaign, Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer Jimoh Moshood accused the campaigners of being \"criminals\". [34] Despite this, Inspector General of Nigeria Police Force Ibrahim K. Idris ordered the reform and reorganisation of SARS. [35]\n\nOn Saturday 3 October 2020, a video showing a SARS police officer shooting a young Nigerian in front of Wetland Hotel, Ughelli, Delta State trended on the Internet. It was alleged that the police officers took away the young man's vehicle – a Lexus SUV. [36] The trending video caused public outcry on social media, especially on Twitter, with the #ENDSARS hashtag trending. [37]\n\nJust as the ENDSARS trend began on Twitter, on Monday 5 October 2020, another report surfaced of SARS officers killing a 20-year-old upcoming musician named Daniel Chibuike, popularly called Sleek in his neighbourhood. [38] Sleek was said to be sitting in front of a hotel with a friend when the SARS officers approached them, prompting them to flee. According to an eyewitness, the SARS men pursued the pair, shouting \"thief\", before shooting Sleek as they ran through a supermarket. [38] His friend was arrested. On Thursday 8 October 2020, nationwide protests on ENDSARS started after weeks of outrage and anger with videos and pictures showing police brutality, harassment and extortion in Nigeria. The protests were led predominantly by young Nigerians in different cities alongside many activists and celebrities. [39] Nigeria Police Force disrupted the protests in some cities, throwing teargas, using water cannons and shooting at unarmed peaceful protesters as seen in Abuja and Osun. [40] This led to the death of Jimoh Isiaq in Ogbomoso, Oyo State. [41][14][42][43][44] By Wednesday, 14 October 2020, the End SARS protests were still on-going with young people in different parts of Nigeria intensifying their calls for reforms and accountability in police operations. [45] On October 20 the Nigerian Army murdered protesters at the Lekki tollgate.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against police brutality"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["October 2020"]},{"role":"Location","values":["major cities of Nigeria","Nigeria"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Daunte Wright protests","document":"\n\nThe Daunte Wright protests are a series of protests and civil unrest that began in Brooklyn Center, a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, on April 11, 2021. [21] Protests began soon after news spread of the killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old biracial Black man, who was fatally shot by police officer Kimberly Potter during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center earlier that day. [22][23] Wright's death came during a prolonged series of protests and unrest in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area over police brutality and racial injustice, notably due to the killing of George Floyd and the then-ongoing murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer deemed responsible for Floyd's death. [24] Local protests soon spilled over into other nearby locations in the Twin Cities area then to other cities in the United States. [24]\n\nProtesters demanded justice for Wright's death and made several demands of public officials, including a more severe murder charge for Potter, an independent investigation of the shooting, and enactment of police reform measures. Several nights of civil disorder in Brooklyn Center and adjacent cities resulted in sporadic looting and property damage. [25] Many local protests were held outside the Brooklyn Center police station on Humboldt Avenue. Law enforcement established a heavily fortified barrier area and periodically clashed with demonstrators over several days. [26][27] Demonstrators made several attempts to overrun the security barrier established around the Brooklyn Center police station during a few nights of tense protests. [28][29][30] Law enforcement fired tear gas and non-lethal munitions into the crowds, resulting in controversy. [31]\n\nProtests over Wright's death intersected with the conclusion of the jury trial of Derek Chauvin on April 19, 2021, in Minneapolis. Large demonstrations were held during jury deliberations that were part of the broader Black Lives Matter movement. Protesters also demanded justice for Wright, that rioting charges be dropped against demonstrators over his death, and that law enforcement discontinue use of tear gas and less-lethal munitions to control crowds. [32][33]\n\nDaunte Wright was an unarmed, 20-year-old biracial[34] Black man,[35] who was fatally shot by Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter during an altercation at a traffic stop on April 11, 2021, on 63 Avenue North in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. [22][23][3] Police said Potter had meant to use her Taser but accidentally used a handgun. [25]\n\nBrooklyn Center is a city in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, bordering Minneapolis to the north. It had a population of nearly 31,000 residents by 2021, and it had transformed from a mostly White suburb to one of the most diverse areas in the region over the previous decades with most of the its residents people of color. [36] The city was also one of the poorest in Hennepin County; 15 percent of residents lived below the federal poverty level. [37] In 2019, voters elected Mike Elliot, a Liberian-American, to be the city's first person-of-color mayor. By the time of Wright's death, most of the city's police force were White, and no officers lived within the city's boundaries. [36]\n\nIn 2020 and 2021, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan region experienced a prolonged period of protests and intermittent unrest over issues of police brutality and racial justice, beginning soon after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Three nights of riots and looting from May 27 to May 30, 2020, resulted in two deaths,[38][39] 617 arrests,[40][41] and upwards of $500 million in property damage to 1,500 locations in the metropolitan region, making it the second-most destructive period of local unrest in United States history, after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. [42][43][44][41] During the unrest, on May 28, 2020, a Minneapolis police station was overrun by demonstrators and set on fire. [45]\n\nWright's death in Brooklyn Center was approximately ten miles (16 kilometers) from the 38th and Chicago Avenue street intersection in Minneapolis where George Floyd died. Wright's death, and the subsequent protests, occurred as the trial of Derek Chauvin—the police officer who killed Floyd—was nearing its conclusion in Minneapolis. According to The New York Times, the fatal shooting of Wright \"injected more frustration and anxiety into the Twin Cities region\",[46] heightening local tension and outrage. [46][47] By early April 2021, state officials had already begun mobilizing law enforcement and National Guard troops, in an effort referred to as \"Operation Safety Net\", in preparation for a verdict in the Chauvin trial. Officials hoped to avoid a repeat of the civil disorder, violence, and property destruction that the metropolitan region experienced in May and June of 2020 after Floyd's death. [27][48]\n\nOn April 11, 2021, at 1:48 p.m., officer Kim Potter with the police department of Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a black man, during a traffic stop. Wright had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. As officers attempted to detain him, a struggle ensued and Wright re-entered his vehicle. Officer Potter discharged her firearm, believing she was using her taser gun instead, striking Wright before he drove off. [49] Wright crashed his vehicle several blocks away. Though EMS arrived and attempted to revive him, Wright was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. Wright's girlfriend was also a passenger in the car. She sustained non-life threatening injuries from the crash and was transported to the hospital. [50][51][52][53][54]\n\nAs news of the Brooklyn Center incident spread, family members of Wright, neighbors to the car crash, and protesters began gathering at the car crash scene in Brooklyn Center in what was initially a peaceful demonstration[51][50][52] to demand justice for Wright. [55] Several protesters came from another rally organized by families of people who had been killed by police, that they had held earlier in the day in nearby Saint Paul, Minnesota. [47] The crowd grew to several hundred people by evening as they demanded more information from police investigators. As tension at the scene rose over the ensuing hours, police in tactical gear arrived, formed a line, and moved in when demonstrators began climbing on police vehicles and throwing bricks. [51][50][52] Police fired tear gas into the crowd and a less-lethal round that struck a demonstrator in the head who appeared to be holding a chunk of concrete. [52][56]\n\nIn nearby Saint Paul, four people were arrested during looting in the afternoon. [12] Liquor stores, cell phone stores, and gas stations along University Avenue, Marshall Avenue, Payne Avenue, Arcade Street and Sherwood Avenue were looted. [57]\n\nAt nightfall, demonstrators gathered outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department building on Humboldt Avenue and stood off against a line of police in riot gear. Authorities declared the gathering unlawful and gave orders for the crowd to disperse. [58][59] When crowds did not disperse, police fired tear gas, flashbangs, and rubber bullets into the crowd, scattering demonstrators. [53][60] According to John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, there were reports of rocks and other objects being thrown and gunshots being fired in the area. [60]\n\nViolence and widespread looting occurred at many stores overnight in Brooklyn Center, in Minneapolis, and at other locations in the Twin Cities region. [50] Elsewhere in Brooklyn Center, looting took place at the Shingle Creek Crossing shopping plaza, and affected nearly every store located there. [3][61][62][63] Brooklyn Center Police reported that at its peak, there were 24 simultaneous looting incidents.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["four"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demanded justice for Wright's death and made several demands of public officials, including a more severe murder charge for Potter, an independent investigation of the shooting, and enactment of police reform measures"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["April 11, 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Brooklyn Center","outside the Brooklyn Center police station on Humboldt Avenue"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Syrian protests (2016)","document":"\n\n\n\nThe civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War, or as it was sometimes called by the media, the Syrian Revolution,[20] was an early stage of protests – with subsequent violent reaction by the Syrian Arab Republic – lasting from March to 28 July 2011, as part of the wider spread Arab Spring in the Arab world. The uprising, initially demanding democratic reforms, evolved from initially minor protests, beginning as early as January 2011 and transformed into massive protests in March. The uprising was marked by massive anti-government opposition demonstrations against the Ba'athist government led by Bashar al-Assad, meeting with police and military violence, massive arrests and a brutal crackdown, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded. Despite Bashar al-Assad's attempts to stop the protests with the massive crackdown and use of censorship on one hand and concessions on the other, by the end of April it became clear the situation was getting out of his control and his government deployed numerous troops on the ground. The civil uprising phase led to the emergence of militant opposition movements and massive defections from the Syrian Army, which gradually transformed the conflict from a civil uprising to an armed rebellion, and later a full-scale civil war. The rebel Free Syrian Army was created on 29 July 2011, marking the transition into armed insurgency. Massive protests and a violent crackdown led to international condemnation and support for the protesters. As the war progressed in October-November 2011, protests against the government and the war strengthened with 23 deaths and hundreds of thousands of protesters. The protests were marred by a massive crackdown which angered more protesters in northern and western Syria. Protests and riots continued by students and the youth despite aggressive suppression. Before the uprising in Syria began in mid-March 2011, protests were relatively modest, considering the wave of unrest that was spreading across the Arab world. Syria, until March 2011, for decades had remained superficially tranquil, largely due to fear among the people of the secret police arresting critical citizens. [21]\n\nFactors contributing to social unrest in Syria include socioeconomic stressors caused by the Iraqi conflict (2003–present), as well as the most intense drought ever recorded in the region. [22]\n\nMinor protests calling for government reforms began in January, and continued into March. At this time, massive protests were occurring in Cairo against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and in Syria on 3 February via the websites Facebook and Twitter, a \"Day of Rage\" was called for by activists against the government of Bashar al-Assad, to be held on Friday, 4 February. [23] This did not result in protests. [24] [25]\n\nMajor unrest began on 15 March in Damascus[citation needed], yet in the southern city of Daraa, sometimes called the \"Cradle of the Revolution\",[26] protests had been triggered on 6 March by the incarceration and torture of 15 young students from prominent families who were arrested for writing anti-government graffiti in the city,[27][28][29] reading: \"الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام\" – (\"The people want the fall of the regime\") – a trademark slogan of the Arab Spring. [30][31]\n\nThe government claimed that the boys weren't attacked, and that Qatar incited the majority of the protests. [32] Writer and analyst Louai al-Hussein, referencing the Arab Spring ongoing at that time, wrote that \"Syria is now on the map of countries in the region with an uprising\". [31]\nDemonstrators clashed with local police, and confrontations escalated on 18 March after Friday prayers. Security forces attacked protesters gathered at the Omari Mosque using water cannons and tear gas, followed by live fire, killing four. [33][34]\n\nOn 20 March, a mob burned down the Ba'ath Party headquarters and other public buildings. Security forces quickly responded, firing live ammunition at crowds, and attacking the focal points of the demonstrations. The two-day assault resulted in the deaths of seven police officers[35] and fifteen protesters. [36]\n\nMeanwhile, minor protests occurred elsewhere in the country. Protesters demanded the release of political prisoners, the abolition of Syria's 48-year emergency law, more freedoms, and an end to pervasive government corruption. [37] The events led to a \"Friday of Dignity\" on 18 March, when large-scale protests broke out in several cities, including Banias, Damascus, al-Hasakah, Daraa, Deir az-Zor, and Hama. Police responded to the protests with tear gas, water cannons, and beatings. At least 6 people were killed and many others injured. [38]\n\nOn 25 March, mass protests spread nationwide, as demonstrators emerged after Friday prayers. At least 20 protesters were reportedly killed by security forces. Protests subsequently spread to other Syrian cities, including Homs, Hama, Baniyas, Jasim, Aleppo, Damascus and Latakia. Over 70 protesters in total were reported killed. [39]\n\nEven before the uprising began, the Syrian government had made numerous arrests of political dissidents and human rights campaigners, many of whom were understood as terrorists by the Assad government. In early February 2011, authorities arrested several activists, including political leaders Ghassan al-Najar,[40] Abbas Abbas,[41] and Adnan Mustafa. [42]\n\nPolice and security forces responded to the protests violently, using water cannons and tear gas as well as physically beating protesters and firing live ammunition. [43]\n\nAs the uprising began, the Syrian government waged a campaign of arrests that captured tens of thousands of people, according to lawyers and activists in Syria and human rights groups. In response to the uprising, Syrian law had been changed to allow the police and any of the nation's 18 security forces to detain a suspect for eight days without a warrant. Arrests focused on two groups: political activists, and men and boys from the towns that the Syrian Army would start to besiege in April. [44] Many of those detained experienced ill-treatment. Many detainees were cramped in tight rooms and were given limited resources, and some were beaten, electrically jolted, or debilitated. At least 27 torture centers run by Syrian intelligence agencies were revealed by Human Rights Watch on 3 July 2012. [45]\n\nPresident Assad characterized the opposition as armed terrorist groups with Islamist \"takfiri\" extremist motives, portraying himself as the last guarantee for a secular form of government. [46] Early in the month of April, a large deployment of security forces prevented tent encampments in Latakia. Blockades were set up in several cities to prevent the movement of protests. Despite the crackdown, widespread protests continued throughout the month in Daraa, Baniyas, Al-Qamishli, Homs, Douma and Harasta. [47]\n\nDuring March and April, the Syrian government, hoping to alleviate the unrest, offered political reforms and policy changes. Authorities shortened mandatory army conscription,[48] and in an apparent attempt to reduce corruption, fired the governor of Daraa. [49] The government announced it would release political prisoners, cut taxes, raise the salaries of public sector workers, provide more press freedoms, and increase job opportunities. [50] Many of these announced reforms were never implemented.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["government deployed numerous troops on the ground"]},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["demanding democratic reforms"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded"]},{"role":"Date","values":["from March to 28 July 2011"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Belfast City Hall flag protests","document":"\n\nOn 3 December 2012, Belfast City Council voted to limit the days that the Union Flag (the flag of the United Kingdom) flies from Belfast City Hall. [6] Since 1906, the flag had been flown every day of the year. [6] This was changed to no more than 18 days a year, which is in line with British government guidelines regarding government buildings. [7] The move to limit the number of days was backed by the council's Irish nationalists and the Alliance Party; it was opposed by the unionist councillors. As a response, Ulster loyalists held street protests throughout Northern Ireland. They see the council's decision as part of a wider 'cultural war' against 'Britishness' in Northern Ireland. [8][9] On the night of the vote, protesters tried to storm City Hall. Throughout December and January, protests were held almost daily and most involved the protesters blocking roads while carrying Union Flags and banners. Some of these protests led to clashes between loyalists and the police, sparking riots. Rioters attacked police with petrol bombs, bricks, stones and fireworks; police responded with plastic bullets and water cannon. Alliance Party offices and the homes of Alliance Party members were attacked, while Belfast City Councillors were sent death threats. According to police, some of the violence was orchestrated by high-ranking members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). [10] Loyalists also put up thousands of Union flags in public places, which further heightened tension. [6]\n\nAfter February 2013, the protests have been smaller and less frequent, and have led to greater loyalist protests about related issues, such as restrictions on traditional loyalist marches. [8]\n\nSince the formation of Northern Ireland in 1921, there has been tension and violence between its two main religious groups. Unionists/Ulster loyalists (who are mostly Ulster Protestant) generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, while Irish nationalists/republicans (who are mostly Catholic) generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. The former generally identify with the Union Flag, while the latter generally do not and instead identify with the Irish tricolour. [6]\n\nIn Northern Ireland, flags are often used as symbols of political allegiance, cultural identity, and to mark territory. [6] The flying of flags is an issue in Northern Ireland, and flying certain flags in certain places can be highly controversial. There have been many protests and clashes involving flags and symbols over the years. [11] In 1964 there were riots after a republican election candidate put an Irish tricolour (which was then illegal) in the window of his office on the Falls Road, Belfast. The unionist Minister of Home Affairs, responding to pressure from hardliners, ordered police to remove the flag. This sparked fierce clashes between republicans and the police. [12]\n\nBelfast City Council had long been dominated by unionists, mainly the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). However, in May 2011 Irish nationalists (Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party) won more seats than unionists for the first time. [6] The middle-ground Alliance Party held the balance of power on the council. [6] Nationalist councillors wanted the Union Jack taken down permanently, and unionist councillors wanted it to keep flying all year. Alliance put forward a compromise: that it would fly on 18 designated days, in line with UK government policy on the flying of the union flag from UK government buildings, which is followed by many city and local governments in Britain. [6][13][14] At Parliament Buildings (or Stormont), where the Northern Ireland Assembly meets, the Union Jack is only flown on 15 designated days. [15] The nationalist and Alliance councillors voted in favour of this compromise and it was passed. In the weeks leading up to the vote, the DUP had printed and distributed over 40,000 leaflets in East Belfast, with help from the UUP. The leaflets attacked Alliance and called on people to protest against its proposal. [6] Alliance accused the unionists of trying to raise tensions. [16] In the May 2010 general election, Naomi Long of Alliance had defeated Peter Robinson of the DUP to win the East Belfast seat. This was the first time that a non-unionist party had won the seat. It is thought that many unionists voted for Alliance as a protest at Robinson's financial misdealings. [6] Some commentators believed that the DUP had been waiting for a chance to weaken the Alliance Party and win back their former voters in East Belfast. [6]\n\nDuring the middle of 2012, particularly in September, heightened tensions led to the 2012 North Belfast riots. [17][18]\n\nThe unionist protesters see the change as an \"attack on their cultural identity\". [16] In December 2012 and early 2013 they held almost daily street protests throughout Northern Ireland. Most involved the protesters blocking roads while carrying Union Flags and banners. Some of these protests led to clashes between protesters and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), sparking riots. Attacks were made on Alliance Party offices and the homes of Alliance Party members, while Belfast City councillors were sent death threats. Unlike the Irish nationalist parties, Alliance has offices in loyalist areas. [16] According to police, some of the violence has been orchestrated by high-ranking members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). [10] These are the two main loyalist paramilitary groups, who waged armed campaigns during the Troubles but declared ceasefires in 1994. The Belfast Telegraph claimed that some of the violence has been fuelled by youngsters engaging in \"recreational rioting\". [19] There was also a rise in sectarian attacks on Catholic churches by loyalist militants, which some have linked to the flag protests. [20][21][22]\n\nThe cost of policing the protests has been estimated at £20 million (up to 7 March 2013). [23]\n\nOn the evening of 3 December, hundreds of protesters gathered outside City Hall as the debate and vote was being held.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["put up thousands of Union flags in public places"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["They see the council's decision as part of a wider 'cultural war' against 'Britishness' in Northern Ireland"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["3 December 2012","Throughout December and January"]},{"role":"Location","values":["City Hall","throughout Northern Ireland"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Ulster loyalists","hundreds"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019–2020 Iranian protests","document":"\n\nThe Iranian protests are a series of ongoing demonstrations and government crackdowns erupting nationwide in Iran since 2016. The protests with the intention of removing the Iranian government are often fueled by low wages, unemployment, inflation, government corruption, an ongoing water crisis, Persian nationalist fervor and the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. [1]\n\nThe sequence of protests, which included the 2016 Cyrus the Great Revolt, 2017–2018 Iranian protests, 2018–2019 Iranian general strikes and protests, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 protests (in January 2020), 2019-2020 Iranian protests, 2020-2021 Iranian protests, met with violent responses by the Iranian authorities, including the killing of 1,500 protesters in November 2019 uprising and the violent crackdown on protests in Mahshahr. Besides toppling the regime, the protest movement is aimed at poverty, issues and corruption in the economy, especially higher wages[citation needed] and pensions. [2][3]\n\nThe January 2020 protests were organised by bus drivers and taxi drivers in Tehran. Anti-regime protests were rising, with this chant, \"Death to corrupt officials\", heard the most. Seasonal workers in Marivan participated in a strike movement as well, despite attacks by the security forces and intimidation meant to quell public protests that had begun on 24 January triggered by economic grievances. Kangan and Sanandaj experienced protests by oil workers and other sectors, with more that 5 blockades in protest for having not received any wages. Kaki saw protest rallies over water and fuel shortage crises sparking anger by their citizens for days. Employees in Mahshahr’s petrochemical factory protested non-payment of wages and inadequate responses to their demands. Eslamabad Gharb saw Railway workers protesting against not being paid for five months and the halting of their main construction project by the Security Forces. Hundreds of customers were regularly protesting in regular marches against the stock market and central bank crash in Tehran. Buildings in Isfahan were surrounded by hundreds of farmers, repeatedly rallying over poor conditions. Recent protests also took place in Khuzestan and Ahvaz and met with violent reactions from security forces. Locals staged rallies in Ahvaz and Gorgan, protesting imprisonments of protesters and demanding the president Hassan Rouhani to step down. In Khuzestan, bus drivers went on strike in protest to their low wages and the high price of spare parts for their buses. [4][5][6]\n\nIn late-January and February, retirees and workers, employees and farmers, industrial workers and miners participated in protest rallies and marches, strikes, demonstrations, unrest, protest movement and general strike campaigns across Bandar-e-Lengeh in protest against long-delayed wages and insurances. Thousands of dock workers and municipality workers held various protests, protesting for higher salaries and longer insurances. Municipality workers in Alvand, who had not received their salaries for a long time, staged protest gatherings for weeks in January and February. In Khuzestan, contract workers protested unstable conditions and low salaries, while petrochemical workers of Apadana held gatherings, speeches, meetings and boycotts in companies. Factory workers in Hamedan protested non-implementation of early retirement. Retired workers in Shiraz and service workers rallied in Mashhad in protest against low wages and fake promises. Ahvaz and Golgan saw people gathering on the streets and creating roadblocks with tires, and blockades for weeks, demonstrating against low wages and fake promises. [7][8]\n\nIn March 2020, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Iran’s prisons became overcrowded and rioting broke out in prisons in Tehran, Khorramshahr and Ahvaz, where 17 were wounded during protests by prisoners in the city against the fears of the spread of COVID-19 in Iranian prisons. Security forces reportedly fired gunshots in Khorramshahr and altogether, 36 were feared dead during the prison riots nationwide. [citation needed]\n\nFrom 9–22 April, hunger strikes, demonstrations, protest marches, public unrest and protests erupted in Iran’s prisons until July as well, protesting the outbreak of COVID-19 in prison. In response, the government released 85,000 prisoners. The rioting in Fars, Khorramshahr and Ahvaz on 30–31 March was called for the release of prisoners and better conditions in prisons to combat the virus; it was the deadliest prison unrest in years. [9][10][11]\n\nA wave of massive worker protests broke out across Iran when municipal workers and nurses participated in large gatherings against the COVID-19 impact on Iran. For weeks, gatherings, meetings, speeches, strikes and demonstrations occurred nationwide, with at least two cities experiencing major protests. In Khuzestan, medical staff organised large protest rallies in front of their offices, demanding wages and better conditions for hospitality workers. Factory workers, coal miners, machine manufacturers and worker sectors have been among those protesting due to unpaid wages, shortages and poor economy and Protesters have rallied since then. [12][13][14]\n\nFactory and city employees, coal miners, as well as health-care workers are among those who have been protesting in Iran in July. Three weeks of worker protests have broken out across Iran as protests against working conditions, a worsening economy and issues with employment. Demonstrations and strikes were calling for payments and complaints of not receiving their wages for months, lack of jobs and employment, unemployment, poor policies and wage increases as well in cities like Tabriz, Dezful, Khoramabad, Khorramshahr (Between 13–26 August, workers staged strikes), Behbahan, Ghazvin, Shiraz (where sugarcane workers launched strikes) and Ahvaz by teachers, workers, miners, nurses and doctors protesting shortages and grappling with the COVID-19 outbreak, municipality workers and jobless workers who had retired. Mashhad, Rasht, Urmia, Ahvaz, Shush, Yazd, and Khomein experienced women’s protests by nurses, teachers, doctors, municipality workers and taxi drivers protesting the conditions and no rights they face. [15][16]\n\nEbrahim Arabzadeh, a contract worker at Mahshahr petrochemical complex, died from heat exhaustion at work on 28 July. This sparked an unprecedented wave of strike action across Iran, with 10,000 workers going on strike, battling the 50-degrees heat in some areas to protest in the oil and gas fields in southern Iran like Abadan and Mahshahr. Protesters were builders, electricians, welders, pipefitters and other tradesmen who are leading mass protests and political strike action across the country to protest in their tens of thousands against gang-money robbery in banks and employee conditions in Arak, where hundreds blocked and abandoned their work to join the protests and it even spread to Isfahan, where hundreds called for full-time work and permanent jobs. Workers have been on strike for days in late-July and early August, and unemployment protests have also broken out across industries and factory workers have joined the strike action, ending after a couple of weeks of strikes, with no demands met. [17]\n\nIt is said that 237 protest movements were formed in 85 cities in Iran in July 2020. On 16 July 2020, amid a heavy security presence, protesters took to the streets of Behbehan and chanted \"We don't want a clerical regime\" and \"Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life only for Iran\". [18][19] The security forces fired tear gas to disperse the protesters. A heavy security presence was also reported in various other Iranian cities. [20] The protests come under the slogan \"#StopExecutionsInIran\" (Persian: اعدام نکنید). On the eve of 16 July 2020, a protest gathering was formed in the city of Behbahan in Khuzestan Province. According to social media account, the execution verdicts for the protesters of 2019–2020 Iranian protests and economical hardships brought by government's lack of proper management were the key points of this protest. According to NetBlocks, Khuzestan's bandwidth was strictly limited in the night of 15 July 2020. According to Deutsche Welle, the unrest also spread to Shiraz, Isfahan, Rasht, Mashhad, Tabriz and Urmia. [21] The protest gatherings, protesters was rallying against hardships for days before the initial uprising, with many injured during rallies as well.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["removing the Iranian government are often fueled by low wages, unemployment, inflation, government corruption, an ongoing water crisis, Persian nationalist fervor and the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic","demanding the president Hassan Rouhani to step down"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Tehran"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["Death to corrupt officials"]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["bus drivers and taxi drivers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2007 Venezuelan RCTV protests","document":"\n\nThe RCTV protests were a series of protests in Venezuela that began in the middle of May 2007. The cause of the protests was the decision by the government to shut down Venezuela's oldest private television network, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), refusing to renew its broadcasting license and instead creating a new public service channel called TVes, which began operations on 28 May, the same day RCTV's license expired. RCTV had Venezuela's largest viewing audience, with 10 million of the country's 26 million people viewing its shows and soap operas. [1]\n\nOn 11 April 2002, supporters and opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez clashed near the Miraflores Palace, resulting in a shootout at the Llaguno Overpass between government supporters and the Metropolitan Police of Caracas. A sector of the Armed Forces asked for Chávez's resignation, holding him responsible for the ensuing massacre during the march. [2][3] Commander of the Army Lucas Rincón Romero reported in a nationwide broadcast that Chávez had resigned his presidency,[2] a charge Chávez would later deny. Chávez was taken to a military base while Fedecámaras president Pedro Carmona was appointed as the transitional President of Venezuela,[2] following protests and a general strike by his opponents. [4]\n\nAccording to the St. Petersburg Times, RCTV excluded its news programs from its daily programming on 13 April 2002. Gustavo Cisneros, owner of Venevisión, stated that the alleged news blackout was a result of threats received from pro-Chávez demonstrators and callers who claimed to be members of the Chávez government. Protesters attacked RCTV's offices, smashing some windows and shouting: \"The palace is in our hands, why aren't you showing that?\". [5]\n\nOver the following months, and again in the wake of the 2002–03 general strike, Chávez stepped up his criticism of the country's private media companies, accusing them of having supported the coup. On his weekly television program Aló Presidente and in other forums, he regularly referred to the leading private media owners as \"coup plotters\", \"fascists\", and \"the four horsemen of the apocalypse\". [6]\n\nOn 28 December 2006, President Chávez announced that the government would not renew RCTV's broadcast license which expired on 27 May 2007, thereby forcing the channel to cease operations on that day. [7] The Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ)—controlled by Chávez allies[8]—ruled on 17 April that it is within the National Telecommunications Commission's power to decide on the issuing, renewal and revocation of broadcast licenses. [9]\n\nThe government maintained that the non-renewal is caused by RCTV's alleged support for the 2002 coup attempt. Bernardo Álvarez, the country's ambassador to the United States, described the licensing decision as a simple regulatory matter, which \"was not made based on RCTV’s critical editorial stance against the government, nor was it directed at silencing criticism of the government.\" Explaining that Venezuela wished to adopt a more European model of public broadcasting, he wrote that 79 of 81 Venezuelan television stations, 706 of 709 radio broadcasters, and 118 newspapers remain in private hands, citing a 30 May 2007 op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times: \"Radio, TV and newspapers remain uncensored, unfettered and unthreatened by the government. Most Venezuelan media are still staunchly anti-Chávez. \"[10]\n\nOn 17 May 2007, the government rejected a plea made by RCTV to stop the TV station's forced shutdown. [11]\n\nRCTV ended its final day of broadcasting with a rendition of the national anthem performed by network employees and on-air talent, followed by a shot of a pro-RCTV protest. The screen then faded to black. A few seconds later, a series of TVes idents appeared on Channel 2. At 12:20 a.m. AST (0420 UTC) on 28 May 2007, TVes began its programming airing a video recording with the national anthem, performed by a large choir clad in Venezuelan colours and full sized orchestra led by the famous young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel. After some network promos, TVes switched to an auditorium, where station president Lil Rodríguez gave a speech to a crowd of Chávez supporters. On 24 May, the Supreme Court ordered RCTV to stop broadcasting as soon as its license expired and approved the government's takeover of all of its equipment and stations, though it would review the station's appeal of the decision. Chávez announced plans to start broadcasting a public service channel, TVes, using the infrastructure that belonged to RCTV. [12] According to the ruling by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice, all RCTV broadcast equipment was to be temporarily controlled by TVes. [13] On 25 May, the Venezuelan government sent troops to RCTV installations to take control of their equipment. [14]\n\nThousands of protesters marching both against and in support of the government's decision remained on the streets in Caracas. On 19 May 2007, 30,000 protesters gathered in Caracas protesting the government's decision two days earlier that rejected a plea made by RCTV to stop the TV station's forced shutdown. Other marches took place in Maracaibo and Valencia. [11] On 21 May 2007, hundreds of journalists and students marched in Caracas carrying a banner reading \"S.O.S. Freedom of Expression. \"[11] A few days later, on 25 May 2007, university students from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, the Universidad Simón Bolívar and the Universidad Central de Venezuela protested against the government's intentions. [15][16] On 26 May, tens of thousands of protesters marched in support of RCTV to their headquarters. [14]\n\nThousands of protestors marched in the streets of Caracas on 27 May for and against RCTV. In the evening, demonstrations in front of Conatel, the National Telecommunications Commission, became violent, with protestors throwing rocks and bottles at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. [17] At least eleven police officers and one protestor from the incident at Conatel,[18][19] as well as three students and one police officer from a separate protest at Brión plaza in Caracas, have been reported injured. [20][21] Twenty other students at Brión plaza were treated for tear gas inhalation. [20][21]\n\nIn the afternoon and evening of 29 May, protests in Caracas and Chacao became violent, with protesters in Chacao blocking Avenida Francisco de Miranda. At least seventeen people have been reported by Globovision to be injured on 29 May. [22] The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights petitioned the Venezuelan government for information about arrested and injured protestors; though the Venezuelan government did not provide the information, saying it would violate the confidentiality of adolescents involved. [23]\n\nOn 2 June, tens of thousands marched through Caracas to support President Chávez's decision. [24]\n\nSince the week prior to the shutdown of RCTV, many individuals, international organizations and NGOs—including the OAS's Secretary General José Miguel Insulza[25] and its Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression,[26] the Inter American Press Association,[27] Human Rights Watch,[28] and the Committee to Protect Journalists,[29]—have expressed concerns for freedom of the press following the shutdown. [30] However, Secretary Insulza also stated that it was up to the Venezuelan courts to solve this dispute[31] and that he believed that this was an administrative decision. [32]\n\nThe International Press Institute stated that it is \"a flagrant attempt to silence the station's critical voice and in violation of everyone's right 'to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,' as outlined in Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights\"[33] The Committee to Protect Journalists \"concluded [Chávez's] government failed to conduct a fair and transparent review of RCTV's concession renewal. The report, based on a three-month investigation, found the government’s decision was a predetermined and politically motivated effort to silence critical coverage. \"[34] Reporters Without Borders stated \"The closure of RCTV [...] is a serious violation of freedom of expression and a major setback to democracy and pluralism. President Chávez has silenced Venezuela’s most popular TV station and the only national station to criticize him, and he has violated all legal norms by seizing RCTV’s broadcast equipment for the new public TV station that is replacing it. \"[35] Freedom House has given Venezuela a press freedom rating of \"Not Free\"[36] since 2002,[37] most recently describing a number of new laws, most particularly the 2004 Ley Resorte, that include prohibitions against broadcasting violent material between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., targeting a group or individual for hatred, and insulting president Chávez, under penalty of severe fines and imprisonment.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["decision by the government to shut down Venezuela's oldest private television network"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["middle of May 2007"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Venezuela","Miraflores Palace"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Italian protests","document":"\n\nThe Sardines movement (Italian: movimento delle sardine), also known as Sardines against Salvini (sardine contro Salvini),[5] was a grassroots political movement, which began in Italy in November 2019. [1][2][6]\n\nThe movement organized an ongoing series of peaceful demonstrations to protest against the right-wing surge in the country and, more specifically, against the political rhetoric of right-wing leader Matteo Salvini. [7] The name \"Sardines\" came from the idea of organizing their rallies with high numbers of participants, packed together like sardines in a shoal. [1][8]\n\nWhile the movement de facto ended after the centre-left victory in the January 2020 election in Emilia-Romagna, it formally ended in May. [9]\n\nThe Sardines movement started as a flash mob on 14 November 2019, organized in Piazza Maggiore, the main square of Bologna, Emilia-Romagna. The aim of the event was to contrast the launch of Matteo Salvini's electoral campaign for the 2020 regional election at the PalaDozza in Bologna. [10][11] The slogan of the event was \"Bologna non si Lega\", which literally translates to \"Bologna does not tie itself up\", but it also plays with the name of Salvini's party, Lega. [12] The flash mob, which was named \"6,000 Sardines against Salvini\" (\"6000 sardine contro Salvini\"),[a] was joined by almost 15,000 people, surprising the whole country and receiving a large media coverage. [13][14]\n\nThe movement rose up during the electoral campaign for the 2020 Emilia-Romagna regional election, which has been considered as the first competitive one in the history of the region. [15] Emilia-Romagna has been a stronghold of left-wing parties since the end of the World War II, but in the 2018 general election the centre-right coalition became the largest political force in the region. The Sardines movement started its activity with the aim of preventing a right-wing victory in the January 2020 election. [16]\n\nThe first Sardines' rally was warmly welcomed by the Democratic Party (PD), especially by its secretary Nicola Zingaretti, its president and former Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Emilia-Romagna incumbent governor Stefano Bonaccini. [17][18][19] Former Prime Minister and PD's founding father, Romano Prodi, stated that the Sardines are \"formidable\", adding that they must not be neither \"colonized\" nor \"exploited\" by any party. [20]\n\nOn 18 November, a second Sardines' rally gathered Piazza Grande in Modena, with more than 7,000 people taking part in the event. [2]\n\nIn December, the movement spread outside Emilia-Romagna. On 1 December, more than 25,000 people participated in a rally in Piazza Duomo in Milan,[21] while on the previous day, almost 30,000 gathered Piazza della Repubblica in Florence. [22] On 10 December, 40,000 people demonstrated in Turin in Piazza Castello. [23] Other protests have been staged in Naples[24] and Palermo. [25]\n\nOn 14 December, one month after their first rally, Sardines organized a demonstration in Rome at Piazza San Giovanni. [26] According to the organizers almost 100,000 people joined the rally. [27][28] During Rome's demonstration, Sardines' de facto leader, Mattia Santori, presented the movement's proposals to politics, which included, among others, political transparency, condemnation of hate speech, laws against verbal violence and a new immigration policies. [29] Santori especially asked to Giuseppe Conte's government to abolish the so-called \"Salvini Decree\",[30] a law approved by the previous government, which contained a series of hardline measures that abolished key forms of protection for migrants and made it easier for them to be deported. The decree also suspended the refugee application process of those who were considered \"socially dangerous\" or who had been convicted of a crime. [31]\n\nOn the same day, smaller demonstrations also took place in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. [32][33]\n\nOn 19 January, the movement returned in Bologna, with more than 40,000 people attending a rally in Piazza VIII Agosto. [34] It was the last demonstration before the January 26 regional election and was named \"Welcome back to open sea\". The rally was characterized by a 6-hour long concert with singers and artists like Afterhours, Subsonica, Marracash, Matilda De Angelis, Skiantos, Casa del vento, Bandabardò, Modena City Ramblers, Marlene Kuntz and Pif. [35]\n\nOn 26 January, at the Emilia-Romagna regional election, the PD's candidate Stefano Bonaccini – endorsed by the sardines movement – won with 51.4% of the votes, with a 7.7% margin above the League's candidate Lucia Borgonzoni. [36] Some attributed part of Bonaccini's success to the movement's support and activity. [37][38]\n\nThe movement declares itself not linked to any party and to mainly pursue the ideals of anti-fascism and the fight against racial discrimination,[39] as well as the rejection of right-wing populism and verbal violence in Italian politics, which they claim should be legally considered as physical violence. [29] The Sardines movement has been generally considered on the left-wing of the political spectrum[40] and has been compared to Girotondi and Purple People, two grassroots movements which rose up in the 2000s to protest against then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. [41][42]\n\nAccording to some political commentators, the movement would be limited only to a generic critique of the right-wing, with its open opposition to Matteo Salvini, who is depicted as an authoritarian and undemocratic leader. Moreover critics accused the Sardines of supporting the ruling centre-left government of Giuseppe Conte. [43]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["flash mob"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the right-wing surge in the country and, more specifically, against the political rhetoric of right-wing leader Matteo Salvini","critique of the right-wing","its open opposition to Matteo Salvini","to contrast the launch of Matteo Salvini's electoral campaign for the 2020 regional election at the PalaDozza in Bologna"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["14 December","18 November","1 December","10 December"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Rome at Piazza San Giovanni","Italy","Piazza Maggiore, the main square of Bologna","Piazza Grande in Modena","Piazza Duomo in Milan","Piazza della Repubblica in Florence","Turin in Piazza Castello"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["\"Bologna non si Lega\""]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["40,000 people","almost 100,000","almost 15,000 people","more than 7,000 people","more than 25,000 people","almost 30,000"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Malawian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2011 Malawi protests were protests aimed at winning political and economic reforms or concessions from the government of Malawi. [6] On 20 July, Malawian organisations protested against perceived poor economic management and poor governance by President Bingu wa Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party. [7] After the first two days of protests, 18 deaths, 98 serious injuries and 275 arrests had been reported. [1] Further demonstrations were organised on 17 August and 21 September[8] The first protest was later cancelled due to the intervention of a UN representative in initiating a dialogue; however, the talks broke down with more protests planned for Red Wednesday through a national vigil. [9][10]\n\nThe protesters' grievances were highlighted in a 15-page petition which included a list of 20 demands:[11][12]\n\nAfter several weeks of protests, on 19 July, the government issued an order banning civil society organisations from protesting. [6] A day before the protest, the government set out to intimidate potential protestors. Two vehicles belonging to the independent private radio station Zodiak Radio were set alight by masked men. [13] In the commercial capital Blantyre, five official DPP vehicles carrying DPP Youth Cadets (a youth wing of the DPP) were seen driving around the city waving machetes. [13] The government obtained an injunction to stop the protests. [14]\n\nA coalition of 80 Civil societies and NGOs, religious and student groups (collectively known as 'Concerned Citizens') chose 20 July 2011 as a day of national protest against economic and administrative management. [15] Prominent civil and human rights organisations like the umbrella NGO Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) were both a part of the Concerned Citizens group and played a central role in planning the protest.  It also included the Malawi Law Society and the Council of Churches. [16] Mutharika then scheduled a public lecture for the same day to which he invited all citizens, NGO's and civil societies upon registration. The Concerned Citizens largely said that they would not attend a 'lecture' by the president because they wanted dialogue and their concerns to be addressed. Pro-government supporters then scheduled a pro-government protest on the same day, 20 July. On the morning of 20 July 2011, mass anti-government protests began in the major cities of Mzuzu, Blantyre, and the capital Lilongwe. Protests also occurred in Zomba, Kasungu, and Ntchesi. The Concerned Citizens were wearing red shirts and other articles of clothing and called themselves the \"Red Army for Democracy and Peace.\" The protests began peacefully with participants singing the national anthem, taking photos, holding signs and giving speeches. Many were waving the old Malawi flag the public display of which had been banned by the Mutharika government.\n\nThe government response to these protests included preemptive arrests of civil society leaders. Police assaulted MCP spokesperson Nancy Tembo, Joyce Banda's sister Anjimile Oponyo, The Nation journalist Kondwani Munthali and the head of the HRCC Undule Mwakasungula. There was a clamp down by police on anyone wearing red clothes which was particularly violent in Mzuzu. Police forces began to disrupt broadcasts by radio stations, and ordered journalists not to report on the protests. Anti-government citizens clashed with security forces in the northern cities of Mzuzu and Karonga and Blantyre. [3][17]\n\nAfter the national lecture by President Mutharika, which failed to address the grievances of the protesters, tensions grew further and looting of targeted business and properties began. Business properties of political allies of the president were targeted, along with the homes of two police officers in the north that had participated in the clampdown of protesters with excessive force. The violence continued to grow largely in the major cities. Although the protests were only planned for 20 July, they continued the next day because of the manner in which the government responded to the protests. The government did not acknowledge that there was discontent in the country and clamped down on journalists, radio stations, citizens and protesters wearing red. On 21 July the army was sent in to reinforce riot police already present in Mzuzu, Blantyre, Ntchesi, and in the capital Lilongwe. At least two people were killed amid widespread looting in the suburbs of Lilongwe as Mutharika vowed to \"use any measure I can think of\" to quell the unrest. [2]\n\nThe director of the Church and Society rights organisation, Moses Mkandawire, said that the government had blocked funeral processions for seven of those killed in the previous two days' protests. \"We have been stopped by the government with our arrangements to bury the seven heroes. The government says it will provide transport to have the seven buried in their respective [village] homes. \"[18] Al Jazeera reported that many of these protest leaders had received death threats and gone into hiding for fear of arrest or worse. [8]\n\nVice President Joyce Banda, one of the opposition leaders Mutharika accused of inciting unrest, publicly endorsed the protests against Mutharika's government and stated \"regret\" for deaths, injuries, and property damage incurred during the demonstrations. Banda, thought to be entertaining a run for the presidency in 2014, suggested poor economic conditions, corruption, and weak democratic institutions had forced Malawians to take to the streets. She said she had appealed to Mutharika to hold a dialogue with the United Kingdom, the former colonial power of Malawi with which the Mutharika administration had recently become embroiled in a diplomatic row, over the Cochrane-Dyet cable in the hopes of forging an agreement to provide Malawi with economic relief. [19]\n\nRafiq Hajat, the director of the Institute for Policy Interaction warned Mutharika that if he did not address protesters' demands by 16 August, demonstrations would resume on 17 August with the goal of ending his regime. The Public Affairs Committee, a group composed of both Christian and Muslim activists, also warned that \"should [the] government continue to harass people for no proper reasons, another demonstration will be inevitable. Bullets and tear gas have never triumphed over the will of the people. \"[8]\n\nThe Concerned Citizens of Malawi staged another protest on 17 August in the form of a national vigil for the victims of the 20 July protest. The vigil was, however, cancelled a day before the protests due to the intervention of the United Nations who engaged civil society groups and the government in dialogue. [20] The dialogue later broke down because of what the civil society groups said was continued intimidation being faced outside the meeting. [21]\n\nA string of arson cases were also reported, including fires at the offices of Rafiq Hajat and the home of Reverend MacDonald Sembereka. [22][23] wa Mutharika was accused of being behind the arsons, particularity since he threatened protest leaders by saying he would \"smoke you out.\" He later denied being behind the arsons. [24] No one has been arrested or found guilty of partaking in the arson cases, but the government has condemned them.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["issued an order banning civil society organisations from protesting"]},{"role":"Method","values":["singing the national anthem, taking photos, holding signs and giving speeches"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["275 arrests"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against perceived poor economic management and poor governance by President Bingu wa Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["18 deaths, 98 serious injuries"]},{"role":"Date","values":["20 July"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Malawi","Mzuzu, Blantyre, and the capital Lilongwe","Zomba, Kasungu, and Ntchesi"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017 Mexican protests","document":"\n\nThe 2017 Mexican protests were a series of protests against a hike in the price of gasoline by the Mexican government which came into effect on 1 January 2017. Thousands of protestors marched, blocked highways and shut down state-owned gas stations. The rise in price—known in Mexico as the gasolinazo—was a result of president Enrique Peña Nieto's privatization of the Mexican oil industry. Other factors that led to the protests include high inflation, a weak peso, widespread violence due to the Mexican Drug War, and Peña Nieto's low approval rating and corruption allegations. On 26 December 2016, the Mexican government announced that gasoline prices would rise by up to 20% in January as result of the transition towards eliminating price controls. Beginning with the Mexican oil expropriation in 1938, the government controlled the country's entire petroleum industry, including both production and retail sales. The state-owned company, Pemex, held a monopoly on all gasoline sales in the country, and prices were set by the government. In 2013, the newly elected President Enrique Peña Nieto began the process of privatizing Mexico's oil industry, which would eventually allow private companies to establish their own gas stations. [1]\n\nThe Mexican government planned to transition to market prices gradually throughout 2017. Finance Minister José Antonio Meade explained that the price hike was \"an important change,\" which would \"allow prices to reflect costs, and avoid artificial distortions. \"[1] The rise in gasoline prices was also a result of the government ending subsidies to the oil industry[2] and may have been motivated by projected budget deficits because of the Mexican peso's weakening value relative to the US dollar. [3]\n\nThe price hike, scheduled to begin on 1 January 2017, coincided with an economy marked by high inflation in addition to the weak peso. Donald Trump's recent election as president of the United States led to uncertainty, as he had campaigned on strong economic protectionism. [4] Furthermore, Peña Nieto was experiencing historically-low approval ratings and was involved in numerous scandals. [4][5]\n\nTensions in Mexico were also raised by the high homicide rates associated with the continued Mexican Drug War, which had begun over ten years earlier. [2]\n\nProtests began on 1 January, the same day the new prices took effect. Activists used social media to organize protests and shut down gas stations throughout the country. Protestors also blockaded major highways and border crossings. Their demands included cheaper gasoline prices as well as the resignation of president Peña Nieto. [3]\n\nProtests and riots took place all over the country. Demonstrations in Tijuana and Nogales forced authorities to temporarily close Mexico–United States border crossings. In Rosarito, a man intentionally drove his vehicle into federal police officers. Looting was reported in Veracruz. [2] In Tabasco, a convenience store was ransacked and burned. [3] Mexico City had two large demonstrations in early January, with thousands of protestors in attendance. [2]\n\nOver 250 stores were looted during the protests. [5] At least one police officer was killed while trying to prevent looting. [3] At least four deaths have been attributed to the protests, as well as 1,500 arrests. [4]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":["temporarily close Mexico–United States border crossings"]},{"role":"Method","values":["marched, blocked highways and shut down state-owned gas stations"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["1,500"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against a hike in the price of gasoline by the Mexican government which came into effect on 1 January 2017"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least one police officer was killed","At least four deaths"]},{"role":"Date","values":["began on 1 January","2017"]},{"role":"Location","values":["all over the country","Tijuana and Nogales","Rosarito","Veracruz","Tabasco","Mexico City"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Thousands of protestors"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Moscow protests","document":"Starting from July 2019 numerous approved and unapproved rallies in Moscow (also known as part of the political crisis[2][3]) began, caused by the situation with the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections. Widespread public protests were triggered by numerous authorities' violations, claimed by the independent opposition candidates, during the registration procedure. [4][5] Rallies on Sakharov Avenue on 20 July and 10 August 2019 became the largest political rallies in Russia since the 2011–2013 protests. The July 27 rally established a record on number of detainees: 1373 people were detained. [6] The subsequent appeals of the MCEC's  decisions to the CEC by the independent candidates didn't lead to any results. The protests were accompanied by massive administrative arrests of  unregistered independent candidates[7] and two criminal cases: the obstructing the work of election commissions case and the riots case (also known as the \"Moscow case\"). [8] The Second Service of FSB participated in the investigation of the events. It was reported that the intelligence agency is trying to find opposition ties with foreign structures and is trying to prove financing of protests from abroad. [9]\n\nA number of media and politicians as well as the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights found no evidence of mass riots at rallies. [10]\n\nAfter the verification of the signatures collected by the candidates, the Moscow City Election Commission (MCEC) refused to register most of independent opposition candidates. The claimed reason was the high percentage of rejected signatures (exceeding permissible reject rate of 10%). Independent candidates accused the MCEC of forgery in verifying signatures aimed at prohibiting the opposition to participate in elections. During the verification some personal data of the signers was entered with errors. In addition, a significant part of the signatures was invalidated on the grounds of a so-called handwriting examination, which scientific validity and impartiality the candidates questioned. The candidates submitted to the MCEC statements confirming the validity of signatures from signatories, whose signatures were rejected on the grounds of handwriting examination. The candidates also submitted to the MCEC an opinion of professional handwriting experts on the insolvency of the MCEC examination. Despite this, the MCEC did not change the decision. In protest, one of the candidates, Lyubov Sobol, went on a hunger strike on July 13. [11][12][13]\n\nOn the other hand, the MCEC registered 32 candidates from Communists of Russia party, which has very low popularity (during 2016 election to the State Duma it collected 2%). This party is regarded by experts as a spoiler for CPRF. [14] These candidates are almost unknown in Moscow, mostly students, housewives and low-skilled workers. [15][16] According to the MCEC, these 32 unknown candidates managed to collect the necessary signatures. However, Muscovites did not see any signature collectors for the candidates from Communists of Russia or pro-United Russia 'independent' candidates in the streets of their city. [17]  Later, an opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta revealed that the same headquarters coordinates the actions of candidates from Communists of Russia and pro-United Russia 'independents'. [18]\n\nOn July 14, 17 independent candidates met with supporters in Novopushkinsky Square. After that they went to the City Hall and finally to Mokhovaya Street to the MCEC building. Candidates demanded to accept signatures in their support and to allow them to participate in the election. The Police and the National Guard initially acted politely, but later they began to break up tents in the yard of the MCEC and to detain the protestors. [19][20] According to the OVD-Info portal, by the evening 39 people were detained, including candidates Ilya Yashin, Lyubov Sobol, Ivan Zhdanov and Yulia Galyamina. [21] Four protesters were hospitalized after a hard detention, several activists were beaten by the police. [22] Detained candidates called for supporters to meet again at the MCEC building the next day. [23]\n\nOn July 15, 10 candidates arrived to a meeting with the head of the MCEC Gorbunov. The meeting planned to be open, however journalists were not allowed to enter the MCEC building and Gorbunov set several conditions: he would talk with the candidates one by one in a closed format only. Only 3 candidates accepted these conditions. [24] Later nine candidates were denied registration. [25] Then, Ilya Yashin announced that the MCEC removed him from the elections due to the allegedly exceeding the allowable number of false signatures and refused to accept written confirmations of the so-called \"wrong\" signatories. [26] In the evening of the same day, several hundred people gathered at Trubnaya Square for an action for admission of independent candidates to the elections. The candidates called for holding such meetings every day until their requirements were met. [27]\n\nOn July 16, most of the independent candidates received registration denials, in particular, Lyubov Sobol, Ivan Zhdanov, Konstantin Yankauskas, Yulia Galyamina, Dmitry Gudkov, Gennady Gudkov, Alexander Solovyov, Sergey Mitrokhin, Elena Rusakova, Kirill Goncharov, Anastasia Bryukhanova. In all cases the reason was the exceeding of the maximum allowable percentage of invalid voter signatures. [28][29] Only a few independent candidates received registration. The action on Trubnaya that day took place despite the heavy rain. There were no detentions. [30]\n\nOn July 17, meeting on Trubnaya Square took place again, about 800 people participated. [30] Gorbunov announced results of candidates registration campaign: 233 candidates were registered, 57 got a refusal. [31]\n\nIndependent opposition candidates collected more than a thousand official statements from Muscovites, including statements with video, demanding that their signatures be considered valid. [32][33] They continued to conduct daily “For the Right to Choose” actions on Trubnaya Square till Saturday. The MCEC pointed out they are ready to consider the application and re-check the signatures. The PCCSHR recommended to allow independent candidates to participate in the election. [34]\n\nOn July 20, a permitted rally was held on Sakharov Avenue with the same requirements.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["1373"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["20 July and 10 August 2019"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Sakharov Avenue"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Banshkhali power plant movement","document":"The Banshkhali power plant movement was a 2016 protest movement against a Bangladeshi-Chinese consortium's acquisition of agricultural lands, graveyards and homes to build a coal-based power plant in the Banshkhali Upazila of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Clashes between protesters and police officers killed four (according to police) or five people (according to protesters). [1][2] According to the protesters, four more people went missing after the clash with police. [3]\n\nIn February 2016, the Bangladesh Power Development Board signed an agreement to begin purchasing electricity from a consortium of two companies—the Bangladesh-based S. Alam Group of Industries and the China-based Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation III—in November 2019 (when the consortium's planned coal plant would be operational). [4] Experts warned about the environmental impact of a new coal plant,[5] and protests began on March 19, 2016 (shortly after the agreement was signed). Protests turned violent with the involvement of terrorist groups linked with the governing Bangladesh Awami League and the Power Development Board. [4] Amid the protests, the power board began acquiring land by force with the help of local Bangladesh Awami League leaders. [6]\n\nOn April 2, 2016, when the owners and engineers of the coal-based power plant attempted to visit the construction site, protesters swooped down on the officials' motorcade. Police cracked down on the protesters, arresting seven. Angry at the arrests, local residents called for a public gathering on April 4. [7]\n\nAwami League leaders called a meeting at the same place on the same day. Local police invoked a Section 144 law restricting public gatherings in the area. [8] When local residents gathered on April 4 to protest, police opened fire and killed at least five people. [9] It was the largest loss of life in an anti-coal protest since the murder of six people in Jharkhand, India. [3]\n\nOn October 31, 2013, the S. Alam Group of Industries was authorised by the Awami League government to build two coal-fired power plants in Chittagong's Banshkhali Upazila despite the lack of an environmental impact assessment. [10] In December, the group (one of Bangladesh's fastest-growing conglomerates) signed an agreement with China-based energy company Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation III for a coal-based power plant. [8] On February 16, 2016, the government signed an agreement to purchase power from the plant (which has a capacity of 1.22 MW) at ৳6.61 per kilowatt hour. [6]\n\nIn 2013, the S. Alam Group of Industries (the plant's local owner) began acquiring land from local residents with the help of the governing Awami League. Residents complained that they were not paid appropriate compensation and were forbidden to contact the group's executives. [6]\n\nA committee to protect habitation and graveyards was formed after the S. Alam Group said it had acquired about 600 acres (240 ha) of land in the area, primarily inhabited by subsistence salt farmers. Former union chairman and local Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Liakat Ali was nominated to lead a rally to protect agricultural and residential land, mosques, temples and graveyards from the S. Alam Group and compel a public hearing. [5]\n\nFrustration with the overlooking of demands and taking land from local residents without proper compensation culminated on March 11, 2016, when hundreds gathered to protest acts by the S. Alam Group of Industries and the government. During a March 19 rally, local Awami League members fired on the crowd. As the crowd dispersed, it became violent. [4]\n\nProtests continued, and at a March 23 public hearing attended by about 3,000 people assurances were given that their demands would be considered. [7] Despite the public hearing, S. Alam Group of Industries officials continued their work; on April 2, several engineers and a company director visited the project area. Protesters attacked their motorcade and vandalized a CNG-powered auto rickshaw. Charges were filed against local residents, and seven were arrested within 24 hours. [8]\n\nTo protest the arrests, a rally was scheduled for April 4 by the \"Committee to protect habitation and graveyards\". To foil the rally, Awami League members scheduled a meeting for the same date and place and local police invoked a section-144 law banning public gatherings. [8]\n\nOn April 4, 2016, about 500 villagers defied the section 144 and began demonstrating against the actions of the police and the government. Police and 30 motorcycles carrying Awami League members arrived and ordered the protesters to leave. When the protesters refused, police and Awami League members began firing on the crowd. Four people died at the scene and two more under medical care. [8]\n\nOn April 4, Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Begum Khaleda Zia issued a statement criticizing the government for the killings and demanded that the government conduct a judicial investigation to identify the culprits and bring them to justice. [8] The Chhatra Oikkya Forum announced a general strike in Banshkhali to protest the deaths and demanded that the power-plant project be moved from the area. [5] During April 5 protest rallies in Chittagong, leaders of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports demanded the immediate arrest and prosecution of the killers. According to CoalSwarm co-founder Ted Nace, it was the greatest loss of life since the 2011 Jharkhand anti-coal protest in India [3]. Two committees were formed by the district administration and police to investigate the event. Later supreme court ordered the S Alam to pay a compensation of Tk 5 lac each to the families of the men killed [11].","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["seven"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against a Bangladeshi-Chinese consortium's acquisition of agricultural lands, graveyards and homes to build a coal-based power plant in the Banshkhali Upazila of Chittagong, Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four","five"]},{"role":"Date","values":["March 23"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bangladesh"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018 Dervish protests","document":"The 2018 Dervish protests were a series of protests by the Iranian Dervishes, who are members of Sufi Islam, in Tehran, Iran. [6] The protests started on 4 February,[7] and calmed down the next day. However, protests flared up again on 19 February, where 3 members of the security forces were killed after being run over by a bus. [8]\n\nThe Gonabadi Dervishes are Sufi Muslims; the Iranian government considers them a threat. [9] Conversion to Sufism is frowned upon by the Shi'a religious establishment. [10]\n\nIn January 2012, at least 10 of the group's members were imprisoned in Fars province, and others may be held at Evin Prison in Tehran, including Kasra Nouri[10][11]\n\nOn 19 February, the Sufis organized a sit-in protest at a police station, located in the Pasdaran district of Tehran, where one of their members was held. Later, clashes broke out between the Sufi protestors and security forces. Police used tear gas in an attempt to disperse the protesters. Five riot police were killed. [8]\n\nAccording to the Iranian press, police arrested around 300 people, and there have been reports that some of the protesters may have been killed. [12] However, the Sufi dervishes gathered around the home of their 90-year-old leader Noor Ali Tabandeh to protect him from arrest. [9]\n\nIn the aftermath of the 19 February, protests, footage emerged that showed several Sufi protesters who were arrested, being tortured by government forces. [8]\n\nOn 4 March, it was revealed that one of the protesters had died under the custody of the Iranian government. [13]\n\n","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":["one of their members","at least 10","around 300 people"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["3 members"]},{"role":"Date","values":["19 February","2018","4 February"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tehran, Iran"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Iranian Dervishes"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Dongzhou protests","document":"\n\nThe Dongzhou protests refers to a series of protests that took place for seven months until December 2005 in Dongzhou (东洲), a subdistrict in Shanwei prefecture, Guangdong Province, China. The protests were organized in opposition to government plans to partially infill the bay and build a new power plant. It resulted in the shooting deaths of several residents in the night of 6 December 2005 by People's Armed Police. The death toll is unknown, with different sources mentioning anywhere from three to several dozen deaths. The protests resumed in November 2006. The protests were held because local farmers were dissatisfied with the lack of compensation for land expropriated for the construction of the plant. They are also reportedly concerned with the potential for harmful pollution affecting their crops, while fishermen felt their livelihood would be adversely affected by the modifications to the bay. According to Xinhua, the Information Office of the government of Shanwei described the incident as \"serious violation of law\", in which Huang Xijun, Lin Hanru and Huang Xirang led protesters in attacking police with knives, petrol bombs, and other explosive devices. Xinhua reported that the police fired warning shots but, in the confusion after nightfall, people were hit by mistake. [1]\n\nLocal villagers denied these accounts, reported that the protesters may have used ordinary fireworks as part of their protest. Villagers also alleged that the authorities had \"enlisted thugs from local organized crime groups to help put down the demonstration\" in addition to regular security forces. [2]\n\nThe subdistrict was sealed off by government forces who are searching for suspects involved in the violence and preventing people from leaving the subdistrict. [needs update?] The official New China News Agency stated that three people had been killed and eight others injured, but there are other reports that quoted residents saying as many as 20 people had been killed. There were reports that local authorities refused to return bodies to families, in some cases offering money to residents instead so that they would stop asking for the bodies. It was also reported that on 9 December, many residents held incense sticks and knelt in front of police barricades in the subdistrict, asking for the bodies of their loved ones for proper burial. These requests were refused. [needs update?] The South China Morning Post quoted some residents who said that the officials were attempting to hide the death toll. [2]\n\nOn 11 December 2005, the Chinese government announced that a police commander was detained for mishandling the protest and causing deaths and injuries. [3] Ta Kung Pao reported on 13 December that, according to the Shanwei TV Station via Agence France Presse, Wu Sheng, the vice director of the Shanwei Police Department, was placed in criminal detention by procurator bureau for mishandling the event. [3] According to local television via The Washington Post, nine residents were also arrested. [4]\n\nSo far, the news has been followed closely by Hong Kong, Taiwan, dissident Chinese, and overseas media, but has received lesser coverage in mainland China media. In June 2006, The New York Times reported that 19 residents had been prosecuted for the unrest, 7 being given long sentences for disturbing public order and using explosives against the Police. This was taken to be evidence of the Chinese government covering up the true nature of the shootings. The trial was not widely reported on and locals said that they were constantly being pressured not to talk about what happened in 2005. Construction work resumed on the plant after the protests ended, with no compensation being handed out. No public investigation of the shootings has been carried out either. In November 2006, the BBC reported that tension was again mounting in Dongzhou. The report stated that residents had taken eight local officials hostage after a resident was detained. [5] Two days later, Radio Free Asia reported that the officials had been released following a dawn raid by police, but more residents had been detained. [6] Shortly after, a similar event took place at another village in Guangdong, where residents attempted to detain officials in a dispute over compensation for loss of farm land. [7] Clearly the events in Dongzhou are not an isolated case but part of an ongoing wave of protests against land grabs in China,[8][9] which Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has acknowledged is an \"historic error\". [10]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["opposition to government plans to partially infill the bay and build a new power plant","Construction work resumed on the plant","no compensation","local farmers were dissatisfied with the lack of compensation for land expropriated for the construction of the plant"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["20"]},{"role":"Date","values":["seven months until December 2005"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Dongzhou"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011–2012 Palestinian protests","document":"\n\nThe 2011–2012 Palestinian protests were a series of protests in the Palestinian National Authority and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, staged by various Palestinian groups as part of the wider Arab Spring. The protests were aimed to protest against the Palestinian government, as well as supporting the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. The first phase of protests took place during 2011 and the second phase in 2012. Some suggested the 2012 protests were also inspired by the Arab Spring. [1] Demonstrators were protesting against the economic policies of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and the increasing cost of living. [2] On 1 September 2012, the PNA raised the price of fuel, as well as the value added tax rate. Mass demonstrations have taken place throughout the Palestinian Authority territory, including in  Ramallah, Nablus, Balata Camp, Bir Zeit, Jalazun Camp, Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Dheisheh Camp, Jenin, Jericho, Tulkarm[3] and Dura. [4] 2012 Protests have been characterized by road closures, tire burning, self-immolations,[4][5] peaceful demonstrations, stone throwing clashes and workers' strikes. The goal of the early protests were to unify the two ruling parties, Fatah and Hamas. Other reasons included unemployment, inflation, and lack of economic growth. The Palestinian Authority prevented several demonstrations in support of protesters in Tunisia and Egypt. On 3 February, Palestinian police dispersed an anti-Mubarak demonstration in downtown Ramallah, detaining four people, confiscating a cameraman's footage, and reportedly beating protesters. A smaller pro-Mubarak demonstration was permitted to take place in the same area and was guarded by police. [6]\n\nOn 15 October, an anti-Assad protest expressing solidarity with Palestinian refugees in Syria affected by the unrest there took place in the Gaza Strip, and was attended by 150 people. Hamas police forces dispersed the demonstration, claiming that it was held without a permit. [7]\n\nOn 1 February 2012 the Palestinian Authority announced that it would hold municipal elections in July. Some sources speculated that this announcement was a reaction to the anti-government protests in Egypt. The elections were however postponed to 22 October 2012, then suspended indefinitely due to an internal division within the Palestinian Authority over candidates for many of the municipalities and councils, and fears that Hamas supporters would back Palestinian Authority opponents. [8]\n\nA rise in fuel prices, lowered quality of living and the current financial crisis and unpaid monthly salary payments for about 150,000 Palestinian workers have sparked the protests. The PNA is currently going through a financial crisis. In addition, the PNA has warned of potential cuts in electricity for large areas in the West Banks, prompting a rise in social tensions. Much of the demonstrators' anger has been directed towards the government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. [9] The 1994 Protocol on Economic Relations has also been targeted, an interim agreement that is part of the Oslo accords whereby Israel controls Palestinian trade and collects taxes on behalf of the PNA. [10][11] Further sources which point out the centrality to the Paris Protocol have also made the claim that these have been the first protests on the Palestinian West Bank not to be purely \"political\". [12]\n\nBecause of Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the PNA relies on foreign aid. [citation needed] Due to delays in the funding by the United States and various Arab countries, the accumulating budget deficit has become a financial crisis for the PNA. [9] Professor and former PNA spokesman Ghassan Khatib further states that the expansion of Israeli settlements and the subsequent confiscation of cultivable land and other natural resources has increased the PNA's dependence on foreign funds as well as the \"exhaustion\" of other venues such as taking bank loans and borrowing from the private sector. [10]\n\n4 September - Mass protests involving thousands of Palestinians were held in cities throughout the West Bank in protest of price rises, higher costs of living, Salam Fayyad's handling of the financial crisis and the Paris Protocol. Several demonstrating groups also stressed they were protesting against the Israeli occupation in addition to dire conditions. In Hebron dozens of public transport vehicles drove from the northern to southern ends of the city protesting the cost of fuel, while hundreds of people participated in protests held in the city center. An effigy of Prime Minister Fayyad was set alight. Smaller demonstrations occurred in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jenin. [13] In the city of al-Dura in the southern West Bank, 42-year-old Khaled Abu Rabee poured gasoline over himself and entered the municipal hall in an apparent self-immolation attempt. He was stopped by a security guard. [5]\n\n5 September - In Ramallah a man from Gaza unsuccessfully attempted to set himself and his 6-year-old daughter who has cancer alight in protest of his inability to pay for her cancer treatment and the costly price of living. He was stopped by police who arrested him. [5] Meanwhile, school children protested the prices of basic goods in Beit Jala. [14]\n\nIn response to growing protests in the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the \"Palestinian Spring,\" drawing relation to the regional Arab Spring, had begun. He further quoted a Palestinian proverb that \"hunger is disloyal,\" acknowledging that people think of feeding their families as the top priority. [15]\n\n6 September - Demonstrations continued in West Bank cities. In Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour mostly young protesters forced many streets to close for traffic. Hundreds gathered to demonstrate in Nativity Street. [16] In Jenin protesters demanded the resignation of Salam Fayyad, while in Tulkarm demonstrators marched with donkeys in a gesture to the rising price of conventional transport. Taxi drivers began a mass strike to protest rising fuel prices. Fayyad announced on Voice of Palestine radio that he was \"ready to resign\" but the replacement of government officials would not alleviate the PNA's financial crisis. [17]\n\n7 September - Palestinian National Initiative declared its support for protests against rising costs of living in the West Bank, and called for a \"radical change\" in economic policy. [18]\n\n8 September - Dozens of protesters closed down several streets in Tulkarm and Ramallah on Saturday, as protests against rising living costs continue across the West Bank. A main road in Tulkarm was blocked with rocks and burning tires and protesters in Ramallah closed off several streets in the city center. President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated that Israel and some Arab countries share the blame for the PA’s financial crisis. He said the Palestinian Authority will not seek to stop the popular protests as long as they remain peaceful and do not harm public interests.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["road closures, tire burning, self-immolations,[4][5] peaceful demonstrations, stone throwing clashes"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":["detaining four people"]},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against the economic policies of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and the increasing cost of living","to unify the two ruling parties, Fatah and Hamas","expressing solidarity with Palestinian refugees in Syria affected by the unrest there took place in the Gaza Strip","A rise in fuel prices, lowered quality of living and the current financial crisis and unpaid monthly salary payments for about 150,000 Palestinian workers","against the Palestinian government, as well as supporting the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria","price rises, higher costs of living, Salam Fayyad's handling of the financial crisis and the Paris Protocol","demanded the resignation of Salam Fayyad","unemployment, inflation, and lack of economic growth","rising price of conventional transport","called for a \"radical change\" in economic policy"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["thousands of Palestinians"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2011–2012","4 September","6 September","7 September","8 September","15 October","Saturday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Palestinian National Authority and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip","Tulkarm and Ramallah","Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour","Jenin","Tulkarm","throughout the Palestinian Authority territory, including in  Ramallah, Nablus, Balata Camp, Bir Zeit, Jalazun Camp, Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Dheisheh Camp, Jenin, Jericho, Tulkarm[3] and Dura","cities throughout the West Bank","West Bank","Nativity Street"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Palestinian","Hundreds","150 people","Taxi drivers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1990 Moroccan protests","document":"The 1990 Moroccan protests was a mass uprising and popular movement that consisted of violent demonstrations and massive anti-Gulf War protests in 1990–1991 in Morocco. Protesters rallied in cities nationwide, starting in Fez, where protesters marched in rioting against bread prices and the gulf war. Tens of thousands took to the streets in organised protests and planned strike actions, protests rallied that quickly turned into an uprising and popular Riots, calling on the fall of the regime. 5 days of massive demonstrations swept small cities in Morocco as they rose up to inflation and high prices. In Tangier, 20 days of strikes and general strikes was pulled out by thousands of workers calling on better wages. No deaths of fatalities was reported during the mass protests in Tangier. Huge student-led anti-government demonstrations and anti-Kuwait invasion protests was sweeping the Arab world, starting in Egypt and inspired protesters in Morocco. 33 were killed during the rioting and the protests was quickly suppressed by the army and the army was deployed to patrol the streets in case of any protest actions and movement. 127-240 were injured during the echoes of anger in the country. Huge marches in support of both sides of the Iraq-Kuwait conflict was held in January–February; at least 100,000+ protesters marched. After the December rioting in Fez, curfews was imposed to quell the mass uprising. [1][2][3][4]","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["against bread prices and the gulf war"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["33"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1990–1991"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Morocco"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":["Tens of thousands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019–2021 Iraqi protests","document":"\n\n \n\nThe 2019–2021 Iraqi protests are an ongoing series of protests in Iraq consisting of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and civil disobedience. They started on 1 October 2019, a date which was set by civil activists on social media, spreading over the central and southern provinces of Iraq, to protest corruption, unemployment and inefficient public services. The protest then escalated into calls to overthrow the Iraqi government. The government has used live bullets, marksmen, hot water, hot pepper gas and tear gas against protesters, leading to many deaths and injuries. [13]\n\nThe protesters called for the end of the sectarian political system which was created by the US after the US-led invasion in 2003 and has been marked by sectarian divides between Shias and Sunnis. [14][15][16] The protests are the largest incident of civil unrest Iraq has experienced since the 2003 invasion. [17]\n\nIn 2011, protests broke out in various provinces within Iraq demanding the end of corruption, nepotism, and unemployment, while also calling for increased wages and improved public services such as electricity, transportation, health care, education and municipal services. [18][19][20] Protestors faced government suppression, police brutality and arrests. [21] These reform demands in the six Sunni-dominant provinces escalated during the 2012–2013 Iraqi protests after Nouri Al-Maliki's acts of persecution against Sunni political figures. [22][23] This, in turn, led to protests calling for the overthrow of the sectarian government and redrafting the constitution, as well as a march into Baghdad to occupy the Green Zone. [23] These protests were faced with even more government suppression, leading to clashes between security forces and local tribesmen who had alleged support from Ba'ath Party loyalists. [24][25] After reports of the Sunni factions, which were part of the Iraqi insurgency against the American occupation, unifying their powers and taking control over Al Anbar Governorate, the government launched the 2013 Anbar campaign. [26] By July 2014, these factions which merged with ISIL had occupied most of Al-Anbar, Ninawa, Salah ad-Din, Kirkuk and Diyala which ignited the War in Iraq (2013–2017). The U.S. Secretary of State pledged \"intense\" support to the Iraqi government while imploring the Government to rise above \"sectarian motivations\" but according to senior officials in the Department of Defense the U.S. was refraining from giving weapons to the Iraqi military \"because of lack of confidence in Iraqi troops\", while veteran U.S. journalists familiar with the situation claimed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki \"is not the answer and should step down\". [27][28]\n\nFueled by the lack of progress of Haider al-Abadi's government and state corruption, the leader of the Sadrist Movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, called for a sit-in within the Green Zone in Baghdad to force the government to find serious solutions for corruption. [29] On 30 April 2016, thousands of Al-Sadr's followers breached the barricades of the Green Zone and stormed into governmental buildings, including the Iraqi parliament,[30] chasing representatives out of the Green Zone before retreating the day after by the call of Al-Sadr. [31] Another demonstration broke out in Basra and nearby cities in July 2018 due to deteriorating public utilities, water contamination and lack of electricity and continued for a few months. [32][33] Protestors burned down a number of government buildings and parties' headquarters, blocked numerous main streets, tore and burned pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei and even occupied the Al-Najaf and Basra International Airports. [34][35] They were faced with live bullets from security forces causing the death of at least 16 protestors. [36][37][35]\n\nRemembering the rise of ISIS during the protests in 2012,[38] these ones avoided sectarian rhetoric. [39] Initially Americans had not seemed to be the focus of the anger although a 2019 poll found that only 22% of Iraqis had a favorable opinion of the United States, while 16% had a favorable opinion of Iran. [38] However this preliminary assumption clearly turned out to be wrong when after a few months, hundreds of thousands rallied to oppose the US presence in the country. [1]\n\nOn 20 June in Basra demonstrators gathered outside the city's new administrative headquarters to vent their anger about poor basic services and unemployment. The old headquarters were burnt down during 2018's months-long protest. Basra and the surrounding region produce about 90 percent of the country's oil wealth but most of its residents have not benefited from it. Protesters blamed Basra's authorities for the city's problems, from a lack of job opportunities to unreliable and poor public utilities. Riot police were deployed at the scene but the protest remained peaceful. [40]\n\nOn 25 September 2019, a group of holders of higher degrees organized a protest in front of the Prime Minister's office in Baghdad, demanding their employment. [41] The protest was faced with major suppression from security forces as armoured vehicles separated the demonstrators using hot water and police forces conducted random arrests among them which led to cases of fainting and injuries among the demonstrators. [42] This incident was faced with country-wide anger because of the forceful methods that were used by the government towards intellectual demonstrators, along with the violence that was used against female protestors. [42][43] Reactions included the Ministry of Interior forming a committee to investigate the incident and demonstrators organizing solidarity protests in many provinces to condemn these methods. [42][44] The holders of higher degrees resumed their protests for three days after the incident, spreading over many southern provinces. [45][46]\n\nOn 27 September 2019, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi issued a decision to transfer the commander of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force, Lieutenant General Abdel-Wahab Al-Saedi, from the ICTF to the Ministry of Defence. Al-Saedi said the decision was an insult to his military rank and that he would rather go to jail than execute this decision. [47] This decision caused political figures, including former prime minister Haider Al-Abadi and many representatives, to criticize Abdul-Mahdi and call for him to back down from his decisions. [48][49] According to VOA News, Al Saedi's transfer was influenced individually by pro-Iran factions within the Al-Shaabi paramilitary force, said a government official in Iraq who asked to be kept unknown. [50] After the decision was made, social media was flooded with Al-Saedi's photos and achievements, calling for Abdul-Mahdi to back down from this injustice and accusing Iran of ordering the Iraqi government to replace every \"national hero\" in the army with Iranian loyalists. [51][52] In response to this backlash, Abdul-Mahdi said he stands by his decision and that it is a normal routine decision with no political motivations. [53] Furthermore, after calls for the unveiling of a statue of Al-Saedi in Mosul that was made to immortalize the commander's efforts in the city's liberation, security forces surrounded the statue, prohibiting its unveiling, before it was finally removed by them. [54][55] On 30 September 2019, Al-Saedi announced that he executed Abdul-Mahdi's orders and joined the ministry of defence as \"a loyal soldier to serve my country and my beloved people. \"[56]\n\nStarting on 25 October 2019, mass protests took place in many cities in Iraq, including Kerbala, against corruption and a national government that protestors saw as unaccountable for its actions. After the U.S. occupation (2003–11), oligarchs and warlords were perceived to have taken control over Iraq. While the country produces more oil than the United Arab Emirates, the oil revenues were seen by protestors as failing to be spent on maintenance of hospitals and roads. A widely used slogan in this phase of the protests was: \"We want a homeland\"—reflecting a longing both for a sense of unity and for a self-determined life in dignity. [57]\n\nWhile at daytime protesters from all strata of Iraqi society peacefully took to the streets and squares of cities like Kerbala, later at night, youths from the suburbs sought violent confrontations, using molotov cocktails and burning car-tires, which was answered by the state security forces with tear gas, rubber bullets, deadly snipers and even patrol vehicles lethally ramming into crowds. [57]\n\nHassan Wahab of the Amal Association human rights group said, \"Those [protestors] detained and released are only released on bail. Charges are not dropped so they face re-arrest and trial. \"[58]\n\nAs of 23 December 2019, there were 29 assassinated activists related to the protests, most of them were in Baghdad. [59] On 10 January 2020, an Iraqi journalist, Ahmad Abdelsamad, of Dijlah TV and his cameraman, Safaa Ghali, were shot in their car by unidentified gunmen. [60][61][62]\n\nOn 21 January, the police stated that Janat Madhi, a 49-year old activist was gunned down by unknown gunmen as she came back home from protests in the southern city of Basra, according to the Urdu Point.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":null},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["protest corruption, unemployment and inefficient public services"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1 October 2019"]},{"role":"Location","values":["central and southern provinces of Iraq"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":null},{"role":"Protesters","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2011 Azerbaijani protests","document":"\n\nThe 2011 Azerbaijani protests were a series of demonstrations held to protest the government of President Ilham Aliyev. Common themes espoused by demonstrators, many of whom were affiliated with Müsavat and the Popular Front Party, the main opposition parties in Azerbaijan, included doubts as to the legitimacy of the 2008 presidential election, desire for the release of political prisoners, calls for democratic reforms, and demands that Aliyev and his government resign from power. Azerbaijani authorities responded with a security crackdown, dispersing protests and curtailing attempts to gather with force and numerous arrests. The European Union, the United States Department of State, Amnesty International, and other organizations called on the government to release political prisoners and allow for free assembly. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Zakir Qaralov vowed to \"suppress\" protests, comparing them to incidents in \"other countries\" and saying that the government would not allow them to go forward. [8]\n\nOn 29 January, more than 100 activists and politicians not affiliated with the Azerbaijani government gathered in Baku to urge President Ilham Aliyev to dismiss the government and call snap elections. Several critics compared Aliyev to then-President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and warned that Azerbaijan could face popular protests as part of a regional wave of civil unrest, though leaders of the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party and Müsavat stopped short of threatening to lead them personally. [9]\n\nAround the same time, 20-year-old web activist and APFP supporter Jabbar Savalan gained prominence for posting increasingly provocative invective against the government on Facebook and other social networking websites, eventually calling in early February for a \"Day of Rage\" modeled off the protests in Egypt, with major protests to be held in downtown Baku. Authorities reacted by arresting Savalanly in Sumqayit on 5 February and charging him with marijuana possession, a charge his supporters claimed was fabricated. Opposition groups called on authorities to release the young activist and compared his detention to the suppression of dissidents in Egypt and other countries, but police insisted the arrest was not political. [10][11]\n\nOn 6 February, an unsanctioned protest was held at the Egypt–Azerbaijan Friendship Park outside Baku, in the suburb of Xırdalan. Several dozen rally-goers, mostly young men and women,[12] waved signs and chanted slogans calling for Egyptian President Mubarak to step down, but also voiced dissent against several recently adopted Azerbaijani government policies, including price increases for services. Police dispersed the gathering within minutes, making no arrests. [13]\n\nYouth activists Elnur Majidli, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, and others called on Facebook for mass protests on 11 March 2011 to mark the one-month anniversary of both Hosni Mubarak's resignation and the detention of Savalanly on what they called are trumped-up charges. [14][15] In response, the government reportedly dispatched military forces to Baku to bolster security in the former Soviet republic's capital. Members of the opposition in the National Assembly indicated support for the demonstrators, demanded the release of political prisoners, and called on the cabinet, led by former Communist Party member Prime Minister Artur Rasizade, to resign over its failure to institute reforms. [3] The government claimed the demonstrations were organized by the parliamentary opposition under the guise of grassroots activism, but activists denied this, citing criticism from politically like-minded allies in the National Assembly over the date of the planned protests as an example of where they differ from the opposition parties. [15]\n\nOn 11 March, police foiled several attempted protests, arresting at least 43. [16] The New York Times reported that about 60 people gathered in Baku, the capital city, in response to the scheduled event on Facebook, but security forces quickly clamped down, preventing the demonstration from gaining much steam. [1]\n\nA larger protest in Baku, the capital city, drew several hundred people on 12 March, The New York Times reported. The protest was led by Müsavat, in contrast to the smaller youth-led demonstrations of the previous day. Once again, however, police were prepared for the rally and began arresting people on the spot, including at least one person for speaking to a Western journalist, though media reported they had a more difficult time subduing the larger, better-prepared protest than they had on 11 March. About 50 people were arrested on this second day of protests. [1] Although most of the protesters appeared to be supporters of the secular, relatively pro-Western Müsavat and similar parties, a number of young protesters representing the Islamist opposition began chanting \"Allahu Akbar\", reportedly angering police on the scene. [17]\n\nAt least 30 people arrested in connection with the protests were sentenced to time in prison, the United States Department of State reported. Müsavat demanded that President Ilham Aliyev step down over the incident. [18] The Azerbaijani Human Rights House and the European Union, among others, criticised Aliyev's government and called on authorities to allow people to demonstrate peacefully. Reuters reported that at least 150 activists were arrested in Azerbaijan during March, including those detained 11–12 March. [4]\n\nOpposition groups signaled their intention to hold additional protests in April in spite of warnings from authorities not to do so. Officials in Baku pushed government opponents to rally only in a designated part of Bebiheybat, outside the city center of Baku, but the opposition refused any deal by which protesters would not march in downtown Baku. Opposition leader Ali Karimli of the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party said that while activists intended to demonstrate peacefully, \"In case of a provocation, however, we will not be responsible.\" Another protest was held on 2 April at Fountain Square in Baku's city center, with between 350 and 1,000 demonstrators in attendance. The APFP and Müsavat called the demonstration a \"Day of Wrath\" and led the rally downtown instead of holding it in a government-approved stadium on the outskirts of the city. [19] Police arrested well over 200 demonstrators,[4] detaining at least two Azerbaijani journalists covering the protest as well. [20] Isa Gambar, the leader of Müsavat, responded to the crackdown and the government's charging of four opposition leaders with \"organizing mass unrest\" by vowing to intensify protests. [21] On 10 October, four of the arrested activists were given sentences from 18 months to three years in prison. [22]\n\nPolice again dispersed an attempted demonstration in Baku's Fountain Square on 17 April, arresting activists chanting pro-democracy slogans, including a mother and her young daughter, and briefly detaining two or three Swedish journalists. The Swedes were later deported. [23] One woman reportedly warned police as they arrested her, \"Don't think you'll be able to keep your government. A 30-year-old government collapsed in Egypt. \"[24] Officials said they detained 65 people in total. While the government again attempted to confine demonstrations to a small area on the outskirts of Baku, Gambar and other opposition leaders have vowed to continue holding protests in the city center in defiance of the law,[5] as its requests to be allowed to gather in front of the Narimanov Cinema downtown were denied and the organizers rejected alternative settings proffered by the city council. [25] The crackdown came in defiance of an appeal from human rights watchdog Amnesty International to allow peaceful protests to go forward. [8]\n\nTo commemorate the four-year anniversary of Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, 20 journalists held a one-day hunger strike to protest what they view as his unjust imprisonment. \"We want to demonstrate our complaints against the arrest of Eynulla Fatullayev [by striking],\" said editor Aynur Elganesh. [26]\n\nThough action by the political opposition was subdued throughout the first half of the month, unrest continued in the capital of Baku. Police swiftly dispersed a protest on 6 May in Baku. Protesters called on the government to allow Muslim girls to wear the hijab in school. Several dozen were arrested, and police reportedly used batons and pepper spray to subdue some of the demonstrators. [27]\n\nYouth activists rallied on Baku Boulevard to call for the release of \"political prisoners\", fellow activists imprisoned on what they believe are trumped-up charges.","event_type":"Protest","arguments":[{"role":"Government Reaction","values":null},{"role":"Method","values":["chanting"]},{"role":"Arrested","values":null},{"role":"Protest Reason","values":["urge President Ilham Aliyev to dismiss the government and call snap elections"]},{"role":"Damaged Property","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["On 29 January"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Baku"]},{"role":"Protest Slogan","values":["Allahu Akbar"]},{"role":"Protesters","values":["more than 100","Elnur Majidli, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Thirteen people are injured when a  roadside bomb hits a Pakistani security vehicle in the southwestern city of Quetta, the same town where at least 74 were killed  in a suicide bombing at a hospital on Monday. The police were escorting a judge, who was not injured. (Reuters)","document":"QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A roadside bomb hit a Pakistani security vehicle and wounded 13 people on Thursday in the southwestern city of Quetta, days after a suicide bombing at a hospital killed at least 74 people, most of them lawyers, officials and media said.\nThe driver of the police pickup truck managed to drive the damaged vehicle to the Civil Hospital of Quetta - the same facility hit in Monday’s attack - to get the wounded to medical treatment.\nThe truck was parked outside the hospital with its mangled bonnet, blown-out wheels and blood-stained interior later on Thursday.\nAbout 10 police officers were guarding the entrance to the hospital.\nProvincial interior minister Safaraz Bugti said Thursday’s bomb targeted police escorting a judge, who was not hurt in the attack.\n“It was a judge’s car that was passing, but I believe it was the police who were the target,” he said on Pakistani television.\nMedical Superintendent Abdul Rehman Miankhel told Reuters that 13 wounded people, including four members of the security forces, were being treated at the hospital.\nAn announcer for Geo TV warned viewers not to gather at the scene in central Quetta for fear of a second bombing, like the one on Monday.\nThe Monday attack hit a large group of lawyers gathered at the hospital to mourn the head of the provincial bar association who was shot dead earlier that day.\n“Care must be taken that a rush not be created at the scene as the terrorists have reached the point of barbarity where they target crowds like this,” the news announcer said.\nMonday’s suicide bombing was Pakistan’s deadliest attack this year. It was claimed by both a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, and also by the Islamic State militant group, which has been seeking to recruit followers in Pakistan and Afghanistan.\nTargeted killings have become increasingly common in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province that has seen rising violence linked to a separatist insurgency as well as sectarian tension and rising crime.\nLater on Thursday, Bugti told Reuters that security at all potential targets was being beefed up around Baluchistan.\nA Chinese-funded trade corridor with promised investment of $46 billion is due to pass through the gas-rich province and the government has promised to boost security.\n“We have already done (added security) for our schools, educational institutions and universities ... Watchtowers have also been constructed,” he said.\n“But obviously this new threat against hospitals has emerged - we are checking that and will beef up.”\nWriting by Kay Johnson; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A roadside bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["wounded 13 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["police escorting a judge","a Pakistani security vehicle"]},{"role":"Location","values":["southwestern city of Quetta"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say they have seized full control of Manbij in Syria's northern Aleppo Governorate after ISIL militants withdrew from their last remaining strongholds in the city. (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed forces have seized full control of the northern Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border after the last remaining Islamic State fighters, who had been using civilians as human shields, left, a spokesman for the group said Friday.\nElation in Syria's Manbij after Islamic State's ouster from city\n01:27\nSyria Democratic Forces (SDF) were now sweeping the city after the departure of a last remaining group of militants who had been holed up in the city. They had freed over 2,000 civilian hostages who had been held by the militants, Sharfan Darwish of the SDF allied Manbij Military Council told Reuters.\n“The city is now fully under our control but we are undertaking sweeping operations,” Darwish said, adding militant sleeper cells in the city were still a threat.\nThe SDF, with heavy air support from a U.S.-led coalition, said last week they had taken almost complete control of Manbij, where a small number of IS fighters had been holed up.\nThe SDF’s offensive, which began at the end of May, aims to remove Islamic State from areas it controls along the Turkish border.\nThe Manbij operation in which U.S. special forces have played a significant role on the ground marks the most ambitious advance by a group allied to Washington in Syria since the United States launched its military campaign against Islamic State two years ago.\nManbij’s loss to the militants is a big blow as it is of strategic importance, serving as a conduit for transit of foreign jihadists and provisions coming from the Turkish border.\nEarlier the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters grouped in the SDF said Friday’s operation was “the last operation and the last assault.”\nDarwish said earlier roughly 100 Islamic State fighters were left in the city center using civilians as human shields, some of whom were killed trying to flee.\nReuters pictures showed residents being released from an Islamic State-held neighborhood on Friday and being welcomed by SDF forces.\nKurdish sources and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s five-year-old conflict, later said around 500 cars had left Manbij carrying Islamic State members and civilians. They were heading northeast towards Jarablus, a town under Islamic State control on the Turkish border, the Observatory said.\nThe convoy carried the final Islamic State members leaving the city, under an agreement between the fighting parties that would not be announced officially, Kurdish sources and the monitor said, marking the end of the operation.\nThe SDF’s campaign quickly captured the countryside surrounding Manbij, but slowed once fighting entered the city. The SDF said it had been avoiding a large-scale assault inside Manbij out of concern for civilians.\nDozens of civilians, including children and women from Manbij who had fled the city at the height of the aerial strikes, were killed in suspected U.S. coalition air strikes last month, residents and monitors said.\nU.S. officials have said once the Manbij operation is completed, it would create the conditions to move on the militant group’s de facto capital of Raqqa. U.S. officials anticipate a tough battle.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["five-year-old"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Dozens of civilians, including children and women from Manbij who had fled the city at the height of the aerial strikes, were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["U.S.-backed forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["at the end of May"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Islamic State fighters","aims to remove Islamic State from areas it controls along the Turkish border"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 At least 10 children are killed and 28 injured in an air attack on a school in northern Yemen. The Houthi group claims that the Saudi Arabia led coalition is responsible. (Reuters via ABC News)","document":"A spokesperson for the aid group Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) says their staff in northern Yemen received the bodies of at least 10 dead children after Saudi-led coalition warplanes bombed a school.\nMSF said 21 children, all under 15 years of age, were admitted with injuries in the town of Haydan, near Saada.\n\"A bit before 10:00am we received the first 15 children,\" Hassan Boucenine, the MSF head of mission in Yemen, told the ABC.\n\"Relatives, neighbours brought them to the hospital.\"\nMr Boucenine said the children who were killed died of multiple trauma and head injuries. He called on all parties to respect civilians. \"All warring parties have the responsibility of the civilians, and must respect civilian lives,\" he said.\n\"Civilian infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, must be respected. This war is now claiming a greater number of civilian lives and it must stop.\"\nSupplied: Hussain Albukhaiti\nIn a statement the UN children's agency, UNICEF, said the children who were killed were aged between six and 14 years old.\nThey were studying in a religious school in the Juma'a Bin Fadil village in Haydan. The UN agency said they had verified seven deaths so far but that \"bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble and the death toll is expected to increase\".\n\"With the intensification in violence across the country in the past week, the number of children killed and injured by airstrikes, street fighting and landmines has grown sharply,\" UNICEF said. \"UNICEF calls on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to respect and abide by their obligations under international law.\n\"This includes the obligation to only target combatants and limit harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.\"\nSupplied: Hussain Albukhaiti\nLocal journalists in the town of Saada posted graphic photos of dead children lined up in a row on social media, saying the school had been bombed by Saudi-led coalition jets. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition had no comment on the attack.\nSaudi Arabia and its allies have launched thousands of air strikes against the Houthis since they drove the internationally recognised Government into exile in March 2015.\nThe UN accuses the coalition of targeting civilians, with 2,000 believed to have been killed in the airstrikes. Saturday's (local time) incident in Saada comes after 13 civilians in the capital Sana'a were killed on Tuesday after Saudi aircraft bombed a potato chip factory.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 10 dead children","21 children, all under 15 years of age, were admitted with injuries"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Saudi-led coalition jets"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of Haydan, near Saada"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Six people are injured by a knifeman who also set fire to a train at Salez, Switzerland. (BBC News Online)","document":"A knifeman has set fire to a train in north-eastern Switzerland, leaving six people in hospital with stab wounds and burns, police say.\nThe suspect, described as a Swiss man aged 27, was also taken to hospital after the incident near Salez in St Gallen canton, close to Liechtenstein.\nHe had ignited a flammable liquid before attacking people with a knife. A child of six was injured. Police said they could not exclude the possibility of a terrorist motive.\n\"We can neither exclude nor affirm that this was a terrorist act,\" St Gallen regional police spokesman Bruno Metzger told the local St Galler Tagblatt daily.\nPolice spokesman Hanspeter Kruesi told AFP news agency the suspected attacker was not of immigrant background.\nThree rescue helicopters are at the scene. A major police operation is under way. The attack occurred around 14:20 (12:20 GMT) as the train was approaching Salez station, between the towns of Buchs and Sennwald.   Several dozen passengers were on board at the time of the attack. Apart from the child, a girl and a boy, both 17, two women aged 34 and 43, and a man aged 50 were hurt. Some of the injured are said to be in a serious condition.  Police estimated damage to the train at CHF100,000 (79,000; $103,000). European states have been on the alert for \"lone wolf\" attacks after a series of recent incidents.\nLast month, an Afghan asylum seeker attacked passengers on a train in the neighbouring German state of Bavaria with an axe, injuring four people.\nThe so-called Islamic State later claimed the attack, releasing a video of the attacker who was shot dead by police as he fled. Switzerland country profile","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["flammable liquid","knife","axe"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["damage to the train"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["six people in hospital with stab wounds and burns","A child of six was injured","injuring four people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Swiss man aged 27","Islamic State"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around 14:20 (12:20 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Several dozen passengers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a train in north-eastern Switzerland","near Salez in St Gallen canton"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 About 40 suspected Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters are killed as Yemeni forces, aided  by Saudi-led airstrikes,  fight  their way into Zinjibar and Jaār in eastern Yemen. (Reuters) (Daily Mail)","document":"ADEN (Reuters) - Yemeni army forces backed by Arab coalition aircraft killed about 40 suspected al Qaeda fighters on Sunday as they fought their way into two militant strongholds in eastern Yemen, a local official and residents said.\nAl Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited a 16-month-old civil war between the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iran-allied Houthis to capture a 600-km (370-mile) stretch of Arabian Sea coastline in eastern Yemen.\nHadi’s troops and forces from the Saudi-led Arab coalition drove out AQAP - widely considered the most dangerous branch of the global militant group - from the Hadramout provincial capital of Mukalla in April.\nThe militants have since repeatedly withdrawn from and then returned to Zinjibar and Jaar, the capital of Abyan and the province’s second largest city.\nAbyan Governor Al-Khader Mohammed al-Saidi, speaking by telephone from Jaar, told Reuters that three brigades took part in the operation and that troops have “taken complete control of both cities”.\nSaidi said that 40 AQAP members were killed in both cities, while the rest fled. He said three soldiers were killed and several were wounded in the operation.\n“We met with citizens and fighters and both were happy to be free under government authority,” the governor said.\nResidents said an AQAP suicide bomber blew himself up in a car trying to attack troops in Zinjibar, a city of some 100,000 people, but no one else was hurt.\nSaudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies intervened in the civil war in Yemen in March last year after the Houthis advanced on his headquarters in the southern port city of Aden and forced him to flee to Riyadh.\nThe war has killed more than 6,500 people, displaced more than 2.5 million and caused a humanitarian catastrophe in one of the world’s poorest countries.\nCoalition bombing had mostly focused on the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but began turning their attention to AQAP earlier this year when forces funded and trained by the United Arab Emirates launched a surprise attack to win Mukalla.\nBut an armed push toward Qaeda-held towns in Abyan and neighboring Lahj province proved more difficult, and militants launched repeated suicide attacks against Yemeni forces.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed about 40 suspected al Qaeda fighters","three soldiers were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Yemeni army forces backed by Arab coalition aircraft"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["two militant strongholds"]},{"role":"Location","values":["eastern Yemen"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition which hit a hospital in northern Yemen run by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) kills at least 11 people. (BBC)","document":"An air strike has hit a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in northern Yemen, killing at least 11 people, the medical charity says.\nAnother 19 people were injured in the attack in Abs, in Hajjah province, believed to have been carried out by the Saudi-led coalition which is backing Yemen's government in its fight against Houthi rebels.\nThe coalition has not yet commented.\nLocal people said the hit follows days of air raids in the area. The first rescue workers to arrive at the scene had to move cautiously, fearing that the circling planes might attack again.\nThe blast immediately killed nine people, including an MSF staff member, MSF Yemen tweeted.\nTwo more patients died while they were being transferred to another hospital, it added.\nThe conflict in Yemen that began in 2015 has left more than 6,400 people dead, half of them civilians, and displaced 2.5 million others, according to the UN.\nMSF said more than 4,600 patients had been treated at the Abs hospital since MSF began supporting it in July 2015.\nA spokesman for the United Nations said the organisation was aware of the latest reports from Yemen and was trying to gather some details.\nLast year, one person was killed in coalition air strikes on an MSF-supported health centre in the neighbouring province of Saada and a mobile clinic in the southern province of Taiz were hit in air strikes, according to the charity.\nA hospital in Saada was hit by a projectile this January, killing six people.\nThe attack in Abs comes less than 48 hours after MSF said a coalition air strike on a Koranic school in Saada's Haydan district had killed 10 children.\nThe home of a school headmaster in Razih district was also hit that day, killing his wife and four of their children, witnesses told the New York Times. A second air strike killed four of their relatives as people tried to rescue them, they said.\nThe coalition denied targeting a school in Haydan, instead saying that it had bombed a camp at which the Houthis were training child soldiers.\nThe Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes in Yemen since March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The strikes began after the Houthi rebels, backed by supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, took over parts of the country, including the capital Sanaa, forcing the government into exile.\nThe government and its allies have since retaken the southern city of Aden. Saudi Arabia says the Houthis are supported by its regional rival Iran - something Tehran denies.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["air strike"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["hit a hospital"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least 11 people","Another 19 people were injured","killed nine people","Two more patients died","6,400 people dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Saudi-led coalition"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2015"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Abs, in Hajjah province","northern Yemen"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 The Russian Air Force uses an Iranian airbase near Hamadan to launch airstrikes in Syria. (BBC)","document":"Russia's defence ministry says it has used a base in western Iran to carry out air strikes in Syria.\nTupolev-22M3 long-range bombers and Sukhoi-34 strike fighters took off from Hamedan on Tuesday, a statement said.\nTargets were hit in Aleppo, Idlib and Deir al-Zour provinces, it added. Local groups said 27 civilians had died. It is reportedly the first time Russia has struck targets inside Syria from a third country since it began a campaign to prop up Syria's president last year. Iran is Bashar al-Assad's main regional ally and has provided significant military and financial support since an uprising against him erupted in 2011.\nThe US State Department said Russia's use of an Iranian base was \"unfortunate but not surprising\". Asked about moves towards a possible agreement with Russia to co-operate in fighting so-called Islamic State (IS), a spokesman, Mark Toner, said closer Russian-Iranian ties would not necessarily preclude a deal. But he added: \"We're not there yet.\"\nIn recent months, senior Russian and Iranian officials have discussed boosting their military co-operation, reports the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow.\nLast week, Russia asked Iran and Iraq to allow Russian cruise missiles to fly through their airspace for attacks on terrorist targets in Syria.\nRussia has been operating jets and helicopters from bases in Syria for the past year, but this is the first time that Moscow has deployed aircraft to a third country in the region. Reports indicate that up to six Tupolev Tu-22M3 bombers - known by the Nato codename of \"Backfire\" - are now operating from an air base in western Iran. These planes - originally designed as a long-range strategic bomber - have already been engaged in the Syrian air campaign but operating from bases in southern Russia. Placing them in Iran dramatically reduces the duration of their missions. The Russian defence ministry says that an unspecified number of Sukhoi-34 strike aircraft have also been sent to Iran. Their deployment marks an intensification of the Russian air campaign - perhaps a reflection of the scale of the fighting in and around Aleppo - and it is a demonstration of the growing warmth in ties between Moscow and Tehran, the Syrian government's two closest allies. The Russian defence ministry statement said Tuesday's air strikes had killed a \"large number\" of militants from IS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a rival jihadist group previously known as al-Nusra Front.\nThey had also resulted in the destruction of five warehouses filled with weapons, ammunition and fuel, and jihadist training camps in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, it added. Three command centres in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour were also hit.\nThe Local Co-ordination Committees in Syria said 15 civilians had died in Russian strikes in the Tariq al-Bab district of Aleppo and a further two in the Daret Izza district.\nAnother 10 people died in air attacks in the Ommal neighbourhood of Deir al-Zour, the committees said.\nThe strikes came a day after Russia's defence minister suggested Moscow was close to an agreement with the US on collaborating in attacks on IS around the divided city of Aleppo, where fighting between Syrian government and rebel forces has escalated in recent weeks.\n\"We are moving step by step closer to a plan - and I'm only talking about Aleppo here - that would really allow us to start fighting together to bring peace so that people can return to their homes in this troubled land,\" Russia's RIA news agency cited Sergei Shoigu as saying.\nThe US has conducted hundreds of air strikes against IS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham militants in Syria since September 2014, but it backs the rebellion.\nAlso on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch alleged that Russian and Syrian government aircraft had been using incendiary weapons in civilian areas in violation of international law - something Moscow has denied.\nA review of photographs and videos indicated there were at least 18 incendiary weapon attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo and Idlib between 5 June and 10 August, the US-based group said. Witnesses and emergency workers reported at least 12 civilians wounded in five of the attacks.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["five warehouses","Three command centres in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour were also hit"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["27 civilians had died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russia"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["militants from IS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Tariq al-Bab district of Aleppo and a further two in the Daret Izza district","Aleppo, Idlib and Deir al-Zour provinces","Syria","the Ommal neighbourhood of Deir al-Zour","eastern province of Deir al-Zour"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Houthi shelling kills seven in Saudi Arabia; nine Yemenis from one family die from an airstrike by the Saudiled alliance. (Reuters)","document":"RIYADH (Reuters) - Shells fired by Yemen’s Houthi group killed seven civilians in southern Saudi Arabia, Saudi state television reported, while an air strike by an Arab coalition destroyed a house east of the Yemeni capital killing nine family members, residents said.\nSaudi Ekhbariyah television said projectiles fired by the Iran-allied Houthis landed at an industrial area in the southern city of Najran, close to the Yemeni border, in one of the deadliest attacks on Saudi Arabia.\nSaudi Arabia’s foes during more than a year of war, the Houthis are Yemen’s dominant political force and are fighting against Saudi-backed loyalists of the country’s exiled government in the Nehm district, where the strike occurred.\nA spokesman for the coalition did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.\nIt said four Saudi citizens and three expatriate workers died. A resident said the projectile landed some 500 meters (yards) from a local power station, causing panic in the city.\n“Najran is sad this evening,” the resident, who asked not to be identified told Reuters.\nEarlier in the day, residents in Nehm area, east of Sanaa, said a plane from the Saudi-led alliance struck the home of a local leader of Yemen’s armed Houthi group while he was out, killing his father and eight members of the family.\nSaudi Arabia and its mostly Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 to restore President Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi to power and fight off the Iran-allied Houthis.\nThe conflict has killed at over 6,500 people and unleashed a humanitarian crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries.\nMedecins Sans Frontieres said an air strike on Monday hit one of its hospitals northwestern Hajja province and killed 11 people and wounded several others. The charity said in a statement on Tuesday that three of those who were wounded had died, raising the death toll to 14.\nUNICEF said a school was bombed on Saturday in neighboring Saada province, killing ten children mostly between the ages of six and eight. Coalition spokesman General Ahmed al-Asseri said the bombing had targeted a centre used by the Houthi militias as a training camp.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["more than a year"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Shells","projectiles","bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["landed at an industrial area in the southern city of Najran","destroyed a house"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed seven civilians","killing nine family members"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Yemen’s Houthi group","Arab coalition"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["targeted a centre used by the Houthi militias as a training camp"]},{"role":"Location","values":["southern Saudi Arabia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 A Malaysian oil tanker, MT Vier Harmoni, is hijacked off the coast of Malaysia and is believed to have been taken to Indonesian waters near the island of Batam, according to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The identity of the hijackers is not yet known. (BBC)","document":"A Malaysian oil tanker has not been hijacked as earlier reported, but taken to Indonesia by its own crew, officials in both countries say.\nThe MT Vier Harmoni, carrying 900,000 litres of diesel, is being searched in Batam Island, Indonesia.\nIndonesian Navy spokesman Edi Sucipto said the confusion was due to an \"internal management problem\". Malaysia also said it was an \"internal dispute\". The tanker was reported missing off Kunatan port, Malaysia, on Monday.\nIts cargo is reportedly worth about 1.57m ringgit ($392,795; 300,000).\nThe head of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said the dispute between the operator and the crew  had been resolved but he did not outline what had happened to the ship's oil cargo, or whether it would sail back to Malaysia.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["its own crew"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["A Malaysian oil tanker"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kunatan port, Malaysia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Wednesday's attack in Hadera was the first bomb attack in Israel since 28 August, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to Beersheba's central bus station wounding 20 people.","document":"The blast happened near a food stand in the town's busy market place.  The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said it carried out the attack in revenge for Israel's killing of its senior leader, Luay Saadi, on Monday.\nEarly on Thursday, Israel launched air strikes on Gaza, but no casualties were reported.\nThe third successive day of air raids came after Defence Minister  Shaul Mofaz ordered a military operation against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.\nWednesday's attack in Hadera was the first bomb attack in Israel since 28 August, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to Beersheba's central bus station wounding 20 people.\nPalestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, saying \"it is against our interests and it only increases the violence in this region.\"\nThe US described the bombing as \"a heinous attack on innocent civilians\", stressing that the Palestinian Authority needed \"to do more to end the violence and prevent terrorist attacks\". 'Looks like a war'\nPolice said a suicide bomber walked into the market in Hadera, detonating his explosives at a falafel stand near the town's central bus station at around 1600 (1400GMT).\nAmbulances rushed to the scene to treat the wounded, as security forces sealed off the town, Israeli media reports.\nThere have been some steps taken but we really need to see a serious disarming of these extremist groups\n Mark RegevIsraeli spokesman\nIn pictures: Hadera attack\nIsraeli ambulance official Chaim Rafalowski told the BBC the market would have been busy with people stocking up on supplies, on the first working day following a two-day holiday.\nEidan Akiva, who lives near the site of the blast, told Israeli TV that body parts were strewn across the street next to his apartment building. The damage was immense, he added.\n\"All the stalls alongside just fell apart. The windows are all broken. It looks like a war was here,\" he told Channel Ten.\nNational police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told French news agency AFP that five Israelis as well as the suicide bomber had been killed, and 26 were wounded.\nSome of the wounded were treated at a nearby playing field, while others were being evacuated to local hospitals.\nAt least one person was in critical condition, six people were said to be in serious condition and another four had sustained moderate wounds, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported.\n'Natural retaliation'\nMr Abbas vowed that the Palestinian Authority would \"increase its efforts to ensure the continuation of the truce because it is in the interest of both the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples.\"\nBut the Israeli government blamed the attack on the Palestinian Authority's failure to crack down on militants.\nIsraeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Mr Abbas \"says the right thing... But if we have a criticism it's that he talks the right talk, we're waiting for him to follow through on these commitments.  \"Now there have been some steps taken but we really need to see a serious disarming of these extremist groups.\"\nPalestinian militant groups agreed to a ceasefire in February, and there has been relative calm since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August.\nBut Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Habib told the AP Wednesday's attack was a \"natural retaliation\" for the Israeli attack on Luay Saadi in the West Bank on Monday.\n\"The Islamic Jihad movement was committed to the truce, and is still committed to the truce, but this truce should be mutual. We cannot tolerate a one-sided truce,\" he said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["five Israelis as well as the suicide bomber had been killed, and 26 were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday's","around 1600 (1400GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Israel","Hadera","the entrance to Beersheba's central bus station"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2005 Reports indicate that 40 people have died following a U.S. Air raid near Karabilah in Western Iraq. The military says it was a targeted strike against Al Qaeda, whereas doctors treating the injured and dead said the dead were all civilians, including many women and children. (Reuters)","document":"\nMon Oct 31, 3:49 AM ET\nRAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. aircraft bombed a house near\nthe Syrian border before dawn on Monday in what the military\nsaid was a precision strike on an al Qaeda leader.\nA local hospital doctor in the Iraqi town of Qaim said 40\npeople were killed and 20 wounded, many of them women and\nchildren, and a tribal leader said there were no guerrillas in\nthe area.\nA U.S. military spokesman said the precision bombing in\nKarabila, close to Qaim, was meant to avoid civilian\ncasualties.\nU.S. and Iraqi officials describe Qaim and the Euphrates\nValley running southeast from the Syrian border as a prime\nchannel for foreign Islamist fighters heading for Baghdad.\n\"The Americans started to bomb around Betha from after\nmidnight (2100 GMT) until dawn,\" said a police officer, reached\nby telephone, who asked not to be named for his own security.\nHe did not know the number of casualties who were taken\nfrom the village of Betha, outside Karabila, to Qaim hospital.\nAt the hospital, doctor Ammar al-Marsoumi said he believed\n40 civilians were killed and 20 wounded; rescuers were still\ntrying to remove bodies from the rubble, he added.\nMohammad al-Karbouli, a local tribal leader said: \"There\nare no insurgents in this area, they are all harmless\nfamilies.\"\nColonel David Lapan, in a reply to an e-mail about the\nbombing, said: \"The only air strike in that area (west of Qaim)\nof which I am aware is an attack on a terrorist safe house in\nKarabila that occurred before dawn this morning.\n\"A senior al Qaeda cell leader was the target of the\nstrike. The timing of the attack and use of precision-guided\nmunitions is intended to avoid civilian casualties.\"\nU.S. marines have mounted several offensives against their\nstrongholds in the area over the past few months as part of\nefforts to stem the insurgency among Local Iraqi and U.S. military officials have frequently\ncontradicted each other on the nature and number of casualties.\nU.S. officers accuse local doctors of inflating casualty\nfigures and describing dead guerrilla fighters as civilians.\nIndependent verification of the casualties was not\npossible; the conflict has made it all but impossible for\njournalists to operate in the area most of the time.\n(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rashid and Alastair\nMacdonald)\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["after\nmidnight (2100 GMT) until dawn"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombed"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["40 civilians were killed and 20 wounded","40\npeople were killed and 20 wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["U.S. aircraft"]},{"role":"Date","values":["before dawn on Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a house","an al Qaeda leader"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syrian border","Karabila, close to Qaim","around Betha"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2005 A series of Suicide bombings kill 74 Shia worshippers at two mosques in eastern Iraq while in Baghdad two car bombs destroy the blast wall protecting a hotel housing foreign journalists and kill eight Iraqis. (Ynetnews) (BBC)","document":"In the worst attacks, suicide bombers struck two Shia mosques in the town of Khanaqin near the Iranian border, killing at least 74 people.\nThe bombers blew themselves up while hundreds of worshippers were attending  Friday prayers, in what is being seen as an act of sectarian provocation.\nEarlier, six people were killed in two suicide car bombs in Baghdad.\nThe attacks outside an interior ministry building in the central Jadiriya district injured at least 40 people and brought down a block of flats. A hotel used by foreigners may also have been targeted in the attack.\nA nearby interior ministry detention centre has been at the centre of a detainee abuse scandal. The suicide bombs in Khanaqin, in north-eastern Iraq, are the latest in a string of attacks against Shia mosques.\nThe BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says the attacks were intended as an act of sectarian provocation, as all the casualties must have been Shia Muslims at prayer.\n\"Two suicide bombers wearing explosive belts walked into the Greater and the Smaller Khanaqin mosques and blew themselves up,\" Diyala provincial council leader Ibrahim Hasan al-Bajalan told the AFP news agency.\nThe blasts in enclosed spaces, packed with worshippers, caused horrendous casualties.\n                            BLOODIEST VIOLENCE IN IRAQ\n                        18 Nov 2005 - 80 deadMultiple bombings in Baghdad and two Khanaqin mosques\n14 Sept 2005 - 182 deadSuicide car bomber targets Baghdad labourers in worst of a series of bombs\n16 Aug 2005 - 90 deadSuicide bomber detonates fuel tanker in Musayyib\n28 Feb 2005 - 114 deadSuicide car bomb hits government jobseekers in Hilla\n24 June 2004 - 100 deadCo-ordinated blasts in Mosul and four other cities\n2 March 2004 - 140 deadSuicide bombers attack Shia festival-goers in Karbala and Baghdad\n1 Feb 2004 - 105 deadTwin attacks on Kurdish parties' offices in Irbil\n28 Aug 2003 - 85 deadCar bomb at Najaf shrine kills Shia cleric Muhammad Baqr Hakim and many others     Hospitals throughout the region had to take in the wounded as local facilities could not cope.\nMr Bajalan said the two mosques had been completely destroyed and he expressed fears that many more casualties may be trapped beneath the rubble.\nSecurity forces moved into the area shortly afterwards and imposed a curfew, AFP reported.\nKhanaqin is a mixed Kurdish and Shia town near the Iranian border that was severely affected by the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.\nThe town lies within a Kurdish-controlled area that has so far escaped much of the violence that has afflicted other parts of Iraq.\nAlleged abuses\nIn Baghdad, the detainee abuse scandal was sparked five days ago,  when US troops found 173 prisoners -  some of whom had reportedly been tortured - in a bunker in an interior ministry building. In the light of the apparently systemic nature and magnitude of the problem... I urge the authorities to consider calling for an international inquiry\n Louise ArbourUN Rights Commissioner Arbour calls for probe\nOn Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called for an international investigation into the conditions for detainees in Iraq.\nMost of the detainees are believed to be Sunni Arabs - the main group involved in the insurgency. Sunni politician Saleh Mutlaq has accused the government of holding more than 1,100 prisoners at the ministry and suggested a number of them had been tortured to death. He also called for the alleged abuses at the detention centre to be referred to international courts.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombs","explosive belts"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["two mosques had been completely destroyed"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least 74 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["two Shia mosques"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of Khanaqin near the Iranian border","Khanaqin, in north-eastern Iraq"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2005 Conflict in Iraq: Five Iraqi civilians, including three children, are shot dead by U.S. troops as they approached a checkpoint in Baquba. The minibus they were travelling in failed to stop as it approached a roadblock. (BBC)","document":"A US military spokesman said the minibus they were travelling in failed to stop as it approached a roadblock  at about 0800 (0500 GMT).\nTwo men and three children were killed and two women and a child were wounded, Iraqi police said.\nA US military spokesman put the toll at three dead and two wounded.\nThe family was travelling to a funeral at the time, witnesses said.\nThe roadblock had been set up to allow military vehicles to turn off a highway into the base.\n\"The Iraqi car wouldn't slow down and warning shots were fired,\"  Maj Steven Warren told news agency AFP.\nHe said the vehicle did not stop and came under machine-gun fire.\nKilled one by one\nAhmed Kamel al-Sawamara, a 22-year-old who was driving the car, said he had no time to react when shots began raining down.\n\"The soldiers started shooting at us from all over,\" he told reporters. \"I slowed down and pulled off the road, but they continued firing. \"I saw my family killed, one after the other, and then the car caught fire. I dragged their bodies out.\"\nSince the US-led invasion in 2003, there have been repeated incidents in which American troops have fired on civilian vehicles.\nCheckpoints and convoys are frequently targeted by insurgents and troops often put up signs in Arabic telling people to stay back or risk being shot.\nThe US military said it takes all possible measures to avoiding shooting innocent civilians.\nCorrespondents say Iraqis generally pull over to the side of the road when coalition forces approach. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["machine-gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two men and three children were killed and two women and a child were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["US military"]},{"role":"Date","values":["about 0800 (0500 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["The Iraqi car"]},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2005 A suicide car bomber kills at least 18 and injuries at least 25, mostly Iraqi Police, in an ambush in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. (BBC)","document":"Police officers were lured to a market area by a small bombing, then the bomber rammed a patrol car, setting off a larger explosion.\nKirkuk has been the scene of frequent attacks on police by insurgents waging war on US-led multinational forces and their Iraqi allies.\nAt least 25 people are reported to have been injured in the latest attack.\nThe bomber struck near the main road leading to Baghdad on the outskirts of Kirkuk, according to reports.\nAbout half those killed were police officers, a police spokesman said. Many of the wounded were also police.\nOil tensions\nCorrespondents say some of Kirkuk's tensions are caused by the mixture of Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen inhabitants, all of whom claim ownership of the city and the oil-rich territory around it.\nA mortar was fired as a palace was handed over by the US to Iraq\nA week ago four policemen were shot dead in an ambush east of Kirkuk, while three others were killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in the centre of the city.\nThe Kirkuk attack takes to at least 160 the number of Iraqis killed in suicide operations since Friday.\nIt came hours after insurgents fired a mortar round during a US ceremony to transfer one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in his hometown of Tikrit to Iraqi control.\nNo-one was injured but TV footage showed guests including the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, rushing for cover.\nThe shell failed to detonate properly and the ceremony continued after a brief interruption, the US military said.\nThree US soldiers have been killed since Saturday, the US military said, bringing the American death toll in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to at least 2,100.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombing"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 25 people are reported to have been injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the main road leading to Baghdad on the outskirts of Kirkuk"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2005 At least thirty people have died following a car bomb outside a hospital in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. (BBC)","document":"The bomb was detonated as two Iraqi police cars drew up near the general hospital in Mahmudiya, about 20km (12 miles) outside Baghdad.\nA US military convoy passing by was also hit by the blast.\nOn Thursday evening a car bomb exploded in a busy market in Hilla, killing at least two people and injuring more.\nAt least 13 were injured in the blast, which occurred when a parked car exploded at about 1800 (1500 GMT) in the mainly Shia town, police said.\nCivilian deaths\nMahmudiya is a mixed Sunni-Shia town in a region where insurgents have launched many attacks on US-led forces.\n\"At this time it appears that four of our soldiers were wounded but they are not life-threatening injuries,\" Sergeant David Abrams said of the US troops hurt in the attack.\nSeveral Iraqi policemen were killed in the blast.\nWomen and children were also among the many civilian casualties, including at least one medic at the hospital's emergency centre. \"I was leaving the hospital with my one-and-a-half-year-old son in my arms when the explosion happened,\" Huda Ali told the AFP news agency.\n\"I was knocked down by the force of the blast and when I came to, my son was no longer in my arms. I found him among the dead.\"\nThe BBC's correspondent in Baghdad, Jim Muir, says that unlike many of the horrendous bomb attacks over the past week, the attack in Mahmudiya does not seem to have been aimed at the civilian population as such but at the Iraqi police. Nonetheless, it is the civilians who have paid the bulk of the price, our correspondent says. 'Insurgents' last stand'\nLaith Kubba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told reporters that insurgent attacks are likely to increase in the run-up to December's parliamentary elections. He predicted that Muslim extremists and militants loyal to Saddam Hussein would make their last stand.\n\"Muslim extremists will be surrounded then wiped out,\" Mr Kubba said, although he conceded that it would not happen quickly.\nIn other developments, three US soldiers from Task Force Baghdad were killed in two separate attacks on military patrols in Baghdad on Wednesday, the US military said in a statement. One soldier was killed in central Baghdad, while two others were killed in the south-west of the city.\nAn Iraqi soldier was also killed on Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded in Khalidiya, near Falluja, police said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least two people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday evening","about 1800 (1500 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Iraqi police"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the general hospital in Mahmudiya, about 20km (12 miles) outside Baghdad","Khalidiya, near Falluja","a busy market in Hilla","the mainly Shia town"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 The President of the United States, George W. Bush, acknowledges the deaths of approximately 30,000 Iraqi civilians since the commencement of the Iraq War. (The Australian)","document":"\t\tUS President George W. Bush has acknowledged for the first time that 30,000 civilians could have died since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, in another landmark speech ahead of elections in Iraq tomorrow.\n\t\t \"How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,\" Mr Bush said when questioned after his speech.\nMr Bush was addressing foreign policy experts in Philadelphia, which has symbolic significance because he spoke only a few blocks from where the US declared independence from Britain in 1776.\nMr Bush said that, while with the benefit of hindsight America's democratic experiment seemed almost inevitable, \"at the time, however, that success didn't seem so obvious or assured\", he said, attempting to link the uneven progress in Iraq to the founding of the US.\n\"No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts.\"\nBut it was a lengthy question-and-answer session in which Mr Bush offered a rare candid assessment of the progress in Iraq, including his estimate on the number of civilian casualties.\nThere was no indication of how the casualty number could be broken down in terms of deaths at the hands of the US-led forces or by the Iraqi insurgents, but the 30,000 mark equates to estimates of several organisations that have been attempting to track the civilian tragedy behind the war.\nLater, Mr Bush's media aides were telling reporters it was not an official estimate. The Pentagon has refused to give any indication on civilian deaths, instead focusing only on the now more than 2100 US military deaths.\nMr Bush's speech is the third of four speeches on Iraq in the two weeks leading up to the country's national elections. Until now he has refused to take questions and his delivery has faltered. But yesterday, in a more persuasive performance, Mr Bush commanded the lectern when he surprised the audience by offering to take their questions.\nWhen questioned over the administration's now discredited attempts to link Saddam Hussein with al-Qa'ida, Mr Bush said the former Iraqi dictator had posed a threat to the US, particularly in the post 9/11 world.\n\"And knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again,\" he said. \"Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country.\"\nMr Bush again cautioned there would be further casualties in Iraq and continued to cast Iraq as the key battleground in a war with terrorist groups. He also flagged his concern about other countries that could be harbouring terrorist regimes.\n\"The long run in this war is going to require a change in governments in parts of the world,\" he said.\nMr Bush did not specify what countries he was referring to, but had cited elsewhere in his address his concerns about North Korea, Iran and Syria.\nMr Bush said \"the call of liberty\" was \"echoing across the broader Middle East\".\n\"From Damascus to Tehran, people hear it and they know it means something,\" he said. \"It means that the days of tyranny and terror are ending and a new day of hope and freedom is dawning.\"\nMr Bush also admitted yesterday that the US had an image problem abroad, but he blamed Arab media.\n\"I recognise we got an image issue, particularly when you got television stations, Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America - saying America is fighting Islam, Americans can't stand Muslims, this is a war against a religion,\" he said.\n\"And we've got to, obviously, do a better job of reminding people that ours is not a nation that rejects religion; ours is a nation that accepts people of all faith and that the great strength of America is the capacity for people to worship freely.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["30,000 civilians could have died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["US"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Iraqis"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Iraq"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 An Israeli Air-Strike in the Gaza Strip leaves four Palestinians dead. Israel claims that all four were militants and were about to launch a rocket attack into Israel. (BBC) (Haaretz)","document":"Israel said it targeted a car carrying four militants who were on their way to launch a strike on Israeli targets.\nThe car was travelling near the Karni crossing, the main cargo passage between the Gaza Strip and Israel.\nJust hours later, a second Israeli air strike wounded Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib as he travelled in a car in Gaza City, witnesses said.\nIsrael has stepped up targeted strikes on members of Palestinian militant groups following a suicide bombing in the town of Netanya earlier this month.\nIslamic Jihad - a Palestinian militant group - claimed responsibility for the attack, in which five Israelis were killed.\nRevenge threat\nAn unmanned Israeli drone fired two missiles at the car near the Karni crossing, ripping it apart, witnesses said.\nIsrael said the car had been carrying four members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of militants, who were \"on the way to carrying out an attack against an Israeli target\".\nA military spokeswoman said that the size of the blast \"shows that explosives were being transported in the vehicle\".\nAbu Abir of the Popular Resistance Committees was quoted by Reuters news agency as urging Israelis in a town near Gaza \"to flee their homes because soon our rockets will target them.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["two missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Israel"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a car carrying four militants who were on their way to launch a strike"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Karni crossing"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 40 people killed in DR Congo in a clash between Ugandan rebels and UNCongolese troops. The Ituri area has been the site of a joint action. (BBC)","document":"The UN, which has 600 soldiers in the region, says the rebels are on the run.\nAbout 40 people have died in the most recent fighting, including an Indian UN peacekeeper and three Congolese troops.\nThe fighting began when the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group launched a counter-attack against the Congolese and UN soldiers in North Kivu province.\n\"It's an ongoing operation, the Ugandan rebels are in full flight,\" UN military spokesman Major Hans-Jakob Reichen told Reuters news agency.\nThe UN says its operation in the area seeks to bring security to people  harassed by hundreds of militiamen.\nThe operation in the region, known as North Night Final, involves 3,500 Congolese troops, supported by 600 UN peacekeepers using helicopter gunships. Attack\nThe UN and Congolese troops were attacked in the early hours of Sunday after the UN tried to search the area, 30km south of the town of Beni.\nThe death of the Indian peacekeeper brings to 60 the total number of UN peacekeepers killed since the beginning of the UN deployment in DR Congo six years ago. Since last week, more than 500 UN peacekeepers from Bangladesh, Nepal and Morocco, and about 3,000 Congolese soldiers, have also been conducting other large operations in the nearby district of Ituri, aiming at restoring peace. They are trying to recapture some areas that have been under the control of militiamen there. On Saturday, the UN announced the Congolese army had recaptured the former rebel stronghold of Nioka, 80km north of Bunia.\nThe UN has 16,000 peacekeepers across DR Congo, in the largest military operation in the world.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["About 40 people have died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early hours of Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["600 soldiers","3,500 Congolese troops"]},{"role":"Target","values":["the Congolese and UN soldiers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["North Kivu province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 Israel Defense Forces forces launch Operation Blue Skies, firing artillery rounds against areas in the northern Gaza Strip and at the areas in proximity to the newly established ‘security strip’ - an area of the Gaza Strip that Israel has declared off limits to Palestinians which Israel claims is aimed at distancing Qassam rocket launchers from the border with Israel. (Ynetnews)","document":"(VIDEO) Operation “Blue Skies” underway: The Air Force struck at six northern Gaza access roads leading to Qassam rocket launching sites early Thursday. Army officials said the raids were meant to hamper ongoing rocket attacks on Israeli targets.\n\nAt 6 p.m. Wednesday, as planned, IDF forces launched a large-scale operation, firing artillery rounds against targets in the northern Gaza Strip and at the areas in close proximity to the newly established ‘security strip,’ which is aimed at distancing Qassam launchers from the border with Israel.\nOperation “Blue Skies” (Footage: Reuters)\nArea sealed off to Palestinian movement\n\nAn hour before the operation commenced a Qassam rocket landed just south of Sderot in an open field. No injuries or damage were reported. The city’s “Red Dawn” alert system warned residents of the incoming rocket.\n\nEarlier the army distributed leaflets\n\t to northern Gaza residents featuring a map indicating the limits of the buffer zone, which includes areas evacuated by Israel in the summer  the former settlements of Elei Sinai, Nissanit, and Dugit. \nIDF gun aims at northern Gaza (Photo: AP)\n\n\"Whoever ignores this warning is putting his life in genuine danger,\" the leaflet said. \"Know that terror elements have turned you into hostages and a human shield and are undermining your interests.\"\n\nOperation \"Blue Skies\" marks an IDF attempt to move into high gear when it comes to Qassam rocket attacks but to do so by offering a measured response and avoiding an escalation in the area. Army officials admitted the operation may reduce the number of rocket attacks on Israel but would not curb them completely.\n\n'Situation is definitely frightening'\n\n“The first phase is intended to create an area empty of citizens and all those who are not engaged in terror activity,” and IDF official told Ynet.\n\n“In this way, anyone who remains in the area is considered a terror suspect and therefore may be harmed.”\n\nEarlier IDF officers met with their Palestinian counterparts and presented maps detailing the area in which the army will increasingly operate.\n\nWhile Palestinian Authority sources stated that police officers would not be evacuated from northern Gaza due to operation “Blue Skies,” eyewitnesses reported of entire police outposts being cleared. \nSources in the Palestinian Authority said that in the meantime no families have left their homes following the IDF attacks. Abu Alla Swilam, a resident of the town of Beit Hanun, told Ynet that in spite of the bombardment, which is \"very frightening,\" he does not intend on leaving the town. \n\"During the current intifada I was forced to leave my home four times. I have no intention of leaving this time. From here they will only take us to the cemetery,\" he said.\n Hassan, a schoolteacher in north Gaza, told Ynet, “No one intends to leave their homes. Their will not be an exodus of residents from the north into the central part of the Strip, but the situation is definitely frightening.” \n“On the one hand we have gotten used to the IDF’s threats, operations and bombings, but this is different, because this time the threat appears to be more concrete and substantial,” he added.\n\n“We are waiting to see how things develop in the coming hours, but we do not plan to pack up our belongings and leave our homes.”","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["artillery rounds"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["IDF forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["6 p.m. Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Qassam launchers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the northern Gaza Strip"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 A statement is posted, apparently from al-Qaeda in Iraq, on several websites claiming responsibility for a recent Katyusha bombardment of northern Israeli towns. (CNN) (Ha'aretz)","document":"Al Qaeda in Iraq said it had launched missiles at Israel from Lebanon as part of a \"new attack\" on the Jewish state, a statement posted on the Web said on Thursday.\"The lion sons of al Qaeda launched ... a new attack on the Jewish state by launching 10 missiles ... from the Muslims' lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state,\" said the statement, attributed to al Qaeda and posted on an Islamist Web site. It did not give the date of the attack.Nine katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Tuesday night. Four rockets hit the town of Kiryat Shmona, while another hit the Western Galilee town of Shlomi and four landed in open areas in the same area. Two houses in Kiryat Shmona sustained heavy damage, and four residents were treated for shock.\nIt appeared to be the first claim of responsibility from al Qaeda for an attack on Israel from Lebanon. The statement could not be authenticated, but was posted on a main Web site frequently used by Iraqi insurgent groups.Sources in the Israel Defense Forces said it was difficult to determine the announcement's reliability. Army intelligence estimated earlier that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril, was responsible for the Katyusha fire - probably in coordination with Hezbollah.Israel Air Force fighter jets fired two missiles at a PFLP-GC training base at Na'ameh, about seven kilometers south of Beirut, early Wednesday morning, slightly wounding two fighters.IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told Army Radio Thursday morning he does not know with certainty who is responsible for Tuesday's missile attack. Halutz mentioned that several militant organizations other than Hezbollah are active in southern Lebanon, including Palestinian terror groups, saying that Syria's involvement \"behind the scenes\" in the Lebanese arena is noticeable. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["10 missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["Two houses"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Al Qaeda"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Israel"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the north of the Jewish state","the town of Kiryat Shmona","the Western Galilee town of Shlomi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 A statement is posted, apparently from al-Qaeda in Iraq, on several websites claiming responsibility for a recent Katyusha bombardment of northern Israeli towns. (CNN) (Ha'aretz)","document":"(CNN) -- In what may be a sign that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group is expanding its operations, Al Qaeda in Iraq has posted a statement claiming responsibility for firing missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel earlier this week.\nThe statement, posted Thursday on Web sites used previously by al Qaeda in Iraq, cannot be independently verified by CNN.\nThe three rockets were fired late Tuesday from Lebanon into the Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona. The attack resulted in minor damage and no casualties.\nHowever, the Al Qaeda in Iraq statement called the attack a success.\n\"After days of monitoring and surveillance, ... a lion launched 10 Grad (Russian) missiles ... from the Muslims' lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the northern part of the Jewish state,\" the statement said. \"The brothers had accomplished the attack successfully, exactly as they designed it.\"\nIt is not clear why Al Qaeda in Iraq -- a Sunni Arab terror group that has launched attacks against Shiite targets inside Iraq -- would be operating in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah frequently fires rockets across the border into Israel. Hezbollah has strong ties with Iran, a Shiite country.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office had no comment on the statement, which was posted on several Web sites used previously for similar claims of responsibility by al Qaeda in Iraq.\nThe Israeli military said it held Lebanon's government responsible for not dismantling terror groups operating within its borders. Hours after Tuesday's strike, Israeli warplanes dropped missiles on a terrorist training camp near Beirut, run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.\nAl Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for two other attacks outside of Iraq: last month's deadly hotel attacks in Amman, Jordan, and a rocket attack in August that targeted but missed two U.S. warships in the Jordanian port of Aqaba","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["10 Grad (Russian) missiles","three rockets"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Al Qaeda"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Israel","the Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2005 A bomb explodes in downtown Palu, Indonesia, killing at least eight people and wounding 45 people. (BBC)","document":"Witnesses in the town of Palu reported seeing bodies lying on the ground after hearing a deafening blast.\nThe bomb exploded in the busy morning hours at a stall selling pork in a largely Christian part of the town.\nThe province's Christians have been repeatedly targeted in recent attacks blamed on Muslim militants.\n'Bodies on the ground'\nPolice officials said the bomb was packed with nails and ball bearings.\n\"Most of the victims suffered injuries to their legs because of the shrapnel from the bomb,\" a police spokesman told the AFP news agency.\nAnother explosive device was reportedly discovered and defused near the site of the explosion.\nA witness quoted by the Associated Press news agency said: \"The explosion was so loud, I couldn't hear for a couple of seconds.\"\n\"I ran out of my house and saw bodies lying around,\" the witness said.\nBystanders carried bloodied shoppers from the makeshift market to a road, putting them in passing cars to be taken to hospital. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has condemned the attack.\nTwelve people were reported to have been arrested in connection with the bomb blast.\nRecent attacks\nIndonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but the population in many parts of Central Sulawesi province is split equally between Muslims and Christians.\nSecurity was tightened in the province recently amid fears of fresh violence between the two communities.\nThree Christian schoolgirls were beheaded by masked assailants in Poso district in October.\nTwenty people were killed in May this year when two bombs exploded in the largely Christian town of Tentena.\nAlmost 1,000 people died when inter-religious clashes flared in Central Sulawesi province in 2000 and 2001.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb","nails and ball bearings"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Muslim militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["The province's Christians"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the largely Christian town of Tentena","town of Palu","a stall selling pork in a largely Christian part of the town"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2006 At least three Qassam rockets landed in the western Negev, despite Israel Defense Forces' Operation Blue Skies. At least one Qassam rocket landed in Sderot, in which the Red Dawn alert system was activated around 15:30. Two Qassam rockets landed in an open area near Israeli communities in the western Negev. In all the cases there were no injuries. (Ynetnews)","document":"Two rockets landed in an open area near a western Negev community. No injuries were reported in the strike. Meanwhile, the \"Red Dawn\" alert system was activated in the southern town of Sderot around 3 p.m. after a Qassam was launched at the community. \nAll three rockets were fired from areas not targeted during operation Blue Skies.\n\nSderot resident Moshe Ben Sheetrit told Ynet he did not see the rocket land but heard the explosion.\n\n\"It was very loud. The (Red Dawn) system was activated, but it doesn't really help. Unfortunately, all of us are practiced and know what to do,\" he said. \"I hope it will get quiet, because we're sick and tired of this tension.\"\n\n2 terrorists killed\n\nThe latest Qassam fire follows the first successful IDF strike at terrorists planning to fire rockets in the framework of operation \"Blue Skies\". Saturday night, the Air Force spotted a rocket launching cell and fired at it, killing two Palestinians and wounding one.\n\nFollowing the incident, army officials said the successful neutralization of the Qassam cell demonstrates the effectiveness of operation \"Blue Skies\". However, the officials noted other areas used as Qassam launching sites will also be handled.\n\n\"We must remember 'Blue Skies' can be expended to any area in the Strip,\" one officer said. \"If we see assessments that point to such need, we'll act accordingly.\" \nHowever, the sources admitted some pressure has been exerted, particularly by foreign diplomats, to end the operation.\n\n\"For the time being there's no intention to end the operation and we're continuing as usual,\" one official said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["three rockets"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Qassam"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around 3 p.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the southern town of Sderot","an open area near a western Negev community"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2006 Conflict in Iraq: Six members of the same family of 14 have been confirmed killed following a U.S. airstrike in Northern Iraq. (BBC)","document":"There was confusion over the number of casualties, but local authorities in the town of Beiji, north of Tikrit, have confirmed at least six dead.  US forces said they acted after seeing three men suspected of planting a roadside bomb enter the house.\nThe raid has prompted anger among some local political leaders.\nUS military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson said the men, who ran into the house after digging a hole, were assesed as a threat to civilians and military forces.\n\"An unmanned aerial vehicle... observed the would-be attackers as they dug a hole following the common pattern of roadside bomb emplacement,\" he told the AFP news agency. Even if there had been, why didn't they surround the area and detain the terrorists instead?\n Police Colonel Sufyan Mustafa\n    \"The individuals left the road site and were followed from the air to a nearby building. Coalition forces employed precision guided munitions on the structure.\"\nBut he did not confirm the number of casualties or whether a roadside bomb has been found.\nLocal police chief Colonel Sufyan Mustafa said he believed there were no anti-US insurgents present in the house.\n\"Even if there had been, why didn't they surround the area and detain the terrorists instead?,\" he told the Reuters news agency.\n'Historic crime'\nGhadban Nahd Hassan, 56, told AFP that 14 members of his family had been in the house when it was it bombed. \"I was with some friends in a small shop 100m away from the house when I heard the bombing at around 2130 (1830 GMT),\" he said.\n\"I rushed over to see. My house was destroyed and there was smoke everywhere.\"\nSo far, the bodies of a nine-year-old boy, an 11-year-old girl, three women and three men have been found in the rubble, police said.\nUS forces frequently use air strikes in their battle against Iraqi insurgents, in an effort to minimise US casualties.\nA local official of the biggest Sunni Arab political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, called for demonstrations.\n\"This is a historic crime and another catastrophe for the people of Baiji,\" he told Reuters. \"If there were gunmen or criminals in that house, is it right to blow up the whole family?\"\nHussein al-Falluji, a lawyer and a national leader of the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Accordance Front, said: \"Once again the occupiers have shown their barbarism. They never learn from their mistakes... People's resentment is increasing.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least six dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["US forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around 2130 (1830 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of Beiji, north of Tikrit"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2006 Conflict in Iraq: At least 50 die following a series of insurgent attacks across Iraq, including a suicide bomb at a Shia funeral which left 36 mourners dead. (BBC)","document":"In the worst attack, at least 36 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a Shia funeral north of Baghdad. Across Iraq, more than 50 people died.\nIn Washington, President George Bush said the plan in Iraq was going well.\nHe said Iraqi forces were improving all the time. \"As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down,\" he said, touting possible further cuts in US troop levels.\nMr Bush said wide participation in Iraq's election showed the people were buying into the new democracy, and had more confidence in their security. \"The election results served as a real defeat for the rejectionists,\" he said. However, after a drop in insurgent attacks around the time of the elections, car bombings and suicide attacks have intensified. In some of Wednesday's other incidents:\nBlood-stained tombstones\nIn Wednesday's attack on a funeral near Baquba, mourners took cover in a graveyard amid mortar and automatic weapons fire, before a suicide bomber detonated explosives attached to his body.\nThe funeral was for a bodyguard killed in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on a local leader of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Islamic Dawa Party.\nMore than 100 mourners were at the funeral that was targeted\nThe explosion in Miqdadiya, 100km (60 miles) from Baghdad, left tombstones stained with blood and small body parts on the ground, police said.\nPolice Lt Salam Hussein told the Associated Press that the bombing had been a \"terrorist act\" aimed at igniting a Shia-Sunni civil war.\nThe people behind such attacks want to destabilise the country and shed more blood,\" he added.\nThe politician targeted in the attack on Tuesday escaped with his life.\nFuel crisis\nShortly after the funeral attack, a convoy of 60 fuel tankers was ambushed, with insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades at the convoy, police said.\nOne driver was killed and at least 18 vehicles in the escorted convoy were damaged or destroyed in the attack about 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, according to police.\nThe attack comes as Iraq grapples with a fuel crisis stemming from the closure of a major refinery in the north that has prompted panic buying of fuel and long queues at petrol stations.\nThe defence ministry said there have been 420 incidents in the last week which have killed or injured more than 200 people, the BBC's Alastair Leithead in Baghdad says.\nThe violence comes as Shia, Sunni and Kurdish politicians continue efforts to form a coalition governments in the wake of the elections.\nBut the violence is a reminder of how quickly militants can fill the political vacuum, our correspondent says.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["mortar and automatic weapons","explosives"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 36 people were killed","more than 50 people died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday's"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the funeral","More than 100 mourners"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a Shia funeral north of Baghdad","Across Iraq","near Baquba"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2006 ABC World News Tonight coanchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are seriously injured by an improvised explosive device near Taji, Iraq. (ABC News)","document":"Jan. 29, 2006  -- \"World News Tonight\" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt are recovering from injuries suffered when their convoy was hit by an improvised explosive devise in Iraq today.\nThey remain in serious but stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq and will be treated at a medical facility in Germany.\nThe two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured when their convoy was attacked near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. Woodruff and Vogt suffered shrapnel wounds and underwent surgery at the U.S. military hospital in Balad.\nBoth suffered head injuries and Woodruff also suffered wounds to his upper body. They were flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and doctors there will assess their condition and monitor their recovery in the coming days.\n\"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical,\" ABC News President David Westin said in a statement.\nWoodruff, Vogt and their four-man team were in the lead vehicle traveling in a convoy with Iraqi security forces in Taji, Iraq. Woodruff and Vogt were standing up in the back hatch of their vehicle taping a video log of the patrol at the time of the attack.\n\"He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it,\" said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.\n\"I spoke with both of them,\" Felsen continued. \"Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked with them to the helicopter.\"\nWoodruff and Vogt had been embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and were in a mechanized vehicle on a combined operation with Iraqi Army and Coalition forces when the explosive went off.\n\"This is very common over there now,\" said White House correspondent Martha Raddatz on \"This Week with George Stephanopoulos.\" \"These attacks are planned, and this [the small arms fire] is a secondary attack.\n\"Sometimes when the medical personnel come in, they have small arms fire following up on that,\" said Raddatz, who also has covered the Pentagon for years and has had extensive experience filing reports from Iraq.\nThe ambush of the convoy was complex. The explosion was followed by small arms fire from three different directions. Iraqi security forces spread out looking for the triggermen while U.S. troops tended to Woodruff and Vogt. The convoy was equipped with improvised explosive device (IED) jammers, which would interfere with the signals from a remote-controlled device using wireless signals.\nOfficials believe the IED was detonated through a hard wire in the ground. The attack on the convoy occurred in the same area where a U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down earlier this month.\nThe U.S. military said it was conducting an investigation into the attack. The White House released a statement extending its condolences to Woodruff and Vogt.\n\"Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt. We are praying for their full and speedy recovery,\" the statement said. \"Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones. The White House is offering to help in any way as the government does when any American is injured in the line of work.\"\nWoodruff and his crew had been traveling in a U.S. armored Humvee, but then transferred into an Iraqi vehicle -- which was believed to be a much softer target for attacks.\n\"It was a mechanized vehicle,\" Raddatz said. \"At least it wasn't one of the pickup trucks they usually drive around in. They were in the lead vehicle, and they were up in the hatch, so they were exposed.\"\nRaddatz said both Woodruff and Vogt were protected. They were wearing body armor, helmets and ballistic glasses. Woodruff and Vogt were taken by medevac to the Green Zone to receive treatment within 37 minutes of the blast. They were then flown by helicopter to  Balad which is about a 20-minute ride from Baghdad, said Raddatz.\n\"There are very good doctors, the best medical care you can possibly get, in Balad,\" said Raddatz.\nTraining Iraq forces to deter insurgent attacks has become a central focus of U.S. strategy toward ultimate troop reduction and withdrawl. Journalists must travel with Iraqi troops to truly cover the conflict in Iraq, but doing so makes them more vulnerable to attack.\n\"If you're going to cover the Iraqi military forces, you have to be with them,\" Raddatz said. \"You have to see how they live. I will tell you one thing, a fewmonths ago when I was there and we wanted to get into an Iraqi pickup truck, one of the American soldiers said, 'You can't do that. It's way too dangerous.' \"\nIraqi security forces, Raddatz said, are a softer target for insurgents.\n\"It's become a primary target. It's a softer target, as you know, but it is a primary target to attack these forces,\" Raddatz said. \"There have been hundreds and hundreds -- thousands, probably -- of Iraqi security forces killed. Sometimes they're attacked by suicide bombers, but they have become a primary target. It is very dangerous business training these troops,  for that reason alone.\"\nBut Woodruff and Vogt knew this and were very careful.\n\"I have worked with Doug Vogt so many times. He is no hot dog. Bob Woodruff would not take risks that were -- without his body armor or anything else. They are both very careful. Doug, as a matter of fact, when he was with Terry Moran a few months ago, they hit a very small IED, and one of the Iraqi forces was killed. Doug was also in that convoy, but he was in an armored humvee at that time.\"\nIEDs have accounted for more than half of all U.S. military injuries in Iraq and are the single greatest cause of death of service members.\nAs of January 21, 2006: 9,282 of 16,548 injuries were caused by IEDs. At least 894 of the  2,242 deaths in Iraq have been from IEDs.\nThe number of IED attacks on U.S. and coalition forces on Iraq has nearly doubled since 2004. But there have been fewer overall IED-related deaths and injuries.\nEach deployment of soldiers has learned how to become more aware of IEDs, protective quipment has become more hardened, and commanders. In  addition, commanders have learned how to best move troops around a battle space in ways intended to limit the effectiveness of IEDs.\nAlong with Elizabeth Vargas, Woodruff, 44, was named co-anchor of \"World News Tonight\" last month, replacing the late Peter Jennings, who died of lung cancer last year. Woodruff has been on assignment in Iraq and planned to broadcast from the war-torn country this week for the State of the Union address.\nA father of four children, he was one of the first Western reporters in Pakistan following the Sept. 11 attacks.\nWoodruff's overseas reporting of the fallout from Sept. 11 was part of ABC News coverage recognized with the Alfred I. DuPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism.\nHe has also covered the Iraq conflict in Baghdad, Najaf, Nassariya and Basra. During the initial invasion, Woodruff reported from the front lines as an embedded journalist with the First Marine Division, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.\nVogt, a 46-year-old father of three daughters, has been with ABC News for more than 15 years, and has extensive  experience in war-torn regions. He was sitting next to ABC News producer David Kaplan when the producer was shot and killed in Bosnia. Earlier this month, he was with Woodruff in Iran and was recently in another convoy in which someone was killed by an IED.\n\"They've covered all the wars, the hot spots,\" said ABC News' Jim Sciutto, who is covering the war in Iraq. \"[Vogt] is the cameraman we all request when we go to the field because he's so good, a fantastic eye. He's won so many awards for ABC.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["an improvised explosive devise"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["The two and an Iraqi soldier were seriously injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["today"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["their convoy"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near Taji, Iraq, about 12 miles north of Baghdad","Iraq"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Three bombings targeting police and military kill at least 12 people and wound 219 in southeast Turkey. (BBC)","document":"At least 12 people have been killed and 219 wounded in three bomb attacks in Turkey's southeast.\nBlasts at police stations in Van and Elazig killed four police officers and two civilians, reports said.\nFive soldiers and a village guard died when their vehicle was targeted in Bitlis province.\nTurkish officials blamed the Kurdish militant group, the PKK, for the attacks, which took place outside Kurdish majority areas in the region.\n\"Our fight against terror will never cease,\" said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.\nThe PKK has carried a series of bombings targeting the police in the largely Kurdish south-east since a ceasefire with the government broke down last year.\nLast week, PKK commander Cemil Bayik threatened increased attacks against police in Turkish cities.\nTelevision footage showed plumes of smoke rising above the destroyed police building in Elazig. The force of the blast blew out nearby cars, uprooted trees and left a large crater outside the building.\nThe bombing in Van struck near a hall where a wedding party was in progression, sending the bride and groom and their guests fleeing in panic, AFP news agency reported.\nAt least eight people were killed in two attacks on police vehicles in nearby Diyarbakir and Kiziltepe last week.\nSince last month's failed coup in Turkey, there has been much talk of national unity.\nBut this has not included the pro-Kurdish political party which the Turkish authorities say supports the PKK, reports the BBC's Turkey correspondent Mark Lowen. The pro-Kurdish HDP denies any link to the militants.\nMore than 180 PKK militants had been killed and 3,000 detained since the coup bid, Mr Erdogan said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 12 people have been killed and 219 wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Kurdish militant group, the PKK"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["police stations"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Van and Elazig","Turkey's southeast","Bitlis province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Syrian government warplanes bomb Kurdish-held areas of Al-Hasakah for the first time in the country's five-year civil war, killing at least 13 people. (BBC) (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government warplanes bombed Kurdish-held areas of the northeastern city of Hasaka on Thursday for the first time in the country’s five-year-old civil war, killing at least 13 people, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and a monitoring group said.\nThe powerful YPG, a crucial partner in the U.S.-led war against Islamic State, said it would “not be silent” over what it called it an act of flagrant aggression. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.\nPeople’s Protection Units (YPG) spokesman Redur Xelil said the air strikes had hit Kurdish districts of the city, which is mostly controlled by Kurdish groups, and positions held by a Kurdish security force known as the Asayish.\n“There are martyrs and wounded,” he told Reuters.\nGovernment forces were also bombarding Kurdish districts of Hasaka with artillery, and there were fierce clashes in the city.\n“Every hand spattered with the blood of our people will be held to account through all possible and available means,” the YPG said in a statement.\nThe YPG and Syrian government forces have mostly left each other to their own devices in the conflict, during which Kurdish groups have exploited the collapse of state control to establish autonomy across much of the country’s north.\nThe government, which routinely uses its air force against rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in western Syria, still has footholds in the cities of Qamishli and Hasaka, both in the Hasaka governorate.\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war using a network of activists, said warplanes had targeted Kurdish security forces’ positions in the northwest and northeast of Hasaka city.\nIt said clashes were also taking place in a number of places around Hasaka.\nAt least thirteen people, including children and women, were killed as a result of shelling by the army on Kurdish-controlled areas in the city, the monitor said.\nSyria’s complex, multi-sided war has created a patchwork of areas across the country controlled by the government, rebels, Kurdish forces or Islamic State.\nThe YPG makes up a significant portion of the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish and Arab alliance fighting Islamic State insurgents in Syria.\nLast week the SDF, backed by air strikes from the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition, said they had ousted Islamic State from the city of Manbij near the Turkish border after a two-month campaign.\nThe recent fighting marks the most significant violence between the YPG and government forces since several days of fighting in Qamishli in April.\nWriting by Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington; editing by Andrew Roche, G Crosse\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombed","artillery"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least 13 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian government warplanes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Kurdish-held areas"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the northeastern city of Hasaka"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Syrian government warplanes bomb Kurdish-held areas of Al-Hasakah for the first time in the country's five-year civil war, killing at least 13 people. (BBC) (Reuters)","document":"Syrian government jets have reportedly bombed Kurdish-held areas of the north-eastern city of Hassakeh for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.\nThe UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Kurdish security forces had been targeted.\nThe Syrian military has not commented, but sources said the Kurds had seized government buildings in Hassakeh and nearby Qamishli. Both sides were later reported to have agreed a ceasefire.\nHowever, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia said it would \"not be silent\" over what it called an act of flagrant aggression.\nKurds made up between 7% and 10% of Syria's population of 24.5 million before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began five years ago.\nAlthough they were denied basic rights and suffered decades of political suppression by the Arab-led state, most Kurds avoided taking sides when a wave of protests swept the country.\nWhen government forces withdrew from Kurdish areas to concentrate on fighting rebels elsewhere in mid-2012, Kurdish militias swiftly took control, led by the YPG.\nThe Kurds later established autonomous administrations but allowed the government to retain footholds in Hassakeh and Qamishli.\nBoth sides largely avoided clashes in the past four years, with the government focusing on fighting the rebels and the Kurds on battling so-called Islamic State, but tensions have increased recently.\nIn March, Kurdish parties unilaterally declared the establishment of a new federal region, a move that was rejected by both the government and the opposition.\nThe next month, several members of the pro-government National Defence Forces (NDF) militia in Qamishli were killed in several days of clashes with Kurdish security personnel, known as the Asayish.\nThe latest clashes are said to have erupted in Hassakeh on Tuesday and had spread to several locations around the city by Wednesday, according to the Syrian Observatory.\nA spokesman for the Popular Protection Units (YPG), the militia of the powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said the air strikes had hit Kurdish districts and Asayish positions.\n\"There are martyrs and wounded,\" Redur Xelil told the Reuters news agency.\nThe YPG later issued a statement warning that it \"will not be silent over these barbaric, flagrant attacks against our people and will stand firmly to protect it\". \"Every hand spattered with the blood of our people will be held to account through all possible and available means,\" it added.\nThe YPG has emerged as a major fighting force in northern Syria in the past two years, becoming a key ally of the US-led coalition against IS.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombed"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian government jets"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Kurdish security forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kurdish-held areas of the north-eastern city of Hassakeh","Kurdish districts and Asayish positions"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea fire cruise missiles at sites near Aleppo. The Russian Defense Ministry claims the strikes targeted the Islamist militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.  (Pravda) (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea fired cruise missiles at targets near Aleppo on Friday, a further sign of Moscow’s broadening military effort in Syria days after it began to fly bombing missions from an airbase in Iran.\nRussian air power had helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad make steady advances against rebels seeking to oust him since Moscow’s intervention a year ago, but a recent insurgent advance in Aleppo has checked that momentum.\nIn northeastern Syria, warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition flew patrols on Thursday to protect local ground forces they back against Syrian government airstrikes that are targeting the Kurdish city of Hasaka, the Pentagon said.\n“The Syrian regime would be well advised not to interfere with coalition forces or our partners,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.\nRussia’s three cruise missile launches were its first against targets in Syria from the Mediterranean, with previous ones made from its Caspian Sea fleet. On Tuesday Russian bombers began flying missions in Syria from Hamedan air base in Iran.\nRussia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted the Islamist militant group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, known as the Nusra Front until it broke formal ties with al Qaeda last month before playing a big role in the sudden rebel advances in Aleppo.\nThe upsurge in fighting and airstrikes in and around the city, split between government-held west and rebel-held eastern sectors, has prompted growing international concern, galvanized by pictures on Thursday of a dazed, bloodied child.\nThe plight of civilians in Aleppo has been aggravated in besieged areas by dire shortages of basic goods, leading the World Food Programme to warn of a “nightmarish” situation.\nIn Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, rebels and a war monitor said the Syrian army’s helicopters had dropped incendiary barrel bombs early on Friday, putting the opposition-held town’s only hospital out of action.\nRelated Coverage\nOn Thursday Russia, Assad’s most powerful military ally, said it supported a proposal for a weekly 48-hour pause in fighting in Aleppo to allow aid to reach the besieged areas and that it was ready to start the first one next week.\nOn Friday, the main umbrella group for the Syrian opposition also cautiously welcomed the idea provided the U.N. monitored the truce and enforced compliance. During a previous humanitarian pause this year, both sides complained the other had broken the truce as fighting escalated again.\nOn Friday Syrian Kurdish authorities evacuated thousands of civilians from Kurdish areas of Hasaka following government air strikes, a spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia, an integral part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said.\nThe SDF is at the heart of Washington’s military campaign against Islamic State group and last week seized the town of Manbij from the militant organization, part of a growing swathe of northern Syria it controls.\nThe U.S.-led coalition aircraft arrived at Hasaka as two Syrian SU-24s, which had carried out the strikes, were leaving. “This is very unusual, we have not seen the regime take this kind of action against YPG before,” the Pentagon’s Davis said.\nHasaka is divided into zones of Kurdish and Syrian government control and fighting between them has killed dozens of civilians in the past 48 hours, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said.\nThe YPG and the government have mostly avoided confrontation during the multi-sided war that has turned Syria into a patchwork of areas held by the state and an array of armed factions.\nThe Syrian army said on Friday that this week’s fighting was caused by Kurdish security forces attempting to take over Hasaka, prompting it to return fire on armed groups.\nAssad, backed by Russia and Iran, has focused mostly on fighting Sunni Arab rebels who have been battling to oust him in western Syria with support from countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States.\nThe YPG, or People’s Protection Units, has meanwhile prioritized carving out and safeguarding predominantly Kurdish regions of northern Syria. The group has ties to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in Turkey.\nWhile the YPG controls most of the northeast, the Syrian government has maintained footholds in the cities of Hasaka and Qamishli at the border with Turkey.\nThe SDF seizure of Manbij from Islamic State last week raised the prospect of possible advances towards al-Bab, near Aleppo.\nFamilies of Islamic State fighters in al-Bab and another nearby town, Jarablus, were evacuated to the militant group’s stronghold of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitoring group, said.\nRebel groups, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, stormed a Syrian army complex in southwest Aleppo two weeks ago, breaking a siege on opposition-held parts of Aleppo and prompting fierce counter-attacks.\nA senior rebel commander said there was a “positive atmosphere” surrounding talk of a ceasefire. “But so far there are no details.”\nSyrian warplanes had carried out 46 sorties in the last 24 hours, including strikes in Aleppo that destroyed a tank, a vehicle loaded with ammunition and three mortar emplacements, and killed dozens of rebel fighters, a military source said.\nContinuing clashes between rebels and the Syrian army and allied militias were fiercest in the southwest of city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitor of the five-year-old civil war, said on Friday.\nIt added that air strikes and shelling in and around Aleppo had killed 422 civilians, including 142 children, this month.\n“We need a 48-hour pause, we need it now,” WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told a briefing in Geneva on Friday. While the rebel advance this month opened a narrow corridor into opposition-held areas of Aleppo, access remains very limited and dangerous, meaning aid supplies are scarce.\n“It’s crucially important that we go in there because people are absolutely desperate,” Luescher added. “From both sides, these sieges have to stop - it’s inhumane, awful, disgusting, nightmarish. Not necessarily U.N. words, but that’s what it is.”\nReporting by Angus McDowall and Tom Perry in Beirut, Polina Devitt in Moscow, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by Ralph Boulton and Richard Balmforth\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["cruise missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russian warships"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Islamist militant group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syria","near Aleppo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea fire cruise missiles at sites near Aleppo. The Russian Defense Ministry claims the strikes targeted the Islamist militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.  (Pravda) (Reuters)","document":"Russian warships the Serpukhov and the Zeleny Dol of the Black Sea Fleet launched \"Caliber\" cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea to strike terrorist targets in Syria. Earlier, it was reported that Russia had requested the overflight of cruise missiles above the territories of Iraq and Iran.\nThe small missile ships launched the missiles to destroy targets of Jabhat en-Nusra terrorist organization (banned in Russia), TASS reports.\nAs a result of the attack, a command post and a terrorist base in the area of Dar Taaza were destroyed. The missile attack also destroyed a plant for the production of mortar ammunition and a large warehouse of weapons in Aleppo.\nAccording to the Russian Ministry for Defense, the missile flight corridor had been planned over unpopulated areas.\nIn October of 2015, warships of the Russian Navy attacked targets in Syria from the Caspian Sea, when 26 cruise missiles were launched in total. In November 2015, the Caspian flotilla ships struck another blow on terrorist targets in Syria, when 18 cruise missiles were launched to strike targets in the provinces of Raqqa, Idlib, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor.\n\nThree Russian soldiers have been reportedly injured in the Al-Darbasia region of the Syrian province of Hasakah, Kurdish news service ANHA said on Twitter.\nJen Psaki may have errors in her statements not because of her level of education or bad memory.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["\"Caliber\" cruise missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["destroyed a plant for the production of mortar ammunition and a large warehouse of weapons","a command post and a terrorist base in the area of Dar Taaza were destroyed"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russian warships"]},{"role":"Date","values":["October of 2015"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Jabhat en-Nusra terrorist organization"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syria","Aleppo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Two bombs explode at the Southern Hotel in Pattani killing one person and injuring 30. (Reuters)","document":"BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s military government said on Wednesday there was no connection between two bombings overnight that killed one person in the southern town of Pattani and a wave of deadly attacks on tourist spots this month.\nBlast kills one, wounds 30 in southern Thailand\n00:58\nOne Thai person was killed and 30 wounded when two bombs exploded late on Tuesday at a hotel in the deep-south town of Pattani, less than two weeks after a wave of bombings hit towns in seven provinces in the central south.\nNo group has claimed responsibility for the tourist-town bombings, which killed four and wounded dozens, including foreigners, but suspicion has centered on Muslim separatists based in the deep south of the predominantly Buddhist country.\nSecurity experts say the ethnic Malay, Muslim insurgents have a record of coordinated bomb attacks, which they usually do not claim.\nDefence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, however, ruled out any link between the earlier attacks and the twin bombs in Pattani, which is near the Malaysian border and has for years been plagued by separatist violence, particularly since an intensification of the decades-old insurgency from 2004.\n“I am sure that the incident in Pattani last night has nothing to do with the seven provinces attacks,” Prawit told reporters without elaborating.\nTourist towns in the central south have for years been spared any spill-over of violence from the deep south and analysts say the government is loath to blame the coordinated bombings this month on southern insurgents because of fear of damaging the tourist industry.\nNo arrests have been made in connection with the attacks in the tourist towns but warrants for three suspects have been issued. Authorities have given few details of the suspects.\nPolice said the first explosion in Pattani was in a carpark at the back of the hotel and caused no casualties. The second bomb at hotel’s front entrance appeared to have been in a stolen hospital pick-up truck.\nThe war between government troops and insurgents has killed more than 6,500 people in the three southern-most provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, over the past 12 years.\nTalks between the government and a handful of shadowy insurgent groups began in 2013 under the civilian government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, but have stalled since the military overthrew her in 2014.\nPrawit said the military government would not talk with separatists until there was peace.\nExperts say the spate of attacks would appear to reflect frustration over the stalled negotiations.\n“It’s possible that it is related to uncertainty about the peace talks,” said Srisompop Jitpiromsri, an expert on the conflict who runs the Pattani-based Deep South Watch, which monitors violence.\nRungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, an independent analyst who has written two books on the conflict, said the blasts this month were likely the work of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (National Revolutionary Front, or BRN), which has carried out “similar patterns of attack” in the past.\n“They could be sending a message to the government to take the peace dialogue more seriously,” she said.\nStill, the military insists security in the south has improved. The number of soldiers in the south is due to be cut to about 60,000 from 70,000 in 2011, a military spokesman said.\nThere is deep distrust between Muslims and authorities in the region, which rights groups say is partly due to decades of government neglect and a culture of impunity among military officials operating there.\nThe three provinces soundly rejected a referendum this month on a new military-backed constitution, which passed convincingly in most of the rest of Thailand.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["two bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["kills one, wounds 30"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a hotel in the deep-south town of Pattani","the deep south of the predominantly Buddhist country","hotel’s front entrance","southern Thailand","near the Malaysian border","a carpark at the back of the hotel"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 The Turkish Armed Forces and US-backed Syrian rebels launch an initially successful campaign to capture the town of Jarabulus from ISIL. The Turkish Land Forces are also shelling YPG positions to prevent them from capturing areas that ISIL will retreat from. (AP via NBC News) (AP) (ABC News)","document":" Turkish special forces units and jets supported by warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition launched an operation in northern Syria on Wednesday to wipe out ISIS militants along the border, officials said.\nThe operation was launched just hours ahead of a planned visit to Turkey by Vice President Joe Biden. He is the most senior U.S. official to travel to the country since a failed July 15 coup strained ties between the two NATO members and shook confidence in Turkey's ability to step up the fight against ISIS.\nThe Turkish army began firing artillery rounds into the Syrian border town of Jarabulus at around 4 a.m. (9 p.m. ET) and Turkish and U.S. warplanes pounded ISIS targets with air strikes as part of Wednesday's operation, Turkish military sources said.\nIt was the first time warplanes from NATO member Turkey have struck in Syria since November, when Turkey downed a Russian jet near the border, and the first significant incursion by Turkish special forces since a brief operation to relocate the tomb of Suleyman Shah, a revered Ottoman figure, in February 2015.\nTurkey and the United States hope that by sweeping ISIS from the border, they can deprive it of a smuggling route which long saw its ranks swollen with foreign fighters and its coffers boosted by illicit trade.\n\nWhite and grey plumes of smoke rose from atop the hills of Jarabulus, visible from the Turkish town of Karkamis across the border. The boom of artillery fire was audible as tanks opened fire from just inside Turkish territory.\nTurkish military sources told Reuters that a ground incursion had yet to start, but a group of Turkish special forces had entered Syria while Turkish and U.S.-led coalition jets hit four ISIS targets and Turkish artillery struck more than 60 targets. Tanks were being positioned to secure the border, they said.\n\"The aim of the operation is to ensure border security and Syria's territorial integrity while supporting the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS,\" one military source said, adding work to open a passage for ground forces was underway.\nTurkey had vowed on Monday to \"completely cleanse\" ISIS militants from its border region after a suicide bomber suspected of links to the group killed 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.\n\nTurkey is also concerned about the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish militant groups along its border, where they have captured large areas of territory since the start of the Syrian war in 2011. Ankara sees them as tied to the Kurdish militants fighting an insurgency in Turkey.\nAt least nine mortar shells from Jarabulus landed in Karkamis and nearby on Tuesday, forcing many residents to flee, a Reuters witness said. Another hit an empty field on Wednesday.\nThe Syria operation came as Syrian rebels backed by Turkey had said they were in the final stages of preparing an assault from Turkish territory on Jarabulus, aiming to preempt a potential attempt by Syrian Kurdish YPG militia to take it.\nTurkey is still in shock after the failed July coup by rogue solders who tried to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan and the government, killing 240 people and triggering a huge purge of suspected coup supporters in the army and civil service.\n\nAngered by a perceived lack of Western sympathy over the coup, Turkey has chilled ties with Washington and the European Union while ending a diplomatic spat with Russia and proposing more military cooperation with Moscow in fighting ISIS.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["artillery rounds"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Turkish special forces units and jets supported by warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday's","Wednesday","around 4 a.m. (9 p.m. ET)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["ISIS militants"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syrian border town of Jarabulus","northern Syria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 The Turkish Armed Forces and US-backed Syrian rebels launch an initially successful campaign to capture the town of Jarabulus from ISIL. The Turkish Land Forces are also shelling YPG positions to prevent them from capturing areas that ISIL will retreat from. (AP via NBC News) (AP) (ABC News)","document":"Turkish tanks and hundreds of opposition fighters have thrust deep inside Syrian territory in a lightning operation that within hours ousted Islamic State jihadists from a key Syrian border town.\nUS warplanes contributed to the offensive\nThe air and ground offensive  the most ambitious launched by Ankara in the Syria conflict to date  made rapid progress towards Jarabulus with rebel fighters already proclaiming victory by late afternoon on Wednesday (local time) just 14 hours after it started.\n\n\"Jarabulus is completely liberated,\" Ahmad Othman, a commander of the Sultan Mourad rebel group, said from the scene, while another rebel spokesman said IS fighters had fled towards Al-Bab to the south-west.\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is hosting US Vice President Joe Biden in Ankara, said Syrian fighters in Jarabulus had \"taken it back\" from IS militants.\nTurkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported just one Syrian rebel fighter was killed and 10 wounded.\nLocal media reported about 46 jihadists were killed in the operation, but this was not confirmed by officials.\nMr Erdogan emphasised that the operation was also targeting Kurdish militia fighters (PYD) strongly opposed by Ankara  but backed by the US as a key ally against IS  who had also been closing in on Jarabulus. Mr Biden reassured Turkey that Washington had told the Kurdish fighters under no circumstances to cross west of the Euphrates River or face the total loss of American support. AFP: Bulent Kilic\nThe operation  named \"Euphrates Shield\"  began at around 4:00am (local time) on Wednesday with Turkish artillery pounding dozens of IS targets around Jarabulus.\nTurkish F-16 fighter jets also hit targets inside Syria.\nThe Islamic State group dominates global headlines but do we really understand where it started  or what it's trying to achieve?\nA dozen Turkish tanks then rolled into Syria along with hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters in pick-ups who then moved south towards Jarabulus.\nUS A-10s and F-16s warplanes also hit IS targets in Syria in support of the offensive, a US official said.\nThe speed of the advance was stunning and stood in stark contrast to the long, grinding battles required for Kurdish forces to recapture towns from IS militants in northern Syria, such as Kobane and Manbij.\nSyrian fighter reconnaissance teams have begun working in the centre of Jarabulus to check for any explosives left behind by the jihadists.\nMr Erdogan reiterated that the operation was aimed against both IS militants and the Kurdish PYD  \"terror groups that continuously threaten our country in northern Syria\".\n\"We have said 'enough is enough' ... this now needs to be resolved,\" he said.\nAnkara has in the past been accused of turning a blind eye to the rise of IS militants in Syria and even aiding it logistically, claims the Government had always vehemently denied.\nBut analyst now say Turkey wants to show it is serious about taking on the IS group, which has been blamed for a string of attacks inside the country  the latest a weekend attack on a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep that left 54 people dead, many of them children.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":["late afternoon on Wednesday (local time)"]},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["14 hours"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["46 jihadists were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Turkish tanks and hundreds of opposition fighters","US warplanes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around 4:00am (local time) on Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters","A dozen Turkish tanks"]},{"role":"Target","values":["Kurdish militia fighters (PYD)","Islamic State jihadists"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Jarabulus","Syrian territory"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 An assassination attempt against Angela Merkel is foiled by Czech police. (The Daily Mail)","document":"\n\nArmed Czech police fired at a suspect driving a large SUV as it attempted to ram German Chancellor Angela Merkel's motorcade.\nMerkel was on a visit to Prague when the man tried to break through a security cordon forcing local police to act.\nOfficers fired at the SUV which stopped. While searching the vehicle, officers recovered handcuffs, tear gas and concrete cubes, according to local media.\nA man attempted to attack the motorcade of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, pictured here with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, right, as she made her way between Prague's airport and the nation's parliament building as part of her one-day working visit\nProtesters were waiting yesterday outside the Czech parliament building to boo Merkel\nMerkel, right, held talks with Sobotka, left, during the one-day working visit to Prague\nThe man was driving a black Mercedes SUV when he tried to attack.\nPolice spokesman Jozef Bocan said: '[The man] attempted to join the motorcade as it moved between Prague airport and Czech government headquarters.'\nBocan stressed that at no stage had Chancellor Merkel been in any danger.\nHe said: 'While attempting to join the motorcade, he tried to run down police securing the road.The suspect acted alone. He was not armed, but items found in the car could easily have been used as weapons, particularly some cement cubes.'\nAt the same time, protesters held highly offensive banners featuring the German chancellor\nMerkel spoke with Czech officials about Britain's decision to leave the European Union\nBocan revealed officers had been forced to open fire to subdue the suspect who is now under arrest.\nMerkel held talks Thursday with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and President Milos Zeman focused on the future of the European Union after Britain's June decision to leave the bloc.\nSeveral hundred protesters, including members of anti-Islam groups, rallied in central Prague against Merkel and her decision to open the EU's doors to refugees and migrants last summer.\n\t\n      \n   ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["handcuffs, tear gas and concrete cubes"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["a suspect driving a large SUV"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["German Chancellor Angela Merkel's motorcade"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Prague"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 At least eight Paraguayan Army soldiers are killed in an ambush by suspected Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) insurgents, near the village of Arroyito, in northern Paraguay. (BBC)","document":"An ambush on a military patrol in Paraguay has left at least eight soldiers dead. The country's interior minister said the soldiers had been on a routine mission when they were attacked with explosives and gunfire.\nFrancisco de Vargas said it was likely the gunmen were part of the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP).\nThe attack took place near the village of Arroyito, some 500km (300 miles) north of the capital, Asuncion.\nMr de Vargas said the gunmen had placed explosives in the road routinely used by the soldiers. The EPP is estimated to number between 50 and 150 people.\nThe group is a Marxist-inspired rebel group which has been active in the impoverished northern region since 2008. It is thought to have killed about 50 people but says it only targets the country's oligarchy.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["explosives and gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least eight soldiers dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a military patrol"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Paraguay","near the village of Arroyito, some 500km (300 miles) north of the capital, Asuncion"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Suspected Kurdish militants fire rockets at Diyarbakr Airport in Diyarbakr, Turkey. (Reuters)","document":"ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Suspected Kurdish militants fired rockets at the airport in Turkey’s main southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, sending passengers and staff scrambling for shelter, Dogan news agency said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.\nFour rockets were fired at a police checkpoint outside the VIP lounge, and passengers and staff were taken inside the terminal building for safety, the private news agency said. The attack happened not long before midnight (5.00 p.m. ET) on Saturday.\nBroadcaster NTV said the rockets landed on wasteland nearby. There were no casualties and no disruption to flights, Diyarbakir governor Huseyin Aksoy told the news channel.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility.\nDiyarbakir is the main city in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast, where Kurdish militants have waged a three-decade insurgency. The attack comes days after Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria aimed at driving back Islamic State and preventing territorial gains by Kurdish fighters.\nRebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in northern Syria on Saturday, and Ankara said it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State.\nTurkey fears Kurdish militia fighters will fill the void as Islamic State is pushed back. It wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of a continuous stretch of Syrian territory on its frontier, which it fears could deepen the insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on its own soil.\nDiyarbakir airport largely handles domestic flights and is served by carriers including Turkish Airlines.\nThe PKK, which first took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. A ceasefire collapsed just over a year ago, and violence has since surged.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rockets"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Kurdish militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["before midnight (5.00 p.m. ET) on Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police checkpoint"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the airport in Turkey’s main southeastern city of Diyarbakir"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 A suicide bombing kills at least 15 people at a wedding in the southern Shiite city of Kerbala. (Reuters)","document":"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State has claimed a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people and injured 16 at a wedding party near the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala late on Sunday.\nFive assailants including the suicide bomber attacked the celebration in Ain al-Tamr, west of Kerbala in southern Iraq, firing machine guns and throwing hand grenades, the police said. All the attackers were killed by security forces.\nThe bombing is the first in the Kerbala region since Iraqi forces dislodged Islamic State militants from their stronghold in Falluja, 80 km (50 miles) north of city.\nThe ultra-hardline Sunni group has been retreating since last year in the face of government forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition and Iranian-supported Shi’ite militias.\nBut it remains in control of parts of northern and western Iraq and continues to claim bombings all over the country, targeting mainly Shi’ite districts and cities.\nA statement on the Amaq news agency that supports Islamic State said the attack was carried out by four of its suicide fighters against a “gathering of Shi’ites”.\nInitial reports in local media late, citing security sources, blamed the killings on a dispute between two tribes at the wedding party.\nIslamic State claimed a truck bomb that killed at least 325 people in Baghdad’s Karrada shopping street in July, the deadliest attack since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.\nReporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans and Robin Pomeroy\n\n\n.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombing","machine guns","hand grenades"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 15 people and injured 16"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamic State"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["gathering of Shi’ites"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala","Ain al-Tamr, west of Kerbala in southern Iraq","Kerbala region"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 Multiple individuals rammed a van into the entrance of the Brussels National Institute of Criminology building, setting its laboratories on fire. No casualties have been reported. At least five people are arrested. (BBC) (BNO News)","document":"Attackers rammed a car through the gates of a Brussels crime laboratory before starting a fire to destroy forensic evidence, prosecutors say. Prosecutor's spokeswoman Ine Van Wymersch said a car broke through fences at about 02:00 (00:00 GMT).\nShe said there was \"sensitive material\" inside the laboratories, but it is not yet clear what if anything was destroyed in the fire.\nFive people arrested nearby were later released without charge.\nInitial reports in Belgian media said a bomb had exploded. But Ms Van Wymersch said that while a bomb was unlikely to have detonated, it was impossible to fully rule out that scenario.\n\"The location was not chosen randomly,\" she said. \"It's an important site, that includes sensitive documents relating to current investigations.\"\n\"The possibility of a terrorist act is not confirmed. It goes without  saying that several individuals may have wanted to destroy evidence related to  their legal cases,\" Ms Van Wymersch added.\nThe case was being treated as arson, she said.\nSome 30 firefighters helped put out the fire at the National Institute of Criminology, which Ms Van Wymersch said caused damage but caused no casualties.\nForensic analysis linked to criminal cases is carried out at the site, but while it is not the only laboratory of its kind linked to the police, it is the most important forensic test centre in Belgium. Images submitted to broadcaster RTL by nearby residents showed flames and heavy smoke rising into the night sky.\nThe independent institute, linked to Belgium's federal justice body, is in Neder-Over-Heembeek, a suburb in the north of Brussels.\nBelgium's terror alert level remains high since bomb attacks on Brussels airport and the city's metro, claimed by so-called Islamic State, that killed 32 people in March.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a car"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["about 02:00 (00:00 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["forensic evidence"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the gates of a Brussels crime laboratory","National Institute of Criminology"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 A car bomb explodes near the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan, killing the perpetrator and injuring three. (The New York Times)","document":"MOSCOW  A suicide bomber blew himself up inside the Chinese Embassy’s compound in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on Tuesday morning, wounding three Kyrgyz staff members, according to local officials.\nThe attacker rammed the gates of the embassy with a Mitsubishi Delica that exploded about 160 feet into the compound. The driver died on the scene.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["wounding three Kyrgyz staff members"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["inside the Chinese Embassy’s compound in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2016 A car bomb explodes outside the President of Somalia's compound in Mogadishu claiming at least ten people's lives. Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack. (Daily Mail)","document":"By Reuters  Published:  14:50 BST, 30 August 2016   |  Updated:  14:50 BST, 30 August 2016   By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar\nMOGADISHU, Aug 30 (Reuters) - At least 10 people, including soldiers and civilians, were killed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Tuesday when a car bomb claimed by al Shabaab exploded outside the Presidential Palace and also damaged two nearby hotels, an official said.\nInformation Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir told state radio that a meeting of security officials was under way inside one of the hotels, the SYL, at the time of blast and that one minister and some state radio journalists were injured in the attack.\nThe hotel is frequented by government officials and police said it believed the facility was the likely target.\nThe SYL and another hospitality facility, both located near the Presidential Palace, were partially destroyed by the blast, Major Mohamed Ali, a police officer, told Reuters.\n\"The blast killed 10 (people) including soldiers and civilians and 30 others were wounded,\" Ali said.\nGunfire could be heard after the blast and a huge cloud of smoke rose above the palace, outside which were the remnants of the car and splattered blood, according to a Reuters witness.\nAl Shabaab's Radio Andaluz said the Islamist group was behind the attack and their military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, said the attack had killed 15 soldiers and \"injured many others including a lawmaker\".\nSeeking to impose its own harsh form of Islam, al Shabaab, wants to topple the Western backed government in Mogadishu and also push out the 22,000-strong African Union mandated AMISOM peace keeping force backing it.\nThe group was pushed out of Mogadishu by AMISOM in 2011 but have remained a serious threat, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the government.\nThe militants have claimed responsibility for several explosions in Mogadishu, including a car bomb and gun attack last week at a popular beach restaurant in the capital that killed 10 people.\nIn a separate incident, al Shabaab fighters attacked military bases housing government and African Union troops south west of the capital Mogadishu late on Monday, police and the group said on Tuesday.\nMilitary officer Major Bile Farah said a soldier and two al Shabaab fighters were killed in the attack in K-50 and Muri in Lower Shabelle region.\nAbu Musab told Reuters the group's fighters had killed 10 soldiers and commandeered a vehicle from the Somali government soldiers in the Monday attack. (Writing by George Obulutsa and Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alison Williams)","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bomb","Gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["damaged two nearby hotels"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 10 (people) including soldiers and civilians and 30 others were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["al Shabaab"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["The hotel"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside the Presidential Palace","Somalia's capital Mogadishu"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 An explosion at a night market in Davao City, Philippines, kills at least 14 people and injures 60. President of the Philippines and former Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte was in the city at the time. Abu Sayyaf have claimed responsibility for the attack. (Reuters) (ABS-CBN) (ABS-CBN)","document":"DAVAO, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine police blamed Islamic State-linked rebels on Saturday for a bombing that killed 14 people in President Rodrigo Duterte’s hometown and dealt a blow to the firebrand leader’s bloody crackdown on narcotics and militancy.\n'State of lawlessness' declared after Philippine blast\n01:06\nInvestigators said Abu Sayyaf, a southern Philippine group notorious for acts of piracy, kidnappings and beheadings, had claimed responsibility for Friday’s night bombing at a Davao street market, although police said they were still trying to authenticate the claim.\nThe attack rattled the normally peaceful home city of Duterte, who typically spends his weekends there, some 980 kilometers away from the capital Manila. He was in Davao at the time of the bombing but far from the site of the blast outside a hotel where he often holds meetings.\nNational police chief Ronald Dela Rosa said the bomb was home-made and fragments of mortar were found at the site, where two “persons of interest” had been caught on camera.\nThe bomb was likely to have been planted by Abu Sayyaf, he said, to divert the military’s attention from its operations to flush them out of their strongholds on the islands of Basilan and Jolo.\nThe military on Tuesday agreed to deploy a further 2,500 troops to carry out Duterte’s order to “destroy” Abu Sayyaf.\n“From being offensive, they want us to be defensive,” Dela Rosa told a news conference late on Saturday.\nDuterte canceled what would have been his first overseas visit on Saturday, to Brunei, and declared a nationwide “state of lawlessness” to deal with what he called an extraordinary security situation.\n“I must declare a state of lawless violence in this country,” Duterte told reporters after visiting the blast site, where he assured the public that martial law had not been imposed.\n“I have this duty to protect this country,” he said.\nPolice and military promised to act in accordance with his “state of lawlessness”, although there was some confusion about what that actually entailed. Duterte’s office said it referred to a constitutional clause that states the president has full power over the armed forces.\nThe bombing came as the abrasive former prosecutor wages war on narcotics kingpins and street dealers, Islamist rebels and corrupt bureaucrats, scoring big points in opinion polls but at a risk of making powerful enemies.\nRumors have swirled of a plot to assassinate Duterte, 71, which he has shrugged off as part of his job. The talk has been fueled by his controversial crackdown on drugs that saw him elected by a huge margin, but condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations.\nMore than 2,000 alleged drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte’s June 30 inauguration. Critics are alarmed at the sheer number whose deaths have been attributed to vigilantes, and the president and police chief’s apparent support for it.\nDuterte’s tough stance on crime has ensured Davao has been spared the kind of violence that has dogged other parts of Mindanao, a large island province where several Islamist militant groups operate, including Abu Sayyaf.\nAbu Sayyaf, which means “bearer of the sword”, has previously used an Islamic State flag in some of its propaganda videos and runs what is among Asia’s most lucrative kidnap rackets.\nIt has this year decapitated two Canadian hostages and held Norwegian, Indonesian, Malaysian and Japanese citizens.\nThe group has long been a thorn in the side for the military and has used its ransom earnings to entrench its network and invest in modern weapons, boats and radar technology.\nThe White House offered condolences and assistance to the Philippines, a key regional ally. Duterte is expected to meet U.S. President Barack Obama in Laos next week, when he attends a the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Summits.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 14 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Abu Sayyaf"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday’s night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["city of Duterte","a Davao street market"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Two successive suicide bombers on foot kill at least 24 people and injure 91 others, including senior security and police officials, after striking close to the Afghan Ministry of Defence in Kabul. The Taliban claims responsibility by disclosing the death of 58 officers and commanders. Another bombing took place not long after. (Reuters) (BBC) Today (Singapore) (Sina Corp)","document":"KABUL - A car bomb hit the center of Kabul late on Monday, just hours after a Taliban suicide attack near the Defense Ministry killed at least 24 people including a number of senior security officials, and wounded 91 others, officials said.\n              Gunmen who followed the initial attack appeared to have barricaded themselves into a building and security forces blocked off a large area in the city center.\n              After several hours of quiet overnight, sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard as day broke but there was no immediate comment on the operation from police and no claim of responsibility.               Just a month before a conference in Brussels where international donors are expected to pledge continued financial support to Afghanistan, the attacks highlighted the precarious security climate in the capital.\n              Earlier on Monday, twin blasts in quick succession tore through an afternoon crowd in a bustling area of the city close to the Defense Ministry.\n              The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for that attack, in which a suicide bomber caught security forces personnel and civilians who rushed to help victims of the first explosion.\n              \"When the first explosion happened people crowded to the site and then the second blast occurred, which was really powerful and killed lots of people,\" said Samiullah Safi, who witnessed the attack.\n              An army general and two senior police commanders were among the dead, a Defense Ministry official said. Another official said the deputy head of President Ashraf Ghani's personal protection force had also been killed.\n             \nThe double bombing came less than two weeks after gunmen attacked the American University in Kabul, killing 13 people.\n              It was the deadliest attack in Kabul since at least 80 people were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted a demonstration on July 23. That assault was claimed by Islamic State.\n              The Taliban's ability to conduct coordinated high profile attacks in the capital Kabul has piled pressure on the Western-backed government, which has struggled to reassure a war-weary population that it can guarantee security.               Afghanistan's foreign partners, concerned about the ability of the security forces to withstand Taliban violence, are expected to pledge support over coming years at the Brussels conference, three months after NATO members reaffirmed their commitment at a meeting in Warsaw.\n              Outside Kabul, the insurgents have stepped up their military campaign, threatening Laskkar Gah, capital of the strategic southern province of Helmand as well as Kunduz, the northern city they briefly took last year. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["lots of people","80 people","killed at least 24 people","wounded 91"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Defense Ministry"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Two successive suicide bombers on foot kill at least 24 people and injure 91 others, including senior security and police officials, after striking close to the Afghan Ministry of Defence in Kabul. The Taliban claims responsibility by disclosing the death of 58 officers and commanders. Another bombing took place not long after. (Reuters) (BBC) Today (Singapore) (Sina Corp)","document":"KABUL， Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Taliban militants fighting the government to regain power have claimed responsibility for twin blasts that went off near the fortified defense ministry on Monday claiming 24 lives besides injuring 91 others including security personnel and civilians.\nIn the deadly incidents， according to the spokesman for Public Health Ministry， Ismael Kawusi， two dozen people have lost their lives and more than 90 injured who have been taken to hospitals for medical treatment.\n\"Based on the latest information collected from concerned sources and hospitals， 24 people including civilians and security personnel were killed and 91 others injured in the twin blasts that hit near defense ministry today afternoon，\" Kawusi told Xinhua.\nHowever， eyewitnesses believed that the casualties might go higher than reported by officials.\nMeantime， Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi in talks with media has confirmed that one police officer is also among those killed in the deadly attacks.\nAccording to Sediqi， an explosive device went off in front of the second police district， which is next to defense ministry， causing casualties， and when security personnel rushed to the site of the blast to rescue the injured people， a suicide bomber blew himself up killing and injuring people at nearby.\nThe twin blasts occurred at 03:30 p.m. local time when the employees of defense ministry were coming out from the gate after their duties.\nDefense Ministry is located next to the Finance Ministry， the Presidential Palace， and the Petroleum and Mines Ministry among other government buildings.\nA busy road is located in front of the Defense Ministry， where hundreds of civilian vehicles and pedestrians travel to the downtown city.\nThis is the third terrorist attack conducted by militant groups on the same road against defense ministry over the past couple of years.\nZabihullah Majahid who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit， in contact with media claimed responsibility for the twin attacks， insisting huge casualties inflicted to the personnel of defense ministry.\nPresident Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in a statement released by his office blamed the \"enemies of Afghanistan\" for organizing the deadly bombings and condemned it with strongest term.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["an explosive device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["claiming 24 lives besides injuring 91 others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday","03:30 p.m. local time"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the fortified defense ministry"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Several bombings kill at least 40 people in government and Kurdish held territory across Syria, including Tartus, Homs, Al-Hasakah and Damascus. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility. (AP via ABC News America) (BBC)","document":"Near-simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck in and around strongholds of the Syrian government and Kurdish troops Monday, killing at least 48 people in a wave of attacks that came a day after the militants lost a vital link to the outside world along the Syrian-Turkish border.\nThe IS-run Aamaq news agency said the attacks included six suicide bombings and one remotely detonated blast. Most targeted security forces.\nThe Britain-based Observatory, which maintains a network of contacts in Syria, put the overall death toll at 53, although Syrian state TV said 48 were killed. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the 5-year-old Syria civil war.\nJennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said it was too soon to say if the attacks by the IS group were a reaction to its recent defeats along the border.\nBut she cautioned that setbacks for IS can lead to \"a dangerous new phase\" by the group, which sometimes resorts to \"infiltration and spectacular attacks that exploit and widen rifts\" between populations, groups and security forces in both western and northern Syria,\nTurkey's recent intervention in the north has exposed major rifts and encouraged anti-Kurdish activity, Cafarella said in emails to The Associated Press. She said it was likely that as IS militants are pushed out of territory, they will increasingly target government and Kurdish areas.\n\"So it's a dangerous possibility that we're witnessing ISIS gear up for a campaign to expand westward into either or both regime and opposition territory as it loses to the anti-ISIS coalition,\" she said, using an acronym for the militant group.\nThe territorial losses at the border were the biggest blow to the militant group that also has suffered a series of recent battlefield setbacks in Syria and Iraq. Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish warplanes and tanks, continued to push IS fighters out of the border strip Monday, securing their hold on an area seized a day earlier.\nIn Hangzhou, China, meanwhile, President Barack Obama said the U.S. and Russia have not given up on negotiations to halt the bloodshed in Syria, but acknowledged that \"gaps of trust\" exist between the rival powers.\nSignificant sticking points remain in negotiations over creating a U.S.-Russian military partnership focusing firepower on \"common enemies\" in Syria, Obama said. He acknowledged that a meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin did not yield a breakthrough.\nA deal would depend on Moscow using its influence with Syrian President Bashar Assad to persuade him to ground planes and stop the assault on opposition forces.\nMonday's bombings came in rapid succession during the morning rush hour, targeting the central city of Homs; a highly guarded Damascus suburb; the government stronghold of Tartus, where Russia has a major naval base; and Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria.\nState TV showed massive damage at the Arzoneh bridge just outside Tartus along the international coastal highway. The report said the Tartus-Homs highway was closed briefly.\nDozens of burned and mangled cars sat in pools of water mixed with blood after the blaze was extinguished.\n\"My car caught fire and army soldiers pulled us out of the car,\" a survivor told state TV from al-Bassel Hospital.\nIS and the Observatory said the target was a checkpoint at Tartus' southern entrance. The militant group said it sent three suicide bombers to the area, the first of them in a car. Two followed after security and rescuers responded.\nState TV said at least 35 were killed. The Observatory put the figure at 38, including an army colonel. Dozens were wounded.\nThe coastal city is a popular beach resort among Syrians, with many coming from government controlled areas, particularly ahead of a major Muslim holiday next week.\nThe Islamic State group claimed suicide bombings in Tartus and neighboring Jableh that killed over 160 people in May.\nAreas controlled by Assad's forces have had several bombings and other attacks claimed by both IS and al-Qaida-linked militant groups.\nAnother of Monday's bombings occurred in the Damascus suburb of Sabbourah, a major security breach in the heavily guarded area. The state-run SANA news agency said the attack killed one person, while the opposition-run Observatory said three were killed.\nIS said a suicide car bomb targeted a military checkpoint west of Damascus.\n\"It's an area that houses officers and their families. Even before the revolution, it was carefully guarded,\" said opposition media activist Yousef al-Boustani, referring to the 2011 uprising against Assad that began with peaceful protests demanding reform.\nPolice chief Maj. Gen. Jamal Bittar told state TV that three attackers were in the car that was seen by security forces. They fired at the car, forcing two passengers to get out and the driver to blow it up, Bittar said. Another bomber blew himself up as he was arrested, killing the security officer and wounding three civilians, he added.\nA car bomb struck a military checkpoint in the central provincial capital of Homs, killing three soldiers and a civilian, and wounding 10 others, according to the governor of Homs.\nThe city, which is Syria's third-largest, is largely under government control, with only one neighborhood still held by rebels. The bomb exploded in the government-held Bab Tadmor district. The Observatory said four soldiers were killed.\nA suicide bomber on a motorcycle in the northeastern city of Hasakeh killed eight people, SANA said. The IS news agency said the attack targeted a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces.\nGovernment troops withdrew from Hasakeh in August after street battles with Kurdish forces, which took control of the city, although the police force stayed in place. The Observatory said the blast killed five Kurdish police, the Asayesh, and three civilians.\nIS said it also detonated a bomb in the northeastern city of Qamishli, targeting Kurdish fighters. The Observatory confirmed a bomb but had no casualty figures.\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least 48 people","Dozens of burned and mangled cars","the security officer","three civilians","three soldiers and a civilian","Dozens were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Islamic State group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["security forces","a checkpoint at Tartus' southern entrance"]},{"role":"Location","values":["around strongholds of the Syrian government and Kurdish troops"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A motorcycle bomb kills a father and daughter outside an elementary school in Narathiwat province. (Reuters)","document":"BANGKOK (Reuters) - A motorcycle bomb killed a father and daughter in front of a Thai elementary school as parents were dropping off their children on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a series of attacks in the troubled south.\nThe bomb went off in Narathiwat province, one of three Muslim-majority provinces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand where a separatist insurgency has been raging since 2004.\nThe blast killed a man and his five year-old daughter, the army’s Internal Security Operations Command said. The motorcycle was parked opposite the school entrance. Eight people were wounded.\n“We suspect this to be the work of people who want to destabilize the situation and cause chaos,” the deputy spokesman of the ISOC, Yuthanam Petchmuang, told Reuters.\nThe attack occurred less than a month after a wave of bombings in tourist towns, including Hua Hin, Phuket and Surat Thani, killed four people and injured dozens.\nPolice say the tourist-town bombings were linked to the southern insurgency and arrested a suspect over the weekend in connection with the attacks.\nDefence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters on Tuesday that the military government, which took power in May 2014, were making security preparations ahead of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha on September 12.\nMore than 6,500 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence in the Muslim-majority provinces Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani Province since the conflict began, according to Deep South Watch, which monitors the conflict.\nWhile the conflict has been largely confined to the three southern provinces, analysts say that the spread of violence to other provinces could affect Thailand’s tourism industry.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A motorcycle bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed a father and daughter","More than 6,500 people","Eight people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["in front of a Thai elementary school","Narathiwat province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant bans burqas in northern Iraq after a series of fatal attacks on its members by veiled women. (International Business Times)","document":"In a seeming U-turn, the Islamic State (Isis) has reportedly banned women wearing the burka in northern Iraq after claiming that its fighters have been targeted by a veiled female. The hard-line faction has previously beaten and killed women for not wearing a veil covering their face and hair in public.\nNow, IS (Daesh) has outlawed women wearing veils entering their security centres near their stronghold of Mosul after a number of commanders were killed by an unknown assailant. In neighbouring Syria, the feared IS al-Hisbah  or 'religious police'  have meted out punishments to woman who left their face uncovered.\nLast week, in the occupied Saladin Governorate south of Mosul, IS put out a warning to members to beware of a veiled woman who killed two of their fighters. The attacks happened in Al-Shirqat, which has been under IS control since the extremists overran the region in June 2014.\nAn IS fighter was also attacked in Mosul, the second most populous city in Iraq, prompting the terrorists to take precautionary measures, according to a source in the province who informed the Iraqi News network. However, claims that the extremists were \"surprised\" by an attack could not be verified by IBTimes UK.\nSharing details, the source said, \"A veiled woman carrying a pistol killed two members of ISIS who were standing in a checkpoint in Sharqat, north of Salah al-Din. The incident surprised the organisation and forced them to issue an alert of similar attacks.\"\nIn August, the Syrian city of Manbij was liberated from IS control and scenes of women burning the black clothes they were forced to wear and men shaving off their beards were witnessed. Around 550 women are believed to have entered IS's self-declared caliphate.\nOften thought of as \"jihadi brides\" some have even been used as fighters in the 'Al-Khansaa Brigade', an all-female police force. According to reports from Syria, the Al-Khansaa Brigade was formed \"in early 2014 and charged with policing the public morality of women in Raqqa city.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a pistol"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed two members of ISIS"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["A veiled woman"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Last week"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["members of ISIS"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a checkpoint in Sharqat, north of Salah al-Din"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Twin suicide bombings at the Nakheel Mall in eastern Baghdad kill 12 people and injure more than 40 others. ISIL claims responsibility. (Reuters)","document":"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Twelve people were killed late on Friday in two suicide bombings claimed by Islamic State at a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.\nMore than 40 people were wounded in the attack at Nakheel Mall across from the oil ministry, the sources said. One bomb went off at the entrance to the mall, the other in the parking lot.\nUnconfirmed amateur video published on Facebook showed what appeared to be four separate fires, including two cars engulfed in flames, under a highway overpass near the mall amid the wailing sirens of first responders.\nAmaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said in an online statement that two suicide bombers, one wearing a vest and the other in a car, had targeted “a gathering of Shi’ites” on Palestine Street.\nThe fight against Islamic State, which seized a third of Iraq’s territory in 2014, has exacerbated a long-running sectarian conflict in Iraq, mostly between the Shi’ite majority and the Sunni minority.\nThe militants have lost ground in the past year to U.S.-backed government forces and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, and Iraq is gearing up for an offensive next month to recapture the northern city of Mosul.\nYet such bombings show the group can still strike outside the territory its controls in northern and western Iraq. A car bomb near a hospital in central Baghdad killed nine people on Monday, and another one down the road in July killed 324, one of the deadliest such attacks since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago.\nReporting by Kareem Raheem in Baghdad and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["nine people","324","Twelve people were killed","More than 40 people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamic State"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a gathering of Shi’ites"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad","Nakheel Mall"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Syria reports its air defense shot down an Israeli warplane that attacked a Syrian army position in  al-Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israel Defense Forces say that missiles were fired at their aircraft but none hit. (Reuters) (AFP via Yahoo! News) (CNN)","document":"BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position on Tuesday after a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and it denied a Syrian statement that a warplane and drone were shot down.\nThe air strike was a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover from fighting in a five-year-old civil war, and across Syria a ceasefire was holding at the start of its second day.\nSyria’s army command said in a statement that Israeli warplanes had attacked an army position at 1 a.m. on Tuesday (2200 GMT, Monday) in the countryside of Quneitra province.\nThe Israeli military said its aircraft attacked targets in Syria hours after the mortar bomb from fighting among factions in Syria struck the Golan Heights. Israel captured the plateau from Syria in a 1967 war.\nThe Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone after the Israeli attack.\nDenying any of its aircraft had been lost, the Israeli military said in a statement: “Overnight two surface-to-air missiles were launched from Syria after the mission to target Syrian artillery positions. At no point was the safety of (Israeli) aircraft compromised.”\nThe seven-day truce in Syria, brokered by Russia and the United States, is their second attempt this year by to halt the bloodshed.\nReporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Dominic Evans\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Israel"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1 a.m. on Tuesday (2200 GMT, Monday)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a Syrian army position"]},{"role":"Location","values":["countryside of Quneitra province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Two attackers of Eid al-Adha prayers in an Imambargah at Shikapur district, Sindh, injure at least ten people including five policemen. One assailant blew himself up and authorities arrested the other one. (Daily Pakistan) (The Express Tribune)","document":"The district police said four suicide attackers infiltrated Khanpur and reached Shikarpur district of Sindh province.\nTwo of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen. The other attacker fled, police sources said.\nTwo other attackers targeted an imambargah but were stopped by police at the entrance on account of appearing suspicious. One of the attackers blew himself up after he was stopped by guards for a search, whereas the other was arrested, police said.\nThe second attacker, a would-be suicide bomber, was shot and wounded at the scene, after which the officers arrested him.\nOn the other hand, according to the reports in local media, the second attacker was overpowered by the people and also tortured before handed over to the police.\nThree police officers were wounded in the explosion. One of the wounded officers was reportedly in critical condition.\nThose injured in the blast have been admitted to hospitals in Shikarpur for treatment.\nAdditional contingents of police have been deployed at the blast site.\nNo one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.\nSindh Inspector General of Police AD Khawaja reached Shikarpur and inspected the blast site. He also visited the injured admitted in different hospitals. The IGP announced Rs1 million financial aid for those who were seriously injured.\nBakhtwar Bhutto Zardari took it to Twitter to appreciate the policemen who showed great courage.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Three police officers were wounded","injuring 10 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Eid prayer ground","an imambargah"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Khanpur and reached Shikarpur district of Sindh province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A roadside blast in the Balochistan Province kills two policemen and injures eight people. (The News International) (First Post)","document":"A roadside bomb killed two policemen and injured eight other people on Tuesday, police and rescue officials said.\n“A bomb planted on Sariab Road went off just as a police van passed by,” Geo News quoted Superintendent Police Abdullah Afridi as saying. It was not immediately clear whether all the injured were policemen, Afridi said.\nThe injured were moved to Civil Hospital Quetta, where at least one of them is said to be in critical condition.\nRescue officials said two policemen were killed and five others injured in the attack that apparently targeted their van. Two passers by are said to have sustained injuries in the attack. The police suspect that the attack was carried out through a remote-controlled device.\nEarlier in the day, at least three policemen were injured when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives while trying to enter Khanpur Imambargah in Shikarpur district of SIindh province as worshipers were offering Eid prayers.\nWorshippers overpowered the second would-be suicide bomber as the police were reeling from their injuries inflicted in the first blast.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A roadside bomb","a remote-controlled device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed two policemen and injured eight other people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police van"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Sariab Road"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A roadside blast in the Balochistan Province kills two policemen and injures eight people. (The News International) (First Post)","document":"                        Two of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen.                     Karachi: At least two policemen were killed in a roadside blast in the troubled Balochistan province while 13 people were injured in two separate suicide bombings during Eid prayers on Tuesdaytargeting minority Shias in Pakistan's relatively peaceful southern Sindh province.\nTwo police officials were killed and 10 other injured in a blast near a police training centre on Quetta's Sariab road when militants targeted a police patrol vehicle in the area, police said.\nRepresentational image. AP\nAlso, four suicide attackers infiltrated Shikarpur district's Khanpur tehsil, 470 kilometres north of Karachi, police said.\nTwo of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen. The other attacker managed to flee, they said.\nTwo other suicide bombers targeted a Shia mosque but they were stopped at the entrance by policemen, which led to one of them blowing himself up while the other was arrested. Three policemen were injured in the attack, one of whom was critical. Last year, at least 61 people were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in the district.\n\"Alert\" policemen at the venues prevented huge casualties, police officer Beherdin Kehrio told reporters. \"If the policemen had not prevented these suicide bombers from entering the prayer venues there would have beenlargescale casualties because of the large gathering because of Eid prayers,\" he said.\nHe said the attackers at the Shia mosque were stopped by policemen as they looked suspicious and when confronted one of them detonated himself. \"The other attacker was brought down and arrested,\" he added.\nThose injured in the blast have been admitted to hospitals in Shikarpur for treatment. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.\nPakistan has been frequently hit by sectarian violence in recent years, most of them perpetrated by hardline Sunni Muslim groups against minority Shia Muslims. However, Sindh is considered a relatively peaceful of Pakistan's four provinces and is highly influenced by Sufi doctrines and principles.\n              ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two police officials were killed and 10 other injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police patrol vehicle"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Balochistan province","near a police training centre on Quetta's Sariab road"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A suicide bombing at a mosque in Mohmand Agency kills at least 28 people and injures 31 others. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claims the responsibility. (The Independent) (The Express Tribune)","document":"At least 25 people have been killed in a suicide bombing claimed by a Taliban splinter group at a mosque in Pakistan.\nThe blast struck as Muslims gathered for Friday prayers in the village of Payee Khan in Mohmand Agency district.\n“The suicide bomber was in crowded mosque, he shouted 'Allahu Akbar', and then there was a huge blast,” Naveed Akbar, deputy administrator of the region, told Reuters.\nOfficials said at least 25 people were killed and 30 injured and there were fears the death toll could rise as rescue operations continued.\nPakistani Taliban faction Jamaat ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the attack, with local tribal elder Haji Subhanullah Mohmand suggesting it may have been revenge for the killing of a militant by tribal volunteers.\n“It seems to have enraged the militants and they got their revenge by carrying out a suicide attack in a mosque today,” he said.\nNawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, condemned the bombing and said “attacks by terrorists cannot shatter the government's resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country.”\nThe military says security is improving, with recorded “terrorist incidents” dropping from 128 in 2013 to 74 last year - but Islamist extremists continue to stage major attacks.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFriday's bombing came a day after a woman was killed by a grenade in Lower Mohmand Agency when militants attacked a pro-government tribal elder's home.\nMohmand lies in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous tribal region bordering Afghanistan.\nLargely deeply conservative, the territory is remote and hard to access, providing sanctuary for extremist fighters targeted in decades of military operations and drone strikes.\nTehrik-i-Taliban (Pakistani Taliban) militants are waging an Islamist insurgency in the area and have launched a series of bombing attacks and assaults on security services.\nIts Jamaat ul-Ahrar faction claimed responsibility for a bombing targeting lawyers that killed 74 people in the city of Quetta last month, as well as the the Easter Sunday blasts in Lahore that killed 72 people, many of them children.\nAl-Qaeda fighters are also present in Pakistan, while Isis has recently bene seeking to increase its presence in the country and neighbouring Afghanistan, where it has founded an affiliate called Khorasan Province. \n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombing"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 25 people were killed and 30 injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat ul-Ahrar"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a mosque"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Pakistan","the village of Payee Khan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A bombing occurs in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan injuring 29 people. (The New York Times)","document":"Emergency workers on Saturday near the site of the explosion, which was reported around 8:30 p.m.\nA group gathered near the scene of the explosion.\nPolice near the site of the explosion.\nMayor Bill de Blasiosaid the explosion appeared to have been “an intentional act.”\nThe authorities were searching the surrounding streets in case there were additional explosive devices.At 11 p.m., the police said onTwitterthat a “possible secondary device” had been found at 27th Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue.\nA Police Department truck towed away the second explosive device in a spherical chamber around 2:25 a.m. Sunday.\nInvestigators walked through debris near the scene of the explosion.\n\nA powerful explosion caused by what the authorities believe was a homemade bomb injured at least 29 people on a crowded sidewalk in the bustling Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday night.\nA few hours later, the authorities found and removed what they described as a second explosive device four blocks away, raising the possibility that two bombs had been planted in the heart of the city.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a homemade bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["injured at least 29 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a crowded sidewalk in the bustling Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 An explosion occurs in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before the USMC 5K run in the area. No injuries or fatalities are reported. (Asbury Park Press)","document":"SEASIDE PARK -A pipe-bomb-style device detonated in a garbage can at the start of the route of a Marine Corps charity race Saturdaymorning, injuring no one, but sparking a massive law-enforcement response and suspicions of terrorism.\nThe FBI said it was \"unaware of any known threat\" to public safety, in an early-eveningpress conference that lasted about two minutes.Brad Cohen, the special agent in charge of the Newark FBI office, said the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force was taking the lead in investigation into the explosion. He saidthe agency was working to make sure there was \"no stone left unturned\" in the probe.\nMultiple agencies are investigating the incident and whether the motive was terror, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office..\n\"You would have to assume that at a military-type event, the U.S. Marines, a device is placed along the route of a charity event, it would be hard to think it would be anything else,’’ Della Fave said.\nThe device went off about 9:35 a.m. at Ocean Avenue and D Street, where the Seaside Semper Five5K race had been scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., Della Favesaid.\nProblems with registration for the race delayed its start and possibly spared people from injury, he said.\n“When it went off, there was nobody in the area,’’ Della Fave said.\n“\nAttack failed\nDella Fave said multiple explosive devices were enclosed in the trash can, designed to send shrapnel flying, but because only one of them detonated, “it appears it didn’t do the damage it was supposed to.’’\nPolice sources say there were as many as three inside the trash can.Remnants and residue from the bomb are being sent to an FBI lab for analysis, a law-enforcement source said.\nA number of questions remain unanswered as of Saturdaynight: how the bomb was detonated; what type of explosive was used; and if any surveillance camera caught a suspect planting the device.\nDella Fave said there were about 3,000 people assembled at the registration area for the race when the pipe-bomb detonated.\nA four-block area surrounding D Street was evacuated as law-enforcement swept the area for more explosive devices, but none aside from those in the one garbage can were found, Della Fave said.Francis Larkin, chief of police for Seaside Park, saidresidents could return home starting at 6 p.m. Saturday, but thatresidents of C, D and E streets would have to produce identification to gain entry. Larkinsaid beaches would remain closed in the area of C, D and E streets.\nTraffic across the Thomas A. Mathis Bridge was shut down around 12:30 p.m., but the bridge reopened about an hour later.\nIN NYC:Possible explosion reported in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood; dozens hurt\nThe arson unit of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office initially was leading the investigation into the incident, aided by the New Jersey State Police bomb squad, the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,Firearms and Exposives, but Della Fave said the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would be taking over the probe.\nA State Police helicopter hovered over Seaside Park, while emergency vehicles flooded the streets, and bomb-sniffing dogs made the rounds. Police officers walked the streets carrying long guns.\nA barbecue festival in Seaside Heights wenton as planned, but the mayor of Point Pleasant Beach decided to cancel its annualseafood festival because of the day’s events, Della Fave said.\n“The New Jersey State Police will ascertain the level of sophistication of the explosive device and its timing device,’’ Della Fave added.Gov. Chris Christie was briefed on the incident by Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino, and Col. Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, according to a news release.\n“Working with the FBI and ATF, we are taking every step to ensure the safety of the public and to determine who was responsible for this explosion, which occurred at a time when runners in this charity race could have been in harm’s way,”Porrino said in a news release. “We are grateful that nobody was injured, but this is a serious act of violence against the people of New Jersey. We will not rest until we find the person or persons responsible.”\nSeaside Park residents received an emergency alert call Saturday afternoon from police, asking residents to report any suspicious packages, and notifyingthem to be aware there will be a long-term police presence in town.\nTerrorism comes to the Shore?\nIf it is proven to be terrorism, the Jersey Shore would join other communities that have experienced acts of terrorism. For some, it evoked disquieting memories of the Boston Marathon bombing more than three years ago, when two pressure cooker bombs exploded, killing three and wounding more than 260. Several officials publicly acknowledged how lucky it was that the Seaside Park race was delayed, possibly sparing runners from any injuries in the blast.\nRep. Tom MacArthur, R-New Jersey, who represents Seaside Park in the U.S. House of Representatives, went to the scene Saturday evening to thank first responders and make certain Ocean County and Seaside Parkofficials were satisfied with the federal response.\n\"I don't know that,\" MacArthur answered when asked whether terrorism had come to the Shore. \"They'rerunning down leads, they have a pretty good handle on what happened and how it got placed and where, and even some sense of when. But I just don't think I should be speculating at this point on what the motives of the attackers were.\"\nWhoever was behind Saturday's bombing in Seaside Park one or more terrorists, or an individual who is simply \"unhinged\"  this is the world we live in today, MacArthur said.\n\"And we have to be vigilant, that's why it's so important to support law enforcement, that is why I came (here) ... the local police orthe county, there are even other towns and counties that are here. They need to know how much we appreciate what they do because they're protecting us every day.\"\nConfusion over race delay\nThroughout the day Saturday, there were two explanationsofferedby authorities and event organizersas to what caused the start of the Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K to be delayed, perhaps inadvertently saving lives and avoiding injuries.\nCathyHowath, 50, of Upper Saddle River, and her sister, Janie Murphy, 52, of Bridgewater, were among those who signed up to run in the 5K.\nBut before the race was supposed to gooff, the discovery of a backpack near a media tent sent off a repetitive announcement over a bullhorn, Howath said.\n“They kept making the announcement, ‘There’s an unclaimed, blue backpack by the News 12 tent and the radio station tent. If this is your backpackplease come and claim it.’ It was said repeatedly,’’ Howath said.\nEventually, a student from Donovan Catholic High School in Toms River claimed the backpack, Murphy said. She and her sister said they believe this also delayed the start of the race and spared participants from injury.\n“It was a blessing in disguise, because the pipe bomb would have gone off when the 5K was going,’’ Howath said.\nAn earlier fun-run for children had already started, however, and people participating in that reportedhearing the explosive detonate, Howath said.\n\"We never heard it,’’ she said. “They just started moving people (away from the boardwalk.) We still didn’t know why.’’\nBy afternoon, Howath and Murphy, like other runners, were stranded on Central Avenue, unable to get back to their car.\n“We’re stranded  no phone, no money, nothing,’’ Howath said, who said she was supposed to be at work at 1:30 p.m. at a garden center in Woodcliff Lake.\nLarryMigliorisi, ofToms River, a volunteer for the event with the Marine Corp League’s local Cpl. William H. Smith Detachment of Lacey, waited for news on a sidewalk about two blocks west of the beachfront, also unable to retrieve his car.\n“Our vehicle is right by the Boardwalk and we’re not allowed to go up there,” Migliorisi said. “They told us to keep moving out (away from the beachfront) because there might be other explosive devices.”\nLike Howath and Murphy, hedid not hear any explosion, he said, but he explained there were actuallytwo delays at the start of the race that might have prevented injuries or fatalities.\nThe first delay was the result of an unexpected surge in on-site registration for the event, Migliorisisaid. The turnout resulted in organizers needing more time to accommodate everyone who had lined up to participate and get their materials for the race.\n“The nine o’clock race  the one mile  did not go off on time, it went off at about 9:15,” he said. “And the 5K was supposed to be going off at 9:30 which would’ve been delayed. But at that point in time, when they found (the)backpack, they announced that its owner come and get it. They made that announcement on numerous occasions and when nobody claimed it, they evacuated us all out.”\n'It's a terrible thing'\nStephen Rumbolo, 18, of Ortley Beach, said he arrived on D Street soon after the bombing after a friend told him something had exploded.\n\"We saw everybody roll up, all the squad cars, the ATF, they all came up, there were big guns everywhere. I had to move my car out of the waythey hada bunch of cars.They were making us move from corner to corner,\" Rumbolo said.\nMary Rizzon of Bridgewater was staying at the Desert Palm Inn on Ocean Avenue in Seaside Park, the last leg of what was supposed to be a tranquil post-Labor Day trip up the Jersey Shore that began in Cape May. On Saturday afternoon, Rizzon stood in front of the motel with a look of shock on her face. “It’s a terrible thing,” Rizzon repeated. “A lot of people heard the explosion. … There were all military people here.”\nAn Ocean County sheriff’s vehicle drove slowlyalong Ocean Avenue instructing pedestrians over its loudspeaker to take shelter.\n“They won’t let us on the beach,” Rizzon said. Some people had nowhere to go. A few of the runners, still wearing their race bibs could not get to their vehicles because they were parked inside the evacuation zone.\nJacqueline O'Hara, 75, had the opposite problem. She hadmade the trip Saturday from her primary residence in Verona to her second homein Seaside Park, with a quick stopat the ShopRite on Route 37 in Toms River to pick up a few groceries. Upon trying to enter the barrier island in the afternoon, O'Haradiscovered that not only could she not get across the bridge, but thather house on D Street near Ocean Avenue was nearground zero of the failed attack.\n\"EighteenDannon Coffee Yogurts,a gallon of milk and carrots,\" O'Hara said, explaining that she turned around and went back to the supermarket to return the perishables. \"At 12:30, one o'clock, we were told we weren't going to be able to come in and get to our house.\"\nOther municipal officialson the Shore said they were monitoring the situation in Seaside Park.\nBelmar Mayor Matt Doherty said on Twitter that police had inspected and cleared all garbage cans and would bring them in overnight in response to the explosion in Seaside Park.\nAsbury Park Mayor John Moor said that the city's police department was aware of the situation and \"taking any necessary steps.\"\nIn Tinton Falls, the borough police department sentouta \"CodeRED\" email blast ahead of the town's \"Hustle4Hannah 5K & Kids Fun Run,\" scheduled for Sunday.\nThere would be no overnight parking allowedon the streets in the vicinity of its race and added precautions were tobe implemented inthe area of the Monmouth Regional High School campus, the alert read. \"Participants and spectators will be prohibited from bringing personal bags into the area. All personal bags must be left in your vehicles. Police will knock on doors to have vehicles removed off the streets. ...All violators will be towed.\"\nMacArthur, who serves on the House Committee on Armed Services, said each town must do what it believes to be in the best interests of public safety. However, the congressmanadded that it is the disruption of normal life and the effectuation of public fear that is the objective of those who commit these acts.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A pipe-bomb-style device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturdaymorning","about 9:35 a.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Seaside Park","Ocean Avenue and D Street"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Four Jaish-e-Mohammed militants attack an Indian Army base near the Pakistan border with at least 17 soldiers and four militants killed. (International Business Times)(BBC)","document":"Militants have attacked an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing at least 17 soldiers, the army says.\nAll four of the attackers were killed. Carrying guns and grenades they stormed a base in Uri, close to the Line of Control with Pakistan in a pre-dawn ambush.\nIndian Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh reacted by calling Pakistan a \"terrorist state\".\nIt is the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in two decades.\nIt comes as violent protests against Indian rule in the disputed region continue, with a strict curfew imposed.\nMore than 80 people, nearly all anti-government protesters, have died in more than two months of violence.\nNo group has claimed responsibility for the attack and Pakistan denied any role.\n\"This is an old tactic of India. They immediately put the blame on Pakistan without investigation,\" foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria told the BBC.\nBut Mr Singh said on Twitter that \"there are definite and conclusive indications that the perpetrators of Uri attack were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped\".\n\"I am deeply disappointed with Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups,\" he said.\nUK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson condemned the attack and said the UK \"stands shoulder to shoulder with India in the fight against terrorism, and in bringing the perpetrators to justice\".\nBoth India and Pakistan claim all of Muslim-majority Kashmir but only control parts of it.\nIndian army military operations head Lieutenant-General Ranbir Singh said there was evidence the attackers were members of an Islamist militant group in Pakistan.\nThe terrorists had some items which had Pakistani markings on,\" he said.\nKashmir profile\nThe militants infiltrated across the Line of Control from Pakistan before attacking the base, west of Srinagar, an army officer told the BBC.\nGunfire and explosions were heard for several hours.\nMany tents and temporary shelters caught fire during the attack, according to the army's Northern Command.\nTwelve soldiers were killed by fires and the others died in gun battles, the Hindustan Times reports, citing army sources.\nDisputed Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than 60 years, causing two wars between the neighbours.\nA militant attack on an army camp in Uri in December 2014 saw at least nine members of the security forces killed. The last attack of this scale on the Indian army was in June 2015 in Manipur, north-east India, when at least 20 soldiers were killed in an attack on a troop convoy.\nWith the Indian Home Ministry talking about a \"cross-border terror attack\", there is no doubt the raid  will make the already fraught relations between India and Pakistan even frostier. But the truth is this latest upsurge in violence has a distinctly home-grown flavour.\nThe huge wave of protests against Indian rule that were prompted by the killing of a popular young militant on 8 July have been overwhelmingly by people from Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir. The attack is likely to mean normal life in the province will continue to be paralysed by the curfew imposed by the security forces for some time to come.\nThe Indian government says it wants to discuss how to end the violence with local leaders, but so far its overtures have been rejected by separatists who insist that the issue of Kashmiri independence must be on the table.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guns and grenades"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four of the attackers were killed","killing at least 17 soldiers","Twelve soldiers","at least nine members of the security forces","a popular young militant"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["pre-dawn"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["an army base"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a base in Uri, close to the Line of Control with Pakistan","Indian-administered Kashmir"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Australia's Department of Defence acknowledges its participation \"among a number of international aircraft\" in the Deir ez-Zor air raid. It says it would \"never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (ISIS)\" and offers its condolences. (SANA) (ABC)","document":"Australian aircraft were involved in a US-led coalition operation which killed dozens of Syrian soldiers who were apparently mistaken for Islamic State fighters, the Defence Department has confirmed.\nBetween 62 and 83 Syrian soldiers who had been fighting IS militants were reportedly killed in the air strikes around the Deir al-Zor military airport in Syria's east.\n\"Australian aircraft were among a number of international aircraft taking part in this Coalition operation,\" the Defence Department said in a statement.\n\"Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (IS). Defence offers its condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded in this incident.\"\nThe Russian military earlier said two F-16s and two A-10 jets that flew into Syrian airspace from neighbouring Iraq carried out the actual attack. Neither type is listed as being in operation with the RAAF.\nThe strikes came less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria's five-year civil war, as Russia accused what it termed \"moderate rebels\" of causing the truce to fail.\nReuters\nThe US military and Australia's Defence Department said the attack was called off after Russia informed the coalition that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.\nPentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area.\nDespite a breakthrough peace deal in Syria, after five years of war each side is sceptical of the other's willingness to adhere to a ceasefire, Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill writes.\nThe 15-member United Nations Security Council met after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the US-led coalition of jeopardising the Syria deal and helping Islamic State.\nThe US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move.\n\"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point-scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them,\" Ms Power said.\nWhen asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: \"This is a very big question mark.\"\n\"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today (Sunday) is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble,\" Mr Churkin said.\nRussia said the attacks, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor, were evidence that the US was helping the jihadist militants.\nFor more than five years, the Syrian people have suffered a catastrophic series of wars that have killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.\n\"We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world that the White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that,\" the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.\n\"Warplanes from the international anti-jihadist coalition carried out four air strikes today (Sunday) against Syrian forces surrounded by IS in the Deir Ezzor air base,\" a Russian army statement said.\n\"Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and a hundred others were injured in these strikes.\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group gave a toll of 83 soldiers killed, and said the strikes were US-led coalition raids.\nReuters: Ints Kalnins\nCoordination between the US, which backs some Syrian rebels, and the Russian military, which backs the Syrian government, is a controversial issue.\nRussia has long insisted on it and, if the ceasefire brokered by the two nations holds, the two nations are supposed to start coordinating attacks on Islamic State.\nRussia says the incident is evidence the US has stubbornly refused to coordinate so far.\nBut the US says the coalition did inform Russia of the forthcoming strike.\nSyria's army has been fighting off a fierce Islamic State offensive around the Deir al-Zor airport since last year.\nThe IS-linked Amaq news agency said coalition strikes also hit Islamic State positions around the airport, while there were also reports of Russian planes bombing Islamic State targets..\nRussian military officials meanwhile lashed out at both the United States and mainstream rebels over the ceasefire struck last week in Geneva.\n\"The situation in Syria is worsening,\" said Russian General Vladimir Savchenko in a briefing.\nUnder the US-Russia deal, if the truce lasts seven days and humanitarian access is granted, Moscow and Washington are to work together to target jihadists including IS.\n\"Russia is exerting all possible effort to restrain (Syrian) government troops from returning fire,\" Senior Army General Viktor Poznikhir said.\n\"If the American side does not take the necessary measures to carry out its obligations... a breakdown of the ceasefire will be on the United States.\"\nIn a statement, the Russian defence ministry accused what it termed \"moderate rebels\" of causing the ceasefire to fail.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Between 62 and 83 Syrian soldiers who had been fighting IS militants were reportedly killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Australian aircraft","The Russian military","The US military"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["two F-16s and two A-10 jets"]},{"role":"Target","values":["Islamic State fighters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["around the Deir al-Zor military airport in Syria's east"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 A bomb squad robot detonates an explosive device at a transit station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There has been a previous explosion in Seaside Park. No one is hurt. (NBC News)","document":" The desperate search for a 28-year-old man wanted in connection with a series of blasts that terrorized New York and New Jersey over the last three days ended Monday in a gun battle with police officers.\nAhmad Khan Rahami was charged Monday evening with charged with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, according to the Union County, N.J., prosecutor.\nThe prosecutor's office also charged him with second-degree counts of unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. A state judge set bail at $5.2 million.\nRahami, who could face up to 20 years for each count of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, was taken into custody after he was shot in the leg during the 10:30 a.m. confrontation in Linden, N.J., law enforcement sources said.\nRahami managed to shoot one police officer in the hand and another in the bulletproof vest before he was apprehended, they said.\nThe injuries sustained by Rahami, who was being treated at University Hospital in Newark, and by the officers did not appear to be life-threatening, officials said.\n\"When I was at the scene, initially, he was conscious and awake,\" Linden police Capt. James Sarnicki said of the suspect.\nRahami was captured after police got a call about a man sleeping in the doorway of a local bar, Sarnicki said.\nWhen police arrived, one of the officers \"tried to rouse him,\" Sarnicki said. \"The gentleman on the ground picked up his head, and the officer saw that he had a beard and resembled the wanted person from the poster ... from the bombings.\"\nAfter the officer ordered the suspect to show his hands, the man \"pulled out a handgun and fired one shot at the officer, striking him in the abdomen,\" Sarnicki said. \"Fortunately, the officer had a bulletproof vest on.\"\nThe Linden cops returned fire, hitting Rahami several times, Sarnicki said.\nA local business owner told NBC News that he heard what he thought at first were fireworks.\n\"But then we took a peek, and there were cops firing, and the guy went down in front of the building,\" said the owner, who declined to give his name.\nMeanwhile, President Barack Obama reassured a nervous nation that law enforcement was on the case.\n\"Moments like this, I think, it's important to remember what terrorists and violent extremists are trying to do,\" Obama said. \"They are trying to hurt innocent people and create fear in all of us, to disrupt the way we live.\"\nObama praised New Yorkers and New Jersey residents after their states were once again targeted.\n\"Folks around here, they don't get scared,\" he said. \"They're tough. They're resilient. They go about their business every single day.\"\nLater, Obama told reporters that he had spoken with  and thanked  the wounded Linden officers.\n\"They are going to be fine, sustained modest injuries, in good spirits,\" he said. \"Just one more reminder of the skill and sacrifice of law enforcement officers.\"\nRahami was born in Afghanistan, and his family was granted asylum in the United States in 2011, a senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News. His father, Mohammad, said he had \"no idea\" that his son was allegedly plotting a bombing campaign.\n\"I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not sure what's happening exactly,\" Mohammad Rahami said as he returned to the family's store in Elizabeth, N.J.\nRep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., said Monday on MSNBC's \"Meet the Press Daily\" that Rahami got in contact with his office in 2014 asking for help because his pregnant wife's Pakistani passport had expired.\n\"I assumed she did\" get the visa, Sires said  before adding a personal assessment of Rahami: \"He was kind of nasty, too.\"\nRahami is the man seen in surveillance footage taken Saturday night in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, the site of an explosion that injured 29 people, a senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News.\nThe blast was so powerful that it sent a dumpster flying more than 150 feet down the sidewalk and shattered windows more than a block away. Police later found a second bomb that did not detonate a few blocks away on 27th Street.\nThe FBI said it does not yet know why the Chelsea neighborhood was targeted.\nOther physical evidence links Rahami to the pressure cooker bombs that went off or were found in New York and New Jersey, a senior law enforcement official said.\nRahami, who is a U.S. citizen, was identified as a suspect after a fingerprint was found on one of the devices that failed to detonate, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.\nInvestigators also found more information that pointed to Rahami on cellphones that were wired to the unexploded bombs, the official said.\n\"He certainly seemed to do virtually nothing to cover his tracks,\" the official said.\nBut the official downplayed any talk of Rahami's being part of a \"cell\" and said that at this point investigators have no idea whether anyone else was involved. There was no indication that an ISIS cell was operating in New York City, FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said at an afternoon news conference.\nNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the same news conference: \"There is no other individual we are looking for at this time.\"\nNonetheless, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said officials could not rule out international terrorism.\n\"Today's information suggests it may be foreign related, but we'll see where it goes,\" Cuomo said Monday on MSNBC's \"Morning Joe.\"\nRahami visited Afghanistan as recently as April 2013, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Monday evening. In the last decade, Rahami has also made several trips to neighboring Pakistan  and his older brother Mohammad is believed to still be in Afghanistan, the official said.\nRahami was caught hours after a backpack that appeared to contain pipe bombs exploded in Elizabeth, N.J., as a police robot examined it near a New Jersey train station. That blast, which happened shortly before 1 a.m. ET Monday, was the second in New Jersey since Saturday morning.\nElizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage told reporters that the robot was \"cutting into the device when it exploded.\"\nMultiple senior law enforcement officials told NBC News that the device in Elizabeth appeared similar to the one that exploded Saturday morning in Seaside Park, N.J. The package, a backpack, was found by two men in a garbage can about 300 feet from the front door of a crowded pub in Elizabeth, Bollwage said.\nWhen they saw wires and pipes, they dropped it and immediately went to police headquarters, he said.\n\"We do not believe those two are involved,\" the mayor said. \"We believe they did the right thing.\"\nFive hours later, FBI agents were spotted at the Rahami family's fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth.\nWhile investigators prepared to question Rahami, the FBI was still grilling five people who were taken into custody after authorities stopped a \"vehicle of interest\" in the New York blast at about 8:45 p.m. ET Sunday near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.\nThe five people were later released without charges, authorities said.\nThere was a suspicious package with multiple improvised explosive devices this evening at the Elizabeth Train Station in NJ. #Elizabeth\nBomb techs from the FBI, Union County, & the New Jersey State Police have arrived on the scene and are now rendering the area safe\nInvestigators analyzing possible similarities between the two devices found in Manhattan and the one that detonated in Seaside Park noted that all three apparently contained old-style mobile flip phones, according to officials familiar with the probe.\nAccording to federal investigators, one of the factors linking the New York and New Jersey bombs was the fact that the flip phone from the Seaside Park device, which was bought in February 2015, and the phone attached to the pressure cooker bomb on 27th Street, which was bought in May 2015  were both purchased at the same Family Dollar store in Perth Amboy, N.J.\nTom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["pipe bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Ahmad Khan Rahami"]},{"role":"Date","values":["shortly before 1 a.m. ET Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Elizabeth, N.J","near a New Jersey train station"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Afghan officials say yesterday's U.S. airstrikes killed up to eight Afghan policemen in Lashkar Gah, Uruzgan. (Reuters)","document":"LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike killed as many as eight Afghan policemen outside the embattled provincial capital of Uruzgan province, Afghan officials said on Monday, as security forces, supported by U.S. strikes, battle resurgent Taliban militants.\nAn initial air strike late on Sunday killed one policeman, while a follow up strike targeted first responders, killing at least seven, said Rahimullah Khan, commander of the reserve police unit in Uruzgan.\nAnother official, Uruzgan deputy police chief Mohammed Qawi Omari, put the death toll at six but also reported the police were killed by a foreign air strike.\nThe U.S. military command in Kabul confirmed its warplanes had conducted an air strike in the area, but said they targeted “individuals firing on, and posing a threat to” Afghan national security forces.\n“We don’t have any further information on who those individuals might have been or why they were attacking ANDSF (Afghan national defense and security forces),” U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland said in a statement.\n“U.S., coalition, and Afghan forces have the right to self-defense and in this case were responding to an immediate threat.”\nAfghan officials said they were investigating the attack and were in contact with the U.S.-led coalition.\nAfghan security forces, supported by American air strikes and international military advisers, are battling Taliban militants who have fought a 15-year insurgency against the Western-backed government in Kabul.\nTaliban fighters briefly entered Uruzgan’s capital city, Tarin Kot, in early September, according to provincial officials, before being pushed back by security forces.\nAdditional reporting by Ismail Sameem in Kandahar and Josh Smith in Kabul; Editing by Nick Macfie\n\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed as many as eight Afghan policemen"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["U.S"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["“individuals firing on, and posing a threat to” Afghan national security forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside the embattled provincial capital of Uruzgan province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2016 Hours after the Syrian military declares the end of the ceasefire, an airstrike hits a convoy of United Nations OCHA aid trucks near the town of Urum al-Kubra, in the Aleppo Governorate, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting that at least 12 people have been killed. (BBC)","document":"A convoy of aid trucks has been hit by an air strike near the Syrian city of Aleppo, reports say, hours after the military declared the current cessation of violence was over. One unconfirmed report said 12 people were killed in the attack near the town of Urum al-Kubra.\nA UN spokesman said at least 18 of 31 trucks had been hit but could not confirm it was by an air strike.\nUN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said it was an \"outrage\".\n\"The convoy was the outcome of a long process of permission and preparations to assist isolated civilians,\" he said in a statement emailed to Reuters.\nThe Syrian Red Crescent said the convoy had been making a routine delivery from Aleppo to rural rebel-held areas. Images posted online showed lorries and trailers engulfed by flames.\nActivist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 12 people - aid workers and truck drivers - had died in a strike by Syrian or Russian warplanes. The Syrian government has not commented.\nA witness told Reuters by phone that about five missile strikes had hit the lorries, which were parked at a centre belonging to the Syrian Red Crescent in Urum al-Kubra.\nMr de Mistura's humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, said the convoy had been \"bombarded\" while offloading at warehouses. About 78,000 people are in need of aid around Urum al-Kubra.\nIngy Sedky, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, described the situation at the scene as \"very chaotic\".\n\"We are deeply shocked that humanitarian workers and missions have yet again suffered from the brutality of this conflict,\" she told AFP.\nAid deliveries to besieged areas were a key part of the cessation of hostilities deal brokered by the US and Russia seven days ago.\nBut the Syrian military and rebels have accused each other of violating the truce.\nEarlier, air strikes were reported to have resumed on Aleppo and other cities after the Syrian military declared the seven-day \"regime of calm\"  at an end.\nIt said rebel groups, which it referred to as \"terrorists\", had failed to commit to any provisions of the truce deal.\nThe US, which brokered the cessation of violence along with Russia, said it was working to extend the agreement, but called on Russia to clarify the Syrian statement.\n\"Our arrangement is with Russia, which is responsible for the Syrian regime's compliance, so we expect Russia to clarify their position,\" state department spokesman John Kirby said.\nUS Secretary of State John Kerry criticised the Syrian declaration, saying: \"It would be good if they didn't talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this.\"\nHe had earlier described the truce as \"holding but fragile\".\nThe US and Russia are to hold further talks on the Syrian situation in New York on Tuesday, the state department added.\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes had hit rebel-held areas in Aleppo and villages to the west.\nA correspondent with the AFP news agency in the city said artillery shelling and air strikes hit Sukkari and Amiriyah, two eastern districts. Government-backed air strikes were also reported in the city of Homs and in the cities of Hama and Idlib.\nThe cessation agreement included deliveries of humanitarian aid for the worst hit areas, but by Monday most shipments had yet to go in.\nThe stalled convoys include 20 lorries due to supply rebel-held eastern Aleppo where about 275,000 civilians are trapped without access to food or medical supplies.\nUN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O'Brien said he was \"pained and disappointed\" that the convoy had yet to cross into Syria from Turkey.\nSome aid was delivered to the besieged town of Talbiseh in Homs province on Monday, the Red Cross said.\nThe truce was dealt a blow on Saturday when warplanes from the US-led coalition against so-called Islamic State (IS) bombed Syrian troops in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, apparently unintentionally.\nOfficials said the strikes killed more than 60 soldiers. President Bashar al-Assad called them the \"latest example of flagrant American aggression against Syrian army positions in the interests of the terrorist organisation Daesh [IS]\".\nOn Monday, the UK confirmed that British aircraft - believed to be unmanned, remotely-piloted Reaper drones - had been involved in the strike, along with jets from Australia and Denmark.\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["five missile"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["12 people were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian or Russian warplanes"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["A convoy of aid trucks"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Syrian city of Aleppo","near the town of Urum al-Kubra","the besieged town of Talbiseh in Homs province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 Major General Waheed Arshad announces the Pakistan Army has killed 40 pro-Taliban militants in the Shangla District in the last two days. (BBC)","document":"The insurgents were killed in Shangla district in Swat valley on Tuesday and Wednesday, army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said.\nThere has been no comment from the militants yet and there was no independent confirmation of the claim.\nThe Swat valley, next to Pakistan's tribal areas, has been in the grip of an insurgency since October.\nLast week, the army said they had killed 16 pro-Taleban militants in the same area.\nSituation worsens\nTroops \"have cleared a hub of resistance of militants from a prominent height\" overlooking a road leading to Alpurai, Shangla's main town, Maj Gen Waheed was quoted by news agency Associated Press as saying.\n\"The operation is continuing today in several parts of Swat.\"\nMilitants in the Swat valley maintain a high profile\nThe situation in Swat valley has worsened since October after a pro-Taleban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, and his supporters sought to enforce his brand of Islamic law. The militants have since taken over large parts of the outlying areas of the valley, as well as at least four small towns in the district. Observers say the security forces' largely inhibited movements have increasingly emboldened the militants. Heavy fighting has caused damage to civilian areas, forcing large numbers of residents to flee. Gen Musharraf says worsening security in Swat and other parts of Pakistan is one of the main reasons for his declaring a state of emergency on 3 November.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday and Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["The insurgents"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Shangla district in Swat valley"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 The Nigerian Army is deployed in Kano State after six people died in clashes during local elections. (BBC)","document":"Troops are patrolling key positions and have set up roadblocks.  The army has urged people to remain calm and asked parents to control their children.\nAn army spokesman said 280 soldiers had been deployed with 220 held in reserve.\nViolence broke out when the state opposition accused the governing party of rigging state polls.\nKano is one of the few states that is controlled by the national opposition, while Nigeria's ruling PDP is in opposition locally.\n'Many arrests'\nVoters in Kano cast ballots on Saturday for local constituency leaders.  By Sunday PDP supporters had set up barricades and lit fires, destroying state property and burning down local government buildings.\nPolice say they arrested many people and recovered weapons including guns and machetes.\nThe army spokesman said it was helping the police to restore law and order.\nThe BBC's Alex Last in Lagos says although these were only local elections, political office in Nigeria means the prospect of considerable money and power, so political violence is never far away.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guns and machetes"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["destroying state property and burning down local government buildings"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["'Many arrests'\nVoters","PDP supporters"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["280 soldiers had been deployed with 220 held in reserve"]},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Nigeria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 A court in Copenhagen, Denmark, convicts three men for plotting terrorist attacks using triacetone triperoxide. (BBC)","document":"Mohammed Zaher, Abdallah Andersen and Ahmad Khaldhahi were part of a group of four arrested after a raid in the city of Odense last year.\nChemicals used to make explosives were found at one of the men's homes, the court heard. The men had also been recorded discussing targets to attack.\nZaher and Khaldhahi were sentenced to 11 years in jail, while Andersen received a sentence of four years.\nThe fourth man, Riad Anwar Daabas, was acquitted by the court.\nDenmark's military contribution to the US-led campaign in Iraq has prompted fears it could be targeted by militants.\nLast year, the country was also the focus of worldwide protests by Muslims, who were angered by a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.\nTwo men were arrested near Copenhagen in September on suspicion of planning terror attacks.\nCharges denied\nTwo of the three men convicted on Friday are Danish citizens.\nThe third, Ahmad Khaldhahi, is an Iraqi Kurd, the Associated Press news agency reports.\nThe men were charged with acquiring chemicals and equipment used to make triacetone triperoxide (TATP) - an explosive compound used in the 2005 London bombings.\nThe evidence against them included a bottle containing a small amount of TATP, found at one of the suspects' homes, and surveillance recordings in which the men are apparently heard discussing targets for possible attack.\nThe men had denied the charges and said they were joking when discussing the targets, the AP news agency says.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["triacetone triperoxide (TATP)"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Mohammed Zaher, Abdallah Andersen and Ahmad Khaldhahi"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the city of Odense"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 At least six people, most of them children, are killed by a suicide bomber in Paghman, Afghanistan. (BBC)","document":"At least nine people, including three other Italian soldiers, were reported wounded in the attack, which targeted a bridge the Italians were working on.\nCivilians had gathered round to watch the work in the Paghman district, about 10km (six miles) north-west of Kabul.\nIt is the latest in a series of suicide bombings by militants in Afghanistan.\nMany of the wounded were injured by ball-bearings packed inside the bomb, Afghan police said.\nThey denied rumours that Italian soldiers had opened fire after the attack.\nSuicide attacks are a comparatively recent tool in the armoury of the insurgency there, but they are now far more frequent, says the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul. There have been more than 130 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, by far the highest annual total since the Taleban were pushed from power six years ago.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["ball-bearings packed inside the bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least nine people, including three other Italian soldiers, were reported wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a bridge the Italians were working on"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Paghman district, about 10km (six miles) north-west of Kabul"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 Two suicide car bombings kill at least 30 people and injure many more in Rawalpindi. (BBC)","document":"Another explosion at a checkpoint left officers badly hurt, and there are fears the death toll will rise.\n\nBurning bus\nWitnesses said the bus entered a compound housing Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), followed by a small car, which blew up seconds later.\n\"We saw a burning bus and people from the army trying to put the fire out. I don't think anybody inside the bus could have survived,\" Shoaib Abbasi, who was working at a nearby hotel, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.\nSoldiers and police quickly sealed the scene, and forced bystanders and journalists back.\nBoth vehicles were destroyed in the blast, which also damaged surrounding buildings.\nAn intelligence agent at the scene told the Associated Press news agency that the destroyed bus was a 72-seater, but that more people were on board.\nAbout 19km (12 miles) away, a bomber in a car also attacked the checkpoint, army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said.\nReports from security sources said at least one officer died in the attack.\n\"Both were suicide attacks,\" Gen Arshad told local reporters.\nPakistan has recently seen a number of suicide bombings, including an attack in Karachi that killed at least 135 people.\nThis is the third recent strike on Rawalpindi, and the first since a state of emergency was imposed by Gen Musharraf.\nRawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, is the main headquarters of the army in Pakistan, and the place where Gen Musharraf has his military offices. Political turmoil\nNo group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings. But the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says attacks are often suspected to have been carried out by pro-Taleban militants in revenge for military operations in the tribal areas near the Afghan border and in North-West Frontier Province.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["Both vehicles were destroyed in the blast, which also damaged surrounding buildings"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Pakistan","Rawalpindi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2007 Arlington High School (LaGrange, New York) announces that a Columbinestyle attack on the school was thwarted by New York State Police, who arrest three students. (Poughkeepsie Journal)","document":"FREEDOM PLAINS  State police have arrested three Arlington High School students in relation to a plot to attack the school two years from now, a school official said.State police arrested two 16-year-old Poughquag students  - Patrick Quigley and Joseph Saia  and a 15-year-old student after investigating a threat posted on a MySpace page. The three teens were charged with fourth-degree conspiracy, a felony.The Web page described events to take place on April 20, 2010, the 11th anniversary of the attack on Columbine High School, police said. In 1999, two teens killed 13 people and wounded two dozen others at the Littleton, Colo., high school before both committing suicide.School officials and police were alerted to the plan after a student saw the Internet message and reported it to one of the high school principals, said Barbara Donegan, assistant superintendent for pupil personnel services.The message stated the attack was in the planning stages, Donegan said.“It seemed to be a credible, serious threat,” Donegan said.On the Web site, students had “mapped out and clearly identified areas within the shcool which were to be specifically targeted,” police said in a written statement. Because the threat was not imminent, district officials did not dismiss students early, Donegan said. The school has been searched and no bombs or other harmful objects were found.Donegan said she applauds the student who saw the message and came forward with the concern.“We’re very proud,” she said. “We were able to be proactive because a student did alert an administrator and we were able to follow up.”Donegan said the district is awaiting further information from the state police.  The three students have been suspended from class for five days, and will undergo a disciplinary hearing during that time, Donegan said.The two 16-year-old students were arraigned before Town of LaGrange Justice Steven Greller, and sent to Dutchess County Jail in lieu of $2,500 bail. Both students have since been released. The 15-year-old student was placed in a non-secure detention center and will be arraigned Thursday morning in Family Court.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Patrick Quigley","Joseph Saia"]},{"role":"Date","values":["April 20, 2010"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Columbine High School"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 Car bombs in Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities kill at least 22 people and injure more than 60 others. (The New York Times)","document":"BAGHDAD, Dec. 5  Car bombs in Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 60 others on Wednesday, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived for an unannounced visit with senior Iraqi officials. Taken together, the killings, including a suicide car bomb attack that killed 14 people on a crowded street in a relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood, accounted for the highest daily death toll in several weeks and served as a vicious reminder that the months-long decline in violence was not a sure harbinger of any lasting peace. None of the bombings occurred close to the defense secretary or his entourage. The first three car bombings occurred in Mosul, Kirkuk and Baquba  three cities north of Baghdad where insurgents linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi group that the American military says is foreign-led, have battled Iraqi and American forces for control.\n But the most deadly attack Wednesday occurred just before 5 p.m., in Baghdad’s mostly Shiite Karada district, across the Tigris River from the fortified Green Zone, where Mr. Gates was about to hold a news conference with the Iraqi defense minister. A suicide car bomb detonated near the Abdul Rasul Ali mosque, a Shiite shrine, as scores of local residents were shopping in preparation for the four-day holiday, Id al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice, which begins in two weeks.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Car bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 60 others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a crowded street in a relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood","Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities","Mosul, Kirkuk and Baquba","near the Abdul Rasul Ali mosque, a Shiite shrine"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 A man opens fire at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States, killing eight before committing suicide. (Reuters)","document":"\n\n OMAHA, Neb., Dec 5 (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire inside\na crowded shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday,\nkilling eight people and then himself, police said.\n Five other people were wounded in the rampage, including\ntwo critically, according to hospital spokesmen. One man with a\nchest wound was in surgery.\n Police had few details of the shooting, but witnesses said\nthe gunman shot one man in the head from a third-floor balcony\nof the Westroads Mall and others were shot at point-blank\nrange.\n Police arrived at the mall, which was crowded with\nshoppers, and encountered victim after victim, though it was\nnot clear when the gunman killed himself, police Sgt. Teresa\nNegron told reporters.\n Negron said most of the victims were shot inside one\ndepartment store and that the motive for the rampage was still\nbeing investigated.\n \"There was breaking glass ... it was horrible, just\nhorrible,\" one woman told KETV in Omaha, saying she hid under a\nclothes rack when the shooting started.\n Another witness said she heard someone shout, \"It's a\ngunman, run!\" and saw bullet casings cascading off the mall\nbalcony.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing eight people and then himself","Five other people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a crowded shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 One person is killed and one is seriously injured after a letter bomb explosion in a law office building in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. (CNN)","document":" PARIS, France (CNN) -- French officials are trying to determine who sent a parcel bomb that exploded Thursday in a Paris law office, killing a female assistant who opened the package.  A soldier stands in central Paris near where the parcel bomb exploded.\n The blast seriously injured a lawyer standing nearby, but his injuries are not life-threatening, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said\n Speaking from the scene hours after the blast, Alliot-Marie said a courier delivered the \"makeshift\" letter bomb a short time before it detonated at approximately 12:50 p.m. (6:50 a.m. ET).  She said two explosive devices were inside the parcel -- one detonated and the other did not.  The package containing explosives was delivered to a fourth floor law office in a building on the Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris' 8th district, near the Champs-Elysees.\n The office handles civil and commercial work, according to Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin, who is participating in the investigation. It is unclear why it would be the target of an attack, Marin said.  He added it was unclear who the package was addressed to because of the extent of the damage.  Lawyer Christian Charriere-Bournazel told The Associated Press: \"Someone came to the office and left a package. The secretary that opened it in fact opened a parcel bomb. The parcel bomb killed her.\"\n Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe called it \"a despicable act which must be condemned.\"  \"It is my duty to first express my strongest condemnation of such a serious act, my compassion for the victim and her next of kin and for all the people who have been traumatized and shocked by such an act,\" he said.  The building contains several law offices, including the former firm of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and an office for a foundation dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust, police said.  Serge Klarsfeld, a former Nazi war criminal hunter who is affiliated with the Holocaust foundation, told CNN he did not believe that office was the target of the attack.  A construction worker, who witnessed the aftermath, said a torrent of emergency workers descended upon the building.  \"We were working on the building site and we heard the firemen and police sirens and they blocked the whole street,\" a construction worker told CNN affiliate, BFM TV.  \"Then we saw a woman who came out wounded, covered in blood and who was hurting and she appeared to have a wound in her stomach and had blood on her legs. So they took her to a small store to take care of her, then we saw the bomb squad arrive who went inside the building to see what was going on and then the army arrived.\"  Hours after the blast, security was tight around the boulevard, which is lined with legal and financial offices. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a parcel bomb","two explosive devices"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing a female assistant","seriously injured a lawyer"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday","approximately 12:50 p.m. (6:50 a.m. ET)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a Paris law office"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris' 8th district, near the Champs-Elysees"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 Gunmen attack a party office of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi, Pakistan, killing three supporters. (AP via Google News)","document":"QUETTA, Pakistan (AP)  Gunmen attacked a party office of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing three of her supporters ahead of parliamentary elections, police said.\nThe attack occurred in Naseerabad, about 150 miles east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said Wajid Akbar, the district police chief. Police had no immediate information about the motive for the attack or who was behind it, he said.\nKillings and other violence have been common in past elections in Pakistan, where Bhutto and others are now campaigning for parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8.\nSuicide bombers struck at Bhutto's October homecoming parade in the southern city of Karachi, killing more than 140 people.\nPakistan's political turmoil deepened on Nov. 3 when the country's ruler President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing three"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a party office of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto"]},{"role":"Location","values":["southwestern Pakistan","Naseerabad, about 150 miles east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2020 Thirtytwo civilians are killed during an attack by an armed group against the Amhara ethnic group in Welega Province, Ethiopia. It is suspected that at least twenty other people have been killed in the attack. (Al Jazeera)","document":"Regional authorities accuse Oromo Liberation Army of carrying out the attack, with reports putting the death toll at ‘several dozen’.\nArmed men in western Ethiopia have rounded up and executed dozens of men, women and children, in a “brutal” attack officials blamed on an armed group that is active in the region.\nAccording to Amnesty International, Sunday’s attack on Gawa Qanqa village in Guliso District of West Wellega Zone took place a day after government forces unexpectedly left the area.\nThe exact death toll was not yet known. Amnesty, citing survivors, said on Monday at least 54 members of the Amhara ethnic group  Ethiopia’s second-largest  were killed. Earlier, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in a statement the official death toll stood at 32 people but the actual number could be much higher.\nThe commission said the victims “were dragged from their homes and taken to a school, where they were killed”, in a “massacre” that involved up to 60 “armed and unarmed assailants”.\nThere has been no claim of responsibility, but the Oromia regional government said the attackers belonged to the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), an armed group blamed for kidnappings and bomb attacks in western and southern Ethiopia.\nSurvivors of the attack who spoke to the Amhara region’s affiliated broadcaster, Amhara Mass Media Agency, said ethnic Amharas were targeted.\n“The armed group gathered 200 people for a meeting around 5pm, and then started shooting at them. Several people were killed as a result,” the broadcaster quoted one survivor as saying. The survivor said a school and some 120 houses were burned.\nA survivor who spoke by phone to AFP news agency also said the violence erupted after soldiers stationed in the area abruptly and inexplicably left, allowing OLA fighters to round up civilians.\n“After collecting us, they opened fire on us, and then afterwards looted cattle and burned down houses,” said the survivor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.\n“I have counted more than 50 corpses, and I know there were others hit by bullets,” the survivor said.\nThe OLA, believed to number in the low thousands, broke off from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an opposition party that spent years in exile but was allowed to return to Ethiopia after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018.\nSince December 2018, the Ethiopian army has been deployed in western and southern Oromia to combat the OLA’s armed campaign.\nAbiy on Monday condemned the “heartbreaking” attack, saying he had deployed security forces to the area.\n“Ethiopia’s enemies are vowing either to rule the country or ruin it, and they are doing everything they can to achieve this. One of their tactics is to arm civilians and carry out barbaric attacks based on identity,” Abiy said in a statement.\nThe incident is likely to further ramp up pressure on Abiy, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, to improve security in a country struggling with rising ethnic violence.\nDeprose Muchena, Amnesty’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said the “senseless” attack was “the latest in a series of killings in the country in which members of ethnic minorities have been deliberately targeted”.\n“The fact that this horrendous incident occurred shortly after government troops abruptly withdrew from the area in unexplained circumstances raises questions that must be answered,” he added, calling for an investigation.\nThe EHRC also urged authorities to probe why the military withdrew from the area.\n“These gruesome killings of civilians are unconscionable and flout basic principles of humanity,” said Daniel Bekele, the head of the commission. “No amount of grievance can justify such brutality and perpetrators should be held to account.”\nThe National Movement of Amhara (NAMA), an opposition party, denounced the government over its failure to protect civilians.\n“The government has failed in its duty to protect the safety of citizens,” Dessalegn Chanie, a senior member of NAMA, told The Associated Press news agency, adding that Ethiopia’s language-based federal system is the main cause for the killings.\n“Ethnic Amharas residing outside of the Amhara region are being labelled as outsiders and are exposed to repeated attacks.”\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["a school and some 120 houses were burned"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 54 members of the Amhara ethnic group  Ethiopia’s second-largest  were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Oromo Liberation Army"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday’s","around 5pm"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["western Ethiopia","Gawa Qanqa village in Guliso District of West Wellega Zone"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2020 Four civilians are killed and 22 others injured after a gunman opens fire in six locations in the streets of Vienna, Austria, near the central Schwedenplatz square. The Interior Minister described it as a \"terror attack\". The attacker was shot dead, and is identified as an Islamic State supporter who tried to join the group in Syria. (BBC)","document":"Austrian police have urged people to stay indoors as they hunt for suspects after a multiple gun attack in the capital Vienna that killed four people.\nA gunman shot dead by police has been identified as a 20-year-old \"Islamist terrorist\" who was released early from jail in December.\nTwo men and two women died of their wounds after gunmen opened fire at six locations in the city centre on Monday evening.\nTwenty-two people were wounded. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the four who died were an elderly woman, an elderly man, a young male passer-by and a waitress. Witnesses described how the gunmen had opened fire on people outside bars and chased them as they fled inside.\nIt was clearly an attack driven by \"hatred of our way of life, our democracy\", the chancellor said. He earlier spoke of a \"repulsive terror attack\".\nThe nation was engaged not in a battle between Christians and Muslims, he stressed, but \"between civilisation and barbarism\".\nInterior Minister Karl Nehammer described the dead gunman as an \"Islamist terrorist\", jailed for 22 months in April 2019 after trying to get to war-torn Syria to join Islamic State (IS) jihadists. The 20-year-old had been released early last December under more lenient terms for young adults.\nMr Nehammer urged Austrians to \"please stay at home if possible\" during the police operation and \"avoid the inner city\". Children should stay at home, not go to school on Tuesday, he said.\nAustrian daily Der Standard reports that 90% of shops in the city centre are now shut.\nThe victims were in a city centre area busy with people in bars and restaurants, near Vienna's central synagogue.\nPolice cordoned off some streets and brought in reinforcements. They are also being helped by the Austrian army.\nAddressing a news conference, Mr Nehammer said police had searched the home of the dead gunman and seized video material. He had been wearing a fake explosive belt, police said.\nThe man was originally from North Macedonia and had a previous conviction for terrorist association, Mr Nehammer said. He had both Austrian and Macedonian citizenship. Several arrests were made during searches of 15 nearby homes. Two suspects were also arrested in St Plten, a town to the west of Vienna.\nThe Vienna shooting comes after a spate of Islamist militant attacks in France.\nLast month French history teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside a school in a suburb of Paris. Then, as the government launched new measures to tackle militant Islam, a Tunisian man fatally stabbed three people in a cathedral in Nice.\nThe worst IS attack in Europe in recent years was in November 2015, when gunmen killed 130 people in Paris.\nMr Nehammer said at least one \"heavily armed and dangerous\" attacker was believed to be still at large. Officials were quoted as saying there could have been as many as four attackers. The attack came hours before Austria imposed new national restrictions to try to stem rising cases of coronavirus. Many people were enjoying drinks and eating out before a midnight curfew.\nPolice named six crime scenes in central Vienna: Seitenstettengasse and nearby Morzinplatz, Salzgries, Fleischmarkt, Bauernmarkt and Graben. The suspect was shot dead near St Rupert's Church.\nAustria's government announced three days of national mourning, starting immediately. Flags flew at half-mast and a minute's silence was held at midday. Schools are to hold a minute's silence for the victims on Wednesday morning.\nPolice say the incident began at about 20:00 (19:00 GMT), near the Seitenstettengasse synagogue, when a heavily armed man opened fire on people outside cafes and restaurants.\nVienna Community Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister said he saw at least two gunmen shoot at least 100 rounds in front of the synagogue compound. \"They were attacking the guests of bars and pubs. People were jumping and running, falling over the tables, running inside the bars followed by the gunmen also running inside the bars,\" he told London radio station LBC.\nMembers of the special forces quickly arrived at the scene. One policeman was shot and critically wounded before the perpetrator, armed with an automatic rifle, a pistol and a machete, was, in the police chief's words, \"neutralised\" at 20:09.\nJewish community leader Oskar Deutsch said the synagogue was closed at the time.\nFootage posted on social media showed scenes of chaos as people ran through the streets with gunshots ringing out in the background. Witness Chris Zhao, who was in a nearby restaurant, told the BBC: \"We heard noises that sounded like firecrackers. We heard about 20 to 30 and we thought that to be actually gunfire. Sadly, we also saw a body lying down the street next to us.\"\nA major anti-terrorist operation swung into action and police set up roadblocks around the city centre. Barbara Lovett, who was in the Vienna State Opera at the time, said that when the evening performance ended the manager had told the audience of the attack and that they could not leave. \"The players came back out from the dressing rooms, in their normal clothes, sat down in the orchestra pit and played for another 20 minutes,\" she told the BBC. \"They played the German national anthem, which used to be the Austrian anthem - the Emperor Quartet by Haydn.\"\nPolice kept us safe inside the @WrStaatsoper after tonight's performance. While we waited, members of @vienna_phil started to play. No #angriff #terrorwien #viennaattacks #viennashooting will ever stop the music in #Vienna  pic.twitter.com/H8wfWjR5lV\nPolice in the neighbouring Czech Republic said they were carrying out random checks on the border with Austria in case the attackers fled in that direction.\nEuropean leaders strongly condemned the shooting. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was \"deeply shocked by the terrible attacks\" while Germany's Angela Merkel said \"the fight against Islamist terrorism is our common struggle\".\nAustria had until now been spared the sort of attacks that have hit other European countries. French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must not \"give up\" in the face of attacks. Last week he described the murder of three people in Nice as an \"Islamist terrorist attack\".\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said the UK would \"stand ready to support in any way we can\".\nUS President Donald Trump - on the campaign trail ahead of Tuesday's election - described it as \"yet another vile act of terrorism in Europe\". His Democratic challenger Joe Biden condemned the \"horrific terrorist attack\", adding: \"We must all stand united against hate and violence.\"\nNov 2020: Two men and two women killed by gunmen in busy streets in central Vienna - police shoot and kill one attacker, previously jailed\nOct 2020: Three people fatally stabbed in cathedral in Nice, France - Tunisian assailant shot and wounded by police\nOct 2020: French teacher Samuel Paty beheaded by a Chechen teenager outside a school in a Paris suburb\nOct 2019: Radicalised police computer operator Mickal Harpon is shot dead after stabbing to death three officers and a civilian worker at Paris police HQ\nMar 2019: Four people killed and two seriously wounded by gunman on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht\nAug 2017:  A van attack is launched on pedestrians in Barcelona, and another attack in the Catalan coastal town of Cambrils. Sixteen people killed, more than 130 injured May 2017: A bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, kills 22. Weeks later, eight people are killed and dozens injured in a van and knife attack in central London Jul 2016: A gunman drives a large lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86 people - attack claimed by IS.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["automatic rifle, a pistol and a machete"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed four people","One policeman","Tunisian assailant","A gunman shot dead","Twenty-two people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["a 20-year-old \"Islamist terrorist\""]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday evening","about 20:00 (19:00 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the guests of bars and pubs"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Seitenstettengasse synagogue","outside bars","the capital Vienna"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2020 Three militants open fire at Kabul University's campus, killing 22 people and wounding 22 others. The attack began around the time government officials were expected to arrive at the campus for the opening of an Iranian book fair. The gunmen are killed during a battle with security forces. ISIL claims responsibility for the attack. (BBC)","document":"At least 22 people have been killed by gunmen who stormed Kabul University before engaging security forces in an hours-long battle on Monday.\nA spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry said the attack was eventually stopped when three gunmen were killed.\nA regional Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement.\nThe attack began shortly before the expected arrival of government officials for an Iranian book fair and continued for several hours.\nA further 22 people were wounded by the attackers. Tuesday has been declared a national day of mourning by the government. The Taliban denied involvement and condemned the attack shortly after it began on Monday. Hours later the Islamic State group issued a message on the Telegram app saying it had targeted \"the graduation of judges and investigators working for the apostate Afghan government\". IS has previously targeted education centres in Afghanistan, including an attack outside a tuition centre in Kabul last month that left 24 people dead. The group also claimed responsibility for a 2018 attack in front of Kabul University in which dozens were killed.\n In a statement issued by the presidential palace, President Ashraf Ghani said authorities would \"take revenge for this senseless attack\".\nVideo footage from the university campus on Monday showed students running away from the site with the sound of gunfire in the background. Some scaled walls in an effort to escape. One of the attackers detonated explosives at the beginning of the assault, according to a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.\nFraidoon Ahmadi, a 23-year-old student, was in class when the gunfire started: \"We were very scared and we thought it could be the last day of our lives. Boys and girls were shouting, praying and crying for help,\" he told the AFP news agency.\nAnother witness, Fathullah Moradi, told Reuters the gunmen were \"shooting at every student they saw\" and \"even shot at the students who were running away\".\nViolence in Afghanistan has worsened in recent months even as the Taliban conducts peace talks with the government in Doha, Qatar. The talks, which follow an earlier agreement between the Taliban and the US in February aimed at ending the conflict, have stalled over preliminary issues.\nA senior UN official told the BBC last week that al-Qaeda was still \"heavily embedded\" within the Taliban, despite assurances from Taliban officials to the US that it would sever ties with the terror group. Separately on Monday, a vehicle hit a roadside mine in the country's southern Helmand province, killing at least seven people, most of them women and children, according to the provincial governor's spokesman Omer Zwak.\nNowhere and no-one seems secure in Afghanistan's terrifying everyday violence. \"Books, pens and students are no longer safe,\" lamented one Afghan journalist on Twitter in response to Monday's attack.\nThe bloody assault on Kabul University came about a week after a devastating attack on an education centre in the city which killed more than 40 young students. That attack, in a predominantly Shia Muslim neighbourhood of Kabul, was claimed by the Islamic State group. The Taliban were quick to say the Kabul University raid wasn't their doing, pointing the finger instead at \"evil elements\" linked to the \"Kabul administration\". The Afghan government now regards these despicable attacks on civilians as the work of a seamless web of groups with guns determined to wreak havoc and wreck hope in Afghanistan. Afghans are reeling - from this violence and from the escalating war between security forces and Taliban fighters on front lines across the country. That, and the stalled peace talks, have left many wondering: how and when will it ever end? ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["an hours-long"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunmen","explosives"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 22 people have been killed","dozens","more than 40 young students","three gunmen were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["A regional Islamic State group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the graduation of judges and investigators working for the apostate Afghan government"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kabul University"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2011 The Islamist alShabaab rebels in Somalia pull out of the capital Mogadishu. (BBC)","document":"Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist rebels have pulled out of all positions in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, government and rebel spokesmen say.\nPresident Sheikh Sharif Ahmed declared the rebels defeated after they left overnight on trucks.\nHowever, al-Shabab described the move as a \"change of military tactics\".\nThe conflict has hampered aid efforts in the famine-hit country, with the militia barring some aid agencies from central and southern areas it controls.\nAfrican Union peacekeepers and government forces have for years been contained to small areas of the capital but have recently been gaining ground.\nThe pull-out followed reports of gun battles in the capital on Friday night.\nSheikh Ahmed told a press conference: \"The Somali government welcomes the success attained by the Somali government forces backed by Amisom [peacekeepers] who defeated the enemy of al-Shabab.\"\nHowever, a spokesman for the al-Qaeda-linked rebels, Ali Mohamed Rage, told a local radio station there would be no withdrawal from other regions of southern Somalia.\n\"The retreat by our forces is only aiming to counter-attack the enemy. People will hear happy news in the coming hours,\" he said.\n\"We shall fight the enemy wherever they are.\"\nA spokesman for the African Union peacekeepers in Somalia said the force was treating the rebel withdrawal with caution in case it was a trap.\nSoldiers would not immediately deploy across Mogadishu, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda told the BBC.\nSome analysts have suggested the Islamist insurgents withdrew because funding from the Arab world had dwindled and they had become militarily weaker.\nParts of the capital, where there are camps for displaced people, were last week among three areas newly declared by the United Nations to be suffering famine.\nThere are now a total of five famine zones in the country.\nThe UN says some 640,000 children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, while 3.2 million people are in need of immediate life-saving assistance.\n. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist rebels"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Somali capital of Mogadishu"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Palestinian militants fire a barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, in a crossborder escalation following an earlier attack in which four Israeli soldiers are injured, two seriously, when an antitank missile fired from the Gaza Strip hits an Israeli army jeep patrolling some 200 meters inside the Israeli border with Gaza; Israel carries out counterstrikes, killing five Palestinians and wounding 30. (The Times of Israel)","document":"Southern Israel came under a barrage of rocket fire from Gaza Saturday night, in a cross-border escalation following an earlier terrorist attack that injured four soldiers.Israel carried out counter-strikes, killing five Palestinians and wounding 30.\nMore than 30 rockets  eight of them long-range  were fired into Israel. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the rocket fire, although a woman in Ashdod broke her leg running to a safe area as a rocket alarm sounded. A car took a direct hit in a town in the Sha’ar Hanegev region adjacent to the Gaza Strip.\nSchools were ordered closed Sunday in the town of Gan Yavne. Commercial traffic through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into Gaza was also canceled.\nRockets fell in the Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions, with at least one rocket reported to have landed near a kibbutz.One rocket hit a power line in a town in the Eshkol region, causing local power outages.\nAlarms also sounded in the Ashdod and Ashkelon areas. The Iron Dome missile defense system shot down three rockets heading toward residential areas in Ashdod and Ashkelon.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["30 rockets"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["injured four soldiers","killing five Palestinians and wounding 30"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Israel"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Southern Israel","the town of Gan Yavne","a town in the Sha’ar Hanegev region adjacent to the Gaza Strip","the Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Three Syrian tanks have entered the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights. Israel has launched a formal complaint to the United Nations. (Haaretz)","document":"Tanks cross into Beer Ajam village, only several kilometers away from Israeli border; IDF lodges complaint with UN.\n\n Three Syrian tanks on Saturday crossed the demilitarized border in the Golan Heights, only several kilometers away from the Israeli border.\n The tanks entered the buffer zone on Saturday afternoon, when Israel Defense Forces soldiers identified the Syrian tanks near Beer Ajam village in the Syrian-controlled central Golan Heights.\n Following the unusual incident, the IDF heightened its alert level in the area and lodged a complaint with the United Nations.\n The fighting in Syria has recently started approaching closer to the Israeli border.\n In July and September, numerousmortar shells fired by the Syrian army landed in the northern Golan Heights.An IDF source said that the shelling was intended to hit the rebel forces, and it landed in the demilitarized zone as a result of a miscalculation of the Syrian forces, who are located in a village not far from the border.\n At that time, the IDF also lodged a complaint over the violation.\n Due to the heavy fighting in Syria, the IDF has recently reinforced its border fence along the Syrian border in the Golan.\n In addition, the IDF dug a wide trench to prevent vehicles from approaching towns. The various areas that have been identified as sensitive fall within the sector of the IDF’s 36th Division.\n The IDF fears that terror organizations will take advantage of events in Syria taking place in the Golan and will attempt to attack Israeli communities near the border.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday afternoon"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["Three Syrian tanks"]},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Beer Ajam village","the demilitarized border in the Golan Heights"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Five people are killed after a grenade destroys a bus in Nairobi, Kenya. (Al Jazeera)","document":"Grenade attack destroys a minibus in a Somali-dominated neighbourhood of the capital, Nairobi, killing at least five.\nAt least five peoplehave beenkilledafter a grenadedestroyed a minibus in a Somali-dominatedpart of Nairobi, Kenyan security officials say.\nPolice saidSunday’s blast in thecapital’s Eastleigh neighbourhood was probably caused by an explosive device.\n\nMoses Ombati, Nairobi regional police commander,said a grenade had been thrown into the minibus, commonly referred to as matatus in Kenya.\nHeconfirmed thatfive people had been killed, while the Kenya Red Cross said on its Twitter account that seven people had died and 24 had been taken to hospital.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.\nThe force of the explosion tore apart the vehicle’s roof and seats and shattered the window of a nearby cafe. Two other cars were damaged, the photographer said.\n“There was a passenger on the minibus and he came out just before the explosion,”our correspondentsaid.\n“People have been injured and they’ve been taken to the hospital; police are at the scene.”","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Grenade","an explosive device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["At least five peoplehave beenkilledafter a grenadedestroyed a minibus in a Somali-dominatedpart of Nairobi","destroys a minibus","shattered the window of a nearby cafe","Two other cars were damaged"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["seven people had died and 24 had been taken to hospital"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday’s"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the minibus"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a Somali-dominated neighbourhood of the capital, Nairobi","thecapital’s Eastleigh neighbourhood"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Rockets originating from the Egyptian-administrated Sinai Peninsula strike parts of southern Israel. (Weekly Standard)","document":"\"Terrorists in theSinai Peninsulalaunched rockets into Israel Friday night,\" reports the Jerusalem Post. \"The rockets fell near an Israeli village on the southern border, causing some damage, but no injuries.\"\nTheIsraeli dailyHaaretzreports,\"Rockets fired from direction of Egypt toward Eshkol Regional Council.\"\nIt appears no damage was reported in connection with the rocket fire from Egypt. Earlier today, the Egyptian prime minister visited Gaza to express solidarity with the Palestinians there.\nThis new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel's capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.\n\"After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too:An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village,\" Ynet reports.\n \"There were no reports of injuries or damage.This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDFlaunched Operation Pillar of Defensein the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area.\"\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rockets"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Terrorists in theSinai Peninsula"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Israel"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village","near Tel Aviv","near an Israeli village on the southern border"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Scores of Kenyan soldiers go on the rampage in the northeastern town of Garissa after three soldiers are shot dead by unknown gunmen. (BBC) (Capital FM Kenya)","document":"Scores of Kenyan troops have gone on the rampage, beating and detaining residents of the eastern town of Garissa, after three soldiers were shot dead by unknown gunmen.\nA reporter in Garissa, near the Somali border, has told the BBC that the soldiers ordered people to evacuate a mosque before assaulting them.\nThe three soldiers were part of the African Union mission in Somalia.\nThey were killed as they were fixing a puncture on their truck, the army says.\nDefence forces spokesman Cyrus Oguna said the gunmen escaped into the crowds of local residents who had gathered after the shooting.\nThe reporter, who is not being named for his own safety, says Garissa's main market has been set on fire.\nThere have been several recent attacks on Kenyan security personnel in Garissa, which have been blamed on the Somali militant group al-Shabab.\nGarissa and nearby parts of Kenya are mainly populated by ethnic Somalis.\nKenya sent troops across the border last year to fight al-Shabab but its forces have since been merged with the AU force in Somalia.\nThe unrest in Garissa comes as Kenyan police fired tear gas to end riots that broke out in the capital, Nairobi, after a grenade blast killed nine people.\nAl-Shabab has not commented on the grenade attack on a minibus - again it has been blamed for similar attacks in the past.\nReuters news agency reports that angry mobs of rioters threw stones and broke into Somali-owned businesses in the Eastleigh district, known as \"Little Mogadishu\" because of its large Somali population.\nEthnic Somali gangs retaliated with machetes, it says.\nThe BBC's Duncan Munene in Nairobi says a strong contingent of police tried to prevent clashes between rival groups who are facing off against each other in the area.\n\"There is chaos. Several people have been injured but we are doing everything possible to contain the riots,\" Nairobi police chief Moses Nyakwama said, AFP news agency reports.\nShops in the area are closed and most residents are staying indoors, our reporter says.\nEthnic Somali Kenyans have resided in Eastleigh for many years but refugees and migrants fleeing the anarchy in Somalia have boosted the area's population over the past two decades.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["three soldiers were shot dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Somali militant group al-Shabab"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Garissa, near the Somali border"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly delays an IDF ground invasion into Gaza by 24 hours; the announcement precedes a series of critical international negotiations pushing for a ceasefire between the two sides. (RT) (BBC)","document":"The postponement of the military ground offensive coincides with UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s peace talks in Cairo, which lobbied for an immediate ceasefire. Ban is expected to arrive in Jerusalem on Tuesday before traveling into Gaza to assess the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to arrive in Israel for emergency talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. She is also scheduled for talks with Palestinian authority figures, but will not meet with any representatives of Hamas. Washington regards the organization as a terrorist group.A delegation of Arab League representatives arrived in Gaza on Monday in a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians who have been under Israeli bombardment since last Wednesday.They discussed a truce that is set to be announced on Thursday, which Hamas has already agreed to in principle, an Egyptian official knowledgeable on the matter told Ahram Online. He added that the “details were still being worked out.”\nUS, Russian stalemate in UN Security Council\nThe UN Security Council was deadlocked by a stalemate over the Gaza crisis during a meeting in New York on Monday night. Russia warned it may call for a resolution vote if an Arab League proposal to end hostilities is not approved by Tuesday morning.If the resolution goes to a vote, it could lead to a diplomatic clash between Moscow and Washington reminiscent of Russia’s repeated vetoes of UN resolutions on the Syrian conflict.Following the meeting, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin intimated that the US was trying to \"filibuster\" progress towards a ceasefire.\"One member of the Security Council, I'm sure you can guess which, indicated quite transparently that they will not be prepared to go along with any reaction of the Security Council. Somehow, allegedly, that would hurt the current efforts carried out by Egypt in the region,\" Churkin said.\nHamas and Israel reportedly made progress during negotiations over the weekend, but both parties have yet to reach an agreement. Tel Aviv has demanded that Hamas cease all attacks on Israel for the next 15 years, and the right to target terrorists in Palestinian territory. Hamas refused those terms, and called on Israel to lift its longstanding blockade of Gaza.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["since last Wednesday"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Israeli"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Palestinians"]},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 Unidentified gunmen shoot and kill Benghazi's police chief Faraj al-Deirsy in front of his home in the latest attack against security officials in Libya's second largest city. (Al Jazeera)","document":"Faraj al-Deirsy, head of Benghazi police, shot dead in the latest attack on Libyan security officials.\nA top security official in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi was killed in front of his home overnight, security officials have said, in the latest violence to plague the city.\nFaraj al-Deirsy, head of Benghazi police, died from multiple gunshot wounds, police and interior ministry sources said on Wednesday.\n“This happened in front of his house when unknown attackers opened fire and hit him before fleeing,” a police source said.\nAn interior ministry official confirmed that Deirsy, in charge of security in Benghazi, had been killed.\nLibya has been hit by persistent instability since the overthrow of Muammer Gaddafi last year.\nAuthorities are still trying to disarm numerous groups, mostly militias who took part in the uprising, who refuse to lay down their weapons.\nWednesday’s incident was one of a number of attacks in Benghazi, where local groups have also staged protests demanding more powers for eastern Libya and objecting to what they say is the central authorities’ neglect of the region.\nIn September, the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the cradle of Libya’s revolt that began in February 2011.\nAttacks in Benghazi and Tripoli leave at least eight wounded, including three policemen.\nUpdate posted on a social media site about the deadly Benghazi attack being seen as a clue by US agencies, website says.\nMany blame politicians for funnelling money to  paramilitary groups at the expense of creating an army and police force.\nAssailants shoot dead Mohammed Hadia, senior military official who defected during revolt that ousted Gaddafi.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunshot"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Faraj al-Deirsy, head of Benghazi police, shot dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday’s"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Faraj al-Deirsy, head of Benghazi police"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 A blast at a market in Pakistan's Khyber Agency kills 17 and injures 70 others. (Reuters) (BBC)","document":"PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec 17 (Reuters) - A blast in a market in northwest Pakistan on Monday killed at least 15 people, a security official said.\nThe official said at least 20 people had been wounded in the blast in the market in the Khyber region, near the border with Afghanistan, and the death toll could rise.\nPakistani television news channels broadcast pictures of wrecked cars and pick-up trucks damaged in the blast, which took place near rows of shops.\nThe attack occurred near the office of a senior government official but it was unclear if he was the target of the attack, the news channels reported.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility but militants fighting the Pakistani state have launched numerous attacks in ethnic Pashtun areas along the Afghan border.\nThey have frequently targeted government and security officials and forces.\nThe security official said it was not clear if the blast had been caused by a suicide attacker or a planted bomb.\nOn Saturday, a team of suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the airport in the region's main city of Peshawar.\n(Reporting by Jibran Ahmad; Editing by Matthew Green and Robert Birsel)\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 15 people","at least 20 people had been wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Khyber region, near the border with Afghanistan","near the office of a senior government official","the market in the Khyber region","a market in northwest Pakistan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 A suicide bomber kills at least eight people at a political rally in Peshawar, Pakistan. (BBC)","document":"A suicide bomber has killed at least eight people at a political rally in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, police say.\nA senior provincial minister and anti-Taliban figure, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, was among those killed.\nThe blast happened at the house of a leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), which is part of the national governing coalition, local media said. The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack.\nThe Taliban has repeatedly targeted members of the ANP, which holds power in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.\nProvincial information minister and ANP member, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, condemned the attack.\n\"Terrorism has engulfed our whole society,\" he said. \"They are targeting our bases, our mosques, our bazaars, public meetings and our security checkpoints.\"\nSome 100 people had gathered in Peshawar for the meeting of the ANP, which is part of the Pakistan People's Party-led national coalition government.\nMr Bilour had delivered the keynote speech and was leaving when the attack occurred, Nazir Khan, a local Awami National Party leader, told Associated Press news agency.\n\"There was smoke and dust all around, and dead and wounded people were lying on the ground,\" he said.\nMr Bilour, 69, was severely wounded in the chest and stomach and died from his injuries in hospital.\nA senior police official told Agence France-Presse that Mr Bilour's secretary and a policeman were among the dead, as well as other ANP officials.\nAt least 18 people were injured in the blast, hospital and police officials said.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least eight people","At least 18 people were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Pakistani Taliban"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["members of the ANP"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar","the house of a leader of the Awami National Party (ANP)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 A German engineer taken hostage by gunmen in Kano, Nigeria, in January is killed by his captors during a failed rescue operation by Nigerian forces. (BBC)","document":"A German engineer abducted in January by gunmen in northern Nigeria has been killed during a failed rescue bid, security sources say.\nEdgar Fritz Raupach was seized in the city of Kano.\nIn March, a British and an Italian hostage were also killed during a similar attempt to free them by British and Nigerian forces.\nThe latest developments came as the authorities said an Italian engineer had been kidnapped in western Nigeria.\nKidnappings are uncommon in the western state of Kwara. But oil workers are often targeted for ransom in the south, and Islamist militants are active in northern Nigeria.\nBBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says that worryingly the Nigerian security forces do not seem able to prevent the abductions and have once again shown the danger of trying to intervene to rescue the hostages.\nDetails about the circumstances of Thursday's raid are still sketchy - police in Kano are due to brief the media later.\nA security source told the BBC that soldiers killed five of the kidnappers in a gun battle.\nA woman also died - it is not clear if she was in the house or was killed in crossfire.\n\"The German abducted in January has been killed by his abductors early this morning,\" a military official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.\n\"Following intelligence reports, men of [a military task force] raided a hideout where he was being held by his abductors.\"\nResidents in the west of the city say they heard gunfire during the morning.\nA medical doctor has said he has seen the body, our correspondent reports.\nA crisis team set up by Germany's foreign ministry is trying to find out further information, German news website Die Welt reports.\nIt is not clear who was behind Mr Raupach's abduction or if he was ever moved out of the country, but in March a video purported to be from al-Qaeda's North African wing demanded that Germany free a woman jailed on terror charges in return for his release.\nIt was obtained by a private Mauritanian news agency, ANI, which frequently publishes statements by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has previously kidnapped Europeans elsewhere in West Africa.\nThe Italian man abducted in Kwara reportedly works for Borini Prono, an Italian building and civil engineering firm that focuses mainly on roads.\nA government spokesman in Kwara state confirmed to the BBC that the kidnapping had occurred and said the engineer was at a work site when he was seized on Monday. An Italian foreign ministry spokeswoman said Italian officials were in contact with the Nigerian authorities and the man's family.\n\"We can confirm an Italian engineer has been kidnapped. We don't yet know why or by whom,\" she told AFP.\nA year ago, British national Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara were seized by gunmen in the north-western town of Birnin Kebbi.\nTen months later they were killed in a failed rescue attempt in the northern city of Sokoto, where officials said a splinter group of the Boko Haram Islamists were holding them.\nBoko Haram\n denied any involvement.\n        Diplomats believe there is a link between Boko Haram and al-Qaeda's North Africa wing, but analysts say there is no clear evidence to support this.\nAnalysts also say there are divisions within Boko Haram about the way it operates, but it has not split into factions.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed five of the kidnappers","A woman also died","A German engineer abducted in January by gunmen in northern Nigeria has been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Edgar Fritz Raupach"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early this morning","January","Thursday","A year ago"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the city of Kano","northern Nigeria","the west of the city","West Africa","the northern city of Sokoto"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 An armed Palestinian infiltrator and an Israeli soldier are killed during an exchange of fire along the Gaza border, and at least three militants are injured during an Israeli air strike on Gaza. (BBC)","document":"An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian have been killed during an exchange of fire along the Gaza border.\nThe Israeli army said that a Palestinian militant cut through the boundary fence and opened fire on Israeli troops, who then shot back killing him. Separately, at least three suspected militants were hurt in an Israeli air strike on Gaza. The suspects had fired a rocket into Israel, the army said.\nAccording to Israeli media, the exchange of fire between the Palestinian and Israeli soldiers happened near the Kissufim crossing early on Friday.\nReports say there was heavy mist in the area making it easier to approach the fence undetected early on Friday.  \"A terrorist who was identified infiltrating Israel from the southern Gaza Strip opened fire at Israeli soldiers, who responded with fire. During the exchange of fire, the terrorist was killed,\" the Israeli army said in a statement.\nIt is not uncommon for the Israeli army to open fire on Palestinians who approach the fence. But it is rare for a Palestinian to break through and for an Israeli soldier to be killed in such an exchange, the BBC's Jon Donnison reports.\nThe Israeli military maintains an exclusion zone on the Gaza side of the boundary between Gaza and Israel, and troops regularly carry out military activity in the area and fire on Palestinians who approach the fence.\nResidents of southern Israel, quoted by the Associated Press, said they heard gunfire in the early morning and heard Israeli helicopters circling in the air. They also said tank shells were fired into Gaza that set fire to fields.\nJust hours later, Israel carried out an air strike on suspected militants travelling on a motorbike in southern Gaza. \"Israeli aircraft targeted a terrorist squad that fired a rocket at Israeli soldiers,\" army said.\nAt least three suspects were injured, one of them seriously. They are believed to be members of the Popular Resistance Committee.\nSources in Gaza say Hamas, which runs the territory, is now making efforts to restore calm, the BBC's Jon Donnison in Ramallah reports.\nRecently the movement has not usually been directly involved in firing rockets into Israel. But Israel says Hamas - as the ruling power - should be held responsible, our correspondent says.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocket"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian have been killed","the terrorist","at least three suspected militants were hurt"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["a Palestinian militant","Israeli"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Israeli troops","Israeli soldiers","a terrorist squad"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Gaza border","near the Kissufim crossing"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 A shooting in the food court of the Eaton Centre mall in Toronto, Canada kills at least one man and injures seven other people. (BBC) (The Canadian Press via Canada.com)","document":"TORONTO - Pandemonium erupted at the largest shopping mall in downtown Toronto Saturday after a shooter let off a string of bullets in a food court packed with weekend shoppers.\nThe hail of bullets killed a 25-year-old man, injured seven other people and sparked a frenzied mass exodus of the sprawling multi-level shopping centre around 6:30 p.m.\nThe shooting appears to have been a targeted one that left innocent bystanders caught in the middle, and police vowed to track the suspect down.\n“It was unbelievable ... It was out of the blue,” said 19-year-old Marcus Neves-Polonio who was working in the mall’s food court when he saw a man pull out a gun and start firing.\n“As soon as I heard the gunshots, I ducked under the table.”\nOthers who saw the shooting scrambled for cover behind chairs, in washrooms and nearby stores. Still more sprinted for the exits.\nErica Solmes, who manages the McDonald’s in the mall’s food court, didn’t see the shooter, but witnessed the chaos he triggered.\n“There was probably 15 bullet shots,” she said. “And then a whole stampede of people.”\nThat mad dash resulted in thousands of people pouring into the streets of the downtown core.\n“All of a sudden a herd of people were just running toward us, a massive crowd of people screaming, running, freaking out,” said Hannah Stewart, 21, who was shopping in the mall at the time. “We saw this girl, sitting on the ground, and she had blood on her toes.”\nThat girl appeared to have been one of the victims and told Stewart she had just been shot. At that point, police poured into the centre and began herding people outside.\n“All these cops came running up and they started screaming at us to back off,” Stewart said. “They were screaming at us to run and get out.”\nToronto Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie was also in the mall when the shooting took place and was one of the first to take to Twitter to break the news.\n“Pretty sure someone just let off a round bullets in eaton center mall .. Wow just sprinted out of the mall,” he tweeted. “People sprinting up the stairs right from where we just were ... Wow wow wow.”\nAmong those injured in the incident, police said a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy were in critical condition, and a woman and a man had serious injuries. A pregnant woman who was trampled in the rush to get out of the mall went into labour and another woman was grazed by a bullet.\nToronto Mayor Rob Ford called the crime a devastating one.\n“It’s a tragedy, it’s absolutely terrible,” he said. “We have to apprehend this shooter.\nPolice chief Bill Blair said everything is being done to bring the shooter to justice.\n“Any place for discharging a fire arm in the city of Toronto is dangerous. In the food court of the Eaton centre on a Saturday evening, it’s not only dangerous, it’s outrageous,” he said.\n“The wanton disregard for the lives and safety of fellow citizens are shocking to us.”\nIn a statement issued late Saturday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty called it a case of “senseless, tragic violence” and expressed his condolences to the victims and their families. He said the tragedy would inspire Ontarians to work even harder to make their communities safer.\n“We will respond as we always have  with strength, determination and a desire to work together, and work even harder, to build communities that are safe, secure and free of gun violence,” the statement said.\nPolice are now going through video surveillance and cross referencing witness statements as they try to pull together a clear picture of the shooting and the person who was holding the gun.\nA homicide team remained in the centre combing the area for clues Saturday night and officers asked anyone with information on the shooter to contact police.\nThe coroner arrived on scene early Sunday to remove the body of the man who was killed.\nOfficials said the mall and its parking garages would remain closed Sunday while police pressed on with their investigation.\nThe evening incident triggered multiple street closures and a partial shutdown of the subway line which runs beneath the mall. Yellow police tape marking a perimeter outside the centre remained in place late Saturday night.\nIt’s not the first time the area has seen gunfire.\nIn 2005, a 15-year-old girl was killed and six others were wounded on Boxing Day, 2005 when shots rang out just north of the shopping centre.\nIn that case, Toronto teen Jane Creba was shopping with family on busy Yonge Street when she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between rival gangs.\n“Today certainly harkens back to that terrible moment. This is a very serious thing that has happened in a very public place, an important place in the city of Toronto,” said Blair.\n“When violence like this takes place in our city, we all have to stand up and say we won’t tolerate it.”","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed a 25-year-old man, injured seven other people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","around 6:30 p.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a food court packed with weekend shoppers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the largest shopping mall in downtown Toronto"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 A U.S. drone attack in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region kills at least 10 suspected militants. (AP via Boston Herald)","document":"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan  An American drone strike in the frontier tribal areas of Pakistan killed 10 suspected militants Sunday, Pakistani officials said. It was sixth such strike in two weeks as the U.S. pushes ahead with its drone campaign in the face of Pakistani demands to stop.\nThe continued attacks emphasize the importance the U.S. government puts on the drone campaign, which it considers to be a vital tool in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban.\nTwo Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at targets in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday morning.\nAt the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another American unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning strike. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners, and the rest were Pakistani.\nThe American drone campaign has been a source of deep frustration and tension between the U.S. and Pakistan.\nUnder President Barack Obama, the U.S. stepped up its drone campaign in the border areas as a way to combat al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who were using Pakistan as a base for attacks against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. However, the number of drone attacks has eased in recent years.\nSecretly, many Pakistani military commanders are believed to support the drone campaign. But among the Pakistani public, where the U.S. is viewed with mistrust, the drone strikes are considered an affront to the nation’s sovereignty.\nThe Pakistani government and parliament have repeatedly asked the U.S. to stop the drone strikes.\nThe ongoing attacks are also complicating efforts for the U.S. and Pakistan to come to an agreement over reopening the supply routes to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan. American airstrikes inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, prompting Islamabad to block U.S. and NATO supply lines running throught its territory.\nPakistan has demanded an apology over the raid and an end to drone strikes as a precursor to reopening the supply lines. But the U.S. has shown no intention of ending the attacks.\nAlso Sunday, gunmen killed four Shiite minority Muslims, a police officer and a bystander in a busy market of southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, said police officer Abdul Wahid. He said police were investigating who could be behind the attack, but that it had a sectarian motive.\nIn the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan became the scene of a proxy war between mostly Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with both sides funneling money to sectarian groups that regularly targeted each other.\nThe level of sectarian violence has declined somewhat since then, but attacks continue. In recent years, Sunni attacks on Shiites have been far more common.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["four missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 10 suspected militants"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["An American drone"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the frontier tribal areas of Pakistan","the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan","the border areas"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 A US drone attack kills at least 15 suspected militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. High ranked alQaeda official Abu Yahya alLibi is killed in the attack. (AFP via NineMSN) (The Guardian)","document":"Al-Qaida's second in command was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan this week, US officials have said, hours after Pakistan officially reprimanded a top US diplomat, declaring such attacks to be against international law and in violation of its sovereignty.\nWhite House spokesman Jay Carney said the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi was a major blow to al-Qaida, and that it would be hard for the group to find someone of similar stature to replace him.\n\"His death is part of the degradation that has been taking place to core al-Qaida during the past several years and that degradation has depleted the ranks to such an extent that there's no clear successor,\" Carney said.\n\"He was among al-Qaida's most experienced and versatile leaders,\" another US official said.\nLetters captured during the US raid in which the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed last year show Libi to have been one of a handful of al-Qaida officials Bin Laden relied on to argue al-Qaida's case to a worldwide audience of militants, particularly the young.\nA Pakistani intelligence official also said Libi was dead, but declined to say how authorities knew this or whether they had seen his body.\nA Pakistani Taliban leader confirmed Libi's death to Reuters, saying it was a \"big loss\". Asking not to be named, he said: \"After Doctor sahib [al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri], he was the main al-Qaida leader.\"\nEarlier Richard Hoagland, the US chargé d'affaires in Islamabad, was called into the foreign ministry on Tuesday after a recent increase in missile attacks by remotely controlled aircraft. He was told\"drone strikes represented a clear red-line for Pakistan\", a government statement said. The diplomatic step comes with Islamabad looking ever more isolated in the region as the US seeks to reduce its dependence on Pakistan.\nThe timing of Pakistan's stand has highlighted the immense stresses the drone campaign is putting on efforts by Washington and Islamabad to repair their deeply distrustfulrelationship.\nPakistani officials had said Libi, who once escaped from a top security US military prison, might have been killed by a drone strike on Monday on Hasokhel, a village in North Waziristan, where Taliban and al-Qaida militancy thrives. The attack was reported to have claimed up to 18 lives.\nLibi enjoyed legendary status within the movement. His death underlines the importance the Obama administration places on drones in its fight against terrorists.\nAl-Qaida can often wait weeks or even months to admit to the deaths of its senior commanders.\nSyed Amid, a tribal elder from the area, said he was not aware whether Libi was killed, but said up to 18 militants had been killed and \"some foreigners were among the dead\", including Arabs.\nA Pakistani intelligence official said he believed Libi was in the house that was targeted by missiles and that one of his vehicles was also destroyed.\nAlthough drone strikes are extremely unpopular within Pakistan, some people living in the semi-autonomous tribal areas where the strikes are concentrated say they support them.\nNazim Dawar, a social worker from the town of Mir Ali, said there were never any popular demonstrations in his area against drones. \"It is only the people in the cities like Islamabad, Karachi and Peshawar that agitate against them,\" he said.\n\"Yes, some ordinary people do get killed, but it is mostly the Taliban who get killed in these attacks.\"\nBut Mohammad Iqbal, a labourer from North Waziristan, said the strikes were \"pulling apart the social and economic fabric\" of the tribal areas.\n\"About half the people have had to move to other areas to escape the drones,\" he said. \"Anyone who stays lives in terror they will be killed.\" In Pakistan's view, the attacks have to stop. As the country's foreign ministry pointed out to Hoagland, the country's parliament had \"emphatically stated [drone strikes] were unacceptable\".\n\"He was informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty,\" a government statement said.\nEarlier this year Pakistan's parliament unanimously decided on a set of demands the government should make of the US. They included an end to drone attacks, higher tariffs for Nato supply trucks crossing Pakistani territory and a public apology for a disastrous incident in November when US troops killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The accident prompted Pakistan to close its borders to trucks carrying vital military supplies to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. The closure has still not been overturned, despite several false hopes.\nUS diplomats are adamant there will be no ending of the drone campaign. The best Pakistan can hope for, they say, is some sharing of intelligence and inclusion in target selection. And they are furious with Pakistan's behaviour, not least during the recent Nato conference in Chicago, where it had been hoped Islamabad would announce it would restart co-operation on supply lines and counter terrorism.\nDrone strikes, which had been in abeyance, restarted with a vengeance after the failure of the Chicago summit, with three attacks in three days starting on Saturday, that have been reported to have killed up to 29 people.\nMany in Pakistan's security establishment believed the US-led war in Afghanistan would grind to a halt without the vital supply lines from the port of Karachi and then overland to Kabul and Kandahar.\nBut that has not come to pass, with the US and its allies instead switching to the far longer and more costly route through Russia and central Asia into northern Afghanistan.On Monday, Nato announced that the former Soviet republics had agreed that in addition to bringing vital supplies into Afghanistan, the alliance would be permitted to move a decade's worth of equipment out through their territory as well.\nIt had been thought Pakistan's co-operation would be vital for the safe withdrawal of Nato kit.\nThe Pakistani reprimand came as the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, was in Delhi to encourage India  Pakistan's arch enemy  to become moremilitarily involved in Afghanistan, including doing more to train Afghan soldiers.\nFor decades much of Pakistan's foreign policy has been geared to reducing Indian influence in Afghanistan out of fear it would face a two-flank struggle if it ever got into another military confrontation with a traditional rival it has already fought three wars against.\n\"Before the US saw Pakistan as the best partner to stabilise Afghanistan and India was being told by the US 'don't do too much' [in Afghanistan], don't upset the Pakistanis'. Now that has changed,\" said Dr C Raja Mohan, at Delhi's Observer Research Foundation. The local Times of India newspaper reported on Tuesday that India is now close to signing huge deals for artillery and helicopter gunships worth more than $2bn from the US.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a drone","missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["one of his vehicles was also destroyed"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Libi, who once escaped from a top security US military prison, might have been killed","18 militants had been killed","the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden","some ordinary people","Taliban","Anyone who stays lives in terror","24 Pakistani soldiers","up to 29 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday","this week"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Libi"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Pakistan","Hasokhel, a village in North Waziristan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 A heavily armed militia takes over a runway at the Tripoli International Airport, demanding the release of their leader who went missing. (BBC)","document":"Libyan forces have regained control of the main airport in Tripoli, after an armed militia overran the runway demanding their leader's release. Dozens of the militiamen who drove armoured trucks onto the runway forcing flight diversions have been arrested, Libya's deputy interior minister said. Earlier, gunfire was heard when troops and other militias entered the airport to oust the brigade.\nThe al-Awfia brigade had refused to leave until their demands were met.\nIt is unclear exactly how the stand-off was resolved and whether the government made concessions to the brigade. The BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli earlier witnessed armoured vehicles carrying security forces and militiamen from various armed brigades entering the airport to evict the occupying force.\nThere have been no reports of casualties, although Omar Khadrawi, Libya's deputy interior minister, said a hangar had been blown up and a field set alight.  \"The authorities have complete control over the airport,\" Mr Khadrawi told journalists in Tripoli.  He described the militia that occupied the runway as saboteurs. The group, from the town of Tahrouna in western Libya, began the occupation in protest against the disappearance of one of their commanders.  It is not clear where the man is or whom he is being held by. \"One of their leaders yesterday was coming to Tripoli with two tanks, and at an inspection point they found no documents... so they took the guns and tanks from him and he returned back,\" Mohammed el Harezi, a spokesman for the Libyan government, told the BBC.\n\"Then suddenly this guy, he was kidnapped, he disappeared. So this is the group who supported him. They came to the airport asking for his release and they thought he might be in the airport area,\" he added. The spokesman said that the force agreed to leave after negotiations.  The brigade had placed a pick-up truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun underneath each of the six planes on the tarmac, our correspondent says.\nAirport sources told the BBC that at least three airlines had to cancel their flights.\nSeveral international airlines have resumed flights to Libya since the end of the conflict which toppled Muammar Gaddafi.\nLibya's interim government took control of the airport in Tripoli in April, taking over from militia fighters who held control until then.\nTripoli says the international airport will be shut for the next 24 hours to resolve technical issues.\nThe incident comes as Libya's governing National Transitional Council prepares to hold elections for a constituent assembly in the coming weeks.  ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guns and tanks"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["a hangar had been blown up and a field set alight"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Dozens of the militiamen","The al-Awfia brigade"]},{"role":"Date","values":["yesterday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the main airport in Tripoli"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 NATO planes launch an air strike on Afghanistan, allegedly killing civilians in the process. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)","document":"Nato planes have carried out an air strike in the Afghan province of Logar, south of the capital Kabul, with several civilians reported dead.\nAfghan officials said 18 civilians died, including women and children.\nNato said the air strike followed Afghan and foreign troops coming under fire, but added                       in a statement\n that it would investigate the incident.\n        Widespread reports of civilian deaths during air strikes often draw angry criticism from Afghan officials.\nTribal elders and officials in Logar told the BBC that top Taliban commanders had gathered at a house in a remote village in the district of Baraki Barak.\nAfghan and Nato forces surrounded the house and warned the Taliban to surrender. Isaf, Nato's operation in Afghanistan, said that the troops came under fire.\nNato forces then called for an air strike.\nAccording to Afghan intelligence officials, the strike killed 18 civilians, including women and children who were in the house at the time. Reports say guests had gathered at the house ahead of a wedding.\nVillagers later took their dead to the provincial capital to show that they had been wrongly targeted, the BBC's Quentin Somerville in Kabul reports. At least eight Taliban commanders were also killed nearby.\nA Nato spokesman said he could not confirm or deny reports of civilian casualties.\nHowever,                       an earlier statement from Isaf\n had said: \"While conducting a follow-on assessment, the security force discovered two women who had sustained non-life-threatening injuries.\n        \"The security force provided medical assistance and transported both women to an Isaf medical facility for treatment.\"\nThe BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the issue of civilian deaths at the hands of Nato is highly sensitive.\nAfghan President Hamid Karzai has issued several warnings to the Nato-led mission that killing Afghan civilians, even by accident, is unacceptable.\nAlso on Wednesday, at least 22 civilians were killed in suicide bombings in the southern city of Kandahar, while two more died in the northern Faryab province.\nIt makes Wednesday one of the deadliest days for Afghan civilians in recent memory, correspondents say. Separately, Nato said one of its helicopters had crashed in the east of the country, killing two service personnel.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["18 civilians died","At least eight Taliban commanders were also killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Nato planes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a house in a remote village in the district of Baraki Barak"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Afghan province of Logar, south of the capital Kabul","house","district of Baraki Barak"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Yemeni army reports that seventeen militants and at least two government soldiers have died in clashes in south Yemen.(BBC Middle East)","document":"Seventeen militants and at least two government soldiers have died in clashes in south Yemen, the army says.\nThe clashes began on Tuesday night when the army retaliated for an al-Qaeda attack near Zinjibar, and carried on into Wednesday morning.\nThe army has been taking part in a new offensive to regain territory in the area lost last year.\nEarlier, in the capital, Sanaa, thousands took to the streets to demand the speeding up of democratic reforms.\nDemonstrators in Sanaa's Change Square called for the prosecution of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who relinquished power after mass rallies against his rule.\nThe authorities have now begun to dismantle the main protest camp in the square, correspondents say.\nThe clearing of the camp from the square was part of the political agreement that eventually saw President Saleh resign. Correspondents say the latest clashes were among the fiercest since the military began its assault early last month against Ansar al-Sharia, a group linked to al-Qaeda, in the southern province of Abyan.\nSince being elected in February, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has vowed to make fighting al-Qaeda a key priority.\nMore than 350 people - mostly militants - have died in the campaign, which has the backing of the US.\nThe army claims it is now in control of almost 90% of Zinjibar but is still fighting to retake the northern part of the city.\nAnsar al-Sharia, whose name means \"Partisans of Islamic law\" in Arabic, was formed by al-Qaeda in response to the growing youth movement in Yemen, which marginalised Salafi-jihadists who want the violent overthrow of the government.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":["Wednesday morning"]},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Seventeen militants and at least two government soldiers have died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["south Yemen","near Zinjibar"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Twenty three people are killed in an attack on two villages in northern Nigeria. (BBC)","document":"A gang of armed robbers has killed 27 people in remote villages in northern Nigeria, witnesses and police say.\nAn eyewitness told the BBC that about 80 people on motorbikes had attacked the villages of Dan-Gulbi and Guru in Zamfara state.\nSome victims had their throat cut, according to reports.\nThe attack is believed to be in revenge for the killing of a suspected group of armed robbers by villagers and vigilante groups last year.\nA policeman was said to be among the dead, who were primarily from the village of Dan-Gulbi.\nVillagers had been preparing for a local market day when the killers struck, the Associated Press news agency reports.\nAccording to a police officer who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, at least 19 people died in Dan-Gulbi and four were killed in Guru. Attacks were also reported in the villages of Diya and Sabo Kasuwa.\n\"They went door to door shooting villagers and in some cases slitting their throats with knives,\" a police source told AFP news agency.\nTalatu Mai Tasshi, a woman who escaped the violence, was quoted by AP as saying she had hidden in empty sacks as the gunmen stalked other people preparing to sell their goods. Islamist group Boko Haram has previously been responsible for a number of attacks in northern Nigeria, but there has been no suggestion that that it was connected to these murders.\nNigeria has one of the highest crime rates in Africa and is notorious for gun-related violence, including kidnapping and robbery.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["knives","gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 27 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["A gang of armed robbers"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the villages of Dan-Gulbi and Guru in Zamfara state"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Nigeria","the villages of Dan-Gulbi and Guru in Zamfara state","the villages of Diya and Sabo Kasuwa"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Russian police with assault rifles in an early morning raid swoop on the homes of opposition political activists, including Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov, intent on attending a mass opposition rally in Moscow tomorrow; they are summoned to appear in court instead. (Al Jazeera) (Associated Press)(Reuters) (Deutsche Welle)","document":"Russian authorities have searched the homes of leading opposition activists. Human rights groups have accused the government of using the raids to intimidate activists ahead of a planned protest.\n Russian police and investigators said on Monday they were searching the residences of opposition leaders ahead of a planned demonstration against President Vladimir Putin.\n The Federal Investigative Committee said the search operations were being conducted in connection with a criminal investigation into a rally last month that \"ended in mass disturbances.\"\n The May 6 rally drew an estimated 20,000 people onto the streets of Moscow to protest against Putin's rule. The rally ended with hundreds of people being arrested after some of the demonstrators clashed with police.\n 'Intimidation' tactics\n The statement released by the committee said the homes of Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov were among the 10 residences searched on Monday. Navalny and Udaltsov were among the protesters arrested on May 6.\n Human rights groups have accused the authorities of using the raids as a means of intimidation ahead of a planned demonstration on Tuesday, which organizers hope will bring tens of thousands onto the streets.\n \"They are trying to disrupt the \"March of Millions\" and make sure fewer people come,\" rights activist Lev Ponomaryov told the Interfax news agency.\n Tuesday's rally is being seen as the first major test of a new Russian law that dramatically increased the penalties for people breaching regulations on organizing and participating in demonstrations\n Fines increased dramatically\n The new legislation, which President Vladimir Putin signed into law last week, allows the authorities to impose fines of up to 300,000 rubles (7,400 euros, $9,100), which is more than the average annual salary in Russia. The previous maximum fine had been 5,000 rubles.\n The new law has been sharply criticized not only by human rights organizations but also the European Union. Putin has defended the legislation as being in line with European norms.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russian police and investigators"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the homes of leading opposition activists"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the homes of Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 An airstrike kills nine al Qaida fighters in southern Yemen as the Yemeni military maintain pressure on the group a day after government troops backed by armed tribesmen recaptured two militant strongholds. (AP via ABC News)","document":"Airstrikes and clashes intensified in southern Yemen on Wednesday as army troops followed major victories with more pressure on al-Qaida militants holding small towns, according to tribal and military officials.\nAt least 17 al-Qaida militants were killed in the latest phase of Yemen's offensive, they said.\nThe attacks came a day after Yemeni forces regained control of two major al-Qaida strongholds, Jaar and Zinjibar, which were in the hands of the militants for more than a year.\nA monthlong Yemeni government push in the south, aided by U.S. military advisers and bankrolled by neighboring Saudi Arabia, succeeded in driving the militants from two towns.\nThe U.S. considers al-Qaida's Yemen branch to be the terror network's most dangerous offshoot.\nThe group took advantage of a security vacuum last year during a popular uprising against Yemen's longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to seize swaths of territory in the strategic south. That raised fears it could use the area as a foothold to launch more attacks on U.S. targets.\nYemen's al-Qaida offshoot, known as the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has been blamed for directing a string of unsuccessful bomb plots on U.S. soil from its hideouts. It also emerged last month that the CIA thwarted a plot to down a U.S.-bound airliner using a new, sophisticated explosive to be hidden in the bomber's underwear. The planned bomber was actually a double agent who turned the device over to the U.S. government.\nThe U.S. is helping the Yemenis from a command center manned by dozens of U.S. troops in the al-Annad air base in the southern desert, not far from the main battle zones, Yemeni military officials have said.\nThe Americans are coordinating assaults and airstrikes and providing information to Yemeni forces, while Saudi Arabia has come forth with cash, especially for armed civilians who back up the Yemeni army in its battles against al-Qaida, Yemeni military officials have said.\nIn the early hours of Wednesday, airstrikes destroyed a car parked near a house in the town of Azzan, an al-Qaida stronghold in the province of Shabwa, leaving nine al-Qaida militants dead, military officials said. They said the missile was believed to have been fired by a drone. The officials said some militants who fled Jaar have taken refuge in Azzan.\nAl-Qaida's propaganda arm claimed in an email message that the attack was launched by a U.S. drone. The Internet-based agency is known to be close to al-Qaida's Yemen branch. There was no U.S. comment.\nIn separate but coordinated attacks, Yemeni army troops backed by warplanes hit al-Qaida positions north of the town of Shaqra, the last al-Qaida held town in Abyan province. Eight al-Qaida militants and three armed tribesmen backing the army were also killed, officials said.\nThe army advanced to a hilltop overlooking Shaqra and several other mountain positions after fierce daylong clashes, officials said.\nThe officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations.\nAfter Tuesday's military defeat, al-Qaida remains in control of a handful of towns, and hundreds of its members are scattered in the mountains, valleys and vast desert of the Arab world's most impoverished country.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["A monthlong"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a drone","missile"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["destroyed a car"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["nine al-Qaida militants dead","Eight al-Qaida militants and three armed tribesmen","At least 17 al-Qaida militants were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["a U.S. drone"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early hours of Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of Azzan, an al-Qaida stronghold in the province of Shabwa"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 At least 32 people are killed in a car bomb attack targeting Shia Muslims in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. (BBC) (CNN)","document":"Two separate car bomb attacks targeting Shia Muslim pilgrims in Baghdad have killed at least 32 people, Iraqi officials say.\nAt least 14 died when the first bomb exploded on a route used by thousands of pilgrims in the Shula district.\nThe second blast, which happened nearby a few of hours later, killed at least 18 others, police and medics said.\nOn Wednesday, a wave of attacks targeting Shia pilgrims left at least 70 people dead across the country.\nThe Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda, said it was behind those attacks.\nIt was the worst single day of violence in Iraq since the last US troops withdrew in December. There has been a marked deterioration in the country's fragile political process since then.\nIraq's most prominent Sunni Arab politician, Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, is being tried in absentia on terrorism charges. He denies financing death squads told to kill Shia government and security officials.\nShia Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has also faced calls for a confidence motion in parliament from parties within his national unity government, which have accused him of breaking promises to share power.\nThousands of Shia pilgrims had travelled to Baghdad on Saturday for the final day of the festival marking the anniversary of the death of Moussa al-Kadhim, the seventh Shia imam and great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.\nThe first bomb, which exploded just after 12:00 (09:00 GMT) in the north-western district of Shula, was left in a taxi abandoned on a main road used by the pilgrims visiting the shrine in the Kadhimiya district where the imam is said to be buried, police said.\n\"We rushed to the scene, there were dismembered bodies, shoes, plastic bags, women's robes left all around, and people were screaming everywhere,\" Ahmed Maati, a policeman who had been working nearby, told the Reuters news agency.   The second blast took place as pilgrims were returning from Kadhimiya.\nAt least 32 people were injured in the first attack, while 36 were hurt in the second, officials said.\nOne of the 22 co-ordinated bombings on Wednesday also targeted Shia pilgrims in Kadhimiya, killing seven people. Another blast near food tents for pilgrims in the Karrada district left another 16 dead.\n\"The terrorists will not discourage us, even if they cut off our bodies into pieces,\" promised a song played over the Moussa al-Kadhim shrine's loudspeakers on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Two separate car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 32 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday","after 12:00 (09:00 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Shia Muslim pilgrims"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the north-western district of Shula","Baghdad","Iraq"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 A bomb explodes in the Pakistani town of Landi Kotal, killing at least thirteen people. (Reuters) (BBC)","document":"A bomb on a bus in north-western Pakistan has killed at least 22 people, officials say.\nMore than 80 were injured in the blast, which occurred in Landi Kotal, a town near the Afghan border. The bomb appeared to be aimed at members of a pro-government tribe who have formed an anti-Taliban militia.\nLandi Kotal is in the Khyber tribal agency, part of Pakistan's tribal north-west which has seen frequent attacks by Taliban militants. The town lies close to the Torkham crossing into Afghanistan. \"The blast was so powerful, it was heard far and wide and caused damage to nearby buildings,\" resident Sher Mohammad Shinwari told Reuters news agency.\nThe bomb was fixed under the vehicle in question and exploded after all passengers had boarded, a local official told the BBC.\nAmongst those wounded were children from a nearby school.\nThe death toll may rise as many sustained serious injuries, officials say. The attack is believed to have been aimed at members of the Zakha Khel tribe, which has been targeted by militants before.\nNo group has so far claimed the attack. However, the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for attacks here in the past - describing them as retaliation for the tribesmen's support for the government. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 22 people","More than 80 were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["members of a pro-government tribe who have formed an anti-Taliban militia","members of the Zakha Khel tribe"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Landi Kotal, a town near the Afghan border","north-western Pakistan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"KIGALI, Rwanda, June 18 (UPI) --  Survivors of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 say they are concerned about their safety after community courts ended their work after 10 years.","document":"KIGALI, Rwanda, June 18 (UPI) --  Survivors of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 say they are concerned about their safety after community courts ended their work after 10 years.\nCommunity courts in Rwanda, known as gacaca, were established to help in the prosecution of the high number of suspects accused of playing a role in the 1994 atrocities.\nMore than 60 percent of the millions of suspects tied to the genocide were found guilty in the thousands of courts set up in Rwanda. At least 10,000 suspects died in prison before their cases were brought to trail, the BBC reports.\nAlbert Gasake, a coordinator with the Survivors' Fund Organization, told the BBC there was a culture of fear in Rwanda now that the community courts have disbanded.\n\"Survivors are worried about their security because they are living side by side with those who had wanted to previously exterminate them,\" he said.\nThe U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, working from neighboring Tanzania, has acquitted eight and convicted 38 people tied to the genocide. The ICTR is set to end its mandate at the end of this year.\nConflict between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic communities left roughly 800,000 people dead in a 100-day massacre in 1994.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["a 100-day"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["800,000 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Hutu"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1994"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Tutsi ethnic communities"]},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Palestinian militants fire a barrage of rockets into southern Israel following an Israel Air Force strike that killed two Islamic Jihad gunmen; IAF strikes at militant targets in Gaza have killed six Palestinians since yesterday. (Al Jazeera) (The Jerusalem Post) (Ynet News)","document":"Three rockets hit the Netivot area at around 8:30 pm. Another rocket exploded in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, while a fifth rocket landed in the Eshkol Regional Council. All of the rockets landed in open areas.\n\nDefense Minister Ehud Barak\n\t called a meeting of the top military and intelligence echelon to discuss the escalation\n\t in the southern sector. A Defense Ministry source said that \"a wide range of retaliatory actions are under review.\" \nRelated stories:\n\nPolice Commissioner Yohanan Danino estimated Tuesday night that the current round of violence between Gaza and Israel will continue for several days: \"I hope (the violence) won't expand, but we are preparing for the possibility that it may reach the larger and more distant cities,\" he said.\n\nQassam rocket in Negev (Photos: Eliad Levy)\n\nThirteen rockets, which were launched from Gaza Tuesday afternoon, landed in open areas within the Negev's Eshkol Regional Council. The rockets were all fired in the span of about two hours.\n\nAt around 6:30 pm another rocket exploded in an open area in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, and a few minutes later it was reported that five more Qassams landed in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. No injuries were reported.\n\nSeveral rockets were fired towards Sdot Negev Regional Council as well, while five mortar shells were lobbed into the Sha'ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev regional councils.\n\nAt around 8 pm another two rockets were fired towards the western Negev, and about a half-hour later a Qassam landed in an open area in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council.\n\nThe Home Front Command instructed the area's residents to stay in very close proximity to shelters and other fortified structures.\n\nFire to continue? \n\nShortly after the initial salvo, Israeli aircraft struck a target in the Gaza Strip. The IDF said its target was destroyed. Palestinian sources in the Hamas-ruled\n\t territory said one person was severely wounded in what they called a targeted killing attempt.\n\nThe sources said the aircraft targeted a motorcycle travelling in Dir el-Balah in central Gaza. The injured man was evacuated to Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, they said. \nOne of the rockets fired from Gaza exploded about a hundred meters from Negev police sub-district sappers, who were canvassing the area in search of rocket landing sites. \n\nAnother Qassam landed in a wheat field. Firefighters were alerted to the scene to contain a fire that erupted at the site. \n\nHamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, saying it fired \"10 Grad rockets\" since noon Tuesday in response to the \"Zionists' crimes.\" \nThe terror group said it would continue firing rockets as long as the IDF's strikes in Gaza persist. \nOvernight, rockets fired from Gaza landed\n\t in the Ashkelon area. The army detected the launching of four rockets, which apparently exploded in open areas. No one was hurt in that attack either. \nThe Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. A statement by the group said that the rockets were meant to hit the Zikim army base. On Tuesday, alert level in the Gaza vicinity communities was raised. \nShortly after midnight Israeli aircraft fired at a Palestinian terror cell as its members were attempting to plant an explosive device near the central Gaza Strip border fence.\n\nThe army said the attack target was hit. Palestinian sources later confirmed that the attack left two terrorists dead. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["about two hours"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rockets","mortar shells"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around 8:30 pm","around 8 pm","Tuesday afternoon"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Zikim army base"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Eshkol Regional Council","the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council","Sdot Negev Regional Council","the Netivot area"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 At least seven people and 15 members of the Turkish Army are killed in a Kurdistan Workers' Party ambush in the Yüksekova district near the border with Iraq and Iran. (BBC)","document":"At least 18 people have died in fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey, officials say.\nEight soldiers were killed and 16 wounded when Kurdish fighters attacked army outposts in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq and Iran, early on Tuesday.\nTroops counterattacked, killing at least 10 rebels, officials said.\nTens of thousands of people have died since the PKK took up arms in 1984.\nSeveral thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels are believed to be based in hideouts in northern Iraq.\nSecurity sources told Reuters that the rebels had crossed the border to carry out the attack on an army post, and had then retreated back to Iraq.\nTop army commanders, including armed forces chief Gen Necdet Ozel, as well as senior ministers have travelled to the area to assess the situation.\nThe number of clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces has risen in southeast Turkey over the past year, and the PKK has in the past carried out bombings in other parts of the country.\nA powerful bomb in Ankara in September last year killed three people and wounded 15. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the government would continue fighting the rebels \"until the end\".\n\"Sooner or later, we will succeed,\" he said. \"There is only one thing terrorists must do and that is to lay down their arms.\"\nSelahattin Demirtas, the head of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), called on both sides to stop fighting.\n\"The PKK should stop every kind of armed activity. The government should also halt operations.\"\nThe BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul said the attack, near Yuksekova, followed the same pattern as other recent operations by the PKK.\nMr Erdogan's government has taken an increasingly hard line towards the PKK, our correspondent says. Thousands of Kurdish civilians believed to support the movement have been arrested, and the army has been authorised to pursue and engage insurgents.\nAt the same time, Mr Erdogan has sought to address some of the Kurdish minority's grievances, recently telling parliament that Kurdish-language lessons may be offered in schools.\nThe government acknowledges that the conflict cannot be solved through military means, although negotiations have made little headway, our correspondent adds.\nKurdish minorities constitute up to a fifth of Turkey's population and also live in Iraq, Iran and Syria.\nThe PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US, launched a guerrilla campaign in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in the Kurdish heartland in the south-east of Turkey.\nIt has now dropped a claim for an independent Kurdish state but says it is fighting for autonomy and the cultural rights of the Kurdish people.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Tens of thousands of people","three people","At least 18 people have died","Eight soldiers were killed and 16 wounded","killing at least 10 rebels"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Kurdish fighters"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early on Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["army outposts"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq and Iran","south-east Turkey","near Yuksekova"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Tribal clashes in western Libya lead to 105 people dead and some 500 injured. (BBC)","document":"Recent tribal clashes in western Libya left 105 people dead and some 500 injured, the government has said.\nGovernment spokesman Nasser al-Manaa said there had been no fighting in the mountainous area since Monday, following the deployment of the army.\nThe area includes the towns of Zintan, Mizdah and Shegayga, some 150km (90 miles) south of the capital Tripoli.\nThe week-long clashes were seen as a test for Libya's new government, which has struggled to assert its authority. The fighting was mainly between fighters from Zintan, backed by another tribe known as the Guntrara from Mizdah, and armed members of the Mashashya tribe based in Shegayga, the BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli says. Tensions date from the Gaddafi-era, when one tribe was given land expropriated from another, our correspondent says.\nThe latest clashes were triggered by the death of a man from Zintan after he was stopped at a checkpoint, which Zintan militias have blamed on the Mashashya tribe.\nThe ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), which took power last year, has been trying to maintain stability in a country awash with weapons left over from the conflict last year.\nThe violence comes just weeks before the country is due to hold elections for a national assembly, the first free poll in decades.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["week-long"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["105 people dead and some 500 injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the towns of Zintan, Mizdah and Shegayga, some 150km (90 miles) south of the capital Tripoli","western Libya"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 NATObacked Afghan security forces end a 12hour siege carried out by Taliban insurgents on the Spozhmai Hotel outside Kabul, killing all five insurgents. (BBC)","document":"Afghan security forces have ended a 12-hour attack by Taliban militants on a hotel outside Kabul, in which at least 20 people died, officials say.\nInsurgents attacked the Spozhmai Hotel in the Lake Qargha area on Thursday night, taking many hostages.\nKabul's police chief said 15 civilians, including hotel guests, died. All five insurgents were killed. The Taliban claimed the attack, saying the hotel was used by wealthy Afghans and foreigners for \"wild parties\". Lake Qargha is on the outskirts of Kabul and is favoured by residents of the Afghan capital for day trips and family outings. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville, in Kabul, says this was an easy target for the Taliban, in a fairly remote area, with little security. Foreigners rarely visit the lake, our correspondent says.\nIn addition to the five militants, those killed included civilians, hotel guards and a police officer. Dozens of people were taken hostage. AFP news agency photographer Massoud Hossaini, who went into the hotel after the siege ended, told the BBC: \"All the walls have been torn apart with bullets; all the furniture and all the things that were there like carpets are torn and damaged.\n\"I saw the bodies of some fighters and their bodies were in bits and pieces. There are a lot of bullets casings here, lots of them.\"\nThe gunmen, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, launched the attack on the hotel late on Thursday, officials say.\nGen John Allen, of the Nato-led International Security and Assistance Force, said the \"unspeakably brutal attack\" bore the \"signature\" of the Haqqani group.\n\"There is no doubt that innocent Afghan civilians were the intended targets,\" he said in a statement.\nGunfire\nMaihan Saeedi, who left the area shortly before the attack began, told the BBC the hotel was full of civilians, including women and children. The area was busy because it was Thursday night, the start of the Afghan weekend. \"When we left the hotel, we heard gunfire as we reached one of the [three security] checkpoints near the hotel,\" he said.\n\"I'm completely shocked at how people managed to cross these checkpoints - it really raises questions over the levels of security, which is all commercialised.\"\nHe said one of his friends inside the hotel told him by phone that people were trying to escape by jumping out through the windows and into the lake.    \"It just shows that the Taliban are there to kill civilians,\" Mr Saeedi said. The Taliban attacked the hotel because foreigners there were drinking alcohol and participating in other activities banned by Islam, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the Associated Press.\nThe security operation was led by Afghan security forces, with support from the US-led coalition. In recent months, the Afghan army and police have taken the lead in battling some of the most challenging insurgent attacks, winning praise and a measure of support from the Afghan population. Violence has recently increased across the country, with at least three US soldiers and about 20 Afghans killed in a series of attacks over the past seven days.\nThe attacks come as Nato gradually hands responsibility for security to Afghan forces, ahead of the departure of combat troops in 2014. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["12-hour"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 20 people died","All five insurgents were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["innocent Afghan civilians"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a hotel outside Kabul","Spozhmai Hotel in the Lake Qargha area"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Palestinian militants fire rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel severely injuring an elder. Israel launches a missile strike in return, killing two Palestinians. (The Jerusalem Post) (BBC)","document":"Two Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, medics say, while an Israeli has been hurt by a rocket fired from there.\nA militant was targeted as he launched rockets from northern Gaza overnight. Another man later died near Jabaliya.\nAn explosion also killed a six-year-old boy in Khan Younis on Saturday. Medics blamed an Israeli air strike, but the Israeli military denied responsibility.\nMeanwhile, more than 20 rockets have been fired into southern Israel.\nAn Israeli man was moderately wounded on Saturday morning when a Qassam rocket hit the roof a factory in the Sderot industrial zone.\nThe Israeli military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Benny Gantz, has convened \"an urgent meeting\" to discuss ways of dealing with the rocket- and mortar-fire, which has continued despite efforts this week to agree a ceasefire.\nOvernight, the Israel Air Force struck two targets in the Gaza Strip, including the militant preparing to launch rockets. About 20 people, some of them civilians, were wounded.\nA man was later killed east of Jabaliya, also in the north, medics said.\nOfficials from the Hamas militant group, which governs Gaza, said another Israeli air strike killed a six-year-old boy at a football pitch near the southern town of Khan Younis, and wounded two other people.\nThey also said a baby was wounded in a separate attack in Rafah.\nAn Israeli military spokeswoman said an initial examination showed that it was not involved in the death of the boy. She suggested the cause could have been a misfired Palestinian rocket.\nShe had no immediate comment on the report about the baby.\nThe BBC's Jon Donnison in Ramallah reports that the ceasefire announced on Wednesday never really took root. Hamas seems to have refrained from firing rockets itself for the last three days but smaller militant groups have continued to do so, he says.\nAlthough neither Hamas nor Israel's leaders say they want an escalation, there is always a fear the fighting could get out of control, our correspondent adds.\nIt is more than three years since Israel's last major offensive in Gaza, in which some 1,400 Palestinians were killed, as well 13 Israelis.\nAs it happened:","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocket"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["An Israeli man was moderately wounded","A man was later killed","Another man","a six-year-old boy","two other people","a baby","some 1,400 Palestinians","Two Palestinians have been killed","About 20 people, some of them civilians, were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Israel Air Force"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["A militant"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Gaza Strip","near Jabaliya","southern Israel","the Sderot industrial zone"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 At least 16 Syrian soldiers are killed in clashes with rebels in Aleppo. (BBC)","document":"At least 16 Syrian soldiers have been killed in clashes with rebels in the province of Aleppo, activists say.\nThe fighting took place in the town of Darat Izza, and at checkpoints outside al-Atarib and Kafr Halab, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.\nOn Friday, officials accused rebels of shooting dead 25 men in Darat Izza. Activists said they were militiamen.\nSyria has seen escalating violence in recent weeks, with some 116 people reportedly killed on Saturday.\nThe head of the Observatory, Rami Abdul Rahman, told Agence France-Presse news agency the clashes in Aleppo had taken place simultaneously around dawn, at the end of what he called \"one of the bloodiest weeks\" since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.\n\"It's like we are in a war,\" he told the AFP. \"Sometimes when two countries are at war, not even 20 people are killed a day. But now in Syria, it has become normal to have 100 killed each day.\"\nThe Observatory said 77 civilians died on Saturday, including a family of six in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, as the military attacked rebel-held areas.\nNineteen solders were also killed, while another 10 troops were shot when they tried to defect to the rebel Free Syrian Army, it added.\nThe Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, put the nationwide death toll on Sunday at 131, including 31 in Deir al-Zour.\nThe Syrian Arab Red Crescent also said one of its volunteers was shot in the head while on duty in the province and wearing a uniform marked with its emblem. It was not clear who was responsible for the man's death.\nMr Abdul Rahman said at least 644 people had been killed since last Monday.\nHe said the international community had to reach an agreement on how to resolve the crisis, and criticised the decision of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) to suspend its operations because of the violence.\nThe mission's 298 unarmed military observers and 112 civilian staff are in Syria to verify the implementation of the peace plan negotiated by the UN and Arab League's envoy, Kofi Annan, under which a ceasefire supposedly came into force in April.\n\"Either go out and observe properly or leave,\" Mr Abdul Rahman said.\nThe UN says at least 10,000 people have died since pro-democracy protests began in March 2011. In April, the Syrian government reported that 6,143 Syrian citizens had been killed by \"terrorist groups\".\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 16 Syrian soldiers have been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["rebels"]},{"role":"Date","values":["around dawn"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of Darat Izza, and at checkpoints outside al-Atarib and Kafr Halab","the province of Aleppo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Seven Pakistani soldiers are beheaded and four others remain missing after being seized by Taliban militants close to the Afghan border.(BBC)","document":"Seven Pakistani soldiers have been beheaded after being seized by Taliban militants close to the Afghan border on Sunday, security officials say. Four other soldiers remain missing after the reported cross-border attack involving 100 heavily armed militants.\nThe soldiers were on patrol in the north-western district of Upper Dir. Separately, the Taliban in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area have banned a polio vaccination campaign until US drone attacks stop.\nCorrespondents say the Upper Dir skirmish has provoked new tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.\nIslamabad has often complained that militants use parts of Afghanistan as a sanctuary from which to stage attacks inside Pakistan. That claim helps Pakistan fend off frequent US and Nato complaints that militants based in Pakistan are responsible for much of the violence in Afghanistan.\nPakistan's newly-elected Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said he would complain directly to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the incident. Afghanistan has denied that militants based on its side of the border were responsible. The Pakistani Taliban is reported to have said its fighters carried out the raid. However they did not say from which country the attackers originated.\nThe border region between the two countries is a hotbed of militancy, with much of it not controlled by the Pakistani government.\nMeanwhile militants in the South Waziristan region have implemented the same polio vaccinations ban as that enforced in neighbouring North Waziristan last week, linking its continuation to an end to US drone attacks in the region. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that militant groups have for several years resisted polio vaccination campaigns in Pakistan - one of only four countries where the disease still exists. A pamphlet released by the Taliban said that the \"infidel world\" is using the vaccination campaign \"to uproot Muslims\" and run spy networks. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Seven Pakistani soldiers have been beheaded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["100 heavily armed militants"]},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the north-western district of Upper Dir","neighbouring North Waziristan","close to the Afghan border"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 At least 14 people are killed and more than 50 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks in Iraq. (BBC)","document":"At least 14 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks in Iraq.\nReports say the attacks happened in and around Baghdad, with at least eight people killed when a car bomb exploded outside a market in a mainly Shia district of the capital.\nA dawn car bomb also targeted a government building in the nearby predominantly Sunni city of Taji.\nJune has been a particularly violent month in Iraq.\nNearly 200 people have now reportedly been killed there since 13 June alone, far higher than the figure for May.\nHospital and police sources said Thursday's car bomb at a market in the predominantly Shia Muslim district of Washash had killed at least eight people and wounded 30 others.\nThe blast in Taji, some 12 miles (20km) north of Baghdad, killed four and wounded 20, police said.\nThere are also unconfirmed reports that a police patrol and a roadblock manned by militamen trying to prevent al-Qaeda attacks were targeted. Most of the recent attacks have targeted the majority Shia community and have been blamed on Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq..","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 14 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a government building"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Iraq","the predominantly Shia Muslim district of Washash","nearby predominantly Sunni city of Taji","in and around Baghdad","outside a market in a mainly Shia district of the capital"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Syrian helicopter gunships reportedly bombard a strategic town in northern Syria overnight and tanks move close to Aleppo. (MSNBC)","document":"Bodies of people allegedly killed by government forces in Douma, Syria, on Thursday.\nANTAKYA, Turkey - Syrian helicopter gunships reportedlybombarded a strategic town in northern Syria overnight and tanks moved close to the commercial hub and its largest city Aleppo, rebel fighters said on Friday.\nMeanwhile, anti-regime groups reported what one called a \"hideous massacre\" in Douma, outside of Damascus, and distributed a video and photograph purportedly showing the aftermath of a killing that left more than 50 dead, including women and children. Journalists do not operate freely in Syria so there was no way of confirming the report.\nA senior rebel officer said around 170 Syrian tanks had assembled at an infantry school near the village of Musalmieh northeast of the city of Aleppo, just 19 miles from the Turkish border but were keepingwell clear of new Turkish airdefensesinstalled to curb Syrian action near its frontiers.\n\"They're either preparing to move to the border to counter the Turkish deployment or attack the rebellious (Syrian) towns and villages in and around the border zone north of Aleppo,\" General Mustafa al-Sheikh, head of the Higher Military Council, a grouping of senior officers who defected from Assad's forces,told Reuters by telephone from the border.\nTurkey sends military convoys toward Syrian border\nOmar Abdallah, an activist in Idlib coordinating with the Free Syrian Army said: \"After taking hits in rural Aleppo and Idlib, the army is re-grouping ... There is speculation that these forces intend to ring Aleppo starting July 1.\"\nTurkish commanders inspected the missile batteries deployed on the border region on Thursday following Syria's shooting down of a Turkish warplane a week ago, which has sharply raised tensions between the two nations.\nMassacre?Meantime, Syrians in the besieged city of Douma wrapped mangled and bloodied corpses in white burial shrouds early on Friday, according to video posted online.\n\n\"A massacre has been committed in the city of Douma, killing more than 50 in this bloody day, where Assad mafias and death squads launch aggressive attacks, bombardment of the city, and executions,\" U.S.-based anti-Assad Syrian Expatriates said a statement.\nA bomb targeting Syria's highest court has exploded in Damascus. NBC's Bill Neely reports. Douma is predominantly Sunni community that has become as a focus of resistance to the Assad government.\nThe group gave details for the killings of 10 members of the same family, including four chidren, their mothers and grandmother. More than 200 were wounded, the group said.\nThe British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 190 people, including 125 civilians, were killed on Thursday throughout the country.\nThe United States, Britain and France have said that Assad is responsible for the violence, which the United Nations estimates has killed at least 10,000 people, and is no longer fit to govern. Russia and China, however, reject what they describe as Western calls for \"regime change.\"\nA strong explosion rocked the Syrian capital near a busy market and the Palace of Justice. Msnbc.com's Richard Lui reports.\nTurkish deploymentsThe Turkish deployments, a graphic warning to President Bashar al-Assad, coincide with rising violence across Syria and increasingly urgent international efforts to forge a peace deal as the nation slips into full-blown war.\nAs the Turkish-Syrian dimension ratcheted up further pressure, peace envoy Kofi Annan said on Friday he was \"optimistic\" that crisis talks in Geneva on Saturday would produce an acceptable outcome, which has so far proved elusive.\nTurkey to help 'liberate the Syrians from dictatorship'\nRegional analysts said that while neither Turkey nor its NATO allies appeared to have any appetite to enforce a formal no-fly zone over Syrian territory, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had made it clear Assad would be risking what he called the 'wrath' of Turkey if its aircraft strayed close to its borders.\nRecently, there were clashes close to the border between Syrian forces and rebels. Last weekend, Damascus said \"terrorists\" infiltrating from Turkey were killed and there have been reports of Syrian forces shooting into camps for refugees in Turkey.\nTurkey, sheltering some 34,000 Syrian refugees and providing bases for the rebel Free Syria Army (FSA), is in the forefront of the efforts to bring down Assad.\nSyrian President Bashar al-Assad told his newly appointed cabinet that a real \"state of war\" exists in the country and directed them to direct all its efforts toward vanquishing the uprising against him. ITV's Bill Neely reports. Syrian tanks massRebel sources in Turkey's Hatay region said Assad's helicopters attacked Saraqeb, a strategic town deep in Idlib province, but kept away from the area directly along the Turkish border in the rural regions of Idlib and Aleppo provinces.\nNeither Turkey, which fears a local clash escalating into a regional sectarian conflagration, nor Syria, has any interest in a confrontation on their shared border.\nAnkara, which has the second biggest army in NATO, called an emergency NATO meeting after its warplane was shot down.\nTurkey has in the past talked about creating a humanitarian corridor on Syrian territory if refugee flows became dangerously unmanageable or the scale of killing in Syria became intolerable. But it had always said this would require international endorsement.\n\"NATO just doesn't look like it's in the mood,\" David Hartwell, Middle East analyst, IHS Jane's, said. \"What you might get is the Turks forcing a de facto no-fly zone.\"\nErdogan announced earlier this week that he had issued new rules of engagement to his border troops and said any Syrian military elements approaching Turkish borders and deemed a threat would be treated as a target. But he failed, perhaps deliberately, to specify how close Syrian forces could come to the border before becoming vulnerable.\n\"The Syrians might accept a very narrow zone along the border. Syria will remain very reluctant to get involved in any conflict with Turkey. They would be up against a very serious military foe,\" Malcolm Chalmers, research director at Britain's Royal United Services Institute, said.\nThe world has been accused by Syrian opposition activists of inertia over the bloodshed. Diplomacy has failed to produce agreement between Western powers, backing the opposition, and Russia, which has used its U.N. veto to block Western and Sunni Arab moves to drive Assad from power.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["overnight"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["more than 50 dead","More than 200 were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian helicopter gunships"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["around 170 Syrian tanks"]},{"role":"Target","values":["the rebellious (Syrian) towns and villages in and around the border zone north of Aleppo"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a strategic town in northern Syria","near the village of Musalmieh northeast of the city of Aleppo","Douma, Syria","near its frontiers","near a busy market and the Palace of Justice"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"o","document":" BEIRUT  Nearly a week of fighting between Kurds and Arab rebels in northern Syria risks opening a new front in the already bloody battle for control of the country, underscoring the complexity of a conflict that threatens to ignite sectarian and ethnic tensions across the region.\nEfforts were underway Wednesday between the leadership of the rebel Free Syrian Army and Kurdish representatives in Turkey to negotiate an end to the clashes, in which scores of hostages have been seized and more than 40 fighters on both sides killed.\nBut the eruption of violence exposed little-noticed frictions that have been building between the mostly Arab Syrian opposition forces seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian Kurds, who increasingly see the revolt as an opportunity to extend their long-standing aspirations for the autonomy  and perhaps independence  of Kurdish areas across the region.\n“This is setting the stage for a conflict that is going to come,” said Joost Hiltermann, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group. And unless Syria’s already divided opposition takes steps to address Kurdish aspirations in a meaningful way, chances are high that a wider Arab-Kurdish war could follow any regime change in Damascus, he said.\nThe clashes have been small compared with the unchecked battles engulfing the country between the rebels and Assad loyalists. The opposition Local Coordination Committees said at least 104 people were killed Wednesday, many in airstrikes the government is increasingly relying on to try to crush the revolt. A bomb killed seven near the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, an important Shiite religious site on the edge of Damascus. Iraqi Shiites have warnedthat damage to the shrine could draw them deeper into the battle for Syria. The Kurdish-Arab fighting only adds a new dimension to a conflict that risks embroiling Syria’s neighbors, including Turkey, which has expressed growing alarm at the assertiveness of Syria’s Kurds since Assad’s army withdrew from northeastern Syria in August, effectively giving Kurds control over the area.\nThe fighting first flared Friday after what appears to have been a misunderstanding between the Free Syrian Army units battling to drive government forces out of the northern city of Aleppo and the main Syrian Kurdish militia, which has steadily been asserting its control over Kurdish areas across the north.\nFree Syrian Army rebels had entered the Kurdish neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh the previous day under what they said at the time was an agreement with the military wing of the Kurdish movement PYD, or Democratic Union Party, which is allied with Kurdish militants across the border in Turkey.\nOn Friday, Kurds staged demonstrations against the rebels, fearing that their presence would invite retaliation from the government in the form of airstrikes and artillery barrages. The two sides give conflicting accounts of exactly how the fighting flared, but a video posted online by a Kurdish news channel makes clear that shots were fired at the demonstrators, prompting retaliation by the PYD that ended only after 30 rebels and 15 Kurdish fighters were killed and the rebels were ejected from the neighborhood.\nTwo days later, the hostilities spilled into the northern area of Aleppo province from which government forces were driven out by rebels months ago. An exchange of the hundreds of hostages seized by both sides in the Aleppo clashes soured after one of the Kurds was returned dead, bearing marks of torture inflicted by the rebels. Opposition fighters in the border town of Azaz fired shells at the nearby Kurdish village of Qastal Jendo. Early Wednesday, PYD fighters ambushed rebel fighters near the rebel-controlled Turkish border crossing of Bab al-Salameh, killing one and injuring two.\nCompounding the complexity of the fight, however, are splits within both sides, which raise questions about whether the violence can be contained.\nCol. Malik al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, called the attacks on Kurds a “mistake” and said the units involved, which he refused to name, do not fall under the control of the mainstream rebel leadership.\nKurds say that fighters from the extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra, suspected of adherence to the ideologies espoused by al-Qaeda, started the shooting in the city of Aleppo and that another rebel unit that does not fall under the Free Syrian Army’s command, the Northern Storm Brigade, launched the attacks on the Kurdish village from the rebel-controlled town of Azaz.\nAbu Louay al-Haleb, a spokesman for the rebels in Azaz, accused the Kurdish militia of seeking to exploit rebel gains in the north to press their independence demands. “It is obvious what is happening,” he said. “The Free Syrian Army is about to finish the battle of Aleppo and the PKK is trying to occupy the area to create their future country,” he said, referring to the militant Kurdish rebel group that has been waging war against Turkey for decades.\nThe Syrian Kurdish movement, however, has cast the attacks as a plot fomented by Turkey to crush Kurdish aspirations “and eliminate the relative freedom enjoyed by the Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan,” a reference to the northeastern areas of Syria that have recently fallen under Kurdish control.\nBut Kurdish allegiances are also sharply divided between the PYD and the more moderate Kurdish National Council, which has sought an accommodation with the Syrian opposition. Tensions now are building among Kurds over approaches to the Syria conflict, said Kawa Youssef of the Kurdish Youth Movement, a moderate group sympathetic to the Syrian opposition.\n“This is turning into a very big problem,” he said, warning of the risk that Kurds may also fight among themselves.\n ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["Nearly a week"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["more than 40 fighters on both sides killed","30 rebels and 15 Kurdish fighters were killed","seven near the Sayeda Zeinab shrine","104 people were killed","killed seven"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["rebel Free Syrian Army"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Kurds"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Syria","Sayeda Zeinab shrine"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2012 A policeman is killed and 11 others are injured in a grenade attack on a church in the Kenyan town of Garissa near the border with Somalia. (BBC)","document":"A grenade attack on a church in a police compound in eastern Kenya has killed one police officer and injured at least 11 other people, reports say.\nThe man who died was serving as pastor of the targeted church, in Garissa town near the border with Somalia. Most of the wounded are also reported to be police officers; some of whom were airlifted to hospital in Nairobi.\nIn July, 15 people were killed in raids on churches in Garissa, and suspicion fell on the al-Shabab militant group.\nPolice blamed the Somalia-based group and its sympathisers for the attack, and said they were angry over Kenya's role in a UN-backed intervention force.\nKenya's capital Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa have suffered a series of grenade attacks since Kenya sent troops into Somalia last October.\nWitnesses were quoted as saying that the grenade in Sunday's attack was thrown from outside the compound, and landed on the iron-sheeted roof of the church while the officers and their families were inside attending a prayer session.\n\"It is believed to be a motor thrown or a grenade because it penetrated the roof before landing within the crowd. There is confusion,\" one police officer at the scene was quoted by Kenya's The Standard as saying.\nGunfire was also reportedly heard at the scene of the explosion.\nKenya's Red Cross said 11 wounded people were taken to hospital in Garissa, with three evacuated by air to Nairobi for further treatment.\nRegional police chief Philip Tuimur said a major operation was under way to track down the attackers.\nNo group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion will once again fall on al-Shabab.\nIn September, one child was killed and three seriously injured in a grenade attack on a church in Nairobi.\nA mob later rounded on Somalis living near the church, injuring 13 people with sticks and stones.\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["grenade","Gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed one police officer and injured at least 11 other people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["al-Shabab"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday's"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a church in a police compound"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Garissa town near the border with Somalia","eastern Kenya"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 Three bombs explode in the northeastern city of Maiduguri killing three people, in an attack blamed on the Islamist sect Boko Haram. (BBC)","document":"Two blasts went off at a hotel and one at a transport hub on Sunday night. There was a fourth blast at a cattle market on Monday morning.\nSimilar attacks have been blamed on the Islamist Boko Haram sect which has been battling security services in the city.\nThe latest bombings come ahead of polls on Tuesday for the governors of Nigeria's 36 states. Unrest swept across Nigeria's north following a presidential election on 16 April, which was won by incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed and tens of thousands fled their homes.\nPolice said the bombs bore all hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has mounted almost daily attacks and killings in the city in recent months.\nCorrespondents say Boko Haram's grievances are entirely separate to the post-election violence, but there are also suspicions that the group has been used locally by politicians to attack and to intimidate voters.\nPolice say three people died, including a police officer, at the explosions at the Tudu Palace hotel's bar and 14 people were wounded.\nThe BBC's Bilkisu Babangida, in Maiduguri, says a police officer was also wounded in the explosion at the city's cattle market on Monday morning.\nOn Sunday, a three-page statement from Boko Haram, a group which is opposed to Western education and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria, was left outside of a newspaper office in the city warning of further attacks, our correspondent says.\n\"We will never accept any system of governance apart from the one described by Islam because that is the only way Muslims can be liberated,\" it said.\n\"We do not respect the Nigerian government because it is illegal. We will continue to fight its military and police because they are not protecting Islam.\"\nThere were two explosions in Maiduguri ahead of presidential polls, although no injuries were reported at the time.\nViolence has also marred the election campaign in Borno state, including the assassination in January of the opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) candidate.\nBut our reporter says the latest bombings come as a surprise, as security is tight in the city because of the elections for governor.\n\"From all indications, this is the handiwork of Boko Haram, which has carried out similar attacks in the past,\" police spokesman Mai Mamm told AFP news agency.\nClashes in Maiduguri between Boko Haram and the police in July 2009 left hundreds of people dead, mainly member of the sect.\nFor the past six months, sect members have been fighting a guerrilla war, killing policemen and people they believe helped the security services in the fight against them.\nJibrin Ibrahim, political analyst at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, says Boko Haram has been arming itself for some time and is consciously trying to disrupt the polls.\n\"Elections are a demonstration of Western modernity which it is against,\" Mr Ibrahim told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.\n\"Secondly it holds certain members of the political class responsible for the attempt to wipe them out a couple of years ago.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["a police officer","three people died","14 people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a hotel","a transport hub"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tudu Palace hotel's bar"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 Troops from Thailand and Cambodia exchange gunfire for the sixth straight day as the death toll from the conflict during the period reaches fourteen. (BBC)","document":"Troops from Thailand and Cambodia have exchanged fire again along their disputed border, as the death toll from six days of conflict rose to 14. The fighting took place near the Ta Moan and Ta Krabey temples, where most of the clashes have taken place. A Thai spokesmen said a Thai villager was killed by rocket fire on Tuesday. Each side has accused the other of starting the conflict. Plans for ministerial-level talks today on the dispute were cancelled by Thailand.  \"We decided last night to cancel (Defence Minister) Gen Prawit's trip to Phnom Penh today after some Cambodia media reported Thailand agreed to ceasefire talks after it admitted defeat and losses,\" said army spokesman Col Sunsern Kaewkumnerd.\nParts of the Thai-Cambodian border have never been formally demarcated, causing continuing tensions and firing nationalist sentiment in both countries. There has been sporadic fighting in recent years. Clashes took place three years ago in the run-up to a general election in Cambodia, and this latest outbreak of violence comes with the Thai government due to call an election in coming weeks. The renewed fighting began on Friday, near two disputed temples that lie in a jungle area that both sides claim. On Tuesday clashes were also reported 160km (100 miles) further east at the hill-top temple of Preah Vihear, a flashpoint for the dispute. Cambodian officials said Wednesday's fighting began in the early morning and continued for several hours.  Thousands of villagers have been displaced by the fighting, in which eight Cambodian and five Thai soldiers have been killed. Fresh Thai-Cambodia clashes erupt","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["six days"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocket"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["eight Cambodian and five Thai soldiers have been killed","death toll from six days of conflict rose to 14","a Thai villager was killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["began on Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Ta Moan and Ta Krabey temples","160km (100 miles) further east at the hill-top temple of Preah Vihear"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 At least 6 people are killed and at least 15 others are injured in a suicide attack in Baladruz, Iraq. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)","document":"A suicide bomber has blown himself up in the eastern Iraqi town of Baladruz, killing at least six people and injuring 15, officials say.\nThe bomber targeted a mosque in the town, 90km (55 miles) north-east of Baghdad in Diyala province, a security official told Reuters.\nThe attack took place soon after evening prayers at about 2015 local time (1715 GMT).\nViolence has waned in recent years but attacks in Iraq continue almost daily.\nThe attack took place in the town's Imam al-Hussein mosque.\nAt least 30 other worshippers were injured in the blast, officials said.\nAll the casualties were believed to be men.\nDiyala remains restive, with a divided Shia-Sunni Muslim population.\nIn March, at least nine soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Iraqi army base in Kanaan in Diyala.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least six people and injuring 15","30 other worshippers"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["about 2015 local time (1715 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a mosque in the town"]},{"role":"Location","values":["90km (55 miles) north-east of Baghdad in Diyala province","town's Imam al-Hussein mosque","the eastern Iraqi town of Baladruz"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 At least 62 people are killed as scores of people die in the \"Day of Rage\". (Al Jazeera) (BBC)","document":"At least 62 people have been killed across Syria as thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied in several cities, activists say.\nWitnesses and human right groups say many died when troops opened fire on protesters in the city of Deraa, where the unrest began in mid-March. The security forces swamped the streets of the capital Damascus and tear gas was reportedly fired as prayers ended.\nProtests shook a number of other cities including Homs, Latakia and Baniyas.\nWitnesses said troops opened fire on villagers marching on Deraa, which has been under military blockade since Monday.\nAt least 33 civilians were killed in the southern city, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP news agency.\nTwenty-seven civilians were killed in and around the northern city of Homs, and two more in the Mediterranean port of Latakia, said the group.\nEarlier, a medical source told Reuters news agency that 15 bullet-riddled civilians' bodies had been received at a Deraa hospital.\nSyrian state media said meanwhile that four soldiers had been killed and two others captured in a \"terrorist\" attack on their post in Deraa on Friday. The report cannot be verified.\nActivists estimate 500 people have died in the crackdown on dissent against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. In other developments:\nAs has become typical during months of protests in a number of Middle East countries, Friday was billed as a \"day of rage\" in Syria.\nTear gas was fired at protesters in the old Midan area of Damascus, as demonstrations also flared in the city's suburbs.\nA BBC reporter in the capital, who cannot be named for security reasons, said a crowd gathered to shout anti-regime slogans after prayers at the city's Great Mosque.\nAn imam called for calm and the men dispersed. Our correspondent later saw unidentified men wielding wooden sticks in the main square and police stopping vehicles to check passengers' identities.\nDemonstrations also erupted in the northern cities of Aleppo, Idlib, Deir Ezzor, Raqqah and Qamishli; the coastal cities of Baniyas and Tartous; the southern city of Suwayda and the western city of Hama.\nThere are unconfirmed reports of security forces shooting protesters dead in Homs and Latakia.\nHundreds of people in a northern Jordanian town, next to Syria, demonstrated in support of the protesters just over the border in Deraa, Jordanian police said.\nMore than 200 Syrians fleeing the security clampdown crossed the border into Turkey on Friday, Turkish media reported.\nAhead of the protests, a notice on the Facebook page Syrian Revolution 2011 called for a \"Friday of Anger\".\n\"To the youths of the revolution, tomorrow we will be in all the places, in all the streets,\" it said.  Protests were backed this week by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organisation crushed by President Assad's father in the 1980s and banned ever since.\n\"Chant with one voice for freedom and dignity,\" said a statement, thought to be the first direct appeal by the group. \"Do not allow the tyrant to enslave you.\" In Deraa, dozens of people are reported to have been shot dead in recent days.\nWitnesses said water, communications and power had been cut off.\nThere are unconfirmed reports of divisions within the security forces and of soldiers refusing orders to fire on protesters.\nOn Wednesday, 200 members of Syria's ruling Baath party resigned after issuing an angry public statement denouncing the repression. The resignations - mostly from around Deraa - follow those of 30 Baath officials from the city of Baniyas.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["tear gas"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four soldiers had been killed","33 civilians","Twenty-seven civilians","At least 62 people have been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["protesters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the old Midan area of Damascus","northern city of Homs","the Mediterranean port of Latakia","the city of Deraa","the southern city","Syria","city's suburbs","city's Great Mosque","city of Baniyas"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 Gaddafi's government attempts to block deliveries to Misrata by using naval mines, which are in the process of being removed by NATO. (BBC)","document":"Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has said that no-one can force him to leave his country.\nIn a speech on state TV, Col Gaddafi also called for talks with Nato, which has been conducting air strikes under a mandate to protect Libyan citizens.\nState media later implied that Nato strikes had targeted Col Gaddafi while he was speaking.\nMeanwhile, Libya said it will not allow any more sea deliveries to the besieged western city of Misrata.\nGovernment spokesman Moussa Ibrahim also said rebels in the city would be given four days to lay down their arms in return for an amnesty.\nIf they continued to fight they would face \"total fire\" he said. His comments came after Nato said forces loyal to Col Gaddafi had been trying to lay mines off Misrata.\nAppearing on state TV in the early hours of Saturday, Col Gaddafi dismissed any effort to force him into exile.\nThe US and its allies have reportedly tried to sound out countries which might be willing to offer Col Gaddafi asylum.\n\"No-one can force me to leave my country and no one can tell me not to fight for my country,\" he said.\nHe added that Libya was ready for a ceasefire, \"but a ceasefire cannot be from one side\".\n\"We did not attack them or cross the sea,\" he said. \"Why are they attacking us? Let us negotiate with you, the countries that attack us.\"\nNato is enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians in Libya amid a two-month revolt inspired by other uprisings in the Arab world.\nPrevious Libyan government offers of a ceasfire have not materialised.\nShortly after the speech was broadcast, Libyan state TV reported a bombing near its premises, saying it implied \"a target on the leader of the revolution himself\". Misrata, the only significant rebel holding in the west of the country, has been under siege from pro-Gaddafi forces for several weeks. They have recently retreated from the city centre, but rebels say pro-Gaddafi forces have continued to bombard civilian areas from a distance.\nRebels said several government tanks had tried to re-enter the city on Friday.\nThe BBC's Ian Pannell reports from the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that despite claims that loyalist forces are now in control of almost all of Misrata, it seems that the government is on the back foot, under pressure from Nato and desperate to reverse recent losses.\nMr Ibrahim said the government had proved that rebels had received shipments of weapons to Misrata from the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi. \"We will not allow weapons and supplies to come through the sea port to the rebels,\" he said, suggesting that aid agencies should try to use land routes instead.\nLibyan state TV announced: \"Any attempt to enter the port will be attacked, regardless of the justifications.\"\nMr Ibrahim said he knew nothing of any mine-laying reported by Nato.\nHuman rights groups say more than 1,000 people have been killed in the fighting in Misrata and many more have been wounded. The port is a lifeline for rebels and citizens in the city, allowing them to receive supplies of food and medicine, and enabling the evacuation of the wounded and of stranded migrant workers.\nEarlier, Nato's director of operations in Libya, Brig Rob Weighill, said the alliance had intercepted pro-Gaddafi forces trying to lay mines about 2-3km out from Misrata's port.\nHe said the mining showed Col Gaddafi's \"complete disregard for international law and his willingness to attack humanitarian delivery efforts\".\nCrews were disposing of the mines, he added.\nBrig Weighill added that rebels in Misrata had made advances in recent days.\n\"The rebels have expanded their perimeter significantly over the past week. To suggest they are winning would be overly optimistic,\" he said. \"They are putting up a very spirited fight.\"\nIn the past week fighting has escalated on Libya's western border, spilling over into Tunisia.\nThe border post of Zintan has changed hands repeatedly, and Libyan military vehicles were seen in the town of Dahiba on the Tunisian side of the border on Friday.\nTunisia has condemned the incursion of forces from Libya and summoned the Tunisian ambassador to express its \"most vigorous protests\".\nThousands of people have fled across Libya's borders to escape the violence of recent weeks.\nMr Ibrahim, the government spokesman, blamed rebels for unrest at the border crossing, and said Libya would respect Tunisian sovereignty.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["two-month"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["mines","tanks"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["more than 1,000 people have been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["western city of Misrata"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, is killed in a NATO airstrike, according to the Libyan government, along with three of the leaders' grandchildren. (Al Jazeera), (BBC), (New York Times)","document":"A Nato air strike in Tripoli has killed the son of Col Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan government spokesman has said. Saif al-Arab and three of Col Gaddafi's grandchildren died at a villa in the Bab al-Aziziya compound, he said.\nThe Libyan leader himself was there at the time but was unharmed, he added. Nato said it had hit a military target but denied targeting individuals.\nGaddafi supporters rallied outside Western diplomatic missions in Tripoli, reportedly causing some damage.\nThe UK Foreign Office said it was investigating reports that the residence of its ambassador had been \"destroyed\". The UK has withdrawn diplomats from Tripoli. There were also demonstrations outside the Italian and US missions, and the UN building said its offices were looted. Earlier on Sunday, Nato acknowledged that there had been a strike in Tripoli late on Saturday.\nThe head of Nato's military operations in Libya, Lt Gen Charles Bouchard, said a \"command-and-control\" building had been hit, and that all targets for Nato attacks were \"military in nature\".\nHe added that he was aware of reports that members of Col Gaddafi's family had been killed, but made no further comment.\nThe BBC's Christian Fraser in Tripoli says that unusually the alliance issued its statement within hours of the strike, well aware of the political implications.\nChina and Russia within the Security Council have concerns that the alliance has gone beyond the mandate of the UN resolution authorising \"all necessary measures\" to protect civilians.\nBut UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Nato's targeting policy was \"in line with the UN resolution\".\n\"It is about preventing a loss of civilian life by targeting Gaddafi's war-making machine, so that is obviously tanks and guns, rocket launchers, but also command and control,\" he told the BBC.\nJournalists taken to the site of the air strike said the building was extensively damaged and one unexploded bomb remained at the site.\nSaif al-Arab, who had a lower profile than his brother Saif al-Islam, had been studying in Germany and returned to Libya recently.\nGovernment spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said: \"The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Saif al-Arab Muammar Gaddafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader's grandchildren.\n\"The leader with his wife was there in the house with other friends and relatives. The leader himself is in good health.\" Col Gaddafi's wife was also unharmed, he said.\n\"This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country,\" the spokesman added.\nThere has been no independent confirmation of the deaths.\nLibyan rebels began a campaign in mid-February to end more than four decades of rule by Col Gaddafi. Since last month they have been aided by an international coalition acting on a UN mandate.\nMr Moussa said the attack was against international law.\n\"How is this helping in the protection of civilians? Mr Saif al-Arab was a civilian, a student,\" he said.\n\"He was playing and talking to his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked and killed.\"\nAn adopted daughter of Col Gaddafi's was killed in 1986 by a US air strike launched in response to alleged Libyan involvement in a Berlin bombing targeting US military personnel. Mr Ibrahim accused the international coalition conducting strikes over Libya of not wanting peace. \"We have again and again declared that we are ready for negotiation, ready for road maps for peace, ready for political transitional periods, ready for elections, ready for a referendum. \"The West does not care to test our statements. They only care to rob us of our freedom, our wealth, which is oil, and our right to decide our future as Libyans.\"\nGunfire rang out in celebration in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi following the reports that Saif al-Arab Gaddafi had been killed.\nOn Saturday, Nato officials said the alliance would not consider talks until government forces stopped attacks on civilians.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Saif al-Arab and three of Col Gaddafi's grandchildren died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Nato"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["military in nature"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tripoli","a villa in the Bab al-Aziziya compound"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Citizens of the city of Daraa, a focal point of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, report being fired on by government soldiers and tanks. (BBC) (The Jerusalem Post)","document":"Syrian soldiers and tanks have been firing in the city of Deraa, a centre of protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, residents say.\nThey say soldiers have made arrests and fired to keep people indoors.\nOpposition websites are showing footage purportedly of a soldier who says he deserted after being ordered to fire on unarmed protesters in Damascus.\nActivists say nearly 600 people have died in the crackdown on protests, which began in mid-March.\nAt least 66 protesters were reported to have been killed, most of them in Deraa, on Friday.\nActivists said another six were killed on Saturday when the army seized control of a mosque which had become a centre for anti-government protests in the city.\nDeraa has been the focus of government action against the protesters for the last week. Water, electricity and phone lines to the city have been cut.\nState television said security forces came under attack on Saturday by \"armed terrorists\" in Deraa and Homs, Syria's third city.\nPresident Assad's government blames militants and \"external forces\" for the unrest, which it says have left nearly 80 security personnel dead.\nForeign journalists are not being allowed into the country, and the exact picture of what is happening remains unclear.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 66 protesters were reported to have been killed","another six were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian soldiers and tanks"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["unarmed protesters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the city of Deraa"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 The Taliban sends a 12yearold boy as a suicide bomber in a new wave of attacks that kills four civilians, in one of several attacks across Afghanistan that kills at least seven people. (BBC) (The Australian)","document":"A suicide bomber said to be aged 12 has killed four people in east Afghanistan, one of several attacks a day after the Taliban announced a spring offensive.\nA dozen people were injured as the suicide bomber struck a crowded market in Paktika province, killing a local official, a woman and two other men.\nIn Ghazni City, a gunman opened fire at a police checkpoint, killing two police officers and two civilians.\nA bicycle bomb near the city's police station wounded 13 civilians.\nLethal attacks were also also reported in Logar province south of Kabul, and in Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan.\nAmong those killed in Paktika province was Sher Nawaz, the head of a district council there. The BBC's Paul Wood in Kabul says some believe the suicide bomber, if he was 12, would be one of the youngest ever to have staged such an attack.\nBy one count there are more than 150 would-be suicide bombers between 13-17 years of age who have been intercepted by the Afghan security forces, he reports.\nAfghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack.\n\"The use of children and youths who don't know the difference between right and wrong in terrorist attacks is inhumane and against all Islamic principles,\" he said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for all by one of Sunday's attacks, AFP news agency reported.\nOn Saturday the Taliban declared a new campaign to attack foreign troops, Afghan security forces and government officials.\nInternational organisations, including the UN, have warned their staff not to go out unless it is absolutely necessary.\nIn Kandahar, in the south, and in other cities across the country, thousands of extra soldiers and police have been deployed.\nA gradual withdrawal of foreign combat troops is set to begin in July as part of a handover to Afghan security forces.  International Security Assistance Force","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed four people","A dozen people were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban","A suicide bomber said to be aged 12"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday's"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a crowded market in Paktika province","east Afghanistan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and urges him to immediately end the violent crackdown against anti-government protesters in Syria, as Syrian tanks and armored vehicles deployed around the town of Rastan, witnesses said, raising fears of another deadly attack on protesters challenging Assad's rule. (The Jerusalem Post) (Channel 6 News)","document":"UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday reiterated his call for an \"immediate end\" to violence against peaceful demonstrators in Syria during a telephone conversation with President Bashar al-Assad.\n\"The Secretary-General reiterated his calls for an immediate end to violence against and mass arrests of peaceful demonstrators in Syria, and for an independent investigation of all killings that happened during the protests, including the alleged killing of military and security officers,\" a statement released by UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky said. Ban also emphasized the urgency of meeting the humanitarian needs of the population and called on President Assad to grant access to the UN.\n\"The Secretary-General also encouraged full and early implementation of all the reform measures announced by the Syrian Government, and emphasized the importance of engaging a genuine inclusive dialogue and a comprehensive reform process,\" the statement added. The UN Human Rights Council on Friday voted for sending a mission to the Middle East country to investigate the reported violations of international law after hundreds of people have been killed during weeks of unrest.\nKyung-wha Kang, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that over 450 people have reportedly been killed and three times that number injured due to the widespread use of live fire ammunition against protesters.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["live fire ammunition"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["over 450 people have reportedly been killed and three times that number injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["protesters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Mortar rounds fired from Libya land near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba. (Reuters Alertnet)","document":"                                   TATAOUINE, Tunisia, May 5 (Reuters) - More than a dozen mortar rounds fired from Libya landed near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba on Thursday, a Tunisian security source said, as Libyan government troops fought rebels in the Western Mountains.\n A resident of Dehiba said one of the mortar rounds landed near a reservoir supplying the town with drinking water. Artillery fire from Libya has landed in or near Dehiba several times in the past week, as forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi try to wrest control of a key border post from rebels. (Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Tim Pearce)","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["More than a dozen mortar rounds"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Libya"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba","near a reservoir supplying the town with drinking water"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Syrian troops arrest 300 people in a raid on the Damascus suburb of Saqba and tanks and troops are also reported to have been sent to other to quell anti-government demonstrations in Homs and Hama.(BBC) (The Telegraph)","document":"Syrian troops arrested 300 people in a Damascus suburb on Thursday even as they started to pull back from the protest hub of Dera'a after a military lockdown of more than a week.\nActivists, meanwhile, vowed a \"Day of Defiance\" on Friday to press a seven-week-old anti-regime campaign in which 607 people have been killed, according to rights groups, while 8,000 people have been jailed or gone missing.\nThe sweep in the Damascus suburb of Saqba came despite appeals from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, the United States and Italy for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end the deadly clampdown on anti-regime demonstrators.\n\"Security service agents backed by troops detained more than 300 people in Saqba, among them a number of clerics,\" an activist said.\nHe said at least one of those arrested was shot and wounded before being taken away by security forces.\nTroops \"tore down a banner in the main square, renamed 'Martyrs' Square,' with the photos of those killed attached to it,\" the activist said, adding that seven Saqba residents had died since Syria's protest movement broke out on March 15.\nThe activist said that more than 2,000 troops and security agents had taken part in the sweep through the suburb and those detained were driven away in waiting coaches.\nIn southern Syria, troops began withdrawing from the protest centre of Dera'a which has been under a complete military lockdown since April 25.\nAbout 350 soldiers in armoured personnel carriers and trucks plastered with portraits of Assad drove out of the town at around 10am (0700 GMT), according to reports.\n\"We have begun our withdrawal after having completed our mission in Dera'a,\" said General Riad Haddad, director of the military's political department. \"The army will have pulled out of Dera'a completely by the end of the day.\"\nDozens of people were killed during military assaults in Dera'a, launched with what activists termed \"indiscriminate\" shelling of the town.\nBut Gen Haddad insisted that troops \"did not confront the protesters. We continue searching for terrorists hidden in several places. As the army, we never confronted the protesters.\"\nTwenty-five soldiers were killed in Dera'a and 177 wounded, he said.\nEven as the Dera'a pullback began, around 100 tanks and troop transports converged on Ar-Rastan town, another hotbed of protests, an activist said on Wednesday.\n\"Reinforcements continue to mass at the northern entrance to Ar-Rastan and, according to our estimates, there must be 100 tanks and troop transports on the highway between Homs and Hamah,\" said the activist.\nAr-Rastan residents have toppled a statue of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who was succeeded on his death in 2000 by his son, Bashar.\nBan appealed to Assad to end the deadly clampdown.\n\"The secretary general reiterated his calls for an immediate end to violence against and mass arrests of peaceful demonstrators,\" UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Wednesday.\nThe UN leader called for a \"full and early implementation of all the reform measures\" promised by Assad's government \"and emphasised the importance of engaging a genuine inclusive dialogue and a comprehensive reform process.\"\nThe United States and Italy also called for an end to the bloodshed.\n\"The Syrian government must immediately stop the violence and resume a path of dialogue,\" Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least one of those arrested was shot and wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["more than 2,000 troops and security agents"]},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Damascus suburb of Saqba"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 A US drone attack kills two suspected alQaeda members in Shabwa province, Yemen. (The Telegraph)","document":"Two men suspected of being al-Qaeda militants were killed in Yemen by a missile strike said by witnesses and local officials to have been launched by an America drone.\nThe Yemen defence ministry said the two men, who were driving a car in Shabwa province in the east of the country, were brothers, but did not name them or give further details. Locally based journalists identified them as Abdullah and Mubarak al-Harad, and one report said the real target may have been a senior al-Qaeda operative of Saudi origin who was on his way to meet them....\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a missile"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two men suspected of being al-Qaeda militants were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["an America drone"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a senior al-Qaeda operative of Saudi origin"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Yemen","Shabwa province in the east of the country"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 The Prime Minister of Egypt Essam Sharaf to discuss fatal clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Imbaba district of Cairo. (BBC)","document":"Egypt's justice minister has warned that those who threaten the country's security will face \"an iron fist\".\nAbdel Aziz al-Gindi was speaking after 12 people died and more than 180 were wounded during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo.\nMore than 190 people detained after the fatal clashes will face military trials, Egypt's army says.\nThe ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces called the move a \"deterrent\" against further violence.\n\"The government's hand is not shaking. The government is not weak,\" Mr Gindi said, speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting convened by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.\nMr Sharaf postponed a visit to the Gulf to hold the meeting.\nMr Gindi said the government would \"immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief\", which would allow for the death penalty to be applied.\nHe said the Egyptian people, police and army were \"standing together to foil the counter-revolution\", following the popular protests that unseated the government in February.\nSaturday's violence started after several hundred conservative Salafist Muslims gathered outside the Coptic Saint Mena Church in Cairo's Imbaba district.\nThey were reportedly protesting over the allegation that a Christian woman, named as Abeer, was being held there against her will because she had married a Muslim man and converted to Islam.\nThe calls for this protest followed the appearance on a Christian TV channel of Camelia Shehata, a woman who Islamists had claimed was also being held against her will after converting to Islam. She denied this in the TV interview.\nWitnesses said the confrontation began with shouting between protesters, church guards and people living near the church.\nRival groups threw fire bombs and stones, and gunfire was heard. The church and one other, as well as some nearby homes, were set alight, and it took hours for the emergency services and the military to bring the situation under control.\nOn its Facebook page, the Egyptian army announced: \"The Supreme Military Council decided to send all those who were arrested in yesterday's events, that is 190 people, to the Supreme Military Court.\"\nIt added that it should act as a \"deterrent to all those who think of toying with the potential of this nation\".\nThe statement also said that a committee would be set up to assess the damage caused by the clashes and \"restore all property and places of worship to how they were\".\nThe army warned of \"severe dangers facing Egypt during this phase\".\nSaturday's clashes were not the first outbreak of communal violence since President Hosni Mubarak left office in February following weeks of popular protests.\nDuring the protests in Cairo, many Christians and Muslims had protested alongside each other and protected each other during prayer times.\nBut in March, 13 people died in sectarian clashes in another neighbourhood. Last month, demonstrators in the southern city of Qena cut all transport links with Cairo for a week in protest over the appointment of a Christian governor.\nThe clashes - coming as the military government leads a faltering transition to democracy - are a worrying development for Egypt, the BBC's Jonathan Head in Cairo says.\nSalafist groups - who have made similar claims about women being held against their will before - have become more assertive in the post-Mubarak era, he adds.\nCoptic Christians account for about 10% of Egypt's population, and have long complained of state discrimination against them.\nNow they are expressing fears for their safety if hardline Muslims do well in the election scheduled for September, our correspondent reports.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["fire bombs and stones, and gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["12 people died and more than 180 were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Salafist Muslims"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday's"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Coptic Saint Mena Church in Cairo's Imbaba district","Cairo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 In the wake of the 20102011 Ivorian crisis, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that mass graves containing 68 bodies have been found in the Ivorian city of Abidjan. (CNN), (UPI)","document":"(CNN) -- Forensic experts have unearthed about 68 bodies from another cluster of mass graves in war-torn Ivory Coast, a United Nations spokeswoman said Monday.\nRavina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, said human rights investigators found a total of 10 mass graves in the Yopougon district, near the country's commercial capital of Abidjan, over the weekend.\nAccording to U.N. investigations, the Yopougon killings appear to be related to an April 12 massacre in which supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo staged an attack on supporters of Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo's unwillingness to hand over power to Ouattara after last year's presidential election -- even after Ouattara was recognized internationally as the winner -- resulted in months of violence. In April, U.N. teams found more than 200 bodies buried in a mass grave in the western town of Duekoue.\nMore than 1,000 people have died following the contested 2010 presidential election that pitted Ouattara against Gbagbo.\nOuattara was sworn in Friday as president of Ivory Coast, ending the months-long political standoff.\nShamdasani said the Ivory Coast government has been cooperative in helping investigators search for clues, some of which may incriminate Outtara supporters as well as Gbagbo supporters.\n\"When we apply pressure, they do respond,\" she said.\nAn independent, international commission of inquiry is investigating alleged human rights violations committed by supporters of each presidential candidate, Shamdasani said.\n\"Some of these crimes may amount to crimes against humanity,\" Shamdasani said. \"But for now, we can't say that with confidence.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["about 68 bodies"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo"]},{"role":"Date","values":["April 12"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["supporters of Alassane Ouattara"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Yopougon district, near the country's commercial capital of Abidjan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 World War II veterans and the Russian consul general are attacked by members of the Ukrainian ultranationalist party \"Svoboda\" in Lviv, Ukraine. (RT)","document":"A holiday for millions, but a street brawl for others. Unlike most of the post-Soviet region on May 9th, the western Ukrainian city of Lvov became a vicious display of neo-Nazism. Several thousand activists from radical nationalist parties blocked the entrance to Red Army soldiers’ cemeteries, preventing war veterans from getting inside and paying tribute.Some in this part of Ukraine do not see May 9th as a reason to celebrate, believing the Soviet period to be worse than enduring Nazi occupation.The St. George’s ribbon is traditionally worn on Victory Day to commemorate those who died in the Great Patriotic War. However, putting it on your lapel on this day in Lvov would have constituted a serious risk  regardless of whether you were a veteran or not.The ribbons were forcibly ripped from the chests of those who were heading to the graveyards. Those who simply wished to pay tribute and to show their respect were also bombarded with abusive chants such as “death to the Muscovites”, Nazi salutes, rocks and smoke bombs. That’s how Lvov marked May 9th.Activists of the Liberty nationalist organization put up fierce resistance to the police, stoning police buses carrying reinforcements, throwing smoke grenades and shaking the fence around the Hill of Glory, where some 100 people, among them World War II veterans, had gathered for a commemorative ceremony.Such scenes surprised even the locals, who had grown used to protests on Victory Day, with nationalists wiping their feet on the red victory banner.“Here, in this picture are my brothers and my father  the liberator of this land from the fascists,” local resident Vladimir told RT. “But these people here do not let me go inside the cemetery to lay flowers on his grave. This is a disgrace.”Their heroes are people regarded worldwide as Nazi collaborators. Replica shirts depicting Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, the founders of the 1940s insurgent army, are a big hit here. They are seen as freedom fighters, even though for a while they fought alongside the Nazi army and killed civilians, Jews and Russians in a gruesome manner.“Actions like these are an attempt to write off the sacrifices the country made to be liberated from the Nazis and a result of pro-fascist propaganda, like the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators, like Shukhevich and Bandera,” says Vadim Kolesnichenko, a deputy in Ukraine’s Rada.This is only a part of a wider picture. A warped perception of the past is making waves in other former Soviet states, namely in the Baltic states Latvia and Estonia, where SS marches glorifying Nazi legions are not uncommon.As a Russian diplomatic delegation was on its way to the Hill to pay tribute to those who perished during the war, a group of nationalists grabbed a wreath which Oleg Astakhov, Russia’s Consul General, was to lay at the military cemetery.\"The wreath I was to lay at the Hill of Glory memorial at the military cemetery was shredded to pieces,\" he said in an interview with the ZIK magazine according to Interfax.Today’s events in Western Ukraine are part of a common trend for some corners of the former Soviet Union, such as the Baltic States, where rewriting of the common history has been widely instigated and Victory Day, therefore, is not celebrated. Supporters of such views claim that the Soviet period was worse than the Nazi occupation. Nonetheless, the scale of Lvov’s Monday violence is unprecedented even by local standards.With all that, such views, even though common in Lvov, do not dominate Ukrainian society. Most of the country is celebrating the holiday and remembers millions of those who died liberating their country from Nazi Germany.Moscow expects Ukrainian authorities to bring nationalists to account for attacking veterans during a memorial service on May 9.\nUkraine is a very diverse nation because for the first time in its history Ukraine united in 1939 as a republic of the Soviet Union, said Dmitry Babich from Russia Profile magazine.To begin preventing Nazi-loving nationalism in Western Ukraine, the attitude of the Western media towards Ukrainian nationalism should first of all change, shared Babich.“The sentimental attitude towards Ukrainian nationalism that we have seen in European and the American media since the beginning of the 1990s and particularly during the so-called Orange Revolution is simplification that has led to lots of misunderstandings. Even president Yushchenko was idealized for a long time by westerners until at the end of his rule he suddenly made [Stepan] Bandera, a very controversial extremist figure of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, he [Yushchenko] suddenly made him a Hero of Ukraine.”Unfortunately, a part of the Western press encourages the opinion that at one time Hitler could have been better than Stalin and it resents the Soviet past in former Soviet republics.\nRussian historian Leonid Dobrokhotov has told RT why, in his opinion, these attempts to rewrite history take place in some of the former Soviet republics.“Millions of Ukrainians… were heroically fighting as a part of the Red Army against the Nazis during the Second World War, the Great Patriotic War. A lot of Baltic [people] did the same,” he said. “At the same time,…a lot of Ukrainians, especially [those] from Western Ukraine, and some Lithuanians, Estonians and especially Latvians… were a part of the Nazis, the Nazi battalions  nationalist Baltic battalions under the command of [German] Nazis, who did massacres and fought against the Red Army and against the civilians.”After WWII, the nationalist movements were suppressed in the Soviet Union, Dobrokhotov continued. However, decades later, when the USSR was disintegrating, the West strongly supported the independence of those republics from Russia. Now, the West still regards these former parts of the Soviet Union as its close allies and turns a blind eye to the Nazi tendencies that occur there, the historian concluded.\nGlyn Ford, National Treasurer of the Anti-Nazi League, agrees that similar tendencies are common throughout Europe these days.“The danger is that the people are beginning to forget what we fought for and what the veterans died for,” he told RT. “As we are seeing, the re-emergence of far-right forces and nationalist forces that, really, in many senses resemble exactly those that emerged with Hitler in the 1930s.”“You are seeing the emergence of far-right parties almost all the way across the European Union, apart, possibly, from those countries that have been inoculated a little by their own experiences, in Spain and Portugal,” he added.“The danger is, if we forget, we are likely to, if you want, replicate it again in the future,” Glyn Ford warned.\n“We have seen this before,” says Cornelius Schwarzler of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service.“We have seen this in many countries in Europe, and we should also remember how much time it took us in Central Europe and Western Europe to even raise the subject of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes,” he said. “It took us ages and, I think, from that point of view we should be aware of the fact that Ukraine is certainly in the learning process, and Ukraine will need time.”","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocks and smoke bombs","smoke grenades"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["police buses"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["radical nationalist parties"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May 9th"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["Several thousand activists"]},{"role":"Target","values":["police","war veterans"]},{"role":"Location","values":["western Ukrainian city of Lvov"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Ali Gomaa, the Islamic Grand Mufti of Egypt, warns of the potential of civil war because of \"outlaws who want to defy the authority of the state\". (Al Arabiya and AFP)","document":"Tuesday, 10 May 2011 An Egyptian army guard stands outside the Saint Mary Church, which was set on fire during clashes between Muslims and Christians.  Agencies\nEgyptian media blamed the recent deadly violence between Islamists and Coptic Christians on “anti-revolutionaries” as the country’s grand mufti and chief interpreter of Islamic law warned the country could descend into a civil war.\n“We are facing the anti-revolutionary groups who are convinced that any success of the revolution was an even greater threat to their interests and so are trying to fuel confessional conflict,” wrote Al Ahram newspaper, the most widely circulating Egyptian daily publication.\nJustice Minister Abdel Aziz Al Gindi has vowed the government would strike with an “iron hand” those who threatened the country’s national security and warned that “Egypt has already become a nation in danger.” On a day when casualty figures relating to clashes between Islamists and Coptic Christians over a controversial interfaith marriage kept rising, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf postponed a trip to the Gulf to hold an emergency meeting with his cabinet members.\nAli Gomaa, Egypt’s grand mufti and chief interpreter of Islamic law, was quoted in main independent daily Al Masri Al Yom as warning of the potential for civil war, “because of outlaws who want to defy the authority of the state,” according to Agence France-Press.\nMeanwhile Interior Minister Mansur Al Issawi denied reports that weapons had been stored in Saint Mena church.\n“Contrary to rumors that there were weapons inside the church, it was the owner of a cafe near the church who fired a gun,” he told the government daily Al Akhbar.\nSecurity officials said police arrested a man they identified as the Muslim husband of the alleged convert, saying he had spread the word that his wife was being detained in a building next to the church.\nSaturday’s incident, in which 12 people were killed and 232 were wounded, was the second deadly sectarian clash since the January 15 revolution, in which Muslims and Christians joined hands in Tahrir Square to demand the departure of then President Hosni Mubarak.\nThe clashes were triggered by a controversy over interfaith marriage concerning a 26-year-old woman, Camilia Shehata. She is the wife of a Coptic priest, Tadros Samaan, and disappeared in July 2010 after reportedly converting to Islam, possibly on account of an unhappy marriage. Divorce is forbidden by the Coptic Church, and some Christians have been known to convert to Islam in order to remarry.\nIslamists, charging that she was forcibly confined in a church, protested several times. They gathered in front of the Saint Mena Church, which was where the clashes occurred.\nBut Ms. Shehata has appeared in a new picture published by Al Ahram newspaper with Naguib Gebrael, of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization. Mr. Gebrael, a lawyer, told Al Ahram that he would represent her in a court where a complaint was filed against the church for allegedly holding her in forced confinement.\nMs. Shehata also appeared on a Christian broadcasting channel, with her husband and child.\n“Let the protesters leave the church alone and turn their attention to Egypt’s future,” she said, adding that she had never converted to Islam.\nIn March, Muslims and Christians clashed in the town of Helwan near Cairo. Thirteen people were killed and a church was torched. The cause of the fighting was a rumored romantic relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man.\nIn swift response by the country’s military rulers, 190 people were arrested in Saturday’s violence and were sent to trial, as security was stepped up at houses of worship, amid indications that Egypt’s conservative Islamic movement, led by Salafis, was becoming increasingly restive about the country’s traditionally secular environment.\nInter-faith relationships among faiths are frowned upon in Egypt, where Christians make up about 10 percent of its 80 million people. Such relationships are sometimes the source of deadly clashes between the faiths, said The Associated Press.\nIf a Christian woman marries a Muslim, she is expelled from the church. A Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian man, according to state law.\nBecause divorce is banned under the Coptic Church, unless under extenuating circumstances, many women resort to conversion as a way to get out of a marriage.\nChristians complain about unfair treatment, including rules they say make it easier to build a mosque than a church.\nIn 2010, Egypt saw more than its usual share of sectarian strife, and a rights group has said such clashes have been on the rise. Muslims and Christians had been brought together during the protests that ousted Mr. Mubarak.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["Saint Mary Church","church was torched"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Thirteen people were killed","12 people were killed and 232 were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamists"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","March"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Coptic Christians","Saint Mary Church"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt","church","Cairo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 Four United Nations peacekeepers are shot while on patrol in the disputed Abyei district of Sudan. (United Nations)","document":"Unidentified assailants have shot and wounded four United Nations peacekeepers while they were on patrol in the disputed Abyei area of Sudan today.\nThe four blue helmets, all from Zambia, were shot around 4:40 p.m. as they returned from a regular patrol to the north of the town of Abyei. The peacekeepers were evacuated to Abyei for medical treatment and one of them is reported to be in a serious condition.\nKouider Zerrouk, a spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), said the peacekeepers had been forced by armed men to turn back at the village of Goli earlier in the day, and were returning to the town of Diffra when they came under fire from unknown attackers.\n“We condemn this act against peacekeepers who are discharging their duties to try to help maintain peace and security in Abyei,” he said.\nUNMIS has started an investigation into the shootings, which occurred on the day that the north and southern sides had agreed to start withdrawing their unauthorized forces from Abyei as part of a pact facilitated by the UN.\nThat agreement, welcomed by UNMIS, is part of a broader effort aimed at de-escalating tensions in an area where deadly clashes have claimed dozens of lives since the start of the year, when a referendum on Abyei’s status that was supposed to have been held never took place amid disagreement on voter eligibility. Southern Sudan will secede from the rest of the country in July as a result of a separate referendum held in January and both north and south claim Abyei.\nThe United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has welcomed the commitment of the northern and southern sides to withdraw their forces from Abyei and to immediately deploy combined teams to the disputed area to provide security.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["wounded four United Nations peacekeepers"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["armed men"]},{"role":"Date","values":["today","around 4:40 p.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the disputed Abyei area of Sudan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 NATO launches four more air strikes on Tripoli. (AP via MSNBC), (BBC)","document":"The Libyan capital Tripoli has experienced a series of heavy blasts and gunfire by what is thought to be Nato air missile strikes. Eyewitness reports say the five blasts took place in quick succession and are reported to have targeted the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's compound.\nEarlier, the UN aid chief called for a pause in hostilities to ease Libya's humanitarian crisis, and described the situation in the city of Misrata as dire.\nHeavy explosions rock Tripoli. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Nato"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's compound"]},{"role":"Location","values":["The Libyan capital Tripoli"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2011 The Gaddafi compound is hit again in airstrikes. (BBC)","document":"Nato air strikes have again hit the compound of Col Muammar Gaddafi, hours after Libyan state TV showed footage purportedly of the leader in Tripoli.\nLibyan government officials said the attack in the early hours of Thursday killed three people, although this cannot be independently verified.\nCorrespondents said three rockets hit the base and caused extensive damage.\nA video of Col Gaddafi aired Wednesday was the leader's first appearance since his son was killed two weeks ago.\nNato has repeatedly hit Tripoli this week as it intensifies its operations against Col Gaddafi, who has been fighting to crush a three-month old rebellion against his rule.\nSmoke rose from the Gaddafi compound, Bab al-Azaziya, and ambulances raced through the city as the last missile struck early on Thursday, reports said.\nJournalists were taken by government officials to the compound to survey the damage.\nLibyan government spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim said that Nato, which \"once again is deprived of all morals and all civilisation\", had fired five missiles on the compound.\n\"Three people died - two of them are journalists and one was their guide who was helping them film a documentary,\" Mr Ibrahim told a news conference in the compound, held next to a large, water-filled crater.\nHe said the journalists had been filming \"hundreds of people who were celebrating their resilience against Nato\".\nNato has not commented on the latest strike, but has said that most of the alliance's 46 air strikes on Wednesday were focused on and around Tripoli, hitting command and control centres, ammunition dumps and anti-aircraft missile launchers.\nState television also reported that the North Korean embassy in Tripoli was damaged in the overnight Nato strikes. Nato has denied this.\nIn another development on Thursday, France said one of its citizens had been shot dead and four others arrested in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.\nIt was not clear who the five were or what they were doing in Benghazi, but a French foreign ministry statement said: \"During a police check in Benghazi last night, five French nationals were detained. One of them was wounded by a bullet and died overnight in a hospital in Benghazi.\"\nOn Wednesday, state television showed Col Gaddafi meeting tribal leaders. It said they had met in Tripoli earlier that day.\nIt was the first appearance of the leader since one of his sons and three of his grandchildren were killed two weeks ago in a Nato strike on the Bab al-Azaziya compound.\nIn the footage, Col Gaddafi was dressed in his trademark brown robes, dark sunglasses and black hat. He appeared to be in good health.\nMeanwhile, the US government has said it has invited representatives of Libya's rebels to the White House on Friday.\nA delegation from the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC), including senior leader Mahmoud Gibril, will meet National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and members of the US Congress.\nUK Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday invited the TNC to set up an office in Britain.\nAfter meeting TNC leaders in London, Mr Cameron praised the group and described them as \"Britain's primary partner\" in Libya.\nAt a news conference, rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil reiterated calls for the UK to provide them with weapons.\n\"We need some lethal weapons. The British government has offered non-lethal (gear) such as night vision equipment and body armour.\n\"Col Gaddafi has heavy weaponry. We need light weapons, which is not equivalent to Gaddafi's weaponry, but perhaps with courage, which Libyan people have, there may be some kind of balance,\" he said.\nOn Wednesday, eyewitnesses said Misrata airport had fallen to the rebels after hours of fighting with pro-Gaddafi forces.\nMisrata, Libya's third-largest city, is the only significant western rebel holdout and is strategically important because of its deep-sea port, which has become a lifeline for delivering aid and for evacuating the wounded.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["five missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed three people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Nato"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early hours of Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the compound of Col Muammar Gaddafi"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tripoli"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2017 Five Russian warplanes bombard the city of al-Tamane’a with rockets, bombs, and Bunker-Buster missiles, wounding several civilians and causing a significant damage to the area, and causing large number of civilians to flee. (Iraqi News)","document":"   by   Loaa Adel   Sep 27, 2017, 11:27 pm   Idlib (Syria News) Local sources informed that Russian warplanes carried out, on Wednesday, more than 18 air strikes on the town of al-Tamane‘a, south Idlib, Qasioun News reported.\nThe sources revealed that five Russian warplanes bombarded the city of al-Tamane’a with rockets, bombs, and Bunker-Buster missiles, wounding several civilians and causing a significant damage to the area.\nLarge number of civilians fled the Tamane’a City in the last two days towards north of Syria, the sources added. Furthermore, Russian warplanes conducted dozens of raids on the city, following an attack launched by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham on the regime-held areas, in northern Hama.\nIt is noteworthy that the Russian Ministry of Defense has announced killing five leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, south of Idlib, by several air strikes on the area, dozens of civilians were killed in Aleppo, Hama and Idlib.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rockets, bombs, and Bunker-Buster missiles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing five leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russian warplanes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["five Russian warplanes"]},{"role":"Target","values":["the city of al-Tamane’a"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the town of al-Tamane‘a, south Idlib"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2017 Al-Shabaab militants attack a military base outside the Somalian capital Mogadishu, with 15 soldiers reported dead. (Reuters)","document":"MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Al Shabaab fighters killed at least 15 soldiers in an attack on a military base near Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the militant group and Somali officials said on Friday.\nThe militants used guns and car bombs to take control of the base and a nearby town, Barire, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, in an early-morning attack.\nThe fighters also took 11 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, known as “technicals”, said Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman.\n“The other soldiers ran helter-skelter into the woods. We now control the base and the village,” he said.\nA Somali military officer put the number of dead at 15; al Shabaab said 21 were killed. The government and al Shabaab often give differing accounts of death tolls.\n“There was a battalion of soldiers but it was a fierce fighting; twin suicide car bombs and hand-to-hand fighting,” Captain Osman Ali told Reuters.\n“The attacked soldiers were Somali military and the special forces trained by the U.S. called Danab. There were neither AMISOM nor other foreigners there,” Ali added, referring to African Union peacekeeping troops. Reinforcements were being sent, he said.\nAl Shabaab aims to topple the government in Mogadishu and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam. Somalia has been at war since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre and then turned on each other.\nThe al Qaeda-linked group was driven out of the capital in 2011, but it still carries out frequent attacks on security and government targets and African Union peacekeeping troops. Civilians sometimes get caught in the crossfire.\nAli Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region where Barire is situated, confirmed the fighting. So did local residents.\n“First we heard two huge blasts at the base and then heavy exchange of gunfire followed. Now it looks like the fighting died down,” Ali Farah told Reuters from Barire village.\nTwo weeks ago, al Shabaab attacked an army base at a town near the border with Kenya. Three weeks ago they struck another in the southern port city of Kismayu, killing a total of at least 43 people in the two attacks.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guns and car bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 15 soldiers","21 were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Al Shabaab fighters"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early-morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Somali military and the special forces trained by the U.S. called Danab"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a military base near Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu","nearby town, Barire, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Mogadishu"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2017 In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, near Commonwealth Stadium, a man drives into a police officer and then stabs the officer. The suspect fled the scene and was later arrested that night following a police pursuit, where four pedestrians were hit by the suspect in a rental truck. Police are investigating the incident as an act of terrorism. (Edmonton Journal), (Reuters)","document":" A manhunt was underway when a suspect was spotted driving a U-Haul and a police chase ensued Edmonton police released disturbing video footage Sunday morning showing the first in a chain of events they are now investigating as an “act of terrorism.”\nThe video shows a white Chevrolet Malibu driving directly through a road barricade at an intersection near Commonwealth Stadium, hitting a police officer who goes flying through the air before he is then attacked.\n\nThe stabbing of a police officer and a subsequent high-speed chase where several pedestrians were run down is being investigated as an act of terrorism, Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht said at a 3 a.m. news conference.\nKnecht, standing side by side with representatives of the RCMP, said based on evidence at the scene, and the actions of the suspect “it was determined that these incidents are being investigated as acts of terrorism under section 83.2 of the Criminal Code.”\nKnecht also confirmed that an ISIS flag was discovered in the vehicle the suspect was driving when he rammed the police car, then stabbed the police officer  and that the flag is part of the investigation.\nThe attack began on the officer who was manning a routine Edmonton Eskimos game-day blockade by himself southwest of Commonwealth Stadium at 107A Avenue and 92 Street. The officer was outside his vehicle, which had its lights flashing to improve visibility.\nAt around 8:15 p.m., a man driving a white Chevrolet Malibu crashed into the barricades set up to keep pedestrians separated from vehicles.\nThe vehicle struck the officer “sending him flying through the air 15 feet before colliding with the officer’s cruiser” at high speed.\nThe suspect, believed to be 30 years old, then got out of his vehicle and attacked the officer with a knife. The officer was stabbed multiple times before the suspect fled on foot northbound on 92 Street.\nThe officer was transported to hospital and the chief said he is not in critical condition.\nImmediately after the incident, Knecht said information about the registered owner of the vehicle was broadcast to patrol officers across the city.\nA manhunt was underway when before midnight a suspect was pulled over at a police checkstop on Wayne Gretzky Drive and 112 Avenue driving a U-Haul truck. When the officer asked to see a driver’s licence, he recognized the name as being similar to that of the registered owner of the Malibu used in the earlier attack. The suspect fled the scene with at least a dozen police vehicles in pursuit.\nA high-speed chase ensued with the suspect racing west down Jasper Avenue into the downtown, where Knecht said the suspect “deliberately tried to hit pedestrians in crosswalks and alleys” at two areas along the route. Four pedestrians were struck and were subsequently transported to hospital. There is no information on their condition.\nShortly after the pedestrians were run down, the suspect’s vehicle overturned on 100 Avenue just south of Jasper Avenue “due to police interaction,” said Knecht.\nThe driver was arrested and is now in police custody.\nWitnesses who saw the chase and pedestrians being struck described the scene as chaotic.\nJust before midnight Kim Anderson was waiting for her bus when she saw the U-Haul hit pedestrians near Jasper Avenue and 107 Street.\n“There were people flying and everything,” she said. “I’m shocked  I just see people flying.”\nAt the Matrix Hotel on 100 Avenue and 106 Street, right across from where the truck overturned,Natalie Pon was at a wedding.\nShe said guests heard loud bangs like gunshots. Staff kept them away from the windows as the situation unfolded.\nWhen she snapped a photo of the U-Haul there was a “huge hole” in the windshield of the truck. But she didn’t see a suspect.\n“We caught wind this was happening outside, so we saw it after the fact.”\nPat Hannigan said he was across the street when he saw the truck flip over. “They (police) were pulling him out of the windshield, then handcuffed him,” he said.\nBrian McNeill was sitting on the back of a pickup truck when he saw the U-Haul going about 80 km/h, chased by 14 to 20 police vehicles.\n“Holy shit, this is too fast,” he thought as he watched vehicles driving west on Jasper Avenue.\nHe says the truck hit two pedestrians and disappeared. Then he said he heard what he believed was a gunshot.\nMcNeill questioned why a high-speed chase was allowed to happen in the downtown. “That should have never happened,” he said.\nKnecht addressed those concerns at the news conference, saying the seriousness of the crime dictated why the chase continued.\nThe chief also said police had no forewarning of the attack and they believe the suspect acted alone. However Knecht also cautioned that “the investigation is in the early stages, and we are urging Edmontonians to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings.”\n“Contact police if you see anything suspicious or hear anything suspicious,” he said.\nSeveral hours after the officer was attacked, the white sedan with a damaged front end sat between two police vehicles near a darkened grocery store adjacent to a Crown Liquor store. The trunk on the sedan was open and the scene was bordered by yellow police tape.\nA police hat and what appeared to be a yellow police vest lay on the ground near the car.\nA heavy police presence had blanketed Edmonton’s inner city after the initial incident as the manhunt ramped up.\nPolice were stopping vehicles and peering inside with flashlights throughout the area.\nOfficers were also seen stopping traffic on the High Level Bridge as well as maintaining a presence on the Walterdale Bridge.\nOne complication, although it appeared to transpire without incident, was the thousands of fans exiting Commonwealth Stadium after the Eskimos game very near the first crime scene. But traffic was diverted and remained orderly.\nKnecht will provide a further update at 3 p.m.\n ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a knife"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Four pedestrians were struck"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["around 8:15 p.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["southwest of Commonwealth Stadium at 107A Avenue and 92 Street"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 Houthi forces claim to have shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Yemeni capital Sana'a. Footage released by Saba News Agency appears to show crowds gathering around the wreckage of an aircraft. (Reuters)","document":"DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen’s Houthi forces shot down a U.S. surveillance drone in the capital Sanaa on Sunday, the Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA reported.\nThe Houthi movement and its ally former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, and are battling a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.\nThe United States backs the Saudi-led coalition by providing it with intelligence and weapons.\n“A military source said (Houthi) air defense shot down a U.S. MQ-9 surveillance drone in Jader area in the Sanaa province,” SABA reported.\nA Reuters photographer said the drone came down at around 11 am local time in a crowded area on the outskirts of the capital, but there were no reports of any casualties.\nThe charred wreckage of the aircraft was carried out by the Houthis aboard a Toyota pickup truck.\nThe Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\nMore than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war. It began in March 2015 when the Houthis advanced on Hadi’s interim headquarters in the southern port city of Aden, forcing him to flee the country and seek Saudi help.\nThe war has caused a humanitarian disaster in the country, where more than two million people have been displaced while around 750,000 are suspected to have been infected with cholera.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Yemen’s Houthi forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday","around 11 am local time"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a U.S. surveillance drone"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the capital Sanaa","Jader area in the Sanaa province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 Soldiers in Buea and Bamenda, Cameroon, shoot dead a total of at least eight people during various protests by Anglophone separatists. (Reuters)","document":"BUEA/BAMENDA, Cameroon (Reuters) - Soldiers shot dead at least eight people and wounded others in Cameroon’s restless English-speaking regions on Sunday during protests by activists calling for its independence from the majority Francophone nation, an official and witnesses said.\nThe demonstrations - timed to take place on the anniversary of Anglophone Cameroon’s independence from Britain - came as a months-old movement against perceived marginalization by the Francophone-dominated government gathered pace.\nThe protests, which began late last year, have become a lightning rod for opposition to President Paul Biya’s 35-year rule.\nDonatus Njong Fonyuy, mayor of the town of Kumbo, said five prisoners were killed at around 6 a.m. (0500 GMT) after the jail where they were being held caught fire.\n“We don’t know what caused the fire in the prison ... But five prisoners were killed by soldiers. Two were wounded by bullets and are at the hospital,” he told Reuters, adding that another two civilians were also injured.\nIn other incidents in Kumbo, soldiers shot and killed a demonstrator and wounded two others who had raised the blue and white flag of the Ambazonia separatist movement in the town. Another woman was killed inside her home, Fonyuy said, without giving further details.\nPolice and army officials were not immediately available to comment on the shootings.\n“We won’t use violence unless there is major cause. There are numerous risks, even terrorist risks. We’re keeping calm,” a security source, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said earlier in the day.\nWriting on his official Facebook account, President Biya condemned the violence.\n“Let me make this very clear: it is not forbidden to voice any concerns in the Republic. However, nothing great can be achieved by using verbal excesses, street violence, and defying authority,” he said.\nCameroon’s divide has its roots in the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.\n“OUR GREATEST NIGHTMARE”\nAuthorities had banned all gatherings of more than four people, ordered bus stations, eateries and shops to shut and forbade movement between different parts of the English-speaking regions ahead of the protests. The government also ordered Cameroon’s border with Nigeria closed for the weekend.\nAccess to popular social media and messaging apps, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, was disrupted from Friday.\nCommunications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary on Sunday threatened to shut any media outlets giving a voice to separatists, saying they “must not encourage those who advocate division, who want to destroy and destabilize our country”.\nBusinesses were shuttered in the regions’ main cities, Buea and Bamenda, where military helicopters circled overhead. The security deployment included troops from the Cameroonian army’s Rapid Intervention Brigade, a unit that typically fights Islamist Boko Haram militants in the country’s north.\nOne protester was killed on the edge of Buea as security forces attempted to block pro-independence marchers from entering the city, three witnesses said.\nHundreds nevertheless slipped through the countryside to get around the blockade and into the city, where security forces used teargas to try to stop them from marching on the regional governor’s office.\nA Reuters witness also heard gunfire, though it was not clear whether the shots were targeting protesters or being fired in the air.\n“The military, which is supposed to protect lives and property, has turned into our greatest nightmare,” said one Buea resident, who asked not to be identified out of fear of reprisal.\nIn Bamenda, where a bomb attack blamed on separatists wounded three policemen last week, young men brandishing improvised secessionist flags clashed with security forces who attempted to disperse them with teargas.\nThousands of government supporters meanwhile marched in Douala, Cameroon’s main port city and its commercial hub, voicing their opposition to calls for independence or more autonomy for the Anglophone regions.\n“We are here ... to reject sectarianism, to condemn all kinds of hate, all forms of violence carried out under any pretext whatsoever,” Justice Minister Laurent Esso told the pro-government crowd.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["five prisoners","shot dead at least eight people","wounded two others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Soldiers"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Cameroon’s restless English-speaking regions"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 The Islamic State group seizes the Al-Qaryatain town in the central province of Homs in a surprise attack against Syrian government forces. (First Post)","document":"                        The Islamic State group on Sunday seized a town in central Syria known as a symbol of religious coexistence in a surprise attack against regime forces, a monitor said.\n                    Beirut: The Islamic State group on Sunday seized a town in central Syria known as a symbol of religious coexistence in a surprise attack against regime forces, a monitor said.\nRepresentational image. AP\nThe jihadists took control of Al-Qaryatain in the central province of Homs early on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.\nViolent clashes broke out after the jihadists sneaked in, the Britain-based Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said.\nGovernment troops had surrounded the town, where several Christian families are believed to be living, he said.\nAl-Qaryatain was home to some 30,000 people before Syria's war broke out in 2011, 900 of them Christians.\nRegime forces recaptured Al-Qaryatain in April 2016 after eight months of jihadist control.\nIn early August 2015, the Islamic State (IS) abducted 270 Christians from the town, transporting them around 90 kilometres (55 miles) away deep in the Syria desert and locking them up in an underground dungeon. They were freed 25 days later.\nThe same month, IS destroyed parts of a monastery in the town and reduced a fifth-century mud brick church to rubble using explosives and bulldozers.\nEarlier this week the jihadists launched an assault on government positions in Syria's vast Badiya desert, killing at least 128 regime troops.\nSyrian troops pushed through the desert, which separates the main cities of the west from the Euphrates Valley this summer, and broke a years-long IS siege on government enclaves in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor last month.\nIn addition to the Russian-backed government offensive, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters is battling the group, which is also under attack in neighbouring Iraq.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Islamic State group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early on Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["regime forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Al-Qaryatain in the central province of Homs"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 A gunman opens fire in Paradise, Nevada, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino from the upper floors down upon a Jason Aldean outdoor concert, with at least 59 people dead and 527 others injured. Authorities believe the lone gunman is dead. (The New York Times)","document":"  10 Minutes. 12 Gunfire Bursts. 30 Videos. Mapping the Las Vegas Massacre.  By The New York Times\nLAS VEGAS  A gunman on a high floor of a Las Vegas hotel rained a rapid-fire barrage on an outdoor concert festival on Sunday night, leaving at least 59 people dead, injuring 527 others, and sending thousands of terrified survivors fleeing for cover, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.\nOnline video of the attack near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino showed the singer Jason Aldean’s performance at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a three-day country music event, being interrupted by the sound of gunfire. The music stopped, and as victims fell bleeding, concertgoers screamed, ducked for cover, or ran. “Get down,” one shouted. “Stay down,” screamed another.\nHow one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history unfolded.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 59 people dead, injuring 527 others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Route 91 Harvest Festival"]},{"role":"Location","values":["LAS VEGAS","near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 Two suicide bombers attack a police station in the Al-Midan neighbourhood of Damascus, killing at least 15 people. (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers struck a police station in Damascus on Monday, with at least 10 people reported dead, in the first such attack to hit the Syrian capital since July.\nThe interior minister said the blasts killed “a number of policemen and civilians” in the al-Midan neighborhood, but did not say how many.\nAt least 10 people were killed and 20 more injured when four armed men assaulted the station, the pro-Damascus television channel al-Mayadeen reported. Russian news agency RIA put the toll at 15.\nMilitants targeted the al-Midan police station and clashed with police officers there, Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar said on state television from the station.\nOne man blew himself up at the main entrance and another detonated his explosive device on the first floor, he said.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility. Footage on state TV showed bodies in shrouds on the floor of the station and fire fighters putting out flames.\nThe capital has enjoyed relative security as Syria’s six-year civil war has raged on nearby and across the country. But several such attacks have hit Damascus in recent years, including a car bomb that killed 20 people in July.\nRelated Coverage\nA bomb blast had also hit the same police station in al-Midan late last year.\nIslamic State and the Tahrir al-Sham alliance - led by fighters formerly linked to al-Qaeda - have each claimed separate suicide attacks that killed scores of people in Damascus in the past.\nMonday’s attack came as a response to “the major victories that our armed forces are achieving on Syrian land,” the interior minister said.\nWith the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, the government has pushed back rebels in western Syria, shoring up its rule over the main urban centres. In recent months, it has also marched eastwards against Islamic State.\n“It’s natural to expect that the terrorists will resort to acts like this ... but they are all desperate acts,” Shaar said. “Such operations are thwarted on a daily basis.”\nSyrian troops and allied forces have captured several suburbs of Damascus from rebel factions over the past year. The army and its allies are currently fighting insurgents in the Jobar and Ain Tarma districts on the capital’s eastern outskirts.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["explosive device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 10 people were killed and 20 more injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["four armed men"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["al-Midan police station"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the al-Midan neighborhood","Damascus"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 In the town of Janaúba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, a recently dismissed security guard set fire to a childcare center, killing at least four children and a teacher and leaving 25 others, mostly children aged four and five, injured. (BBC)","document":"Four children and a teacher have been killed in Brazil after a security guard threw flammable liquid on them and set them on fire, officials say.\nThe man also set himself alight at the childcare centre in the remote town of Janauba in Minas Gerais state.\nVideo footage showed chaotic scenes outside, as parents cried and panicked as the news broke.  Twenty-five people, mostly children aged four and five, are being treated for burns in local hospitals.\nSome of the patients may still need to be airlifted to a specialised burns unit in the state capital, Belo Horizonte. The mother of one of the victims, four-year-old Juan Miguel Soares Silva, told O Globo newspaper that she had been considering enrolling him in another nursery prior to the attack.\n\"We are about to move to a different neighbourhood,\" Jane Kelly da Silva Soares said.\n\"I woke up early to drop him at the nursery. When I saw him again he was already dead in hospital.\"\nThe security guard has been identified by police as Damiao Soares dos Santos, 50. He died in hospital of his wounds. The reasons for the attack are still being investigated. Local media has reported that he was dismissed after returning from annual leave last month with an alleged health condition. He went to the Gente Inocente childcare centre to hand in his medical certificate and then started the fire, O Globo newspaper reported. President Michel Temer tweeted: \"I'm very sorry about this tragedy involving children in Janauba. I want to express my sympathy to the families.\"\n\"This must be a very, very painful loss,\" he added. The mayor of Janauba has declared seven days of mourning. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["flammable liquid"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Some of the patients","Four children and a teacher have been killed","Twenty-five people, mostly children aged four and five, are being treated for burns"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Damiao Soares dos Santos"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Gente Inocente childcare centre"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the childcare centre in the remote town of Janauba in Minas Gerais state","Brazil"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Russian airstrikes kill at least 14 civilians, including three children, as they cross the Euphrates river near the ISIL-held city of Mayadin in eastern Syria while fleeing the village of Mahkan. (TRT World)","document":"Russian air strikes killed at least 14 civilians as they were crossing the Euphrates river near the militant-held town of Al Mayadeen in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday.\n\"They were crossing the river on makeshift rafts in a village south of Mayadeen,\" SOHR director Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that three children were among those killed overnight.\nRussia has in recent days intensified its air raids in support of Syrian regime forces battling militants across the country.\nAbdel Rahman said the civilians were fleeing the village of Mahkan, south of Al Mayadeen, which lies about 420 km east of Damascus and is one of the Daesh's main remaining bastions.\nAl Mayadeen has been under Daesh control since 2014, when the group swept across swathes of Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a \"caliphate\", but regime forces this week advanced to within five km of the town.\nPoised for Al Mayadeen\nA military media unit run by the Lebanese Hezbollah group says regime forces and its allies gained control of positions and heights parallel to the main road linking Deir Ezzor and Al Mayadeen, located on the Euphrates in eastern Syria.\nSOHR said the forces were only six km away from the city.\nDaesh becomes 'virtual caliphate'\nExperts and officials say Daesh's \"virtual caliphate\" could be hard to conquer.\nThe militant propaganda machine will continue to exist in hidden corners of the dark web, inciting sympathisers to action, they say.\n\"Defeating ISIL (Daesh) on the physical battlefield is not enough,\" General Joseph Votel, the top commander for US military forces in the Middle East, warned earlier this year.\n\"Following even a decisive defeat in Iraq and Syria, ISIL (Daesh) will likely retreat to a virtual safe haven, a virtual caliphate, from which it will continue to coordinate and inspire external attacks as well as build a support base until the group has the capability to reclaim physical territory.\"\nHe described this online network as \"a distorted version of the historic Islamic caliphate: it is a stratified community of Muslims who are led by a caliph (currently Abu Bakr al Baghdadi), aspire to participate in a state governed by sharia, and are located in the global territory of cyberspace.\"\nUnder pressure from public authorities, internet providers and major online players are beginning to put in place measures and procedures to disrupt Daesh's exploitation of the web.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 14 civilians"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Russian"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Euphrates river near the militant-held town of Al Mayadeen in eastern Syria","a village south of Mayadeen"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 A Saudi national opens fire at the AlSalam Royal Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing two guards and injuring three others. Security guards shoot and kill the gunman. (Arab News), (BBC)","document":"JEDDAH: A gunman armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and three petrol bombs killed two Royal Guards and wounded three others in an attack at a security guards checkpoint at the western gate of Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah early on Saturday.\nThe attacker, Mansour bin Hassan Al Ameri, 28, a Saudi, was killed by security forces on the spot, said Interior Ministry spokesperson Mansour Al-Turki.\nThe gunman left his vehicle and started shooting at the guards, Al-Turki said. Investigations are continuing.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a Kalashnikov rifle and three petrol bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed two Royal Guards and wounded three others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Mansour bin Hassan Al Ameri"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early on Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a security guards checkpoint"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the western gate of Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2017 A Saudi national opens fire at the AlSalam Royal Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing two guards and injuring three others. Security guards shoot and kill the gunman. (Arab News), (BBC)","document":"A shooting at a royal palace in Saudi Arabia has left two security guards dead and three others injured, according to state media.\nA Saudi interior ministry statement said a 28-year-old man was killed after he drove up to the Al Salam palace gates in Jeddah and shot at security.\nThe man was named as Mansour al-Amri, a Saudi national.\nThe US embassy had earlier warned citizens after unconfirmed reports on Saturday of an attack in the area. US Mission KSA Security Message - Security Incident at Al Salam Palace in Jeddah 7 Oct\"Due to the possibility of ongoing police activity, American citizens are advised to exercise caution when travelling through the area,\" the embassy said in a brief statement.\nLocal media reported that incident happened at about 15:15 (12:15 GMT).\nSecurity guards stopped the attack and killed the gunman.\nNo further information about the attack or the gunman's motive is known.\nDays ago, Saudi police raided three addresses in the capital Riyadh connected to a suspected \"terror\" cell with links to so-called Islamic State, SPA news agency reported.\nTwo people were killed and five arrested.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two security guards dead and three others injured","a 28-year-old man was killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Mansour al-Amri"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","about 15:15 (12:15 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Al Salam palace gates"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Al Salam Palace in Jeddah","a royal palace in Saudi Arabia","Al Salam palace gates in Jeddah"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2019 A roadside bomb in Kunduz Province kills 15 civilians and injures two others. (Al Jazeera) (VOA)","document":" ISLAMABAD - A roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan demolished a civilian vehicle Wednesday evening, killing least 15 civilians and injuring two others.\nAn Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman accused Taliban insurgents of planting the bomb in troubled Kunduz province.\nProvincial officials said the victims, including women and children, were on their way to attend a wedding party in the Imam Sahib district, the scene of heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban.\nCivilians continue to bear the brunt of the Afghan war that entered its 19th year last month.\nThe United Nations has documented around 2,600 Afghan civilian deaths in the first nine months of 2019, with 5,600 wounded.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A roadside bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["demolished a civilian vehicle"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing least 15 civilians and injuring two others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban insurgents"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday evening"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Afghanistan","Kunduz province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2019 A roadside bomb in Kunduz Province kills 15 civilians and injures two others. (Al Jazeera) (VOA)","document":"Officials say families were on their way to a wedding party when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.\nAt least 15 Afghan civilians, including six women and eight children, were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan‘s northern Kunduz province.\nMahbubullah Sayedi, district chief of Imam Sahib, which was the scene of heavy fighting between government forces and Taliban fighters in recent months, said the incident occurred on a main road.\n“The families were on their way to a wedding ceremony when, unfortunately, their vehicle hit a roadside bomb that killed them,” Sayedi said. The provincial governor, Abdul Jabar Naeemi, said the area where the incident happened is controlled by the Taliban, whom he blamed for the tragedy.\nElsewhere in the country, local media reported at least 13 civilians were wounded in a car bomb explosionin Sar-e-Pul province.   Quoting Noor Agha Faizi, spokesman for the Sar-e-Pul police,TOLO Newssaid the explosion took place as the “Taliban were trying to move a car full of explosives to the centre of the province.”\nAs the conflict between the foreign-backed Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters has dragged on for more than 18 years, civilians continue to bear the brunt of war with record numbers of casualties.\nAt least 3,812 civilians were killed and wounded in the first half of this year in violent incidents across the country. In the same period, 144 women and 327 children were killed and more than 1,000 more wounded, the UN said.\nPro-government forces killed 717 Afghans and wounded 680 in the six months to June 30  a 31 percent increase from 2018.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["an improvised explosive device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 15 Afghan civilians, including six women and eight children, were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Taliban"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghanistan‘s northern Kunduz province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2019 Houthi militants say that they shot down a Saudi Arabian helicopter, killing both pilots. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed the incident. (Sputnik)","document":"The members of the Houthi movement, operating in Yemen, have shot down a Saudi helicopter near the border with Saudi Arabia, Yahya Sarea, the group's military spokesman, said on Friday.\nThe incident is said to have occurred near the border with the Saudi region of Asir, which borders the northern part of Yemen.\nSaudi Arabia hasn't confirmed the claims yet.\nYemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces, led by President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, and the rebel Houthi movement for several years now. A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The members of the Houthi movement"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a Saudi helicopter"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the border with the Saudi region of Asir, which borders the northern part of Yemen","near the border with Saudi Arabia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A Camair-Co plane is fired upon while attempting to land at Bamenda Airport, but the pilot manages to safely land the plane with no casualties reported. (RT)","document":"A Cameroon Airlines passenger plane came under fire while approaching an airport in the country’s restive English-speaking region on Sunday.\nThe aircraft was preparing to land in Bamenda airport in Cameroon’s Northwest Region when it was attacked by gunmen.\nThe pilot managed to land the plane safely and there were no casualties, the airline said in a statement. “Thanks to the bravery of the captain, the aircraft was able to land smoothly despite the impact on its fuselage,” it said. Cameroon Airlines is assessing the damage to the plane.\nSeparatist insurgents in the English-speaking west of Cameroon have been fighting the army since 2017, seeking to establish a breakaway state called Ambazonia.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["A Cameroon Airlines passenger plane"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bamenda airport in Cameroon’s Northwest Region"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 The U.S. military says a sailor shot and killed two people at Joint Base Pearl HarborHickam, Hawaii, before killing himself. (UPI)","document":"Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A U.S. sailor opened fire at a military base in Hawaii Wednesday, killing two people and injuring a third before turning the weapon on himself, officials said.\nRear Admiral Robert Chadwich told reporters the shooting occurred at around 2:30 p.m. in the vicinity of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's Dry Dock 2 where the USS Columbia submarine was undergoing standard maintenance.\nHe said the gunman, who has been tentatively identified as an active-duty sailor assigned to the docked submarine, shot three people, two of whom died. The third, he said, was in stable condition at a local hospital.\nThe shooter was also killed from \"an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,\" Chadwick said.\n\"Obviously, our thoughts are with the victims of the families and everyone involved,\" Chadwick said. \"I can say that we are mobilizing support services for naval shipyard personnel as well as everyone else who may be affected by this tragic event.\"\nThe motive for the shooting was under investigation and it was unclear if the victims were targeted, he said.\n\"Base security and Navy investigative services are currently investigating,\" the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam said. \"The names of the victims will not be released until the next of kin have been notified.\"\nLocated on the southern shore of Oahu island, the military base was put on lockdown right after the shooting began and was reopened about an hour and a half later, the base said via Twitter.\nThe incident occurred days before the 78th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor on Saturday when dozens of World War II veterans are scheduled to attend a ceremony.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing two people and injuring a third"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["A U.S. sailor"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday","around 2:30 p.m"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a military base"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Hawaii","the vicinity of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's Dry Dock 2"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 At least ten people  including seven police officers  are killed when gunmen ambush a bus in Kotulo, Kenya. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera)","document":"NAIROBI (Reuters) - Several people were killed on Friday when suspected Islamist militants attacked a bus in Kenya near the border with Somalia, police and local media outlets said.\nStephen Ng’etich, the police commander for Wajir county, told Reuters the bus had been attacked in an area called Kotulo, without providing details of casualties.\n“A group of armed men ambushed a bus traveling to northern Kenya this evening ... We suspect al Shabaab was involved,” he said, referring to the Islamist militant group from Somalia.\nAl Shabaab has targeted Kenya many times since the East African nation sent its troops across the border to fight the militants in their homeland in October 2011.\n\nThe local privately-owned Citizen TV channel said that eight people had been killed. Police spokesman Charles Owino said “lives are believed to have been lost”, without giving details.\nThe Medina Bus Company vehicle was traveling between Wajir and Mandera when it was ambushed at about 5.30 pm local time (1430 GMT), Owino said in a statement.\nIsmail Adan, a resident, said those who were killed were ordered out of the bus and shot at close range. Police did not immediately comment on this.\nReporting by Humphrey Malalo and Noor Ali; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Grant McCool and Alexander Smith\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["eight people had been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamist militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday","about 5.30 pm local time (1430 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a bus"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kenya near the border with Somalia","Kotulo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A shooter kills three people and injures eight more at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, United States, before being shot and killed by police. (Pensacola News Journal)","document":"UPDATE 1:05 p.m. The suspect who opened fire at NAS Pensacola on Friday morning used a handgun, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said during an afternoon press conference.\nThe sheriff said that four people are confirmed dead, including the shooter, and eight more are injured.\nUPDATE 12:50 a.m.The shooting suspect at NAS Pensacola was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia, Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed.\nUPDATE 11:10 a.m.A spokesman for NAS Pensacola confirmed that the base is still on lockdown and said the number of injured is expected to rise as the day goes on.\nFour people, including the shooter, are still confirmed deceased.\nUPDATE 10:45 a.m.:Corry Station, a naval training installation a few miles northwest of NAS Pensacola, has been placed on lockdown as a precaution. Personnel are sheltering in place until the lockdown is lifted.\nCorry Station is open for regular traffic.\nUPDATE 9:45 a.m.: Sheriff David Morgan has confirmed that four people are dead following a shooting at NAS Pensacola Friday morning, including the shooter.\nTotal injured, including deceased, are 11, according to Morgan. Seven patients are currently being treated at Baptist Hospital.\nTwo ECSO deputies are among those injured and are hospitalized. One was shot in the arm and one was shot in the knee. The deputy who was shot in the knee is undergoing surgery.\nThe shooting happened in a classroom building, with the first report coming to ECSO at 6:51 a.m.\nA spokesman for NAS Pensacola confirmed the shooting took place in Building 633, which is the Aviation Pre-Indoctrination Building.\nUPDATE 9:40 a.m.Sacred Heart Hospital says they have not received any patients from this morning's active shooter situation and don't anticipate receiving any today.\nBaptist Hospital has received eight patients from this morning's shooting. The Navy hospital on base also confirms they have received patients but could not confirm a number.\nIf you believe you may have a family member at Baptist Hospital, officials are asking you call Baptist at 850-434-4011.\nUPDATE 9:25 a.m.: While NAS Pensacola spokesmen have confirmed six injured or dead, Navy Hospital officials reportadditional patients were transported to their hospital. Their extent of their injuries is unknown.\nBaptist Hospital also released a statement confirming they have received have eight patients. Staff are working with Navy personnel to communicate with family members.\nUPDATE 9:07 a.m.:Maj. Andrew Hobbs with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office said two deputies were shot while confronting the active shooter suspect on Friday morning.\nThe deputies were transported to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.\nAdditional ECSO deputies engaged the active shooter and shot and killed him, according to Chief Deputy Chip Simmons\nUPDATE 9 a.m.: Sailors on base reported that the shooting happened inside building 633, which is the Aviation Pre-Indoctrination Building.\nThe stretch of Navy Boulevard leading to the main gate entrance of NAS Pensacola remained closed around 8:30 a.m. Friday.\nECSO deputies stood in the middle of Navy Boulevard andGulf Beach Highway, diverting traffic on Gulf Beach Highway but not allowing cars to pass on Navy Boulevard. The parking lot of a CVS pharmacy at the northwest corner of the intersection was filled with cars driven by military members or NAS Pensacola office staff workers who were unable to get to work.\nJennifer Nicholls, a fifth-grade teacher at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, was parked in a minivan with five children in its backseats.She, her three children and two carpoolers watched as streams of emergency vehicles roared past them down Navy Boulevard.\n“We’ve been waiting here since about 7:20 a.m.,” she said. “The school is one of the last things on the road before you get to the base. We saw the road blocked, and a friend called me and asked if I had heard about what happened on base. I pulled in here. I thought it would be a safe place.”\nUPDATE 8:35 a.m. Six total victims have been confirmed following an active shooter incident at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday morning.\nTwo victims, as well as the shooter, have been confirmed dead. Two additional victims have suffered critical injuries. An additional victim has suffered non-critical injuries.\nThe Navy base will be closed all day Friday.\nUPDATE 8:30 a.m.Sacred Heart Hospital says they're expecting three patients, not six, related to the active shooter at NAS Pensacola.\nThe three patients have not yet arrived at the hospital.\nUPDATE 8:20 a.m. Two victims are confirmed dead, in addition to the shooter, after a shooting was reportedabout 6:30 a.m. Friday.\nThere are three additional injuries, according to Jason Bortz, spokesman for NAS Pensacola.\nUPDATE 8:10 a.m.Reports say theshooting took place near Radford Road on base.\nUPDATE 8:07 a.m.Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh, who works at the NAS Pensacola as a civilian contractor, said he was in line to go through the gate when it was shut down.\n“There's probably been 100 or so various law enforcement vehicles zooming down the wrong side on Navy Boulevard,” Bergosh said. “There's been ambulances, fire trucks. It's my understanding there's multiple causalities. I haven't heard of any fatalities yet.”\nHe received a call from his coworkers who reported being on lockdown inside the base. He said he is stuck in traffic gridlock outside the base.\nUPDATE 8:03 a.m.Sacred Heart Hospital has confirmed they're expecting six patients from the active shooter situation on NAS Pensacola. Not all of the patients have arrived yet.\nBaptist Hospital has received five patients so far.\nSt. John's Catholic School, located outside the front of the base, has been closed due to the lockdown.\nUPDATE 7:50 a.m. The active shooter at NAS Pensacola has been confirmed dead.\nECSO spokeswoman Amber Southard confirmed the shooter was dead just before 8 a.m. Friday.\nBaptist Hospital spokeswoman Kathy Bowers confirmed the hospital has accepted five patients related to the active shooting.\nUPDATE 7:30 a.m. A spokesperson for the Escambia County Sheriff's Office confirmed that authorities are working to \"take down\"an active shooter on base at NAS Pensacola.\nAmber Southard, spokeswoman for the ECSO, said little information is available at the moment, but shots have been fired on base and a heavy law enforcement presence is there to eliminate the threat.\nScanner traffic for Escambia County Fire and Rescue indicated 10 patients are being transported to local hospitals.\nThree medical helicopters are in route and several military ambulances have also been seen in the area.\nORIGINAL STORY:An active shooter has been reported at Naval Air Station Pensacola.\nJason Bortz, spokesman for NAS Pensacola, confirmed to the News Journal that an active shooter was reportedsometime around 7 a.m. Friday. Both gates are closed and the base is on lockdown.\nNavy officials and law enforcement are currently investigating the report and are asking members of the public to stay away from base.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a handgun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four people are confirmed dead","eight more are injured","Two ECSO deputies","eight patients","Two victims, as well as the shooter","The active shooter"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["NAS Pensacola"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Building 633, which is the Aviation Pre-Indoctrination Building"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 In Ostrava, Czech Republic, a man opens fire in a hospital's waiting room, killing seven people before fleeing, then shooting himself dead. (Reuters)","document":"OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (Reuters) - A 42-year-old gunman killed six people on Tuesday at a hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself in the head, police said.\nGunman kills six in Czech hospital, then shoots himself\n00:45\nIt was the worst shooting in the Czech Republic, where gun crime is relatively rare, since a man shot eight people dead and then killed himself at a restaurant in Uhersky Brod in 2015.\nIt was unclear what motivated the shooting, which happened in the early morning at the outpatient clinic of the University Hospital in Ostrava, a city of 290,000 people 350 km (217 miles) east of the capital Prague and near the border with Poland.\nPrime Minister Andrej Babis told reporters it was an “individual act”.\n“He came home and announced he had shot people, and that he is going to shoot himself,” Babis told a televised news conference. He said the attacker’s mother was cooperating with police.\nThe shooter fled the hospital after the attack, prompting a manhunt involving hundreds of officers. He later shot himself in the head at his car with a police helicopter flying overhead.\nHe died about half an hour later after failed efforts to resuscitate him, Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said.\nRelated Coverage\nThe shooter was identified as Ctirad Vitasek, a construction technician at the AZ-INTERGRIPS company based in Opava, just north-east of Ostrava, by the firm’s Chairman Ales Zygula.\nZygula told Reuters Vitasek had been on medical leave for the past month and a half. He also told Czech Radio that Vitasek was convinced he was seriously ill and that no one wanted to cure him.\nPolice said they received calls at 7:19 a.m. (0619 GMT) and officers were on the scene five minutes later.\nHospital director Jiri Havrlant told reporters five people died in the attack and one died in surgery. Another two were seriously injured but no medics were hurt, he said.\nThe victims, all adults, had been shot at close range, he said. Police said they were four men and two women, amending earlier information that five of the victims were men.\nThe head of the regional police department, Tomas Kuzel, said the attacker, who did not have a gun license, was silent as he carried out the shooting with a 9-millimetre Czech handgun.\nThe suspect had a criminal record including instances of violence and theft, he said.\nPolice dispatched two helicopters to hunt him. “When the helicopter was over the car, the perpetrator shot himself in the head,” Kuzel said. “He died from self-inflicted wounds.”\nReporting by Radovan Stoklasa in Ostrava, Robert Muller, Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet in Prague; Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Andrew Cawthorne, William Maclean\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a 9-millimetre Czech handgun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed six people","Another two were seriously injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Ctirad Vitasek"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday","early morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A suicide bomber kills seven paramilitary soldiers and wounds three others near Samarra, Iraq. (Reuters)","document":"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up killing at least seven fighters from an Iraqi paramilitary group near the city of Samarra north of Baghdad on Thursday, the military said in a statement.\nIt said three other fighters were wounded in the attack, but gave no further details. There was no immediate claim for the attack.\nIraqi forces and mainly Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups are fighting an insurgency by Sunni Islamic State militants across parts of northern Iraq, two years after the group lost its sway over territory in the country.\nThe militants stage regular attacks against security forces but such a deadly one is rare.\nReporting by John Davison\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least seven fighters","three other fighters were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the city of Samarra north of Baghdad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Twenty-two civilians are killed by Islamist militants in machete attacks in the town of Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Reuters) (DW News)","document":"GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militiamen killed at least 22 people overnight in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said on Sunday, as the rebels kept up attacks on civilians despite government claims to have them on the defensive.\nSimilar attacks have killed at least 179 civilians, researchers say, since the Congolese army launched an offensive on Oct. 30 against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group active in eastern Congo.\nIn his State of the Nation address on Friday, Congo President Felix Tshisekedi said the campaign had “dismantled” nearly all of the ADF’s sanctuaries and that the rebels were turning to guerrilla tactics out of desperation.\nBut the government has blamed the ADF for similar attacks going back years, including dozens of night-time massacres since 2014 that have killed hundreds of civilians. Repeated military operations have failed to fully eradicate the group.\nRichard Kivanzanga, the deputy administrator of Beni territory, told Reuters he had counted 22 bodies on Sunday in the villages of Baoba and Ntombi.\n“The assailants killed women, men and children,” he said. “It wasn’t possible to evacuate all the bodies today because we had to wait for an escort from the army.”\nThe surge in violence has lead to deadly protests against the army and U.N. peacekeepers for failing to protect them.\nIt has also complicated efforts to stamp out an Ebola outbreak in the area. Infections have started to rise in areas health workers have been unable to access because of insecurity.\nThe U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Tuesday on six members of the ADF, including its leader Musa Baluku. Islamic State has claimed some ADF attacks this year, but researchers say there is a lack of hard evidence linking the two groups.\nReporting by Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Aaron Ross and Gareth Jones\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["overnight"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 22 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamist militiamen"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["eastern Democratic Republic of Congo","the villages of Baoba and Ntombi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Twenty-two civilians are killed by Islamist militants in machete attacks in the town of Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Reuters) (DW News)","document":"Local leaders have accused a Ugandan rebel group, known as the Allied Democratic Forces, of killing civilians in an eastern town. Large parts of eastern DRC are in the grip of armed militias.\nIslamist rebels hacked to death at least 22 civilians in Beni, a town in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local officials said on Sunday\nThe attack, which was carried out overnight Saturday, was blamed on rebel fighters from the radical Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), according to Noella Katsongerwaki, civil society president in Beni.\n\"The enemy operated silently. We have already found 22 bodies and the search continues,\" Katsongerwaki told German press agency dpa.\nThe victims were farmers and included 13 women, Agence France-Pressereported, citingKatsongerwaki.\nUN peacekeepers\nThe ADF, an Islamist-rooted militia formed in Uganda in 1995, is one of a wide variety of armed groups operating in the region.\nIt repeatedly carries out attacks around Beni. It has been accused of killing thousands of people, including UN peacekeepers.\nMore than 100 people have died in assaults blamed on the ADF since the start of November.\nThe ADF has a long rap sheet of human rights abuses and is thought to be entwined in criminal networks funded by kidnappings, smuggling and logging.\nThe United Nations has tried to stabilize the country for the past 20 years with one of the world's biggest UN peacekeeping forces, known as MONUSCO.\nMONUSCO comprises more than 16,500 military personnel and observers, 1,300 police and at least 4,000 civilians.\nResidents of Beni accuse MONUSCO of failing to protect them against the ADF.\n\nSince 1999, the UN has been trying to pacify the eastern region of the DR Congo. The mission known as MONUSCO has nearly 20,000 soldiers and an annual budget of $1.4 billion (1.3 billion euros). Despite being the largest and most expensive mission of the United Nations, violence in the country continues.\nUNAMID is a joint mission of the African Union and the UN in Sudan's volatile Darfur region. Observers consider the mission a failure. \"The UN Security Council should work harder at finding political solutions, rather than spending money for the military's long-term deployment,\" says security expert Thierry Vircoulon.\nSince the beginning of South Sudan's civil war in 2013, nearly 4 million people have been displaced according to the UN. Some of them are being sheltered in UN compounds. But when clashes between government forces and rebels broke out in the capital Juba in July 2016, the blue helmets failed to effectively intervene. Later, the Kenyan UNMISS commander was sacked by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon.\nUN peacekeepers in Mali are monitoring compliance with the peace agreement between the government and an alliance of Tuareg-led rebels. But Islamist terrorist groups such as AQIM continue to carry out attacks making MINUSMA one of the UN's most dangerous military intervention in the world. Germany has deployed more than 700 soldiers as well as helicopters. MINUSCA, the UN's mission in Central Africa Republic has not helped to improve the image of the United Nations in Africa. French troops have been accused of sexually abusing children by the Code Blue Campaign. Three years on, victims haven't got any help from the UN. Since 2014, 10,000 soldiers and 1,800 police officers have been deployed. Violence in the country has receded but tensions remain.\nThe UN mission in the Westsahara known as MINURSO has been active since 1991. MINURSO is there to monitor the armistice between Morocco and the rebels of the \"Frente Polisario\" who are fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara. In 2016, Morocco which has occupied this territory since 1976, dismissed 84 MINURSO staff after being angered by a statement from the UN Secretary-General.\nThe UN mission in Ivory Coast fulfilled its objectives on June 30, 2016 after 14 years. Since 2016, the troops have been gradually withdrawn. Former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this was a \"turning point for the United Nations and the Ivory Coast.\" But only after the full withdrawal will it be clearly known whether or not the mission was successful on a long-term basis.\nThe UN deployment in Liberia is - as in neighboring Ivory Coast - will soon be history. The soldiers are leaving by mid-2017. Since the end of the 14-year civil war, UNMIL has ensured stability in Liberia and helped build a functioning state. Liberia's government now wants to provide security for itself. The country is still struggling with the consequences of a devastating Ebola epidemic.\nThe UNISFA soldiers are patrolling the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei. Sudan and South Sudan both claim to be rightful owners of this territory located between the two countries. More than 4,000 blue helmets from Ethiopia are deployed. Ethiopia is the world's second largest peace-keeping contributor. At the same time, the Ethiopian army is accused of human rights violations back home.\nUN peacekeepers in Somalia are fighting under the leadership of the African Union in a mission known as AMISOM. The soldiers are in the Horn of African country to battle the al-Shabaab Islamists and bring stability to the war-torn nation. Ethiopia, Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria have all contributed their troops for AMISOM.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["overnight"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["22 civilians"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["rebel fighters from the radical Islamist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Beni, a town in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 The Lebanese Army clashes with supporters of Hezbollah and Amal Movement in Beirut. The Shiite Islamists were attempting to attack an anti-government protester camp in Martyrs' Square. (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese troops lobbed tear gas on Tuesday to disperse supporters of Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal who tried to storm a square in Beirut in response to a video that purportedly offended Shi’ite figures, witnesses and media reports said.\nLebanese army clashes with protesters in Beirut\n01:03\nHundreds of youths on motorcycles waving their party and religious flags gathered in downtown Beirut chanting “Shi’ites, Shi’ites” and setting fire to tyres. They hurled stones and fireworks at security forces standing nearby, witnesses said.\nIgnoring calls for restraint by politicians, the youths tried to break a security cordon to storm the square where demonstrators have set up tents as part of an anti-government protest that has been going on for weeks.\nIn the vicinity of the area close to a main road that links the capital’s eastern and western sections, scores of youths had burnt tyres, smashed office buildings and torched several cars, live coverage by local television stations showed.\nThe protesters camped in the square have been targeted by Shi’ite groups in the past angered by chants against their political leaders, although Tuesday’s violence was of an overtly sectarian nature.\nThe video, which inflamed passions in a country where sectarian divisions run deep, was purportedly made by an expatriate Lebanese Sunni from the northern city of Tripoli and released on social media.\nIn the predominately Sunni populated city of Saida in southern Lebanon, groups of masked youths stormed into a main square where they set ablaze several tents set up by demonstrators who have camped for weeks, local television stations said.\nLebanon has been gripped by a historic wave of protests since Oct. 17 leading to the resignation of Saad al-Hariri as prime minister, amid anger at the government’s failure to address the country’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.\nMore than seven weeks since Hariri quit, politicians have been unable to agree on a new administration despite the deepening financial crisis.\nThe impasse took a violent turn at the weekend when Beirut was clouded in tear gas as security forces clashed with protesters who blame the ruling elite for corruption and bad governance. Dozens were wounded.\nReporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Dan Grebler and Stephen Coates\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["tear gas","stones and fireworks"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["supporters of Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["The protesters camped in the square","security forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a square in Beirut"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Boko Haram militants open fire on civilians, killing 15 and wounding five others in a fishing village in Chad. 13 others were missing after the attack. (Al Jazeera)","document":"Attack in the western region of the country left five injured and 13 missing, government official says.\nMore than a dozen people were killed in a Boko Haram attack on a fishing village in western Chad on Tuesday, a government official has said.\n“There were 14 dead, five wounded and 13 missing in the attack” near the village of Kaiga on the shores of Lake Chad, Imouya Souabebe, the prefect of the region, told AFP news agency on Wednesday.\nKaiga lies in marshland in a remote, sprawling region where the borders of four countries  Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Nigeria  meet.\nThe village is about 60km (35 miles) from the border with northeast Nigeria, the springboard for Boko Haram raids and kidnappings in neighbouring countries.\n“We know that there are always Boko Haram elements moving around the (border) area, so they are behind this attack,” Souabebe said.\n“The attackers first came in a small group and then brought in reinforcements to attack the fishermen,” he added.\nThe region’s governor, Noki Charfadine, gave a toll of at least nine dead.\nHe said the attack had taken place in a “red zone, where fishing is forbidden”.\nBoko Haram launched its armed campaign in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, killing tens of thousands of people and causing millions to flee.\nThe spread of violence to Chad, Cameroon and Niger has prompted the formation of a regional military coalition, the G5 Sahel force, to fight the armed group.\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron recently postponed a key summit focusing on France’s military operation in the Sahel region until the beginning of next year,after rebel fighters killed at least 71 soldiers in Niger last week.\nThe summit had initially been scheduled for December 16 in the French southern town of Pau with the participation of the heads of state of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania.\nFrance has a 4,500-strong force dubbed Barkhane supporting the five countries fighting against the armed group.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["14 dead, five wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Boko Haram"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near the village of Kaiga on the shores of Lake Chad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Gunmen kill two police officers escorting a polio vaccination team in Lower Dir District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (National Post)","document":"PESHAWAR  Gunmen shot and killed two police officers escorting a polio vaccination team on Wednesday forcing a suspension of the immunization campaign in a district of northwest Pakistan, where the crippling disease is endemic.\nPrevious attacks have been inspired by religious hardliners spreading false rumors, and the latest ambush of a vaccination team comes at a time when the polio cases in Pakistan have jumped from 12 to over 100 in the last one year, making it only one of three countries in the world where the disease is endemic.\n\nThe gunmen opened fire at the officials when they were escorting the vaccination team in Lower Dir district, said police official Sultan Ghani. “The polio campaign has been suspended after the incident in the area,” he said.\nOf the 104 total polio cases in Pakistan, 75 has been reported from the northwest Pakistan, a region plagued by Islamist militancy.\nNo one claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, though religious hardliners over the past year have raised a scare on social media that some children were being poisoned and dying from contaminated vaccines.\nIn the past, militants have called vaccination teams foreign agents, and peddled conspiracy theories that their campaigns were a Western ploy to sterilize Muslims.\nPakistan’s government has tried to counter those falsehoods with public education campaigns, recruiting Muslim religious leaders to reassure people that the vaccine only protects their children.\nThe involvement of a Pakistani doctor in helping U.S. intelligence agents to locate the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden had fueled suspicion of the anti-polio campaign, though attacks on vaccination teams pre-dated the 2011 killing of the al Qaeda leader in the northwestern town of Abbottabad.\nAfghanistan and Nigeria are the other countries where the polio virus, which can cause paralysis or death, remains endemic.\n(Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)\n.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed two police officers"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["gunmen"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the officials when they were escorting the vaccination team"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Lower Dir district"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Two people are killed and four injured in a mass shooting outside Russia's Federal Security Service headquarters on Moscow's Lubyanka Square. The shooter is also killed. (Reuters)","document":"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian investigators on Friday named the man who opened fire on the headquarters of the FSB security service in Moscow as Yevgeny Manyurov, a 39-year-old former security guard from just outside the capital.\nFSB attack suspect a 'quiet' gun enthusiast: neighbors\n01:12\nManyurov killed one FSB employee outright and wounded five other people outside the agency’s main building, the former headquarters of the Soviet-era KGB, on Thursday evening, before he was himself shot dead.\nA second FSB employee who had been seriously wounded later died from his wounds in hospital, bringing the death toll to two, excluding the gunman, investigators said on Friday.\nAuthorities searched Manyurov’s home in the early hours of Friday morning and questioned his neighbours.\nIt remains unclear what Manyurov’s motive was. Neighbours at the rundown Soviet-era apartment block where he lived with his mother in the town of Podolsk outside Moscow told Reuters on Friday that he was a quiet gun enthusiast who kept to himself.\n“He had a homely look about him, I never saw him hanging out with friends or drinking,” said Natalya Fedorovna, a pensioner who lives in the same building.\nAnother neighbour, Vladimir Poruntsev, said: “He wasn’t very talkative, he was a little closed as a person.”\nDmitry Tsaryev, another resident, described Manyurov as a normal guy, who had once asked him to join him at a local shooting range, but that he had declined.\nNeighbours said investigators had woken them up in the early hours of Friday morning when they searched Manyurov’s flat. Police had cordoned off the building at one stage while they questioned people and checked their documents, they said.\nManyurov was unmarried, had no children and appeared to have few friends, neighbours said.\nThursday’s attack happened shortly after President Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference while he was attending a Kremlin event to celebrate the work of the security services.\nThe FSB suspected the attack may have been planned to coincide with Putin’s speech at the event, a source close to the FSB told Reuters on Thursday.\nSome Muscovites laid flowers outside the FSB’s headquarters on Friday and examined damage to the famous building. A Reuters reporter saw a toughened glass window pockmarked with bullet holes near its main entrance.\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["a toughened glass window pockmarked with bullet holes near its main entrance"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed one FSB employee outright and wounded five other people","himself shot dead","bringing the death toll to two"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Yevgeny Manyurov, a 39-year-old former security guard"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday","Thursday evening"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["on the headquarters of the FSB security service"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside the agency’s main building, the former headquarters of the Soviet-era KGB","Moscow"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A suicide attack by car bomb in Galkayo, Somalia, kills at least seven civilians, though the death toll is expected to rise according to military officials. According to a military spokesman, the suicide bomber tried to enter a hotel compound but failed and hit a military pickup. No group has claimed responsibility yet. (Reuters)","document":"MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A car bomb went off on Saturday outside a hotel in the Somali town of Galkayo in the Mudug region, killing at least seven civilians, a local military officer said, and wounding dozens.\nThe official said the driver had failed to enter the hotel compound and instead hit a military pickup parked outside as a barrier.\n“So far we know of seven people who died, mostly civilians, but the death toll may rise,” said Major Ali Umar. “Over a dozen others were injured, mostly Somali military personnel.”\nA medic at Galkayo hospital said it had received over 30 wounded as a result of the explosion.\nThe Islamist militant group al Shabab, which is trying to topple the central government, could not be reached for comment.\nThe group is fighting to seize power and establish a state based on its own harsh interpretation of Islamic law. It controls small sections of the Mudug region, but not Galkayo.\nWriting by Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Kevin Liffey\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing at least seven civilians","over 30 wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the hotel compound"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside a hotel in the Somali town of Galkayo in the Mudug region"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed at least 50 people on an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad. (BBC)","document":"Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed at least 50 people on an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad, a local official told the BBC.\nThe militants, disguised as traders, attacked fishermen, local mayor Ali Ramat said, quoting a survivor.\nThe attack happened on 22 December, but news from the remote area is only just beginning to come out.\nBoko Haram, formed in Nigeria in 2009, has since spread its activities to neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Mr Ramat, the mayor of Darak in Cameroon's Far North Region, told the BBC that among those killed were at least 20 Cameroonians. An unknown number of people are still unaccounted for, he said.\nThe dead are believed to be a mixture of nationalities, some of whom had been fishing on the lake. In late December, local community members sent a search party to the area of the attack and found dead bodies floating in the water, the BBC's Killian Chimtom in Cameroon reports.\nRegional Governor Midjiyawa Bakary confirmed that the attack had happened.\nMayor Ramat said the area had become a hotspot for Boko Haram attacks since Chadian soldiers stopped patrolling it.\nHe told the BBC that the Multi-National Joint Task Force - a five-nation regional military force from the countries of the Lake Chad Basin - was ill equipped to patrol the area.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 50 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Boko Haram militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["22 December"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["fishermen"]},{"role":"Location","values":["an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A car bomb in Turkish-controlled Suluk, Tell Abyad District, Raqqa Governorate, kills five people and wounds others. Turkey's defense ministry says the attack killed eight civilians and was by the PKK/YPG group. (TRTWorld)","document":"A vehicle rigged with explosives blew up in a market in a northern Syrian village of Suluk on Monday, killing eight people and wounding others, Turkey's defence ministry said.\n\"Eight civilians were slaughtered in Tal Abyad by PKK/ YPG terror group and many others were injured in a bomb attack. The attack was carried out with a vehicle loaded with bombs,\" the ministry said.\nSyrian regime news agency SANA, however, said the blast occurred in the village near the Turkish border, putting the death toll at five people and reporting several more were wounded.\nA similar death toll was also given by the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor. The observatory, which has a network of activists in Syria, said 20 others were also wounded.\nSuluk is controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters and is near the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad in Raqqa province.\nTurkish troops and Turkey-backed fighters captured Tal Abyad and Suluk from PKK-YPG terrorists in October. That was during Turkey's intervention of northeastern Syria, in which it pushed back the terrorists from some border areas.\nIn its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK  listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and EU  has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is the PKK's Syrian offshoot. \nTurkey-Russia meet on Syria\nAlso on Monday, a Turkish team was in Russia for talks on the conflicts in Syria and Libya, following reports that tens of thousands more Syrians were heading to Turkey, which already hosts the world's biggest refugee population.\nPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday more than 80,000 civilians in Syria's northwest Idlib province were migrating towards Turkey after Russian and Syrian regime forces intensified their air strikes in the area in recent days.\nTurkey-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said on Monday 120,000 Syrians in south Idlib were fleeing towards the border.\nTurkey already hosts about 3.7 million Syrians, the largest refugee population in the world. It worries about a new influx.\n\"We are putting up every effort with Russia for the attacks to stop, and we will continue to do so,\" Erdogan said in his comments on Sunday.\nSyrian regime leader Bashar al Assad has vowed to recapture the Idlib region, the last significant area of Syria still under militant and rebel control, after more than eight years of civil war that has killed some 400,000 people and displaced millions.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A vehicle rigged with explosives"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["eight people","20 others were also wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["PKK/ YPG terror group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a market in a northern Syrian village of Suluk","Tal Abyad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Gunmen attack the Christian village of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria, killing seven Christians. It is believed the attack was targeted for Christmas. (VOA News)","document":"KANO, NIGERIA - Boko Haram jihadists have killed seven people on Christmas Eve in a raid on a Christian village near the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, local militia and residents told AFP Wednesday.\nDozens of fighters driving trucks and motorcycles stormed into Kwarangulum late Tuesday, shooting fleeing residents and burning homes after looting food supplies.\nBoko Haram and its IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction have recently stepped up attacks on military and civilian targets.\n\"They killed seven people and abducted a teenage girl in the attack,\" local vigilante David Bitrus said.\n\"They took away food stuff and burnt many houses before leaving,\" he said, adding that a church was also burnt.\nThe jihadists were believed to have attacked from Boko Haram's nearby Sambisa forest enclave, said Chibok community leader Ayuba Alamson who confirmed the toll.\nIn April, Boko Haram raided Kwarangulum, 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Chibok, stealing food and burning the entire village.\nResidents had managed to flee before the arrival of the jihadists following tip-off from people who saw the gunmen heading toward the village.\nChibok is the scene of the mass kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in 2014 by Boko Haram which sparked global outrage and drew international attention to the group's notoriety.\nFifty-seven of the girls escaped shortly after the kidnap. Another 107 have been either rescued or released after negotiations while 112 remain in captivity.\nTroops have been stationed in Chibok since the kidnap but deadly Boko Haram raids continue in the area.\nThe decade-long conflict has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast, according to the United Nations.\nThe violence has spread to nearby Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the jihadist groups.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["burning homes","a church"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed seven people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Boko Haram jihadists"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Christmas Eve"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["Dozens of fighters driving trucks and motorcycles"]},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a Christian village near the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria's Borno state"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 A dozen Burkina Faso soldiers are killed in an armed attack in the night by militants responsible for the previous attack. (DW News)","document":"Burkina Faso has begun two days of mourning for 35 civilians, mostly women, killed by jihadists, reportedly on motorcycles. A fresh attack in the country's north reportedly left a dozen soldiers dead.\nPresident Roch Marc Christian Kabore on Wednesday praised the \"bravery\" of defense forces, who according to a security source, repelled Tuesday morning's jihadist attack on the northern town of Arbinda and a military base nearby.\nSecurity sources quoted by the French news agency AFP late Wednesday said another attack on a military patrol at Hallele in Soum province on Tuesday had left \"around a dozen soldiers\" dead.\n\nNo group immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday morning's assault  one of the deadliest in five years of Sahel violence blamed on militants linked to both al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups.\nBurkina Faso's army said sevenof its soldiers and 80 assailants also died during a three-hour fight-back around Arbinda.\nAir force intervention helped drive back the militants, according to the unnamed security source also quoted by AFP.\nTwo days of mourning declared\nKabore declared 48 hours of mourning. Government spokesman Remis Dandjinou was quoted by the French news agency AFP as saying that 31 of the 35 civilians killed were women.\nFrom Brussels, the European Council president,Charles Michel of Belgium, tweeted that the European Union \"stands by Africa in its battle with terrorism.\"\nFrom Niger, which borders Burkina Faso, President Mahamadou Issoufou offered his country's \"condolences for all civilian and military victims.\"\nTuesday's attacks followed a visit late last week by French President Emmanuel Macron to Ivory Coast and Niger, where he urged that a clear \"strategic framework\" emerge when he hosts G5 Sahel leaders at a summit at Pau in southern France on January 13.\n\nCivilians displaced\nIslamic extremism erupted in Mali in 2012, prompting a 2013 French-led military intervention and the deployment of a 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.\nDeadly attacks followed in Burkina Faso's capitalOuagadougou in 2016 and 2017, both of which targeted locations popular with foreigners.\nMore than half a million people have been displaced by frequent attacks in Burkina Faso's north and east, according to United Nations estimates.\nIn his Christmas message Wednesday, Roman Catholic Pope Francis referred specifically to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, urging \"comfort to those who are persecuted for their religious faith.\"\nA separate attack kills at least 11 soldiers\nA new attack on Wednesday saw at least 11 soldiers killed, Radio Omega reported.\nAn army patrol near Hallale in the Sahel region was ambushed early in the day, according to the radio station. At least five of the attackers were killed in the gunfireexchange.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["\"around a dozen soldiers\" dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a military patrol"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Hallele in Soum province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi condemns the unilateral American bombings inside Iraq, saying the U.S. strikes are a \"violation of Iraqi sovereignty\", and a \"dangerous escalation that threatens the security of Iraq and the region.\" (USA Today)","document":"The U.S. carried out military strikes on five sitesin Iraq and Syria thatwere linked to the Iranian-backed militia that was responsible for a rocket attack that killed an American contractor last week, a Pentagon spokesman said in a statement.\nThe \"precision defensive strikes\" targeted weapons depots and command centers belonging toKataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, according to Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.Three of the sites were in Iraq and two in Syria.\nThe Iraqi military'sJoint Operations Command said in a statement that three U.S. airstrikes hit the headquarters of the Kataeb Hezbollahs at the Iraq-Syria border, killing four fighters. A militia spokesman said the strikes left at least 19 of its members dead.\nHoffman saidKataeb Hezbollahwhich is separate from the Lebanese Hezbollahwas behind attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, including an attack Friday in which at least 30 rockets were fired atan Iraqi military base in Kirkuk. That attack leftan American contractor dead andfour U.S. service members, as well astwo Iraqi soldiers, wounded.\nHe said the U.S. strikes would limit the militia's ability to carry out future attacks on coalition forces.\n\"The U.S. and its coalition partners fully respect Iraqi sovereignty and support a strong and independent Iraq. The U.S., however, will not be deterred from exercising its right of self-defense,\" Hoffman said.\nHoffman said Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who is serving in an interim role after resigning in November amid massive unrest and anti-government protests that left about 500 people dead \"have shared with each other their commitment\" to see theKataeb Hezbollah attacks \"cease once and for all.\"\nBut on Sunday, Abdul-Mahdi condemned the strikes and said Esper called him just 30 minutes ahead of timeto tell him the U.S. was about to retaliate for Friday's rocket attack.\nAbdul-Mahdi called the U.S. strikes a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a \"dangerous escalation that threatens the security of Iraq and the region.\"\nThe Pentagon saidKataeb Hezbollah \"has a strong linkage to Iran's Quds Forcehas repeatedly received lethal aid and other support from Iran.\" The Quds Force is an elite part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which President Donald Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization in April.\n\"Iran and their KH proxy forces must cease their attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, and respect Iraq's sovereignty, to prevent additional defensive actions by U.S. forces,\" Hoffman said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["three U.S. airstrikes"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing four fighters","19 of its members dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The U.S"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the headquarters of the Kataeb Hezbollahs at the Iraq-Syria border","weapons depots and command centers belonging toKataeb Hezbollah"]},{"role":"Location","values":["five sitesin Iraq and Syria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 The death toll of the attack in Mogadishu the previous day rises to 84 with over 25 others remaining missing. (Xinhua)","document":"An airplane carrying medical supplies and doctors arrives at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, Dec. 30, 2019. Death toll from a suicide bomb attack at a busy checkpoint west of Somali capital Mogadishu has risen to 84 after five more bodies were found, a government official confirmed on Monday. (Photo by Hassan Bashi/Xinhua)\nMOGADISHU, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Death toll from a suicide bomb attack at a busy checkpoint west of Somali capital Mogadishu has risen to 84 after five more bodies were found, a government official confirmed on Monday.\nIsmael Mukhtar Omar, government spokesman of Somaia said the National Emergency Management Committee estimated that the number of missing people was 24.\nHowever, Omar said after intensive search efforts of the missing persons, 12 people were found. Five of the 12 persons were found dead, one injured and six others were found alive, bringing the death toll to 84. Some of the missing are believed to be students.\nMore than 150 others were wounded in the attack at an explosives-laden vehicle exploded in the middle of Ex-Control checkpoint on a road leading to Afgoye district.\nSome of the injured people were airlifted on Sunday to Istanbul for specialized treatment.\nNo group has claimed responsibility for the Saturday's deadly attack although al-Shabab militants have usually staged such attacks in the past. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a suicide bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["death toll to 84","More than 150 others were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday's"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the middle of Ex-Control checkpoint"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a busy checkpoint west of Somali capital Mogadishu","a road leading to Afgoye district"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Al-Shabaab, an ally of Al-Qaeda, claims responsibility for the suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, that killed nearly 90 people. (Reuters)","document":"MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Islamist group al Shabaab on Monday claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in Mogadishu that killed at least 90 people over the weekend while Somalia said a foreign government that it did not identify helped plan the attack.\nAl Shabaab claims responsibility for deadly Somalia blast\n01:13\nThe bombing was the deadliest in more than two years in a country wrecked by nearly three decades of Islamist violence and clan warfare.\nIn an audio message, al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the bombing at the busy Ex-Control checkpoint northwest of Mogadishu.\n“The blast targeted a convoy of Turkish and Somali forces and they suffered great loss,” Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab’s spokesman said in the message.\nThe National Intelligence and Security Agency did not name the country that it said was involved in the blast. “A foreign country planned the massacre of the Somalis in Mogadishu on 28 Dec 2019,” it said in a tweet.\nNISA also said it would use assistance from an unnamed foreign intelligence organization in its investigation.\nRage accused Turkey of “taking all resources of Somalia” and vowed to continue targeting their personnel in the country.\n“We shall always fight...the Turkish who work with the\napostate government of Turkey. We are not against innocent\nTurkish Muslim citizens,” he said.\nTwo of those killed were Turkish nationals. A small team of Turkish engineers was present at the time of the blast, constructing a road into the city.\nIn recent years, Somalia has become an arena for military and diplomatic rivalry between Turkey and Qatar on one side and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the other.\nAl Shabaab frequently carries out bombings to try to undermine Somalia’s central government, which is backed by the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping troops.\nThe most deadly attack blamed on al Shabaab was in 2017 when a truck bomb exploded next to a fuel tanker in Mogadishu, killing nearly 600.\nReporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; writing by Elias Biryabarema; editing by Giles Elgood and Cynthia Osterman\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb blast"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Turkish nationals"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamist group al Shabaab","al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a convoy of Turkish and Somali forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ex-Control checkpoint northwest of Mogadishu","killed at least 90 people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 ADF militants kill 22 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were all hacked with machetes and many also went missing in the attack. (Al Jazeera)","document":"Distrust in government grows after 23 people die in an attack by ADF, which has killed hundreds since late October.\nAt least 23 people were killed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in what officials described as an attack by rebel fighters.\nPolice and local officials said on Monday that the overnight raid on Apetina-Sana in the restive eastern region of Beni was carried out by ADF rebels, who operate in both DRC and neighbouring Uganda.\nBeni administrator Donat Kibwana told AFP news agency that the ADF hacked civilians to death in the settlement, which lies 16 kilometres (10 miles) west of Oicha, the chief administrative town in Beni.\nThe rebels also reportedly torched the victims’ homes.\nAl Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa, reporting from Nairobi, Kenya, said the death toll was expected to rise as the attack had lasted hours and many people were yet to be accounted for.\n“They say when the rebels entered the village, they went from house to house burning everything in their path. Anyone they came across, including women and children, they killed.”\nMutasa said some people were now making the hours-long walk to Beni city to stay in churches or with family members.\n“You get a sense that people are terrified,” she said, adding that many in the area have long felt abandoned by the government.\n“They feel that all the resources go to the capital … The roads are in a bad state, there’s no infrastructure, they feel let down. So a lot of people say that when these attacks happen  and they do happen often  they feel alone.”\nWhile the ADF originated in Uganda, its rebels have been attacking and killing people in eastern DRC for more than 20 years.\nApetina-Sana is a point on the so-called Triangle of Death, along with Mbau and Eringeti  the worst-hit area by attacks.\nADF fighters have killed more than 200 people since the DRC army launched an offensive against the armed group on October 30, according to civil society groups.\n“The authorities were tipped off on Sunday evening about the presence of suspicious men west of Oicha,” said Teddy Kataliko, a civil society activist in Beni.\n“We continue to ask the DRC armed forces to launch operations on the western side as well to save civilians.”\nThere have also been demonstrations in Beni city, where local people accuse the United Nations peacekeeping force MONUSCO of failing to protect them.\nIn a separate incident in eastern DRC on Monday, “armed bandits” attacked a base used by a Chinese-owned gold mine, killing four people, the military said.\nThe raid took place in Irumu district in the northeastern province of Ituri, Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, the army’s provincial spokesman, said.\nTwo soldiers, a policeman and a driver for the mine were killed.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["overnight"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 23 people were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["ADF rebels"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday evening"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Apetina-Sana in the restive eastern region of Beni","eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2019 Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed at least 50 people on an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad. (BBC)","document":"Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed at least 50 people on an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad, a local official told the BBC.\nThe militants, disguised as traders, attacked fishermen, local mayor Ali Ramat said, quoting a survivor.\nThe attack happened on 22 December, but news from the remote area is only just beginning to come out.\nBoko Haram, formed in Nigeria in 2009, has since spread its activities to neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Mr Ramat, the mayor of Darak in Cameroon's Far North Region, told the BBC that among those killed were at least 20 Cameroonians. An unknown number of people are still unaccounted for, he said.\nThe dead are believed to be a mixture of nationalities, some of whom had been fishing on the lake. In late December, local community members sent a search party to the area of the attack and found dead bodies floating in the water, the BBC's Killian Chimtom in Cameroon reports.\nRegional Governor Midjiyawa Bakary confirmed that the attack had happened.\nMayor Ramat said the area had become a hotspot for Boko Haram attacks since Chadian soldiers stopped patrolling it.\nHe told the BBC that the Multi-National Joint Task Force - a five-nation regional military force from the countries of the Lake Chad Basin - was ill equipped to patrol the area.\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 50 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Boko Haram militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["22 December"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["fishermen"]},{"role":"Location","values":["an island on Lake Chad, bordering Cameroon and Chad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2006 An explosion at Russian military base at Kurchaloi in Chechnya kills at least 12 soldiers. The cause is unknown; however, a separatist attack has been officially ruled out. (Al Jazeera)(Mail and Guardian)","document":"The death toll from an explosion at a Russian military base in Chechnya has risen to 12 with 28 people wounded.\nThe explosion on Tuesday night at the Defence Ministry base in the Kurchaloi settlement, about 100km from Chechnya's capital, Grozny,destroyed a two-storey building that housed the unit. Russia's Vostok battalion is stationed at the base.\n\nMilitary and local emergency ministry officials said on Wednesday that the reason for the blast remained unknown.\n\nA criminal investigation has been launched as rescuers continue to search for more people in the ruins.\n\nEarlier, officials said it was a gas explosion, but no remains of gas containers or explosives have been found.\n\nAccording to an interior ministry source quoted by RIA-Novosti up to 43 people could have been in the building at the time.\n\nRussian troops in Chechnya are regularly attacked by separatists trying to overthrow Moscow's rule. But there were no immediate reports of any attack in the area. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["explosion"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["12 with 28 people wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Defence Ministry base in the Kurchaloi settlement"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2006 Another series of bomb attacks in southern Iranian cities of Dezful and Abadan wounds at least six people. Eight people died when bombs exploded in the provincial capital Ahwaz a month ago. The Iranian government again accuses Britain of being behind the attacks, although a small Arab separatist group claimed responsibility on its website. (BBC)","document":"In both cities, the devices were planted in the governor's offices, the official Irna news agency says. No serious injuries were reported.\nThe attacks are the latest in a series to hit the southern Khuzestan province, at the heart of Iran's oil industry.\nEight people died when bombs exploded by a government office and bank in the provincial capital Ahwaz a month ago.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest explosions, according to reports.\n\"Hopefully, those behind the bombings will soon be found and punished,\" Dezful Governor-general Hamid Ghanaati told Irna.\n'UK involvement'\nThe oil-rich Khuzestan province, which is home to about two million ethnic Arabs, has been rocked by a wave of unrest in recent months.\nIran accused British army forces across the border in southern Iraq of co-operating with bombers who carried out January's attacks in Ahwaz. The UK Foreign Office rejected the allegation.\nA little-known ethnic Arab separatist group said in a website statement that it was responsible for the blasts, in which eight people were killed and 46 hurt.\nThe Iranian government also blamed attacks in June and October last year on the UK, but British officials again denied involvement. In November, protests erupted in Ahwaz after ethnic Arabs accused the authorities of discrimination.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombs exploded"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["eight people were killed and 46 hurt"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["a month ago"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["southern Khuzestan province","provincial capital Ahwaz"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2006 Baghdad's primary morgue says that the death toll resulting from violence after the Al Askari Mosque bombing has surpassed 1,300, contrary to earlier information from most news media and the United States military.  (Washington Post)","document":"BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.\nHundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.\n\"After he came back from the evening prayer, the Mahdi Army broke into his house and asked him, 'Are you Khalid the Sunni infidel?' \" one man at the morgue said, relating what were the last hours of his cousin, according to other relatives. \"He replied yes and then they took him away.\"\nAides to Sadr denied the allegations, calling them part of a smear campaign by unspecified political rivals.\nBy Monday, violence between Sunni Arabs and Shiites appeared to have eased. As Iraqi security forces patrolled, American troops offered measured support, in hopes of allowing the Iraqis to take charge and prevent further carnage.\nBut at the morgue, where the floor was crusted with dried blood, the evidence of the damage already done was clear. Iraqis arrived throughout the day, seeking family members and neighbors among the contorted bodies.\n\"And they say there is no sectarian war?\" demanded one man. \"What do you call this?\"\nThe brothers of one missing man arrived, searching for a body. Their hunt ended on the concrete floor, provoking sobs of mourning: \"Why did you kill him?\" \"He was unarmed!\" \"Oh, my brother! Oh, my brother!\"\nMorgue officials said they had logged more than 1,300 dead since Wednesday -- the day the Shiites' gold-domed Askariya shrine was bombed -- photographing, numbering and tagging the bodies as they came in over the nights and days of retaliatory raids.\nThe Statistics Department of the Iraqi police put the nationwide toll at 1,020 since Wednesday, but that figure was based on paperwork that is sometimes delayed before reaching police headquarters. The majority of the dead had been killed after being taken away by armed men, police said.\nThe disclosure of the death tolls followed accusations by the U.S. military and later Iraqi officials that the news media had exaggerated the violence between Shiites and Sunnis over the past few days.\nThe bulk of the previously known deaths were caused by bombings and other large-scale attacks. But the scene at the morgue and accounts related by relatives indicated that most of the bloodletting came at the hands of self-styled executioners.\n\"They killed him just because he was a Sunni,\" one young man at the morgue said of his 32-year-old neighbor, whose body he was retrieving.\nMuch of the violence has centered on mosques, many of which were taken over by Shiite gunmen, bombed or burned.\nIn the Shiite holy city of Najaf, aides to Sadr denied any role in the killings.\n\"These groups wore black clothes like the Mahdi Army to make the people say that the Shiites kidnapped and killed them,\" said Riyadh al-Nouri, a close aide to Sadr.\nSahib al-Amiri, another close aide, said: \"Some political party accused [Sadr's political party] and the Mahdi Army because they considered us as competitive to them. So they recruited criminals to kill Shiites and Sunnis.\"\nAfter Wednesday's mosque attack in Samarra, Sadr and other Shiite clerics called on their armed followers to deploy to protect shrines across Iraq.\nClutching rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic rifles, the militias rolled out of their Baghdad base of Sadr City. Residents of several neighborhoods reported them on patrol or in control of mosques. U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces did not appear to challenge the militias, which are officially outlawed.\nSunni leaders charged that more than 100 Sunni mosques were burned, fired upon or bombed in the retaliatory violence after the attack on the Samarra mosque.\nIraqi officials, at the urging of Sunni leaders, imposed what became a round-the-clock curfew in Baghdad to try to quell the violence.\nSunnis speaking at the morgue said many of the dead had been taken away at night, when security forces were supposed to have been enforcing the curfew.\nBy Monday, the reported violence had subsided. Four mortar rounds hit a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, killing four people, news agencies reported. More mortar attacks boomed in other parts of the capital.\nAlso Monday, Iraq's interim government lifted the round-the-clock curfew in Baghdad. The new curfew orders residents inside from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.\nResidents rushed out of their homes to refill gas tanks and kitchen shelves. Lines at gas stations stretched for miles and sometimes clogged both sides of highways. One motorist in the line was seen clutching a blanket and pillow, apparently anticipating an overnight wait for gas.\nMaking their way through the traffic were a few cars with plastic-wrapped corpses in crude wooden coffins strapped to the roofs.\nDuring two hours at the morgue on Monday, families brought in two more victims of the violence to receive death certificates. Other families carried away 10 dead. Most of the victims were Sunni.\nAt the blue steel doors of the morgue, dozens more bloody bodies could be seen on the floor or on gurneys. Two hundred were still unidentified and unclaimed, morgue workers said.\nClaiming the dead has become automated. Morgue workers directed families to a barred window in the narrow courtyard outside the main entrance. A computer screen angled to face the window flashed the contorted, staring faces of the dead: men shot in the mouth, men shot in the head, men covered with blood, men with bindings twisted around their necks.\nMen and a few women in black abayas pressed up to the window's black bars as the reek of the bodies inside spilled out.\n\"What neighborhood?'' a morgue worker asked one waiting man.\n\"Adhamiyah,'' the man said, naming a predominantly Sunni neighborhood.\nTapping at the keyboard, the morgue worker fast-forwarded through the scores of tortured faces.\n\"Criminals. How can you kill another human for nothing?\" someone clutching the bars asked.\n\"Good news, we found the body,\" another man called out. \"We found him.\"\nSpecial correspondents K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf, staff writer Nelson Hernandez and other Washington Post staff contributed to this report.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombing","Clutching rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic rifles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed more than 1,300 Iraqis","two more victims of the violence to receive death certificates. Other families carried away 10 dead. Most of the victims were Sunni","Two hundred"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Shiite Muslim shrine"]},{"role":"Location","values":["BAGHDAD"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2006 Two gunmen attacked the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) compound in Yei, Sudan, killing a local guard and leaving two others in critical condition. (Angola Press)","document":"\nNairobi, Kenya, 03/18 - Two armed gunmen Wednesday night\nattacked the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) compound in Yei town\nin southern Sudan, killing a local guard and leaving an\nexpatriate staff of the agency and a local guard in critical\ncondition.\n\"This is a shocking event, and our hearts and thoughts are with\nthe family of the deceased and with critically ill staff members\nfighting for their lives,\" High Commissioner António Guterres\nsaid in a statement received here Thursday.\nThe UN agency said the international staff member shot in the\nabdomen and the local guard shot in the leg, had been airlifted\nfrom Yei to a Juba hospital.\n\"An emergency medical evacuation to Nairobi (Kenya) is planned as\nsoon as possible,\" the UNHCR said, adding that details of the\nattack were still sketchy.\nSix other international staff in the compound at the time of the\nattack were not hurt, the UN agency said, adding that \"one of the\nintruders to the compound was captured and is now in detention\nin Yei.\"\n\"This attack just underscores the difficulties UNHCR faces in our\noperations in South Sudan where we are trying to create an environment\nfor thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries to be able to\nreturn home and stay home,\" Guterres stressed.\nThe UNHCR established a presence in Yei in 2004 to prepare for the\nreturn of South Sudanese refugees from the Central African Republic,\nDR Congo and Uganda.\nA planned repatriation from the DR Congo to Yei due to start next\nweek has now been suspended while UNHCR reviews the situation.\nThe UN agency estimates there are some 350,000 South Sudanese refugees\nin neighbouring countries, while another four million people are\ndisplaced within Sudan. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing a local guard and leaving an\nexpatriate staff of the agency and a local guard in critical\ncondition"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Two armed gunmen"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday night"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) compound"]},{"role":"Location","values":["UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) compound in Yei town\nin southern Sudan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2006 Near the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, U.S. and Iraqi forces on Thursday launch an air assault known as Operation Swarmer into Salahuddin province in what was termed the largest air assault since the U.S.led invasion in 2003. (ABC News), (BBC), (USDoD)","document":"They describe it as the biggest airborne operation in the country since the US invasion in 2003, involving more than 50 aircraft and 1,500 troops.\nBut correspondents are sceptical, saying the operation, near Samarra, is not as huge as has been suggested.\nNo air power has been used and it is unclear if there have been engagements.\nHowever, the operation involves more helicopters airlifting American and Iraqi troops into the target area than any similar campaign in the three years since Saddam Hussein was toppled. The troops carrying out the operation are said to have detained about 40 suspects, but 17 of them were later released.\nThe Iraqi foreign minister said the aim was to stop insurgents from turning the town into a stronghold.\nBut a senior Sunni Arab politician criticised the operation, which came a day after the new Iraqi parliament met for its inaugural session. \"[The US forces] are surprising us     with meaningless acts at the time Iraqis are looking     forward to the first session of the parliament, preferring     the political solution, not the military one,\" Saleh al-Mutleq told Reuters news agency.\nA bomb attack last month on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 100km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, sparked widespread sectarian violence.\nThe violence continued on Friday, as gunmen in Baghdad opened fire on Shia Muslims on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala, killing three and wounding two. Three more were wounded in a second attack.\nVillages sealed off\nThe BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad says the Pentagon has been keen to publicise this operation, releasing video footage to the media not long after the assault began.\nBut it is now clear this was nothing like the air strikes of 2003, and the US military has confirmed no bombs were dropped or missiles fired, our correspondent says.\nThe operation was described as an air assault, a term the US military uses for bringing in troops by helicopter, although many people initially took the phrase to mean aerial bombing.\nThere has also been little information about any engagements with the insurgents the Americans believe are operating in the area.\nThe US military said the assault, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was intended to \"clear a suspected insurgent operating area\" north-east of Samarra.\nHelicopters were used to carry mostly Iraqi troops into Salahuddin province.\nIraqi police sources said several small villages in the largely desert area had been sealed off. They quoted local residents as saying they had heard loud explosions from just before dawn on this second day of the operation. They also said they believed a number of people had been killed or injured.\nWeapons caches\nInterim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the BBC that intelligence from Iraqi security services suggested insurgents had gathered in the area to plan terror attacks.\nIt won't end till the coalition leaves and lets Iraqis get on with deciding their own affairs in their own way\n Gerard, France Send us your comments\nThe offensive is expected to last several days \"as a thorough search of the objective area is conducted\".\nThe joint US and Iraqi force said it had captured a number of weapons caches, containing shells, explosives and military uniforms.\nThe commander of US forces in the Middle East, Gen John Abizaid, said the operation was linked to insurgent elements but not specifically aimed at high-profile targets like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq militant group.\nThe operation coincides with the US announcement of a new national security strategy, in which it restates a policy of pre-emptive strikes first issued in 2002 and criticised since the Iraq war.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["American and Iraqi troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["more than 50 aircraft and 1,500 troops"]},{"role":"Target","values":["insurgents"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near Samarra","Salahuddin province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 Sri Lankan Civil War: a claymore mine explodes in northern Jaffna, killing five soldiers on patrol and two civilians working for the Caritas Internationalis aid agency. (BBC)","document":"The troops were on patrol when the claymore mine exploded, army spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said.\nTamil Tiger rebels are suspected to be behind the attack, he said. The rebels have denied being involved.\nThe government and the rebels are due to meet in Geneva later this month for a second round of peace talks.\nThe violence comes as ambassadors from the European Union (EU), Japan and Norway met rebel political leaders in their headquarters in the northern town of Kilinochchi.\n'Violations'\nBrig Samarasinghe said two soldiers were injured in the blast, which took place at Mirusuvil in Jaffna peninsula. Army says the rebel attacks are violations of the truce\nThe civilian victims were Tamil humanitarian workers with an international Catholic aid agency - Caritas' Human Development Centre -  who were travelling in another vehicle coming from the opposite direction, he said. \"These are clear violations of the ceasefire as well as agreements reached in Geneva. the Tigers promised in Geneva to stop all attacks against the troops\", Brig Samarasinghe said.\nDenying involvement, the rebels have condemned the attack. \"We really sympathise with the people who were injured and who died,\" rebel spokesperson Daya Master told Reuters news agency.\nHours earlier, a grenade exploded near the newly-opened office of a breakaway rebel faction in the eastern town of Batticaloa, Brig Samarasinghe said. No-one is reported to have been injured in the blast.\nThe visiting EU ambassador Julian Wilson told Reuters that the death of the aid workers was \"particularly horrific\".\n\"The fact there is an attack and deaths on the same day we are actually speaking rather colours the issue,\" he said.\nThere has been a string of attacks since both sides held a round of talks in Geneva in February.\nAbout two weeks ago, the army reported that six rebels had blown themselves up off the north-western coast near a navy vessel. Eight sailors have been missing since the incident. The rebels denied any involvement in the incident.\nA Tamil activist was also killed last week in the eastern town of Trincomalee. It is not clear who carried out the killing.\nPrevious such attacks have been blamed by the rebels on armed paramilitary forces allegedly backed by government forces, a charge which the military denies.\nFragile ceasefire\nMore than 120 people - including about 80 soldiers and sailors, and many civilians - were killed in the months of December and January, raising fears of the ceasefire breaking down.\nAttacks are routinely blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels but they usually deny any involvement in it, describing them as a \"popular uprising\" of the Tamil people. But BBC correspondents say that few believe that such attacks can take place in rebel-held territory without their knowledge.\nTamil Tiger supporters say more than 40 Tamils have been killed by the security forces in a series of attacks since the start of December. Others blame some of those deaths on the rebels or other armed groups.\nThe government and the rebels are scheduled to hold the second round of talks in Geneva between 19 and 21 April to salvage the ceasefire.\nMore than 60,000 people have died during two decades of conflict in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers want autonomy for minority Tamils in the north and east. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["claymore mine"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two soldiers were injured in the blast"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Tamil Tiger"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Mirusuvil in Jaffna peninsula"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 In Delhi, India, two explosions inside the 16th century mosque Jama Masjid injure at least nine people. (BBC) (VOA)","document":"Indian Muslims look at the blast site as Delhi policemen stand guard, inside Jama Masjid mosque, in New Delhi, India, Friday, April 14, 2006\nIndia was rocked with violence on Friday as bombs exploded in the country's biggest mosque in the Indian capital, and a series of grenade attacks shook Indian Kashmir. At least10 people were injured in the attack on the mosque in New Delhi, and five people were killed and about 20 injured in Kashmir.\nPolice say two bombs exploded within about 15 minutes of each other inside New Delhi's Jama Masjid mosque soon after hundreds of Muslims had offered Friday prayers. Women and children were among those injured. Government officials and Muslim leaders appealed for calm as angry crowds chanted slogans in the congested neighborhood where the 17th century mosque is located. Home Minister Shivraj Patil vowed to take all steps to protect what he called \"the secular fabric of the country.\" \"We will not allow the people who want to create confusion in this manner to cause any harm to anybody belonging to any religion, any structure in the country,\" said Shivraj Patil.\nThe explosions in New Delhi occurred after a series of grenade attacks rocked the commercial heart of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir on Friday. The attacks took place along busy roads, and one of the city's most popular tourist attractions, the Dal Lake.\nThe attacks targeted paramilitary trucks and security bunkers, but civilians were among those killed or injured.\nAs ambulances and police cars raced through the streets, panicked shop owners downed shutters, and fled home.  The blasts shook Srinagar as hundreds of people were heading towards a popular Muslim shrine to offer special prayers to mark the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's birth earlier in the week. A local news agency said that four prominent Muslim militant organizations, had claimed responsibility for the blasts.\nBomb and grenade attacks blamed on these militant groups have been a regular occurrence in divided Kashmir since 1989 when a rebellion to free the Himalayan region from Indian rule began. But violence has declined in the region since India and Pakistan launched a peace process to settle their differences over Kashmir, which is claimed by both countries. Other attacks blamed on Muslim militants have taken place in the Indian capital, the Hindu holy city of Varanasi and Bangalore in the past year.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["two bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["five people were killed and about 20 injured in Kashmir","Women and children","civilians","10 people were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday, April 14, 2006"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["paramilitary trucks and security bunkers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["inside Jama Masjid mosque, in New Delhi, India"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 In Delhi, India, two explosions inside the 16th century mosque Jama Masjid injure at least nine people. (BBC) (VOA)","document":"The mosque's chief cleric, Imam Bukhari, told the BBC the blasts inside the complex came in swift succession. He has appealed for calm.\nIt is not clear what caused the blasts which came soon after Friday prayers.\nThe 17th century mosque is one of the largest in India. A bomb disposal squad is at the site, police say.\nThere is anger among our people but I am appealing to them to maintain calm\n Imam Bukhari Delhi police chief KK Paul told the BBC that one of those hurt was in a serious condition. The other eight received minor injuries.\nReligious leaders, including Imam Bukhari, were swift to call for calm and stress the need for communal harmony.\nPrime Minister Manmohan Singh also called for calm and condemned the blasts in Delhi and in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir, where at least five civilians were killed in grenade attacks and shooting.\nAnger The explosions came within minutes of each other at about 1700 local time (1130 GMT).\n\"The blasts took place near a water tank used by worshippers,\" a mosque official, Mr Amanullah, told the BBC.\nHe said that most worshippers were inside the mosque and not by the tank when the blasts took place.\nImam Bukhari said he thought worshippers had been deliberately targeted.\n\"We did not see the first explosion but the second one definitely originated from a plastic bag that was kept inside the prayer grounds,\" Imam Bukhari told the AFP news agency.\n\"The second blast went off as people were helping those injured and if this is not a terror attack then what is?\"\n\"There is anger among our people but I am appealing to them to maintain calm.\"\nThe Jama Masjid is located in Delhi's old city which is mainly populated by Muslims and has a history of religious tension.\nLast month, suspected militants targeted the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, where simultaneous explosions killed 15 people.  In October last year, more than 60 people were killed and hundreds injured when three bombs exploded in busy shopping districts in the Indian capital.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["one of those hurt was in a serious condition","eight received minor injuries"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday","about 1700 local time (1130 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["worshippers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near a water tank used by worshippers","The Jama Masjid"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 Suspected militants kill at least four civilians in a series of grenade attacks in Indianadministered Kashmir. A fifth civilian dies after police opens fire on the suspected militants. At least 17 others are injured. (BBC)","document":"At least 17 others were injured in the attacks in the state's summer capital, Srinagar, the authorities said.\nMore than 60,000 people have been killed since 1989, when an armed separatist insurgency began in Indian-administered Kashmir.\nQUICK GUIDE\nKashmir dispute\nPolice say two civilians, including a girl, were killed when militants attacked a police post located on a busy street near the city's Dal lake, a major tourist attraction.\n\"After a deafening explosion I could only see people shouting for help and others were running for cover,\" Mohammad Ramzan, one of the victims, is quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. \"I was bleeding and police took me to the hospital,\" he added.\nAnother civilian died when police opened fire on the militants.\nA second grenade attack took place when a truck carrying Indian paramilitary soldiers was passing by in another part of the city.\nTwo civilians, one of them a woman, died in that attack which also injured four people, including two soldiers, officials said. There were at least two other grenade attacks in other parts of the city, causing some injuries, reports say.\nAll the blasts took place within the space of an hour, creating panic, the BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says.\nViolence has decreased in Indian-administered Kashmir following a peace process between India and Pakistan which began in 2004.\nBoth countries lay claim to Muslim majority Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two wars over the region since 1947.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["grenade"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two civilians, including a girl, were killed","At least 17 others were injured","Another civilian died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["militants"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police post"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a busy street near the city's Dal lake","the state's summer capital, Srinagar"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 Colombian Armed Conflict: Seventeen Colombian soldiers and a secret policeman were killed by rebels in an ambush in the mountains near the Venezuelan border. (BBC)","document":"Rebels opened fire and detonated roadside explosives as the troops drove through mountains near the Venezuelan border, an army statement said.\nThe ambush is being blamed on two left-wing groups.\nObservers fear guerrillas are stepping up attacks in advance of the presidential election in May.\nThe ambush happened near the town of Hacari in Norte de Santander province, some 400km (260 miles) north-east of the capital, Bogota. It is close to the border with Venezuela and is one of Colombia's most violent areas.\n'Ambush ready'\nA soldier wounded in the ambush said the rebels  began by opening fire and then blowing up the vehicle.\n\"We were on the road when we saw the guerrillas on the hillside above us. They had the ambush ready,\" he was quoted by Reuters as saying. The dead included 11 agents from the Administrative Security Department (DAS)and six soldiers.\nThe commander of the Colombian army, Mario Montoya, said they were attacked by fighters from two guerrilla groups - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the People's Liberation Army (EPL).\nViolence has increased ahead of the presidential election due on 28 May.\nTwo weeks ago, 15 soldiers were killed in clashes with Farc rebels, including 12 in a single ambush.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["roadside explosives"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A soldier wounded","The dead included 11 agents from the Administrative Security Department (DAS)and six soldiers"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["fighters from two guerrilla groups - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the People's Liberation Army (EPL)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["troops"]},{"role":"Location","values":["mountains near the Venezuelan border","near the town of Hacari in Norte de Santander province, some 400km (260 miles) north-east of the capital, Bogota"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2006 Sri Lankan Civil War: Two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels are shot dead in Batticaloa while being caught planting mines, after rebels reportedly hacked a young mother to death. In the eastern part of the island, two Sinhalese guards are killed as they returned from a funeral and one Tamil is shot dead by unidentified gunmen. (BBC)","document":"Two suspected Tamil rebels were shot dead in Batticaloa in the east, while two Sinhalese guards were killed near Vavuniya in the north, police say.\nIn the worst of Monday's other attacks, a young mother was hacked to death near\nBatticaloa, police said.\nThe Tamil Tigers last week called off the latest round of peace talks that had been due to start Monday in Geneva.\nMore than 100 people have been killed this month in escalating violence in the north and east of the country, about 70 of them members of the security forces. 'Senseless'\nThe latest violence follows the killing of six farmers on Sunday near Vavuniya, for which rebels were blamed.\nPolice said two guards, who worked in a Sinhala-majority village, were attacked on Monday as they were returning home after attending the funeral of relatives who were hacked to death by unknown people on Sunday.\nUnidentified gunmen are also reported to have killed a Tamil 15km (nine miles) north west of Vavuniya on Sunday night. In the eastern town of Batticaloa, Sri Lankan troops shot and killed two suspected rebels as they were laying mines, the government said.\nPolice have accused rebels of killing the woman, who had been nursing her baby, in Seruwila near Batticaloa.\nAn office clerk was killed by unidentified gunmen in another attack in the area, police said.\nIn the north near Jaffna, a soldier hurt in an attack on Sunday also succumbed to injuries, the military said. The government blamed the Tigers for killing the six male civilians on Sunday, saying the \"senseless killings\" were aimed at inflaming ethnic tensions.\nCorrespondents described the attack as the worst since Tamil Tiger rebels and the government began a ceasefire in 2002.\nHowever, the Tigers told the BBC they were not involved in the deaths of the six villagers.\nFear\nIncreasing attacks on civilians have sparked inter-communal violence in the east, with Sinhala mobs burning and looting Tamil homes and shops, reports the BBC's Dumeetha Luthra from the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.\nThousands of Tamils in the east of Sri Lanka are reported to have fled their homes in fear of reprisal attacks.\nTension in the Trincomalee district has been high since 16 people died in bombings and rioting in Trincomalee town in the middle of April. Police say Sinhala villagers in the area have fled, fearing further attacks.\nThe east of Sri Lanka is falling apart, with daily attacks against the military blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels, our correspondent says.\nThe Tigers have been fighting for an independent homeland for over two decades. The government has made it clear that the island must remain unified. More than 64,000 people have died in the  conflict.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["100 people have been killed this month in escalating violence","Two suspected Tamil rebels were shot dead","An office clerk","two Sinhalese guards were killed","killed a Tamil"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Tamil Tigers","gunmen"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["two suspected rebels"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Batticaloa in the east"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2006 Residents flee Mogadishu as warlords and Islamist militias battle for control of the Somali capital. The death toll in five days of fighting reaches 120. (VoA)[permanent dead link], (BBC)","document":"The alliance of warlords has accused the Islamists of indiscriminate shelling, designed to provoke fear among the civilian population. The fighting between the Islamists and a group of warlords has killed some 120 people, in the worst clashes for years.\nMany Somalis accuse the US of backing the alliance of warlords.\nThe BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says this belief is fuelling the violence.                            \n                    \n\n    A United Nations team says the Islamist alliance had gained ground since the fighting began last Sunday.         Our reporter says several new parts of Mogadishu have come under attack, but the front line of the main battle has hardly moved from the northern suburbs where the fighting started.\nMost of those killed in the fighting are civilians caught in cross-fire or hit by stray bullets or shells, he says. The rival groups used heavy artillery and mortar rounds, as the fighting raged overnight , with many buildings destroyed. \"There is very heavy fighting here with huge shelling,\" Mogadishu resident Abdinasir Mohamed told the AFP news agency. \"We don't know where to go, where is safe,\" said shopkeeper  Maryan Ibrahim.\nArms embargo\nUnited Nations envoy to Somalia Francois Fall told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the UN was trying to negotiate a ceasefire between the rivals groups.\n                            SOMALIA'S THREE RIVAL GROUPS\n                        Transitional government\nGets arms from: Ethiopia, Italy (Source: UN report)\nIslamic courts\nGets arms from: Eritrea (Source: UN report)\nAnti-terror alliance of warlords\nBelieved to get support from US\nQ&A: Mogadishu fighting\n    The US has not confirmed or denied backing the warlords but says it would \"work with responsible individuals... in fighting terror\".\nA report by a UN committee on Wednesday warned that an unnamed country is flouting the arms embargo on Somalia.\nThe UN Security Council rejected the committee's recommendations for targeted sanctions and tighter controls on the illegal flow of weapons into Somalia, where guns are openly sold in markets.\nThis is the second round of Mogadishu's most serious fighting in a decade. In March, clashes between the two sides killed at least 90 people. Lawless country\nThe militia linked to the Joint Islamic Courts have restored order to some parts of the city by providing justice under Sharia - Islamic law. Facts and figures about  life in Somalia\nAt-a-glance\nThe alliance of warlords earlier this year created the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. It accuses the Islamic Courts of sheltering foreign al-Qaeda leaders, while the Courts say the alliance is a pawn of the United States. Last week, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf accused the US of funding the coalition of warlords. The US has an anti-terror task force based in nearby Djibouti. Somalia has not had an effective national authority for 15 years since the ousting of President Siad Barre in 1991. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["heavy artillery and mortar rounds"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed some 120 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Islamist alliance"]},{"role":"Date","values":["began last Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Mogadishu"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2016 Three Turkish Army soldiers are killed and 10 others wounded in an attack in Syria's al-Bab District; however, there are conflicting reports on who carried out the attack. The Turkish military says the soldiers were targeted in an airstrike by a Syrian warplane, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports an ISIL suicide bomber was responsible. (BBC) (Reuters via Yahoo! News)","document":"Three Turkish soldiers have been killed and 10 wounded in an attack in Syria, but reports differ about what happened. Turkey's military said the soldiers had been targeted in a Syrian government air strike on Thursday, during an offensive by Turkish-backed rebels against so-called Islamic State.\nHowever, a Syrian monitoring group said the deaths were caused by a suicide bomb attack on Wednesday claimed by IS.\nMeanwhile a member of the US military has died while fighting against IS.\nThe soldier, who has not been named, died from wounds caused by an improvised explosive device in Ayn Issa, north of the IS stronghold Raqqa.\nOfficials gave no other information. It is not clear whether this was linked to the deaths of the Turkish soldiers.\nSyria's military has not yet commented on the fate of the Turkish soldiers.\nIt would be the first time Turkish soldiers have been killed by Syrian government forces in the offensive, which Damascus has denounced as a \"flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty\".\nDubbed Operation Euphrates Shield, the offensive was launched three months ago with the aim of pushing IS militants away from the Turkish border.\nThe Turkish government also wants to contain US-backed Syrian Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia, which it says is an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey.\nSo far, the rebels have driven IS militants out of more than 1,800 sq km (694 sq miles) of territory, according to the Turkish military, and recaptured the key border town of Jarablus and the symbolically important village of Dabiq.\nThey are now besieging the town of al-Bab, the last IS stronghold in Aleppo province.\nThe Turkish military statement said the soldiers who were killed were deployed in northern Syria when they were targeted at about 03:30 (00:30 GMT) in an air strike that it \"assessed to have been carried out by Syrian regime forces\".\nIt did not give an exact location, but the state-run Anadolu news agency reported that it was close to al-Bab.\nThe dead and injured soldiers, one of whom was said to be in a critical condition, were taken to hospitals in the southern Turkish provinces of Kilis and Gaziantep.\nLater on Thursday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights disputed the Turkish military's account, saying the soldiers had been killed an IS suicide bombing on Wednesday near the village of Waqqah, north-west of al-Bab.\nIS also issued a statement saying it had carried out a suicide bombing on a Turkish army position near Waqqah on Wednesday evening that caused an unspecified number of casualties.\nIts self-styled news agency, Amaq, released video footage of the attack showing an explosives-filled armoured vehicle driving towards the frontline and then exploding.\nThe three deaths mean that at least 15 Turkish soldiers have been killed since Operation Euphrates Shield began, according to AFP news agency. Most died in clashes with IS, but one was killed in an attack blamed on the YPG.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Three Turkish soldiers have been killed and 10 wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Syrian government"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday","about 03:30 (00:30 GMT)"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the soldiers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Syria","close to al-Bab"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2016 Amnesty International reports Nigerian security forces have killed more 150 proBiafra demonstrators since August 2015. (BBC) (Amnesty)","document":"The Nigerian security forces, led by the military, embarked on a chilling campaign of extrajudicial executions and violence resulting in the deaths of at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters in the south east of the country, according to an investigation by Amnesty International published today.\nAnalysis of 87 videos, 122 photographs and 146 eye witness testimonies relating to demonstrations and other gatherings between August 2015 and August 2016 consistently shows that the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse crowds. It also finds evidence of mass extrajudicial executions by security forces, including at least 60 people shot dead in the space of two days in connection with events to mark Biafra Remembrance Day.\n“This deadly repression of pro-Biafra activists is further stoking tensions in the south east of Nigeria. This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher,” said Makmid Kamara, Interim Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.\n“The Nigerian government’s decision to send in the military to respond to pro-Biafra events seems to be in large part to blame for this excessive bloodshed. The authorities must immediately launch an impartial investigation and bring the perpetrators to book.”\nSince August 2015, there has been a series of protests, marches and gatherings by members and supporters of IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) who have been seeking the creation of a Biafran state. Tensions increased further following the arrest of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu on 14 October 2015. He remains in detention.\nBy far the largest number of pro-Biafra activists were killed on Biafra Remembrance Day on 30 May 2016 when an estimated 1,000 IPOB members and supporters gathered for a rally in Onitsha, Anambra State. The night before the rally, the security forces raided homes and a church where IPOB members were sleeping.\nOn Remembrance Day itself, the security forces shot people in several locations. Amnesty International has not been able to verify the exact number of extrajudicial executions, but estimates that at least 60 people were killed and 70 injured in these two days. The real number is likely to be higher.\nNgozi (not her real name), a 28-year-old mother of one, told Amnesty International that her husband left in the morning to go to work but called her shortly afterwards to say that the military had shot him in his abdomen. He said he was in a military vehicle with six others, four of whom were already dead. She told Amnesty International: “he started whispering and said they just stopped [the vehicle]. He was scared they would kill the remaining three of them that were alive... He paused and told me they were coming closer. I heard gunshots and I did not hear a word from him after that.”\nThe next day Ngozi searched for her husband and finally found his body in a nearby mortuary. The mortuary attendants told her that the military had brought him and six others. She saw three gunshot wounds: one in his abdomen and two in his chest, which confirmed her fear that the military had executed him.\nAmnesty International has also reviewed videos of a peaceful gathering of IPOB members and supporters at Aba National High School on 9 February 2016. The Nigerian military surrounded the group and then fired live ammunition at them without any prior warning.\nAccording to eyewitnesses and local human rights activists, many of the protesters at Aba were rounded up and taken away by the military. On 13 February 13 corpses, including those of men known to have been taken by the military, were discovered in a pit near the Aba highway. \n“It is chilling to see how these soldiers gunned down peaceful IPOB members. The video evidence shows that this was a military operation with intent to kill and injure,” said Makmid Kamara.\nEyewitness testimony and video footage of the rallies, marches and meetings demonstrate that the Nigerian military deliberately used deadly force.\nIn many of the incidents detailed in the report, including the Aba High School protest, the military applied tactics designed to kill and neutralize an enemy, rather than to ensure public order at a peaceful event.\nAll IPOB gatherings documented by Amnesty International were largely peaceful. In those cases where there were pockets of violence, it was mostly in reaction to shooting by the security forces. Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that some protesters threw stones, burned tyres and in one incident shot at the police. Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly.\nAmnesty International’s research also shows a disturbing pattern of hundreds of arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment by soldiers during and after IPOB events, including arrests of wounded victims in hospital, and torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.\nVincent Ogbodo (not his real name), a 26-year-old trader, said he was shot on Remembrance Day in Nkpor and hid in a gutter. When soldiers found him they poured acid on him. He told Amnesty International:\n“I covered my face. I would have been blind by now. He poured acid on my hands. My hands and body started burning. The flesh was burning… They dragged me out of the gutter. They said I’ll die slowly.”\nA man who was detained in Onitsha Barracks after the Remembrance Day shooting on 30 May 2016 told Amnesty International: “Those in the guard room [detention] were flogged every morning. The soldiers tagged it ‘Morning Tea’.”\nDespite this overwhelming evidence that the Nigerian security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions and torture, no investigations have been carried out by the authorities.\nA similar pattern of lack of accountability for gross violations by the military has been documented in other parts of Nigeria including the north east in the context of operations against Boko Haram.\n“Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the government of Nigeria to initiate independent investigations into evidence of crimes under international law, and President Buhari has repeatedly promised that Amnesty International’s reports would be looked into. However, no concrete steps have been taken,” said Makmid Kamara.\nIn the very rare cases where an investigation is carried out, there is no follow up. As a result of the apparent lack of political will to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of such crimes, the military continues to commit human rights violations and grave crimes with impunity.\nIn addition to investigations, the Nigerian government must ensure adequate reparations for the victims, including the families. They should end all use of military in policing demonstrations and ensure the police are adequately instructed, trained and equipped to deal with crowd-control situations in line with international law and standards. In particular, firearms must never be used as a tool for crowd control.\n\nThe findings of this report involved an analysis of 87 videos and 122 photographs showing IPOB gatherings and members of security forces in the process of committing violations and victims of these violations. 193 interviews were conducted.\nOn 30 September 2016, Amnesty International shared the key findings of this report with the Federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Interior, Inspector General of Police and the Director-General of the state Security Services. Responses were received from the Attorney General and Inspector General of Police but neither answered the questions raised in the report.\nIPOB emerged in 2012 and campaigns for an Independent Biafran state. Almost fifty years ago, an attempt to establish Biafra state led to a civil war from 1967 to 1970.\nTAKE ACTION\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIf you are talented and passionate about human rights then Amnesty International wants to hear from you.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["deaths of at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Nigerian security forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Since August 2015"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["IPOB members"]},{"role":"Location","values":["south east of Nigeria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2016 Amnesty International reports Nigerian security forces have killed more 150 proBiafra demonstrators since August 2015. (BBC) (Amnesty)","document":"Nigeria's security forces have killed more than 150 peaceful protesters since August 2015, a human rights group has claimed.\nAmnesty International said the military used live ammunition and deadly force against pro-Biafra protesters who were campaigning for an independent state in the south-east.\nNigeria's police denies allegations that it used unnecessary force.\nThe country's army said Amnesty was trying to tarnish its reputation.\nAmnesty's report is based on interviews with almost 200 people, alongside more than 100 photographs and 87 videos.\nAmong the allegations contained in the report are what Amnesty called \"extrajudicial executions\", when 60 people were shot and killed in south-eastern Onitsha city, in the two days surrounding Biafra Remembrance Day in May 2016.\n\"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths, and we fear the actual total might be far higher\" said Makmid Kamara, Amnesty's interim director for Nigeria.\nOther victims detailed in the report include a 26-year-old man who was shot in Nkpor, but hid in a gutter, still alive. He said when soldiers found him, they poured acid over him, and told him he would die slowly. Another woman said she had been speaking to her husband on a mobile phone when he told her he had been shot in the abdomen. He was calling from a military vehicle, she said, and she heard gunshots. She later found his body in a morgue with two more wounds in his chest, leading her to believe he had been executed after the call.\nThe human rights organisation said pro-Biafra protests had been \"largely peaceful\" despite occasional incidents of protesters throwing stones and burning tyres - and one occasion when someone shot at police.\n\"Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly.\"\nBut army spokesman Sani Usman that \"the military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence\".\nThe two main secessionist groups in the south-east, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, had committed \"unimaginable atrocities\", he said. This included burning and killing people from other parts of Nigeria and forcing them to flee, Col Usman added.\nIn the past year there has been a series of protests to demand the creation of the state of Biafra in the south-east, home to the Igbo people.\nProminent IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu has been detained without trial since October 2015, with the government defying a court order to release him.  Analysis: Martin Patience, BBC News, Lagos\nThe mention of Biafra continues to trigger powerful emotions in Nigeria - and memories of the country's darkest chapter.\nIn 1967, nationalists attempted to create the independent state of Biafra in the south-east. It was to be a homeland for the Igbo people, one of the country's largest ethnic groups. But the bid for independence plunged the nation into a three-year civil war that killed at least a million people.\nAlmost 50 years on and the bitterness of that period still lingers. Many Igbos claim they are still being punished for the conflict.\nIn the past year that anger has manifested itself in a younger generation who have staged a wave of protests, fuelled, in part, by high unemployment and anger about official corruption - issues that are hardly unique to the Igbos.\nBut IPOB appears to have gained momentum after the Nigerian authorities detained Mr Kanu, accusing him of treason.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["live ammunition"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed more than 150 peaceful protesters"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Nigeria's security forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["since August 2015"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["pro-Biafra protesters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the south-east"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 In Manbij, Syria, a suicide attack claimed by ISIL causes at least 19 casualties. Among them, two U.S. soldiers, a Pentagon Civilian, and a civilian contractor are reported dead and three other Service Members wounded. (The Washington Post)","document":"BEIRUT  Four Americans were killed in a suicide attack in Syria on Wednesday, the largest loss of life in the Pentagon’s war against Islamic State militants there and a sign of the potent threat that remains as the Trump administration begins to withdraw.\nOfficials said a bomber detonated an explosive vest as a group of Americans, including two service members, a Pentagon civilian and a U.S. contractor slain in the attack, met with local military officials at a restaurant in the northern city of Manbij.\nThree additional U.S. service members were wounded, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.\nPence declares ‘ISIS is defeated’ hours after attack kills U.S. troops\nThe incident occurs as the Pentagon begins its drawdown from Syria in keeping with President Trump’s announcement last month that the Islamic State had been defeated and troops would be coming home.\nThe president’s surprise Dec. 19 announcement upended plans, backed by military leaders and Trump’s top national security advisers, for an ongoing mission in Syria and drew widespread criticism, including from Republican allies who warned a premature departure could allow militants to return. Nearly a month after Trump’s initial pronouncement, conflicting statements from senior officials, including the president himself, have fueled ongoing confusion about what precisely the administration’s plan entails.\nThe Islamic State, in a message posted by its unofficial news agency, Amaq, asserted responsibility for the Manbij blast but provided no evidence to back up that claim.\nSurveillance camera video showed the explosion erupting on a busy sidewalk, sending a child running from the flames with hands clasped over his ears. Bodies and blood trails could be seen spread across the ground in photographs taken during the immediate aftermath.\nThe Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 19 peoplewere wounded or killed.\nWhite House press secretary Sarah Sanders praised the “brave American heroes” who died in the attack. “Our service members and their families have all sacrificed so much for our country,” she said in a statement.\nThe White House said Trump had been “fully briefed” on the incident, the most deadly since U.S. troops arrived in Syria in 2015. Previously, two American service members had been killed in action there.\nSpeaking at the State Department several hours after initial casualty reports appeared, Vice President Pence did not mention the incident but hailed Trump’s leadership in combating the militants in Syria.\n“We are bringing our troops home,” Pence said in an address to more than 180 U.S. ambassadors and chiefs of missions abroad gathered for a conference in Washington. “The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated.”\nIn a statement issued by his office later in the day, Pence offered sympathy to the families of the Americans who were killed, condemned the attack and said the United States would “never allow the remnants of ISIS to reestablish their evil and murderous caliphate  not now, not ever.”\nU.S. military announces start of Syria withdrawal\nThe dissonance between the vice president’s initial statement and the bloodshed on the ground in Syria reflects conflicting internal assessments about where the campaign against the Islamic State stands.\nTrump, announcing last month that the force of more than2,000 U.S. service members would be leaving Syria, heralded categorical victory over the Islamic State more than four years after U.S. forces launched an international coalition to dislodge militants from theirself-declared“caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq.\nThe president’s declaration generated consternation from foreign partners, including France and Britain, and accusations of abandonment from a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish force that has suffered thousands of casualties. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned the next day.\nSince then, Trump and other senior officials have at times used more cautious rhetoric in addressing the Islamic State, which the Pentagon has said retains significant combat power, especially in eastern Syria, where it continues to hold territory.\nDespite Trump’s initial suggestion that troops would depart immediately, the White House subsequently has said there is no timeline for the U.S. departure. Compounding the confusion, military officials say they are proceeding with orders to withdraw within about four months.\nOn Friday, the military announced it had begun withdrawing equipment but not forces. It’s not clear what weaponry or equipment has been removed from Manbij, which was reclaimed from militants in 2016.\nHundreds of U.S. troops have been stationed in Manbij in an attempt to prevent extremists from regaining strength and to foster stability in an area strategic to both NATO ally Turkey to the north and Syrian Kurdish forces who have been the chief U.S. partner against the Islamic State.\nTurkey considers some Syrian Kurds, including U.S. partner forces, to be part of a terror group.\nU.S. troops have been more visible in Manbij than they have in other areas, flying U.S. flags as part of their stabilization effort there.\nLawmakers of both parties seized on the attack as proof that Trump should rethink his Syria plans. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has gone between lauding and excoriating the president, made an impassioned speech at the start of William P. Barr’s confirmation hearing to serve as attorney general, imploring Trump to reconsider his position in light of the carnage.\n“My concern about the statements made by President Trump is that you set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we’re fighting. You make people we are trying to help wonder about us, and as they get bolder, the people we’re trying to help are going to get more uncertain. I saw this in Iraq, and I’m now seeing it in Syria,” Graham said.\n“I know people are frustrated. But we’re never going to be safe here unless we’re willing to help people over there who will stand up against this radical ideology,” he added. “To those who lost their lives today in Syria, you were defending America in my view ... and I hope the president will look long and hard at what we’re doing in Syria.”\nSen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), at a meeting of HillVets, a Washington veterans group, said the United States was failing to demonstrate the global leadership it had shown in the past.\n“Today’s very tragic situation is a reflection that ISIS is not gone and done with,” he said. Reed said it was vital to keep military pressure on the group and warned that ISIS leaders interpreted Trump’s calls for a withdrawal from Syria as “a great relief of the pressure on them.”\nAs the Pentagon begins its withdrawal, it remains unclear whether the White House plan will include an exit for several hundred troops now stationed at the Tanf garrison in southeast Syria. While national security adviser John Bolton has suggested that base, seen as key to constraining Iran’s influence in Syria, could remain open, military officials are planning to shut it down.\nZakaria Zakaria in Istanbul and Karen DeYoung, Greg Jaffe, Carol Morello, John Wagner, Karoun Demirjian and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.Ryan reported from Washington.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["an explosive vest"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Three additional U.S. service members were wounded","Four Americans were killed","a group of Americans, including two service members, a Pentagon civilian and a U.S. contractor","more than2,000 U.S. service members","at least 19 peoplewere wounded or killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Islamic State"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Syria","a restaurant in the northern city of Manbij"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Dozens of people remain missing one day after a deadly attack on a popular hotel complex in Nairobi, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society. (NBC News)","document":" NAIROBI, Kenya  The death toll from a militant attack on a popular Kenyan hotel complex rose to 21 on Wednesday. It includes at least one American, a former Peace Corps member, authorities said.\nSix bodies were retrieved from the attack site and a police officer died from his injuries, police chief Joseph Boinnet said.\nDozens of people remained missing a day after armed men invaded the DusitD2 hotel complex in Nairobi, which includes bars, restaurants, offices and banks, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society said in a statement Wednesday.\nTuesday's attack started with car bombs. An earlier estimate had put the death toll at 15.\nKenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed authorities would \"pursue relentlessly\" those involved in the funding, planning and execution of the attack.\nIn a televised address, Kenyatta said that \"multiple security efforts are underway to detect, deter, disrupt and defeat any terrorist operative or group.\" He added that all militants who stormed the site had been killed by security forces.\n\"We're grieving as a country and my heart and that of every Kenyan goes out to the innocent victims,\" Kenyatta said. \"We are also a nation that never forgets those who hurt our children.\"\nSporadic gunfire could be heard from the scene in the morning after scores of people were rescued at daybreak as police continued what they called a mopping-up exercise.\nThe Red Cross reported that at least 30 people were treated for injuries in hospitals and other health facilities.\nAl-Shabab  the Somalia-based Islamic extremist group that is allied to al Qaeda  claimed responsibility for the carnage in a statement. However, that claim had not been verified by authorities.\nThe State Department confirmed to NBC News that a U.S. citizen was among the dead.\nOfficials did not release his identity, but his mother, Sarah Spindler, confirmed to NBC News that American victim was her son, Jason Spindler. She said the 40-year-old had been \"trying to make positive change in the Third World in emerging markets.\"\n\"We all miss him so much. And it's so sad that such a bright young person is taken away by terrorism,\" Sarah Spindler added.\nSpindler joined the Peace Corps after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and was a graduate of NYU Law and the University of Texas at Austin, and he was the recipient of grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation, his mother said.\nThe U.K.'s Foreign Office confirmed Wednesday that a British-South African national was also among the dead.\nA 2013 attack carried out by Al-Shabab at the nearby Westgate Mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people.\nLike the attack at the Westgate Mall, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners.\nAl-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight it since 2011.\nThe group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya. In the deadliest attack, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an assault on Kenya's Garissa University in 2015 that killed 147 people, mostly students.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bombs","gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Six bodies","The death toll from a militant attack on a popular Kenyan hotel complex rose to 21","at least 30 people were treated for injuries"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Al-Shabab  the Somalia-based Islamic extremist group that is allied to al Qaeda"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["DusitD2 hotel complex"]},{"role":"Location","values":["DusitD2 hotel complex in Nairobi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 A suicide car-bomb attack at the General Santander National Police Academy in Bogotá, Colombia, kills at least 20 people and injures more than 50 others. (The Guardian)","document":"Blast also injured more than 50 people, but authorities have yet to suggest who was behind the attack\nFirst published on Thu 17 Jan 2019 15.28 GMT\nTwenty-one people have been killed and dozens more injured in a car bombing at a Colombian police academy in Bogotá, recalling the high-profile attacks associated with the bloodiest chapters of the country’s guerrilla and drug conflicts.The scene outside the General Santander police academy was chaotic after the mid-morning explosion on Thursday, with ambulances and helicopters rushing to the normally tightly controlled facility.\nWitnesses said they heard a loud explosion that destroyed windows in adjacent buildings. Pictures on social media showed a charred vehicle surrounded by debris on the academy’s campus.\nAmong the dead were a Panamanian and an Ecuadorian national.\n#Atención El alcalde @EnriquePenalosa se encuentra en la Escuela General Santander acompaando a la @PoliciaColombia.En breve entregaremos más información.#BogotáCondenaElTerrorismo pic.twitter.com/HBekT48yYi\nRafael Trujillo said he was delivering a care package to his son Gerson, who entered the school two days ago, when he was stopped in his tracks by the blast a block away from the school’s heavily fortified entrance.\n“I’m sad and very worried because I don’t have any information about my son,” said Trujillo, standing outside the facility, where police officers had set up a taped perimeter. “This reminds me of some very sad days in the past.”\nPresident Iván Duque, who was visiting a western state, was rushing back to the capital to oversee the police investigation into what he called a “miserable” attack.“All of us Colombians reject terrorism and are united in confronting it,” Duque said in a tweet. “We won’t bend in the face of violence.”Investigators had identified the car’s driver as José Aldemar Rojas Rodríguez, who was among the dead, said the Colombian attorney general, Néstor Humberto Martínez.\nHe said the vehicle, a gray Nissan Patrol SUV, was carrying 80kg (176lb) of the high explosive pentolite, which has been used in the past by Colombian guerrillas.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack and Martínez said investigators were searching for its “intellectual authors”.\nFor decades, residents of Bogotá lived in fear of being caught in a bombing by leftist rebels or Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel. But as Colombia’s conflict has wound down, and the nation’s largest rebel group disarmed under a 2016 peace deal, security has improved and attacks have become less frequent.\nAuthorities have yet to suggest who was behind the attack, but attention has focused on leftist rebels from the National Liberation Army, ELN, which has been stepping up attacks on police targets in Colombia amid a standoff with the conservative Duque over how to restart stalled peace talks.\nThe group known was long considered a lesser military threat than the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), whose 7,000 guerrilla fighters disarmed as part of a 2016 peace accord. But in the wake of the peace deal, the Cuban-inspired insurgency has been gaining strength, especially along the eastern border with Venezuela, where it has carried out a number of kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines. That has hardened Duque’s resolve in refusing to resume peace talks that have been stalled since he took office last August.\nThursday’s bombing was the deadliest in the capital since an explosion at the upmarket Andino shopping mall in June 2017 killed three people, including a French woman, and injured another 11. Police later arrested several suspected members of a far-left urban guerrilla group called the People Revolutionary’s Movement for the bombing.But it has been more than a decade since a police or military installation in the capital has suffered a major bombing. A blast at a military university in 2006 left almost two dozen people injured.\nAriel vila, an analyst who tracks violence, said that in the last four years, there have been 28 attacks in the capital with explosives. While the majority has been carried out with low-grade homemade materials and grenades that have damaged property but left no casualties, he said police intelligence and checkpoints surrounding the city need to be reinforced to prevent more attacks.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a car bombing","80kg (176lb) of the high explosive pentolite"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["destroyed windows in adjacent buildings"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Twenty-one people have been killed","three people","another 11","almost two dozen people","injured more than 50 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a Colombian police academy"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Bogotá"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Gunmen on motorbikes shoot Ghanaian investigative journalist Ahmed HusseinSuale to death in Accra. Ahmed was a member of the Tiger Eye Private Investigations team that exposed highlevel corruption in the Ghana Football Association. (Reuters)","document":"DAKAR (Reuters) - Gunmen in Ghana killed an investigative journalist who had helped uncover corruption in football, rights groups and his employer said on Thursday.\nAhmed Hussein-Suale was shot three times by men on a motorbike while driving home from work on Wednesday in the capital Accra, said his production company Tiger Eye PI.\n“We ... are terribly devastated by this dastardly act, but remain unshaken in our resolve to make ... corruption a high-risk activity in this country,” it said in a statement.\nHussein-Suale was part of a team led by well-known undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas. Their crew is famous for a documentary last year that accused 77 referees and Ghana’s then soccer chief Kwesi Nyantakyi of taking bribes.\nThe film prompted Ghana to dissolve its Football Association. Nyantakyi was suspended by world soccer’s governing body FIFA and stepped down shortly after, apologizing for what he called his “indiscretion”.\nThe killing came as a shock in Ghana, whose vibrant press enjoys relative freedom compared to many African nations.\n“I expect the police to bring to book, as soon as possible, the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” said President Afuko-Addo on Twitter.\nGhana’s police and government officials were not immediately available for further comment.\nGhana is ranked 23rd out of 180 countries in a world press freedom index compiled by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which is Africa’s highest ranking.\nBut “this shooting is a grave signal that journalists cannot work safely to keep the public informed or hold power to account in Ghana,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists, another press freedom group based in the United States.\nThe killing came after a campaign of abuse against the documentary team. After its airing, government legislator Kennedy Agyapong called Hussein-Suale “dangerous”, shared photos of him and told viewers he would pay for them to “beat him”.\nHe was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.\nAnas, who covers his face in public for safety reasons, posted about the death on his Facebook and Twitter feed.\n“Sad news, but we shall not be silenced,” he said.\n“Rest in peace, Ahmed.”\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed an investigative journalist"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["men on a motorbike"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Ahmed Hussein-Suale"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ghana","the capital Accra"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Myanmar's military has announced that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks","document":"Myanmar's military has announced that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks\nNAYPYITAW, Myanmar -- Myanmar's military announced Friday that the Arakan Army, a Buddhist rebel group in Rakhine state, has been classified a terrorist organization after mounting a flurry of recent attacks.\nThe state earlier was the site of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority, causing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.\nMilitary officers said at a news conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, that leader Aung San Suu Kyi ordered security forces to launch the offensive against the Arakan Army.\nThe insurgent group, which seeks autonomy from the central government, killed 13 police officers and wounded nine in attacks on Jan. 4. The moves to counter the rebels were decided at a Jan. 7 meeting at Myanmar's presidential offices, the officers said.\nSuu Kyi \"said the Arakan Army is just a terrorist group and instructed us to defeat them effectively, quickly and clearly,\" Maj. Gen. Nyi Nyi Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Military Information Committee, told reporters. A terrorist designation criminalizes a group and bans all communication with them.\nHe said Suu Kyi suggested that if she did not order the military to attack the Arakan Army, the international community would accuse her of religious prejudice for attacking the Muslim guerrillas of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army but not Buddhist rebels who committed similar actions with similar goals.\nThe military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar has been accused of ethnic cleansing, and even genocide, against the Muslim Rohingya. Its counterinsurgency campaign was triggered when a group of Rohingya guerrillas attacked security outposts in August 2017.\nThe officers said the military clashed with the Arakan Army 15 times in 2015, 26 times in 2016, 56 times in 2017 and 61 times in 2018, while the rebels also planted some mines. They said there have been at least eight armed encounters this year. The guerrillas are known to have trained in areas controlled by other ethnic rebel forces, especially in Kachin state.\nThe Arakan Army, founded in 2009, is estimated to have several thousand well-armed and organized uniformed members, in contrast to the ragtag and virtually dormant Rohingya guerrillas.\nMyanmar's military in December announced cease-fires in five areas where ethnic rebellions are active, but did not include Rakhine state because it had information that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army planned attacks, the officers said.\nBrig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said he believed that the fighting with the Arakan Army would not interfere with plans to repatriate Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.\nAt U.N. headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke about his \"enormous frustration with the lack of progress\" by Myanmar's government in creating conditions for the return of the more than 700,000 Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 and are living in \"extremely difficult circumstances.\"\n\"It is absolutely essential to create the conditions of confidence and trust,\" he told a news conference. \"It's not only physical reconstruction, it's a matter of reconciliation of communities and strong commitment by the government for that reconciliation of communities to be possible, and for the safety of the Rohingya population to be guaranteed.\"\n\"Unfortunately, the truth is the situation on the ground has not been conducive to it. Things have been too slow,\" he said. \"One of the dramatic aspects when you fail in solving the root causes of the problem is that violence then tends to erupt again, and that's what we have seen recently in Myanmar.\"\n\"We insist in the need to create conditions for them to be willing to go back\" to Myanmar, Guterres said.\nOne of first steps could be to solve the problem of the Rohingya who are internally displaced which would \"give credibility\" to future returns, he said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 13 police officers and wounded nine"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Arakan Army"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Jan. 4"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Rakhine state"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Myanmar's military announces that it has killed 13 Arakan Army fighters in a series of eight armed clashes in Rakhine State, spanning from January 5 to 13. In the same press conference, a military spokesman states that the Arakan Army had been newly classified as a terrorist organization. (ABC News) (Reuters via VOA)","document":"NAYPYITAW - Myanmar's army has killed 13 rebel fighters in the western Rakhine State, a military spokesman said on Friday, as government troops battle to contain a new insurgency in the troubled region.\nFighting between security forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine, has forced some 5,000 civilians to flee their homes since early December, according to the United Nations.\nThe violence has brought fresh turmoil to the region, the site of a massive crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017, and represents another setback for the Buddhist-majority country's embattled peace process.\n\"Between Jan. 5 and 16, 2019, there were eight clashes and five landmine explosions,\" said Major General Tun Tun Nyi, speaking at a rare press conference in the capital, Naypyitaw. \"Thirteen enemy bodies and three weapons were seized, and some soldiers died and were injured on our side,\" he said.\nHe declined to elaborate on the number of government troops killed, saying it was \"not necessary\" to give the figures.\nThe Arakan Army could not be immediately reached for comment, but a spokesman outside Myanmar previously told Reuters five bodies seized by the military did not belong to their fighters.\nThe recent surge of violence began after insurgents killed 13 police and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts on Jan. 4, as Myanmar celebrated Independence Day, state media reported.\nYanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, voiced alarm at the \"escalating violence\" in Rakhine and urged both sides to show restraint and protect civilians.\nShe condemned the Jan. 4 attack by the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military's \"disproportionate response,\" citing reports that heavy weapons, artillery, and helicopters had been used in civilian areas, leading to civilian casualties.\n\"I am also seriously concerned about the dangerous rhetoric being used by the government. The ethnic Rakhine population must not be demonized and targeted by the military on suspicion of association with the AA,\" Lee said in a statement.\nThere was no immediate response from the Myanmar authorities to her remarks.\nMyanmar' civilian administration last week called on the military to \"crush\" the rebels, according to a government spokesman.\nOn Friday, the military said Aung San Suu Kyi, who runs the country as state counselor, personally ordered the crackdown, stating that the Arakan Army, which recruits from among the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, should face the same treatment as Rohingya insurgents.\nThe military onslaught against the Rohingya in 2017, which the U.N. and Western nations have called ethnic cleansing, was preceded by attacks on security forces by fighters calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The government denies the charge of ethnic cleansing.\n\"During negotiations at the president's house on January 9, state counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said AA were terrorists and instructed to crack down effectively,\" Tun Tun Nyi said. \"If not, others would point out that ARSA was cracked down on because it's from a different religion and AA was not because it is an ethnic group,\" he said.\nA government spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment. The conflict is the latest crisis facing Nobel laureate Suu Kyi's administration, which swept to power in 2015 promising to bring an end to the country's myriad civil wars.\nThe United Nations has called for \"rapid and unimpeded\" aid access to the conflict zone, after the state government last week banned non-governmental organizations and the U.N. from five townships affected by the fighting.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["five landmine"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 13 rebel fighters"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Myanmar's army"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Between Jan. 5 and 16, 2019"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Arakan Army"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the western Rakhine State"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Unknown gunmen shoot dead two Buddhist monks and injure two others in an attack at a temple in Thailand’s mainly Muslim south. (Reuters)","document":"NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot dead two Buddhist monks and injured two others in an attack at a temple in Thailand’s mainly Muslim south, the first such killing of a Buddhist monk in the restive region in more than three years.\nAn abbot and vice abbot were killed when at least six assailants believed to be dressed as members of a government security force burst into the Rattanupap temple in Narathiwat province and opened fire late on Friday, police said.\nPrime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and religious leaders condemned the attack in the mainly ethnic Malay province, the scene of a long-running insurgency against Thai rule.\n“The prime minister condemns this outrageous act and has ordered officials to quickly investigate the incident and apprehend these criminals,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.\nThai Muslim leaders also spoke out against the shooting of monks.\n“We urge perpetrators of violence in the southern border provinces from all sides to stop killing innocent people and religious leaders,” the Sheikhul Islam Office, which represents Thailand’s Muslim minority, said in a statement.\nPolice said the assailants were still at large.\nA separatist insurgency has dragged on in southern Thailand for more than fifteen years. More than 6,900 people have been killed and 13,000 injured in the area since 2004 when violence intensified, independent monitoring group Deep South Watch says.\nThailand is a predominantly Buddhist country but Muslim Malays are a majority in three southern provinces bordering Malaysia.\nThe three provinces, and a small part of neighboring Songkhla, were part of a sultanate annexed by Thailand in 1909. Separatist tensions have simmered ever since.\nAs with most violence in Thailand’s deep south, there was no claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack. Buddhist and Muslim leaders as well as state officials have often been targeted by insurgents.\nAt least 23 monks have been killed and more than 20 wounded since 2004, but there has not been an attack on monks since 2015. An imam was shot on Jan. 11, also in Narathiwat province.\nThe killings have added a religious dimension to a conflict that initially was rooted in ethnic and national tensions.\n“Many Buddhists, not just in the south but across the country, are feeling aggrieved by Muslims, and it will take time for that to change,” Rakchart Suwan, chairman of the Buddhist Network for Peace, told Reuters.\nAnalysts said the latest incident showed that insurgent group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) retained significant military capacity despite government efforts to wipe it out.\n“Regardless of BRN’s specific objectives with this attack, the Thai government would be very foolish not to consider the danger of a toxic communal atmosphere in the south which could get out of control,” Anthony Davis, an analyst with defense and security publisher Jane’s, told Reuters.\nThe Thai military government has taken part since 2015 in talks brokered by Malaysia that aim to end the violence but the BRN has stayed out of the dialogue.\nThat process was stalled last year and Bangkok has signaled that it will return to the talks this year.\nReporting by Surapan Boonthanom, Panarat Thepgumpanat, and Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Gareth Jones and Stephen Coates\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["shot dead two Buddhist monks and injured two others"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["at least six assailants"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Rattanupap temple"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Narathiwat province","a temple in Thailand’s mainly Muslim south"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 A car bomb explodes outside a courthouse in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The bomb exploded as the area was being evacuated, and there were no injuries. Investigations currently point responsibility for the attack towards the New IRA dissident organisation. (BBC)","document":"The explosion occurred in Bishop Street at about 20:15 GMT on Saturday, shortly after police received a warning. Officers were on the scene when the blast occurred. No one is believed to have been injured. Police had just started evacuating nearby buildings, including a hotel, when the explosion took place. A cordon remains in place at the scene.\nLocal politicians have told the BBC that the vehicle was hijacked in Derry some time before the explosion.\nAn eyewitness told the BBC: \"The remains of the car could still be seen burning in the middle of the road. \"A cordon has been set up around the scene and police are evacuating more buildings on Bishop Street.\"\nIn a statement issued on Facebook, the PSNI said: \"As far as we know no one [is] injured.\"\nHowever, they said that there is another car they \"are not happy about\" and are evacuating the area and advising residents in the area to make preparations to leave. Greg McLaughlin, who lives nearby, said his windows shook with the force of the blast.\n\"It was very, very loud. I knew right away this was a bomb,\" he said.\n\"We knew it was quite close. \"You could see the ball of fire on the street. It  sounded to me like a very significant blast. I haven't heard anything like it in Derry for quite a while.\"\nBusinesses and other properties have been evacuated and the cordon on Bishop Street has been extended. One business owner said she heard a bang and was lucky to be inside at the time. She said she could have been on the street minutes later.\nBishop Street is within Derry's famous city walls.\nThe PSNI has asked members of the public to stay away.\nColin Neill, chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, said the explosion had caused major disruption in the Bishop Street area of the city.\n\"This has to be condemned in its strongest terms, taking place on a Saturday evening when many people are out enjoying themselves. \"The loss of trade for the local hospitality sector and the impact that this will have on tourism and the local economy benefits no one.\"\nThe Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, said she was concerned at the reports coming from Londonderry and was \"being kept informed by PSNI\".\nSinn Féin MP Elisha McCallion said the incident had \"shocked the local community\".\n\"In particular, there are many elderly residents who live in the area who have been alarmed by this incident,\" she said.\nSDLP MLA Mark H Durkan tweeted: \"Whoever is responsible for this explosion outside Bishop Street Courthouse in Derry clearly hasn't got the message that the people of Derry DO NOT want this on our streets.\"\nThe DUP MLA, Gary Middleton, described the incident as a \"disgraceful act of terrorism\". His party leader Arlene Foster tweeted: \"This pointless act of terror must be condemned in the strongest terms. Only hurts the people of the city.\n\"Perpetrated by people with no regard for life. Grateful to our emergency services for their swift actions which helped ensure there have been no fatalities or injuries.\"\nThe Irish tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Simon Coveney condemned the attack.\n\"There is no place and no justification possible for such acts of terror, which seek to drag Northern Ireland back to violence and conflict,\" he wrote on Twitter.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["about 20:15 GMT on Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Bishop Street"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 A Taliban attack on a National Directorate of Security compound in the central Maidan Wardak Province, kills 126 security personnel, according to local officials. (The Guardian)","document":"The Taliban have launched a major attack on an Afghan military compound in central Maidan Wardak province, officials have said, with some putting the death toll at more than 100 people.\nMonday’s incident at a campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) is the latest in a series of deadly attacks in recent months by the Taliban, which has seized control of about half of Afghanistan.\nThe Afghan authorities said the attack started on Monday morning, when a US-made armoured Humvee vehicle was driven into the compound and blown up. Gunmen also opened fire, before being killed by security forces.\nGovernment officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have given differing estimates of the death toll. One said it could be as high as 126 people and another said yet more were thought to have been wounded. “Eight special commandos are among the dead,” said a senior member of Kabul’s defence ministry. An official from the Afghan public health ministry said the total of killed and wounded could be about 140 people.\nHowever, others offered a more conservative estimate. A senior NDS official in Kabul said at least 50 people were killed or wounded. Abdurrahman Mangal, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Maidan Wardak, said 12 people were killed and 12 were injured when the car bomb exploded near the Afghan special forces unit.\nDefence ministry officials said the Taliban had used the Humvee, which had been captured from Afghan forces, as a bomb in order to breach the military fortifications.\nHussein Ali Baligh, a member of the local provincial council, said: “This morning, around 7am, a Humvee entered the NDS block in the city … about 150 NDS personnel were present at the time of the attack. The Humvee exploded right after entering the compound. The building has totally been collapsed.” At least two gunmen followed up the attack before being killed themselves.\nHe said the attack sparked concerns in the province over how a Humvee that had been in the hands of government forces could pass through checkpoints while packed with explosives. “It shows the weakness of our forces,” he said. “Our forces are brave, but their commanders have weaknesses.”\nSharif Hotak, a member of the provincial council in Maidan Wardak, said he had seen the bodies of 35 Afghan forces personnel in hospital. “Many more were killed. Several bodies were transported to Kabul city and many injured were transferred to hospitals in Kabul,” said Hotak, adding that “the government was hiding the accurate casualty figures to prevent a further dip in morale of the Afghan forces”.Government officials in Maidan Wardak and Kabul declined to comment when asked if they were obscuring the death toll.\nTwo senior officials in the interior ministry said the exact casualty figure was not being disclosed to prevent unrest within the armed forces. “I have been told not to make the death toll figures public. It is frustrating to hide the facts,” said a senior interior ministry official in Kabul.\nThe office of the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said the “enemies of the country” had carried out an attack against NDS personnel in Maidan Shahr, the provincial capital. “They killed and wounded a number of our beloved and honest sons,” he said.\nHe added: “Terrorist groups and their foreign supporters cannot weaken the high morale of our brave security and defence forces, because they have a great will to repress terrorists.” Ghani ordered the officials to investigate this attack.\nIn recent years, the Afghan government has stopped releasing detailed casualty figures. Last year, Ghani said 28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers had been killed since 2015, breaking the longstanding suppression of casualty data.\nTaliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group, claimed it had killed 190 people.\nLast week, Taliban fighters set off a car bomb outside a highly fortified compound in Kabul, killing at least five people and wounding more than 110 Afghans and expats.\nSome analysts have suggested the recent increase in the intensity of Taliban attacks is a ploy by the group to gain the upper hand in ongoing talks with the US Afghan envoy.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Gunmen"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["the total of killed and wounded could be about 140 people","Gunmen","126 people","28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers","190 people","death toll at more than 100 people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Taliban"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["an Afghan military compound"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS)","security and defence forces","central Maidan Wardak province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 A suicide car bomb attack kills five members of the Syrian Democratic Forces while they were out on a patrol with U.S. troops in northeastern Syria. (Telegraph)","document":"A suicide car bomb attack has killed five members of a Kurdish-led force while they were out on a patrol with US troopsinnortheastern Syria.\nThe five fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the attack, which occurred near a checkpointon a road near the town of al-Shadadiin Hasakah province,according to UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.\n\n\"A combined US andSyrian partner force convoy was involved in an apparent VBIED attack today inSyria,\" Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition, wroteon Twitter, adding that there were no US casualties.\nThe incident marked the third major attack on SDF andcoalition forces since Donald Trump, the US president, announced he was withdrawing all 2,000 troops from Syria in December.\nLast week a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest outside a restaurant in northern city of Manbij, where US coalition forces were on patrol, killing 16 people including two American soldiers and two American contractors. Three more US servicemen were injured.\nThe attack, which was claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), was the deadliest against US forces since they deployed in Syria in 2015.\nOn January 5, they fired a heat-seeking missile into a group of coalition troops on patrol further south in Deir Ezzor, injuring five British special forces.\nMr Trump announced in a tweetthat Isil had been defeated in Syria and he would pull American forces out of the country.\nThe decision injected new uncertainty into the eight-year-long Syrian war and spurred a flurry of contacts over how a resulting security vacuum will be filled across northern and eastern Syria where the US forces are stationed.\nUS Senator Lindsey Graham said over the weekend that he hoped President Trump would slow their withdrawal from Syria until Isil was destroyed, warning that, if not thought through, the pullout can create an “Iraq on steroids”.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed five members of a Kurdish-led force"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["SDF andcoalition forces"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northeastern Syria","near a checkpointon a road near the town of al-Shadadiin Hasakah province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Two bombs at the Roman Catholic Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Philippines,  kill 20 people, fifteen civilians and five soldiers, and injure 81 others. Abu Sayyaf is suspected to be behind the attack. (Sky News)","document":"The first blast targets a Sunday mass and the second government forces responding to the devastating attack.\nSunday 27 January 2019 19:39, UK\nAt least 20 people have been killed and 81 injured after two bombs exploded at a Catholic cathedral in the Philippines.\nThe first bomb went off in or near the church in Jolo during Sunday mass.\nThis was followed by a second blast outside the building as government forces responded to the attack.\nThe explosions tore away the entrance to the cathedral and ripped through the main hall, shredding pews.\nImages from the scene showed debris and bodies lying on the street outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been targeted by bombs in the past.\nTroops in armoured vehicles sealed off the main road leading to the church, as the wounded were evacuated.\nSome of those injured were airlifted to nearby Zamboanga city.\nThe dead included 15 civilians and five soldiers, according to the authorities, while among the wounded there were 14 soldiers, two police and 61 civilians.\nThe number of those killed is lower than reported earlier after police issued a correction due to double counting.\nIslamic State claimed responsibility.\nDefence secretary Delfin Lorenzana said: \"I have directed our troops to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans.\n\"We will use the full force of the law to bring to justice the perpetrators behind this incident.\"\nThe office of President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila said in a statement: \"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy.\"\nJolo island, in the south of the Philippines, has long been troubled by Abu Sayyaf militants, who are blacklisted by the US and the Philippines as a terrorist group due to years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.\nA Catholic bishop, Benjamin de Jesus, was gunned down by suspected militants outside the cathedral in 1997.\nRegional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana said: \"The motive is surely... terrorism. These are people who do not want peace.\"\nThe attack came nearly a week after a referendum in which voters backed a new Muslim-majority autonomous region in the south of the largely Roman Catholic nation, where the island of Jolo is located.\nThe move is aimed at ending nearly five decades of a separatist insurgency, which has left 150,000 people dead.\nWhile most Muslim areas supported the deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it.\nAs well as the Abu Sayyaf group, which is not part of any peace process, the province is home to a rival rebel faction that is opposed to the autonomy move.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["two bombs"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 20 people have been killed and 81 injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Islamic State"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a Catholic cathedral in the Philippines","in or near the church in Jolo","outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel","outside the building"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Boko Haram kills 60 people in an arson attack in the town Rann. (Reuters)","document":"ABUJA (Reuters) - The Islamist militant group Boko Haram killed at least 60 people in the northeast Nigerian town of Rann on Monday, a day after it was abandoned by the military, Amnesty International and security sources said on Friday.\nThe attack on Rann, home to a camp housing tens of thousands of people displaced by the Islamist insurgency, was one of the group’s bloodiest.\nIt came two weeks after Boko Haram had overrun the same town, driving out Nigerian soldiers and signaling its re-emergence as a force capable of capturing army bases.\nThe bloodshed is a challenge for President Muhammadu Buhari in particular as he seeks a second successive four-year term in an election on Feb. 16, having been elected in 2015 partly on a promise to restore security.\nA Nigerian army spokesman denied that troops had left the town and that Boko Haram had killed the people.\nThe two attacks have driven some 40,000 people to flee, 30,000 of them into nearby Cameroon, according to aid agencies.\n“This attack on civilians who have already been displaced by the bloody conflict may amount to possible war crimes,” Osai Ojigho, Amnesty’s Nigeria director, said in a statement.\n“Witnesses told us that Nigerian soldiers abandoned their posts the day before the attack, demonstrating the authorities’ utter failure to protect civilians.”\nTwo security sources told Reuters that Nigerian troops had returned to Rann along with Cameroonian troops from a multinational task force after the first attack on Jan. 14.\nAfter the Cameroonians went back across the border, the Nigerian soldiers left because they did not have enough troops, weapons or equipment, the sources said.\nThe next day, Boko Haram came. The militants set the town ablaze and executed its elders and traditional leaders, leaving one alive as a witness, one of the security sources said.\nA video of the attack reviewed by Reuters showed people gathering belongings and fleeing, screaming, as the town burned.\nNigerian army soldiers came back to Rann and helped bury some of the dead after Boko Haram had left, Amnesty International and security sources said.\nA surge in attacks in the northeast by Boko Haram and its now more powerful offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province is throwing preparations for the presidential election into disarray.\nDespite the violence, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Tuesday “the current rate of return of these IDPs (internally displaced people) and refugees is encouraging, and this is due to improving security in many areas that were once completely out of bounds”.\nReporting by Paul Carsten, additional reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos and Camillus Eboh in Abuja; Editing by Kevin Liffey\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["town burned"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 60 people","some of the dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Islamist militant group Boko Haram"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the northeast Nigerian town of Rann"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2019 Seven people were killed and 26 injured in a bike bombing at a market in Mokha, Yemen. Houthis were blamed for the attack. (The Straits Times)","document":"DUBAI (AFP) - A bomb attack in a market killed seven Yemeni civilians, including a photographer for a UAE television channel, in the government-controlled town of Mokha, medics and military sources said on Tuesday (Jan 29).\nAt least 20 people were wounded in the overnight blast in the Red Sea town, where pro-government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi rebels are based.\nThe improvised explosive device was planted on a motorcycle parked in the middle of the market, an official in the pro-government forces told AFP.\nSeven people were killed, the official and a hospital source said.\nA photographer for Abu Dhabi TV, Mr Ziad al-Sharabi, was among the dead, the official Saba news agency quoted Information Minister Moammer al-Eryani as saying.\nA correspondent for the same network, Mr Faisal Al-Zabhani, was among the wounded, he said.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Saba blamed it on the Iran-aligned Houthis.\nThe city of Mokha has enjoyed relative calm since coalition-backed government forces seized it from the rebels in July 2017.\nYemen's war escalated in March 2015, when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia and the coalition intervened.\nSince then, the conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people and unleashed the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.\nUN aid officials say 80 per cent of the population - 24 million people - are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["improvised explosive device"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A correspondent for the same network, Mr Faisal Al-Zabhani","killed seven Yemeni civilians","At least 20 people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the Iran-aligned Houthis"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a market"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the government-controlled town of Mokha","the Red Sea town"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 Two people were shot and injured in two individual attacks in Londonderry.(BBC)","document":"The shootings of two men in Londonderry were an attempt to \"control communities through fear and violence\", the PSNI has said. The men were shot in separate incidents in the Ballymagroarty area of Londonderry on Friday evening. The shootings happened within 10 minutes of each other and less than 100 metres apart.  Both men were taken to hospital for treatment.\nIn the first attack, a 24-year-old man was shot in the knee on a grassed area close to Corrib Court.\nThe incident was reported to police at about 20.10 GMT.\nThe second shooting was reported just after 20.20 GMT.\nA 32-year-old man was shot once in the leg on a grassed area near O'Casey Court.  \"We are treating both incidents as paramilitary-style attacks; attacks that were brutal and vicious and will leave these two men with both physical and psychological scars,\" Det Sgt Michelle Boyd said.\n\"These attacks are yet again more examples of how criminal groups seek to control communities through fear and violence.\"\nThe Western Trust said both men were in a stable condition at Altnagelvin hospital in the city.\nSinn Féin councillor Eric McGinley condemned the incident.\n\"There can be no place for the use of guns or gangs of masked men on the streets of our city,\" he said.\n\"All of this is in stark contrast to the good work that is going on in this community.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["10 minutes"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guns"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["a 24-year-old man was shot","A 32-year-old man was shot","The men"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday evening","about 20.10 GMT","after 20.20 GMT"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Ballymagroarty area of Londonderry","a grassed area close to Corrib Court","a grassed area near O'Casey Court"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 Two people are killed and at least five others injured by a suicide car bombing that targeted an African Union Mission base in Somalia. Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for the attack. (AA)","document":"At least three people were killed with more than five others wounded after a suicide car bomb exploded targeting an African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) base in the town of Bardhere, Southwestern region of Gedo on Saturday, officials said.\nAMISOM is a peace keeping mission operated by the AU in Somalia with approval by the United Nations.\nBashir Hassan, a police officer in Bardhere, told Anadolu Agency over the phone that the attack was a suicide car bomb blast which targeted an African Union peacekeeping mission forces base in Bardhere town, killing 3 people including the attacker.\n“What we can confirm you is that the attack was a suicide car bomb blast which exploded near the AMISOM base, killing 3 people including the attacker and 5 other people, including soldiers, were wounded and rushed to hospital for treatment,” Hassan said.\nAMISOM did not comment on the incident.\nSomali-based insurgent group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had killed more than 16 people in the attack.\nThe group also claimed it had killed 10 Kenyan soldiers near the town of Afmadow, in lower Jubba region on Saturday.\nBardhere is an agriculture town located some 343 kilometers (213 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least three people were killed with more than five others wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Somali-based insurgent group al-Shabaab"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["(AMISOM) base"]},{"role":"Location","values":["town of Bardhere, Southwestern region of Gedo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 At the request of Chadian authorities, French Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jets strike a convoy of around 40 pickups of an armed group that entered northern Chad from Libya.  (Reuters)","document":"PARIS (Reuters) - French warplanes struck a rebel convoy in northern Chad on Sunday, helping local troops repel an incursion across the border from Libya, a sign France’s support for President Idriss Deby goes beyond fighting Islamist militants.\nMirage jets struck a column of 40 pickups carrying armed groups from Libya deep into Chadian territory, the French army said in a statement.\n“This intervention at the request of Chadian authorities helped hinder this hostile advance and disperse the column,” it said.\nThe strikes were the first by French jets in support of Chadian troops since the rebel Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic (CCMSR) based in southern Libya increased its activities last year in a bid to overthrow him.\nThe Union of Forces of Resistance (UFR), a rebel Chadian coalition created in 2009 after almost toppling Deby, said it was behind the offensive. CCMSR is a splinter group of the UFR.\n“The aim is to bring Deby down,” a UFR official said. “We thought France would not intervene in Chad’s internal affairs, but it appears that it is offering no solutions for the Chadian people beyond keeping Deby in power to do their dirty work in the region.”\nThe official said two fighters had been killed and two trucks destroyed.\nDeby has faced several rebellions since seizing power in 1990 in a military coup. International observers have questioned the fairness of elections that have kept him in office since and last year he pushed through constitutional reforms that could keep him on office until 2033.\nFrance considers its former colony as vital in the fight against Islamist militants in West Africa and based its 4,500-strong counter-terrorism Operation Barkhane force in the capital N’djamena where the United States also has a base.\nBut Deby’s fight against Islamist militants - he has deployed troops to counter groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in the Sahel and Lake Chad region- has strained his military and hit the oil-dependent economy, leading to growing dissatisfaction in one of the world’s poorest nations.\n“Deby remains the most viable and solid partner in the region. The Chadians are counting on France for the Libyan border,” a French military source said.\nChad’s military command said the operation had neutralized the column of “mercenaries and terrorists” in Chadian territory after earlier operations by the Libyan National Army.\nThe LNA, the military wing of one of Libya’s two rival governments that operates in the east of the country under General Khalifa Haftar, began operations against Chadian rebels at the start of the year.\nHaftar has close ties with France which has backed him against Islamist militants in Libya.\nReporting by John Irish and Sophie Louet; Editing by Robin Pomeroy\n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["two trucks destroyed"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two fighters had been killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["French warplanes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a column of 40 pickups carrying armed groups","a rebel convoy"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Chad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 A Burkinabé military operation reportedly kills 146 jihadists after the Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed 14 people in other attacks. (News24)","document":"Burkina Faso's commander general says armed forces have killed 146 jihadists in three counterattack operations in the northwest near its border with Mali.\nGeneral Moise Minoungou spoke on National Television late on Monday saying armed men entered Kain village early on Monday and killed 14 men and women. He said Burkina Faso's army responded by fighting in Kain, about 80km from Ouahigouya in the north Yatenga province. With air support it also fought in Bahn in the north region and Bomboro in the Boucle du Mouhon region.\nHe said the combined operations killed 146 jihadists fleeing to Mali.\nIslamic extremists have increased attacks in Burkina Faso's Sahel region, also shifting to the forested east near the Niger border.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 146 jihadists","killed 14 men and women"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["armed forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early on Monday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the northwest near its border with Mali","Kain village","the forested east near the Niger border","Kain, about 80km from Ouahigouya in the north Yatenga province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 Four Pakistani police officers are shot dead by a JamaatulAhrar splinter group. Three additional officers are injured. (Reuters)","document":"DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle and killed four officers in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said, in a region once riven by militant violence but since cleared following military crackdowns.\nThe ambush, claimed by the Hizbul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, was the first major attack in the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since a suicide blast killed a candidate in the lead-up to the July general election.\n“The officers were out patrolling the area when six to seven people who were waiting for them opened fire on their vehicle,” senior police official Mohammad Iqbal told Reuters.\n“The assailants were seated at a local tea stall and opened fire when the police vehicle approached.”\nAdvertisement\nIqbal said four police were killed and three people were wounded. Among the wounded is a senior police officer said to be in critical condition.\n“Today Hizbul Ahrar target killers ... made a police vehicle their target,” the group’s spokesman, Aziz Yousafzai, said in a statement sent to Reuters via Whatsapp.\nDera Ismail Khan is on the edge of Pakistan’s former tribal areas that border Afghanistan, large swaths of which were once controlled by the Pakistani Taliban before military operations in 2009 and 2014 ended militant control of the region.\nWriting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four police were killed and three people were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban gunmen"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police vehicle"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northwestern Pakistan"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 At least 27 Iranian Revolutionary Guards are killed after a suicide bombing attack in southeastern Iran. The attack is claimed by Jaish ul-Adl militants. (The New York Times) (Reuters)","document":"TEHRAN  A suicide bomber killed at least 27 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and wounded 13 on a bus in a restive region of southeast Iran onIranian media reported. It was among the deadliest attacks in Iran in years.\nThe Revolutionary Guards, an elite Iranian paramilitary force, quickly blamed the United States for the assault, which came during the week that Iran’s leaders have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the American-backed shah in 1979.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomber"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 27 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and wounded 13"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a bus"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a restive region of southeast Iran"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 At least 46 members of India's security forces are killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up as a convoy of military vehicles drove on a highway in Jammu and Kashmir. (BBC)","document":"India has said it will ensure the \"complete isolation\" of Pakistan after a suicide bomber killed 46 paramilitary police in Indian-administered Kashmir.\nIt claims to have \"incontrovertible evidence\" of its neighbour's involvement but has not provided it.\nPakistan denies any role in the attack by militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is based on its soil.\nThursday's bombing of the convoy was the deadliest attack on Indian forces in the region for decades.\nFederal Minister Arun Jaitley said India would take \"all possible diplomatic steps\" to cut Pakistan off from the international community.\nBut a Pakistani minister has asked India to reveal their evidence, and offered to help them investigate the attack.\nThere has been an insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir since the late 1980s but violence has risen in recent years.\nIn the wake of the attack, authorities have imposed a curfew in parts of Hindu-majority Jammu city after an angry mob vandalised cars in a largely Muslim neighbourhood. Both India and Pakistan claim all of Muslim-majority Kashmir but only control parts of it.\nIndia says that Pakistan has long given safe haven to Jaish-e-Mohammad militants and accused it of having a \"direct hand\" in Thursday's attack.\nIt has called for global sanctions against the group and for its leader, Masood Azhar, to be listed as a terrorist by the UN security council.\nIndia has tried to do this several times in the past but was repeatedly blocked by China, an ally of Pakistan.\nMr Jaitley set out India's determination to hold Pakistan to account when speaking to reporters after attending a security meeting early on Friday.\nHe also confirmed that India would revoke Most Favoured Nation status from Pakistan, a special trading privilege granted in 1996.\nPakistan said it was gravely concerned by the bombing but firmly rejected allegations that it was responsible.  The country's Information Minister, Fawad Chaudry, asked India to show its evidence, and offered to help the investigation into the attack. \"This needs evidence,\" he told broadcaster CNN-News18. \"This needs an investigation.\"\nIndia's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a speech that those behind the attack would pay a \"heavy price\", leading many analysts to expect further action from Delhi. But they say that the government's military options appear limited due to heavy snow across the region.\nAfter a 2016 attack on an Indian army base that killed 19 soldiers, Delhi said it carried out a campaign of \"surgical strikes\" in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, across the de facto border. But a BBC investigation found little evidence militants had been hit. The bomber used a vehicle packed with explosives to ram a convoy of 78 buses carrying Indian security forces on the heavily guarded Srinagar-Jammu highway about 20km (12 miles) from the capital, Srinagar. The bomber is reported to be Adil Dar, a high school dropout who left home in March 2018. He is believed to be between the ages of 19 and 21. Soon after the attack, Jaish-e-Mohammad released a video in which a young man identified as Dar spoke about what he described as atrocities against Kashmiri Muslims. He said he had joined the group in 2018 and was eventually \"assigned\" the task of carrying out the attack in Pulwama. He also said that by the time the video was releasedhe would be in jannat (heaven). Dar is one of many young Kashmiri men who have been radicalised in recent years. On Thursday, main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said that the number of Kashmiri men joining militancy had risen from 88 in 2016 to 191 in 2018. India has been accused of using brutal tactics to put down protests in Kashmir - with thousands of people sustaining eye injuries from pellet guns used by security forces.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombing"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 46"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["a suicide bomber"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["paramilitary police"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Indian-administered Kashmir"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2019 Twin explosions in Idlib, Syria, kill 24 people and injure more than 20. (Daily Sabah)","document":"At least 24 people, including 16 civilians, were killed and more than 25 others were injured after two bomb-laden vehicles exploded on a busy street in Syria's northwestern Idlib city center during rush hour, reports said Monday.\nBoth explosions reportedly took place on Al-Qusoor Street, reports said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blasts killed 24 people. The Edlib Media Center, an activist collective, said the bombings killed 10 and wounded dozens.\nSixteen civilians, including four children, are among those killed, while the identities of four others remain unclear, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.\nSocial media footage showed aid workers carrying away bodies and rescuing wounded civilians amid smoldering wreckage.\nThe first blast occurred in the early afternoon and another followed seconds later. While the first explosion did not cause major harm, the second one caused the death of a large number of people as well as other heavy damages. No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing as yet.\nThe opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, a group of volunteer first responders, said one of its members was wounded.\nThe Syrian Civil Defense group, which arrived at the scene of the incident as response units, noted that the second explosion resulted in numerous casualties as it took place near an area with many civilians.\nThe province of Idlib, which occupies most of the remaining area controlled by groups fighting against the Syrian regime, is largely controlled by al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has wide influence in northern Syria. The region falls within the de-escalation zone agreed as part of the Sochi Agreement reached on Sept. 17 by President Recep Tayyip Erdoan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.\nAccording to the Sochi agreement, a cease-fire in the Idlib region will be preserved, with the withdrawal of heavy arms and radicals from the region. Prior to the agreement, the Assad regime was signaling a grand operation toward Idlib, sparking deep fears in the international community of a new humanitarian crisis.\nThe city has been hit with bombings in recent months that killed or wounded scores of people.\nAlliance commanders say they hundreds of people have been rounded up for suspected links to Bashar al Assad's intelligence services or Daesh sleeper cells who they blame for some of the bombings.\nThey say the wave of blasts in the densely populated region, a haven for tens of thousands of civilians opposed to Assad's rule, aims to destabilize the last opposition bastion remaining after almost eight years of civil war.\nIdlib, which borders Turkey, has also seen an escalation in artillery fire from the Syrian army and allied Iranian-backed militias on rebel-held towns, witnesses said.\nDamascus has vowed to retake every last inch of Syria to cap a string of military gains in the last two years that have recovered almost all rebel-controlled regions with the key assistance of Russian air power. Russia is keen to help Assad regain the entire country, including eventually Idlib, but Tukey, which wants the Syrian leader to leave power, has so far successfully pushed back.\nLast week President Vladimir Putin said Russia, Turkey and Iran had agreed to take unspecified extra steps to clear Idlib of what he called \"a hotbed of terrorists,\" but the Kremlin said there would be no military operation there.\nYet the regime and its supporters have violated the agreement. Since the Sochi agreement in September, more than two dozen civilians have lost their lives in attacks by the regime with many injured.\nSpeaking on the issue last week, Erdoan said that it is important to make a distinction between the moderate opposition and terrorist organizations within the province, emphasizing the delicacy of the situation. \"Our intelligence agency is also working on the issue,\" Erdoan said, adding that the Turkish military observation points in the region also have a key duty. \"They will not give any chance to the terrorist organizations [to manipulate the situation in the region],\" he said.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["two bomb-laden vehicles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 24 people, including 16 civilians, were killed and more than 25 others were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["early afternoon"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Al-Qusoor Street","a busy street in Syria's northwestern Idlib city center"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 Two people are killed and two are injured in a shooting at a youth training center in Arvada Colorado, United States. (CNN)","document":" (CNN) -- Police in Arvada, Colorado, searched for a killer on Sunday, while a school for missionaries mourned the deaths of two of the gunman's victims and prayed for two others whom he wounded.  Investigators were looking for any connections between the shootings and a later assault on a church in Colorado Springs, but police officials would not discuss possible links Sunday afternoon.\n In the Colorado Springs incident, a gunman attacked worshippers, killing one person and wounding four others before being killed by a security staff member, police said.\n \"We are not in a place to confirm any information about any possible similarities to these incidents, being widely reported throughout the media,\" Arvada Police Chief Don Wick told reporters. \"I'm asking that all of our communities be vigilant until we determine who's responsible for these crimes.\"\n Authorities described the Arvada gunman as a white male, roughly 20 years of age, wearing a dark jacket. He may have a beard or mustache and may be wearing glasses and a dark skull cap or beanie, police said.\n Police confirmed that two of the four people shot early Sunday at the live-in training center for young Christian missionaries were dead, and identified them as Tiffany Johnson and Philip Crouse.  At about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, the gunman entered a building where Youth With a Mission members were cleaning up from a Christmas banquet, said Peter Warren, the center's co-founder.\n He asked for housing for the night, Warren said, which Johnson refused to give him.\n \"She said, 'We really can't do that right now,' \" Warren said.\n \"And then he opened fire.\"\n   Police had tried to track the gunman through fresh snow with the help of dogs, but lost his trail in a heavily walked area, deputy police chief Gary Creager told CNN.  Watch police swarm around missionary center \n Johnson, 26, was from Minnesota and Crouse, 24, was from Alaska, police said in a statement. Warren said both Johnson and Crouse died in surgery.  The two other shooting victims are men, ages 22 and 23, police said. One was in critical condition with a bullet wound in his neck and the other was in stable condition with wounds on his legs.\n Paul Filidis of Youth With a Mission's Colorado Springs office identified the wounded men as Charlie Blanch and Dan Griebenow, CNN affiliate KUSA reported. Both are staff members, according to the organization's Web site.\n Johnson has been affiliated with the organization since 2006, and joined the staff in spring 2007, the Web site says.\n Warren said a memorial service for the two dead would likely be held Tuesday or Wednesday. \"These kids were like our kids, you know?\" he told KUSA. \"It's just such a tragedy.\"\n Warren said the center was bringing the 80 or so other people who live at the Arvada campus to the group's mountain campus in Golden, Colorado.\n \"We're just going to be honest, and pray for one another, and cry with one another,\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two of the gunman's victims","two of the four people","The two other shooting victims","Charlie Blanch and Dan Griebenow","the two dead","the deaths of two","two others whom he wounded","killing one person and wounding four others before being killed by a security staff member"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["gunman"]},{"role":"Date","values":["12:30 a.m. Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Arvada, Colorado"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have pulled back to take up new positions defending the town of Musa Qala during a battle with the Afghan National Army and the International Security Assistance Force. (BBC News)","document":"Afghan and Nato forces are trying to recapture the town, the only major Afghan centre in Taleban hands.\nTwelve Taleban fighters, two children and a British soldier are reported killed in the battle. A second Nato soldier died in the area on Sunday. The Taleban still control the town but have been forced back, reports say.\nA statement from the Afghan defence ministry identified the two local Taleban leaders as Mullah Mateen Akhond and Mullah Rahim Akhond.\nA defence ministry spokesman said the battle was going well so far.\n\"The reports which we have received from the site so far indicate that most of the enemy personnel have laid down their weapons and are leaving the area in civilian clothes,\" said the spokesman, Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi.\nThe Defence Ministry's claims could not be independently confirmed. Heavy bombardments\nThe joint force of Afghan, British and US troops is reported to have Musa Qala surrounded from all sides and is edging closer to the town itself.\nThe assault was launched late on Friday and there have been fierce fire fights and heavy bombardments since then.\nAfghan troops are playing a key part in the operation\nExchanges of gunfire on Sunday morning were later reported to have died down.\nA British military spokesman said Nato forces were helping to pave the way for Afghan troops to seize and hold the town.\n\"Once the door is kicked in, the Afghan army will enter,\" said Lt Col Richard Eaton.\nThe Afghan defence ministry called on the Taleban fighters to lay down their weapons \"or face waves of attacks\".\n'Iconic town'\nThe Taleban have held the town since February, when they retook it after British troops pulled out last year.\nIt is the only major town held by the Taleban and is at the centre of a major opium poppy growing area.\nThe heavy blows from the ground and the air seem to have forced the Taleban to pull back closer to the centre of Musa Qala, but they say they withdrew from two frontline villages because of civilian casualties there.\nNonetheless, Taleban commanders have said they will defend the town from fortified positions covered by minefields.\nMusa Qala is believed to be mostly empty of civilians, many of whom fled after tribal elders were told of the attack and warning leaflets were dropped from the air, says the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul.\nUK Defence Minister Des Browne, who is in Kabul, said the town had taken on iconic importance.\nThe Taleban took it over in February, in contravention of a controversial deal brokered with tribal elders when British troops withdrew.\nIt has since become the main centre of drugs trading in Afghanistan, our correspondent says.\nThe assault is the first major operation where the new Afghan army is playing a leading role.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunfire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Twelve Taleban fighters, two children and a British soldier are reported killed","A second Nato soldier died"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Afghan and Nato forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["late on Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Taleban"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghan centre"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 AlQaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb claims responsibility for two simultaneous bombings in Algiers, Algeria, causing at least 62 deaths and more injuries. (CNN)","document":" ALGIERS, Algeria (CNN) -- Rescuers are sifting through the rubble of the United Nations headquarters in Algiers hoping to find survivors after a powerful bomb ripped off the building's facade and leveled nearby U.N. offices. Rescuers and bomb experts search for survivors in the rubble of a destroyed building.\n It was one of two suspected car bombs that struck Algiers within 10 minutes of each other.\n The death toll is unclear: the official government count is at least 26, but hospital sources in Algiers told CNN affiliate BFM-TV that 76 people were killed in the two blasts. A statement from the United Nations said 45 people were reported killed.\n Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni blamed a militant Islamic group with ties to al Qaeda for the attacks, which also targeted a building housing Algeria's Constitutional Council and Supreme Court.\n In a posting on an Islamist Web site, the group al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility.\n CNN could not immediately corroborate that claim, but the Web site is known to carry messages, claims and videos from al Qaeda and other militant groups.\n In the posting, the bombers were identified as Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Othman and Abdel Rahman Abu Abdel Nasser al-Asimi. It said two trucks were filled with \"no less than 800 kg (1,763 pounds) of explosives.\"\n The group called the operation \"another successful conquest and a second epic that the knights of faith have dictated with their blood, defending the wounded Islamic nation and in defiance to the Crusaders and their agents, the slaves of America and the sons of France.\"\n At least 10 U.N. staffers were among those killed, according to U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe.\n The offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees -- located across the street from the U.N. headquarters -- were leveled by a blast that struck about 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday.\n   \"Our offices are basically destroyed now, nothing works,\" UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said from its Geneva headquarters. Watch his full interview  He said rescuers are working into the night trying to get to the trapped U.N. workers. \"It's a very serious situation still with the U.N. in Algiers,\" he said.\n In a strongly worded statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what he called \"an abjectly cowardly strike against civilian officials serving humanity's highest ideals under the U.N. banner.\"\n \"The perpetrators of these crimes will not escape the strongest possible condemnation -- and ultimate punishment -- by Algerian authorities and the international community,\" Ban said in the written statement.\n He said he has sent senior advisers and other top U.N. officials to head to Algiers to assist in the investigation and rescue effort.\n Most of those killed in the coordinated attacks were victims of the first suspected car bombing near the Constitutional Council -- which oversees elections -- and Supreme Court in the Algiers neighborhood of Ben Aknoun, according to the state-run Algeria Press Agency.\n That blast struck a bus outside the targeted building, killing many of those on board, the news agency reported.\n One man said he heard the first blast then the second exploded in front of him. \"I saw the trees falling and the glass shattering in front of me. I had to run away from the car,\" he said.\n Zerhouni said the attack was the work of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the same group that took responsibility for an attack in April in downtown Algiers that killed 33 people.\n That group also uses the name al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb after merging with al Qaeda earlier this year. It abandoned small-scale attacks in favor of headline-grabbing blasts after it joined with al Qaeda.\n CNN International Security Correspondent Paula Newton said the merger combined the expertise of Algerian guerrillas with the operational ability of al Qaeda in North Africa, enabling the group to penetrate the usually extensive security in high-profile areas of Algiers.\n She said the group's goal is to destabilize countries like Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which it sees as enemies of the Islamic state.\n Zerhouni said police interrogations of GSPC members arrested in the wake of the April attack revealed that Algeria's Constitutional Council and Supreme Court were on a list of GSPC targets.\n Algeria, which has a population of 33 million, is still recovering from more than a decade of violence that began after the military government called a halt to elections which an Islamist party was poised to win.\n Tens of thousands of people died in the unrest. Although the country has remained relatively peaceful, recent terrorist attacks have raised fears of a slide back to violence.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["car bombs","no less than 800 kg (1,763 pounds) of explosives"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["76 people were killed"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["the group al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb","Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Othman and Abdel Rahman Abu Abdel Nasser al-Asimi"]},{"role":"Date","values":["about 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a building housing Algeria's Constitutional Council and Supreme Court","the United Nations headquarters"]},{"role":"Location","values":["ALGIERS, Algeria"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 A United States Marine Corps reservist is found guilty of killing an Iraqi soldier while they stood guard together in Fallujah. (AP via Google News)","document":"CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP)  A Marine reservist was found guilty Thursday of killing an Iraqi soldier while they stood watch together at a guard post in Fallujah.\nLance Cpl. Delano Holmes, 22, of Indianapolis, was convicted of negligent homicide, but acquitted of the greater charge of unpremeditated homicide. He was also convicted of making a false official statement.\nA panel of three officers and five enlisted Marines returned the verdict after two days of deliberating over whether the Dec. 31, 2006, killing of Pvt. Munther Muhammed Hassin was an act of murder or self-defense.\nHolmes made no remarks in court immediately after the verdict, a Marines spokeswoman said.\nA sentencing hearing was set to begin immediately following the verdict. Holmes faced up to eight years in confinement, reduction to the rank of private, forfeiture of pay and allowances and dishonorable discharge.\nHolmes was accused of stabbing to death Hassin. His attorney claimed it was an act of self-defense after Hassin allegedly opened his cell phone and then lit a cigarette. Prosecutors contended it was murder.\nHolmes' attorney, Steve Cook, told jurors the men were not supposed to display any illuminated objects because of the threat of sniper fire, and Holmes tried repeatedly to get Hassin to extinguish the cigarette.\nHolmes told investigators he knocked the cigarette from the soldier's hand and the two got into a fight, falling to the ground.\nDuring the struggle, Holmes felt Hassin reaching for his loaded AK-47, so he stabbed him with a bayonet that doubles as a utility knife that was attached to his jacket, Cook has said.\nProsecutors, however, said that Holmes killed the soldier and then set up the scene, firing the soldier's AK-47. Capt. Brett Miner said Holmes \"mauled\" Hassin with 17 stab wounds, 26 slashes and a chop to the face that nearly severed his nose.\n\"Not a scratch. Not a blemish. ... There is not a mark on him. There is no self-defense,\" Miner said. \"There can be lawful killings during a time of war. This is not a lawful killing.\"\nHolmes, who is being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton, enlisted in the Marine reserves in May 2004 and was on his first deployment in Iraq, Cook said. He is from the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, based out of Lansing, Mich.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["a bayonet"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing an Iraqi soldier"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Dec. 31, 2006"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a guard post in Fallujah"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 A bomb explodes on the Rajdhani Express in Assam, India near Chungajan killing five passengers. (AP via Google News)","document":"By  WASBIR HUSSAIN    2 days ago GAUHATI, India (AP)  A bomb tore through a moving train in India's remote northeast Thursday, killing five passengers and injuring four, an official said.\nThe New Delhi-bound super-fast Rajdhani Express started from the eastern town of Dibrugarh in Assam state and had just crossed a station near Chungajan, 168 miles east of state capital Gauhati, when the bomb exploded, Indian Railway spokesman T. Rabha told The Associated Press. It jolted passengers out of their sleep, he said.\n\"A car near the luggage car took the whole impact of the blast before dawn Thursday. Five passengers were killed and four others wounded,\" Rabha said.\nNo one claimed responsibility for the attack and authorities did not immediately blame any group. But several rebel groups are fighting for autonomy or independence in the region.\nThose militants say the national government exploits the northeast's rich natural resources while doing little for the area's indigenous people, most of whom are ethnically closer to nearby Myanmar and China than to the rest of India.\n\"We suspect the bomb was planted inside the train from early examinations, but we cannot conclude for sure just now,\" said P. Saloi, a police superintendent.\nAfter the blast, 31 passengers in the affected car were shifted to another car and the train resumed its journey.\nThe Rajdhani Express is a popular air-conditioned train connecting India's northeast with the capital. It has a capacity of 900 but it was not full at the time of the explosion, Rabha said.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing five passengers and injuring four"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a moving train"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the eastern town of Dibrugarh in Assam state"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 At least 50 people are killed by an explosion at a mosque in northern Pakistan. (CNN)","document":" LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) -- Police raided an Islamic school and arrested seven students hours after a blast in a mosque in northern Pakistan left at least 50 dead and dozens injured, according to an Associated Press report.\nA man, right, mourns the death of his two sons in a suicide attack near Peshawar that killed at least 50.\n A bomb, packed with ball-bearings and nails, tore through Eid prayers at a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers northeast of Peshawar on Friday, targeting Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, former Pakistani interior minister, local police told CNN.\n The blast left blood-stained clothes, hats and shoes as well as body parts and pieces of flesh scattered across the mosque, according to reports.\n   The attack is the most recent in a series of attacks in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and occurred near Sherpao's residence in Charsadda -- an area approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) northeast of the city of Peshawar.  Watch what's known about the blast \n Police investigators say Taliban or al Qaeda elements could have been involved and they believe the former minister was targeted over his supervision of operations against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas including the restive NWFP.\n       This attack is the deadliest in Pakistan since 136 people were killed in the southern port city of Karachi on October 18 in a suicide bombing targeting the convoy of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister.  See photos from the blast's aftermath \n Bhutto returned to the country after eight years in self-imposed exile ahead of January parliamentary elections.\n   The attack comes in the midst of continued operations by the Pakistani army to rout out militants in the swat valley in the north of the country, an area the government considers a front-line in the so-called global war on terror.\n A former tourist destination about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Islamabad, The Swat Valley has been plagued by violence and has become a hotbed for militants. Earlier this month, the army said it has retaken towns seized by militants over the summer, killing 290 and capturing 140.\n   The attack also comes less than a week after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a six-week-old state of emergency he said was necessary to ensure the country's stability but that critics said was a move to stifle the country's judiciary, curb the media and secure more power.\n While Musharraf has promised free and fair parliamentary elections, continued instability in the tribal areas and the threat of attack on large crowds has kept people from attending political rallies and dampened the country's political process. Campaigners from various political parties say fewer people are coming out to show their support.\n The president -- who survived two assassination attempts in December 2003 -- denounced Friday's attack, speaking out against what he said was a small number of Muslim extremists who would carry out such an act, according to a report from the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan. He ordered security and intelligence agencies to find those responsible.\n A spokesperson for the U.N. said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemns the attack and he \"urges all political forces in Pakistan to unite against the scourge of terrorism and to act together to create a peaceful environment ahead of the Parliamentary elections.\"    This is the second attempt on Sherpao's life since April, when a suicide bomber blew himself up just a few feet from Sherpao during a political rally, injuring him and killing at least 28 people.\n The APP reported that the blast was caused by a suicide bomber inside the mosque, as people were gathering for religious observances of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim celebration of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.\n \"We were saying prayers when this huge explosion occurred,\" said Shaukat Ali, a 26-year-old survivor of the blast whose white cloak and pants were torn and spattered with blood, an AP report said.\n Despite security measures at the mosque, the bomber was praying in a row of worshippers when he detonated the explosive, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said, the report added.\n A Peshawar hospital was wracked with chaos as the injured arrived in pickup trucks, ambulance sirens wailed and the wounded screamed for help, the report said. The bomb contained between 13-17 pounds of explosives and was filled with nails and ball bearings to maximize casualties, said the head of the bomb unit at the scene, who declined to give his name.  Sherpao and his two sons were in the first row of the mosque, the APP report said. Mustafa Khan Sherpao had leg injuries while Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao \"escaped unhurt.\"\n Sherpao was Pakistan's interior minister -- the country's top civilian security official -- before Musharraf announced a caretaker government in November ahead of elections. He heads the breakaway political group Pakistan People's Party-Sherpao, is a vocal critic of religious extremism, pro-Musharraf and a candidate in upcoming elections.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["A bomb, packed with ball-bearings and nails"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 50"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Taliban or al Qaeda elements"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, former Pakistani interior minister"]},{"role":"Location","values":["a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers northeast of Peshawar","Pakistan's North West Frontier Province","near Peshawar","Peshawar hospital","near Sherpao's residence in Charsadda"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2007 A suicide bombing attack in Baiji, Iraq kills at least 34. (CNN)","document":" BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Dozens of people picking up cylinders of cooking gas were victims of a suicide car bomb attack Tuesday morning in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji.\n The explosion killed at least 25 people and wounded 80 others, a Salaheddin police official told CNN.\n A suicide car bomber slammed into a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and members of a local Awakening Council -- a grass-roots movement that fights al Qaeda in Iraq.\n A number of people were killed in secondary explosions when cooking gas cylinders exploded, the police official said.    Iraqi security forces and U.S.-led coalition forces were on the scene of the attack. A U.S. military statement said the casualty toll was 20 dead and 80 wounded.  Watch medics care for injured Iraqis \n \"The enemy is making last-ditch efforts to derail and discredit the local Iraqi security forces by targeting innocent citizens of Baiji,\" said Lt. Col. Peter Wilhelm, commander of the 1st Battalion, 327th Regiment.\n Baiji Police Chief Saad Nufoos was dismissed from his post as a result of the attack, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.\n Baiji is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Baghdad.\n   In a second suicide attack, a bomber blew himself up in the middle of a funeral procession in western Baquba, killing nine people and wounding 20 others, a Baquba police official said.  Casualties included members of another Awakening Council.     Among the dead was the local head of the Brigades of 20th Revolution, a former Sunni insurgent group that is now an ally of the U.S. military.  See damage and injuries from both bombings \n According to police, the funeral was for Auday Mohammed Hassan, also an Awakening Council member whom the U.S. military mistakenly killed hours earlier.  Baquba is in Diyala province about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Baghdad.  Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters have launched aggressive attacks against Awakening Councils in Diyala province in recent weeks.\n Meanwhile, the U.S. military said that 13 insurgents were killed and 27 others were detained in raids Monday and Tuesday targeting al Qaeda in Iraq.\n \"We continue to disrupt al Qaeda networks that are conducting attacks against the Iraqi people and the security forces that protect them,\" said Maj. Winfield Danielson, spokesman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, the formal name for the U.S.-led forces.\n \"Operations like these show that, while al Qaeda remains a threat, Iraqi and coalition forces will take the fight to the terrorists, diminishing their ability to attack innocent civilians.\"\n Also Tuesday, the Turkish military said its forces have killed between 150 and 175 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq operations this month.\n   In a statement, the military said that more than 200 Kurdish rebel positions were struck in Iraq's Kurdish region.\n Turkey has been targeting rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has been launching cross-border attacks against Turkey from Iraq.\n Jamal Abdullah, the spokesman of Iraq's Kurdish regional government, denied reports that strikes took place Tuesday.\n He said that Turkish surveillance aircraft carried out a reconnaissance mission over the Iraqi border near a village in Duhuk province.  E-mail to a friend CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Talia Kayali contributed to this report. All About Al Qaeda in Iraq  Suicide Attacks  Iraq War  Kurdish Politics","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["suicide car bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 25 people and wounded 80 others","20 dead and 80 wounded","its forces"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["A suicide car bomber"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders"]},{"role":"Location","values":["northern Iraqi city of Baiji"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 In Kosovo, a Jordanian UN police officer opens fire upon a convoy of UN police officers killing two female Americans and injuring eleven others. The attack reportedly stemmed from an argument between American and Jordanian UN police over Iraq policies. (BBC)","document":"UN officials have confirmed that the incident began when Jordanian police fired on vehicles carrying US police.\nThe US officers returned fire and two Americans and one Jordanian were killed and 11 others were wounded.\nThe Jordanians could not be formally interviewed until the UN waived their right to diplomatic immunity.\nUN officials have denied rumours that a quarrel about the war in Iraq sparked the gunfight.\n \"As far as we know, there was no communication between the officer who fired and the group of victims,\" AP news agency quoted UN spokesman, Neural Singh, as saying.\nThe shooting came a day after King Abdullah of Jordan said during a visit to the United States that the war in Iraq had created unprecedented animosity towards Americans across the Middle East. The UN uses more than 3,000 international police to maintain order between Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians.\nBut it has confirmed no Serbs or Albanians were involved in the latest shoot-out, which took place in the compound of a prison in Mitrovica.\nSpecial police unit\nThe incident occurred as the US officers left the detention centre after undergoing initial training. They had only been in Kosovo for 10 days.\nThe UN says that as they left the compound, at least one member of a Jordanian special police unit opened fire on the US vehicles.\nThe Americans returned fire. Two female Americans and one male Jordanian died. UN police commissioner in Kosovo Stefan Feller said that among those killed was a member of the prison's management staff and a member of the special police unit.\nTwo of the injured are in a serious condition. Four Jordanian officers are being held as witnesses to the incident.\n'Drop the gun!'\nDoctor Milan Ivanov told the BBC that wounds to the injured were predominantly in the chest and abdomen and \"were caused by firearms and possibly explosive devices\".\nA witness to the incident quoted by the Associated Press news agency said he heard gunshots followed by the cries of American officers yelling, \"Drop the gun! Drop the gun!\"\nThe BBC's Nick Hawton in Pristina says the incident could put fresh pressure on the UN, which has also been accused of falling behind in its plan for political reform in the province.\nThe top UN official in Kosovo, Harry Holier, said he was \"deeply shocked and dismayed\" over the incident. The UN took charge of the Serbian province of Kosovo after an 11-week air war, in which Nato forces aimed to push back Serbian troops accused of war crimes against the ethnic Albanians.\nThe divided town of Mitrovica was the scene of fierce fighting between the two ethnic groups in March.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gun"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["two Americans and one Jordanian were killed and 11 others were wounded","Two of the injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Jordanian police"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["vehicles carrying US police"]},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 Two car bombs explode outside the General Security headquarters of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, killing nine and wounding 125. (AP) (CNN)","document":"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior Saudi official has said the Saudi government believes al Qaeda is responsible for the suicide bombings in Riyadh on Wednesday.\nThe attempt to detonate multiple bombs at once \"fits the pattern of an al Qaeda operation,\" the official said, adding that al Qaeda has threatened Saudis before.\n\"Who else sends suicide bombers to blow up cars in the midst of urban centers? Who else has publicly said we are going after the Saudi state,\" the official said. \"Who else has publicly said they are planning to do more of these things? You put it all together and that's the end of it.\"\nThe bomb which detonated in the Saudi capital ripped through a five-story building Wednesday and could be heard up to a half-mile away.\nThe Interior Ministry said four people were killed in the blast and about 150 were injured. Earlier reports from hospital sources had indicated 10 people were killed, and eyewitnesses said the bomber was blown apart in the explosion. The bomber attempted to drive an explosive-packed car into the Traffic Department building, which houses police offices, at around 2 p.m. local time, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.\nHe was stopped by officers about 30 meters from site and outside the old General Security building, where the bomber set off the explosion, the ministry said.\nThe dead include a civil servant, two security officers and an 11-year-old Syrian girl, Interior Ministry officials announced. Of the 148 injured, 45 remained hospitalized Wednesday night and three of those were in critical condition, the ministry said. Television pictures from the scene showed the entire front of the building had been shattered. Burned-out and damaged cars littered the area.\nThis is the first time terrorists have targeted a Saudi government facility, the official said, adding that foreigners do not frequent the area.\nBut he pointed out that the planning of the attack \"was not as effective as it could have been,\" citing the fact that several individuals abandoned their vehicles when chased by authorities, and did not have a back-up plan.\nThe \"clumsiness\" of the attacks, including the fact that the bombers might have had the wrong target, indicate the operation was undertaken by the \"second echelon\" of al Qaeda leadership, the official said.\nThe Saudi government has been on alert for a possible attack for some time, the official said, adding they are \"still on high state of alert\" for further attacks.\nLast week the U.S. State Department ordered most of its personnel in the kingdom and all family members out of the country.\nU.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in Riyadh Wednesday, said, \"The terrible bombing here in Riyadh today showed the wisdom of that decision.\"\nArmitage said the United States and Saudi Arabia shared information about the latest threats as part of ongoing cooperation in combating terror.\nSaudi Arabia has mounted a massive effort to combat terrorists in the kingdom since deadly attacks last May and November.\nA senior Interior Ministry official said that authorities, tipped off that six explosions had been planned, had found and defused five of the bombs.\nOn Tuesday, Saudi security forces defused two truck bombs outside Riyadh, a security source said, bringing the number of car bombs seized in the kingdom to five within a week.\nThe vehicles were discovered late Monday at Shuaib Juraidal in Rumhiyah village, 56 miles (90 kilometers) east of Riyadh.\nAfter the two vehicles were found, security forces and helicopters searched the area for armed men, who fled the area in a jeep, residents told Arab News.\nOn Sunday, an Interior Ministry official announced the arrest of eight suspects linked to recent deadly clashes with security forces and car bombs. (Full story)\nThe Saudi Press Agency quoted the official giving details of three seized vehicles packed with thousands of pounds of explosives, including one vehicle authorities had been searching for since February.\nSaudi police set up several checkpoints in Riyadh. -- CNN's Caroline Faraj and State Department Producer Elise Labott contributed to this story","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["an explosive-packed car"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["four people were killed in the blast and about 150 were injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["al Qaeda"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday","around 2 p.m. local time"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["the Traffic Department building"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Riyadh"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 Three car bombs explode outside police stations in Basra, killing 68 people and wounding over 100 more. Iraqi officials blame suicide bombers for the terrorism. 23 of the casualties are school children.  A fourth car bomb explodes in Zubeir, south of Basra, killing three and wounding four. British soldiers assisting the wounded are pelted with stones, injuring four, two seriously. (BBC) (NYT)","document":"The first blasts - apparently suicide bombings - occurred outside three police stations in Basra city centre during Wednesday's morning rush hour.\nMany of the dead and injured were children travelling in passing buses on their way to school.\nA fourth attack south of Basra is said to have killed three Iraqis and wounded five UK soldiers. Elsewhere in Iraq, the restive central city of Falluja has seen fresh clashes between insurgents and US troops.\nMeanwhile, the Danish foreign ministry says a Danish man kidnapped in Iraq last week has been found dead.\nMost of the victims in Basra died in what the mayor of the city described as suicide car bombings.\n                            Basra bombs\nPolice under fire\nTwo police stations in the Ashar district and one in the Old City were hit in near-simultaneous attacks.\nA wounded Iraqi told Reuters news agency that he heard a huge explosion as he stood at the door of his house.\n\"I looked around and saw my neighbour lying dead on the floor, torn apart,\" he said.\n\"I saw a minibus full of children on fire - 15 of the 18 passengers were killed and three badly wounded.\"\nCondemnation\nAt least 100 people are thought to have been wounded in the attacks targeting the British-controlled city.\nUK soldiers who tried to assist casualties were stoned by protesters who blamed the British for failing to provide security.\nDistraught Iraqis stoned coalition forces trying to help\nBritish officials do not think local Shias were responsible for the explosions, but blame them on \"al-Qaeda type elements or former regime loyalists\".\nBriefing reporters in London, one official said: \"The Shias have broadly accepted the British presence in Basra and I do not think this has changed.\"\nShortly after the Basra bombings, two car bombs hit a police academy in the town of Zubair, about 25km (16 miles) to the south.\nThat attack killed three Iraqis and wounded five British soldiers - one of them seriously - a UK official said.\nThe BBC's Dominic Hughes in Iraq says that although Iraqi police have been targeted by insurgents in the past, Basra had so far escaped major unrest.\nUK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters in London the insurgents would be defeated and that the transfer of power to Iraqis, scheduled for June, would not be affected.\n\tThere is as yet no information about the perpetrators or a\nmotive for the killing [of Danish citizen]\n \tDanish Foreign Ministry\nMissing Danish man dead\nIraqi Interior Minister Samir al-Sumeidi said the attacks bore the \"fingerprints\" of those who carried out the bombings in Irbil and Karbala - in which hundreds died in February and March.\nUS officials have blamed al-Qaeda-linked groups for these and other bombings in Iraq.\nMeanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said Italian troops will stay on after the Iraqi handover, to help improve security.\nSpain, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras have said they will withdraw their troops from the country.\nFalluja attack\nIn Falluja, a city west of Baghdad held by Sunni militants, about 40 fighters attacked besieging US troops early on Wednesday.\nThe gunmen struck in the north of the city, mounting a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Explosions could be heard throughout Falluja as marines were put on high alert.\nUS Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned on Tuesday that coalition troops would not wait indefinitely for gunmen to surrender in Falluja. He suggested the chance of a peaceful outcome was remote as militants were not involved in the negotiations.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bombs","suicide bombings"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["15 of the 18 passengers were killed and three badly wounded","Many of the dead and injured","A wounded Iraqi","my neighbour","killed three Iraqis and wounded five British soldiers","Missing Danish man","100 people are thought to have been wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday's morning"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a police academy","the town of Zubair"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outside three police stations in Basra city centre","south of Basra","London","the town of Zubair, about 25km (16 miles) to the south","Two police stations in the Ashar district and one in the Old City"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 Three car bombs explode outside police stations in Basra, killing 68 people and wounding over 100 more. Iraqi officials blame suicide bombers for the terrorism. 23 of the casualties are school children.  A fourth car bomb explodes in Zubeir, south of Basra, killing three and wounding four. British soldiers assisting the wounded are pelted with stones, injuring four, two seriously. (BBC) (NYT)","document":" BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 21  The suicide attacks in Basra on Wednesday shattered a week of relative calm in Iraq, bringing anger, mourning and upheaval to a mostly Shiite southern city that has been spared the worst of the violence in the yearlong American occupation.  Local officials in Basra said the death toll from the attacks rose to 68 by afternoon, including as many as 23 children on their way to school. More than 100 people, among them four British soldiers, were wounded in five explosions. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["death toll from the attacks rose to 68","More than 100 people, among them four British soldiers, were wounded"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Basra"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 A bomb in Baghdad's Sadr City market kills 12 Iraqis. In a separate incident, five US soldiers are killed in a rocket attack on a military base north of Baghdad. (CNN) (AP)","document":"BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. Marines in charge of Fallujah have no plans for an imminent strike on insurgents in the Iraqi city, and want to give the negotiation process \"more time,\" according to a Marine official.\nSpeaking after a Marine command meeting in Fallujah Saturday, Col. John Coleman said the Marines had the power to take the city at any time, however military action could hurt the rebuilding process.\nColeman also said military action could greatly harm Fallujah and its residents.\nElsewhere, two U.S. sailors died Saturday after a small boat they boarded off Basra, Iraq, exploded, a U.S. Navy spokeswoman said.\nThe two were part of a seven-member boarding team. Four others were wounded.\nThe explosion was the first of three at Iraq's main oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. The blasts occurred shortly before 6:20 p.m. (10:20 a.m. ET).\nTwenty minutes after the blast flipped the small boat and tossed the sailors into the water, security officers intercepted two other boats as they approached the terminal.\nEach exploded near moored ships, the Navy said. The coalition believes the boat attacks were coordinated.\nTensions remained high in Fallujah Saturday as U.S. top civilian administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer went to the city as part of the discussions to bring peace to the town.\n Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor would not disclose who Bremer met with during his visit.\nBrig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said that the progress in Fallujah so far has been \"one-sided\" as city leaders have failed to deliver on a number of promises.\n\"We had an expectation that the leadership would stand up and condemn those responsible for the violence inside Fallujah,\" Kimmitt said. \"It has not happened.\"\nHe said the insurgents facing U.S. Marines in and around the city have failed to surrender their heavy weapons, as negotiators promised, and have continued to shoot at the American troops despite the cease-fire. Nor have officials begun to probe the March 31 attack on four American security contractors, whose slaying and mutilation prompted the U.S. move against the insurgents there earlier this month, he said.\nThe Marines have continued to observe the cease-fire, shooting only when fired upon, Kimmitt said.\nFriday night, the Marines and coalition forces launched a rare mortar strike and a gunship attack on insurgent positions south of Fallujah, Coleman said.\n The Marine colonel estimated as many as 30 insurgents were killed in the AC-130 gunship strike.\nEarlier Saturday, a mortar attack killed at least 12 Iraqis in a crowded market in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.\n It was the first of the day's series of attacks that left at least 28 people dead, including five U.S. soldiers and the two sailors. The market attack, which also wounded at least 25 people, prompted a mass demonstration in the streets of the largely Shiite neighborhood, a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Video from the scene showed a mangled vehicle, surrounded by mobs of angry men shouting at the photographer. Other Iraqis collected body parts from pools of blood on the street. A dead horse lay on the curb beside a street vendor. Elsewhere, five U.S. soldiers were killed and six others wounded Saturday morning in a rocket attack north of Baghdad, a senior coalition official told CNN. In the Sunni stronghold of Tikrit, a roadside bomb detonated outside the 1st Infantry Division base, killing four Iraqis -- two police and two civilians -- and wounding 16 others, according to Master Sgt. Robert Powell.\nFarther south in Karbala, coalition forces killed five attackers Saturday morning after they fired at the coalition base camp with mortars, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. There were no coalition casualties.\nCounting the deaths reported Saturday, 714 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq war -- 516 from hostile fire, 198 in nonhostile incidents. Of those, 575 died after President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1 -- 405 in hostile fire, 170 in nonhostile incidents.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["mortar attack","rocket attack"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed at least 12 Iraqis","wounded at least 25 people","Four others","five U.S. soldiers were killed and six others wounded","five attackers"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["north of Baghdad"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 In Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, gunmen kill five Westerners and a Saudi security guard in a shooting spree and car chase. (BBC)","document":"Two Americans, two Britons, at least one Australian and a Saudi national guard are among the dead.\nThe attackers are reported to have called themselves \"mujahideen\", hinting at possible links with al-Qaeda.\nLocal reports said one body was dragged through the streets by a car before Saudi security forces killed three of the gunmen in a shootout.\nThe attack began at offices just outside a petrochemical plant partly owned by the US firm Exxon-Mobil.\nSaudi Arabia said the three of the gunmen worked at the site and used their entry passes to gain access, also sneaking a fourth attacker in with them.\nA McDonalds hamburger restaurant was peppered with gunfire and a pipe bomb was reportedly thrown at the international school.\nThere was also reported to be an exchange of fire with police outside the Holiday Inn.\n'Fired at random'\nIn a statement, the Saudi interior ministry said: \"At 7am (0400GMT) on Saturday, four men entered the headquarters of a Saudi contractor in Yanbu and fired at random on Saudis and foreigners.\n\"Security forces chased them and they took refuge in residential areas and hijacked some cars. Three of them were killed and a fourth was wounded.\n\"There were a number of deaths and injuries among Saudis and foreigners.\"\nAt least four of the dead were oil engineers working for Swedish-Swiss engineering giant ABB.  Another was sub-contracted to work for it.\nThe US embassy confirmed that two Americans had died, while the UK Foreign Office confirmed the deaths of two Britons.\nA spokesman for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said an Australian national was believed to have been killed. Local hospitals reported that 28 people, mostly Saudis, were injured.\n'Mujahideen'\nA media adviser to the Saudi embassy in London, Jamal Kashoggi, said the gunmen had shouted, \"We are the mujahideen\", citing eyewitness reports.\nHe said this was how al-Qaeda activists in Saudi Arabia described themselves.\nSaudi Arabia has seen a year-long wave of Islamist militancy, targeting mainly foreigners.\nMore than 50 people have been killed in suicide bombings in the capital Riyadh, including an attack on a security building last month.\nBut this is the first attack by anti-Western groups on an oil facility in Saudi Arabia.\nThe BBC's Paul Wood in Cairo says it will send shockwaves through the expatriate community and the Saudi Royal family.\nYanbu, together with Jubail, is home to much of the kingdom's oil refining and petrochemicals industries.\nEarlier this month, the US urged its citizens to leave Saudi Arabia after issuing a warning of \"credible indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and\nWestern interests in Saudi Arabia\".\nThe Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said the incident would strengthen his country's resolve \"to eradicate terrorist activity and to combat this evil wherever we find it\".","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["gunfire and a pipe bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed three of the gunmen","Two Americans, two Britons, at least one Australian and a Saudi national guard are among the dead","28 people, mostly Saudis, were injured","At least four of the dead"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["mujahideen"]},{"role":"Date","values":["7am (0400GMT) on Saturday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Saudis and foreigners","A McDonalds hamburger restaurant","international school"]},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 The separatist region of Ajaria attempts to sever its links from Georgia by blowing up the three bridges connecting it to the rest of the country over the Choloki River. (AP)","document":"Tbilisi, Georgia   Adzharian forces blew up the three major bridges connecting their recalcitrant province with the rest of Georgia in what their leader said Sunday was a preventive measure against Georgian military action.\n The bridge over the Choloki River that forms the internal border with Adzharia was destroyed, footage aired by Russian television network RTR showed. A segment of the bridge still protruded from the Georgian side of the river, but the rest was reduced to rubble.\n The destruction cut off all auto traffic and dramatically increased tensions in the volatile region.\n Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze called the decision to blow up the bridges in the Kobuleti border region “a preventive measure against the possible attempt of military action by the central Georgian authorities,” Russia's ITAR-Tass new agency reported.\n Mr. Abashidze claimed that several Georgian military units set up camp only a half-mile from the border, and plans of a military invasion were published by the media.\n On Friday, Georgia launched the biggest military manoeuvres in the nation's history. Some of the exercises, which involved about 2,000 servicemen, were scheduled to occur within four kilometres of the border separating Adzharia from the rest of Georgia.\n Mr. Abashidze has repeatedly claimed that Georgia intends to try to seize Adzharia by force and last week declared a state of emergency in advance of the military exercises. He has said in recent days that “if there is aggression, we will react to it in an adequate way.”\n Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was observing the naval exercises from a military ship, returned to Tbilisi after learning of the bridge blasts to head an emergency meeting of the country's security council.\n Georgia Defence Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said the meeting would consider responses “against the complete mayhem which is happening in Adzharia as a result of Aslan Abashidze's paranoia,” according to Interfax.\n Some forces participating in the military maneuvers would remain in place after the exercises end Sunday, Mr. Bezhuashvili said.\n Mr. Saakashvili earlier told independent TV Imedi that “illegal armed formations” in Adzharia were responsible for destroying the Choloki bridge. He warned Mr. Abashidze to refrain from provocations and emphasized that “Georgian authorities do not plan to use force against Adzharia.”\n Adzharian Interior Ministry spokesman David Gergedava confirmed that Adzharian forces detonated two other bridges in the Koboleti region.\n Georgia's President has vowed to bring Adzharia under central government control, complaining that Mr. Abashidze has been withholding tax and customs revenues from the central government and repressing opposition. One of Tbilisi's key demands is that Adzharia dismantle its paramilitary units.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["blew up the three major bridges"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Adzharian forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["three major bridges"]},{"role":"Location","values":["over the Choloki River","Koboleti region"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 A bomb blast during Friday prayers at a Shia mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, kills 10 people and injures 100. A suicide bombing is suspected. The head cleric of the mosque is among the dead. (NYT) (National Post)","document":"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 7  At least nine people were killed today when a powerful bomb blast ripped through a Shiite mosque in the southern port city of Karachi, the police said.  Hospital officials put the death toll higher, saying at least 12 people were killed and 100 injured. More than 25 injured worshipers are in critical condition, according to hospital sources.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 12 people were killed and 100 injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["today"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["a Shiite mosque"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the southern port city of Karachi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 The United States Armed Forces destroy the Baghdad headquarters of Moqtada alSadr. The building had been evacuated by alSadr's forces. There were no casualties. (NYT)","document":" BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 10 — American forces said today that they had killed some three dozen militiamen loyal to a rebel Shiite cleric during two days of fighting that included the destruction of the cleric's Baghdad headquarters in the Sadr City slum district here.  American armored vehicles bombarded the walls of the compound, which contains the offices of the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, and a small mosque, witnesses said. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties, witnesses said. ","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":["two days"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["armored vehicles"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["the destruction of the cleric's Baghdad headquarters"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed some three dozen militiamen"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["0151; American"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May 10"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Sadr City slum district"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 Ezzedine Salim, head of the Iraqi Governing Council, is killed by a car bomb in Baghdad.(BBC)","document":"Ezzedine Salim was near a checkpoint outside the compound when the bomb went off, killing him and several others.   It is not yet clear whether Mr Salim was the target of the suicide attack.\nA US military spokesman said it bore all the hallmarks of attacks carried out by supporters of Jordanian-born al-Qaeda suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.\nThe US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, condemned the killing and vowed to defeat those responsible. \"The terrorists who are seeking to destroy Iraq have struck a cruel blow with this vile act,\" Mr Bremer said in a statement. But they would be defeated and Mr Salim's vision of a \"democratic, free and prosperous Iraq\" would become a reality, he said. The IGC also condemned the killing of their leader.\n\tOur enemies are still there and will do anything\nto intimidate Iraqis to derail the political process\n \tHoshyar ZebariIraqi Foreign Minister\nIn pictures: Bomb attack\nIn quotes: Killing condemned\n\nGhazi Ajil al-Yawer - a Sunni Muslim from the northern city of Mosul appointed as Mr Salim's successor - said he would continue the march towards freedom and democracy despite the bomb attack. \"This is a terrorist act that will not dissuade the Governing  Council from continuing its work to build a federal, united Iraq,\" he said. Mr Yawer will serve as IGC head until the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, scheduled for 30 June.  In other developments:\nDebris\nThe explosion in which Mr Salim was killed happened at 0500GMT at a  checkpoint outside the Green Zone - the sealed-off area where the coalition and the IGC both have their offices.   Several vehicles were destroyed in the blast, which melted the asphalt of the road and sent debris flying over a large area. The blast at the IGC followed an attack on coalition HQ in January\n\t\n\"There was a huge crowd at the checkpoint,\" a security guard at a nearby residential compound told the Reuters news agency.\n\"There were a lot of cars and people on foot standing there and then this massive explosion. I saw body parts everywhere.\"\nA previously unknown Iraqi group said it had carried out the attack.\nThe Arab Resistance Movement al-Rashid Brigades posted a statement on the internet saying two suicide bombers had been used to carry out \"a qualitative heroic operation, which led to the killing of  the traitor and mercenary\" Ezzedine Salim.\n\"The Brigades pledges to the masses of our nation to  pursue struggle until the liberation of glorious Iraq and  dear Palestine,\" the statement on al-Anbar website said.\nUS military spokesman Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said they were investigating the statement of the group that could be a cover for the Zarqawi network.\nGen Kimmitt said the bombing that killed the IGC president had all the hallmarks of Zarqawi - the use of suicide bombers, going after spectacular and symbolic targets, and killing large numbers of civilians.\nSwift condemnation\nMr Salim, a Shia Muslim and member of the Daawa Islamic Party, was the current holder of the rotating IGC presidency.  He is the second council member to be killed since it was set up last July.\n                            IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL\n                        \tSet up July 2003; due to be abolished at end of June\n\tMembers from Iraq's different religious, ethnic groups\n\tMany members were exiles under Saddam Hussein\n\tPresidency rotates monthly\n\tSigned interim constitution in March\nAquila al-Hasimi, one of three women on the IGC,  was shot dead last September.\nInternational condemnation was also swift.\nThe killers of Ezzedine Salim  are \"enemies of the Iraqi people\", British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Monday in Brussels.\nFrench President Jacques Chirac said he was \"as convinced as ever that there is no military solution\" in Iraq.","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["bomb"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["Several vehicles were destroyed"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["the killing of  the traitor and mercenary\" Ezzedine Salim.","Mr Salim was killed","him and several others","the IGC president","large numbers of civilians","the second council member"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["The Arab Resistance Movement al-Rashid Brigades"]},{"role":"Date","values":["0500GMT"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["a  checkpoint outside the Green Zone"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 US Army kills 40 and wounds 117 others during an attack in Iraq near the border with Syria. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, tells Reuters the attack was within the military's rules of engagement, denying reports that the victims were members of a wedding party. He says a large amount of money, Syrian passports and satellite communications equipment was found at the site after the attack. (Guardian) (Reuters) (NYT)","document":"The wedding feast was finished and the women had just led the young bride and groom away to their marriage tent for the night when Haleema Shihab heard the first sounds of the fighter jets screeching through the sky above. \"Bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men\"\nGeneral James Mattis\ncommander of the 1st Marine Division\n\n      Iraqi Mahdi Nawaf shows photographs of dead family members during a funeral ceremony in Ramadi, 68 miles, 110 kms west of Baghdad, Iraq , Thursday, May 20, 2004. Mahdi said they were were killed Wednesday, when a U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party in the remote desert near the border with Syria killing more than 40 people. The photographs show: Iraqi father Mohammed Al-Rikad, right, his wife Morifa, left, and their children Saad, 10, Fasila, 7, Faisal, 5, Anoud, 6, Kholood, 4 and three year-old Inad. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)\n It was 10.30pm in the remote village of Mukaradeeb by the Syrian border and the guests hurried back to their homes as the party ended. As sister-in-law of the groom, Mrs Shihab, 30, was to sleep with her husband and children in the house of the wedding party, the Rakat family villa. She was one of the few in the house who survived the night.  \"Bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men\"\nGeneral James Mattis\ncommander of the 1st Marine Division\n\n\"The bombing started at 3am,\" she said yesterday from her bed in the emergency ward at Ramadi general hospital, 60 miles west of Baghdad. \"We went out of the house and the American soldiers started to shoot us. They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by one,\" she said. She ran with her youngest child in   her arms and her two young boys, Ali and Hamza, close behind. As she crossed the fields a shell exploded close to her, fracturing her legs and knocking her to the ground.  She lay there and a second round hit her on the right arm. By then her two boys lay dead. \"I left them because they were dead,\" she said. One, she saw, had been decapitated by a shell.  \"I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me. I pretended to be dead so he wouldn't kill me. My youngest child was alive next to me.\"  Mrs Shibab's description, backed by other witnesses, of an attack on a sleeping village is at odds with the American claim that they came under fire while targeting a suspected foreign fighter safe house.  She described how in the hours before dawn she watched as American troops destroyed the Rakat villa and the house next door, reducing the buildings to rubble.  Another relative carried Mrs Shihab and her surviving child to hospital. There she was told her husband Mohammed, the eldest of the Rakat sons, had also died.  As Mrs Shihab spoke she gestured with hands still daubed red-brown with the henna the women had used to   decorate themselves for the wedding. Alongside her in the ward yesterday were three badly injured girls from the Rakat family: Khalood Mohammed, aged just a year and struggling for breath, Moaza Rakat, 12, and Iqbal Rakat, 15, whose right foot doctors had already amputated.  By the time the sun rose on Wednesday over the Rakat family house, the raid had claimed 42 lives, according to Hamdi Noor al-Alusi, manager of the al-Qaim general hospital, the nearest to the village.  Among the dead were 27 members of the extended   Rakat family, their wedding guests and even the band of musicians hired to play at the ceremony, among them Hussein al-Ali from Ramadi, one of the most popular singers in western Iraq.        A video image shows a wounded child laying in a hospital in Ramadi, May 20, 2004, after having her leg amputated. The girl claimed she was the sister of the bridegroom at a wedding in Western Iraq which witnesses claimed was attacked by U.S. forces. Grieving Iraqis said U.S. forces killed dozens of guests at the desert wedding but an American general insisted Thursday that the air strike had killed foreign guerrilla fighters and said 'bad things happen in wars.' (Reuters TV )  Dr Alusi said 11 of the dead were women and 14 were children. \"I want to know why the Americans targeted this small village,\" he said by telephone. \"These people are my patients. I know each one of them. What has caused this disaster?\"  Despite the compelling testimony of Mrs Shihab, Dr Alusi and other wedding guests, the US military, faced with appar ent evidence of yet another scandal in Iraq, offered an inexplicably different account of the operation.  The military admitted there had been a raid on the village at 3am on Wednesday but said it had targeted a \"suspected foreign fighter safe house\".  \"During the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided,\" it said in a statement. Soldiers at the scene then recovered weapons, Iraqi dinar and Syrian pounds (worth approximately 800), foreign passports and a \"Satcom radio\", presumably a satellite telephone.  \"We took ground fire and we returned fire,\" said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq. \"We estimate that around 40 were killed. But we operated within our rules of engagement.\"  Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. \"How many people go to the middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive.\"  When reporters asked him about footage on Arabic television of a child's body being   lowered into a grave, he replied: \"I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men.\"  The celebration at Mukaradeeb was to be one of the biggest events of the year for a small village of just 25 houses. Haji Rakat, the father, had finally arranged a long-negotiated tribal union that would bring together two halves of one large extended family, the Rakats and the Sabahs.  Haji Rakat's second son, Ashad, would marry Rutba, a cousin from the Sabahs. In a second ceremony one of Ashad's female cousins, Sharifa, would marry a young Sabah boy, Munawar.  A large canvas awning had been set up in the garden of the Rakat villa to host the party. A band of musicians was called in, led by Hamid Abdullah, who runs the Music of Arts recording studio in Ramadi, the nearest major town.  He brought his friend Hussein al-Ali, a popular Iraqi singer who performs on Ramadi's own television channel. A handful of other musicians including the singer's brother Mohaned, played the drums and the keyboards.  The ceremonies began on Tuesday morning and stretched through   until the late evening. \"We were happy because of the wedding. People were dancing and making speeches,\" said Ma'athi Nawaf, 55, one of the neighbours.  Late in the evening the guests heard the sound of jets overhead. Then in the distance they saw the headlights of what appeared to be a military convoy heading their way across the desert.  The party ended at around 10.30pm and the neighbours left for their homes. At 3am the bombing began. \"The first thing they bombed was the tent for the ceremony,\" said Mr Nawaf. \"We saw the family running out of the house. The bombs were falling, destroying the whole area.\"  Armored military vehicles then drove into the village, firing machine guns and supported by attack helicopters. \"They started to shoot at the house and the people outside the house,\" he said.  Before dawn two large Chinook helicopters descended and offloaded dozens of troops. They appeared to set explosives in the Rakat house and the building next door and minutes later, just after the Chinooks left again, they exploded into rubble.  \"I saw something that nobody ever saw in this world,\" said Mr Nawaf. \"There were children's bodies cut into pieces, women cut into pieces, men cut into pieces.\"  Among the dead was his daughter Fatima Ma'athi, 25, and her two young boys, Raad, four, and Raed, six. \"I found Raad dead in her arms. The other boy was lying beside her. I found only his head,\" he said. His sister Simoya, the wife of Haji Rakat, was also killed with her two daughters. \"The Americans call these people foreign fighters. It is a lie. I just want one piece of evidence of what they are saying.\"  Remarkably among the survivors were the two married couples, who had been staying in tents away from the main house, and Haji Rakat himself, an elderly man who had gone to bed early in a nearby house.  From the mosques of Ramadi volunteers had been called to dig at the graveyard of the tribe, on the southern outskirts of the city.  There lay 27 graves: mounds of dirt each marked with a single square of crudely cut marble, a name scribbled in black paint. Some gave more than one name, and one, belonging to a woman Hamda Suleman, the briefest of explanations: \"The American bombing.\"","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["helicopter","a shell exploded","Armored military vehicles","firing machine guns"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["destroyed the Rakat villa and the house next door"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing more than 40 people","the raid had claimed 42 lives"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":["two large Chinook helicopters descended and offloaded dozens of troops"]},{"role":"Target","values":["small village"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ramadi, 68 miles, 110 kms west of Baghdad, Iraq"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 Twenty insurgents loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr are killed by Coalition forces during a raid on the Selah mosque compound in Kufa, Iraq. Twelve insurgents are killed in other fighting in Kufa. (ABC AU)","document":"US soldiers clash with militia in holy cities (file photo).  (ABC TV) Coalition troops killed 32 insurgents in fierce fighting on Sunday against Shiite militiamen in the central Iraqi city of Kufa, including 20 in a mosque compound. A United States military spokesman said all those slain in the mosque were militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose fighters have been locked in a deadly uprising against foreign occupation troops for more than a month. A later statement said the US Army's 1st Armoured Division (AD) and Iraqi security forces (ISF) had come under fire from the insurgents in several locations. \"The task force and ISF returned fire, killing 32 attackers,\" it said. \"An estimated 20 Moqtada militia were killed when coalition soldiers returned fire after being attacked with rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire during a raid on the Selah mosque in Kufa,\" a military spokesman said. Hussein Yasser, 32, who lives near the Selah mosque where the fighting took place, said: \"Tanks crashed through the gates of the mosque compound during the night and soldiers entered while helicopters hovered overhead,\" The heavy clashes lasted for about one hour, he said. Bloodstains were seen on the ground of the mosque compound, along with spent cartridges and the prints of tank tracks.\nThe walls were riddled with bullet strikes, witnesses said. The US military insisted its troops did not enter the mosque itself, but that an Iraqi counter-terrorism unit had raided the building, confiscating a cache of weapons. \"We have no intention of entering the shrines,\" said Major General Martin Dempsey, who commands the 1st AD.\nBut he stressed Iraqi forces would enter holy places, often requisitioned by militiamen as fighting strongholds, if necessary. Earlier, doctors said 54 wounded people had been taken to two hospitals in the city.\nBut the US military said there were no reports of coalition casualties. Ten of the dead and 11 wounded were taken to the Furat al-Awsat Hospital in Kufa, said official Mohammed Abdel Kazem. At the Hakim Hospital, an official said 10 dead had been taken to the morgue and 43 were wounded. About a dozen houses close to the mosque were damaged. Coalition spokesman Dan Senor has insisted the only deal that could be cut with Sadr was one that involved his surrender and the disbanding of his forces. \"But in the interim, we will continue to use our own methods for getting Moqtada's militia off the streets,\" US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of military operations, added just hours before the Kufa clashes. Sadr is holed up in Najaf, not far from Kufa, to escape arrest on charges related to the slaying of a rival cleric. But he has still managed to preach in Kufa every Friday in a large mosque not far from the scene of the battle. In his sermon two days ago, Sadr urged his followers to continue to fight coalition forces regardless of whether he is killed or captured. --AFP\n \n\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":["a dozen houses close to the mosque were damaged"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 32 insurgents","54 wounded people"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Coalition troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["Shiite militiamen"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the central Iraqi city of Kufa","the Selah mosque in Kufa"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2004 At least 28 people are killed in Indiancontrolled Kashmir when a bus carrying Indian soldiers and family hits a landmine. Hizbul Mujahideen claim responsibility. (ABC AU)","document":"Indian soldiers walk past the wreckage of a bus after a landmine blast.  (Reuters) By South Asia correspondent Geoff Thompson\nAt least 28 people have been killed in a landmine attack on a bus in Indian administered Kashmir. The attack comes at a sensitive time as India's new government finds its feet in its relationship with nuclear neighbour Pakistan. Cross border incursions by militants from Pakistan have dropped considerably since the announcement of a ceasefire and the beginnings of peace dialogue between India and Pakistan. But that does not mean that violence between militants and India security forces has diminished. This latest attack is a grim reminder of that. A bus carrying Indian soldiers and their relatives was ripped apart when it ran over a landmine about 75 kilometres away from the city of Srinigar. At least 28 people were killed and 15 others injured. Kashmir's leading militant group Hizbul Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it was payback for the killing of senior militant commanders in recent months.\n","event_type":"Armed Conflict","arguments":[{"role":"End Time","values":null},{"role":"Conflict Duration","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["landmine"]},{"role":"Damaged Facility","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 28 people were killed and 15 others injured"]},{"role":"Attacker","values":["Kashmir's leading militant group Hizbul Mujahideen"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Military Strength","values":null},{"role":"Target","values":["A bus"]},{"role":"Location","values":["about 75 kilometres away from the city of Srinigar"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 2008 United States presidential election: Mitt Romney wins the Republican Michigan primary with John McCain finishing second. Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic contest but she was the only leading contender in that election. Democratic candidates brace for a competitive primary in Nevada while Republicans contend for the South Carolina primary. (Canadian Press via Google News) (AP via Google News) (CNN) (MSNBC)","document":"WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney's triumph in Michigan on Tuesday added yet another twist to a wide-open, pitched battle among Republicans that will be tested again this weekend in South Carolina.\nIt's been one surprise after another in the nomination race, with a win in Iowa for Baptist-preacher-turned-politican Mike Huckabee and a major comeback for Arizona Senator John McCain in New Hampshire.\nAnd with two others still vying for the top spot - Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson - there will be no clear winner until at least Feb. 5, when more than 20 states weigh in.\nThe rollercoaster competition is evidence Republicans are far from settled on who should ultimately run against Democrats in what promises to be a bruising battle in November's general election.\nDemocrats, too, can't seem to make up their minds between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, each of whom would make history by becoming either the first woman or black man in the White House.\nThe choice has been made all the tougher by what's at stake, a strong chance of turfing Republicans after eight years under President George W. Bush.\nBoth Clinton and Obama, who have one win apiece, are fighting to satisfy the appetite for change among war-weary Americans who are deeply worried the United States is falling into a recession.\nThe tie-breaker will occur in Nevada on Saturday.\nWith no incumbent or vice-president vying for the job, it's the most unpredictable presidential race in decades, one where pundits have already been brought up short more than once.\n\"The best advice for all of us is to follow Alcoholics Anonymous's 'one day at a time' philosophy,\" said independent pollster Charlie Cook.\nIn Michigan, Romney traded on his native son status and promised to help voters recover from a \"one-state recession\" to close the deal, chiding McCain for saying some manufacuring jobs there are gone forever.\n\"It's a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism,\" Romney told cheering supporters.\n\"The people of Michigan said they believe in someone who is going to fight for them.\"\n\"This campaign is going to go to all 50 states.\"\nRomney was attracting 39-per-cent support, while McCain had 30 per cent and Huckabee 16 per cent.\nThe result in Michigan further complicates a race where Giuliani and Thompson gave the state a pass to concentrate their resources elsewhere.\nMcCain, 71, was hoping for support from independents and even Democrats in Michigan's open primary but exit polls of voters suggested fewer of those voted than eight years ago when he won the state in his first presidential run.\n\"We're going to win South Carolina and we're going to go on and win the nomination,\" McCain predicted.\n\"For a minute there in New Hampshire, I thought this campaign was getting easier,\" he said.\n\"But you know what? We've gotten pretty good at doing things the hard way too.\"\n\"And I think we've shown them, we don't mind a fight.\"\nHuckabee, who wooed evangelical voters in Michigan but found they split their votes between him and Romney, is hoping to do better in the south.\nVoters have found weaknesses among all five Republicans in attempts to settle on any one of them.\nRomney has been plagued by accusations he's pandered to conservative voters by changing positions on key social issues like abortion rights, which he used to support.\nGiuliani's more liberal positions on that score have hurt and so has his messy personal life, which was constant fodder for the tabloids when he was New York City mayor.\nHe's all but disappeared from the race by focusing on Florida as his entry point, a dicey strategy that could yet pay off.\nHuckabee faces concerns he's not a serious candidate with appeal beyond the evangelicals who pushed him to victory in Iowa.\nThompson entered the race late, in September and his lacklustre campaign has so far failed to inspire that pundits wondered whether he even wants to be president.\nAs for McCain, he's showing no signs of tempering the blunt, honest remarks that have earned him both trouble and respect. His maverick positions on the issues have earned him an uneasy relationship with many in the party.\nMcCain lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000.\nIn Michigan, the devastated auto sector and high unemployment rate were top priorities.\nHalf of voters surveyed picked the economy as the top issue. Only one in five chose Iraq. Some mentioned illegal immigrants and terrorism.\nRomney, 60, who was raised in a wealthy Detroit suburb and spent summer vacations in Canada, claims a special affinity with Michigan. His father, George, once ran the now-defunct American Motors and was a three-term governor in the 1960s.\nJust over 40 per cent of voters said his ties to the state were important. He had a slight advantage over McCain among voters looking for the candidate most able to provide change.\nClinton was the only top Democratic contender on the Michigan ballot. The others pulled their names after the state defied the national party by moving up its voting date.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Clinton and Obama","Mitt Romney","John McCain","Barack Obama"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Romney was attracting 39-per-cent support, while McCain had 30 per cent and Huckabee 16 per cent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the United States"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 2008 United States presidential election: Mitt Romney wins the Republican Michigan primary with John McCain finishing second. Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic contest but she was the only leading contender in that election. Democratic candidates brace for a competitive primary in Nevada while Republicans contend for the South Carolina primary. (Canadian Press via Google News) (AP via Google News) (CNN) (MSNBC)","document":"Republican presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters at a campaign rally on primary day in Grand Rapids, Mich., on the day of Michigan's primary election Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008.  (AP Photo/LM Otero)\nBy  LIZ SIDOTI and GLEN JOHNSON  –  3 days ago DETROIT (AP) — Mitt Romney scored his first major primary victory Tuesday in his native Michigan, a win he desperately needed to give his weakened candidacy new life and set the stage for a wide-open Republican showdown in South Carolina in just four days.\nRomney was the third Republican victor in the first four states to vote in the 2008 primary season, further roiling a volatile nomination fight that lacks a clear favorite.\nThe former Massachusetts governor defeated John McCain, the Arizona senator who was hoping that independents and Democrats would join Republicans to help him repeat his 2000 triumph here. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, trailed in third, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was waiting for the top three candidates in South Carolina, already campaigning.\n\"It's a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism,\" Romney said in an Associated Press interview, echoing his campaign speeches. \"Now on to South Carolina, Nevada, Florida.\"\nMcCain said he had called Romney to congratulate him \"that Michigan welcomed their native son with their support.\"\n\"Starting tomorrow, we're going to win South Carolina, and we're going to go on and win the nomination,\" McCain declared, also in an AP interview.\nRomney's ties to Michigan proved beneficial.\nFour in 10 voters said his roots factored into their votes, and more than half of that group backed Romney, according to preliminary results from surveys of voters as they left their polling places, taken for The Associated Press and the networks. He also led among voters who said the economy and illegal immigration were their most important issues, and won a majority of Republicans, conservatives, and voters looking for a candidate with experience.\nMcCain had an edge with those who wanted an authentic president, and he won among moderates, independents and Democrats. But fewer non-Republican voters participated in the GOP primary this year than in 2000 when those voters helped him beat George W. Bush. Independents and Democrats accounted for roughly one-third of the vote, compared with about one half eight years ago.\nRomney had a slight edge over McCain as the candidate likeliest to bring needed change.\nThe economy proved the most important issue for Republicans in Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation and an ailing auto industry. Given four choices, half of Michigan Republican primary voters picked the economy as the most important issue, while one in five picked Iraq, one in seven immigration and one in 10 terrorism.\nA mere 20 percent of eligible voters were expected to show up at polling stations across frigid and snowy Michigan; turnout was likely to be depressed by a Democratic race of little to no consequence.\nHillary Rodham Clinton was the only top contender on the Democratic ballot.\nFor Republicans, the stakes varied.\nOf the three candidates competing hard here, Romney needed a Michigan victory the most to invigorate a campaign weakened by searing losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. He was the only one watching the voting returns in Michigan; his top Michigan opponents, McCain and Huckabee, campaigned in the state earlier in the day but left by afternoon to plant themselves in South Carolina, which votes Saturday.\nUp for grabs in Michigan were 30 Republican delegates.\nRomney, who has put at least $20 million of his personal fortune into his bid, campaigned in the state far more than his rivals and spent more than $2 million in TV ads in Michigan, nearly three times what McCain did, according to an analysis of presidential advertising by the nonpartisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network. McCain paid for more than $740,00 in ads and Huckabee spent more than $480,000.\nA muddle from the start, the GOP race has grown ever more fluid as the first states voted over the past two weeks.\nHuckabee won the Iowa caucuses, McCain prevailed in New Hampshire's primary, and Romney was second to both — but claimed victory in scarcely contested Wyoming. Thompson is camping out in South Carolina looking for his first win. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, is doing the same in Florida, which votes Jan. 29.\nRomney was born and raised in Michigan, and his late father, George, was head of American Motors and a three-term governor in the 1960s. Romney announced his presidential candidacy in Michigan a year ago, campaigned in it far more than his rivals and spent considerably more money on advertising.\nMcCain had a built-in advantage of his own. He won the state's primary eight years ago on the strength of independent and Democratic-crossover voters, and he still had a network of hard-core backers. This year, McCain didn't have to compete full-bore for non-Republican voters because the Democratic race in Michigan was essentially a beauty contest. Six months after his campaign nearly collapsed, he now leads national polls.\nHuckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, hoped to stage a surprise finish with the support of Christian evangelicals who live in the more conservative, western part of the state. With his populist pitch, Huckabee also wanted to do well in Reagan Republican country outside of Detroit. He came from behind to win the Iowa caucuses and sought another surprise finish in Michigan.\nThe economy dominated the weeklong Michigan campaign. The state has been reeling from the U.S. auto industry's downturn and has the nation's highest unemployment rate at 7.4 percent.\nMichigan doesn't typically hold its primary until February but state party officials scheduled it earlier to try to give the state more say in picking a president. The Republican National Committee objected and cut the number of Michigan delegates to the national convention by half as punishment while the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of all 156 delegates to its national convention, including 28 superdelegates who would not have been bound by the outcome of the primary.\nLiz Sidoti reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Libby Quaid in Warren, Mich.; David Eggert in Traverse City, Mich., and Sara Kugler in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Gov. Mitt Romney","Huckabee","McCain","Hillary Rodham Clinton"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Michigan's primary election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney wins the Nevada Republican caucus. (The New York Times)","document":"CHARLESTON, S.C. Senator John McCain staved off a spirited challenge by former Gov. Mike Huckabee to win the South Carolina primary on Saturday, exorcising the ghosts of the attack-filled primary here that derailed his presidential hopes eight years ago.\nMr. McCain’s victory here, on top of his win earlier this month in New Hampshire, capped a remarkable comeback for a campaign that was all but written off six months ago. In an unusually fluid Republican field, his campaign said it hoped the victory would give Mr. McCain a head of steam going into the Jan. 29 Florida primary and the nationwide series of nominating contests on Feb. 5.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Senator John McCain","former Gov. Mike Huckabee"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["South Carolina"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 U.S. presidential election, 2008: Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson withdraws his candidacy. (CNN)","document":" (CNN) -- Former Sen. Fred Thompson on Tuesday ended his run for the presidency, coming off the heels of a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina's GOP primary and heading into the showdown state of Florida next week.\nFormer Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee has dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination.\n \"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States,\" Thompson said in a statement.  \"I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.\"\n Thompson entered the race in September, long after his Republican rivals had announced their candidacies and began raising money. His campaigning style was criticized as lackluster, and he was never able to capitalize on the anticipation supporters had built before he announced that he was getting into the race.\n Thompson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and represented Tennessee for eight years.    Short of cash and sinking in national polls, Thompson had staked his hopes on South Carolina, where a strong showing could have reinvigorated his flagging campaign.  Watch how Thompson's withdrawal could affect the race »\n   Thompson played to the voters as a staunch conservative and a son of the South. While he did draw some evangelical voters from one-time Baptist preacher and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, it wasn't enough to pull him into contention for the nomination.    He finished with 16 percent of the vote. Sen. John McCain won Saturday's contest with 33 percent, followed by Huckabee with 30 percent.\n \"He's really been good lately, but it's too late,\" CNN analyst Bill Bennett said of Thompson after South Carolina returns started to come in. \"If you're a Southern conservative and you can't make it in South Carolina, it's over.\"\n   Earlier, Thompson finished third in Iowa, fifth in Michigan and Nevada, sixth in New Hampshire and a distant second to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Wyoming.  Thompson teased Republicans all last summer after forming a fundraising committee for a possible presidential campaign on June 1.  When he announced in September that he was formally entering the race, it was well after the other Republicans had launched their campaigns, and analysts said the late entry may have hurt him.  Thompson is an actor best known for his role as District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's \"Law & Order.\"\n     Five candidates remain in the Republican race -- McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Rep. Ron Ron Paul of Texas and former New York Mayor Rudy Rudy Giuliani.  Giuliani has largely skipped the early voting states to focus on the January 29 primary in Florida and the delegate-rich races in the \"Super Tuesday\" primaries February 5.  E-mail to a friend All About Fred Thompson • U.S. Presidential Election","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Former Sen. Fred Thompson","Huckabee","Sen. John McCain"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["16 percent of the vote","33 percent","30 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["United States"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["U.S. Presidential Election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 2008 United States presidential election: Illinois Senator Barack Obama wins the South Carolina Democratic primary. (The New York Times)","document":"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, forging a coalition of support among black and white voters in a contest that sets the stage for a state-by-state fight for the party’s presidential nomination.\nIn a bitter campaign here infused with discussions of race, Mr. Obama’s convincing victory puts him on equal footing with Mrs. Clinton — with two wins each in early-voting states — and gives him fresh momentum as the contest plunges into a nationwide battle over the next 10 days.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Barack Obama","Hillary Rodham Clinton","Mr. Obama","Mrs. Clinton"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["South Carolina Democratic primary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 New York Senator Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic primary with no delegates awarded. (CNN)","document":"(CNN) - Sen. Hillary Clinton will win Florida's Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, CNN projects - but no candidates campaigned there, and party sanctions have stripped the state of all of its convention delegates.\nThe projection is based on precincts reporting results, entrance polls and other statistical models - including the number of votes outstanding in areas where Clinton was expected to do well.\nWith 19 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton led her nearest rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, by a margin of 48 percent to 30 percent. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailed with 14 percent.\n\nIf Obama had of won it would have been a different story by his supporters.  In Michigan they said his name was't on the ballot.  Now what, his name was on the ballot. He ran ads and still lost.  Anyone who believes no one has heard of him, GET REAL!  He wasn't able to give a sermon, you know we all want to hear feel good stuff, we all want to know we can do anything.  But after church, you face the real world.  If, and thats a big if, he were to win the nomination his own words will be used against him, his book has a lot of ammunition.\nBy now, Hillary's problem is that she expected to have the nomination wrapped up. When she signed on to not campaign in Florida six months ago, Hillary thought that Florida wouldn't be a factor. With Obama running well against her, Hillary is getting scared. I see the results in Florida that 50% of the voters will never vote for her. With McCain winning tonight fairly, there is noway that Hillary could beat him with just the Democratic Base. Obama is the only Democrat that can get votes from both sides and Independents. Most importantly, unite Americans for change and hope to stop all this anger.\nObama 08\nEverybody's vote should be counted, Hillary earned it, it was Florida voter's real voice without campaign, so Hillary should get delegates seated.\nHow many Obama posters here remember Election 2000, where Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the most delegates?\nHow many of you were outraged because the delegates counted for more than the voice of the people?\nNow you have changed your mind about that, since it suits your candidate?  Only because of this messed up political system do delegates count more than the popular vote.  Since Florida has no delegates that will count, I guess the popular vote there means nothing?  Those 1.5 million people who voted were just pissing in the wind?  I swear, 99% of the Obama supporters here are so ill-educated, they just follow out of blind faith that this man who has been a US Senator for 3 years, 2 of which years he's been campaining for president, can lead this nation.\nEven Lou Dobbs said last night, in the case of a national/foreign crisis, can a community organizer from inner-city Chicago lead us?\nThis is so funny, a political friend just told me that the blogs are also used by the candidates. The Clinton's have a team that responses to blogs as if they are the voters.\nIs it not overwhelming to know that even in the United States a few Polictical want tobe's can disenfrancise an entire state from the selection process. Reminds me of a past vote where the courts decided who Florida really voted for, then there was Ohio, but we would get into that. Would it not be really neat to see an election or a primary held in this country where the voters actually were given a voice and listened to.\nThe selection process is already tainted. There was a time I supported Obama, then he decided he could not campaign as to who he really  was and I saw him lowering himself to the level of his crowds rather than raising them to his level. Then came the political attacks, and yes, Obama started the attacks, but cried foul when the Clinton camp responded. And yes, Clinton eventually went on the attack, the feud between the two of them is not good for the party or the nation. Like it or not a unbeatable Democratic ticket one year ago would have been Clinton and Obama. Today the hope of a Clinton Obama ticket is dead. That ticket would have removed the very heart and soul from the Republican race. Now, they actually think they can retain the White House. If this inner party warfare contiunes and Obama and Clinton do not make peace and start working for the good of the nation we shall once again be seeing a Republican President and not because a majority of the voters want him.\nJohn Edwards at this time maybe need to be considered as the party canidate, not because he has done so well in the primaries, but because he has not permitted him self to get into this play ground brawl and damage himself, the party or the nation in the process.\nHillarybill clinton is desperate she is willing to run against herself if it will get her momentum.We have to stop this dynasty from winning she is terrible\nJanuary 30, 2008 8:51 am ET\nYour comment is awaiting moderation.\nHow many Obama posters here remember Election 2000, where Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the most delegates?\nHow many of you were outraged because the delegates counted for more than the voice of the people?\nNow you have changed your mind about that, since it suits your candidate? Only because of this messed up political system do delegates count more than the popular vote. Since Florida has no delegates that will count, I guess the popular vote there means nothing? Those 1.5 million people who voted were just pissing in the wind? I swear, 99% of the Obama supporters here are so ill-educated, they just follow out of blind faith that this man who has been a US Senator for 3 years, 2 of which years he's been campaining for president, can lead this nation.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Sen. Hillary Clinton"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Clinton led her nearest rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, by a margin of 48 percent to 30 percent","Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailed with 14 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 Arizona Senator John McCain wins the Republican primary. (CNN) (The New York Times)","document":" (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain claimed victory in Florida's Republican primary, and Sen. Hillary Clinton took the state's Democratic contest Tuesday night.\n The results in the Republican race might have delivered a fatal blow to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a distant third as results came in Tuesday night.\n Two GOP sources with direct knowledge of Giuliani's plans said he will drop out of the race and endorse McCain at an event in California on Wednesday.\n While Giuliani didn't say he was withdrawing from the race, he did speak of his campaign in the past tense at one point.\n   \"I'm proud I ran a positive campaign,\" he told supporters. \"I ran a campaign that was uplifting.\"  Watch how Giuliani reacted to the results »\n   With 97 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36-31 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Giuliani had 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 14 percent.  See what the results mean »\n   A top campaign official from McCain's camp has been in \"ongoing discussions\" with Giuliani's campaign about endorsing McCain's candidacy, a GOP official familiar with talks told CNN Tuesday.  Watch what happened to Giuliani's campaign »\n A source close to Giuliani confirmed that discussions were taking place and said there is talk among the staff that an endorsement could come Wednesday in California. The source said McCain and Giuliani need to talk, but \"we are working to make it happen.\"    \"Tonight, my friends, we celebrate. Tomorrow, it's back to work,\" McCain said as he claimed victory. \"We have a ways to go, but we're getting close, and for that, you all have my profound thanks.\"  Watch McCain claim victory »\n A Florida win gives McCain all 57 of the delegates at stake.\n Romney took aim at McCain Tuesday night, putting the Arizona senator on the hot seat for failures in Washington, his criticisms of President Bush and for going from the military directly into Congress.    \"Washington is fundamentally broken,\" Romney said. \"We're not going to change Washington just by sending the same people back just to sit in different chairs.\"  Watch Romney thank his supporters »\n McCain, who cultivates an image as a maverick, has been in the senate for four terms after two terms as a U.S. congressman.    Huckabee told his supporters he was \"playing all nine innings of this ball game.\"  Audio slideshow: Candidates react to the Florida results »\n   \"Even the Cardinals occasionally have a rough inning, but they know how to win championships,\" he told a crowd in Missouri.  Watch Huckabee say he's just getting started »\n   With about 97 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Clinton had 50 percent of the vote. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was in second with 33 percent, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was in third with 14 percent.\n The Democratic vote may have little impact on the presidential race, however, because the party's national leadership said it would not allow Florida's delegates to participate in the national convention because of a squabble over scheduling.\n Republicans penalized the state as well, but took away only half of their 114 delegates.  CNN political analyst Bill Schneider said earlier a Florida victory for McCain would be significant because it would be a way for him to prove he has the support of his party's base.  Florida is a closed primary, which means that only registered party members may vote in their own party's primary. McCain won primary contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina, thanks in part to the backing of independent voters who cast ballots in the Republican contests.  Clinton claimed victory despite party sanctions stripping the state of its convention delegates, thanking supporters even though she and other candidates did not campaign there.    \"I am thrilled to have had this vote of confidence that you have given me today,\" Clinton told supporters. \"I promise you I will do everything I can to make sure not only are Florida's Democratic delegates seated, but Florida is in the winning column for the Democrats in 2008.\"  Watch how Clinton won in Florida »\n Clinton has called on the Democratic Party to formally lift sanctions on the state.\n   Robert Gibbs, communications director for Obama campaign, downplayed the Florida results and got a dig in at Clinton.  \"Mike Gravel is going to get the same number of delegates as Clinton,\" Gibbs said, referring to the former Alaska senator who has yet to earn a single percentage point in earlier contests.  Gibbs said he thought the results would have little effect on the race heading into Super Tuesday.  \"You can't gain momentum in a state that everyone but Hillary Clinton pledged not to campaign in,\" Gibbs said.\n   Turnout was high for the Democratic race even though no delegates were at stake. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said about 2.5 million voters cast ballots, and nearly 400,000 people cast early or absentee ballots ahead of the primary.  See scenes from Florida's Republican race »\n Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid, said many Democrats were likely to turn out to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would limit property tax increases and expand homestead exemptions.  \"People are very afraid this will cut public services, cut back education,\" said Brazile, a CNN analyst. \"So the Florida Education Association and all of the unions are spending millions of dollars to get voters to turn out.\"  The economy is overwhelmingly the top issue for voters in Florida's primary, according to early exit polls.\n Among Republicans and Democrats, the economy dwarfed other issues affecting their vote. Forty-seven percent of Republicans said the economy is the most pressing issue, as did 55 percent of Democrats.\n The primary calendar played in Florida's favor. Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday.      McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida on Thursday night. But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment.  Watch scenes from the 2008 battle for the White House »\n And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media.  \"It's also raging in paid advertising on TV and radio. Romney has spent $30 million on TV ads in Florida this year,\" said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash. That's five times as much as the McCain campaign, which is now using less expensive radio commercials to directly question Romney's credibility on the economy.\n Huckabee has campaigned in Florida, but he's also spent time stumping in some of the Southern states that will vote on Super Tuesday.\n   Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is also concentrating on the February 5 states. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Sen. John McCain claimed victory in Florida's Republican primary"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["McCain","Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Giuliani","Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee","Clinton","Sen. Barack Obama","Sen. John Edwards"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["14 percent","36-31 percent","15 percent of the vote","50 percent","33 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Florida"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 Arizona Senator John McCain wins the Republican primary. (CNN) (The New York Times)","document":"MIAMI — Senator John McCain edged out Mitt Romney to win the delegate-rich Florida primary on Tuesday night, solidifying his transformation to the Republican front-runner and dealing a devastating blow to the presidential hopes of Rudolph W. Giuliani.\nRepublican officials said after Mr. Giuliani’s distant third-place finish Tuesday night that Mr. Giuliani was likely to endorse Mr. McCain, possibly as early as Wednesday in California. They said the staffs of Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani were discussing the logistics of an endorsement.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr. Giuliani","Senator John McCain","Mitt Romney","Rudolph W. Giuliani"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Florida"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2008 Republican candidates debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. (CNN)","document":" SIMI VALLEY, California (CNN) -- Front-runners John McCain and Mitt Romney attacked each other's conservative credentials as they fought for their party's top spot during the final showdown before the Super Tuesday contests.\nThe GOP candidates take the stage for Wednesday's debate.\n The sharpest exchange in the debate came when Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was asked about the McCain campaign's charge that he once said he favored a strict timetable for removing troops from Iraq.\n Romney has consistently denied ever having backed a timetable and said McCain was taking a small portion of a quote out of context.\n   \"It's simply wrong,\" Romney said. \"By the way, raising it a few days before the Florida primary, when there was very little time for me to correct the record, falls in the kind of dirty tricks that Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible.\"  Watch the candidates trade barbs »\n   But  McCain, the Arizona senator who has strongly backed President Bush's Iraq policy, accused Romney of hedging after public support for the war waned.\n \"I was on the front lines with my friends saying we not only can't withdraw but we've got to have additional troops over there in order for us to have a chance to succeed,\" he said.\n The debate -- sponsored by CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Politico.com -- took place at the Reagan Presidential Library.\n   The event came as the GOP's four remaining candidates jockey for position going into next Tuesday, when more than 20 states will be holding primaries or caucuses.  Watch undecided voters' real-time reaction »\n McCain -- who has won primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida -- hopes to solidify himself as the front-runner, while Romney, the winner in Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming, tries to stop McCain's run to the nomination.\n   Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, winner of the Iowa caucuses, hoped to position himself well among evangelicals and other conservatives to turn around several consecutive losses since Iowa. Long-shot candidate Ron Paul, a representative from Texas, also participated in the debate.\n The debate also came on a day when McCain scored a pair of major endorsements that could help deliver two of Super Tuesday's richest prizes.\n Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain hours before the debate began. And late Wednesday, CNN reported that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was in the audience for the debate, planned to endorse McCain Thursday.\n   California and New York have the two largest number of delegates up for grabs next week.  See what political analysts say about the showdown »\n \"If you look at the mega-states, these are major endorsements,\" said CNN political analyst and former White House adviser David Gergen.\n   During discussion on how to best help the flagging economy, all four candidates said they support the stimulus package moving through Congress.  Hear some of the candidates' key points »\n But Huckabee said investment in infrastructure instead of tax rebates would best stimulate the nation's economy.\n \"Infrastructure in this country has been neglected,\" he said. \"I don't think there's a governor in this country that wouldn't tell you that you'll create more jobs and you'll build it with American workers, American concrete and American steel. That's stimulus.\"\n On immigration, Romney said those who have come to the United States illegally must return home and \"get in line with everybody else that wants to come here.\"  \"People who come here legally are a great source of vitality and strength for our country, but illegal immigration -- that's got to end,\" he said.\n McCain said securing the borders is the \"responsibility and the priority\" of the American people.\n He said he would not vote for the pathway to citizenship part of his original immigration reform plan because the American people do not want it without securing the borders first.\n \"If we don't have a secure fence and have just this open door that people can come in and out at will, we're never going to deal with this issue effectively and responsibly,\" Huckabee said.\n \"It's not that we're building a fence so we can keep our people in or keep people out, but that people who do come here would have to come legally.\"\n With former First Lady Nancy Reagan looking on, Paul disagreed with President Reagan's choice of Sandra Day O'Connor as a Supreme Court justice, while Huckabee and McCain declined to say whether they would have tapped her for a spot on the high court.\n Romney said he \"would rather have\" a different kind of justice on the bench.\n The back-and-forth between McCain and Romney threatened to dominate the evening.  McCain sideswiped Romney's credentials as a successful business leader while answering a question about who would best run the nation.\n \"I think he managed companies and he bought and he sold and sometimes people lost their jobs,\" McCain said. \"That's the nature of that business.\"\n Critics note that Romney's tenure as CEO of the leveraged buyout firm Bain Capital resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs through layoffs and bankruptcies. Romney, the wealthiest candidate in the 2008 presidential race, ran Bain Capital from 1984 to 1999, during which time he earned the bulk of his fortune.\n Bain Capital specialized in buying companies in distress and revamping them, often by cutting jobs and closing plants. Some of Bain's purchases became more efficient and successful businesses, while others, loaded with debt from Bain's fees, were forced into bankruptcy, costing more jobs.\n Earlier, Romney appeared to go after a perceived a gulf between McCain and the Republican party's conservative base -- much of which has distrusted him since he ran against Bush in 2000.\n \"He's a good Republican; I wouldn't question those credentials at all,\" Romney said of McCain. \"But there are a number of pieces of legislation where his views are out of the mainstream, at least in my view, of conservative Republican thought.\"  Romney hit McCain for his opposition to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. He also noted that McCain twice voted against tax cuts pushed by President Bush and sponsored campaign-finance reform legislation that he claimed \"took a whack at the First Amendment.\"\n McCain defended those stances, saying he wanted spending cuts to go along with the tax cuts.\n CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said the heated exchange over Romney's Iraq quote was one of the debate's key moments -- and may have favored Romney.\n \"Romney made a very, very eloquent defense of himself that had some outrage in it,\" said Schneider. \"I do not think McCain looked good in that exchange.\"\n While most analysts said Romney and Huckabee failed to score any major moments that could derail McCain's momentum, Schneider said Huckabee had the best performance of the three.\n McCain \"may have lost some ground here,\" Schneider said. \"He did not sound like a straight talker at all in this debate.\"\n Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama will face off Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on CNN. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Romney","McCain, the Arizona senator","Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts","Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton","Sen. Barack Obama"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Reagan Presidential Library"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["The GOP"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Thomas S. Monson is chosen as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints. (AP via Google News)","document":"By  JENNIFER DOBNER  –  2 days ago SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Thomas S. Monson, a leader who became known for his folksy storytelling as he ascended through church ranks, was introduced Monday as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\nMonson, 80, succeeds Gordon B. Hinckley, who died last month at age 97. Out of respect for the deceased president, the Mormon church never names a successor until after funeral services. Hinckley was buried Saturday.\nThe church relies on a pattern of apostolic succession in selecting a new president. Since the early part of the 20th century, the position has always passed to the most-senior member of its Council of Twelve Apostles, the second-tier of church leadership. Monson was formally chosen Sunday.\nMonson said he was prepared to follow Hinckley.\n\"It's not difficult because he blazed the trail,\" Monson said at a news conference. \"I worked with him for so long — 44 years. We knew each other so well. I knew and testify afresh that he was the Lord's prophet.\"\nLatter-day Saints know Monson as a compassionate storyteller whose parables recount the stories of individuals resolving their struggles through faith.\nAs a senior church leader, Monson has served as an international envoy for the church and supervised the expansion of humanitarian programs. He's also known for forming ecumenical partnership with other faiths.\nMonson was named to the Council of Twelve Apostles in October 1963 at the age of 36, after serving as a local church bishop and as director of the church's Canadian missionary activities in Toronto.\nHe went on to serve as counselor to Hinckley and two previous presidents in the church's highest leadership circle, the First Presidency.\nHe is the youngest man to hold the presidency since Spencer W. Kimball, who was 78 when named president in 1973. Mormon presidents serve for life.\nAs president, Monson will shepherd a growing church with 13 million members in 160 countries. Of those, about 5.7 million are in the United States. One-third of church members live in Utah.\nMonson, a Navy World War II veteran, is a graduate of the University of Utah and holds a master's degree in business administration from the church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo.\nProfessionally, he worked for the church's secular businesses, including the Deseret Morning News and the Deseret News Press. He was also the representative who served on the boards of other church-owned businesses, including KSL-TV and Beneficial Life Insurance Co.\nHe has been married to Frances Beverly Johnson since 1948. The couple has three children. eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Thomas S. Monson"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee wins the Kansas Republican Party caucus and the Louisiana primary. (The Washington Post) (Reuters)","document":"Republican Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee delivers his morning speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington February 9, 2008. Huckabee won the Louisiana Republican primary on Saturday, notching up another Southern victory in his bid to become the party's presidential candidate in the November general election, CNN projected early Sunday. REUTERS/Gary Cameron\nNEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the Louisiana Republican primary on Saturday, notching up another Southern victory in his bid to become the party’s presidential candidate in the November general election, CNN projected early Sunday.\nFront-running Arizona Sen. John McCain leads the race for the Republican nomination and is almost certain to win after his chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, dropped out on Thursday.\nHuckabee is his chief remaining challenger and is running a distant second. The Baptist minister, whose appeal to social conservatives has kept his shoestring campaign alive, won four Southern states and West Virginia on Tuesday, when nearly half of U.S. states chose candidates for the November election.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Huckabee won the Louisiana Republican primary"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mike Huckabee","Sen. John McCain","Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Washington"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Malaysian Parliament dissolved for The 13th Malaysian general election. (BBC News)","document":"Electoral officials will meet soon to set a date for the polls, with a ballot in early March widely expected.  The move comes amid rising racial tensions in multi-ethnic Malaysia and growing fears over inflation and crime.\nBut analysts still expect the ruling coalition to win the election, albeit with a reduced majority.\nEthnic tensions\nMr Badawi made his announcement at a news conference in Malaysia's administrative centre, Putrajaya. \"The king has signed the declaration of dissolution of parliament today,\" he said. \"We hope to get a big majority, at least two-thirds, God willing.\"\nHe gave no reason for his decision, but analysts say he is looking for a fresh mandate before the economy slows. Another advantage for Mr Badawi of holding the election next month is that charismatic opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim cannot stand for office.\nAnwar, who was the country's deputy prime minister before being jailed in 1998 on corruption charges, is barred him from politics until April 2008. The timing of the election does pose some risks, though, for the ruling coalition.\nLate last year a string of rare street protests in the capital exposed a growing unhappiness among some ethnic minorities. A recent opinion poll also suggested that Mr Badawi's personal popularity had tumbled by 30%. Nonetheless, according to the BBC's correspondent in Malaysia, Robin Brant, the National Front coalition government and the Malay party Umno which dominates it are virtually assured a healthy victory. They have won all previous 11 general elections.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Badawi","Anwar","the National Front coalition government and the Malay party Umno"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Malaysia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos is eliminated in the first round of the Cypriot presidential election. (Reuters)","document":"NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos was eliminated in the first round of a presidential election on Sunday, sending two candidates who want talks on reuniting the island to a run-off.\nCypriot presidential candidates Tassos Papadopoulos (R), Ioannis Kassoulides (L) and Demetris Christofias chat before live television debates, hours before official canvassing closes for Cypriot elections, February 14, 2008. REUTERS/Andreas Manolis\nThe surprise result signaled that Greek Cypriots are ready to return to peace talks key to Turkey’s hopes of joining the EU, analysts said. The February 24 run-off will pit right-winger Ioannis Kassoulides against communist Demetris Christofias.\nBoth pledge a more conciliatory approach towards estranged Turkish Cypriots in the breakaway north.\nCyprus was divided in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek inspired coup. Peace talks stalled in 2004 when Papadopoulos, elected the year before, led Greek Cypriot rejection of a United Nations blueprint for reunification.\nSunday’s vote showed a shift in opinion since then.\n“If you want to extract a political message out of it, 65 percent of Greek Cypriots voted for clear pro-solution candidates,” said political analyst Hubert Faustmann. “The Greek Cypriots are back at the negotiation table.”\nKassoulides, 59, had supported the UN plan while Christofias, 62, had opposed it. Both acknowledge the blueprint cannot be revived but they also favor talks on reuniting the island.\nNow, they will need to secure support from Papadopoulos ahead of the second round.\nWith all the vote counted, Kassoulides had 33.5 percent, Christofias 33.3 percent and Papadopoulos 31.8 percent. No opinion polls had shown Papadopoulos, 74, losing in the first round.\n\nCelebrations at the result erupted in Nicosia. Cypriots drove around the city honking their horns, waving flags and lighting flares.\n“This was the result of Papadopoulos’s arrogance, his authoritarian rule,” said Elena Neoptolemou, a 33 year old music teacher. “He was unable to fool people this time by persuading them that things were going well on the Cyprus issue.”\nThere was also some relief on the Turkish Cypriot side, where Papadopoulos was a popular hate figure.\n“This is very good news,” said Cevdit Ozguler, a 44 year old taxi driver. “He never liked the Turks. I think a lot of Turkish Cypriots will be happy tonight.”\nTurkish Cypriot spokesman Hasan Ercakika said: “The removal of an intransigent party should speed up the start of the process.”\nKassoulides and Christofias, although from different sides of the ideological divide, have both said they want to meet Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turkish Cypriot leader.\n“If I win, on February 25 I will pick up the phone and invite myself to Mr. Talat’s house,” Kassoulides told Reuters recently.\nStalled efforts to reconcile the two Cypriot sides are hampering Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union. A Greek Cypriot-led Cyprus represents the island in the bloc, with veto rights over the admission of Turkey.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Tassos Papadopoulos (R)","right-winger Ioannis Kassoulides","communist Demetris Christofias"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Kassoulides had 33.5 percent, Christofias 33.3 percent and Papadopoulos 31.8 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Senator Barack Obama won a decisive victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday night, cutting into Mrs. Clinton’s long-held support among women, union members and middle-aged voters.","document":"Senator Barack Obama won a decisive victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday night, cutting into Mrs. Clinton’s long-held support among women, union members and middle-aged voters.\n With the two rivals now battling state by state over margins of victory and allotment of delegates, surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that Mr. Obama made inroads with those three groups and continued to win support from white men and younger voters in a performance that yielded grim tidings for Mrs. Clinton as she looked ahead to the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Senator Barack Obama won a decisive victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Senator Barack Obama","Hillary Rodham Clinton"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday night"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Wisconsin primary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Illinois Senator Barack Obama wins the Democratic Party Wisconsin primary and the Hawaii caucus. (Reuters via The Melbourne Age) (AFP)[permanent dead link]","document":"Barack Obama pummelled Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii today, making it 10 wins in a row against his bitter rival in the Democratic White House race.\nPresumptive Republican nominee John McCain meanwhile fired a pre-emptive strike on his increasingly likely Democratic general election foe, ripping Obama's \"eloquent but empty\" rhetoric, after his own easy win in Wisconsin.\nObama's victories cemented his front-runner status, and left Clinton needing an astonishing turnaround in must-win contests in her firewall states of Ohio and Texas on March 4 to keep her fading presidential hopes alive.\n\"I think we've achieved liftoff here,\" said Obama, as he addressed a delirious rally in Houston, Texas, which hosts NASA's mission control for US space missions, as he set a rhetorical course the November 4 presidential vote.\n\"The change we seek is still months and miles away,\" he said.\nThough Obama and Clinton had been tightly matched going into the Wisconsin primary, which had 74 delegates on offer, he swept to a comprehensive win.\nWith 97 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama led 58 per cent to 41 per cent.\nLater Tuesday, Obama, who is vying to make history as America's first black president, secured another comprehensive victory as his birth state of Hawaii held its caucuses, US media reported.\nClinton, stung by another grievous blow to her hopes of becoming America's history-making first woman president, pleaded with voters to pause to consider who was truly qualified to lead the country.\n\"Both Senator Obama and I would make history. But only one of us is ready on day one to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans.\n\"That is the choice in this election.\"\nArizona Senator McCain, 71, edged even closer to mathematical certainty of grasping the Republican nomination, handily beating his pesky Republican rival Mike Huckabee in Wisconsin.\nMcCain also swept Washington state's primary, after winning the first part of its two-step nominating process, a caucus, ten days earlier.\nThe Vietnam war hero struck an immediate contrast with Obama, 46, trying to leverage the campaign onto national security territory where McCain draws strong support.\n\"Thank you Wisconsin, for bringing us to the point where even a superstitious navy aviator can claim with confidence and humility that I will be our party's nominee for president of the United States,\" McCain said in a victory rally in Columbus, Ohio.\nTurning to Obama, he rapped an \"eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy.\"\n\"Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?\" he said, referring to Obama's threat to strike at al-Qaeda without Islamabad's permission if necessary.\nMcCain also hit out at Obama for suggesting talks without preconditions with US foes like Iran and North Korea.\nBut in his own victory speech Obama was unrepentant, saying America should not be afraid to talk to its enemies.\nThe two head-to-head showdowns set the stage for the crucial contests in Ohio and Texas on March 4, which one-time front-runner Clinton is billing as a firewall.\nObama's win in Wisconsin provided further evidence that key voting groups are lining up behind the Illinois senator's campaign.\nWisconsin, with its legions of blue collar white voters, should have been Clinton territory, but exit polls showed Obama repeating his feat in the Virginia and Maryland primaries last week of cutting into her power base.\nHe shared Clinton's core constituency of women, and union households.\nThe former first lady won only one age group, voters aged 60 and older.\nHouseholds who earn less than 50,000 dollars also narrowly went for Obama, and he also won the category of households earning more than that figure.\nObama now leads Clinton by 1342 to 1265 delegates, according to independent political website RealClearPolitics.com.\nNeither candidate is likely to reach the winning line of 2,025 delegates, which has led to speculation of a convention brawl when the Democrats select their White House nominee in August.\nMcCain has amassed a total of 877 delegates, of the 1,191 needed for the Republican nomination.\nHis former rival Mitt Romney endorsed McCain on February 15 and urged his 271 delegates to do the same.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Barack Obama","Hillary Clinton"]},{"role":"Date","values":["today"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Wisconsin","Hawaii"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2008 Ralph Nader enters the 2008 United States presidential election as an independent candidate. (CNN)","document":" WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Ralph Nader is entering the presidential race as an independent, he announced Sunday, saying it is time for a \"Jeffersonian revolution.\"\nRalph Nader is running for president as an independent.\n \"In the last few years, big money and the closing down of Washington against citizen groups prevent us from trying to improve our country. And I want everybody to have the right and opportunity to improve their country,\" he told reporters after an appearance announcing his candidacy on NBC's \"Meet the Press.\"\n Asked why he should be president, the longtime consumer advocate said, \"Because I got things done.\" He cited a 40-year record, which he said includes saving \"millions of lives,\" bringing about stricter protection for food and water and fighting corporate control over Washington.  Nader's decision, which did not come as a surprise to political watchers, marks his fourth straight White House bid -- fifth if his 1992 write-in campaign is included.  The two contenders for the Democratic nomination were quick to pounce.      \"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about,\" Sen. Barack Obama said a town hall meeting Sunday.  Watch Nader describe whom the Democrats should be \"going after\" »\n   Calling Nader's move \"very unfortunate,\" Sen. Hillary Clinton told reporters, \"I remember when he ran before. It didn't turn out very well for anybody -- especially our country.\"\n   \"This time I hope it doesn't hurt anyone. I can't think of anybody that would vote for Sen. McCain who would vote for Ralph Nader,\" she said.\n Nader was criticized by some Democrats in 2000 for allegedly pulling away support from Democrat Al Gore and helping George Bush win the White House.  Noting that he ran on the Green Party ticket that year, Clinton said Nader \"prevented Al Gore from being the 'greenest' president we could have had.\"\n Nader has long rejected his portrayal as a spoiler in the presidential race. In his NBC interview Sunday, he cited the Republican Party's economic policies, the Iraq war, and other issues, saying, \"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form.\"\n But Clinton said, \"Obviously, it is not helpful to whoever our Democratic nominee is. But, you know, it is a free country.\"\n Nader said political consultants \"have really messed up Hillary Clinton's campaign.\"\n   Long-shot GOP contender Mike Huckabee said Nader's entry would probably help his party.\n \"I think it always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats and not the Republicans, so naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race,\" Huckabee said Sunday on CNN.\n Nader said Thomas Jefferson believed that \"when you lose your government, you've got to go into the electoral arena.\"  \"A Jeffersonian revolution is needed in this country,\" he said.  Nader told NBC that great changes in U.S. history have come \"through little parties that never won any national election.\"\n \"Dissent is the mother of ascent,\" he said. \"And in that context I've decided to run for president.\"\n Nader, who turns 74 this week, complained about the \"paralysis of the government,\" which he said is under the control of corporate executives and lobbyists.\n Obama also criticized Nader earlier this weekend. \"My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don't listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you're not substantive,\" he told reporters when asked about Nader's possible candidacy.\n \"He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work.\"\n Obama said Nader \"is a singular figure in American politics and has done as much as just about anyone for consumers.\"  \"I don't mean to diminish that,\" he said. \"There's a sense now that if someone's not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, he says they're lacking in some way.\"\n Responding to those remarks, Nader called Obama \"a person of substance\" and \"the first liberal evangelist in a long time\" who \"has run a good tactical campaign.\" But he accused Obama of censoring \"his better instincts\" on divisive issues.\n Nader encouraged people to look at his campaign Web site, votenader.org, which he said discusses issues important to Americans that Obama and Sen. John McCain \"are not addressing.\"","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Ralph Nader is running for president as an independent"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Washington"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential race"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 Russian voters go to the polls to decide the country's next president. Dmitry Medvedev of the United Russia wins the election and is expected to succeed Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia. (The Independent)","document":"There's a new doll on the block. The familiar frowning face of Vladimir Putin is no longer the \"outside\" shell of the matryoshka sets on St Petersburg's souvenir stalls. His usurper is a dark-haired, less well-defined character named Dmitry Medvedev.\nThe likeness is not perfect – the painters have not yet got the measure of the country's next president. But as Russians go to the polls today, Mr Putin's relegation to second doll is a sign that power is in transition. By this evening, election results will confirm what the painters already know: Mr Medvedev, only 42, a native son of St Petersburg and previously one of two first deputy prime ministers, will be Mr Putin's successor.\nMr Medvedev is officially the nominee of United Russia, otherwise known as Mr Putin's party. His election has been a foregone conclusion ever since the outgoing President gave him his support.\nExpected to take between 65 and 70 per cent of the vote – more than 70 per cent is unlikely as that would make him look more popular than Mr Putin – Mr Medvedev takes over in early May.\nA lawyer by training, Mr Medvedev is not quite standing unopposed. There is Andrei Bogdanov, head of the Democratic Party, seen as a token candidate put up by the Kremlin to expand the range of choices. The last pre-election polls gave him 1 per cent.\nThe real opposition, such as it is, is supplied by two old warhorses from left and right. Gennadi Zyuganov, 63, is the Russian Communist Party leader who threatened to topple Boris Yeltsin from the presidency in 1996. He is still in fighting form.\nSo, too, is the fourth candidate, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 61, the right-wing populist demonised by the Kremlin through the 1990s.\nThese experienced operators are tolerated by the Kremlin as safety valves for those at either end of the post-Soviet political spectrum. Estimated to get between 10 and 15 per cent apiece, they present no danger to Mr Medvedev.\nBut this does not mean they have not scored some points in the past month of campaigning. Confident of defeat, they have put up a spirited fight at what will probably be their last stand in national elections. Mr Zyuganov campaigned on rising prices (inflation is running at 12 per cent), housing and the glaring gap between rich and poor.\nMr Zhirinovsky's campaign was given new impetus by Kosovo's declaration of independence last month. US plans to station anti-missile installations in central Europe, and talk of Ukraine being fast-tracked into Nato, added fuel to his contention that Mr Putin has presided over eight years of Russian humiliation.\nThe pair reserved their fiercest salvos for the final, live televised \"debate\" on Thursday night, when they attacked Mr Medvedev's refusal to take part, what they saw as his lack of a common touch, and the way they claimed voters were being pressured into backing Mr Putin's candidate.\nWhen similar accusations are voiced by international human rights organisations, Russians become defensive. And the fact that such claims were made on national television marks a new stage in the long civics lesson to which post-Soviet Russian voters are being exposed.\nIt is unlikely that in eight years' time, when Dmitry Medvedev reaches his two-term limit, either Mr Zyuganov or Mr Zhirinovsky will be around. That neither party has been able to renew its leadership in almost 20 years, however, and that no other politician has been able to found a durable new party with a mass following reflects poorly on the development of Russian democracy.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Medvedev","Andrei Bogdanov, head of the Democratic Party","Gennadi Zyuganov, 63, is the Russian Communist Party leader","Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 61, the right-wing populist"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["polls"]},{"role":"Location","values":["St Petersburg"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 New York Senator Hillary Clinton wins the Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas Democratic primaries.(ABC News)","document":"March 4, 2008— -- Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has conceded the Republican nomination to rival Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.\nBut there is no doubt the longshot-turned-contender left his mark on the GOP race.\nCalling his White House bid the \"journey of a lifetime\", Huckabee spoke Tuesday night from Irving, TX commending McCain on an \"honorable campaign\" and emphasizing his commitment to the Republican party in the fight to the November election.\n\"We stayed in until the race was over. We kept the faith, that for me has been the most important goal of all,\" Huckabee said, standing with his wife on stage at the Four Seasons Hotel. \" I'd rather lose the election than lose the principles that got me into politics in the first place.\"\nMcCain visits President Bush at the White House Wednesday.\nHuckabee's brand of social conservatism, combined with his strong core support among evangelicals, and a frugal campaign budget, left party rivals scrambling to defend their conservative credentials.\nSen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney were all, at least in part, victims of Huckabee's surprise success.\nUltimately, the former Arkansas governor won by losing, attracting significant blocs of the GOP base in state races despite McCain's significant delegate lead, the latter due in part to the party's largely winner-take-all delegate distribution.\nHuckabee's folksy appeal earned him clout within the party as a force to be reckoned with. Still, he has said he is not interested in a third-party run for the White House and, presidential aspirations aside, that he would rather go on a \"rock tour with Amy Winehouse\" than enter the Arkansas Senate race.\nHuckabee has also downplayed his place in the '08 veepstakes, telling a reporter this February \"I don't think Sen. McCain would select me anyway...I think that it's a little almost off the chart to think that he would end up selecting me.\"\nHuckabee's meteoric rise from political obscurity to GOP threat began with his second-place finish in the Iowa Straw Poll — an unofficial but closely watched exercise within the Republican campaign cycle — back in August 2007, which signalled his potential to stage a GOP upset.\nThe momentum that followed Huckabee out of the straw poll finish — complete with cable news bookings, network morning show interviews, and print media outlets clamoring to ask him \"how\" — bumped Huckabee from second-tier to rising star on the nation's political radar.\nThrough the almost five full months from the Iowa Straw Poll until any votes were cast in the state's January caucuses, Huckabee continued his presidential campaign, run on a shoestring budget. He spent time at home in Little Rock and flew to first-in-the-nation contest states for long weekends when the crowds were more substantial.\nBut in November, a CBS News/New York Times poll changed everything.\nShowing Huckabee within striking distance of then-Iowa front-runner Mitt Romney, Huckabee's campaign quickened its pace, tailed by the national media, which had previously covered him from afar.\nBy mid-December, Huckabee had become the bona fide front-runner in Iowa, overtaking Romney in the state's pre-caucus polling.\nCome January, Huckabee won the Iowa caucus with 34 percent of the vote, spending a fraction of what second-place Romney used to saturate the state's market.\nThen-underdog McCain tied former Sen. Fred Thompson for third in Iowa, with each candidate garnering 13 percent of the vote.\nRiding the Iowa win, Huckabee headed to New Hampshire, where he was down in the polls. For the five days leading up to the Republican primary, Huckabee shook every hand he could, taking advantage of just about any opportunity for free media in the Granite State.\nHe surprised many with a third place finish in New Hampshire, at 26 percent, behind McCain's 37 percent and Romney's 32 percent, and beating Giuliani by a decent margin.\nThe southern states that followed were Huckabee's strong suit: he spoke the language of the electorate, and drew on the shared, common experiences that resonated with voters.\nHuckabee was poised for a strong, possibly winning finish in South Carolina, when his campaign made a questionable decision to make a series of stops in Michigan — rival Romney's home state.\nAs expected, Huckabee placed third in Michigan and went back to South Carolina to finish what he had started.\nPrimary day in South Carolina proved interesting from both a political and meteorological standpoint.\nSnowy weather in Huckabee-friendly districts, and tough competition from Thompson, led to a disappointing South Carolina loss, as Huckabee finished with 30 percent, trailing McCain's 33 percent.\nThe campaign then turned farther south, to Florida.\nThe Sunshine State was never Huckabee's to win, and while his supporters there remained fervent, the South Carolina loss had the chattering classes convinced that Huckabee was on the ropes — a claim he would deny over and over in the weeks that followed.\nHuckabee's fourth-place Florida finish — behind McCain, Romney and Giuliani — and lack of subsequent momentum heading into Super Tuesday were thought to be the final nail in the campaign's coffin. But Huckabee would not go so quietly into the night.\nHuckabee would visit seven southern states in seven days, his strategy now to carry the South and prove his viability in Republican strongholds, who turned voices to votes against McCain's brand of conservatism, in favor of Huckabee's.\nHuckabee surprised many, winning Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, West Virginia and his home state of Arkansas.\nFollowing Romney's withdrawal from the race on Feb. 7, the southern string would soon turn the race into a two-man battle, with McCain leading by a substantial margin.\nSurprising wins in Kansas and Louisiana kept Huckabee afloat for a while, but could not sustain his campaign once McCain gained an insurmountable delegate lead.\nHuckabee made his last stand in Texas.\nRecalling the famous battle of the Alamo in which Texas rebels staged a fierce fight against Mexico for independence, the insurgent former governor often quoted a letter by Texas commander William Barrett Travis: \"The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken -- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls.\"\nHuckabee spent a few arduous days flying all over the state but in the end it would not prove enough to overcome the McCain's momentum. Huckabee's crowds fluctuated significantly from a rally at Texas A&M with about 900 in the room and another 1500 watching from outside to a morning rally at Southern Methodist University in Dallas that drew less than 200.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mike Huckabee","Senator John McCain"]},{"role":"Date","values":["March 4, 2008"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Huckabee won the Iowa caucus with 34 percent of the vote","He surprised many with a third place finish in New Hampshire, at 26 percent, behind McCain's 37 percent and Romney's 32 percent","South Carolina loss, as Huckabee finished with 30 percent, trailing McCain's 33 percent","13 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 2008 United States presidential election: Illinois Senator Barack Obama  wins the Wyoming Democratic caucus. (The New York Times)","document":"CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Senator Barack Obama chalked up a victory in another caucus state on Saturday, beating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Wyoming by a wide margin. The victory, while in a state with only 18 delegates, was welcome news for the Obama campaign as it sought to blunt any advantage Mrs. Clinton might gain from her victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton","Obama"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Wyoming"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 The Conservative Alliance wins the Iranian legislative election. (BBC News)","document":"They did particularly well in the capital, Tehran, which is seen as the key to parliamentary power.\nHowever, many of the conservative winners are critics of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.\nReformists saw a small increase in their representation, despite the disqualification of many of their proposed candidates.\nThey are claiming a relative success, given the circumstances of the poll.\nThe BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran says that if the new parliament causes problems for Mr Ahmadinejad, this will strengthen the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.\nThat, he adds, is likely to mean an even tougher line on Iran's nuclear programme and its foreign policy.\nPresidential battle\nThe conservative critics of Mr Ahmadinejad include the former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, who could become the new parliamentary speaker.  \t\t\t                            IRANIAN POLL\n\t\t\t                        Eighth parliamentary election since 1979 revolution\n43 million eligible voters\n290 seats from 30 provinces\nAbout 40% of those who applied to stand disqualified by the Guardian Council\nNew challenges for presidentIran in facts and figuresIn pictures: Iran votes\nOur correspondent says there could be quite a battle within the conservative camp to challenge Mr Ahmadinejad in the presidential elections next year.\nReformists had said the election was unfair, but still urged voters to turn out for the country's eighth parliamentary elections since the 1979 Islamic revolution.\nReformist candidates made up the bulk of about 1,700 candidates barred from running by Iran's Guardian Council - an unelected body of clerics and jurists that vets election candidates. The Guardian Council has denied bias. 'Cooked'\nThe Associated Press news agency reports that 188 out of 290 parliamentary  seats have been decided so far.\nQuoting state television and official news agency Irna, AP says pro-Ahmadinejad politicians have won about 70 seats, reformists 31, and conservative critics of Mr Ahmadinejad about 43. Independents whose political leanings were not immediately known claimed 39, the agency says, although reformists said at least 14 of these candidates were pro-reform - which would raise the reformists' number of seats from 40 to 45.\nThe remaining five seats are designated for Iran's Jewish, Zoroastrian and Christian minorities.\nAt least 70 further races are expected to go to run-offs, the agency reported.\nThe EU criticised the conduct of the vote as \"neither fair nor free\". Washington said Iran's leadership had \"cooked\" the election by barring reformists.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["AP says pro-Ahmadinejad politicians have won about 70 seats, reformists 31, and conservative critics of Mr Ahmadinejad about 43"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mahmoud Ahmadinejad"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Tehran"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["IRANIAN POLL"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 French voters go to the polls in the second round of the 2008 municipal elections, with President Nicolas Sarkozy's party Union for a Popular Movement likely to lose. (BBC News)","document":"Voters in France's local elections have handed key cities to the left in a punishing blow to President Sarkozy.\n The Socialists seized Toulouse, Caen, Strasbourg, Amiens and Reims, with most results in. They also held on to the power bases of Paris and Lyon.  But in a closely-fought contest, the president's centre-right UMP retained the second city, Marseille.  The outcome is likely to make it harder for Mr Sarkozy's government to pursue its reform programme, analysts say.  The poll was seen as the first ballot box test since Mr Sarkozy's election last May of his popularity, which has plummeted in recent opinion polls.  The BBC's Emma-Jane Kirby in Paris says that in terms of the share of the vote, these election results do not look too bad for the government - the opposition Socialists won only a very small percentage more of the vote than the UMP.  Nationally, partial official results showed parties on the left leading slightly, with 48.7% of the overall vote to 47.6% for the centre-right, according to AP news agency.  But our correspondent adds that in losing major cities, the UMP has lost some key power bases and it may be more difficult now for the French leader to push through reforms. 'Divorce' with electorate  At Perigueux, in the Dordogne, Mr Sarkozy's minister for education, Xavier Darcos, lost his bid to be re-elected as mayor by just over 100 votes.  On Sunday night, the president did not make an appearance - leaving his prime minister, Francois Fillon, to defend his policies in a televised declaration.  \"You can't change a great country like ours in a few months,\" said Mr Fillon. \"Tenacity is needed to reform.\"  Segolene Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate Mr Sarkozy defeated last May, called Sunday's results \"a vote of hope\".  Former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said the government was heading for \"divorce\" with the French electorate if it refused to change its policies.  The elections saw Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe boost his position as a possible contender against Segolene Royal for the presidential elections in 2012.  However, analysts say the Socialists remain in some disarray, having lost three presidential elections in a row. Voter anger\n Our correspondent in Paris says many have used their votes to show their disapproval of the government.  Many French voters say they are angry Mr Sarkozy has not yet fulfilled his promise to increase their spending power.  Since coming to power, he has succeeded where some of his predecessors in the Elysee Palace have failed by reducing pension benefits for some state workers.  Although unemployment has dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades, it remains high at 7.5% and analysts warn the French economy shows signs of minimal growth.  Correspondents say Mr Sarkozy's recent divorce three months into his presidency and remarriage to supermodel Carla Bruni have turned off many voters.  The 53-year-old's well-publicised holidays with the rich and famous and what some see as his extravagant style have seen him dubbed the \"Bling-Bling president\".  Fewer than four in 10 voters now approve of his performance. Last July his ratings stood at 67%.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["President Sarkozy"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["the left leading slightly, with 48.7% of the overall vote to 47.6% for the centre-right"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["ballot box"]},{"role":"Location","values":["French"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2008 At the 2008 National People's Congress, Wen Jiabao is elected as Premier for another five years term. (Xinhua)","document":"Liang Guanglie, Chen Bingde, Li Jinai, Liao Xilong, Chang Wanquan, Jing Zhiyuan, Wu Shengli and Xu Qiliang were approved to be CMC members.\nThrough secret ballot, Wang Shengjun was elected president of the Supreme People's Court, while Cao Jianming was elected procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.\nChina's Constitution stipulates that the candidate for premier of the State Council shall be nominated by the president of the state, and the candidates for vice-chairmen and members of the CMC shall be named by the CMC chairman. All the candidates are subject to voting at the National People's Congress (NPC), the parliament.\nA total of 2,968 NPC deputies attended the sixth plenary meeting of the First Session of the 11th NPC on Sunday.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Wang Shengjun","Cao Jianming"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["National People's Congress (NPC)"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Newt Gingrich is projected as the winner of the Georgia primary. (Los Angeles Times)","document":" Georgia was a must-win state for Gingrich, who crafted a Southern state strategy in his long-shot effort to win the Republican presidential nomination. That strategy hinges on a win in Georgia, the state he represented for 20 years as a member of Congress.\n The primary was called based on exit polls, as precinct results had just started to come in.\n Seventy-six delegates are at stake in the Georgia primary, and Gingrich is unlikely to win all of them. Thirty-four delegates will be awarded proportionally to candidates who receive more than 20% of the statewide vote. If a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, he’ll win all 34 delegates.\n An additional 42 delegates will be awarded based on the results in each of the state’s 14 congressional districts, where the winner in each district will win two delegates and the runner-up will win one delegate. Again, if a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in a district, he’ll win all three of the district’s delegates.\n Gingrich spent as many days in Georgia this year as he spent campaigning in the rest of the Super Tuesday states combined and he announced last week that he would have to win Georgia “to be credible in the race.”\n But unlike Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, Georgia did not go uncontested: Romney and Rick Santorum campaigned there, and a “super PAC” backing Romney outspent the one backing Gingrich in ad spending in the state, according to tallies by NBC News. Restore Our Future, the Romney super PAC, spent $2 million to the $1.3 million spent by the pro-Gingrich group, Winning Our Future.\n Former Arkanasas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the state in 2008 with 34% of the vote. John McCain, the eventual nominee, came in second with 32%. Romney placed third with 30%.\n ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["win the Republican presidential nomination"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Gingrich"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Georgia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Mitt Romney is projected as the winner of primaries in Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio  and Vermont as well as the Idaho and Alaska caucuses. (Chicago Tribune) (Los Angeles Times) (Washington Post) (Chicago Tribune) (AP via Washington Post)","document":"Mitt Romney won the Vermont primary, the Associated Press projected, easily beating Rick Santorum and Ron Paul in a New England state that borders Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor.\nIt’s Romney’s second prize of Super Tuesday, after Virginia was also called in his favor.\nVermont was called based on exit polls, which projected a double-digit margin for Romney. Paul and Santorum were closely matched for second place.\nBased on early returns, Romney, Paul and Santorum stood to collect delegates in Vermont. The state holds 17 Republican delegates, with 14 of them awarded on a proportional basis to any candidate who receives more than 20% of the vote, unless one candidate earns more than a majority. The other three delegates are the elected state party leaders.\nPolls showed Romney comfortably ahead, prompting his competitors to skip campaigning there. Besides Romney, only Ron Paul spent advertising dollars in Vermont in the run-up to the primary. John McCain won the Republican primary here in 2008 over Mike Huckabee.\nIn general elections Vermont has been reliably Democratic for decades, last opting for the Republican nominee when George Bush, after serving as vice president for two terms under Ronald Reagan, carried the state in 1988. Barack Obama carried Vermont in the 2008 general election and it is considered safely Democratic no matter who emerges as the Republican nominee.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Paul and Santorum"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2008"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["New England state"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Mitt Romney is projected as the winner of primaries in Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio  and Vermont as well as the Idaho and Alaska caucuses. (Chicago Tribune) (Los Angeles Times) (Washington Post) (Chicago Tribune) (AP via Washington Post)","document":" Mitt Romney has been declared the Massachusetts GOP primary winner. As The Fix team wrote: Mitt Romney easily won the state he used to govern and where he still votes. The former governor would have been the heavy favorite even if he didn’t have the home-state advantage. He’s more popular in the state now than he was four years ago.\nIn 2008, Romney beat John McCain in Massachusetts by only 10 points. In that race, he positioned himself as the conservative alternative to the moderate front-runner. Now Romney is considered the most moderate candidate in...","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mitt Romney","John McCain"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Massachusetts GOP primary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Rick Santorum is projected as the winner of the Oklahoma and Tennessee primaries and North Dakota caucuses. (Reuters via Fox Business News) (Washington Post) (CNN)","document":" Rick Santorum has been declared the winner of the Tennessee GOP primary. As The Fix team reported: Rick Santorum won the primary in the Volunteer State.\nTennessee was the night’s second-most-contested prize, after Ohio, and there was some thought that Mitt Romney might give Santorum a challenge. Moderate businessmen have done well in the state in recent years, beating more conservative opponents in Republican Senate and gubernatorial primaries.\nBut Santorum held off Romney on Tuesday, winning a state dominated by religious and very conservative voters — the kind of Republicans on whom the former senator has built his campaign.\nSantorum dominated Tennessee’s more rural counties, while Romney performed better in urban areas near Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville.\nRomney finished third in Tennessee in 2008, so he did show some improvement.\n Polling analysis from Behind the Numbers  The Tennessee electorate turned out to be the most evangelical so far in the Republican nomination fight, helping secure a victory for former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.\nSeventy-six percent of voters were evangelical Christians in Tennessee, edging out the group’s turnout in Georgia and South Carolina, two states that went to Newt Gingrich. Over four in 10 evangelicals voted for Santorum while about a quarter supported Gingrich and Mitt Romney each.\nElectability remained a strong suit for Romney in Tennessee. Nearly four in 10 voters said ability to beat Obama is the most important candidate attribute, and Romney beat out Santorum and Gingrich among these voters. But just as many voters in Tennessee said they are looking for a candidate who is a “true conservative” or someone with strong moral character. These values voters picked Santorum by an overwhelming margin.\n   Analysis from The Fix:   If you want a sleeper pick for Super Tuesday’s most interesting race, it’s the Volunteer State primary. Rick Santorum is up big here early, but Newt Gingrich could give him a run for his money. And if they split the conservative vote up, maybe Mitt Romney shoots the gap. A moderate businessman winning in Tennessee? It’s actually happened before — plenty of times.    ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Rick Santorum has been declared the winner of the Tennessee GOP primary"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Rick Santorum"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Tennessee"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Tennessee GOP primary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Incumbent Ohio Congresswoman Jean Schmidt is defeated in the Republican primary in the 2nd district by Brad Wenstrup. (Washington Post)","document":"In the first upset of 2012, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) lost a primary to Army Reserves Major Brad Wenstrup, a political newbie. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Wenstrup won 49 percent to 43 percent.\nSchmidt has represented Ohio’s Cincinnatti-area 2nd district since 2005, when she won a special election against Democratic Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett. She faced a tough primary in 2006 from former Rep. Bob McEwan but has not had a serious challenge from within her party since. “I’m honored that the voters heard our message of change,” Wenstrup said in a statement. “Change that includes strong, ethical leadership. Change that also includes reforming government, cutting spending and unleashing small business owners so they can create jobs.” He challenged Schmidt from the right, targeting her votes for raising the debt ceiling.\nWenstrup had help from the Campaign for Primary Accountability, a new Texas-based super PAC targeting incumbents on both sides of the aisle. The group also backed Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) against Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) in Ohio’s 9th district.\n“Voters were the victors,” said PAC co-chairmen Leo Linbeck III and Eric O’Keefe in a statement. “In the 2nd and 9th Districts of Ohio, the Campaign for Primary Accountability achieved its goal of greater participation and competition in Congressional primaries.”\nWenstrup’s first political campaign was in 2009, when he unsuccessfully challenged Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. The Democratic mayor liked his rival enough to appoint him to the city’s Board of Health. Former Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy also lost her primary to former Ohio House minority leader Joyce Beatty in the Democratic primary for Ohio’s new 3rd district. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) lost a primary to Army Reserves Major Brad Wenstrup, a political newbie"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Wenstrup","Schmidt has represented Ohio’s Cincinnatti"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Wenstrup won 49 percent to 43 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 The regional Samajwadi Party leads in the count in Uttar Pradesh. (BBC)","document":"India's governing Congress party has suffered a major setback in elections in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.\nCongress party star Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat when it became clear that the regional Samajwadi Party had won a clear majority in the state.\nCongress had disappointing results in three other states, winning a clear majority only in Manipur.\nThese polls are seen as a litmus test for national elections due by 2014.\nCongress had hoped that the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty would deliver a victory in Uttar Pradesh that would revive the flagging fortunes of India's ruling party, dogged by high inflation, a slowdown in economic growth and allegations of corruption.\nSamajwadi took at least 220 seats out of the 403 in Uttar Pradesh's legislative assembly, while Congress languished in fourth with fewer than 30.\nUttar Pradesh, in northern India, has a population of more than 200 million people, but is one of the country's least developed states.\nPolitics has been dominated in recent years by Mayawati, a low-caste Dalit who heads the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and has had four terms as chief minister.\nShe has largely alternated in power with Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party. It mainly represents the interests of a caste grouping called the Other Backward Classes.\nSamajwadi has won 220 seats and with almost all the returns in, was leading in another four, giving it a clear majority.\nThe ruling BSP was a distant second with 76 seats and leads in another four.\nThe Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 45 seats and was leading in two more.\nThe Congress party took 26 seats and had the lead in two more - a scant increase from the 22 it currently holds.\nAs the results came in, Samajwadi supporters danced in the street outside the party's headquarters in Lucknow, the state capital, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder.\nSpeaking to BBC Hindi's Ram Dutt Tripathi in Lucknow, Mr Yadav said: \"The credit for our victory goes to the people, workers of the Samajwadi Party and Akhilesh [Mr Yadav's son and heir apparent].\"\nThe 72-year-old Samajwadi Party leader, who is now expected to lead the government in the state, said he would \"try to meet all the expectations of the voters\". He said the party's legislative board would meet on Wednesday to elect the new chief minister.\nSpeaking in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi took responsibility for his party's disappointing results.\nHe is widely tipped to be India's next prime minister. He was not running in the state polls, but had led campaigning for Congress in Uttar Pradesh.\n\"I led the campaign, so it's my responsibility, we fought well but the results are not that good,\" he said.\n\"Organisationally we are not where we should be in UP [Uttar Pradesh]... I think it will be a very good lesson for me, because I think it will make me think about things in a detailed way.\"\nIn Punjab, the incumbent regional Shrimoni Akali Dal-BJP alliance has won with 68 seats beating Congress which took 46 seats.\nWith nearly all districts in Uttarakhand reporting, Congress had a one seat lead over the BJP, with 30 seats of the state's 70.\nIn Goa, the BJP won 21 seats while Congress took nine. Goa has 40 seats.\nThe only bright spot for Congress was the north-eastern state of Manipur where the party won 42 of the 60 seats.\nThe month-long elections were held in a total of 690 assembly seats and were staggered over a number of phases for security and logistical reasons.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["Samajwadi took at least 220 seats out of the 403 in Uttar Pradesh's legislative assembly, while Congress languished in fourth with fewer than 30","68 seats","46 seats","70","21 seats","42","The ruling BSP was a distant second with 76 seats","The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 45 seats","The Congress party took 26 seats"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat","Samajwadi Party had won"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Samajwadi Party","Shrimoni Akali Dal-BJP alliance","Congress party star Rahul Gandhi"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Uttar Pradesh"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Voters in the US states of Alabama and Mississippi head to the polls for primaries with Rick Santorum winning in both states. (CNN) (USA Today)","document":"\nWe live blogged the results from tonight's GOP presidential primaries, and Rick Santorum was a surprise winner in both Alabama and Mississippi. Pre-primary polls had projected a tight three-way race among Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the two states. Ron Paul didn't really compete in the Deep South and finished well behind his rivals. \"We did it again,\" a jubilant Santorum said in Louisiana, as he made the case that he is the best conservative to face President Obama in the fall. Caucuses are also being held tonight in Hawaii and American Samoa.   Romney sends out a news release congratulating Santorum on his victories. It's one of the rare nights when Romney does not hold an election night rally. \"I am pleased that we will be increasing our delegate count in a very substantial way after tonight. Ann and I made a lot of new friends in Alabama and Mississippi, and we look forward to campaigning in those states in the general election,\" Romney said. 11:14 p.m. ET: In congressional races in Alabama, House Ethics Committee Chairman Jo Bonner won his GOP primary while House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus was leading his Republican rivals. 11:07 p.m. ET: Gingrich says he can't compete with Romney when it comes to money, as he tells the story of getting his 175,000th donor. He says it was a \"humbling\" conversation. \"With your help, if you talk to your friends and neighbors ... we will continue to run a people's campaign. After the primaries are over, it will be obvious that the so-called front-runner didn't get there,\" Gingrich says. 11:05 p.m. ET: \"We can forget about nominating a Massachusetts moderate,\" Gingrich says about Romney, arguing it's time to focus on who can best beat Obama. Gingrich is denouncing the news media for asking \"why doesn't he quit\" and acknowledges he'll have a tough time raising money because he didn't win in either Mississippi or Alabama. 11:02 p.m. ET: Gingrich says \"great solutions\" require \"substance\" and that \"virtually everything Barack Obama knows is wrong.\" 11 p.m. ET: \"Ideas matter,\" Gingrich says. He argues that he's a \"visionary leader\" on the order of Ronald Reagan, and denounces the \"petty baloney\" of GOP primary attacks. 10:59 p.m. ET: Gingrich makes his case that he's the one who can go \"toe-to-toe\" with Obama in the general election debates. He thanks the Mississippi and Alabama voters for helping him \"change the national dialogue\" on rising gas prices. Gingrich has said he can get gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon if he's elected president. 10:59 p.m. ET: \"It's quite an evening. Obviously I would have liked to come in first,\" Gingrich says, as he congratulates Santorum for a \"positive evening.\" Because delegates are awarded on a proportional basis, Gingrich says he will have a \"substantial\" number after tonight. \"The elite media's effort to convince the nation that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed,\" Gingrich tells the Birmingham crowd. \"In both states, the conservative candidates got 70% of the vote. If you're the front-runner and you keep coming in third, you're not much of a front-runner.\" 10:56 p.m. ET: Callista Gingrich is introducing her husband, who appears to be finishing behind Santorum in both states. 10:51 p.m. ET: AP calls Mississippi for Santorum. 10:49 p.m. ET: CNN projects Santorum will win a \"double-header\" and also take Mississippi. 10:43 p.m. ET: \"If we nominate a conservative, we will defeat Barack Obama,\" Santorum says. Some in the crowd appeared to be telling him that he has also won Mississippi, but the networks haven't projected a winner just yet. 10:42 p.m. ET: Santorum blows a kiss to the crowd, shakes his head and says, \"Bless you.\" He says he expects a \"huge win\" in Louisiana. \"We will compete everywhere. The time is now for conservatives to pull together,\" Santorum says. \"The time is now to make sure we have the best chance to win this election ... and the best chance is to nominate a conservative who can take on President Obama on every issue.\" 10:39 p.m. ET: He says he wanted to be in Lafayette, La., because it's the heart of the oil and gas industry, before taking a jab at the Obama administration's energy policy. \"This president almost put this whole region out of business,\" Santorum says, referring to a drilling moratorium after the 2010 BP oil spill. \"We will put this town and this region back to work.\" 10:36 p.m. ET: Santorum says he was encouraged by the crowds in the Deep South. \"To the people of Alabama, you made a great difference tonight,\" he says, before acknowledging the tight race in Mississippi. 10:34 p.m. ET: Santorum thanks his family, kisses his wife Karen and gives a shout-out to daughter Elizabeth, who is campaigning for him in Hawaii. (The Aloha State holds caucuses tonight.) 10:33 p.m. ET: Santorum takes a shot at Romney, who has been the best-funded GOP candidate. \"For someone who thinks this race is inevitable ... he spent a whole lot of money against me for being inevitable.\" 10:32 p.m. ET:  \"We did it again,\" Santorum says. \"I just want to thank everybody. What do people say to you? ... Most common thing I hear from people ... I'm praying for you.\" 10:30 p.m. ET: Santorum is making his way to the stage in Lafayette, La., to address his supporters. 10:27 p.m. ET: Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom tells CNN that there aren't enough opportunities in upcoming states for Santorum to close the delegate gap with Romney. He said the campaign met its goal of obtaining one-third of the delegates in the two contests. 10:18 p.m. ET: AP makes it official and says Santorum wins Alabama. 10:16 p.m. ET: CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Fox News are also projecting an Alabama win for Santorum. 10:05 p.m. ET: AP has called some congressional primary races in Mississippi. Sen. Roger Wicker easily won his GOP primary, while Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson defeated Greenville Mayor Heather McTeer. 9:58 p.m. ET: The votes in the Deep South are too close to call, but the Obama campaign is focused on Romney. In an e-mail fundraising pitch, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina makes the argument that the fall campaign will be \"tighter than you think.\" \"If the idea of a President Romney scares you, it's time to own a piece of this campaign,\" Messina writes, as he asks for a donation of $3 or more. 9:53 p.m. ET: NBC News is projecting Santorum will win the Alabama primary. 9:33 p.m. ET: Where are the candidates? Santorum is in Lafayette, La., where he's already campaigning for the Bayou State primary next week. USA TODAY's Rick Jervis is with Santorum tonight. STORY:  Battle for Louisiana 9:30 p.m. ET: Earlier this evening, the Gingrich campaign released a strategy memo about the candidate's strategy at \"halftime.\" They argue that the half-way mark is the Louisiana primary on March 24. \"The sequencing and pace of the second half favors Newt,\" write Randy Evans, a senior Gingrich adviser, and Martin Baker, the national political director. The memo discusses upcoming primaries in Southern states, as well as contests in delegate-rich states such as Texas and California. \"Here is the bottom-line reality: This nomination will not be decided until the fourth quarter – and that is not until June. It also means that the candidate who closes strongest in this race is going to win.\" 9:08 p.m. ET: A projection from one of the networks: \"The only thing Fox News can project at this moment is that Ron Paul will come in fourth place in both Mississippi and Alabama,\" says the story on its website. 9:03 p.m. ET: The votes are coming in and, no surprise, the Alabama and Mississippi GOP races are too close to call. So we bring you news from other quarters:\nA hypothetical race between President Obama and Romney is now a tossup, says a new Bloomberg News poll. Obama and Romney each get 47% support,\n8:11 p.m. ET: More from AP on the early exit polls conducted by Edison Research, for the wire service and TV networks:\nIn Alabama and Mississippi, Santorum leads among the evangelical and born-again Christian voters who said a candidate's religious beliefs mattered to them. The former Pennsylvania senator and Gingrich do better among the most conservative voters, while Romney is strong with moderates and those who say the economy matters to them. For those voters who say they're concerned about beating Obama in the fall, Romney is their pick. 8 p.m. ET: The polls are now closed in Alabama and Mississippi. The exit polls show Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are bunched close together. 7:49 p.m. ET: Remember the GOP debates? The Atlantic reports Romney's campaign is saying the former Massachusetts governor is skipping the March 19 debate scheduled for Portland. This could mean the debates are really, really over. Updated 7:17 p.m. ET: Polls have closed in parts of Alabama.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Rick Santorum was a surprise winner in both"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mitt Romney","Newt Gingrich"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Alabama and Mississippi"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["GOP presidential primaries"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 The Welsh political party Plaid Cymru elects Leanne Wood as its new leader. (BBC)","document":"Ms Wood called for \"real independence\" for Wales after beating rivals Elin Jones and Lord Elis-Thomas.\nMs Wood, who is currently learning to speak Welsh, promised to be an \"open, forward looking, positive and constructive\" leader.\nShe inherits the leadership of the third-largest party in the Welsh assembly behind the Labour government and Conservative opposition.\nSpeaking after the result was announced in Cardiff on Thursday, she paid tribute to her fellow candidates for a campaign that was \"positive, respectful, constructive, and in parts a good laugh\".\n\"And that's how we do politics in this party and that is how I intend to lead,\" she said.\nShe also gave a special thanks to her young supporters, many of whom joined the party for the first time during the campaign, she said.\nHer predecessor Ieuan Wyn Jones, who Ms Wood thanked in her acceptance speech, announced he would be standing down last year after disappointing election results that saw Plaid lose seats in the assembly.\nShe said: \"We may be a small party and a small country but we can stand tall if we stand together and if we stand up for our principles.\n\"Real independence means collectively lifting our people out of poverty leaving no-one behind, building a future based on hope not on fear.\"\nShe added: \"Together we can build a Wales that is fair, a new Wales that will flourish and a new Wales that will one day be free.\"\nAged 40, she is the ninth leader in Plaid Cymru's 87-year history, the first Welsh-learner in the role and the first woman. Her election means Plaid now has a female leader, chief executive, president and chair.\nHer supporters hailed a decisive victory.\nIn the first round of voting, she won 2,879 votes to Ms Jones's 1,884 and Lord Elis-Thomas's 1,278.\nAs no candidate had more than half the votes, Lord Elis-Thomas was eliminated and the second-preference votes of his supporters were redistributed, giving Ms Wood 3,326 votes and Ms Jones 2,494.\nPlaid MP Jonathan Edwards, Ms Wood's campaign manager, said she would lead \"a far more aggressive strategy in taking on the Labour Party\".\n\"I was extremely happy to see that it was a very strong result for Leanne - nearly winning on the first ballot and I think the strength of the result gives her a very strong mandate for the months ahead,\" he said.\nSpeaking before the result was declared, Mr Jones said: \"It's our job now, all of us in this party, to unite behind the successful candidates so they can face the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.\"\nFellow party leaders have sent messages of congratulations to Ms Wood, including First Minister Carwyn Jones.\nWelsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams said that despite their differences on a range of issues, she hoped the two parties \"can work constructively together in order to hold the Welsh government to account and grasp the opportunity to strengthen devolution through the Silk Commission established by the UK government\".\nThe Conservatives' assembly leader, Andrew RT Davies, said he \"looked forward\" to working with Ms Wood in holding \"lethargic Labour ministers to account\".\n\"She succeeds Ieuan Wyn Jones, who led his party with distinction and played a pivotal role in the development of the National Assembly. I wish Ieuan well in his future endeavours,\" he added.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Lord Elis-Thomas","Ms Wood","Ms Jones"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["2,879 votes","1,884","1,278"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Wales"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Voters in Guinea–Bissau go to the polls for a presidential election following the death of President Malam Bacai Sanhá in January. (BBC)","document":"Votes are being counted in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau following an election to choose a new president.\nNine candidates are running for office, but analysts say only four have a realistic chance.\nThe election was triggered by the death in January of President Malam Bacai Sanha.\nGuinea-Bissau has been plagued by army mutinies and coups over the past 10 years.\nNo elected president has completed his mandate since multi-party politics was introduced in 1994.\nSeveral senior military figures are accused of involvement in the international drugs trade and the country has become a trafficking point for cocaine from South America to Europe. The BBC's John James in the capital Bissau says that if the new president is accepted as legitimate by the losing candidates and the powerful army, it would reinforce this fragile country's attempts to escape a cycle of coups and instability.\nThe front runner is Carlos Gomes Junior, 60, who has stepped down as prime minister to run as candidate for the governing African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).\nThe three other candidates expected to do well are Kumba Yala, who was president from 2000 to 2003; MP Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo and former businessman Henrique Rosa.\nOur correspondent say it is likely that a second round will be needed to decide the eventual winner.\nObservers said it appeared that people had voted freely and that the election had been well organised.\nAir, sea and land borders were closed for the day and only election commission-authorised vehicles were allowed on the roads.\nThe election in the former Portuguese colony was overseen by about 180 foreign observers. Security has been in the hands of a mixed force of police, national guard and soldiers, trained by UN security experts. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the US have called for a peaceful, orderly and transparent election.\nMalam Bacai Sanha was elected president in 2009 after years of unrest and coups. His predecessor - Joao Bernardo Vieira - was assassinated by mutinous soldiers.\nLast December, the US warned its citizens in Guinea-Bissau that there was increased potential for political instability and civil unrest.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["election to choose a new president"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Carlos Gomes Junior","Kumba Yala","MP Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo","businessman Henrique Rosa"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Guinea-Bissau"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 Macky Sall, former Prime Minister under Abdoulaye Wade's administration, is elected President of Senegal. (BBC)","document":"The winner of Senegal's presidential election, Macky Sall, has said the poll marks a \"new era\" for the country.\nHe was speaking after his rival, current President Abdoulaye Wade, admitted defeat in Sunday's run-off.\nMr Wade's bid for a third term in office sparked violent protests which left six people dead.\nSpeaking in front of thousands of cheering supporters in the capital Dakar, Mr Sall, 50, promised to be a president for all Senegalese.\nOfficial results from Sunday's election are expected within two days.\nPresident Nicolas Sarkozy of Senegal's former colonial ruler, France, hailed the result as being \"good news for Africa in general and for Senegal in particular\". \"Senegal is a major African country and a model of democracy,\" he said.\nThe election comes just days after a military coup in neighbouring Mali. Senegal remains the only country in West Africa to have never undergone a coup.\nThijs Berman, the head of the European Union observer mission to Senegal, said the results were very clear - about 65% for Mr Sall and 35% for Mr Wade so \"there is no hesitation as to who is the winner\".\nMr Sall stressed that the people were the main winners in the poll. Mr Wade had \"phoned his rival Macky Sall at 21:30 GMT [on Sunday] to congratulate him after the first results showed him to be the winner of a presidential run-off,\" the Senegalese Press Agency said.\nMr Wade, 85, has governed Senegal for 12 years.\nEven before Mr Wade's concession, thousands of Sall supporters began celebrating on the streets of Dakar.\nThey chanted \"Macky president!\" and \"We have won!\"\nMr Wade brought in a two-term limit for presidential office, but argued that the limit should not apply to his first term which came in before the constitution was changed.\nHis argument was upheld by the constitutional court in January, prompting widespread protests in which six people died.\nIn February's first round, Mr Wade fell short of a majority, polling only 34.8%. Mr Sall came second with 26.6%. But most of the other 12 candidates backed Mr Sall in the second round.\nMr Sall owes his political career to Mr Wade, and had held several ministry portfolios before becoming prime minister, the BBC's Thomas Fessy reports from Dakar.\nBut the two men fell out over the handling of public spending by Karim Wade, the president's unpopular son, whom many believe has been trying to succeed his father, our correspondent adds.\nMr Sall has promised that, if elected, he will shorten the presidential term to five years from the current seven, and enforce the two-term limit. He has also promised to bring in measures to reduce the price of basic foodstuffs.\nThe new leader also faces the difficult task of tackling rising unemployment in the country, our correspondent says.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["The winner of Senegal's presidential election, Macky Sall"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Wade","Macky Sall"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["65","35"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election","Senegal"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2012 George Galloway of the Respect Party wins the United Kingdom House of Commons constituency of Bradford West in a by–election. (BBC)","document":"Respect Party candidate George Galloway has taken the Bradford West parliamentary seat from Labour, winning the by-election by 10,140 votes.\nMr Galloway, expelled by Labour in 2003, said it was the \"most sensational victory\" in by-election history.\nLabour leader Ed Miliband said it was \"incredibly disappointing\" and the party needed to \"learn lessons\".\nAt the 2010 General Election, Labour's Marsha Singh, who resigned on health grounds, won with a majority of 5,763 .\nThe party had held the West Yorkshire seat since 1974, except for a brief period in the 1980s when the sitting MP defected to the SDP.\nMr Galloway won 18,341 votes, a 56% share of the total vote. Labour candidate Imran Hussein came second with 8,201 votes as the party's share of the vote was 20% down on its 2010 figure.\nConservative candidate Jackie Whiteley was third, with 2,746 votes. Jeanette Sunderland, of the Liberal Democrats, secured 1,505 votes - the party lost its deposit.\nMr Galloway, who co-founded the anti-war Respect Party after being expelled by Labour because of comments he made as part of his opposition to the Iraq war, said the result represented the \"Bradford Spring\".\nHe said the \"mammoth vote\" represented a \"total rejection\" of the three major parties in the British political system.\nHe said Labour \"must stop imagining that working people and poor people have no option but to support them if they hate the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition partners.\n\"They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars because one of the reasons why they were so decisively defeated this evening is that the public don't believe that they have atoned for their role in the invasion and occupation of other people's countries and the drowning of those countries in blood.\"\nMr Miliband said the result had been unexpected and the reasons for it were \"not simple\".\n\"We should have won this by-election and I am very disappointed we did not,\" he said.\n\"I think this was to do with local factors that were particular to the constituency and we have got to understand those lessons.\"\nHe said he would travel to Bradford in the near future to start the process of trying to \"win back people's trust\".\nA Liberal Democrat spokesman said the party was \"clearly disappointed\" with the result while David Ward, Lib Dem MP for Bradford East, said Mr Galloway still spoke for the old Labour Party.\n\"This was the Asian community within Bradford, really, who are in some ways punishing the Labour Party for abusing them and using them in the past,\" he said.\nBut Salma Yaqoob, the Respect Party leader, said it was \"patronising\" to suggest that Mr Galloway - a critic of the UK's mission in Afghanistan - had been dependent on support from Muslims for his victory.\nShe told Radio 4's Today programme: \"Look at the result...Over 50% of the vote. That is not just one community coming out to vote. That is young, old people, people across all areas. In fact in every area across the constituency, Respect won.\"\nConservative Party co-chair Baroness Warsi said Mr Galloway had clearly \"connected\" with the electorate and suggested the result was disastrous for Labour.\n\"If Ed Miliband can't get his act together after a week like this when is he going to get his act together?\" she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\"This is a Labour seat, has been for many, many decades and last night they lost it in spectacular fashion.\"\nBBC Yorkshire political editor Len Tingle said there had effectively been two campaigns in the seat - one with the three main UK parties focused on the economy and jobs, and the other run by Mr Galloway which had his party's anti-war message at its forefront.\nTurnout in the by-election was just over 50%, compared with 64.9% in the 2010 general election.\nBookmakers said they had taken a lot of money on Mr Galloway in the days leading up to the poll and had slashed the odds on him winning. Ladbrokes said they faced paying out up to £100,000 in winning bets.\nIt is the second time Mr Galloway has upset the political odds - he pulled off one of the most memorable results of the 2005 General Election when he overturned a large Labour majority in London's Bethnal Green and Bow to become the Respect Party's first MP.\nHis win in Bradford West is a remarkable comeback after disappointing showings at the 2010 General Election and the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. With a different candidate, Respect only came fifth in Bradford West in the 2010 General Election.\nLabour have won all five previous by-elections in England and Scotland since the 2010 General Election.\nThe full result (with vote share and change since 2010 in brackets):\nGeorge Galloway (Respect) 18,341 (55.89%, +52.83%)\nImran Hussain (Lab) 8,201 (24.99%, -20.36%)\nJackie Whiteley (C) 2,746 (8.37%, -22.78%)\nJeanette Sunderland (LD) 1,505 (4.59%, -7.08%)\nSonja McNally (UKIP) 1,085 (3.31%, +1.31%)\nDawud Islam (Green) 481 (1.47%, -0.85%)\nNeil Craig (D Nats) 344 (1.05%)\nHowling Laud Hope (Loony) 111 (0.34%)\nGalloway","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Respect Party candidate George Galloway"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["10,140 votes","Mr Galloway won 18,341 votes, a 56% share of the total vote","Labour candidate Imran Hussein came second with 8,201 votes","Conservative candidate Jackie Whiteley was third, with 2,746 votes","Jeanette Sunderland, of the Liberal Democrats, secured 1,505 votes"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2012 Voters in Burma go to the polls for by–elections for 45 seats, with Aung San Suu Kyi claiming victory in one election. (BBC) (The Telegraph)","document":"Aung San Suu Kyi's party claims she has won a seat in Burma's parliament after Sunday's historic election, setting the stage for her to hold public office for the first time.\nThe victory, if confirmed, marks a major milestone in the Southeast Asian nation, where the military has ruled almost exclusively for a half-century and where the government is now seeking legitimacy and a lifting of Western sanctions. The victory claim was displayed on a digital signboard above the opposition National League for Democracy's headquarters in Rangoon. Earlier, the party said in unofficial figures that Ms Suu Kyi was ahead with 65 per cent of the vote in 82 of her constituency's 129 polling stations. As polling got under way in the first election ever contested by the country's Nobel laureate, EU officials said while they welcomed the Burmese government's invitation to observe 45 parliamentary by-elections, they had not been given enough time to carry out a credible monitoring operation. Observers from the EU, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), foreign diplomats and local pro-democracy groups have been given free access to officials and polling stations for the first time as part of Burma's campaign to persuade the European Union and United States to lift economic sanctions. Britain's foreign secretary William Hague said EU sanctions could be lifted later this month if the by-elections are seen to be free and fair. EU observers, led by its head of Democracy Support and Elections division Malgorzata Wasilewska, visited polling stations throughout the country as they opened to voters this morning, and found them calm and peaceful. Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy expects to win 80 per cent of the seats – 36 in total – to match its showing in its last campaign in 1990 when it won a landslide victory in the constituent assembly polls. Aung San Suu Kyi greets supporters as she travels across the constituency where she is standing as a candidate in Kawhmu (AFP/Getty Images)\nThose results were ignored by the ruling military junta. In its first campaign in 22 years, which follows a series of government reforms to lift censorship, release political prisoners and end media restrictions, the NLD has alleged intimidation and sabotage by officials and supporters of President Thein Sein. Last week Ms Suu Kyi called on EU and other observer teams to investigate allegations of irregularities in the run up to today's elections. \"I hope they will take into consideration the fact that the freeness and fairness of an election does not depend merely on the day of the polling itself but on what went before that day and I hope you will find out as much as possible about what's been taking place over the last couple of months,\" she said. But according to EU official Malgorzata Wasilewska, her team had not been given sufficient access in time to carry out a full observation. \"The UN declaration on principles of observation means observation is a long term presence and analysis of the whole process not just election day. The invitation is extremely welcome, a sign of a first step towards transparency and openness we're here because it's an interesting moment but not in a position to assess whether these elections are credible,\" she told The Daily Telegraph. \"But it is important to be here and people are saying it is very different to how elections were conducted in 2010.\" She inspected Rangoon's 90th Street polling station in Mingala Taungnyant constituency which had opened half an hour earlier than its official 6am start. Voters wait in line to vote in a polling booth in a school in the rural remote constituency where Aung San Suu Kyi is standing for parliamentary by-elections (EPA)\nVoters cast their votes in a calm and orderly atmosphere and party election agents were allowed to watch the proceedings. But observers noticed a number of apparent irregularities and questionable practices which they could not clarify. Although ballot boxes were shielded with blue screens for privacy, they were sealed only with removable gaffer tape. Election officials said there were 1975 registered voters, but lists posted at the station showed only 1870. The polling station itself was in the private home of an unidentified donor. They were also concerned that there was no system to identify those who had already voted to prevent multiple votes. \"The only way to verify a person has not voted several times is to use [indelible] ink,\" said Ms Wasilewska. But she stressed there was no way to establish the significance of initial concerns in the absence of a full, long-term observer mission. \"There's no way of verifying what this means without a proper mission,\" she said. Tin Maung Thann, a local observer from the Myanmar Egress policy group, said in the 2010 elections, which gave the governing Union Solidarity and Development Party a commanding majority, electors had no privacy when they cast their votes into a single ballot box. \"Before people could see from behind. They can't now and that is key,\" he said. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Aung San Suu Kyi"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["65 per cent of the vote in 82 of her constituency's 129 polling stations"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Burma"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Burma's parliament"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2012 The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt nominates chairman Khairat El–Shater as a candidate for the presidential elections in May 2012. (BBC)","document":"The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has nominated its deputy chairman, Khairat al-Shatir, as its candidate for the presidential elections in May.\nThe choice of Mr Shatir, the group's financier, reverses a pledge made earlier by the group's leaders not to contest the election.\nIt will raise concerns among liberals and the military that the Brotherhood could become too powerful.\nCorrespondents say its ties with the ruling council have steadily worsened.\nThere had been much speculation about whether it would opt to field a candidate following the party's legislative election success in November.\nThe movement's political arm then won around a third of the vote, and nearly half the seats in the first parliamentary election since the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year.\nMahmoud Hussein, the group's deputy leader, said it had decided to field a candidate following \"attempts to abort the revolution\". Only a few days remain before the close of nominations.\nChallenge\nThe announcement ends months of speculation about who the Muslim Brotherhood would throw its weight behind, says the BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo.\nMr Shatir, a wealthy businessman, has long been a senior member of the Islamist group and its main financier.\nHe spent 12 years in prison because of his connection with the Brotherhood, which was previously banned. He was released only after last year's uprising.\nIn an official statement, the Muslim Brotherhood said it had reversed its decision not to contest the presidency to overcome risks to Egypt's revolution and the transfer from military to civilian rule.\nThe Brotherhood already dominates Egypt's newly elected parliament and the panel set up to draft the new constitution.\nBut it complains that its attempts to form a new cabinet have been blocked and there have been threats to dissolve parliament.\nThe ruling military council has been in conflict with the Brotherhood over the appointment of cabinet ministers.\nThe Brotherhood argues presidential candidates from the ousted government could present a further challenge.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Khairat al-Shatir"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2012 Campaigning ahead of Sunday's French presidential election enters its final day. (BBC)","document":"The leading contenders for the French presidency have made their final appeals to voters on the last day of campaigning before Sunday's election.\nIncumbent Nicolas Sarkozy - in office since 2007 - urged supporters to \"speak up\" and choose \"a strong France\".\nSocialist challenger Francois Hollande, who also held a rally, said it was \"the left's turn to govern the country\". There are 10 candidates in all and if no candidate wins 50% of the votes, there will be a second run-off round.\nAddressing a rally in the south-eastern city of Nice on Friday, Mr Sarkozy said: \"Speak up. Don't allow yourselves to be silenced. Come en masse on Sunday.\"\nBring your ballot papers because each ballot paper will build our victory.  Only the French people can say: \"The choice we have made is that of a strong France.\"\nMeanwhile Mr Hollande ended his campaign in the industrial north-east - a region hard hit by unemployment.\nHe told a rally in the town of Charleville-Mezieres: \"This is a region that put its faith in Nicolas Sarkozy, who came here making speeches on industry, jobs, workers. Everybody can see the scale of the disappointment.\n\"Now, it's the left's turn to govern the country,\" he added.\nAs well as Mr Hollande and Mr Sarkozy, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon and centrist Francois Bayrou are among the front-runners.\nCampaigning has focused on the economy, with Mr Sarkozy boasting of good economic growth in 2011, despite unemployment at 10%.\nBoth leading candidates have promised to balance the budget, but Mr Hollande has emphasised growth rather than austerity. Mr Hollande told Europe 1 radio earlier on Friday that the country's budget woes were the result of five years of Mr Sarkozy's policies, and called for concerted European action to revive growth.\n\"The important thing is to put our public finances in order,\" he said.\n\"They've been turned completely upside down these past years due to irresponsible fiscal policy and the crisis.\"\nHe called for the European Central Bank (ECB) to take a radically different role by lending directly to troubled eurozone states rather than to banks, and by keeping interest rates low. The ECB is barred by law from purchasing government debt directly - the \"no bailout clause\" - and some economists argue that such a move would risk easing the pressure for governments to balance their budgets.\nAlso on Friday morning, Mr Sarkozy said he had helped steer the eurozone through the worst of the debt crisis, making him the safest pair of hands.\n\"The risk of the euro imploding doesn't exist any more,\" he told RTL radio.\n\"We can't afford any mistakes. The minute we ease up on cutting spending, reducing the deficit, reducing the debt, France will share the fate of Spain.\"\nBy law, election campaigning had to end at midnight local time (22:00 GMT) on Friday. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Hollande","Mr Sarkozy","Marine Le Pen","Jean-Luc Melenchon","Francois Bayrou"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["France"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Voters in the United Kingdom go to the polls for local elections with the opposition Labour Party expected to do well. (BBC)","document":"Ed Miliband has told voters Labour are \"back throughout the country on your side\" after making big gains in the English, Welsh and Scottish elections. In Scotland they gained a majority in Glasgow, while in Wales their results were the best since 1996 and in England they gained 22 councils.\nOverall Labour gained 823 councillors. The Tories lost 405 and Lib Dems 336.\nBut Prime Minister David Cameron said he would continue making \"difficult decisions\" to deal with the deficit. With all the results in, the BBC's projection of the national share of the vote has Labour with a 38% national share of the vote, up three points, with the Tories down four on 31%. The Lib Dems' projected national share of the vote is estimated to be unchanged at 16%. But the party's total number of councillors has dipped below 3,000 for the first time since it was formed in 1988.\nIn other developments:\nConservative ministers have shrugged off the results as typical for a mid-term government.\nAddressing activists in Southampton, one of the key councils gained by Labour, Mr Miliband said his party's campaign had been based around \"the things that matter to people\" - attacking the coalition as \"out of touch\".\nHis party took control of series of key councils in the south-east of England and the Midlands, including Birmingham, Plymouth, Reading, Norwich, Thurrock and Harlow.\n\"For the parents worried about their son or daughter who can't find a job, for the people who are seeing their living standards squeezed, for the people who think this country only works for a few at the top and not for them - Labour is back on your side. Labour is back in the south of England on your side, Labour is back throughout the country on your side.\"\nHe pledged to reach out to those who did not turn out to vote and to \"regain trust\", following the party's 2010 general election defeat, saying Labour still had \"more to do\" to win people over.\nShortly after his speech the Labour leader was hit on the shoulder by an egg during a walkabout in Southampton.\nPrime Minister David Cameron said he was sorry for the councillors who had lost their seats against \"a difficult national backdrop\" but rejected suggestions he should change course: \"These are difficult times and there aren't easy answers.\n\"What we have to do is take the difficult decisions to deal with the debt, deficit and broken economy that we've inherited and we will go on making those decisions and we've got to do the right thing for our country.\"\nIn London Conservative Boris Johnson pipped Labour's Ken Livingstone to win a second term as London mayor, although Labour made gains in the London assembly.\nIn Scotland - where Labour had been under pressure from the Scottish National Party - Labour gained 58 councillors, the SNP gained 57 with the Lib Dems the biggest losers, with 80 of their councillors defeated.\nDeputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said he was \"really sad\" that so many Lib Dem councillors had lost their seats but added: \"I am determined that we will continue to play our role in rescuing, repairing and reforming the British economy. \"It's not an easy job and it can't be done overnight but our duty is to boost jobs and investment and to restore a sense of hope and optimism to our country.\"\nThe UK Independence Party increased its vote share, averaging about 13% of the vote where their candidates were standing, although it failed to translate that into seats - gaining six but losing five. Backbench Conservative MP Gary Streeter said Conservative supporters were sending a message to Mr Cameron that \"they don't think our leadership is Conservative enough\" by voting for the Eurosceptic UKIP.\nBut Foreign Secretary William Hague rejected any move to the right or left for the government and Lib Dem president Tim Farron told BBC any \"lurch to the right\" by the Tories would be \"bonkers\".\nMore than 4,700 seats have been contested in 128 English councils, with 21 unitary authorities in Wales electing new councillors. In Scotland, every seat on 32 unitary authorities was up for election.\nVoters in Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Coventry, Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford have voted \"no\" in referendums for elected mayors but Bristol has voted \"yes\". In Doncaster, residents have voted to keep their mayoral system.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["the Tories","The Lib Dems'"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["31","16"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["England"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 U.S. President Barack Obama wins the Democratic primary in West Virginia with less than 60%, losing most of the remaining votes to a perennial candidate included on the ballot. (CBS News)","document":"        (CBS News) Keith Judd -- also known as Inmate No. 11593-051 -- made a decent showing against President Obama in the West Virginia Democratic primary Tuesday night.\nThe inmate, currently serving a 210-month sentence for extortion at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, not only managed to get on the West Virginia primary ballot, he also managed to win nearly 70,000 votes. That means Judd carried 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary, while Mr. Obama took 59 percent.\nThe Republican National Committee pounced on the news, spamming reporters with the headline, \"Obama Loses Large Share Of Vote In West Virginia To A Felon Doing Time In Texas\" in an email Wednesday morning.\nAccording to the Associated Press, Judd secured a spot on the ballot by paying a $2,500 fee and filing the appropriate paperwork. Typically in West Virginia, a candidate qualifies for at least one delegate at the Democratic National Convention if he or she wins at least 15 percent of the vote. However, Judd may not be able to cause Mr. Obama any hassle at the convention, since no one has filed to be a delegate for him, the state Democratic party told the AP. Party officials are still looking into it, they said.\nAccording to the Charleston Gazette, Judd distributed a position paper to West Virginia media, stating his opposition to Mr. Obama's health care overhaul on the grounds that it violates the 10th Amendment. He also reportedly asserts that the 10th Amendment gives incarcerated felons the right to vote.\nWhile Judd may seem like an unlikely opponent for the president, it's no secret Mr. Obama is unpopular in the state. Mr. Obama lost West Virginia's 2008 Democratic primary contest to Hillary Clinton and lost the general election vote to John McCain by 13 points. Even the state's Democratic senator, Joe Manchin -- who faces his own re-election battle this year -- has said he's not sure he'll vote for Mr. Obama.\nMeanwhile, on the Republican side, Mitt Romney won the West Virginia primary with 69 percent of the vote, though Rick Santorum took 12 percent and Ron Paul won 11 percent.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Keith Judd","President Obama"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Judd carried 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary, while Mr. Obama took 59 percent","70,000 votes","Mitt Romney won the West Virginia primary with 69 percent of the vote, though Rick Santorum took 12 percent and Ron Paul won 11 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["West Virginia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Crisis–wracked Greece is forced to hold new general elections, after efforts by major political parties to form a coalition government end in failure. (The Guardian)","document":"Against a backdrop of division, despondency and despair, debt-stricken Greeks head back to the polls next month amid fears the new election will do the very thing it is supposed to stop: hasten the country's economic collapse and exit from the eurozone.\nAfter a week of political high drama after inconclusive elections, feuding party chiefs acknowledged their inability to form a unity government on Tuesday, with several blaming Alexis Tsipras, whose Left Coalition party has taken Greece by storm.\n\"Unfortunately the country is being led again to elections … under very bad conditions,\" said the socialist Pasok leader, Evangelos Venizelos, after the breakdown of the last-ditch negotiations at Athens' presidential palace. \"For God's sake let's move towards something better, not something worse.\"\nAcross Europe there is no illusion that the poll, expected to take place on 10 or 17 June, is a referendum on whether the near insolvent country – kept afloat by EU and IMF rescue loans – stays in the eurozone.\nWithin hours of the election being announced, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, summed up the predicament Greece now faced. \"If Greece – and this is the will of the great majority – wants to stay in the euro, then they have to accept the conditions,\" he told reporters at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels. \"Otherwise, it isn't possible. No responsible candidate can hide that from the electorate.\"\nEnter Tsipras, who says the spending cuts and structural reforms outlined in a \"memorandum of understanding\" Athens signed with its creditors are not only \"barbaric\", but must be revoked.\nUntil 6 May, when Syriza – his alliance of far-left socialists, Trotskyists, Maoists and greens – took a surprise second place in the vote, the 38-year-old former communist held little sway over Greece's decision-making apparatus.\nBut now his opinion accounts. Among the under 50s who have been worst hit by galloping unemployment and deepening poverty – the most visible byproducts of austerity measures many Greeks blame Berlin for imposing – Tsipras is seen as a saviour, the man who tells it as it is.\nIn the nine days since the country's general election, his ratings have risen further with surveys indicating Syriza would easily emerge on top in a new ballot – another blow to the political establishment whose two main parties, Pasok and New Democracy, were punished by the electorate for pursuing deeply unpopular policies in return for aid.\nAlthough next month's election is also expected to result in a hung parliament with no party securing enough votes to form a government, the radical leftists would likely hold the reins to power. Greece would then be on a collision course with Europe as Tsipras, an unabashed populist, is likely to step up his fiery anti-austerity oratory. It is a toxic mix. And in Athens the panic is almost palpable.\n\"Tsipras will be handed the opportunity to fulfil the left's dream of taking power democratically,\" said Brady Keisling, a prominent Athens-based analyst likening the young radical to the late socialist strongman Andreas Papandreou, who also put Greece on a collision course with the international community with his anti-European, anti-Nato rhetoric.\n\"Papandreou promised to give Greeks things they never had. Tsipras has made a much more dangerous promise, to restore things they recently had and still remember, their old jobs, wages and pensions.\"\nThirty-one years after the country joined the then EEC and 11 since it signed up to the common currency, anxiety is widespread that Syriza's likely election will mark the turning point in relations between the two.\nTsipras, who was born days after the collapse of military rule in 1974 and is the country's youngest politician, denies that he has peddled false promises. On the eve of the last election he told the Guardian he was not opposed to the euro but the \"policies pursued in the name of the euro\".\nBut with EU partners saying in no uncertain terms that cash instalments will stop if Athens fails to adhere to its tough austerity and reform programme, fears are high that Greece is hurtling towards default and with it the collapse of an economy now on its knees.\nWith coffers running dry, the country barely has enough money to survive until the election, officials in the outgoing government say.\nMany worry that ahead of the poll Greeks, who still have vivid memories of a bloody left-right civil war, are going to become increasingly polarised in a climate already electrified by an ever deepening sense of fury and loss.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["socialist Pasok leader, Evangelos Venizelos","Alexis Tsipras, whose Left Coalition party","Syriza – his alliance of far-left socialists, Trotskyists, Maoists and greens","Pasok and New Democracy"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Until 6 May"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Greece"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Greece is to hold a second round of elections on June 17, after final talks by the major political parties to form a coalition government were unsuccessful. (BBC)","document":"Greece will hold fresh elections on 17 June and a judge has been appointed to head an interim government.\nCouncil of State president Panagiotis Pikramenos will head the caretaker government until the election.\nThe election date was announced after party leaders met Greek President Karolos Papoulias on Wednesday. Final talks to form a coalition failed on Tuesday, raising new concerns over Greece's eurozone future. No party won a majority in the 6 May election.\nThere has been deadlock since the election over whether to continue with the austerity measures required by an international bailout agreement.\nRecent opinion polls suggest that Syriza, a leftist bloc opposed to the tough bailout conditions, would win a new election, but would still not gain enough for a parliamentary majority. It came second on 6 May.\nThe uncertainty pushed the euro to a new four-month low against the dollar on Wednesday.\nEU officials fear Greece will elect an anti-bailout government, which could trigger a Greek exit from the euro. That possibility is now discussed openly among Europe's leaders, the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says.\nBut a senior adviser to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy played down the possibility.\n\"We're not planning for a Greek exit, nobody is planning for a Greek exit,\" Richard Corbett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. \"That would not help Greece, it would not help the rest of the European Union and technically by the way, it's an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. The idea of planning a Greek exit would risk being a self-fulfilling prophecy.\"\nOn Wednesday the eurozone crisis pushed Asian stocks lower and knocked oil prices. Tokyo's Nikkei index dropped 1%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi lost about 3%.\nThe euro fell more than half a cent to $1.27.\nMeanwhile the borrowing costs for Spain and Italy rose again, with Spanish bond yields hitting 6.5% and Italy's 6.1%.\nThe uncertainty over the euro has also sparked concern over a run on the banks in Greece.\nGreek newspapers report that around 700m euros (£558m; $897m) has been withdrawn from high street banks over the past few days, the BBC's Richard Galpin in Athens says.\nPeople are concerned that an exit from the eurozone and a reversion to the drachma would wipe out much of their savings, he says.\nEuropean leaders say they will cut off funding for Greece if it rejects the bailout agreed in March.\nThis would mean effective bankruptcy for Greece and its all but certain exit from the euro, analysts say.\nGerman Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed again on Wednesday that there would be no new discussions on Greece's bailout.\nThe head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has raised the possibility of orchestrating an \"orderly exit\" for Greece from the eurozone.\n\"It is something that would be extremely expensive and would pose great risks, but it is part of options that we must technically consider,\" she said on Tuesday.\nAfter talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel following his inauguration as French president, Francois Hollande said he wanted Greece to remain in the euro.\nThe Syriza bloc wants to renegotiate the bailout package but also wants to keep Greece in the euro. Pasok and New Democracy, which signed up to the bailouts and had previously dominated Greek politics for decades, saw their combined share of the vote drop from about 77% to about 33% on 6 May.\nOn Tuesday, Greece said it would make a \"timely payment\" on 435m euros' worth of debt due on 15 May. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["head an interim government"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Pasok and New Democracy"]},{"role":"Date","values":["17 June"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Greece"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Voters in the Dominican Republic go to the polls for a presidential election with early results showing Danilo Medina as the winner. (AP via ABC America) (Reuters via Yahoo News)","document":"A former president whose single term ended with the deepest economic crisis in the modern history of the Dominican Republic is seeking redemption Sunday as he faces an old rival in what is expected to be a close election to lead the Caribbean's top tourist destination.\nFormer President Hipolito Mejia, a gaffe-prone populist, trounced rival Danilo Medina when they last faced off in 2000. But Mejia's four-year presidential term ended in disaster, with a banking crisis that sunk the economy and caused so much misery and scarcity that tens of thousands of people fled the country and voters cast him out of office.\nThe pair face off again in Sunday's election and several polls show ruling party-candidate Medina could win with slightly more than 50 percent of the vote, thus avoiding a runoff.\nAfter eight years under President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Liberation Party, or PLD,  the question is whether enough time has gone by for crucial swing voters to give Mejia another chance, said Rosario Espinal, director of the Latin American Studies Center at Temple University in Philadelphia.\n\"The country is not in a crisis like it was in 2003 and 2004. It's a very different situation,\" said Espinal. \"But there is a lot of disenchantment with the government, especially with the high cost of living.\"\nEspinal, a leading political analyst of the country, said the election will turn on the narrow slice of the electorate who are not affiliated with either the PLD or Mejia's opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party.\n\"The question is whether they are more tired of the current government or more fearful of what might happen under Mejia,\" she said.\nFernandez is not running for a third consecutive term. Medina, 60, is a party stalwart who has promised to improve upon but not make any major changes to the policies of the outgoing president, who has embarked on a massive public works campaign that included a subway system modeled after the one in New York.\nRamona Hernandez, director of the Dominican Studies Institute of the City University of New York, said it will be in part a generational struggle between those who remember the crisis, which was set off by the failure of three banks and resulted in a nearly 20 percent drop in GDP, and those who never lived through it.\n\"People between 40 and 60 years old, they haven't forgotten. He has a history,\" Hernandez said of Mejia. \"But he has a chance with younger people.\"\nIn addition to president, Dominicans are electing a vice president from a field that includes the heavily favored First Lady, Margarita Cedeno de Fernandez, and seven members of the Chamber of Deputies who will represent people who have settled overseas. Tens of thousands are expected to cast ballots in places with large numbers of Dominicans, including New York, New Jersey, Florida and Puerto Rico.\nPolitics in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, largely revolves around the PLD and Mejia's Dominican Revolutionary Party, or PRD.  Both were founded as Marxist parties by Juan Bosch, president for a year in 1963 until he was ousted in a coup. The two have come to embrace free trade, generally pro-business policies and close ties to the U.S.  The PLD is considered \"center right,\" largely because it's in power, and the PRD is said to be center-left but the differences largely turn on personality, loyalty and patronage.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Medina","Mejia's opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party","Dominican Liberation Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Dominican Republic"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Voters in the US states of Arkansas and Kentucky go to the polls, with Mitt Romney winning the Republican primaries, and President Barack Obama winning but performing relatively poorly against token opposition in the Democratic primaries. (ABC News)","document":"Mitt Romney's victories tonight in Arkansas and Kentucky may have been foregone conclusions, but besides two more batches of delegates on his way to the 1,144 he needs to clinch the Republican presidential nomination, they also gave him something else - bragging rights over President Obama.\nIn Kentucky, Romney, who is expected to clinch the nomination after the Texas primary on May 29, received a higher percentage of the vote in the Republican presidential primary than Obama received in the Democratic presidential primary. With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 67 percent of the vote, while Obama had 58 percent - compared to \"uncommitted,\" which received 42 percent, according to The Associated Press.\nObama did receive more votes than Romney in Kentucky - 119,284 to 117,599, according to the unofficial results from the state board of elections.\nIn Arkansas, Obama has 61 percent of the vote with roughly 96 percent of precincts reporting. His Democratic challenger, John Wolfe, a lawyer from Tennessee, has 39 percent. Romney, comparatively, has received 68 percent of the vote, the AP reported.\nArkansas and Kentucky are not considered competitive states in the general election; ABC News rates both states as solid Republican. Nevertheless, the strong showing by \"uncommitted\" and a relatively unknown candidate in his own party's primary could be viewed as an embarrassment for Obama, particularly coming on the heels of the strong performance of federal inmate Keith Judd in West Virginia's primary earlier this month.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Romney","Obama","John Wolfe"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["67 percent","58 percent","Obama did receive more votes than Romney in Kentucky - 119,284 to 117,599","In Arkansas, Obama has 61 percent of the vote","39 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Arkansas and Kentucky"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Voters in Egypt go to the polls for a presidential election, 15 months after former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a revolution. (BBC)","document":"Polling stations have closed on the first of two days of Egypt's first free presidential election, 15 months after Hosni Mubarak was ousted.\nFifty million people are eligible to vote, and large queues formed at some polling stations.\nThe military council which assumed presidential power in February 2011 has promised a fair vote and civilian rule.\nThe election pits Islamists against secularists, and revolutionaries against Mubarak-era ministers.\nBut the BBC's Wyre Davies, in the second city of Alexandria, says that for many people the election is not about religious dogma or party politics, but about who can put food on the table.\nThe frontrunners are: Until a new constitution is approved it is unclear what powers the president will have, prompting fears of friction with a military which seems determined to retain its powerful position.\n'Free choice'\nVoting began at 08:00 (06:00 GMT), and throughout Wednesday long lines of voters were seen outside polling stations around the country. Polling hours were extended to cater for the queues and frustrated voters were seen banging on polling station doors which were closed at 21:30. Voting will resume for a second day on Thursday at 08:00.\nThe interior ministry estimated turnout at less than 25% in some areas, and around 40% on others.\nProceedings were largely peaceful on Wednesday, with the health ministry reporting just 13 injuries across the country, due to overcrowding at polling stations and high temperatures. NGOs and rights groups monitoring the elction reported some complaints. Egypt's National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), an organization aimed at promoting human rights in Egypt, told the BBC they received 50 complaints on electoral violations ranging from delay in opening voing booths, to campaigning for candidates outside polling stations during voting.\nThere was a heavy police and military presence outside the 13,000 polling sub-stations and BBC correspondents said the atmosphere was mostly calm, with people waiting patiently for their turn to vote.  One police sergeant died after being shot during clashes between rival supporters in Rawdh al-Faraj on Tuesday evening, officials said.\n\"It's a very big day,\" one woman told the BBC earlier. \"This is a real great moment for the Egyptians to change.\"\nAnother, when asked how long she had been waiting to vote, replied, with a laugh: \"Thirty years.\"\nMr Mursi was originally the Muslim Brotherhood's reserve candidate, but he was thrust into the limelight after its first choice, Khairat al-Shater, was disqualified by the Higher Presidential Electoral Commission (HPEC) over an unresolved conviction. He told reporters: \"Today the world is witnessing the birth of a new Egypt. I am proud and cherish my membership of this people. I assure them that tomorrow will be better than today and better than yesterday.\"\nRash of crime\nA run-off vote is scheduled for 16 and 17 June if there is no outright winner.\nThe election is being hailed as a landmark for Egyptians, who have the opportunity to choose their leader for the first time in the country's 5,000-year recorded history.\nThe Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), worried about potential post-election unrest, has sought to reassure Egyptians that it will be the voters themselves who decide who will be the next president.\nIts leader, Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, observed the election process at a number of polling stations.\nThe 15 months since Mr Mubarak was forced from power have been turbulent, with continued violent protests and a deteriorating economy.\nForeign direct investment has reversed from $6.4bn (£4bn) flowing into the country in 2010 to $500m leaving it last year. Tourism, a major revenue generator for Egypt, has also dropped by a third.\nThe new president will have to reform the police to deal with the rash of crime that followed the uprising.\nAs many as a third of voters are reported to be undecided about which candidate to choose.\nThe Arab Spring began in Tunisia last year when weeks of protests forced President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power, inspiring pro-democracy activists across the Arab world.\nMr Mubarak, who was in power for three decades, resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of protests in Cairo and other cities.\nHe is on trial for his alleged role in the deaths of protesters, and a verdict in the case is due on 2 June. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["Polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Mursi was originally the Muslim Brotherhood's reserve candidate"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Voting began at 08:00 (06:00 GMT)","Thursday at 08:00"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 Voters in Egypt go to the polls for a second day to vote in a presidential election. (BBC)","document":"Egyptians are voting for the second day in the country's first free presidential elections - 15 months after Hosni Mubarak was ousted.\nQueues were reported at some polling stations, and media reports said turnout was higher than on Wednesday.\nThe election pits Islamists against secularists, and revolutionaries against Mubarak-era ministers. A row erupted between two of the main candidates for apparently spreading damaging rumours about each other.\nIn a BBC interview, Amr Moussa launched an angry attack on his rival Ahmed Shafiq and denied what he described as \"sinister rumours\" that he was about to withdraw from the race.\nMr Moussa and Mr Shafiq's campaigns have apparently been suggesting that the other is losing badly and is about to withdraw.\nIn all,                       13 candidates are running.\n The front-runners are:         Mr Shafiq, Mr Fotouh and Mr Mursi have all been accused of breaking rules requiring candidates keep silent on polling days.\nVoting has now been extended by an hour until 21:00.\nThe military council which assumed presidential power in February 2011 has promised a fair vote and civilian rule.\nOn Wednesday, there were large queues in many places, and voting passed off calmly for the most part. However, protesters in Cairo threw shoes and stones at a convoy of Mr Shafiq, who was Mr Mubarak's last prime minister.\nThere were also reports that a group of female voters was denied access to a polling station in the capital because they were wearing a full face veil.\nThe US hailed the election, with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland describing it as a \"milestone\" in Egypt's transition to democracy.\nFifty million people are eligible to vote, and preliminary results are expected over the weekend.\nUntil a new constitution is approved it is unclear what powers the president will have, prompting fears of friction with a military which seems determined to retain its powerful position.\n'Elections under tanks'\nVoting across the country resumed at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT). The authorities have declared Thursday a holiday. The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says some Egyptians may have been waiting for a second day of voting to avoid crowds.\nLocal TV reporters in several locations said turnout was higher than on the first day.\nBut in Alexandria the opposite appeared to be true, and military police were seen driving around urging people to vote.\nNGOs and rights groups monitoring the election have reported some complaints. Egypt's National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) told the BBC it had received 50 complaints on electoral violations ranging from delay in opening voting booths, to campaigning for candidates outside polling stations during voting.\nMeanwhile young people in Cairo told the BBC they had doubts about the vote.\n\"Has the revolution accomplished all of its goals? No,\" said Dina Kassem.  \"You know we still have so much to go [sic] like any other country. The French revolution took how many years?  But you can see the fact of it today. And that's what we're hoping to bring to Egypt.\"\nAssia Krim was less hopeful.\n\"Everyone is disappointed after the revolution. Elections under a military regime are not elections. Elections under tanks, I'm sorry - they are not elections,\" she said.\nCounting will begin as soon as polls close, and some individual polling stations are expected to announce their results by Friday morning.\nThe results will then be collated and announced in full on Tuesday. No clear picture is likely to emerge until then.\nA run-off vote is scheduled for 16 and 17 June if no candidate manages to get more than 50% of the votes. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), worried about potential post-election unrest, has sought to reassure Egyptians that it will be the voters themselves who decide who will be the next president.\nThe Arab Spring began last year in Tunisia, inspiring pro-democracy activists across the Arab world. Mr Mubarak, who was in power for three decades, resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of protests in Cairo and other cities.\nHe is on trial for his alleged role in the deaths of protesters. A verdict is expected in June.\nThe period since he was forced from power have been turbulent, with continued violent protests and a deteriorating economy.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Amr Moussa","Ahmed Shafiq"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2009 The European Union casts doubt on last month's election results showing Afghan President Hamid Karzai winning the presidential election outright in the first round. (Reuters)","document":"KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai won the presidential vote outright in the first round, election officials said on Wednesday, but the European Union said more than a third of his votes might be suspect because of fraud.\nBattle over Afghan policy\n01:58\nA disputed result would prove difficult for U.S. President Barack Obama, who is considering deploying more troops and who set out broad goals on Wednesday for boosting the ability of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight militancy.\nAfghan election authorities issued complete preliminary results showing Karzai received 54.6 percent of the vote last month. His main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, got 27.8 percent.\nThe results are not final until approved by a separate election fraud watchdog, which has called for a recount of about 10 percent of polling stations.\nBut a campaign spokesman for Karzai said the result made it almost impossible that any probe could overturn the outcome. Only a “miracle” for his opponents could prevent Karzai winning, Waheed Omar said.\nA spokesman for Abdullah had no immediate reaction.\nA final result pending the fraud probe could be weeks away, prolonging a state of political limbo that has led to fears of instability and concern among Western donors that a future government may lack a clear mandate.\nA European Union election observer mission said it believed as many as 1.5 million votes -- including 1.1 million cast for Karzai -- were “suspicious”.\n“Any claim for any count or of victory will be premature and not credible,” the head of the EU mission, Philippe Morillon, told Reuters.\n\n\nKarzai’s campaign called the EU mission’s statement “irresponsible” and said only the official, U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission was empowered to find fraud.\nAli Najafi, a member of the Afghan election commission, also criticized the EU mission for coming forward with its assessment before the complaints process was complete.\n“Observers observe. They can give advice to the (election commission) but they do not have the right to interfere,” he said. Asked about the votes the EU team described as suspicious, he said: “I don’t know where they got this figure from.”\nWestern officials initially hailed the August 20 election, mainly because militant attacks failed to prevent it from taking place despite a resurgent Taliban insurgency.\nOne of the Obama administration’s objectives delivered to lawmakers on Wednesday was to promote a more capable, accountable and effective government in Afghanistan, according to a draft document obtained by Reuters.\nIt also wants to defeat the insurgency and develop the Afghan security forces so the U.S. role can be reduced. Obama also wants to develop neighboring Pakistan’s counterinsurgency capabilities to defeat insurgent groups.\nThe war, launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks to root out al Qaeda and topple the group’s Taliban backers, is becoming increasingly unpopular at home and Obama may find it difficult to persuade Americans to send soldiers to defend a government whose legitimacy could be called into question.\nObama told White House reporters there was “no immediate decision pending on resources,” a day after the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said more troops would probably be needed and that he expected a request from Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, in a couple of weeks.\nThe United States almost doubled its number of troops in Afghanistan this year to 62,000, partly to help secure the election. The number is expected to grow by another 6,000 by year’s end.\nFraud accusations have been especially heavy in southern areas that favor Karzai but where Taliban threats had the most impact on turnout.\nThe EU’s Morillon said fraud had been carried out by “unscrupulous, overzealous supporters ... from every camp.”\nIn addition to the 1.1 million suspect ballots for Karzai, his team found 300,000 suspicious ballots for Abdullah. Disqualifying ballots for Karzai would have the most impact, by potentially putting the president below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off vote.\nThe final tally showed Karzai with 3.1 million votes of the 5.7 million valid votes counted. If all the votes considered suspect by the EU were omitted, Karzai would have 2 million out of 4.2 million valid votes, shy of 50 percent.\nThe U.N.-backed ECC must sign off on any final result. A second election round, if needed, would have to be held within two weeks of the final result being declared, although there has been some concern that this could be difficult if it is delayed into winter when travel is difficult in Afghanistan.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Karzai","Abdullah Abdullah"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["54.6 percent","27.8 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2009 A senior Irish Catholic bishop says Roman Catholics can vote \"Yes\" in the country's second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon \"in good conscience\". (BBC)","document":"A senior Irish Catholic bishop has said Roman Catholics can vote \"Yes\" to the Lisbon Treaty \"in good conscience\".\nThe EU treaty does not affect the legal position of abortion in the Republic of Ireland, Bishop Noel Treanor said. Ireland's rejection of the treaty in a referendum last year was attributed in part to voters' concern that Lisbon might soften Irish anti-abortion laws. A second Irish referendum will take place on 2 October. Nearly all the 27 EU member states have ratified Lisbon. Rev Noel Treanor, Bishop of Down and Connor, told an Irish parliamentary committee on Wednesday that \"a Catholic can, without reserve and in good conscience, vote Yes for the Lisbon Treaty\". \"There are no grounds to justify a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty on the basis of specifically religious or ethical concerns. \"The Lisbon Treaty does not alter the legal position of abortion in Ireland. This is further assured by the legal guarantees (which will become protocols) secured by the Irish government,\" he said. Official Church position\nBishop Treanor told the committee he had represented the Irish Bishops' Conference in Brussels for almost 20 years and was speaking with the support of Catholic primate Cardinal Sean Brady. Since the last referendum the EU has provided legally binding \"guarantees\" that Lisbon will not affect Irish sovereignty over taxation, \"family\" issues - such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage - and the traditional Irish state neutrality. Polls suggest most Irish voters will back the treaty second time round. All EU member states must ratify the treaty for it to come into force. The treaty is aimed at streamlining EU institutions, to improve decision-making in the enlarged 27-member bloc. Opponents say it undermines national sovereignty and concentrates too much power in Brussels.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["Lisbon Treaty"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2 October"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Republic of Ireland"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2009 The Socialist Party win the Portuguese legislative election to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic, with 36.6% of the vote. (euronews) (The Independent) (Trend News Agency)","document":"With unemployment at its highest level in 20 years, Portugal went to the polls yesterday in an election that could bring greater political uncertainty as the ruling Socialists are expected to win but fall short of an absolute majority.\nPrime Minister Jose Socrates, an energetic 52-year-old, is expected to win around 38 per cent of the vote, according to the last polls. That result would leave him short of his current majority and he would likely have to rule with a minority.\nThe highest jobless rate since the 1980s and the worst economic downturn in decades has not been enough to push the Portuguese away from the centre-left Socialists, who launched market reforms and cleaned up public finances in their first term. Manuela Ferreira Leite, 68, the leader of the centre-right Social Democrats, has fared poorly, analysts said.\nShe is known as a tough cost cutter from a stint as finance minister when current European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was prime minister of Portugal. Analysts said that a minority government would not be a disaster, but could reduce Mr Socrates's ability to make ambitious reforms. He won 45 per cent of the vote in 2005, giving him a strong absolute majority in parliament that allowed him to clean up public finances and to reform pensions and the civil service.\nThis time around, he might have to co-operate with Ms Ferreira Leite's party, particularly on public finance and the 2010 budget. On other matters, such as social reform, the Socialists may turn to leftist parties. Mr Socrates, like the left, sees a bigger government role in the economy, with projects to create jobs. This year, the Portuguese economy is expected to contract up to 4 per cent in what is western Europe's poorest country.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Prime Minister Jose Socrates","centre-left Socialists","Manuela Ferreira Leite, 68, the leader of the centre-right Social Democrats"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Portugal"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 Socialists win national elections in Greece, defeating a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis.  (NY Times)","document":"ATHENS — Socialists won national elections in Greece on Sunday, trouncing a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis.\nWith 88 percent of Greece’s 10 million votes counted, according to The Associated Press, the Socialist Pasok Party was leading with 44 percent of the vote to 34 percent for the center-right New Democracy Party, a margin expected to give the Socialists their largest victory ever and a comfortable majority in Parliament.\n“Today we set off together to build the Greece we want and need. We have no time to waste,” the Socialist leader, George Papandreou, said in his victory speech. “We want it, we can do it, we will succeed.”\n“Nothing will be easy,” he added. “But I will always be honest and upfront with the Greeks.”\nIn conceding defeat, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said he had failed to persuade Greeks to accept the two years of austerity measures he had called for to steer the country out of its economic crisis. “The voters did not approve of this policy. It was their choice, and I respect it,” he said.\n\nMr. Karamanlis also stepped down as leader of the New Democracy Party, which suffered its worst performance since the restoration of Greek democracy in 1974 after years of military dictatorship. He said he would call a party congress to elect a new leader within a month.\nMr. Karamanlis, 53, called early elections last month, two years into a mandate dogged by corruption scandals and economic crisis, aiming to win a fresh mandate and stave off labor unrest. He had called for a freeze in public-sector wages to fight rising debt and unemployment, but he had difficulty pushing through important economic and structural reforms because he governed with a one-vote margin in Parliament.\nMr. Papandreou, 57, instead favored increased spending, including a $4.5 billion stimulus package to revive the Greek economy though infrastructure projects and environmentally sustainable development, while cracking down on tax evasion. Experts estimate that Greece loses $17.5 billion annually in unpaid income taxes and $13 billion in unpaid payroll taxes.\nThe victory by the Socialists here was a rare event for Europe, where the left has been losing ground and has often been unable to capitalize on the financial crisis for its own political gain.\nAdvertisement\nBut many Greek voters appeared to be voting against Mr. Karamanlis as much as for the Socialists. After two decades of Socialist rule, Mr. Karamanlis was elected in 2004 promising to restore faith in government. But Greeks began to lose confidence in him after a series of corruption scandals and over the government’s lack of swift response to wildfires over the past few years, as well as its handling of violent protests after a teenage boy was shot and killed by the police last December. Pasok inherits a difficult situation. After 15 years of sustained growth, the Greek economy is expected to slide into a recession this year, exacerbated by endemic problems including a costly and ailing pension system. The pillars of the Greek economy, tourism and shipping, have also been hard hit by the crisis.\nMr. Papandreou has said he will start by asking the European Commission to extend the timeframe in which Greece is required to bring its deficit, estimated at 7.8 percent of gross domestic product, under the 3 percent ceiling set for the euro zone.\nDuring the campaign, Mr. Papandreou said he would bring in well-regarded financial experts from abroad and vowed to increase meritocracy in a system still dominated by political patronage.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Socialists won national elections in Greece on Sunday"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["New Democracy Party","Socialist Pasok Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["44 percent","34 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Greece"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["national elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 Mayoral, regional and district council elections take place in Moscow and 75 other regions across Russia. (RIA Novosti) (The Guardian) (BBC)","document":"Opposition parties in Russia have alleged that local elections across the country were marred by fraud.\nMayoral, regional and district council votes were held across Russia on Sunday, with some 30 million people eligible to vote. Official results showed PM Vladimir Putin's United Russia party winning nearly every poll by a wide margin. But opposition parties say they were refused registration to take part and were denied media access. Votes were held in almost all regions, including Chechnya and Ingushetia. 'Loyalty'\nAs results came in on Monday, United Russia claimed victory after victory. In the vote for Moscow City Council, election officials said United Russia won 66% and the Communists 13%. Those figures were expected to give the ruling party all but three of the 35 seats in the Moscow parliament, strengthening the hand of Moscow's powerful mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. The opposition liberal Yabloko party failed to win 5%, losing its place on the council. The results, echoed across the country, wiped out opposition hopes that it could capitalise on the serious economic crisis in Russia, amid sharp negative growth and rising unemployment. Instead, that inspired loyalty to United Russia, according to senior party official Boris Gryzlov. \"We can say that the voters and people of Russia, in a situation when we are fighting the global economic crisis, when we are struggling to stabilise the political situation, are with the party of power,\" he said. 'Votes taken'\nVladimir Churov, chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission, praised the electoral process. \"The elections were recognised [as] valid and were well organised, with a quite high turnout,\" he told Itar-Tass. However, concerns over the polling led to one opposition leader, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, calling on voters to boycott the elections or spoil their ballots. \"These elections are illegitimate. They're nothing but a farce,\" he told the Associated Press. Mr Nemtsov was refused permission to stand in Moscow's city council election, AP reported, with election officials alleging the 5,000 signatures his party collected were forged. Another opposition party, Yabloko, also alleged irregularities in Moscow, saying voters had contacted party officials to say they tried to vote but found votes already cast in their names. Party observers also noticed large numbers of voters at a polling station who did not live in that voting area, Yabloko said, adding that it was preparing a complaint to election officials.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling station"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["three of the 35 seats"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["PM Vladimir Putin's United Russia party winning nearly every poll by a wide margin"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["United Russia won 66% and the Communists 13"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Russia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 Ukraine commences its first presidential election campaign since the 2004 Orange Revolution. (Reuters)","document":"Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko holds a news conference after meeting European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek at the EU Parliament in Brussels, October 15, 2009. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir\nAs the country starts its first presidential election campaign since that popular movement in 2004 broke the grip of the post-Soviet establishment, its leader, President Viktor Yushchenko, stares a painful reality in the face.\nOpinion polls point to Viktor Yanukovich, his disgraced Moscow-backed opponent back then, getting easily through a January 17 election to go into a run-off vote.\nJust as bitter for Yushchenko -- his erstwhile “Orange” ally but now rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is almost certain to be the other player in the second-round showdown, analysts say.\nThe 55-year-old president has ratings so low that none but his most loyal supporters see a chance of re-election.\nMost Ukrainians hope the vote, for which official campaigning begins Monday, will end five years of political in-fighting that has paralyzed decision-making and frustrated reform in one of Europe’s worst performing economies.\nIt will also decide the extent to which the ex-Soviet state of 47 million will stick to Yushchenko’s pro-western blueprint or toe a more compliant line toward its old master, Russia.\nNo matter who triumphs, most analysts expect renewed efforts to improve frosty ties with Russia -- including pushing the pursuit of NATO membership firmly on to the back-burner -- without abandoning the democratic strides Ukraine has made.\nThe two have been involved in disputes over the pricing and supply of Russian natural gas across Ukrainian territory to Europe. The Russian Black Sea fleet based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol could become a serious source of friction.\nBut both Yanukovich, a former prime minister from the hard school of eastern Ukraine politics, and Tymoshenko will fend off competition from Russian big business and attempts to tug Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence, analysts say.\n“The course for integration into the European Union and NATO will be pushed back for at least five years,” said Vadym Karasev, director of the Institute for Global Strategies.\n“The country will be suspended between the post-Soviet world of yesterday and the European one of tomorrow.”\nRelated Coverage\nA poll this month put Yanukovich, whose power base is in Russian-speaking regions of the country, in front with 28.7 per cent. Tymoshenko had 19 percent, according to the SOCIS survey.\nThe challenge from former parliament speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, 35, who had been seen as a rival for Tymoshenko’s vote, has leveled off. Support for him was at 8.2 per cent.\nBut these ratings may hold good only for the first round.\nTymoshenko, 48, a firebrand who sports a peasant hair-plait, can quickly find the pulse of a crowd as she showed in 2004 with electrifying performances during the Orange street protests.\nPro-Tymoshenko advertising in Kiev proclaims: “She works!.” Her campaign will focus on her energy and decisiveness.\nYanukovich, 59, a towering man who heads the pro-business Party of the Regions, seems sure to champion Russian-language rights, oppose NATO membership and emphasize what he has denounced as the “chaos” of the Yushchenko years, analysts say.\n“Yanukovich will not be a puppet of Moscow, but the degree of influence of Moscow on Yanukovich will be greater than that on Tymoshenko,” said political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.\nBut in a run-off, Yanukovich may find it hard to strike a chord in central Ukraine -- a key battleground -- or make inroads in the Ukrainian-speaking west.\nOn balance, most analysts believe Tymoshenko will outperform the sometimes clumsy Yanukovich in a head-to-head clash in February. But, as steward of the economy, Tymoshenko might still see her ratings take a knock if there is more bad economic news.\nUkrainians have seen the national currency, the hryvnia, lose more than a third of its value against the dollar -- hard for the many who purchased big on dollar credit and are now facing rising pay-back terms.\nA lot too depends on Ukraine’s business billionaires, who have no qualms about putting their money behind a candidate -- though they switch sides easily.\nA turnaround in Yushchenko’s fortunes seems unlikely.\nHe ousted Yanukovich in 2004 after a rigged election was quashed by the Supreme Court and he went on to win a re-run.\nBut he has been an indecisive leader. His nationalistic and other policies have won little broad support. His incessant sniping at Tymoshenko has also backfired on him, many say.\nBut others say he has not been given the credit for a significant pro-democracy shift in society during his rule.\n“This is a pluralistic society. There is a free press. The economy is in a mess but Ukraine is the freest country in the Commonwealth of Independent States,” said one foreign observer.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Viktor Yushchenko","Yanukovich","Yulia Tymoshenko","Arseniy Yatsenyuk"]},{"role":"Date","values":["October 15, 2009"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["28.7 per cent","Tymoshenko had 19 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Ukraine"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 Niger is suspended by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after its President Tandja Mamadou went ahead with a parliamentary election it had asked to be postponed over boycotts. (BBC) (Reuters)","document":"ABUJA, Oct 20 (Reuters) - West African leaders on Tuesday suspended Niger from the ECOWAS regional bloc and said they would not recognize the outcome of the country's parliamentary elections.\n\"The holding of the elections today in total disregard of the authority of ECOWAS heads of state and government is a clear move by the authorities in Niger to further entrench the constitutional illegality currently prevailing in the country,\" said a spokesman for Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, who is the current ECOWAS chairman.\n\"The Republic of Niger is therefore suspended from ECOWAS until constitutional legality is reinstated.\"  ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Niger"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 Niger is suspended by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after its President Tandja Mamadou went ahead with a parliamentary election it had asked to be postponed over boycotts. (BBC) (Reuters)","document":"West Africa's trade grouping Ecowas has suspended Niger after President Mamadou Tandja went ahead with a controversial parliamentary election.\nEcowas had called on Mr Tandja to postpone the vote indefinitely to allow talks with opposition politicians - who have boycotted Tuesday's election. They are angry at the president's attempts to extend his time in power. Mr Tandja dissolved parliament earlier this year and had the constitution changed to let him seek a third term. After talks at the weekend, Ecowas had warned the 71-year-old president to delay the election or face \"full sanctions\". 'Pariah' status\nOn Tuesday the bloc's political director, Abdel Fatau Musa, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme it was clear Mr Tandja had rejected the decision of Ecowas. He defended the decision to suspend the nation, saying it would affect Mr Tandja. \"If you are considered a pariah, an outcast, from an organisation you have ratified the conditions of, then psychologically it will affect you,\" he said. He warned that the issue could end up in the UN Security Council, and Niger could be left in international isolation unless Mr Tandja backed down. The president's move to stay in power in the uranium-rich nation sparked international outrage and dismay among opposition groups. He had been due to stand down in December after serving two five-year terms. But his supporters say the people want him to stay in power because he has brought financial stability to one of the world's poorest nations. In January, French company Areva signed a deal to develop what it said would become the world's second biggest uranium mine. The mine is in the semi-desert north, where ethnic Tuareg rebels have been fighting for more autonomy. President Tandja has signed a peace deal with several Tuareg groups. Six million people are eligible to vote to elect a new 113-member parliament, but correspondents say the campaign has been marked by indifference among residents.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["president's attempts to extend his time in power"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["President Mamadou Tandja"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Niger"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["controversial parliamentary election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"October_2009 President of Tunisia Zine El Abidine Ben Ali wins 90% of votes, his fifth term and a new five–year mandate in the country's general election. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (CBC)","document":"Tunisia's leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has secured a landslide victory in the presidential election, gaining almost 90% of the votes.\nOfficial figures say 84% of the country's voters turned out for the presidential and legislative polls. The president-elect has won another five-year mandate. The head of the African Union observer delegation, Benjamin Boungolous, described Sunday's election as free and fair, but opposition groups cried foul. They said there was no genuine freedom of choice during the election. The president's ruling party the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) also held on to the vast majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The RCD won 161 seats out of 214 available. Mr Ben Ali has been in power for 23 years and this was his fifth election. The BBC's Rana Jawad in Tunis says the only suspense in Tunisian elections lies in what percentage of the vote is declared in favour of Mr Ben Ali. She says the only shock may well be that it was the first time he has won less than 94% of the vote. Results in 2004 gave him nearly 95%.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["The RCD won 161 seats out of 214 available"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Tunisia's leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has secured a landslide victory"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["gaining almost 90% of the votes"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Tunis"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 Afghan Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah pulls out of the run–off election versus Hamid Karzai due to concerns over the independence of Azizullah Lodin, the head of the Independent Election Commission. (The Guardian)","document":"Abdullah Abdullah announced today that he would not participate in Afghanistan's runoff election next week, claiming it would result in widespread fraud.\nTo cheers from thousands of supporters in Kabul, Abdullah said he had not taken lightly his decision, which is likely to prolong the political crisis in the country.\n\"We will not take part, because of the wrongdoing of the Independent Election Commission and the abuse of power by the government,\" Abdullah told his supporters.\nHis running mate, Homayoun Shah Assefy, said: \"We are no longer a candidate and we wish Mr Karzai luck.\"\nAbdullah stopped short of calling for a boycott – a decision that will please western diplomats keen to avoid civil unrest. But the prolonged political uncertainty will further complicate Barack Obama's deliberations over whether to send up to 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan.\nThe White House has been waiting for a new government in Kabul before announcing its decision. Yesterday Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said the legitimacy of the election would not be affected if Abdullah withdrew.\n\"I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election,\" she said. \"It's a personal choice which may or may not be made.\"\nNadjib Yussufi, a senior campaign official, said any attempt to anoint Hamid Karzai as president without a second vote would lack credibility. He said that if Karzai had \"political wisdom\" he would call a traditional meeting of all the country's tribal leaders and power brokers to decide a way forward.\nAbdullah's announcement came after the failure of last-minute attempts to head off another crisis in the presidential election saga. Kai Eide, the senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, led a series of talks with Karzai to lay the ground for a power-sharing deal in which Abdullah would concede defeat, making a second round unnecessary.\nIn return, the former foreign minister had asked for a number of changes to the Afghan election body, including the sacking of its lead commissioner. But almost all of Abdullah's demands were rejected, leaving him no choice but to drop out, his supporters say.\n\"He knows that there is no point in taking part in an election where the odds are illegally stacked against him,\" said one senior member of Abdullah's camp last night.\nMany western observers agreed with some of Abdullah's demands, including a call for the replacement of Independent Election Commission (IEC) chairman, Azizullah Ludin, who has been heavily criticised for appearing to be biased in favour of Karzai.\nEide organised a meeting between Karzai and Abdullah last week to discuss a solution, including plans for a power-sharing deal. But an official with knowledge of the conversation said Karzai was unwilling to compromise.\n\"Abdullah's demands were low – he would have taken a job as head of the constitutional reform committee in order to meet his campaign pledges. But Karzai wasn't interested,\" he said.\nSome western diplomats had argued that because Karzai received more votes than any other candidate in the first round he should be accepted as the winner, even though he did not receive the 50% of the vote that the constitution says must be achieved for outright victory.\nAccording to the Electoral Complaints Commission, Karzai got 48.2% after almost a million of his votes were ruled out as fraudulent, although his share would have been far lower if the commission's fraud investigation had been more far-reaching.\nAfzal Nuristani, a criminal defence lawyer, said that crowning Karzai without a second round would \"not be legitimate. If Karzai claimed power under those circumstances he will bring the country into chaos – this problem can only be solved politically.\"\nThe IEC has claimed that it has the right to settle the dispute, although that is unlikely to be widely accepted because its Karzai-appointed commissioners have consistently taken decisions favouring their man.\nAnother solution would be for the supreme court to rule on the matter, although it is also seen as a pro-Karzai body that does not have the power to make new law.\nSaeed Rahi, another lawyer, said the only solution was for a traditional gathering of all the country's power brokers, or loya jirga, to make a decision. \"The supreme court may be able to prolong or extend Karzai's term in office by a few months as an emergency measure, but only as an interim measure until a loya jirga could be established.\"\nThere is almost no appetite for a second round of voting, particularly among western countries which fear their troops will be put at risk by Taliban attempts to disrupt the poll. Security fears were underlined last week when a team of militants attacked a guesthouse in central Kabul, killing five UN staff.\n\"Whichever way you look at it, Karzai is not going to be a legitimate leader,\" said one western diplomat. \"He is soiled goods now and people don't know how the relationship is going to work with the international community in the coming year. The only person to have come out well is Abdullah, who has done a great job of elevating himself as a statesman on the international stage.\"","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Karzai"]},{"role":"Date","values":["next week"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["48.2"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Afghanistan's runoff election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2009 The Northern Mariana Islands election commission sets November 23 as the guberntorial runoff election between Governor Benigno Fitial and challenger Heinz Hofschneider. (Saipan Tribune)","document":"\t           The Commonwealth Election Commission certified yesterday the results of Saturday's general election for 40-plus seats in government and set the runoff election for Nov. 23.During the same meeting at 3:30pm, the election board also certified that all four initiatives placed on the ballots failed to get the needed number of votes to pass.These included the Open Government Act of 2007, a popular initiative endorsed by Rep. Tina Sablan that proposes to subject the Legislature to the Act. The measure received only 6,579 affirmative votes, still short by over 300 votes to get the majority of the 13,784 total votes cast during Saturday's general election.House Legislative Initiative 16-11, which prohibits the withdrawal of any funds from the general fund except for appropriations, was also rejected, getting only 5,476 votes.The same fate befell Senate Legislative Initiative 16-11, which pertains to the holding of regular general elections in even-numbered years. The proposed measure got only 5,644 “yes” votes.Voters also thumbed down the amendment proposed by House Legislative Initiative 15-3, which requires a high school student to be a member of the Board of Education. The initiative got only 5,353 affirmative votes.According to CEC executive director Robert Guerrero, all four measures were not ratified because these didn't get the majority of the 13,784 total votes cast in the election.Runoff pollsAfter certifying the election results, the board adopted Nov. 23 as the date for the runoff election between the top two vote-getters for the governor's post. Incumbents Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Eloy Inos of the Covenant Party will face Republican Party standard bearers Heinz Hofschneider and Arnold Palacios in the runoff.Guerrero emphasized that absentee voters will still counted in the runoff election, provided that their absentee ballots are postmarked by the date of the runoff and are received by the commission no later than 14 days after.Guerrero said the commission, according to law, must send the absentee ballots no later than 10 days before the election.“We will be sending the absentee ballots in the next three to four days,” he assured.Guerrero, however, said the commission has no projection as to how many of the absentee voters in Saturday's election will participate in the runoff.“This is a first in CNMI history and we don't know yet what to expect,” he said.There were over 2,000 absentee ballots received and counted during Saturday's election.Election Commission legal counsel Meaghan Hassel Shearer confirmed with Saipan Tribune yesterday the certification of the election results.'Recount for Rebuenog'Saipan Tribune learned that the election board also scheduled a recount of the votes on Friday at 11am for one Northern Islands mayoralty candidate.Ramona Rebuenog, who ran under the Covenant Party, asked the commission yesterday for a recount after she was beaten by independent opponent Tobias Aldan by just one vote-68 versus 67 votes.The commission is expected to issue a certification of the recount if changes are noted in the new tally.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["general election for 40-plus seats in government"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Incumbents Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Eloy Inos of the Covenant Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","Nov. 23.During the same meeting at 3:30pm"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Northern Islands"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Commonwealth Election Commission"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Voters in Azerbaijan go to the polls for a parliamentary election with the opposition raising concerns over candidates being prevented from registering. (BBC) (Trend News Agency)","document":"Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are held by the majority system in 125 constituencies. Previous parliamentary elections were held in November 2005.\nThe CEC states that information about the voters' turnout will be delivered five times and voting results few hours later ending of the voting process to the CEC and its website via Automated Information System network.\nTotally 46,639 local observers were registered for the parliamentary elections. 3,466 observers were registered at the CEC and 102 of them are from the political parties, 560 from the non-governmental organizations, three - on the initiative of the registered candidates and others - on the personal initiative. 43,173 of the local observers were accredited at the electoral district commissions to observe voting process in certain constituencies.\nTo date, 1,029 observers from 21 international (foreign) organizations, including PACE, Council of European Union, EU representation in Baku, European Parliament, TurkPA, OSCE PA, OSCE/ODIHR, CIS, GUAM, embassies of the US, UK, Kazakhstan, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan and Belgium, as well as European Election Monitoring Academy, were accredited at the CEC. There are citizens of 48 countries among the international observers.\nSome 43 foreign journalists from nearly 20 foreign media organizations, including Reuters, BBC, Al-Jazeera, TRT, Associated Press, France Press, EPA, Anatolian news agency, Ihlas news agency (IHA), Dogan news agency (DHA), Daily Ettehad were also accredited at the CEC.\n500 polling stations were equipped with web-cameras for online watching the voting process via Internet. According to the Electoral Code, ELS Independent Research Center was registered at CEC for conducting exit-poll on the voting day.\nThe CEC will use invisible ink and ultraviolet detectors (lamps) to ensure transparency in the election","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["500 polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Azerbaijan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Jordanians go the polls for their parliamentary election but the opposition Islamic Action Front boycotts. (BBC) (Xinhua)","document":"Jordanians are voting in parliamentary elections that have been boycotted by the strongest opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF).\nThe IAF objects to a new law which reduced seats from urban areas while increasing representation from tribal areas which support King Abdullah.\nThe IAF draws its support from Palestinian-populated urban areas.\nVoter turnout is expected to be low amid concerns over a sluggish economy and rising prices for basic goods.\nAbout 2.5 million Jordanians are eligible to vote to fill the 120 seats in the parliament's lower house. Twelve seats are reserved for women.\nTuesday was declared a public holiday to encourage people to vote and buses were seen shuttling voters to polling stations in parts of the capital Amman, the AFP news agency reported.\n\"We hope the lower house will represent all Jordanians and enhance the country's achievements,\" AFP quoted Prime Minister Samir Rifai as saying after he cast his ballot at a school in central Amman.\nIn the mainly Christian city of Madaba close to Amman, about 30 people were arrested on their way to a polling station \"for carrying knives and axes\", police spokesman Muhammad Khatib told reporters.\nAnd in Muqablein, in eastern Amman, a drunken driver was arrested after he crashed his car into a voting centre and injured two people, he added.\nThe election follows a year of direct royal rule, after King Abdullah dissolved the previous parliament - which was widely accused of being ineffective - half-way through its four-year term. A fresh poll was delayed to allow a new election law to be drafted, but critics say that this ignored demands for reform.\nThe IAF - the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood - pulled out of the vote saying the electoral system is biased in favour of the ruling Hashemites, Jordan's ruling family.\nThe group has suspended seven of its members who broke the party's boycott and are running as independents. One opposition figure, Toujan Faisal, who has been banned for life from politics over her campaigns against corruption and nepotism, has described the election as a farce. \"We need basic reforms. The economic situation is dangerous. People don't have enough money to eat or buy medicine. The government is just trying to have a facelift,\" she told the BBC.\nJordan faces an acute economic crisis with a record budget deficit of $2bn (£1.24bn) and a foreign debt of $11bn, nearly 60% of GDP.\nThe government has agreed, for the first time, to allow 250 international observers to monitor the vote alongside local representatives from non-governmental organisations.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["King Abdullah dissolved the previous parliament - which was widely accused of being ineffective"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["the 120 seats in the parliament's lower house"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Amman"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 The Union Solidarity and Development Party is predicting a sweeping victory in the Burmese general election which overseas observers have called a sham. (Reuters)","document":"YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar’s biggest military-backed party won the country’s first election in 20 years by a landslide on Tuesday after a carefully choreographed vote denounced by pro-democracy parties as rigged to preserve authoritarian rule.\nOpposition parties conceded defeat but accused the military junta of fraud and said many state workers had been forced to support the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in advance balloting ahead of Sunday’s vote.\nU.S. President Barack Obama told a news conference in Indonesia Myanmar’s election was neither free nor fair and called on Burmese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners.\nBut China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded the election as “peaceful and successful,” illustrating strengthening ties between energy-hungry China and its resource-rich neighbor.\nAs the votes were counted, government soldiers cleared ethnic minority rebels from an eastern border town after two days of sporadic clashes that killed at least 10 people and sent about 18,000 civilians fleeing into neighboring Thailand.\nMany refugees had returned to Myanmar by afternoon as the military pushed back the ethnic minority Karen rebels who have resisted central authority for generations since what was then Burma won independence in 1948 from Britain.\nU.N. refugee agency UNHCR says it is helping about 15,000 refugees who fled to Thailand from fighting in Myawaddy, and monitoring another 3,000 who fled from another area of Myanmar.\nThe fighters say the election and the military’s continued dominance threaten any chance of achieving a degree of autonomy.\nStacked with recently retired generals and closely aligned with 77-year-old paramount leader Senior General Than Shwe, the USDP took as many as 80 percent of the available seats for parliament, a senior USDP official told Reuters.\n\n\nBut Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, the largest opposition party, told Reuters: “We took the lead at the beginning but the USDP later came up with so-called advance votes and that changed the results completely, so we lost.”\nThe second-largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party (Myanmar), also conceded defeat.\n“I admit defeat but it was not fair play. It was full of malpractice and fraud and we will try to expose them and tell the people,” its leader, Thu Wai, told Reuters.\nAt least six parties have lodged complaints with the election commission, accusing the USDP of fraud -- a charge that is unlikely to gain traction in a country where more than 2,100 political activists are behind bars.\nThe vote was held with Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention and her party disbanded for refusing to take part in an election it said was unfair. She had urged supporters to boycott the poll.\nWith the election over, the spotlight returns to Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention but is due to be freed when her latest house arrest term expires on Saturday.\nThe United States, Britain, the European Union and Japan repeated calls this week to free the 65-year-old pro-democracy leader whose National League for Democracy beat an army-backed party by a landslide in 1990, a result ignored by the junta.\nThe army-backed USDP’s only real rival, the National Unity Party (NUP), also backed by the army, fared poorly in its quest for 980 seats, winning just 54 in the bicameral parliament and state assemblies.\n“Some representatives of our party filed complaints about fraud and malpractice by the USDP,” said Tin Aung, a senior NUP official. A strong showing by the NUP would have been seen as a jab against Than Shwe since it is thought to be closer to a different faction in the army.\nBy crushing the NUP, the junta reduces the chance of fissures in the military spilling into the open in parliament.\nAlready, 25 percent of the seats in parliament are reserved for serving generals. Lawmakers are expected to rubber-stamp policies by a cabinet appointed by a president who is not elected by the people but appointed by a parliamentary committee.\nOpposition lawmakers will have little say and no chance to secure the 75 percent of votes needed to amend a constitution that favors and reserves power for the military.\nThe armed forces supreme commander will choose three serving generals to head defense, interior and border affairs ministries.\nThis is why critics scoff at the military junta’s assertion that the new government will reflect the will of the people. In fact, parliament will have very limited power.\nMyanmar’s neighbors and partners in ASEAN have been hoping the election would end Myanmar’s isolation and remove hurdles it poses to greater cooperation with the West.\nChina has built up close political and business links with Myanmar while the West has for years shunned its leaders and imposed sanctions over the suppression of democracy and a poor human rights record.\nRussia also welcomed the vote.\n“We see the elections as a step in the democratization of Myanmar society in accordance with the political reforms taken by the country’s leadership,” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Myanmar’s biggest military-backed party won the country’s first election"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)","But Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force","National Unity Party (NUP)","Myanmar’s biggest military-backed party","Senior General Than Shwe","Thu Wai","an army-backed party","Democratic Party (Myanmar)"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou does well in a second round of municipal elections including its candidates elected as mayors of Athens and Thessaloniki. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)","document":"Greece's governing Socialists have won control of the capital, Athens, in the second round of local elections dominated by the country's debt crisis.\nPrime Minister George Papandreou's Pasok party also won most races for regional governors.\nMr Papandreou said he had received a mandate from voters to press on with his austerity plan.\nIMF and EU officials are due in Athens on Monday for talks on implementing a 110bn euros ($150bn;£93bn) rescue loan.\nIn Sunday's run-offs, Socialist-backed mayoral candidates won in both Athens and Thessaloniki - Greece's second-largest city - reversing a string of conservative victories dating back to 1986.\nIn addition, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) won eight of 13 races for regional governor - including in the greater Athens area.\nCommenting on the results on Sunday, the prime minister said: \"We have ahead of us a clear three-year period... to save and change Greece once and for all.\n\"We will put all our weight behind the major changes which will allow Greece to breathe, to stand up on its feet.\"\nPasok came to power last year. Its parliamentary mandate expires in 2013.\nLast week Mr Papandreou dropped his threat to call a snap general election after Pasok avoided heavy defeat in the first round of regional elections.\nNew figures also due on Monday are expected to show Greece's budget deficit for last year was worse than previously declared.\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Prime Minister George Papandreou's Pasok"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Greece"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["the second round of local elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Violence occurs in Guinea as both candidates declare victory ahead of the Guinean presidential election. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)","document":"Deadly violence flared in Guinea hours ahead of results of its first democratic presidential election since independence from France over 50 years ago, as both candidates claimed victory.\nVeteran opposition leader Alpha Conde, 72, said he had \"clearly\" won the run-off, while former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo said results \"purged\" of fraud showed him to be the winner.\nAt least one person was killed and dozens injured as security forces clashed with Diallo's supporters in the streets of Conakry, with soldiers firing on protesters who lobbed stones and other objects at them, police and witnesses said.\nElection results would be announced from 1800 GMT on Monday evening, the electoral organising commission said in a statement issued more than a week after the run-off election was held.\nThe two candidates were neck and neck according to partial results in the crucial vote which aims to end 52 years of dictatorship and military rule in the west African country.\nConde called a press conference earlier on Monday claiming victory and urging that the announcement of results go ahead.\n\"I know I have won,\" he told a press briefing.\n\"I have won four out of five districts in Conakry, all of the Lower Guinea prefectures except for Boke, all of the Forest prefectures and Upper Guinea. How could I not win?\" he added.\n\"The people voted overwhelmingly in peace with great maturity,\" Conde said, and \"the world congratulated them.\"\nDiallo later claimed he was the rightful winner and again threatened to reject the results if they were released on Monday without his side's allegations of widespread voting fraud being examined.\nHe said he based his calculations on results \"purged\" of flagrant fraud.\nTensions mounted ahead of the official announcement as youths threw stones and other objects at security forces, erecting barricades and burning tyres.\n\"Soldiers fired on a group of protesters\" killing one of them in Ratoma, a suburb of Conakry, a police source said, adding that \"dozens were injured.\nLocal pharmacist Oumar Diallo Sadio, 60, who reported hearing gunshots, said the clashes were \"what we wanted to avoid.\"\n\"Cellou Dalein Diallo's voters are expressing their anger because they think there has been fraud and what will be announced is not the truth,\" he said, adding that rumours were rife in the suburbs.\nRatoma is the only Conakry district where Diallo came out on top, with 67 per cent of the votes, partial results showed.\nThe November 7 election was hailed locally and abroad as peaceful, but observers raised fears of further violence after a campaign marred by ethnic clashes between supporters of Diallo, who is Fulani, and Conde, who is of the Malinke ethnic group.\nDiallo said on Sunday he would \"not accept\" the provisional results of the elections if they were announced immediately.\nIt was critical that the electoral commission fully examine what he described as \"massive fraud at all levels\", he said.\nCommission chairman Siaka Sangare said on Sunday all claims of fraud had been treated \"with the maximum attention.\"\nThe country has been presided over by a transitional military-led government since a coup in December 2008 followed the death of President Lansana Conte, who held power for 24 years.\nThe interim president, General Sekouba Konate, led Guinea to its first ever democratic election, with a first round taking place on June 27 from which Diallo emerged with 43 per cent of the vote, while Conde garnered 18 per cent.\nDespite Diallo's apparent commanding lead, alliances and ethnic voting allowed Conde to gain ground.\nThe violence comes ahead of the Islamic Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, on Tuesday, celebrated by all ethnic groups who usually live together in harmony.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Veteran opposition leader Alpha Conde","former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["43 per cent","18 per cent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Guinea"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["first democratic presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Alpha Condé of the opposition Rally of the Guinean People is declared the winner of the election. (CNN)","document":"Conakry, Guinea (CNN) -- Alpha Conde said Monday in a speech to supporters at his home that his victory in last week's presidential runoff will result in \"a new era\" for Guinea.\n\"Tonight marks a new era for our country, the hour of change that millions of Guineans have strived for years to achieve,\" he said in a victory speech in the Mafonco neighborhood of Conakry.\nHe delivered the speech shortly after the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission declared he was the victor in last week's tightly contested presidential election, the first in the West African republic's 52-year history.\nOutside Conde's residence, hundreds of cheering supporters surrounded his house in jubilation. About eight soldiers who made up his security contingent fired their AK-47s into the air in celebration.\nThe announcement capped a day of violence in the capital city of Conakry during which supporters of Conde and challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo claimed victory in the November 7 runoff election.\nShortly after Conde declared he had won, Diallo said he was the winner. In the melee that followed, security forces fired on supporters of Diallo in the Bambeto area of Conakry, killing three people, a spokesman for the military police said.\nGunfire could be heard throughout the day as demonstrators set tires afire in an attempt to block roads and threw stones at security forces armed in riot gear as they patrolled the streets in pickup trucks.\nThe forces fired tear gas and live ammunition against demonstrators, many of them boys who had thrown stones and then retreated into buildings.\nThough most of the streets were open, most of the stores were closed on Monday, a day before a Muslim holiday, when shoppers would typically be out in force stocking up on foodstuffs.\nThe U.S.-based Carter Center and a European Union election group both monitored last week's election and said they had found no major problems.\n\"The Carter Center congratulates Guineans for the peaceful and orderly conduct of voting and the high level of participation,\" the Carter Center said last week.\n\"The successful voting process is an overwhelming testament of Guineans' profound desire to express their will at the ballot box and to complete their historic democratic transition.\"\nU.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Guineans to \"accept the results ... and resolve any differences through legal means.\" In a statement, he said the republic had the United Nations' full support, and urged individual countries \"to provide Guinea with concrete support as the country embarks on a new phase towards peace, consolidation and development.\"\nBut supporters of Diallo said voter fraud was widespread, with more ballots cast in certain areas than there were people registered to vote. In other cases, they said, they had evidence that ballots that had been filled out at the polling places differed from the ballots that were submitted to the central counting location in Conakry.\nViolence surrounding the election has an ethnic dimension: Conde is an ethnic Malinke and Diallo a Peul.\nThe election results had initially been due last Wednesday, but Gen. Siaka Toumani Sangare, who heads the Independent National Electoral Commission, said he was delaying them to give time to consider election complaints that had been posed by both sides.\nEarly results showed many Guineans voted along ethnic and regional lines, with the ethnic Peul, also known as Fulani, supporting the Peul candidate, Diallo, and the Malinke strongly in favor of their candidate, Conde.\nAs winner, Conde will get unparalleled access to lucrative mining contracts for the ruling party.\nIn the past, Guinean presidents have favored their own ethnic groups, which is why many have openly worried that their community would be shut out of the resources if they lose.\nBut others were more hopeful that Guinea's democratic transition from the military junta that took power in 2008 would take place peacefully.\n\"The Guinean population from all the regions has witnessed war in the neighboring countries and has received displaced people, and I don't think they want to be in that position,\" Mamadou Camara, a computer engineer in Conakry, told CNN Thursday.\nGuinea, rich in minerals, is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Its new president will have to deal with myriad infrastructure problems, like the widespread lack of electricity and running water. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Conde declared he had won"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Cellou Dalein Diallo"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November 7"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Guinea"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential runoff"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 After Alpha Condé was declared the first democratically elected president of Guinea, at least nine people have been killed during riots in Guinea’s capital, Conakry. (CNN) (Ottawa Citizen)","document":"Conakry, Guinea (CNN) -- Authorities in the West African nation of Guinea have declared a state of emergency amid post-election violence that has killed at least nine people, the government said Wednesday on national radio.\nArmy Chief of Staff Gen. Nouhou Thiam said the state of emergency was established in response to attacks by civilians on security forces. \"Groups with malevolent intentions are deliberately attacking the forces of order,\" said Thiam, who read the decree on state radio before contacting foreign diplomats and civil society groups.\nBut doctors and local residents blamed many of the deaths on government security forces.\nSupporters of rival Guinean presidential candidates have clashed with each other and with security forces in Conakry, the capital, and other cities in northern Guinea, since Monday, when Alpha Conde was declared the winner of the November 7 runoff election. At least nine people have been killed in the past three days.\nThiam said the state of emergency \"is aimed at preserving the peace, tranquility and national unity,\" and will last until the Supreme Court issues final results of the presidential election. Almost all shops and businesses were closed and most residents remained indoors.\nAn overnight curfew restricted the gathering of people for any purpose and gave the military the right to check identification of any pedestrians or automobiles. People were still allowed to move freely throughout the city.\nThierno Barry, a doctor at Clinique Dixinn in Conakry, said that he had seen since Monday the bodies of five people killed by gunfire from Guinean security forces.\nDr. Mory Kaba said he had seen one fatality and 30 people wounded at Ratoma Hospital, where he works,\nCellou Dalein Diallo, the defeated candidate who is contesting the election results, told reporters Wednesday that at least 18 of his supporters have been killed by security forces since Monday in his strongholds in Conakry and the northern towns of Labe, Dalaba and Pita.\nA spokesman for the Guinean government said that he did not think any security forces had fired on Diallo's supporters.\n\"To my knowledge, I don't think so,\" said Ousmane Fofana, special ambassador to the presidency, when asked whether security forces had fired on civilians.\nBut Fofana added that he was not in close contact with security forces in Conakry's impoverished suburbs. \"Since this morning I have been in the office,\" he said.\nMohamed Saliou Sow, a resident of Hamdallaye, said he saw the election security force Fossepel shoot his friend, Abdoulaye Bah.\n\"The kid said he was going to look for food near the railroads, because we had nothing to eat,\" Sow said. \"He was with his friends, his back was turned, he didn't see the Fossepel guys. They shot him in the back. He died soon after, yelling, 'Ah! They hit me!'\"\nElection results showed many Guineans voted along ethnic and regional lines, with Malinke strongly in favor of their candidate, Conde, and the ethnic Peul, also known as Fulani, supporting the Peul candidate, Diallo.\nSow said Peul residents of his neighborhood woke him up Tuesday night to fight ethnic Malinke soldiers.\n\"At 1 a.m. the neighborhood imam called me to wake me, saying, 'Where are you?' I told him 'I'm sleeping.' He said, 'Get up, I heard shots. The Malinke are coming,'\" Sow said.\n\"The city will calm down in a few days, we are used to this type of situation,\" said Kaba, the Malinke doctor, adding that in his opinion, security forces were not doing enough to control the \"Peul youth who started the violence.\" He said that, in the southern town of Gueckedou, residents have responded to recent events by attacking the Peul.\nSow said that the ethnic Peul in his neighborhood are likely to respond soon. \"We are not scared. If this continues we will have to do the same to them,\" he said.\nA resident in Labe, a Peul-majority city in the northern Fouta Djallon highlands, said that Peul youths have attacked the Malinke, leading them to seek refuge in military bases near the city.\nA resident of Pita, a town about five hours northeast of the capital, said three people were killed there by gunshots from a Conde supporter who had been attacked by Diallo supporters. The resident, citing security concerns, asked not to be identified,\nDiallo said that the government is plotting to kill people from the Peul ethnic group who support him, despite his repeated attempts to alert international and national authorities.\n\"Despite the complaints I made to the International Group of Contact on Guinea [a U.N. body] and [President] Gen. Sekouba Konate, the repression continued today more brutally then ever,\" Diallo told CNN on Wednesday.\n\"The government must fulfill their responsibilities. If they don't, we will have to tell people to defend themselves,\" Diallo said.\nAn SMS message has been circulating among the Peul community in Conakry that reads: \"A part of the army that wants to eliminate the Peul community will make the rounds starting at 7 p.m. Pass this message to all your Peul friends and family.\"\nResidents of some of Conakry's impoverished suburbs told CNN that military officials fired live ammunition throughout the night and entered houses to make arbitrary arrests.\nThe presidential election was the first in Guinea's 52-year history. The U.S.-based Carter Center and a European Union election group both monitored the voting and said they had found no major problems. But supporters of Diallo said voter fraud was widespread, with more ballots cast in certain areas than there were people registered to vote.\nAs winner, Conde will get unparalleled access to lucrative mining contracts for the ruling party. In the past, Guinean presidents have favored their own ethnic groups, which is why many have openly worried that their community would be shut out of the resources if they lose.\nGuinea, rich in minerals, is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Its new president will have to deal with myriad infrastructure problems, like the widespread lack of electricity and running water.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Conde","Diallo"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Guinea"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["The presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 The Cook Islands Party wins a majority of seats in the Cook Islands general election, defeating the incumbent Democratic Party. Henry Puna will become the next Prime Minister. (Sydney Morning Herald)","document":"The Democratic Party which has dominated Cook Islands politics for the last decade has lost its grip on power in the Pacific nation.\nOn Friday, preliminary counts revealed The Cook Islands Party had won a majority of seats in Wednesday's general election, securing 15 of the 24 spots up for grabs.\nAbout 300 postal votes were still to be counted, but it was unlikely these could reverse the preliminary counts, Radio New Zealand International said.\nHenry Puna will become the country's new prime minister, with Teina Bishop stepping up as his deputy, according to Friday's count.\nPrior to the polls, former prime minister Jim Marurai, who has been in office since 2004, said he planned to stand down whether his party won the elections or not.\nHowever, the decisive performance of Puna's Cook Islands Party silenced speculation that the country might need to form a coalition government, or that independent MPs might hold the balance of power.\nOn Friday, the Democratic Party had won eight seats, with one seat still in a three-way battle between the two main parties and an independent candidate, Radio New Zealand International said.\nAmong the unsuccessful candidates was former prime minister, Sir Terepai Maoate, who stood as an independent after 25 years in parliament.\nSir Terepai's son, who was also standing as a candidate on an outlying island, also appeared to have been defeated.\nAbout 10,000 people registered to vote, local officials said.\nThe result of a binding referendum on whether the number of members of parliament should be reduced from 24 in the Cook Islands was not known on Friday.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["securing 15 of the 24 spots up for grabs"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["The Cook Islands Party had won a majority of seats"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Puna's Cook Islands Party","The Democratic Party","Henry Puna"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Cook Islands"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Voters in Burkina Faso go to the polls, with incumbent President Blaise Compaoré claiming victory with 75 per cent of the votes.(BBC News)","document":"Blaise Compaore was among 12 candidates standing in the presidential elections in the west African state this weekend.\nSalif Diallo estimates Mr Compaore took some 75% of the vote. Official results are not expected for another few days.\nSeveral opposition candidates have criticised the huge amount of money Mr Compaore spent on his campaign.\nThey also feared the vote would be rigged. About 1,000 foreign observers were at the polls.\nOne major opposition politician, Herman Yameogo, withdrew from the election because he was convinced they would not be fair.\nBurkina Faso is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.\nMr Diallo told the BBC Mr Compaore had won a massive victory, calling it an \"electoral spanking\".\nHe claimed turnout was between 60% and 70%, although several international observers believe the figure is lower.\n'Civic duty'\nQueues formed peacefully as 12,000 polling stations opened for the four million registered voters on Sunday.\nThe winner will be elected for five years. If no candidate gains an outright majority, the top two must fight a second round.\nTwo recent opinion polls suggested 60% of voters intended to back Mr Compaore.\nVoter-education campaigns urged everyone to vote, calling it a civic duty.\nMr Compaore was the only candidate in the 1991 elections and most of the major opposition figures did not run in 1998. The Constitutional Court allowed the president to run for office again, even though an amendment to the constitution made in 2000 limits each head of state to two terms of office.\nThe opposition candidates have attacked Burkina Faso's alleged involvement in several wars in the region, and say they will cut down on corruption.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["this weekend"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Burkina Faso","west African state"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"November_2010 Egypt restricts opposition before vote, with security forces arresting hundreds of opposition activists, and clamping down on the media ahead of parliamentary elections next week according to Amnesty International.  (Reuters Africa) (CNN) (AP via Google News)","document":"(CNN) -- A major human rights group called on Egyptian authorities Sunday to refrain from harassing candidates and their supporters after security forces reportedly arrested hundreds of activists from the biggest opposition bloc.\nLondon-based Amnesty International accused Egyptian authorities of silencing critics in the runup to the November 28 parliamentary elections.\n\"Egyptians ... considered a threat to public order or security, have faced arrest, detention, criminal charges and the threat of detention without charge or trial under the emergency law,\" the group said in a statement released Sunday.\nSenior members of the country's ruling party, the National Democratic Party, have dismissed such accusations.\nThe Muslim Brotherhood, which has been officially banned -- but tolerated -- since 1954, is widely seen as the main opposition to the ruling party. Its members run as independents in local elections.\nWhile Egyptian authorities have not confirmed the total number of arrests in recent weeks, the Muslim Brotherhood claimed that security forces had arrested 1,044 of its activists as of Sunday.\nAmnesty International documented hundreds arrested since October 9, when Muslim Brotherhood Chairman Mohammed Badie said the group would field candidates for election.\nThe most violent clashes involving police and Muslim Brotherhood members took place on Friday at a rally in Alexandria where witnesses said police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. At least 33 were injured, witnesses said.\n\"The Egyptian authorities must uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly and ensure that peaceful protestors are not arbitrarily arrested and detained. The rights of all candidates and campaigners should be upheld without discrimination,\" said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa.\nThe human rights group has also accused Egyptian authorities of restricting public access to information in the runup to the elections.\n\"Newspapers whose reports the authorities consider politically-sensitive have been seized or destroyed. Media sources say a dozen Egyptian satellite television channels have been suspended,\" the organization said in its statement.\nThe government said the suspensions are only related to issues with the channels' broadcast licenses and accused some religious-based programs of fueling animosity among Muslims and Christians in Egypt.\nVarious opposition groups have accused the ruling National Democratic Party of using its power to suppress voices critical of President Hosni Mubarak's almost-30-year rule. The ruling party has dismissed the accusations.\nOpposition calls for international election monitors are unnecessary, said the ruling party general secretary, Safwat al-Shareef.\nEgypt's Supreme Election Committee and \"civil community groups will guarantee free and transparent elections,\" Al-Shareef said.\nThe election commission said that 76 Egyptian civil organizations will be allowed to monitor the polls, but the paperwork is not finished, official news agency MENA reported Friday.\nAbout 800 candidates from the ruling party, 250 from the liberal al-Wafd Party and 130 from the Muslim Brotherhood are running for the parliament's 508 seats.\nSmaller parties and opposition movements have declared they are boycotting the elections over transparency concerns.\nEgypt has remained under a continuous state of emergency since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Muslim Brotherhood Chairman Mohammed Badie"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November 28"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Zimbabwe's top court rules that the general election should be held on July 31 despite an appeal by President Robert Mugabe and his main rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)","document":"Elections to choose a new government in Zimbabwe will go ahead on July 31, the country's top court has ruled.\nThe disputed date had originally been set by President Robert Mugabe.\nThe court dismissed appeals by both Mugabe and his nemesis Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to have the date postponed following pressure from regional leaders.\n\"Elections should proceed on the 31st of July 2013 in terms of the proclamation by the president in compliance with the order of this court,\" chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled.\nThe presidential vote will be held on the same day as parliamentary elections and will choose a government to replace an uneasy power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in place since 2009.\nMugabe had lodged an application to shift by two weeks the date that he had himself set, after regional bloc the Southern African Development Community (SADC) asked him to allow more time for preparations.\nTsvangirai, who accuses Mugabe and his allies of failing to implement promised reforms ahead of the vote, had wanted an even longer extension to allow time for the overhauls, and lodged a separate petition.\nBut \"after perusing the papers, and hearing counsel in this matter, the court unanimously concludes that the applications should be and are hereby dismissed,\" said Chidyausiku.\nReasons for the judgment, which was reached after a day-long hearing, will be released at a later, still-unspecified date.\nTsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party dismissed the ruling as \"a political decision not a legal one.\"","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Zimbabwe","July 31"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["new government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Voters in Japan go to the polls for a House of Councillors (Japan's upper house) election with the governing coalition led by Shinzo Abe winning control of the upper house. (USA Today), (Bloomberg via Business Week)","document":"TOKYO (AP) — Japanese voters went to the polls Sunday in an upper house of parliament election expected to give Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition a strong mandate as he pushes ahead with economic reforms and his conservative political agenda.\nA victory would give Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and partner New Komeito control of both chambers of parliament — an elusive goal for the government in recent years.\nThat would make it easier for Abe to deliver on sweeping changes needed to cope with Japan's rapidly graying population and bulging national debt. It also might give him the power to push through his party's nationalist platform of constitutional reforms.\nAbe says his first priority is sustaining a nascent economic recovery. Since taking office after the Liberal Democrats won a lower house election in December, the ailing economy has improved under aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus.\n\"I want them to carry on doing their best as the economy seems to be picking up,\" said Naohisa Hayashi, a 35-year-old man who runs his own business.\nAbe has promised to carry out reforms meant to boost Japan's competitiveness. But he also faces a decision this fall on whether to follow through on raising the sales tax next April from 5% to 8% — a move many worry will derail the recovery.\nA convincing victory in Sunday's election, where half the 242 seats in the less powerful upper house of parliament are up for grabs, may also embolden Abe and his backers in the LDP to pursue a nationalistic agenda he was unable to pursue when his first time in office, in 2006-2007, was cut short after he resigned for health reasons.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Shinzo Abe'"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Japan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliament election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Voters in Kuwait go to the polls for a general election, with Shiite candidates losing half their parliamentary seats. (Al–Arabiya) (AFP via The Telegraph)","document":"Voters in Kuwait on Saturday are casting ballots in the country’s second parliamentary election to be held in eight months.\nThe election, which opposition groups are boycotting, comes after a dull campaign that failed to jolt voters into action.\nMost opposition groups are boycotting in protest against an amended electoral law even though the constitutional court upheld it in June, AFP news agency reports.\nIn previous elections, a Kuwaiti voter was able to vote for a maximum of four candidates for the country’s 50-seat parliament, but under the amended law voters can choose only one.\nIt is the second time opposition groups are boycotting since the last vote in the December. But they have failed to organize mass rallies as they did ahead of the December polls.\nKuwait bans political parties and opposition politicians said the four-vote system enabled them to form alliances by offering reciprocal backing from their supporters. The government said the voting changes brought Kuwait into line with other countries and would ensure stability.\nSaturday's vote will elect a 50-member assembly which can pass legislation and interrogate government ministers.\nBut the 84-year-old emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has the final say in state matters and can dissolve parliament.\nAmong the 300 hopefuls contesting the 50 parliamentary seats, only a handful of opposition members are running, along with eight women, the lowest number of female candidates since women won political rights in 2005, according to AFP.  This time, the National Democratic Alliance, a liberal grouping, and most bedouin tribes which boycotted the previous polls are taking part.\nVoting will take place at 100 polling stations set up in schools.  Around 11,000 police have been mobilized by the interior ministry for the election and the government has allowed international monitors.\nBut with heavy political disputes since mid-2006, analysts see little hope the election will bring political stability to the Gulf state.\n\"People are fed up of electing parliaments, especially if the constitutional court upends them,\" Abdullah al-Shayji, chairman of the political science department at Kuwait University told Reuters news agency.   \"People are not really in the mood for politics. They are thinking about where they want to spend their holidays after Ramadan [the Muslim holy month of fasting]. Some people are already out of the country.\"   (With AFP and Reuters) ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["the National Democratic Alliance"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Kuwait"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["country’s second parliamentary election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Voters in Cambodia go to the polls for a general election with the governing Cambodian People's Party led by Prime Minister Hun Sen claiming victory amidst opposition claims of widespread irregularities. (BBC) (News Limited)","document":"Polls have closed in Cambodia's parliamentary election, with PM Hun Sen, one of Asia's longest-serving leaders, seeking another term.\nHis Cambodia People's Party (CPP) faced an opposition led by Sam Rainsy - back from self-imposed exile after a royal pardon in July. Mr Rainsy himself was not eligible to stand, but his recent return has strengthened the opposition's campaign. More than nine million people were eligible to vote.\nPolling stations closed at 15:00 local time (08:00 GMT), the National Election Committee (NEC) said, with results expected later in the day.\nThe CPP is widely expected to win.\nThe main opposition, the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), led by Mr Rainsy, said there had been widespread fraud, with some voters unable to find their names on electoral lists.\nBut the NEC insisted there had been no problem with the lists.\nMr Hun Sen, 60, was among the early voters, casting his ballot shortly after polls opened near his home in Takmau, south of the capital Phnom Penh.\nHe has been Cambodia's prime minister for nearly three decades and has expressed the desire to stay in power for another.\nMr Rainsy, 64, visited a polling station near his party's office in Phnom Penh where supporters greeted him enthusiastically.\n\"I am happy to see people flocking to vote,\" he said.\nThe CPP, which enjoys considerable support in the countryside, currently has 90 of the 123 seats in parliament and has been increasing its majority over the years. This is due in part to Mr Hun Sen being widely credited with achieving economic growth after the devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, which was responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century. The CNRP is aiming to win seats with the promise of political change.\nThe opposition is a merger between the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party. In 2010 Mr Rainsy was sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison, on a series of charges he says were politically motivated. Analysts believe that younger voters may help the opposition.\nHowever, most of the country's media is controlled by the government.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["Polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Sam Rainsy","PM Hun Sen"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Cambodia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Voters in Mali go to the polls for a presidential election. (BBC)","document":"People across Mali have voted in a presidential election aimed at reuniting the country after months of political turmoil.\nMany areas are still recovering after a northern rebellion and coup that led to foreign military intervention - but no major incidents were reported.\nThere are 27 candidates and if no outright winner emerges, the voting goes to a second round on 11 August.\nHowever, some analysts have questioned whether Mali is ready for the election.\nSome 6.8 million people were eligible to vote at 21,000 polling stations across the country.\nBut hundreds of thousands of Malians in the north were displaced by fighting. The majority of them were not able to vote.\nIslamist militants in the north also warned people not to take part and have threatened to attack polling stations.\nThere have also been concerns about the fairness of the process in the northern town of Kidal, which is still occupied by Tuareg rebels.\nTuareg gunmen were suspected of abducting electoral officials in the northern Tessalit area last week as they handed out voter identification cards. The officials were later released.\nFrench troops are still deployed in the area with Chadian forces as part of the UN stabilisation force, Minusma.\nAhead of the poll Louis Michel, who leads the EU's election observer mission, said that despite the problems he was \"positively surprised\" by preparations and that the conditions were acceptable.\nThe US ambassador to Mali, Mary Beth Leonard, said: \"A month ago, there were a lot of doubts (over the election). But it has come together.\"\nCandidates include three former prime ministers, a former finance minister and one woman.\nThe frontrunners include Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, prime minister from 1994 to 2000, who founded his own party, the Rally for Mali (RPM), in 2001.\nHis biggest rival is seen as Soumaila Cisse, who founded the Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD) in 2003.\nMr Cisse has called for the junta that seized power in 2012 to be cleared from the political scene.\nObservers say Soumana Sacko, another former prime minister, can expect a good showing if there is no clear winner.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Ibrahim Boubacar Keita","Soumaila Cisse","Republic and Democracy (URD)","Soumana Sacko","Rally for Mali (RPM)"]},{"role":"Date","values":["11 August"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Mali"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2013 Voters in Zimbabwe go to the polls for a general election. (Sun Daily)","document":"HARARE (July 31, 2013): Fears that President Robert Mugabe (pix) allies will rig Zimbabwe's election on Wednesday have prompted a citizen army of blogging, tweeting poll monitors.\nPressure groups and a cult 'mole' blogging from inside Mugabe's ZANU-PF party have promised to report and collate any accounts of abuses and voting irregularities across the country.\nAlready a popular Facebook blogger, Baba Jukwa -- or Jukwa's father -- is promising to release election results before the official announcement.\nThe anonymous blogger has received a cult following for exposing Mugabe government secrets, at times giving out mobile telephone numbers of prominent people asking ordinary people to call them to tell them they know what's going on.\nThe law states election results must only be announced by the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).\nMugabe has gone as far as to threaten his rival Morgan Tsvangirai with arrest if he declares the results before the ZEC.\nBut with rumours rife that the military will get a sneak peak at the results before they are released to the world, Baba Jukwa's tally could be explosive.\nAlready Baba Jukwa has attracted over 300,000 Facebook followers since he started exposing what he calls \"evil deeds\" of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and their purported plans to rig polls.\n\"Zimbabwe I would like to announce to you that I will be official, giving you results and outcome of the election,\" Baba Jukwa posted on his page on Monday.\n\"I will as well announce the winner without fear or favour despite the unfair and not free environment.\"\nMeanwhile non-governmental organisations such as Sokwanele and the Election Resource Centre (ERC) are planning to update people on what will be happening during the voting day through their websites, twitter and Facebook.\n\"We are engaging the people through social media so that we tap what will be happening from the good, bad and ugly things on this election,\" said Tawanda Chimhini, the director of the Election Resource Centre (ERC).\n\"We will be using social media from Facebook, WhatsApp and email to expand the power of the people.\"\n\"This is our small way of engaging the people to expand the power of the vote and that people will not merely be voting only but they also interrogate what will be happening.\"\nHe said information that will be shared include results that will be posted outside polling stations.\n\"It is legal, nothing stops us from doing that,\" Chimhini said.\nThe ERC has deployed 210 mobile observers in all of the country's constituencies to monitor the elections.\nAlthough only a fraction of Zimbabwe's population have access to Internet or data services, the opposition has accused Mugabe's government of trying to prevent the spread of information.\n\"They have started interfering with mobile Internet so that there will be no movement of information,\" said Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora.\n\"They have also started interfering with Whatsapp as well as bulk sms. This is meant to slow down information during and after the voting process,\" he added.\n\"It is certainly the state security agency, the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation). We know these are people who want to rig elections.\"","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mugabe's ZANU-PF party","Morgan Tsvangirai"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Zimbabwe"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2013 The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says that Robert Mugabe's ZANU–PF party has won 142 seats of 210 seats in the general election. (BBC)","document":"Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party has won a huge majority in parliament in this week's elections, officials say.\nWith most seats declared, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Zanu-PF had won 137 seats in the 210-seat chamber, just short of two-thirds.\nResults in the presidential race have yet to be announced.\nMr Mugabe's main rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has already dismissed the election as \"a sham\".\nMr Tsvangirai, 61, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and is running for president against Mr Mugabe, said the vote was \"null and void\". A local monitoring group has also said that the poll was \"seriously compromised\". However, the two main observer groups have broadly endorsed the election, saying it was free and peaceful.\nEarlier reports from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said Zanu-PF had won 142 seats but this was later corrected following some recounts. The AFP news agency reports that 186 seats have been declared with 24 results still to come.\nIf Zanu-PF clinches a two-thirds majority it will be able to change Zimbabwe's constitution. African Union (AU) mission head Olusegun Obasanjo dismissed the complaints of fraud, saying the election was fair and free \"from the campaigning point of view\".\nHe acknowledged incidents \"that could have been avoided and even tended to have breached the law\" but added: \"All in all, up to the close of the polls, we do not believe that these incidences (incidents) will amount to the result not representing the will of the people.\"\nThe former Nigerian president added: \"I have never seen an election that is perfect. The process continues and we have to limit our comments.\"\nMonitors from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) described the elections as \"free and peaceful\" but said it was too early to call them fair.\n\"In democracy we not only vote, not only campaign, but accept the hard facts, particularly the outcome,\" said Sadc mission head Bernard Membe.\nThe AU assessment sharply contrasted to that of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) - the largest group of domestic monitors with some 7,000 people on the ground. It said on Thursday that the elections were \"seriously compromised\", with as many as one million people unable to cast their ballots. The ZESN said potential voters were much more likely to be turned away from polling stations in urban areas, where support for Mr Tsvangirai is strong, than in President Mugabe's rural strongholds. The group also alleged significant irregularities before the poll. It said that 99.7% of rural voters were registered on the electoral roll in June compared with only 67.9% of urban voters.\nZanu-PF and the MDC have formed an uneasy coalition government since 2009. That deal ended deadly violence that erupted after a disputed presidential poll the previous year.\nMr Mugabe, 89, is running for a seventh term. His Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on Friday that Zanu-PF was \"headed for an unprecedented landslide\".\n\"If anyone is dissatisfied, the courts are there. I invite Tsvangirai to go to court if he has any grounds to justify what he has been saying,'' he told journalists.\nUnder Zimbabwean law, seven days are set aside for legal challenges with another two days for rulings to be made. After that, the swearing-in of a new government takes place.\nThe BBC's Andrew Harding in Johannesburg says some strong legal challenges are likely, with perhaps a few results overturned.\nAmid rising tension, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to send \"clear messages of calm\" to their supporters.\nHis spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said Mr Ban wanted any election disputes to be handled \"transparently and fairly\".\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["Zanu-PF had won 137 seats in the 210-seat chamber"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["this week's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Zimbabwe"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2013 Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change files papers with the Constitutional Court in Harare arguing that the recent elections be annulled because of widespread allegations of illegalities and intimidation of voters by Robert Mugabe's ZANU–PF party. (Reuters via News24)","document":"Harare - Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic  Change (MDC) challenged President Robert Mugabe's landslide  re-election in the country's top court on Friday, calling for a  re-run of the 31 July vote the MDC says was rigged.\nLawyers for the MDC, which is led by Morgan Tsvangirai,  filed papers with the Constitutional Court in Harare arguing the  election should be annulled because of widespread alleged  illegalities and intimidation of voters by Mugabe's Zanu-PF.\n\"We want a fresh election within 60 days. The prayer that we  also seek is to declare the election null and void,\" MDC  spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora told journalists outside the court.\nZimbabwe's constitution says the court must rule on the case  within 14 days. Most analysts believe the MDC's legal challenge  to Mugabe's victory will not prosper given Zanu-PF's dominance  over the judiciary and state institutions in the country.\nMugabe will be sworn in only after the case is decided.\nZanu-PF has denied any vote-rigging in the election, which  Tsvangirai, who had served as Mugabe's prime minister in a  fractious unity government, has called a \"coup by ballot\".\nThe Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced on Saturday  Mugabe had beaten Tsvangirai with just over 61 percent of the  votes, against nearly 34% for Tsvangirai.\nWhile election observers from the African Union and the  Southern African Development Community (SADC) broadly approved  the presidential and parliamentary elections as orderly and  free, the vote has met serious questioning from the West.\nThe United States, which maintains sanctions against Mugabe,  has said it does not believe his re-election was credible. The  European Union, which has been looking at easing sanctions, has  also expressed concerns over alleged serious flaws in the vote.\n\"The person on trial here is not the MDC but Mr Mugabe.  Zimbabweans expect nothing but justice,\" Mwonzora said.     ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Mugabe had beaten Tsvangirai"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["the MDC, which is led by Morgan Tsvangirai","Mugabe's Zanu-PF"]},{"role":"Date","values":["31 July"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["over 61 percent of the  votes, against nearly 34% for Tsvangirai"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential and parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2013 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott participate in the first of three televised leaders debates ahead of September's federal election. (BBC)","document":"Australia's Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Tony Abbott have sparred over the economy and immigration in the first televised debate of the election campaign.\nThe candidates faced an hour of questioning from a panel of journalists in the capital, Canberra.\nCurrent opinion polls put Mr Abbott's Liberal-National coalition in the lead for the 7 September election.\nBut Labor has narrowed its lead since Mr Rudd returned to office in June.\nAnd while his party lags behind, Mr Rudd is seen by polls as Australians' preferred choice as prime minister.\nSunday's debate was the first of three such possible meetings before polling day. Analysts had been predicting a fiery exchange between the two men, but Australian media said the tone of the debate had been far more cordial than expected.\nIn his opening comments, Mr Rudd said the election was \"a clear choice on the economy, on jobs, on how we support families under pressure and how we support education and health\".\nHe said he offered a \"new way to take Australia forward\" as the country's economic mining boom begins to decline.\nMr Abbott, meanwhile, told viewers the election was not about personalities, but about deciding \"who can make your future more secure\".\n\"Mr Rudd talks about a new way. Well, if you want a new way you've got to choose a new government,\" he said.\nThe opposition leader immediately addressed the key election issue of immigration control, criticising the government's policies and saying his coalition would put an end to large numbers of people arriving in Australia by boat. \"No self-respecting country can hand over part of its immigration control programme to people smugglers,\" he said.\nWhen challenged on his economic plans - which Mr Rudd says contain a A$70bn ($65bn: £42bn) gap - Mr Abbott said voters would \"see in good time before polling day exactly how much we're going to spend\".\nMr Rudd responded by saying: \"Surely four weeks before an election he can stop being evasive\" about how the shortfall will be made up.\nThe debate briefly touched on whether the leaders would take steps towards legalising gay marriage. Mr Abbot said there had been a \"fairly decisive\" parliamentary vote against this a year ago, and it would not be a priority for his government.\nBut Mr Rudd said if re-elected, he would bring in a bill within his first 100 days to legalise marriage equality. The two leaders have been touring the country since campaigning began on 5 August.\nThey also discussed climate concerns, with Mr Rudd saying Australia's leader \"will be doing a disservice to our kids and grandkids if we do not act\".\nMr Abbott said his coalition was committed to delivering the 5% reduction in carbon emissions it has already announced. Mr Rudd called the election on 4 August, earlier than he needed to, which correspondents said was a sign he was trying to make the most of the momentum after he defeated former prime minister Julia Gillard in a party vote.\nThe two leaders have been touring the country since campaigning began on 5 August.\nLabor has already announced an A$200m package to assist the car industry.\nMr Abbott, meanwhile, pledged to repeal Australia's carbon tax at his first campaign event in Brisbane.\nLabor has been hit by the loss of two candidates in the past week. Mr Rudd demanded that Geoff Lake, candidate for the safe seat of Hotham in  Victoria, withdraw after it emerged he had abused a woman with a disability during a council meeting a decade ago.\nMeanwhile the Labor candidate for the Queensland seat of Kennedy, Ken Robertson, stood down from the race after calling Mr Abbott a racist and \"very bigoted\" in an interview.\nHe said he was withdrawing \"in the interests of ensuring that this matter does not distract from Labor's campaign for a fairer Australia\".","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["7 September"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Australia's"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["prime minister"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2010 Ukrainian voters go to the polls to elect a new president. (Kyiv Post) (BBC)","document":"Ukraine's presidential election is set for a second round run-off after partial results showed no candidate would win more than 50% of the vote.\nWith half the votes counted, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych led current PM Yulia Tymoshenko by 37% to 24%. The two were on opposing sides of the Orange Revolution in 2004-5, but both now favour closer ties with Russia. Current President Viktor Yushchenko has been eliminated from the vote. Unless the exit polls are very wide of the mark, Viktor Yanukovych will face the Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, in a second round run-off on 7 February. She was instrumental in bringing the current President, Viktor Yushchenko to power during the Orange Revolution five years ago. But the pair soon fell out, and she is now portraying herself as the heir of the Orange mantle. Five years ago Viktor Yanukovych was the villain, tainted by allegations of vote-rigging and open support from Moscow. Now, both candidates say they favour closer ties with Russia - after five years of increasingly tense relations under President Yushchenko - and the Kremlin seems happy with either.\nA total of 18 candidates took part in the election. The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, in Kiev, says there is much disillusionment among voters over the failure to tackle corruption and links with the EU. It was Mr Yanukovych's victory in the 2004 election that was annulled by the Orange Revolution and brought Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko to power. Turnout in the election was reported to be less than 50% by early afternoon. Polls closed at 2000 (1800 GMT). In the capital Kiev, voters walked to polling stations through light snow. In the eastern city of Donetsk, one polling station encouraged voters with vodka and sausage. President Yushchenko cast his ballot at a polling station in central Kiev with his wife, Kateryna, and their five children. \"Ukraine once again will demonstrate that it is a European democratic country, that it is a free nation, free people and free election,\" he said. Warnings of unrest\nThe leading candidates have accused each other of trying to rig the election, and there have been warnings of unrest after the vote.  In an effort to boost confidence in the election, foreign observers have spread out across Ukraine to monitor voting. Jens-Hagen Eschenbacher, of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said about 600 OSCE election monitors are in place, as well as thousands of other foreign observers. The Orange Revolution led Ukrainians to expect sweeping changes - integration with Europe and an end to corruption, our correspondent says. But the reality has not lived up to expectations and there is widespread disillusionment with politicians across the spectrum, he adds.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["7 February"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Ukraine's"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2010 Ukrainian voters go to the polls to elect a new president. (Kyiv Post) (BBC)","document":"Ukrainian voters, battered by the recession and disillusioned by unkept promises of reform, cast their first presidential ballots since the 2004 Orange Revolution Sunday, an election that could steer the country from its pro-Western course and strengthen ties with Russia.Voters trudged toward polling stations in light snow in the capital Kiev. At one polling station in the eastern city of Donetsk, officials encouraged voters with vodka, sausage and salo, or lard, a traditional Ukrainian hors d’oeuvre.\nBut reports of voting irregularities poured in from across the country and the Interior Ministry said it had received some 1,200 complaints detailing falsified voter registrations and illegal absentee voting.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Location","values":["eastern city of Donetsk"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2010 Sri Lankan opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka receives the support of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga in the 2010 presidential election. (BBC)","document":"Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has suffered a blow ahead of Tuesday's election, with ex-President Chandrika Kumaratunga vowing to back his rival.\nMrs Kumaratunga, a senior member of Mr Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, said she supported Gen Sarath Fonseka. She said she was deeply concerned about violence, intimidation and corruption in the fiercely-contested poll. In an increasingly bitter campaign, the opposition accused the ruling party of planning a coup to hang on to power. The ruling party said the accusations were \"baseless\" and an attempt to cover for an inevitable defeat. 'Comfortably ahead'\nMrs Kumaratunga is the daughter of the founder of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the dynasty still has big support in the country. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party is now part of theUnited People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which is currently the ruling coalition. Mrs Kumaratunga herself served as president from 1994 to 2005. In endorsing Gen Fonseka, she said: \"I took the decision to end four years of silence as I am deeply concerned about the violence, intimidation and corruption.\" She said: \"Our party has deteriorated in recent years and I see an opportunity to revive it through a change of the present culture.\" President Rajapaksa and Gen Fonseka are closely associated with the government's defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May but the pair fell out bitterly soon after. Saturday was the final day of campaigning, with both of the main candidates holding their last election rallies. Election clashes have so far left four dead and hundreds wounded. The opposition on Sunday stepped up its accusations against the ruling party. It said the party was planning to disrupt the media, prevent a declaration of the result and deploy troops to back a coup. Mr Rajapaksa's party insists the president is behind a free and fair election. His spokesman, Chandrapala Liyanage, told Agence France-Presse news agency: \"The opposition is making baseless allegations to justify their defeat. \"We will have a peaceful election and all indications are that the president is comfortably ahead.\" The result of the election is expected on Wednesday.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":["Mrs Kumaratunga"]},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Sri Lankan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["President"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2010 Sudan's ruling National Congress Party endorses South Sudan President Salva Kiir in upcoming elections. (BBC) (Sudan Tribune)","document":"January 27, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has made the surprise move and announced that it will not nominate any of its members to run against South Sudan president Salva Kiir in the upcoming elections scheduled for April and called on the Southern ex-rebels to return the favor. The NCP spokesperson Fathi Sheila was quoted by state media as saying that the Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha notified Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar of the decision in a telephonic conversation. Furthermore, Sheila said that the NCP will also not run in any constituency against any member of the government of national unity (GoNU) which would include senior presidential assistant and head of Sudan Liberation Movement Minni Arcua Minnawi. The state minister for information and communication Kamal Obeid said that the NCP attempted to reach similar arrangements with opposition parties but with no success citing their focused interest on the presidential race despite his party’s desire to have opposition voice in the legislative assembly. The position taken by the dominant party in the country signals concern that the elections may not turn out a ‘slam dunk’ requiring forging of alliances and reaching compromise to avoid the comfortable majority it currently enjoys. The NCP’s presidential adviser Ali Tamim Fartak told Reuters that the decision not to field a candidate for president of the south, which will vote on January 9, 2011 on independence, was to “maintain a good partnership” with the SPLM. “And we hope the SPLM will do the same by withdrawing their candidate for the president of the republic,” Fartak said. The SPLM deputy Secretary General for Northern sector Yasir Arman has been tapped by his party to run against Bashir in the elections, a step which could deny the Sudanese president millions of votes in the south. The head of the SPLM for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC) Lam Akol, who backed Bashir for presidency this month, has been dealt a severe blow by NCP’s endorsement of Kiir, several observers in Khartoum told Sudan Tribune. He will run against the SPLM chief for the post of South Sudan president after winning the backing of an alliance of small Southern political parties. Akol, who defected from the SPLM party, has been a fierce critic of its leadership accusing it of lacking democracy and corruption. His close ties to Bashir’s party have alienated his colleagues at the ex-Southern rebel group. The former foreign minister has insisted at the time that the SPLM partnership with the NCP is particularly valuable and also campaigned in favor of the Sudanese President after the issuance by the International criminal Court (ICC) of an arrest warrant against him. The SPLM top officials quickly dismissed the NCP’s gesture and rejected any talk about withdrawing their candidates. The SPLM ridiculed the overture, saying it showed Bashir was worried by the challenge for the presidency. “They may be worried but that is normal ... they have mismanaged the country for the last 21 years,” SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum told Reuters. “Lam Akol is the NCP candidate ... the NCP was collecting signatures for Lam Akol in south Sudan,” Amum added. He said the SPLM would not withdraw Arman’s nomination. The SPLM along with opposition parties have threatened to boycott the elections the elections last year if a number of deliverables are not achieved including removing restrictions on political activities, press censorship and reigning in the powers of the security bureau. But later the coalition appeared to have a change of heart suggesting that they do not wish to allow the ruling NCP to automatically capture the votes if they were to boycott. The major opposition presidential runners include Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi (Umma Party); Hatem Al-Sir (Democratic Unionist Party); Yasir Arman (SPLM); Abdullah Deng Nhial (Popular Congress Party); Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud (Sudanese Communist Party); Mubarak Al-Fadil (Umma Reform and Renewal Party); Abdel-Aziz Khalid (Sudan Alliance Forces); Fatima Abdel-Mahmood (The Socialist Democratic Union). Observers say that under normal circumstances, it is all but certain that a second round will be needed for the presidential race given the weight enjoyed by the contestants. The NEC website says that if any one candidate could not achieve a 51% majority then a second round will be needed between the two top nominees. If this happens, this will open the door for coalition between the opposition parties to back one candidate to beat Bashir. (ST)\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Yasir Arman (SPLM)","Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi (Umma Party)","Hatem Al-Sir (Democratic Unionist Party)","Abdullah Deng Nhial (Popular Congress Party)","Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud (Sudanese Communist Party)","Mubarak Al-Fadil (Umma Reform and Renewal Party)","Abdel-Aziz Khalid (Sudan Alliance Forces)","Fatima Abdel-Mahmood (The Socialist Democratic Union)","president Salva Kiir"]},{"role":"Date","values":["April"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["South Sudan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2010 In Nigeria, the Governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi, is controversially re–elected. (BBC) (Reuters South Africa)","document":"The governor of Nigeria's south-eastern state of Anambra, Peter Obi, has been re-elected, the electoral commission has announced.\nThe result was rejected by all other parties, who said their supporters were disenfranchised because their names did not appear on the electoral register. The Nigerian government has admitted there were some irregularities during Saturday's election. A BBC reporter in Anambra says security is being stepped up across the state. Mr Obi represents an opposition party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance. Official results show his party won in 13 out of 21 local government councils. Earlier, the Nigerian Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, admitted there had been some \"hiccups\" during the election. Many polling stations opened hours late and there were confrontations as voters discovered their names were not on the electoral register. Gangs of youths intimidated and harassed voters, and there were reports of ballot boxes being snatched from several polling stations, the BBC's Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos. The elections have been closely watched as an indicator of how general elections next year will be run, our correspondent adds. What are these?","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Obi represents an opposition party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Nigeria's south-eastern state of Anambra"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["government"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2010 Voters in Ukraine go to the polls in the second round of the country's presidential election. (Al Jazeera) (The Independent)","document":"Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a new president today in the second round of an election that has been marked by vitriol and personal insults between the two candidates. If, as many analysts predict, Viktor Yanukovych gets a narrow victory, it will be a remarkable turnaround in his personal fortunes, and the country will have come full circle since the Orange Revolution five years ago.\nBut whatever happens, the country is likely to see a shift back towards Russia, whether the vote is won by the dour Mr Yanukovych, who draws his main support from the Russian-speaking south and east of Ukraine, or his bitter rival, the fiery nationalist Yulia Tymoshenko, heroine of the Orange Revolution.\nThe two candidates have radically different bases, which reflect the east-west divide in Ukraine. Mr Yanukovich is most popular in the grimy eastern mining towns and gets his financial support and political backing from the oligarchs who control the mines and factories. Ms Tymoshenko appeals mostly to those in the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country.\nBut while one of the promises of the Orange Revolution was to bring Ukraine closer to Europe and disengage from the suffocating Russian embrace, this no longer seems viable. In August, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, a letter, criticising him for the \"anti-Russian course\" on which he had led the country. \"In Russia, we hope that the new political leadership of Ukraine will be prepared to build relations between our countries that will, in practice, correspond to the genuine hopes of our nations, and the interests of European security,\" wrote Mr Medvedev in his letter, which essentially ended all co-operation between Mr Yushchenko's government and Moscow.\nWhile Ms Tymoshenko still advocates integration with the EU, she is too astute not to realise that much depends on Moscow. There are the near-annual disputes over gas, and vast trade links between the two countries, all far too important to risk Moscow's ire.\nShe was once a hate figure in Russia on a par with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. With her charismatic speeches and aggressive nationalism, she represented everything that the Russian authorities despised about the Orange Revolution. One Russian MP even made a pornographic film, in which lookalikes of Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Saakashvili plotted against Russia while frolicking in a sauna.\nBut Ms Tymoshenko has begun to mend fences. She has built up a rapport with Vladimir Putin, and is likely to embark on a rapprochement with Russia if elected. But there is still no doubt that Moscow would like Mr Yanukovych in charge. He is more likely to promote its language, and be less driven towards Nato and the EU.\nThe candidates took a breather from mudslinging yesterday in an official \"day of silence\" before the election. Many analysts expect Mr Yanukovych to edge to victory, but the result is likely to be close.\nMs Tymoshenko has promised to bring her followers out into the streets if she believes Mr Yanukovych has tried to falsify the poll. Her supporters say Mr Yanukovych has brought 2,000 former police and security officials to Kiev, as a physical presence if things turn nasty.\nMeanwhile, earlier in the week, Ukrainian special services said they had arrested five Russian secret agents near the city of Odessa, who were part of a plot to steal state secrets.\nThe story so far\nThe 2004 Orange Revolution was hailed in the West as part of a chain of \"coloured revolutions\" in former Soviet states that would kick out the old guard and bring in new, modernising democrats.\nWhen Leonid Kuchma stepped down as president, Viktor Yanukovych was his chosen successor and the Kremlin's shoo-in. But thousands of Ukrainians, disillusioned with the rigged election, came out on to the streets, demanding a rerun – a rerun that saw Viktor Yushchenko, his face disfigured by a poisoning attempt, sweeping to victory with Yulia Tymoshenko at his side.\nBut, since then, it has been downhill for the Orange revolutionaries. Tymoshenko soon fell out with Yushchenko, leading to a three-way power struggle between the two of them and a revamped Yanukovych. Promised reforms were stalled, corruption flourished, and annual disputes over gas with Russia threatened to bring the country to its knees.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["a new president"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["today"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Ukraine"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2010 The campaign period for the Philippine general election, 2010 begins. (BBC)","document":"President Gloria Arroyo is not allowed to run again in the vote on 10 May. Competition is intense between two opposition figures, with Mrs Arroyo's nominee and a former president lagging in the polls. Long proud of its democratic traditions, the Philippines has still failed to find a leader able to deliver peace and prosperity. For the wealthiest candidates, the political advertising has been going on for months. The violence that has been part of every Philippine election started early too - the mass killing of 57 people in the southern province of Maguindanao in November has set a grim tone. Election campaigns in the Philippines usually deliver showmanship, drama, personality clashes and genuine idealism. What they rarely offer is any cogent debate of ideas or contest of policies. This campaign is no exception. \"It's going to be a very tight race,\" says political analyst, writer and journalist Marites Vitug. \"Manny Villar is running a disciplined campaign and has enormous funds at his disposal - he could be our Thaksin, or our Berlusconi,\" she said, in reference to the wealthy former Thai and current Italian leaders. The wealthiest candidate, Mr Villar, claims an affinity with the poor, the vast voting majority. He was once a fish market seller and is now the biggest home-builder in the Philippines. Ruling class\nMr Villar is up against Benigno \"NoyNoy\" Aquino, son of the revered former President Cory Aquino. He enjoyed an early surge soon after her death last year, but is now neck-and-neck with Mr Villar. Lagging behind is Gilberto Teodoro, the current president's favourite, and the former movie star and former president Joseph \"Erap\" Estrada. Also in the race is the former Mayor of Olongapo Richard Gordon, someone known as a good manager. But as always in the Philippines, it will be the money, and the personalities, that count. \"It will really take a lot of resources, and I'm not referring to money alone,\" said Ronald Holmes, of the political science department of Manila's De La Salle University and president of the survey group, Pulse Asia. Spending limits do exist, but an apparent lack of manpower has prevented the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from ever prosecuting anyone for over-spending. \"The primary issues are the old issues of economic growth and the problem of poverty,\" said Mr Holmes. Alongside a widespread desire for cheaper commodity prices is the topic of corruption. There is little indication, however, that any of the current crop of candidates will make any more progress on that than the country's rich ruling class has managed in the past.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["the Philippines has still failed to find a leader able to deliver peace and prosperity"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Cory Aquino","Manny Villar","\"NoyNoy\" Aquino"]},{"role":"Date","values":["10 May"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Philippine"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2010 Viktor Yanukovych is officially named winner of the Ukraine presidential election. (RIA) (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) (AP) (AFP)","document":"Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych won Ukraine's presidential election, the country's Central Election Commission (CEC) officially declared Sunday.\nIn line with the official results, the election's second round on February 7 gave Yanukovych 48.95%, or 12,481,266 votes, while Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko garnered 45.47%, or 11,593,357 votes. A total of 4.36% voted against all.\nAll CEC members, including five Tymoshenko representatives, signed the protocol. The Tymoshenko team can contest the results in court within five days.\nTymoshenko has accused the Yanukovych camp of vote rigging and demanded a recount of votes at over 1,000 polling stations. On Saturday she announced on her personal website that the election of Yanukovych was illegitimate and \"no matter how things develop further, he will never become the legitimately elected president of Ukraine.\"\nUkraine has been plagued by political rows since the 2005 elections.\nIn the past couple of years Tymoshenko, a leader of the \"orange revolution\" protests that overturned Yanukovych's tainted victory in 2004, openly squabbled with her former ally, outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko.\nThe feud badly damaged Ukraine's economy as it struggled with the global crisis, effectively forcing potential foreign creditors to hold back rescue packages because of domestic political turmoil.\nYanukovych has said Ukraine will focus on ties with Russia and other ex-Soviet states, but would also seek closer relations with the European Union and the United States.\nKIEV, February 14 (RIA Novosti).\n17:23 14/02/2010 Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych won Ukraine's presidential election, the country's Central Election Commission (CEC) officially declared Sunday.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Yanukovych 48.95%, or 12,481,266 votes, while Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko garnered 45.47%, or 11,593,357 votes. A total of 4.36% voted against all.\nAll CEC members"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Ukraine","February 7"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2010 The opposition Anguilla United Movement, led by former Chief Minister Hubert Hughes, wins a majority of seats in the 2010 general election, defeating the governing Anguilla United Front. (Anguilla News)","document":"(The Valley, Anguilla) The Island of Anguilla, having suffered a serious economic crunch under the Anguilla United Front, under the leadership of former Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming and former Minister of Finance Victor Banks, on February 15, completely rejected the party. The Anguilla United Movement (AUM) lead by former Chief Minister Hubert Hughes secured a comprehensive victory winning four of the five districts they competed in, namely districts, 4, 5, 6 and 7.\nThe AUF managed to retain Districts 1 and 3 but even where there was victory, there was much less than overwhelming support.   In District 1, Mr. Othlyn Vanterpool secured just over 33% of voters, assisted ably by the other votes being split between four other candidates. In District 3, incumbant Mr. Evans McNeil Rogers won his AUF seat by a mere 25 votes over Sutcliffe Hodge.\nDistrict two, the seat held previously by former Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, was lost by Cora Richardson Hodge to Jerome Roberts, the lone successful candidate for the Anguilla Progressive Party.\nThe next Chief Minister based on the February 15 results, will be the Hon. Hubert Hughes.\nMr. Hughes inherits a government struggling to meet payroll, in an island badly battered by mismanagement leading into the Global Economic Crisis.\nAnalysis of the AUF could reveal a badly fractured political party ripped apart by competing heads.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["The Anguilla United Movement (AUM) lead by former Chief Minister Hubert Hughes secured a comprehensive victory winning four of the five districts they competed in"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr. Othlyn Vanterpoo","Mr. Evans McNeil Rogers","Mr. Hughes","Jerome Roberts, the lone successful candidate for the Anguilla Progressive Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["February 15"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["The Island of Anguilla"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2012 The Parliament of Papua New Guinea meets to choose a new Prime Minister after a ruling by the Supreme Court last week, with de facto Prime Minister Peter O'Neill again chosen. (ABC News Australia) (The Australian)","document":"Papua New Guinea's parliament is preparing to elect a new Prime Minister this morning, just a month before the country's general election. It comes after a dramatic u-turn by Peter O'Neill's government, which now accepts Sir Michael Somare as PNG's legitimate leader.\nTONY EASTLEY: Papua New Guinea's general election is less than a month away but its parliament is due to meet later this morning to elect a new prime minister.\nIt comes after a dramatic u-turn by Peter O'Neill's government, which now says it accepts that his predecessor Sir Michael Somare is PNG's legitimate leader.\nPNG correspondent Liam Fox explains.\nLIAM FOX: This is an ironic statement if ever there was one.\nPETER O'NEILL: Everything in PNG is very straightforward. (Laughter)\nLIAM FOX: Peter O'Neill is referring to the latest chapter in his seemingly endless leadership dispute with Sir Michael Somare.\nIn parliament the deputy speaker Francis Marus surprised everyone when he upheld last week's ruling by the Supreme Court that Sir Michael was PNG's legitimate prime minister. That's despite the fact parliament passed a motion purporting to nullify the court's ruling last Friday.\nMr Marus went on to say that despite the court's ruling Sir Michael no longer held the office because he'd missed three sittings of parliament this year.\nFRANCIS MARUS: Honourable members on that note I formally declare there to be a vacancy in the office of the prime minister.\nLIAM FOX: To fill the vacancy he said MPs would elect a new prime minister on the floor of parliament later this morning.\nMr O'Neill has maintained the Supreme Court's decision was tainted with bias and he won't recognise it.\nHe wasn't in the house for the deputy speaker's shock announcement and initially indicated parliament would sit again to \"rectify\" it.\nBut after lengthy discussions with his coalition partners he says the vote will go ahead.\nPETER O'NEILL: So that this can for once and for all clear all the doubts that has been created by the decision of the court that has now put chaotic situation in the country.\nLIAM FOX: His deputy Belden Namah says his PNG Party will nominate and vote for Mr O'Neill.\nBELDEN NAMAH: If there is any level playing field, we'll play it on the floor of parliament. We call on the Somare faction to come up with the number and to bring their nominee to the floor of parliament.\nLIAM FOX: Sir Michael won't be in parliament this morning. He's in his hometown of Wewak on PNG's northwest coast campaigning for the election and he's been unavailable for comment. Most of his supporters are also out in their electorates.\nEven if Mr O'Neill wins the vote in parliament, which looks likely, that won't be the end of the matter. The chief justice and another judge have been controversially charged with sedition for handing down last week's Supreme Court ruling.\nWhen asked what will happen to the charges now that he's accepted the court's decision, Mr O'Neill says the matter is in the hands of the police.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["elect a new Prime Minister"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Peter O'Neill","Sir Michael Somare","Mr O'Neill"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Papua New Guinea"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Egypt's supreme court calls for the dissolution of the lower house of parliament and for fresh elections after ruling that last year's parliamentary vote was unconstitutional. (BBC)","document":"Egypt's supreme court has caused widespread alarm by calling for the dissolution of the lower house of parliament and for fresh elections.\nTwo days before Egyptians choose a new president, it has declared last year's parliamentary vote unconstitutional.\nMuslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi said the decision \"must be respected\". But other political figures have expressed anger amid fears that the military wants to increase its power.\nAnother senior Muslim Brotherhood politician, Essam Al-Arian, said the ruling on parliament would send Egypt into a \"dark tunnel\".\nThe Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party won 46% of the vote in the three-month parliamentary poll and Mr Arian warned that the decision would leave the incoming president without a parliament or a constitution.\nIslamist Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who took part in the first round of the presidential vote in May, said that dissolving parliament amounted to \"a total coup, anyone who imagines that the millions of youths will let this pass is dreaming.\" Protesters gathered in Tahrir square in the centre of Cairo after the ruling.\nThe Salafist Al-Nour party, which has the second biggest representation in parliament, said the ruling showed \"a complete disregard for the free will of voters\".\nParliament speaker Saad El Katatny was equally scathing, arguing that no-one had the authority to dissolve parliament. In a separate ruling, the supreme court also decided that former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq could continue to run for president in the June 16-17 presidential run-off election, rejecting as unconstitutional a law that would have barred him from standing. Under the Political Exclusion Law, passed by parliament, senior officials from former President Hosni Mubarak's regime were banned from standing for office. Mr Shafiq is standing against Mr Mursi in a tight run-off. He told supporters that the court had made a \"historic ruling and verdict that meant there was no way for anyone to do particular laws for particular people.\"\nEgypt's ruling military council (Scaf) held an emergency meeting after the two court rulings and later confirmed that the election would go ahead as planned, and urged Egyptians to vote. But uncertainty about the intentions of the military had already been raised on Wednesday when the justice ministry announced that army personnel would have the right to detain civilians during the election period.\nAddressing the fear that the military handover of power might be stalled, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters \"there can be no going back on the democratic transition\".\nMr Mursi was guarded in his response to the court's rulings. \"I respect the decision of the Supreme Constitutional Court in that I respect the institutions of the state and the principle of separation of powers,\" he told Egyptian TV, according to AFP news agency.\nBut in a later speech he appealed to voters, with a warning that the country was at a turning point: \"a minority are trying to corrupt the nation and take us back. We will go to the ballot box to say no to those failures, those criminals.\"\nThe court had been considering the validity of last year's parliamentary election, because some of the seats were contested on a proportional list system, with others on the first-past-the-post system. It decided that the election law had allowed parties to compete for the one third of seats reserved for independent candidates.\nThe head of the supreme court Farouk Soltan told Reuters: \"The ruling regarding parliament includes the dissolution of the lower house of parliament in its entirety because the law upon which the elections were held is contrary to rules of the constitution.\" Many of the seats ruled unconstitutional were won by the Muslim Brotherhood.\nBut if parliament is dissolved, there will be uproar, the BBC's Jon Leyne says, because the Muslim Brotherhood has a majority of seats and will fear a worse performance in a re-run parliamentary vote.\nSince the fall of Mubarak, Egypt's military has promised to hand power to an elected president by the start of July, but with no constitution and now the prospect of no parliament to write one, the new president is unlikely have his powers defined by the time he comes into office.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["last year's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party won 46% of the vote"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt's"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2012 Voters in Egypt go to the polls for a second day to vote in the second round of a presidential election, with former prime minister Ahmed Shafik and Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party both competing for the presidency. (BBC)","document":"Votes are being counted after a second and final day of elections for the country's first president since Hosni Mubarak was forced from office in 2011.\nIslamist Mohammed Mursi is up against former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq in a second-round run-off.\nThe vote also comes amid a bitter row over the dissolution of parliament following a court ruling on Thursday.\nMr Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood has denounced the step as unlawful and a coup against democracy.\nThe movement urged Egyptians to protect their revolution after the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf) declared the parliament null and void on Saturday. Two days earlier, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that last year's legislative polls were unconstitutional, in a decision made by judges appointed under Mr Mubarak.\nThe dispute has laid bare the fears of some that the military council is trying to consolidate power and resist the democratic changes demanded during last year's demonstrations.\nSoldiers have already been stationed around the parliament with orders not to let MPs enter.\nPro-revolutionary groups meanwhile say they will stage a protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday night to keep up the pressure for reforms.\nPolls began closing at 22:00 (20:00 GMT), after voting was extended by two hours.\nIt is unclear how soon any results will emerge. Turnout appeared to be down compared to the first round.\nThe BBC's Jon Leyne says that there is less enthusiasm in the run-off election than there was for previous rounds of voting, and some have called for a boycott or spoiled ballots.\nMany voters have expressed scepticism at the choices they face, and have voted with reluctance.\n\"Boycotting the elections is not a practical solution because at this point one of the two candidates will win anyway,\" Saber Abdullah, voting in Alexandria, told the BBC.\n\"I demand the next president to concentrate on helping the youth because the old regime have ignored them to the extent that they have reached rock bottom.\"\nMr Shafiq has campaigned on a platform of a return to stability and law-and-order which, correspondents say, many find attractive after months of political turmoil.\nBut to his critics, the former air force officer is the army's unofficial candidate and a symbol of the autocratic days under Mubarak.\nMr Mursi, meanwhile, has cast himself as a revolutionary and part of the movement that overthrew Mubarak, and has promised economic and political reform. He has also softened his religious stance in an attempt to attract liberals and minorities.\nHis Freedom and Justice Party won almost half of seats in the legislature in the 2011 polls.\nMr Shafiq came second in last month's first round, in which turnout among the 52 million eligible voters was only 46%. Official results gave Mr Mursi 24.8% and Mr Shafiq 23.7%.\nFinal results from the Higher Presidential Election Commission (HPEC) are due by 21 June, but are expected to arrive much earlier.\nPRI The World\n correspondent Matthew Bell, in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya - birthplace of both candidates - says quality of life issues are of prime importance to voters there.\n        It is a rural and socially conservative area, where most voters chose the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate last year to represent them in parliament. It surprised analysts when Sharqiya produced a narrow win for Mr Shafiq in the first round of voting for president.\nManal Abdou, a child psychologist, said she decided to vote for Mr Mursi only a few days ago. She voted for another Islamist candidate - Abdel Moniem Aboul Fotouh - in the first round.  \"My priority is that the next president should have leadership skills and a national project that unites Egyptian youth and brings a renaissance to Egypt,\" she said.\nIbrahim Abdel Moneim, a 67-year-old retired high school teacher had a different reasoning. \"Ahmed Shafiq will save the country. We don't trust these people with beards,\" he said, adding, \"if we don't like him, we can go back to Tahrir Square.\"\nThe vote comes at a time of growing political uncertainty in Egypt.\nOn Saturday, the top official in parliament, Sami Mahran, said he had received a letter from the Scaf confirming for the first time that the lower house, the People's Assembly, had been dissolved.\nIn response, the Muslim Brotherhood said the move was a \"coup against the whole democratic process\".\n\"The [March 2011] constitutional declaration does not give the Scaf such right,\" it said in a statement. \"The Scaf is hijacking the legislative authority in addition to the executive authority which Scaf is supposed to hand over within two weeks to a civilian authority.\"\nThe move followed Thursday's Supreme Court ruling that the law governing Egypt's first democratic elections in more than six decades was unconstitutional because party members were allowed to contest seats in the lower house reserved for independents.\nScaf officials have told state media that it now plans to issue a new interim constitution and potentially select a replacement constitutional panel itself.\nThe ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) has vowed to hand over power to the winner by 30 June.\nBut the decision to dissolve parliament so swiftly means that the new president could take office without the oversight of a sitting parliament and without a permanent constitution to define his powers or duties.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["Polls"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood","Mohammed Mursi","former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["elections for the country's first president"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2012 Voters in Mexico go to the polls for a general election with Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto claiming victory. (The New York Times) (Reuters)","document":"With a mix of trepidation and optimism, Texas lawmakers are closely watching Mexico’s election on Sunday. The expected outcome would return the Institutional Revolutionary Party to power.\nPolls show that Enrique Peña Nieto, a PRI member and former governor of the state of Mexico, is in line to become the country’s next president. That would swing power back to the center-left party after 12 years of rule by the more moderate National Action Party, whose legacy has been stained by six years of grueling war against drug traffickers.\nAn article last Sunday about the presidential election in Mexico included a quotation from a Texas lawmaker who misstated the amount of aid to countries like Egypt and Israel. It is about $3 billion, not $300 billion.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Mexico’s"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2012 Voters in East Timor go to the polls for a parliamentary election. (ABC News)","document":"Holding successful elections is one of the criteria for the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor by the end of this year.\nThe head of the mission, Finn Reske-Nielsen, said Saturday's vote followed a successful Presidential election earlier this year.\n\"The parliamentary elections were from what we can see technically done extremely well by the national electoral authorities and on the security side we were delighted to note there was hardly a single security incident recorded,\" he said.\nA provisional count shows Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) party has won the most votes, with the Fretilin party coming in second.\nElectoral officials say Mr Gusmao's party is expected to take 31 of the 65 seats in parliament, two short of the absolute majority needed to govern alone.\nBut most parties have failed to win the three per cent of votes required to gain a seat.\nOfficial results are not expected until July 17.\nProfessor Michael Leach from Australia's Swinburne University says the results show a consolidation of East Timor's party system.\n\"We're seeing people aligning very strongly behind these two leading parties and then we're seeing a third party with a reasonable vote,\" he said.\n\"I think when people reflect on this election, they'll see this as a positive sign for the development of national politics and democratic consolidation, that voters are cohering around a fewer number of more clearly defined positions.\"","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) party","Fretilin party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["East Timor"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2012 The African Union choose Nkosazana Dlamini–Zuma of South Africa as its leader, making her the first woman to occupy the post, in a hard fought battle with incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon. (BBC)","document":"The African Union has chosen South African Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as its leader, making her the first woman to hold the post.\nMs Dlamini-Zuma beat incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon after a closely fought contest for the chairmanship of the organisation.\nIn January, neither got the required two-thirds majority, leaving Mr Ping in office for another six months.\nThe dispute has overshadowed other issues, especially security and trade.\nVoting had been broadly split along linguistic lines, with English-speaking countries tending to support Ms Dlamini-Zuma and French-speaking countries lining up behind Mr Ping.\nSenior officials had warned that failure to resolve the leadership deadlock would divide the AU and undermine its credibility.\nMs Dlamini-Zuma, the former wife of South African President Jacob Zuma, won the leadership of the AU commission in a third round of voting.\nShe got 37 votes at the 54-member body, giving her the 60% majority she needed to be elected.\nThe 63-year-old is currently South Africa's home affairs minister, and has also had spells as minister of health and of foreign affairs.\nShe is one of her country's longest-serving ministers.\nBut critics said her candidacy had broken an unwritten tradition that the chairmanship should not be occupied by one of Africa's major nations.\nEarlier this week, Mr Ping denied a South African media report speculating he was going to withdraw from the race.\nHis use of the AU's website and letterhead for his statement prompted the southern African regional bloc Sadc to accuse him of misusing AU resources for his re-election bid.\nMs Dlamini-Zuma's election came at a summit in Addis Ababa, the organisation's home city.\nAs in January, the official theme of the summit was boosting intra-African trade.\nIt is also due to focus on the continuing instability in Mali, mounting violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and tension between Sudan and South Sudan.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["South African Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["She got 37 votes at the 54-member body"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["African Union"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["leader"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2012 The National Forces Alliance, led by interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, wins 39 out of 80 seats reserved for political parties in the Libya's first elections. (BBC)","document":"Results from Libya's first elections since the overthrow of Col Gaddafi have shown gains for an alliance of parties seen as broadly secular.\nThe National Forces Alliance, led by ex-interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, has won 39 out of 80 seats reserved for political parties.\nThe Muslim Brotherhood's party has gained 17.\nThe 200-member General National Assembly will also include dozens of independent candidates.\nThe overall orientation that the assembly will have is so far unclear.\nWhat remains to be seen is who, if anyone, will lead the assembly by majority, the BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli reports. That will depend on the allegiances - largely unknown - of 120 independent candidates, she adds.\nWhile congratulating other parties, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Justice and Construction Party said it had made gains in seats reserved for independent members.\nThey may now be banking on a shift in their favour from the non-party lists, our correspondent adds.\nThe current interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib said the announcement of the results was \"a time of celebration\".\n\"Everybody in Libya is happy. And we are thankful to those partners and friends who have helped us to get to this point,\" Mr Keib said.\nThere will now be a two-week window for any appeals against the tally. More than 100 parties competed in the poll, many of them formed only in recent months.\nThe assembly will have legislative powers, though it is unclear what role it will play in drawing up the country's new constitution. The assembly is expected to be in place for at least a year.\nIt will choose the first elected government since Col Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969. He was ousted in August 2011 and killed two months later. The last fully free parliamentary election was held soon after independence in 1952. The last national vote was held in 1965, when no political parties were allowed. EU election observers said the voting process on 7 July was largely \"peaceful and smooth\", although technical delays and violence disrupted polling in several locations.\nOne person was killed in a shooting near a polling station in Ajdabiya.\nThe election commission put turnout at 62% of registered voters.\nIn an interview with the BBC last week, Mr Jibril called on parties to form a coalition government, something which rival politicians tentatively welcomed.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling station"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["39 out of 80 seats","17"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["The Muslim Brotherhood's party","The National Forces Alliance, led by ex-interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Libya"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2012 Voters in the US state of Texas go to the polls for a runoff election in the Republican Senate primary with Ted Cruz defeating David Dewhurst. (Washington Post)","document":"Cruz, an emerging conservative star whose father emigrated to the United States from Cuba, has drawn comparisons to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and has been lauded by national conservative political pundits and groups for over a year. His victory is a major blow to the Republican establishment in Texas, which lined up squarely behind Dewhurst. It’s also a victory for the tea party and national conservatives who lined up behind Cruz even when a surprise win appeared unlikely. In other elections held on Tuesday, state lawmaker Pete Gallego won a Democratic runoff in Texas’s 23rd District over former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. Gallego will face freshman Republican Rep. Quico Canseco in a battleground race this November. Meanwhile, vulnerable Democratic Rep. John Barrow will have to wait until Aug. 21 to find out who his Republican opponent will be in Georgia’s 12th District, with the GOP primary headed to a runoff. Barrow is running on more conservative turf than in the past, due to redistricting. Cruz’s win is a remarkable political feat and arguably the Senate upset of the cycle. In early 2011, when Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced her intention to retire, observers regarded Dewhurst as a virtual shoo-in to take her place in the upper chamber. Dewhurst is very well-known in Texas, enjoys immense personal wealth, and enlisted the help of Gov. Rick Perry’s top political hands. Perry endorsed Dewhurst during the campaign. But in a multiple-candidate primary election that also included former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert on May 29, Dewhurst was unable to cross the crucial 50 percent threshold, managing just 45 percent of the vote to Cruz’s 34 percent. Once the two-month overtime period was triggered, Cruz seized on new momentum. He outraised Dewhurst 3-1 in the first third of July and brought in an impressive cast of national conservative stars to stump with him during the closing weekend of the campaign. Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who both endorsed Cruz’s candidacy, campaigned for him Friday in the Houston area. While Dewhurst was extremely well-funded, a crucial national ally helped Cruz keep pace on the expensive Texas television airwaves. The anti-tax Club For Growth spent $5.5 million on independent expenditures to help the underdog pull off the upset. Despite their buy-in, Dewhurst and his allies still outspent Cruz and his allies on the air during the final week of the runoff campaign. Cruz also performed well during early voting for the runoff, which took place last week. During the early voting period leading up to the May primary, it was Dewhurst who performed best. The preparation paid off, considering Cruz’s overall margin of victory. With 48 percent of precincts reporting, he led Dewhurst 55 percent to 45 percent, according to the AP.\nTexas Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, congratulated Cruz on his win and added that the candidate “and his team ran a remarkable race and this is a well-deserved and well-earned victory.” With a full slate of competitive Senate primaries on tap in August, look for other insurgent Republicans like Sarah Steelman and Rep. Todd Akin in Missouri, Mark Neumann and Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, and Clark Durant in Michigan, to try to seize on Cruz’s momentum in the coming weeks. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["tea party and national conservatives who lined up behind Cruz"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["he led Dewhurst 55 percent to 45 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the United States"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2011 A ruling party official says that Sudanese President Omar al–Bashir will not stand for re–election. (BBC)","document":"Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not stand in the next presidential election due in four years, a ruling party official has said. The move is part of a package of reforms aimed at democratising the country, Rabie Abdelati said.\nMr Bashir, aged 67, has been in power since a coup in 1989. Mr Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in the Darfur region. He denies the charges.\nMr Abdelati, a member of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (NCP), made comments about Mr Bashir's decision not to seek re-election during interviews with foreign news agencies in Khartoum. \"I can confirm, 100%, that Bashir is not going to run for president in the next election. He will actually give a chance to different personalities to compete for the position,\" Mr Abdelati told the AFP news agency. \"But he is not under pressure... This is not in the context of the change that is happening in the Arab world. It is happening because of the political strategy of the NCP to broaden participation,\" he added. Mr Bashir himself has not publicly spoken about his political future.\nLast week, Mr Bashir reportedly told his party that he may step down if the NCP adopted a retirement age of 60 for people holding major political posts.\nHowever, the opposition played down the move, saying it was simply an attempt by the government to head off potential mass protests - similar to those that have swept the region.\nMr Bashir won last April's presidential election, which was marred by accusations of fraud and an opposition boycott.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Mr Bashir","Mr Abdelati, a member of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (NCP)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Sudan","Khartoum"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2011 Voters in the United States city of Chicago go to the polls for the Chicago mayoral election with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel winning. (ABC News)[permanent dead link] (CNN), (New York Times)","document":"CHICAGO — Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman who worked for two presidents, was elected mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, marking a new path for a city that has, for 22 years, been led by a singular, powerful force, Richard M. Daley.\nMr. Emanuel, who will take office in May, won 55 percent of the vote against five other candidates. That allowed him to avoid a one-on-one runoff election in April that had been seen by some opponents as their best chance to defeat Mr. Emanuel. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, his closest competitor, Gery J. Chico, a former chief of staff to Mr. Daley, got 24 percent of the vote. “Tonight we are moving forward the only way we truly can — together as one city with one future,” Mr. Emanuel told a crowd at a union hall west of downtown.\nMr. Emanuel, 51, is known to nearly everyone here — less, perhaps, for his years as a congressman from the North Side than for his ties to President Obama, a fellow Chicagoan whom he served as White House chief of staff. Mr. Obama congratulated Mr. Emanuel on Tuesday evening, saying, “As a Chicagoan and a friend, I couldn’t be prouder.”\nAdvertisement\n Some voters here have viewed the connection as both an affirmation to support Mr. Emanuel and as a potential advantage for Chicago in its future dealings with Washington. As the next mayor of this city, the nation’s third largest, Mr. Emanuel faces significant obstacles. He must cope with staggering unfunded pension liabilities, as well as a budget deficit around $600 million, by some estimates. Easy fixes — like the proceeds of privatization deals of the city’s parking meters — have already been used. Meanwhile, the city’s population of 2.69 million is smaller than it was a decade ago, unhappy news for a new mayor who would wish to see a growing tax base.\n“There are no more rabbits to pull out of the hat,” said Joe Moore, an alderman from the North Side for the last 20 years, referring to the city’s budget of about $6 billion. “What is left for the next mayor and the next City Council is a series of bad choices — cutting services, perhaps raising taxes and fees.”\nA Daley (the current mayor or his father, Richard J., who operated with a similarly tight control) has run this city for 42 of the past 55 years, and Mr. Emanuel, the city’s first Jewish mayor, is likely to be compared with that family’s legacy at every turn.\nAmong the questions certain to arise: How does he now handle the city’s 50 aldermen, some of whose political careers were owed to the current mayor and others who pressed for Mr. Emanuel’s opponents? How may he push to change city workers’ pensions, a system he has described as unsustainable? And how does he soothe differences that arose during a tense campaign — differences with public-sector unions that endorsed Mr. Chico and with African-American leaders who backed Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in the United States Senate? Advertisement\nCity voting officials said the election had drawn a smaller turnout than they had anticipated. Along with Mr. Chico and Ms. Braun, who was winning 8.8 percent of the vote Tuesday night, Mr. Emanuel defeated Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, who got 9.4 percent; Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins, 1.6 percent; and William Walls, 0.9 percent. Mr. Emanuel — who has spent plenty of time working behind the scenes for other politicians, including Mayor Daley and President Bill Clinton — has long been known for his tough-guy methods of negotiating, his harsh, blunt retorts, and his use of four-letter words. But over the last five months, in his own campaign, Mr. Emanuel showed a far more reserved side. That left some here wondering which Mr. Emanuel — fierce or muted — may next appear, with the campaign over and the governing ahead.\nMr. Emanuel had long suggested that he would love to be the mayor of Chicago, his birthplace. But his immediate road to City Hall began last September, when Mayor Daley stunned this city and announced he would not seek a seventh term. That meant the first mayoral election in 64 years without a sitting mayor on the ballot, and a huge crop of would-be candidates emerged from seemingly every political rank. In October, Mr. Emanuel left his post as White House chief of staff to return to Chicago for a run, and the number of candidates quickly began shrinking. In the months that followed, he would raise some $13 million and campaign at more than 100 neighborhood L stations, 229 neighborhood stops and 20 schools.\nIn the end, the effort — far more elaborate and expensive than his five opponents’ — spared him from a runoff in April. Some opponents had viewed that second race — a head-to-head race with only one candidate — as the only chance of defeating Mr. Emanuel. After Mr. Chico spoke on the telephone to Mr. Emanuel on Tuesday evening, Mr. Chico told his supporters that he had pledged his support, from here on out, to Mr. Emanuel’s efforts for Chicago. “Let’s all work together to get behind the new mayor,” Mr. Chico told a subdued group during his brief concession speech, “and make this the best city on the face of the earth.” Advertisement\n At points in the campaign, Mr. Emanuel’s inevitability faltered over a seemingly simple question: Was he really a resident of Chicago? Critics challenged him, saying his time at the White House meant he failed to meet a requirement that candidates live in Chicago for the year immediately before Election Day. The Illinois Supreme Court found that he was allowed to run — he had never lost legal residency at his North Side home, the justices found — but not before the issue became a major drama here, with election workers, at one point, urgently halting the printing of ballots.\nIf the residency battle ultimately drew sympathy to Mr. Emanuel, it also raised a question that his opponents had quietly pressed on all along: Was he a true, die-hard Chicagoan the way Mr. Daley — an avid White Sox fan and a constant, if gruff cheerleader for his city — was a Chicagoan? Mr. Emanuel spent part of his youth in the northern suburbs, in addition to his working time in Washington — details regularly noted by his critics.\nBut voters who chose him on Tuesday seemed to dismiss the question. “Who cares if he lived on the North Shore?” said Ben Fogel, a social worker who said he was voting for Mr. Emanuel. “I have family there, and it is close enough.” The distinction was silly now, his supporters said, a nonissue in a post-Daley world. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Gery J. Chico, a former chief of staff to Mr. Daley","Rahm Emanuel","Mr. Emanuel"]},{"role":"Date","values":["April"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["55 percent","24 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Chicago"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2011 Mark Funkhouser is defeated in a bid to be reelected as the mayor of Kansas City with Mike Burke and Sly James contesting a runoff on March 22. (Fox Kansas City)","document":"It had been almost 90 years since a Kansas City, Missouri, mayoral incumbant lost a re-election bid. But that streak came to a halt on Tuesday as Mayor Mark Funkhouser conceded defeat in his bid for a second term in office.With all precincts reporting, challenger Mike Burke is leading the candidates with 27 percent of the vote, with Sly James following closely with 26 percent. Funkhouser is currently in third place with 21 percent of the vote.Burke and James, who are both attorneys, will face off in the March 22 general election.At his election campaign party in Westport, Funkhouser said that he called Burke and James to congratulate them on their apparent victory in the primary.Funkhouser thanked his controversial wife, Gloria Squitiro, his daughter and his campaign staff for their work.\nFunkhouser's term as mayor was marked with controversy from the beginning, including several lawsuits regarding Squitiro's role in the Mayor's office.According to the Midwest Democracy Project, the last incumbant Kansas City mayor to lose was in the 1920's.The other candidates in the race are City Councilwoman Deb Hermann, former councilman Jim Rowland and businessman Henry Kline.\nMeanwhile, voters also decided City Council races across the city.  Click here for complete election results from FOX4KC.com.\nIn the most controversial City Council race, a Jackson County judge on Monday ruled that challenger Michael Fletcher did not meet the city's residency requirements to run for office, having claimed a residence in California as his primary home for the past few years.\nIncumbent councilwoman Sharon Sanders-Brooks filed the lawsuit  challenging Fletcher's residency.  Now, her campaign says it will ask  the court to prevent votes for Fletcher from being posted or reported to  the public.\nWith 100 percent of precincts reporting, Brooks is leading with 38 percent of the vote, with Fletcher coming in second with 34 percent and Jermain Reed third with 28 percent.\nLawyer Clinton Adams says votes for unqualified candidates are counted but not reported under Missouri law.Since  Fletcher has been disqualified, he says any vote he receives should be  treated the same as if a voter wrote in \"Mickey Mouse.\"There is  some concern that a disqualified Fletcher could receive more votes than  the two other candidates on the ballot, Sanders-Brooks and Jermaine  Reed.\"We're not asking anybody to destroy any votes, or to seal  any records, or anything like that,\" Adams said. \"I just don't think  they should be reported. Improper votes aren't reported. We don't think  improper votes should be reported in this instance.\"Sanders-Brooks called on Fletcher to respect the court's decision and bow out of the race gracefully.If  Fletcher were to win the election, his place would be declared vacant,  unless the disqualification ruling is overturned by the Missouri Supreme  Court or full Court of Appeals.\nElection officials described voter turnout as light across the city, expecting a turnout of around 18 percent.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Brooks is leading with 38 percent of the vote, with Fletcher coming in second with 34 percent and Jermain Reed third with 28 percent"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Kansas City"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["Mayor"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2011 Voters in the Republic of Ireland go to the polls for the Irish general election. (BBC)","document":"Polls have opened in the Republic of Ireland, the first eurozone state to hold a general election following a financial bail-out.\nThe ballot was called more than a year early, a few months after the ruling coalition negotiated an 85bn-euro (£72bn) EU/IMF loan package.\nDivisions had emerged in the ruling coalition between Fianna Fail and the Green Party.\nA record number of independent candidates are standing for election.\nVoting began at 0700 GMT and is due to finish at 2200 GMT. Polls opened on some of the country's islands on Wednesday.\nThere are 566 candidates fighting in 43 constituencies for 165 seats in the Irish parliament (Dail Eireann).\nThe burden of the bail-out will likely loom large in voters' minds as they enter the polling booths, with all the main parties promising to amend it.\nUnemployment in the Republic currently stands at 13.4%, meaning 450,000 are out of work. Unemployment benefits have recently been cut back.\nAdded to these woes are the large number of financially stretched young people who purchased houses at the height of the Irish economic boom five years ago.\nTheir homes are now in negative equity, meaning they are currently worth a fraction of their original purchase price.\nNobody is immune from the Irish recession which has seen the return of large-scale emigration - currently estimated at 1,000 people per week.\nAnd the retail sector is suffering.\nRising unemployment has meant less money is in circulation on the high street, resulting in diminishing turnover, which in turn has forced many shop owners to lay off staff, thus creating a vicious circle of declining daily spend.\nWhile a record 233 independents, including those in smaller parties, are standing, only 85 female candidates (15% of those contesting the election) are seeking seats in the 31st Dail.\nThe Irish use the system of proportional representation to elect members of parliament rather than the first-past-the-post method.\nThere are 6,000 polling booths around the country.\nThe counting of votes will get under way at 0900 GMT on Saturday in 35 count centres and trends should become clear in the early afternoon before declarations are formally made.\nThe 31st Dail will meet on 9 March when the newly elected taoiseach (prime minister) will announce the members of the new government, before heading to the home of Irish President Mary McAleese who will present ministers with their seals of office.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling booths"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Fianna Fail and the Green Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["began at 0700 GMT and is due to finish at 2200 GMT","Wednesday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["system of proportional representation"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Republic of Ireland"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2011 Outgoing Tánaiste Mary Coughlan becomes the biggest loser of the Fianna Fáil meltdown, as her seat in the Donegal South–West constituency goes to Independent Thomas Pringle. (Irish Examiner)","document":"More than a third of the seats for the 31st Dáil have now been filled.\nFianna Fáil is in meltdown, the party could have just 22 or 23 seats, and just one in the capital in outgoing Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.\nThe Tánaiste is the most high-profile casualty, but other political dynasties are about to come to an end - the names Haughey, Andrews, and Hanafin will be gone.\nFine Gael leader Enda Kenny will not make an overall majority, but a handful of final seats could decide whether he needs Labour or can try and cut a deal with Independents.\nCounting in the Dun Laoghaire constituency has been halted after Labour called a full recount which will take place tomorrow morning.\nJust before 3pm, Labour's Joan Burton became the first member to be elected to the 31st Dáil.\nShe has been followed by party leader Eamon Gilmore, a raft of familiar names like Pat Rabbitte and Rosin Shortall, and new faces like Brendan Ryan and Robert Dowds.\nThe party will finish in second place, and have its best electoral performance in history.\nBut the country is turning blue - Enda Kenny's election in Mayo, followed by Michael Ring and the party should take two of the remaining three there.\nAn overall majority it seems is not in sight, but many in the party remain convinced the final seat numbers could see a Government formed without Labour.\nSinn Féin looks set to at least double its seats, while Independents and others, especially those on the left, are having a good day.\nIn Dublin South, Shane Ross topped the poll, as did Mick Wallace in Wexford, and Joe Higgins and Catherine Murphy make returns to the Dáil.\nBut the Greens will be wiped out since none of the party's outgoing TD's or candidates will make the cut.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["Fianna Fáil is in meltdown, the party could have just 22 or 23 seats"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Fianna Fáil"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Dublin South"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin says he supports Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's bid for the upcoming presidential election in Egypt. (The Telegraph)","document":"Russian leader makes surprise declaration of support for Field Marshal Sisi's presidential bid - which has not yet been announced\nRussia’s President Vladimir Putin has made a startling intervention in Egypt’s political turmoil by backing its defence minister for the presidency, before an election has even been declared.\nWhether the minister, the newly promoted Field Marshal Abdulfattah el-Sisi, will stand for president in elections scheduled for later this year is the biggest talking point in Egyptian politics, with elements of a personality cult already forming around him.\nHis aides have consistently denied reports that he has already made a decision, but Mr Putin chose to ignore that while welcoming him on a visit to Moscow.\n“I know that you have made a decision to run for president,” Mr Putin said. “That’s a very responsible decision: to undertake such a mission for the fate of the Egyptian people. On my own part, and on behalf of the Russian people, I wish you success.”\nField Marshal Sisi’s visit to Russia was already being watched closely for clues as to whether the two countries were seeking to renew a military and strategic alliance that was ended by the former President Anwar Sadat 40 years ago.\nSince then, Egypt has been firmly in the American orbit, but criticism in Washington of the then General Sisi’s decision last July to oust the Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, and of the subsequent shooting dead of hundreds of protesters, has enraged the military and its supporters.\nRussia is keen to take at least superficial advantage of America’s current unpopularity, and well-placed leaks to Russian media have indicated the two sides are negotiating $2 billion (£1.2 billion) in arms sales, including the S-300 air defence system.\nHowever, the deal has been discussed for some months now without any firm commitment, and would have to be paid for out of the billions of dollars currently being supplied to keep the Egyptian government solvent by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which both strongly backed Gen Sisi’s coup.\nSaudi Arabia is currently furious with President Barack Obama for his failure to intervene more strongly against the Assad regime in Syria and his gradual rapprochement with Riyadh’s strategic foe, Iran.\nHowever, whether that anger would extend to approving a real realignment of Egypt’s position with that of Russia, the closest ally of both Syria and Iran outside the Middle East, is another matter.\nNabil Fahmy, the Egyptian foreign minister, who is accompanying Field Marshal Sisi on his trip to Moscow, his first overseas since the coup, has insisted that Egypt is just “broadening” its diplomatic scope.\nThe Egyptian rapprochement with Russia does make clear the very differing approaches to the “Arab Spring” taken by Moscow and Washington. Mr Putin has all along seen it as a threat - both to the autocratic rule pursued by many key Russian allies and, increasingly, within Russia itself, and as an opportunity for the strengthening of militant Islamist movements.\nAmerica has preferred to see it as an awakening of democratic politics as a result of which moderate Islamism can be strengthened in the face of the militants. By attempting to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, Field Marshal Sisi has put himself firmly in the camp of Moscow - as well as of Riyadh and the Gulf Sunni states which have pursued similar if less bloody crackdowns against Islamist movements, including entirely peaceful ones.\n“A stable situation in the whole of the Middle East largely depends on stability in Egypt,” Mr Putin also said. “I am convinced that you with your vast experience will be able to both mobilise your supporters and normalise relations with all sections of Egyptian society.”\nMost Egyptians expect Field Marshal Sisi to stand for the presidency and win, bolstered by an unstoppable tide of support in the state-backed media and privately-owned television stations, and by street campaigns mounted by pro-military activists. These have also mobilised remnants of the Mubarak regime, who had previously languished in disgrace since the revolution of 2011.\nHowever, it is unusual for a candidate to be so publicly backed by a foreign country, particularly when he has not even announced his candidature.\nMr Putin’s stance seemed also to contradict the official communique issued after the visit, which “condemned foreign interference in domestic affairs of any country”, a regular diplomatic dig at American concern over human rights in other nations.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["will stand for president in elections"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Field Marshal Abdulfattah el-Sisi","Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Proposals to change the automatic trade union affiliation with the UK Labour Party are passed at a special party conference vote by 86% to 14%. (BBC)","document":"Proposals to change the link between Labour and the unions have been approved at a conference of party members by an overwhelming majority.\nLeader Ed Miliband had urged a \"one member, one vote\" system for leadership elections and an end to the automatic affiliation of union members.\nHe praised the party's \"courage to change\" after members backed the plans by 86.29% in favour. Unite boss Len McCluskey said union members would \"rise to the challenge\".\nConservative Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed Labour's reforms, insisting the balance of power remained with the unions.\nAddressing the conference after the vote, Mr Miliband insisted members should be \"proud of the Labour Party\". He said he had taken a \"big risk\" in proposing reforms last July, stressing: \"I did not believe we could face up to the challenges the country faced if we didn't face up to the challenges faced by our party.\"\nSome British people felt Labour had recently lost touch, he said, adding: \"You were right.\"\nHe later tweeted: \"The reason we have changed our party today is so that we never lose touch again. #OneNationPolitics\"\nMr McCluskey said the reforms would help to start \"involving more trade unionists in the business of the party\".\nBut he also fired a broadside at Mr Miliband, who had asked police to investigate the alleged rigging of a Labour candidate selection by Unite in Falkirk, which prompted the proposals debated on Saturday.\nHe repeated his assertion that \"my union has done nothing wrong\", declaring to loud cheers: \"This is our party and we are going nowhere.\"\nThe BBC's chief political correspondent Norman Smith said it was interesting that opposition to the reforms had come from ordinary party members rather than trade unionists - perhaps underlining concern about how the changes would affect their own votes. And BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said critics had pointed out that the reforms were not as radical as Labour suggested.\nUnder the changes, unions would still control 50% of votes at Labour conferences; there would be no cap on union donations; and some of the changes would be phased in over five years, our correspondent reported.\nEarlier, Mr Miliband received a standing ovation from union members, constituency MPs and members of local parties from around the country at London's ExCel centre, as he urged them to \"seize\" the chance to change Labour.\nHe said the changes would attract thousands of new supporters.\nHistorically, millions of union members have been automatically affiliated with Labour, but few take part in campaigning activities or even vote in general elections.\nBy being allowed to actively opt in to be a supporter, for a £3 fee, Mr Miliband has argued Labour would be transformed into a genuine \"mass movement\" again, in contrast to the Conservatives. Labour leadership elections have previously been decided by a complex electoral college system, with equal weight given to the votes of three groups - one third to MPs and MEPs, one third to ordinary party members and one third to trade unionists.\nMr Miliband won the last leadership election largely thanks to support from unions, but Mr McCluskey said he suspected only 10% of its one million members affiliated to Labour would opt to stay in if asked now.\nBut Mr Miliband said a \"one-member, one-vote\" system would breathe new life into the party, completing a process started by former leader John Smith more than 30 years ago.\nMeanwhile, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which is not affiliated with Labour, demonstrated against the changes outside the centre.\nMr Miliband's proposals have already led to the GMB union reducing its affiliation funding. Unite will discuss its funding arrangements next week. Some delegates warned Labour's against diluting its union links.\nOne local party member, a retired postal worker, said the changes were being foisted on the party to appease right wing media and the Conservatives.\nLabour ministers, the party's ruling National Executive Committee and the big trade unions had already expressed support for reform.\nAnd former prime minister Tony Blair said Mr Miliband had shown \"real courage\" on the issue, which was \"long overdue\".\nBut Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed the changes as \"a big victory for the unions\".\n\"Ed Miliband is left with a situation where the unions are now his political life support machine,\" he said.\n\"That means all Ed Miliband offers is more spending, more borrowing and more taxes. It's the same old Labour Party.\"\nLabour grandee John Prescott welcomed the \"big change\".\n\"The movement's got together, it's took a risk... That's what you expect from leaders, they look ahead and they've got the courage to make a decision.\"\nUnison general secretary Dave Prentis urged members to turn their attention to the next election.\n\"Our money will remain, they will get our affiliation fees and we will move forward to win this election for Labour,\" he said.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["change the link between Labour and the unions"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":["\"one member, one vote\" system"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Election Name","values":["leadership elections"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, announces that the 2014 New Zealand election will be held on 20 September 2014. (New Zealand Herald)","document":"Prime Minister John Key has announced that this year's election will take place on September 20.\nPolitical editor, NZ Herald\nNew Zealand will go to the polls on September 20.\nPrime Minister John Key announced the election date during his post Cabinet press conference this afternoon.\nHe said G20 summit hosted by Australia on 15-16 November was a factor in deciding the date.\nAustralia has invited New Zealand to take part in that summit, and Mr Key said there was a risk holding the election too close to the G20 would meant post-election coalition talks were still underway and a Prime Minister had not been officially anointed.\nAn election campaign could also mean other country's leaders could not visit in the lead up to that summit.\nHe said Parliament would rise on 31 July.\nMr Key would not say whether a referendum on the NZ flag would go ahead this election.\nHe said he would say more about the issue in a speech he was due to give tomorrow.\nHe has advocated changing the flag and has been considering a referendum.\nMr Key also said he believed elections should be held earlier than November in future, because of coalition talks.\nNational would campaign on its track record in education, health, law and order as well as the economy.\nLabour leader David Cunliffe said he and his party were ready to fight the election and already in campaign mode.\n\"Bring it on.\n\"We are ready, we are up for this. It's game on.\"\nHe was not concerned Labour voters would be put off by the colder weather in September compared to the usual November date.\nMr Cunliffe has previously been critical of hosting the Royal visit close to an election, saying it was convention for a 6-8 month gap. However, yesterday he said the five month gap was \"fine. We welcome the Royal family.\"\nHe said the election would be about the economy, a more inclusive society and \"building a new passion for being New Zealanders - proud of our environment, culture and heritage.\"\nAsked what he would bring to the role of Prime Ministership he said: \"energy, passion, hope for a better tomorrow for all our children, and a united team that is right behind this effort to give New Zealanders the opportunities they deserve.\"\nIn 2011, Mr Key announced the election date in early February - nine months before the November election.\nIt is up to the Prime Minister to decide on the date. The regulated period for election spending and advertising now kicks in either three months before the election, or after the Prime Minister's announcement if that is within three months of the election.\nTraditionally Prime Ministers have left it late to call the election to take advantage of knowing when the regulated period will start.\nHowever, Mr Key said he does not necessarily agree that delaying it until the last minute gives a big advantage and it is in the interests of the voters and economy to have some certainty early.\nMr Key is also expected to give clearer indications of whether National will assist potential coalition partners in electorate seats closer to the election.\nHe has already indicated it will do so for Peter Dunne in Ohariu and Act's David Seymour in Epsom, but has not yet said whether it will support Conservative Party leader Colin Craig in the same way.\nNational ministers Paula Bennett and Murray McCully have both said they are interested in the two seats Mr Craig is most likely to be successful in - the new Upper Harbour electorate and East Coast Bays.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Prime Minister John Key","Labour leader David Cunliffe"]},{"role":"Date","values":["September 20"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["New Zealand"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Joko Widodo is chosen as the nominee for the Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle for the upcoming presidential election. (The Jakarta Globe)","document":"A man sits by a poster urging Joko Widodo to run in the presidential race in Cipinang, North Jakarta, on Dec. 16, 2013. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)\nJakarta. Will Indonesia look back on Friday, March 14 as the day the 2014 presidential election was decided?\nThe Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) nominated the wildly popular Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo as its presidential candidate on Friday, putting to an end months of speculation as to whether party chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri was readying her fourth bid for the highest office in the world’s fourth-largest country.\nThe governor took a break from an impromptu visit to subsidized housing in Marunda, North Jakarta to welcome the news on Friday. He told a crowd of reporters and local residents that he was prepared to mount a campaign for the July election.\n“I have been given the blessing of PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri to be a presidential candidate,” Joko said before touching his head to the Indonesian flag in a show of respect. “Bismillahirrahmanirahim, I am ready.”\nThe PDI-P made the official announcement on Friday afternoon as Megawati read from a handwritten note at the party’s headquarters in Lenteng Agung, South Jakarta. The one-time president made a direct appeal to Indonesian voters, asking them to support Joko in the coming presidential campaign.\n“My command is, as the PDI-P chairwoman, to the people of Indonesia who have consciousness for justice and honesty wherever you are: support Bapak Joko Widodo as PDI-P presidential candidate,” Megawati read.\nShe also urged voters to keep a watchful eye for election fraud during this April’s hugely important legislative elections. Political observers expect the PDI-P, the country’s main opposition party, to receive a boost in the legislative race amid growing discontent with members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s ruling coalition.\nBREAKING NEWS : Megawati Soekarnoputri telah resmi memberi mandat Jokowi sbg Capres 2014 #JKW4P\n— PDI Perjuangan (@PDI_Perjuangan) March 14, 2014\nThe PDI-P received 14 percent of the popular vote in the 2009 election, securing enough seats to control 19.69 percent of the House of Representatives. But the opposition party will have to convince a sizable percentage of new voters to mount a presidential campaign alone. Political parties need 25 percent of the vote or 20 percent of the House to nominate a presidential candidate without forming a coalition.\nYudhoyono tightened his grip on the House after the 2009 election, forming a six-party coalition that stands opposite the PDI-P. But  a series of high-profile graft cases have all but destroyed the Democratic Party’s upper echelons and the president has struggled to keep the more unruly members, like the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), in check.\nThe outcome of April’s legislative race will set the tone for the coming election, narrowing the crowded playing field to a few candidates and kick off the official campaign season. With Joko’s presidential bid at least partially on the line, Megawati asked her supporters to do whatever they could to ensure a clean election.\n“Protect and guard the 2014 legislative elections, especially at polling booths and during tallying of the votes, from any fraud and intimidation,” Megawati said. “Strengthen your heart in guarding the democracy in our beloved Republic of Indonesia.”\nThe timing of the announcement, which came after months of silence from both Joko and Megawati, will likely bode well for PDI-P candidates in the legislative elections. The official legislative campaign season begins on Sunday, March 16 — giving voters a weekend to digest the news of Joko’s run before the PDI-P takes to the streets.\n“Making the announcement before the legislative elections will make the PDI-P’s electability the highest among all the parties,” said Wawan Ichwanudin, a political science lecturer at the University of Indonesia. “But there is still a possibility that Jokowi will lose the race.\n“There are still undecided voters and other candidates. To date, Jokowi’s electability hasn’t surpassed 50 percent, so there is still a chance for any other candidate.”\nIf Joko fails to break the 50 percent threshold in the July election, the race will be decided with a run-off vote between the two most popular candidates. The governor was able to secure his position in Jakarta with a run-off, trouncing incumbent Fauzi Bowo, but a presidential race is an entirely different beast, Wawan warned.\n“With less than 50 percent, there would have to be a second round of the election,” he explained. “This will give another chance for other candidates to team up against Jokowi and gather their votes. The possibility that this other team might win the race is still a reality.”\nJakarta Governor Joko Widodo speaks with reporters in Marunda, North Jakarta, after the official announcement of his candidacy in the presidential race. (SP Photo/Carlos Paath)\nPoll position\nJoko routinely tops electability polls, but contenders like the Great Indonesia Movement Party’s (Gerindra) Prabowo Subianto and the Golkar Party’s Aburizal Bakrie are still at his heels. Both men announced their candidacy early in the game and have been making the rounds to drum up support ahead of the campaign season.\nAburizal, a mining and property tycoon, is pushing for a protectionist stance on Indonesia’s natural resources and is banking on the emergence of New Order nostalgia to provide a push for the Golkar Party — the one-time election machine of Indonesian strongman Suharto.\nHe has repeatedly gone on the record to say that Joko’s candidacy is a non-issue as far as he is concerned. The only real threats, Aburizal said, were Megawati and Prabowo.\nPrabowo, the former leader of the nation’s feared Kopassus Special Forces, has taken great pains to recast himself as populist leader with a firm grip. His Gerindra party has embarked on an aggressive social media campaign illustrating the party’s commitment to anti-corruption and nationalism ahead of the election.\nBut allegations of human rights offenses, including kidnapping and killings during the chaos that capped off Suharto’s reign, could prove to be a substantial hurdle for Prabowo’s popularity among the nation’s emerging middle class.\nGerindra supported Joko and his running mate Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in the Jakarta gubernatorial race. But while Basuki has remained loyal to the Gerindra party, Joko was always with the PDI-P. The pre-election rumor mill has swirled with suggestions of a Joko-Prabowo joint ticket, peaking after Basuki made a Chinese New Year visit to Prabowo’s mountain-side compound, but so far any mention of a coalition remain speculation.\nOne Gerindra official said the party was not concerned with Joko’s emergence as a contender in the race.\n“We have no problem at all,” said Habiburohman, the head of advocacy at Gerindra. “We are ready to compete with anyone. Prabowo has his own qualities, so we’re welcome to any contenders.”\nDeserting the Durian?\nJoko will have to answer for attempting to leave behind his post as the head of Indonesia’s chaotic capital less than halfway through his term, Habiburohman said. The governor rode into office on a reform ticket and promised to clean up Jakarta’s glacial bureaucracy.\nPlans to expand the capital’s public transportation system, including the much-delayed construction of a monorail and mass-rapid transit line, have begun in earnest but it will be years before Jakarta residents feel the impact on their daily lives. The governor has, in the past, promised that his attentions were on the capital, not Merdeka Palace, but Friday’s announcement has cemented Joko’s ambitions for higher office.\n“How people see it, his unfinished responsibility in Jakarta and his commitment will be a question that Jokowi has to eventually answer,” Habiburohman said. “It’s his business, not ours.”\nJakarta’s deputy governor suggested Joko take a leave of absence during the campaign season instead of vacating his office. There was still a mountain of work to be done in the capital that needed Joko’s attention, Basuki said.\n“All this time, the Governor has trusted me to lead meetings,” Basuki said. “I can make decisions. Or if there is anything Pak Jokowi wants to say, he can always call me during meetings.”\n \nI guess that means that he is now eligible to fumble at a national level!\nWisdom comes with the years, hurrah for Mega!\nTook a long time, however!\nha ha ha to the konvensi Partai Demokrat\nfantastic news!\nAbout time too….congratulations :)\nJust the right timing. Well done PDI-P\nGreat decision! Now hopefully Prabowo’s lead is not so much of a lead anymore. I think his party still needs to get the 20% benchmark to even announce their candidate, isn’t it?\nOn second thought – who’s going to be the VP with Jokowi? Hopefully an able person as Ahok and not some political ghost of the past….\nWho will fill in his place? Whoever will be President next will still have to reside in the Capital and face the same BS. There is still unfinished business to be made like the MRT and the Monorail projects in the the capital. Should Joko win the presidency, will he be able to deliver his inspirational ideas with the replacing Governor of Jakarta? Poor Ahok. Move him up a notch. for once i’m afraid i agree with hangman here…. there’s just no way they will let him change anything, if he tries they’ll pull a gus dur on him, they’ll think of something, i kind of pity him, his life is not his to live anymore, it’s like that metalica concert where he went a few months ago, sitting in the vip lounge with all the big shots, lamenting to journalists how he didn’t want to sit there, how he wanted to be downstairs with all the other real fans in the front, partying and singing the tunes of his favorite band….\nI agree henk.  Nothing much has changed or will change in Jakarta, even when he tried to get some new buses-something for the people – (a first) it was ruined by corruption.\nWondering that some or even most may have ADD. And no one has been tried to be diagnosed with it.   Who would you pick?\nAs much as I will miss Rhoma Irama’s overall awesomeness, my heart soars like a hawk to hear of the great Mas joining the fray. He has Joyoboyo’s endorsement of course. The Kings of Dwipa are coming back, it is written.\nSo what makes him different than anyone else in indonesian politics. All SBY has done is talk. Jokowi is by far the best option. Name one leader who could have done a better job with Jakarta in this short of time. What has Prabowo done? Bakrie? Sorry you can say Jokowi is not the right guy for the job but then who do you suggest? I don’t really expect you to understand\nIf he gets elected you will then understand, when its to late, he is biting off way more than he can eat, for his on good, hopefully he will not get elected\nhe would be in way over his head for sure\nLUWANTO\nI believe that Pak Joko has the political will to do what it takes to lead the country. First\npriority should be to review the judiciary, the existing laws (local & sharia), the Judges, Ministers and Ministries that have fallen behind its fiduciary obligations. Use the latest set of Laws meaningfully i.e. THE PUBLIC IS ABLE TO FILE LAWSUITS AGAINST CORRUPT POLITICAL PARTY MEMBERS. In which case Pak Joko has to safeguard his own party members too! Remember that when people start to sue, Dewan members will have to think twice before they start to ask for ‘holiday’ money or else they will lose their seat. This Law is SINE QUA NON – arguably the best elixir to teach corrupt officials to back off.\nLUWANTO\n15 March 2014\nLUWANTO\nTo: PakLe\nYour comment is excellent – almost sublime. Let’s face it, no Man is perfect, does not need to have a string of degrees, uses his amiable traits and common sense to reach out to one and all. Finally, he has a trusted team of civil servants that work and produce results – that’s what you want, don’t you?\nLUWANTO\n15 March 2014\nThanks, that’s very kind of you. You think Indonesia can really afford four more years heading in the section it’s currently going? And “many people have no idea what they’re talking about” is a wonderful way to start a discussion.  it is. Many people here so clueless that gets blinded by Jokowi Mania or whatever. The fact is, jokowi is unproven yet in Jakarta. And no, Indonesia is doing decent with the leadership of SBY, it just need someone with vast experience and quality leadership\nThe other day much to my horror I noticed the container of strawberries I bought the night before had already gone moldy. There was one clean, seemingly perfect looking one on top. I ignored it and went to work. A few hours later I came back and the good strawberry also had turned a vile, stinky shade of blue. I threw the whole lot to the stray dogs outside who also turned up their nose at them in disgust – too gross even for a bunch of mangy, trash-eating, diseased mutts. Grim stuff.\nlol you must be joking, what he accomplished? the MRT is already there since Fauzi bowo term and about to start when he left and the jokowow was delaying the project for some nonsense inquiry yet he finally agreed and continue with the project (after 6 months of delay) and dont start with the Monorail, busway and floods","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["Poll position"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo","the Great Indonesia Movement Party’s (Gerindra) Prabowo Subianto","President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s ruling coalition","the Golkar Party’s Aburizal Bakrie"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Indonesia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Voters in Serbia go to the polls for an early  parliamentary election. The centre right SNS is reported to be receiving around 50% of the popular vote. (AP via Houston Chronicle), (Straits Times)","document":"BELGRADE (AFP) - Serbia's ruling centre-right Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) party was set for a landslide victory in snap polls on Sunday, according to observer estimates, cementing its grip on power after pledging tough economic reforms and a route into the European Union (EU).\nThe SNS won around 50 per cent of the vote, giving it a majority in the 250-seat parliament, independent electoral monitors Cesid said.\nIf confirmed in final results, it would be the highest score in Serbia's parliamentary elections since 1990, after the fall of communism, and would also allow the party to form a government on its own.\nSNS official Nebojsa Stefanovic said his party had won 49.3 per cent of the vote.\nThe SNS and its leader Aleksandar Vucic - now set to become the next premier - had called early polls in order to win a new mandate to push ahead with economic reforms.\n\"I want Serbia to pursue a fierce battle against corruption, develop its economy, increase the number of jobs, and for this we need difficult and painful reforms,\" said Mr Vucic, an ultra-nationalist hawk turned pro-European.\n\"It will not be easy at all. Thousands of other problems must also be solved,\" he said after casting his ballot.\nThe outgoing SNS-dominated cabinet, led by Socialist Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, won support from Brussels to begin EU membership talks only after a historic accord with the breakaway region of Kosovo last year.\nThough the SNS won the most votes in the last election in 2012, it gave the post of premier to the Socialist party as part of a coalition deal.\nThe SNS owes its popularity largely to Mr Vucic's high-profile anti-graft drive that led to the arrest of several tycoons and former ministers.\nSerbia - the largest country to emerge after the break-up of Yugoslavia with a population of 7.2 million - has often been seen as a defiant international pariah since playing a central role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.\nBut with a fifth of the workforce unemployed and the average monthly salary at just 350 euros ($615), Serbia's leading parties now see membership of the 28-member EU as the only hope for the future.\nAlthough Serbia still refuses to recognise Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, it forged a compromise deal last year, in which it agreed to recognise the authority of the government in Pristina over the territory of Kosovo - an agreement that opened the door to accession talks with Brussels.\n'NO CHANGE'\nMany Serbs, such as 45-year old textile worker Jadranka Milosavljevic, moonlight in the so-called grey economy, with no health or social benefits.\n\"Ordinary people will see no change. Look at me, it's Sunday, and I'm on my way to my second job to try to make some money for my family,\" she said.\nThe next government will have to focus on reforming antiquated labour laws and cutting down on bureaucracy, analysts say.\nSerbia's eight billion euro budget is struggling to cope with 1.7 million pensioners and a bloated public sector that employs more than 700,000.\nThe new government will also have to push through a stringent austerity package, including the privatisation of more than 170 state-owned companies, along with subsidy cuts and tax increases.\nBut 64-year-old pensioner Borivoje Mikic said he expected no change.\n\"The barn is the same, only the animals in it change,\" Mr Mikic said.\nDespite the gloomy economy, opinion polls ahead of the election showed a dominant position for the SNS, with 44 per cent voter support.\nUnemployed bank clerk Olga Petrovic, 52, said Mr Vucic and his party offered \"the first glimmer of hope\".\n\"I know we will have to survive painful times, but at least I see a light at the end of a tunnel.\"\nAnalysts expected a final turnout of around 50 per cent, with many voters put off by the seemingly certain SNS victory.\nThe Socialists were ranked second in opinion polls with 14 per cent, ahead of the opposition Democratic Party with 11 per cent.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["giving it a majority in the 250-seat parliament"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["SNS and its leader Aleksandar Vucic"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["The SNS won around 50 per cent of the vote"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Serbia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["next premier"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 The Constitutional Court of Thailand invalidates the general election held on February 2, on the grounds that voting was not held on the same day throughout the country. (AFP via Malaysia Today)","document":"(AFP) - Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that a general election held last month was invalid, deepening a political stalemate following weeks of opposition protests.\nThe February 2 polls, called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an unsuccessful attempt to ease a months-old political crisis, have not yet been completed because of disruption by demonstrators.\nA court spokesman told reporters that the 6:3 ruling was reached on the grounds that voting was not held for the entire country on the same day.\nOpposition protesters blocked candidate registrations in 28 constituencies, and also caused the closure of about 10 percent of polling stations.\nThe main opposition Democrat Party boycotted the vote, saying it would not end years of political turmoil.\nThe case was one of a slew of legal hurdles facing Yingluck, who has withstood calls to resign despite months of political street protests.\nA spokesman for her Puea Thai Party described the outcome as “regrettable”, and said the annulment of the vote would “set a bad precedent”.\nThe petition was filed by a Bangkok law lecturer. A similar bid, submitted by the opposition on the grounds that the failure to hold the entire election on the same day was an attempt to grab power unconstitutionally, was rejected by the Constitutional Court last month.\nYingluck’s government, in a caretaker role following the incomplete election, faces a series of legal challenges that could lead to her removal from office, including negligence charges linked to a rice subsidy scheme.\nShe has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seeking to force her from office and install an unelected government to oversee reforms and curb the dominance of her billionaire family.\nTwenty-three people have been killed in recent weeks in gun and grenade attacks, mostly targeting protesters.\nIt is the latest chapter in a political crisis stretching back to a military coup in 2006 that ousted Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a divisive tycoon-turned-politician who lives in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.\nOn Tuesday, Thailand ended a state of emergency in force for almost two months in Bangkok and surrounding areas, reflecting an improvement in security since protesters scaled down their rallies at the start of March.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Yingluck","The main opposition Democrat Party","Puea Thai Party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Thailand’s Constitutional Court"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["general election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Voters in Slovakia go to the polls for the second round of voting in the presidential election with former businessman Andrej Kiska elected in a landslide. (Deutsche Welle), (The Telegraph)","document":"Andrej Kisha, a philanthropist who became rich from his consumer-credit business, vows to 're-establish trust' to the office of president he was emphatically voted in to\nPolitical newcomer and millionaire Andrej Kiska won by a landslide in Saturday's presidential run-off, preventing veteran leftist Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico from tightening his grip on power.\nA non-aligned centrist who made his fortune in the consumer-credit business, the 51-year-old Mr Kiska will be Slovakia's first president since independence in 1993 without a past in the Communist party.\n\"I want to re-establish the people's trust in the office of president,\" Kiska said in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters in the capital Bratislava.\nThe millionaire-turned-philanthropist who has given away most of his fortune to charity also vowed to \"make politics more human.\"\nMr Fico, who will likely stay on as prime minister in the run-up to a 2016 general election, conceded defeat as results showed Mr Kiska winning a landslide.\nBased on results from 99 per cent the vote, Mr Kiska scored 59.4 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Fico's 40.6 per cent result, the election commission said.\n\"This election was a referendum on Fico and his government, and he clearly lost it,\" Grigorij Meseznikov, Bratislava-based analyst from the Institute for Public Affairs told AFP of the premier's failed attempt to monopolise power.\n\"The vast majority of voters have expressed their disillusion with Fico, he was unable to mobilise his core voters,\" he added.\nA prospect of Smer winning control of both parliament and the presidency galvanised opponents in the ex-communist country of 5.4 million, which joined the European Union in 2004 and the eurozone in 2009.\nMr Fico's party has a majority 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, with the next general election scheduled for 2016.\nAnalysts also warned that if he had taken the presidency, Mr Fico could have tried to amend the constitution to boost presidential powers and transform the parliamentary system into a presidential one.\nEndorsed by heavyweight European Socialists like French President Francois Hollande and European Parliament chief Martin Schulz, veteran leftist Mr Fico, 49, had tried to cast Mr Kiska as politically naive and out of his depth.\nBut r Kiska, who is widely regarded as a self-made man with a very good nose for business, capitalised on his image as a political greenhorn untainted by the kind of corruption allegations that have ravaged Slovakia's right wing.\nPolitics here were rocked to the core late 2011 when a secret-service file, code-named Gorilla, leaked on the Internet revealed alleged links between oligarchs from a private financial group and nearly all of the right-wing political elite.\nIn the 2012 general election, angry voters ousted right-of-centre politicians and Mr Fico won by a landslide, enabling him to form a one-party government backed by a strong independent majority in the parliament.\n\"Kiska's number one goal now should be to try to unify a very polarised Slovak society,\" Bratislava-based analyst Eduard Chmelar told AFP, pointing to the divisive election campaign.\n\"It's a new feeling to be voting for myself,\" said Mr Kiska earlier Saturday as he cast his ballot in his provincial hometown of Poprad, in northern Slovakia.\nHe has revealed bouts of soul-searching and having \"flirted\" with Judaism and Buddhism before returning to Catholicism in his autobiography titled \"A Manager's Road from Hell\".\nBut Mr Fico's bid to paint Mr Kiska as an incompetent political novice dabbling in Scientology – a claim Mr Kiska denies – fell flat with voters.\nThe incoming president will be sworn in on June 15, when leftist incumbent Ivan Gasparovic's second term ends.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Mr Kiska scored 59.4 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Fico's 40.6 per cent result"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Slovakia's"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Voters in Slovakia go to the polls for the second round of voting in the presidential election with former businessman Andrej Kiska elected in a landslide. (Deutsche Welle), (The Telegraph)","document":"Voters in Slovakia have cast their ballots in a run-off election to choose their president. The result is expected to be extremely close.\n Saturday's vote saw Prime Minister Robert Fico (r. above) face off against political newcomer Andrej Kiska (l. above).\n The runoff comes after a first round of voting on March 15 saw Social Democrat Fico, 49, winning 28 percent to narrowly beat centrist Kiska, 51, on 24 percent. Results are expected around midnight local time (23:00 UTC).\n Fico, an ex-Communist, came to power with his Smer party after sweeping a parliamentary election in 2012.\n Some Slovaks feel that a victory for Fico in the presidentials could result in his party amassing too much power, endangering the country's democracy.\n This fear is likely to fuel support for Kiska, a businessman turned philanthropist with no Communist past. Kiska has campaigned as an independent without a party.\n The president has the power to name or approve some of the main figures in the judicial branch.\n Rough campaign tactics\n Campaigning turned tough in the last weeks, with Fico accusing Kiska of usury in consumer lending firms he used to own, for which Kiska filed a criminal complaint against his opponent.\n Kiska has also vehemently denied that he is close to the Church of Scientology, as claimed by Fico, who has emphasized his own Catholicism. Critics of Scientology say it is a cult that extorts money from its members and harrasses them if they try to quit.\n A majority of Slovaks identify themselves as Roman Catholic.\n The next president will be sworn in on June 15 and replace incumbent Ivan Gasparovic, who has held the post for two terms and is barred by the constitution from running again.\n Slovakia, which has a population of 5.4 million, is a member both of the European Union and the eurozone.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":["replace incumbent Ivan Gasparovic, who has held the post for two terms and is barred by the constitution from running again"]},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday's"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Slovakia"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["president"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2014 Electoral authorities in Egypt set the first round of the presidential election for 26–27 May. (BBC)","document":"The first round of Egypt's presidential poll has been set for 26-27 May, officials say, days after army chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi resigned and announced his candidature.\nState TV said nominations would be accepted from Monday until 20 April.\nAbdul Fattah al-Sisi led the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July after mass opposition protests.\nCorrespondents say he is likely to win the presidency, given his popularity and the lack of any serious rivals.\nIf he does not win more than 50% in the first round of voting, a second round will be held on 16-17 June.\nEgyptians abroad will vote between 15 and 19 May, state media report.\nThe only other person to declare his candidacy so far has been Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in the last presidential elections in 2012.\nIf Mr Sisi does become president, he will be the latest in a line of Egyptian rulers drawn from the military; a line only briefly broken during President Morsi's year in office.\nHuman rights groups say the military-backed authorities have displayed increasing hostility to independent media and to political opponents.\nSince Mr Morsi's overthrow more than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands of members of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood have been detained in a crackdown by the interim authorities, who have designated the Islamist movement a terrorist group.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Abdul Fattah al-Sisi","Mr Sisi","Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahi"]},{"role":"Date","values":["26-27 May"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Egypt"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential poll"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Voters in Costa Rica go to the polls for a general election. Luis Guillermo Solís is the only presidential candidate left in the race following the withdrawal of Johnny Araya. (BBC)","document":"Luis Guillermo Solis of the centre-left Citizen Action Party (PAC) has won the presidential election in Costa Rica.\nWith almost all the votes counted, Mr Solis had 78%.\nHe had been expected to win after his rival - governing party candidate Johnny Araya - had stopped campaigning after opinion polls suggested Mr Solis had an unassailable lead.\nMr Solis's win breaks with the traditional two-party system which has dominated in Costa Rica for decades.\nMr Araya, whose name remained on the ballot even after he pulled out, got 22%.\nForty-three percent of the electorate abstained, the highest rate in the past 60 years.\nNevertheless, Mr Solis - who had appealed for a solid voter turnout - surpassed by more than 300,000 votes his own goal of getting more than a million people to cast their ballot for him.\nMr Solis, a 55-year-old historian and former diplomat, had started campaigning in October to raise his profile, which was rather low at the time.\nHis PAC party, which was founded in 2000, has never before been in power. The PAC's narrow victory in the first round on 2 February against the well-established governing National Liberation Party came as a surprise.\nAnalysts say Mr Solis's campaign promise to tackle corruption and poverty in the Central American nation won over many undecided voters.\nOn 5 March, an opinion poll suggested Mr Solis had the support of 64% of voters with his rival lagging behind with 21%.\nThis prompted Mr Araya to give up his presidential bid. He said proceeding would be a waste of money.\n\"It is only prudent not to spend millions on publicity, meetings and other events. We will respect the constitutional provisions, but I will refrain from any electoral activity,\" he told reporters at the time.\nMr Araya congratulated Mr Solis on his win saying he received these results \"with serenity, with maturity, and I will start by recognising them with humility and respect\".\nOutgoing President Laura Chinchilla wished Mr Solis success in his new post.\nSpeaking to a crowd of flag-waving supporters, the winning candidate said that the polls showed \"there is a unquestionable demand for change, for things not to carry on as they have, and I aim, with the help of God and the support of all of you, to bring you those changes that you're clamouring for\".\nHe also effusively thanked his supporters via Twitter.\nMr Solis will be sworn in on 8 May. ","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Luis Guillermo Solis of the centre-left Citizen Action Party (PAC)"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["Mr Solis had 78"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Costa Rica"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Voters in Hungary go to the polls, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and their allies the Christian Democrats win re-election easily, with 45% of the vote. (BBC)","document":"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has declared victory in Sunday's parliamentary election, winning a second consecutive term.\nHis centre-right Fidesz has polled 45%, with most of the votes counted.\nA centre-left opposition alliance is trailing with 25%, while the far-right Jobbik party is credited with 21%.\nThe Hungarian left has never fully recovered from its heavy defeat in the 2010 ballot, in which Mr Orban swept to power with a two-thirds majority.\nSunday's election has been mainly fought over the state of the economy, correspondents say.\n\"No doubt we have won,\" Mr Orban told supporters gathered in the capital, Budapest, late on Sunday evening.\n\"This was not just any odd victory. We have scored such a comprehensive victory, the significance of which we cannot yet fully grasp tonight.\"\nHe said the election results showed that Hungarians wanted to stay in the European Union, but with a strong national government.\n\"I'm going to work every day so that Hungary will be a wonderful place,\" he declared.\nFidesz is predicted to win around 135 of the 199 seats in parliament.\nIt now also seems likely that Jobbik will become the second-largest party in parliament, the BBC's Nick Thorpe reports from Budapest.\nAlthough the Socialist-led opposition is in second place, the five parties making up the alliance plan to form their own factions after the elections, our correspondent says.\nObservers say Jobbik's adoption of a softer image has paid dividends, as a recent opinion poll found leader Gabor Vona to be the most popular opposition politician.\nFidesz supporters say Mr Orban's victory is a tribute to his leadership powers. But opposition parties have accused the prime minister throughout their campaign of undermining Hungarian democracy.\nThey have also accused Mr Orban of curtailing civil liberties and harming free speech.\nFidesz has insisted that reform was needed to complete the work of eradicating the legacy of Communism from the country, and reduce the budget deficit to below the EU's required 3% of gross domestic product.\nMr Orban's populist and Eurosceptic approach has proven popular with many Hungarians. \"The left had eight years to show what they can do, and they showed us all right,\" he told Hungarian media on Saturday.\n\"Why on Earth should we believe that the same people and the same parties would not do the same if given another opportunity?\"\n\n\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":["Fidesz is predicted to win around 135 of the 199 seats in parliament"]},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":["Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has declared victory in Sunday's parliamentary election"]},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban","A centre-left opposition alliance","the far-right Jobbik party"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["His centre-right Fidesz has polled 45","25","21"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Hungary"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["parliamentary election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Voters in India start going to the polls in a six-week General Election which will end on May 12. (AFP via Dawn)","document":"DIBRUGARH: Indians began voting in the world's biggest election Monday which is set to sweep the Hindu nationalist opposition to power at a time of low growth, anger about corruption and warnings about religious unrest.\nVoting began at 7:00 am (0130 GMT) in six constituencies in tea-growing and insurgency-wracked areas of the northeast, an often neglected part of the country wedged between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar.\n\"I want the government to reduce poverty and do something for the future of my children,\" said 30-year-old tea plantation worker Santoshi Bhumej at a polling station in Dibrugarh in the state of Assam.\nThe marathon contest, to be held over nine phases until May 12, got under way after a bad-tempered campaign which reached new levels of bitterness at the weekend.\nReligious tensions, an undercurrent to the contest which has mostly focused on development until now, burst into the open on Friday when the closest aide of Modi was accused of inciting sentiments.\nAmit Shah faces a judicial investigation after he reportedly told supporters to see the election as \"revenge\" against a \"government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Hindus\".\nRahul Gandhi, leading Congress into his first national election as scion of the famous dynasty, used the comments to underline his message that a victory for Modi threatens India's religious fabric.\n\"Wherever these people (the opposition BJP) go they create fights. They'll pit Hindus and Muslims against each other,\" he warned on Sunday.\nThe BJP said talk of \"revenge\" was normal ahead of an election and said the other remarks were taken out of context.\nPrime ministerial front-runner Modi, the hawkish son of a tea seller whose rise has split his party, is a polarising figure due to his links to anti-Muslim religious riots in 2002.\nHe urged voters on Sunday to give him a majority in the 543-seat parliament in defiance of surveys which repeatedly show the BJP are likely to need coalition partners when results are published on May 16.\n\"I need your blessings for a strong government and strong government means not less than 300 Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) seats,\" he said.\nThe party released its delayed manifesto later on Monday which included core Hindu nationalist policies such as building a temple for the god Ram on a disputed religious site in northern India and protecting cows.\nIn Assam, a Congress stronghold, some disgruntled voters told AFP they had been swayed by Modi's promises of better infrastructure, strong leadership, jobs and a clean administration.\n\"The current Congress government is corrupt. They have not been able to control rising prices in the country. I believe that Modi will give us a corruption-free government,\" local voter Deepa Borgohain told AFP.\nDespite a decade under Congress when growth has averaged 7.6 per cent per year, a sharp slowdown since 2012 has crippled the public finances and led investment to crash.\nCoupled with a widespread perception that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's second term was largely lost to indecision and scandal, Modi has been able to tap into a groundswell of discontent.\nThe election will be the biggest in history and is a mind-boggling feat of organisation as voters travel to nearly a million polling stations.\nIn 2009, officials walked for four days through snow to deliver voting machines in the Himalayas, while yaks, camels and even elephants were pressed into action elsewhere in the vast country.\nSuch is India's population growth that 100 million people have joined the electoral rolls since the last vote five years ago. More than half of the country is aged under 25.\nModi, 20 years older than Gandhi at 63, is expected to score strongly among the young thanks to his message of aspiration and skills over the left-leaning Congress's pitch of welfare and equitable development.\nBut in an editorial on Monday, the Hindustan Times said that the aggressive and highly personalised campaign meant \"voters were left with a lot of sound and fury but little content\".\nIndia under Modi, an unabashed nationalist, would likely result in a more muscular foreign policy at a time when the country is emerging as a defender of the developing world on issues from climate change to global trade.\nBut many observers worry about his domestic impact in an officially secular country.\nModi is steeped in the ideology of Hindu nationalism, which is often antagonistic towards Muslims, and he remains tainted by religious riots in Gujarat in 2002.\nMore than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in a spasm of violence shortly after he became chief minister, leading the United States and European powers to boycott him for more than a decade.\nHe has never been found guilty of wrong-doing despite multiple investigations, but a woman he appointed as a minister was jailed for life in 2012 for orchestrating some of the worst of the killings.","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling station"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Modi","Amit Shah","Rahul Gandhi, leading Congress"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May 12"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["India","Dibrugarh"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["national election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Voters in twelve states of India go to the polls for the biggest day of voting during the election process. (BBC)","document":"Millions of Indians have voted in the biggest day of the general election pitting the ruling Congress party against the main opposition BJP.\nNearly 200 million voters were eligible to cast their ballots in 121 seats in 12 states, including Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The nine-phase vote began on 7 April and will conclude on 12 May. Votes will be counted on 16 May.\nMore than 814 million Indians are eligible to vote in the polls.\nElection Commission officials say voter turnout in most states in the general election so far has been higher than in 2009.\nThursday was one of the most critical days of voting spread across 12 states, from Indian-administered Kashmir in the north, to the information-technology hub of Bangalore in the south, Rajasthan in the west and the tea-growing Himalayan town of Darjeeling in the east, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder reported. \"I want a clean government. One that is corruption free and that can take decisions in the interest of our country,\" a young woman voter in Rajasthan's Jaipur city told our correspondent. A young man said he was voting for BJP as its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi \"represented change\".\nA Muslim voter, however, said people should vote for a \"leader who will represent all communities, one who will take everyone along\".\nThe southern state of Karnataka where voting was held in all the 28 seats on Thursday is a key battleground.\nBangalore South is one of the keenly contested seats in the state with Congress party's Nandan Nilekani, BJP's Ananth Kumar and the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Nina Nayak as candidates.\nMr Nilekani is the billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Infosys, one of India's largest IT services firms, while Mr Kumar is a former federal minister.\n\"I think my vote will make a change. I want my country to be a superpower. We have good candidates with a clean image who I am sure will give good governance,\" Anita, a first time voter, told BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi.\nReports said voters streamed in through the day into polling stations even in the central state of Chhattisgarh where Maoist rebels had given a call to boycott the elections.\n\"I want a good life for my baby, security and peace,'' Associated Press quoted Neha Ransure, a 25-year-old woman voter in Rajnandgaon town as saying. \"The rebels are bad. They kill our soldiers. I don't go outside of town. It is too dangerous,\" she added.\nThe anti-corruption Aam Aadmi (Common Man's) Party, which secured a spectacular result in local polls in Delhi last year, offers a challenge to the main parties.\nSeveral smaller regional parties are also in the fray and if no single party wins a clear majority, they could play a crucial role in the formation of a government.\nThousands of police and paramilitary security personnel have been deployed across the country to ensure smooth polling.\nThe marathon vote is being staggered over five weeks for security and logistical reasons.\nThe main contest in the elections is between the Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, and the BJP, led by the charismatic and controversial Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi.\nMr Modi, who is ahead in all the pre-election opinion polls, is the leader of Gujarat state, which witnessed one of India's worst anti-Muslim riots in 2002.\nThe BJP has promised to improve the economy and infrastructure and curb corruption if it wins in the general elections.\nThe Congress party has promised \"inclusive growth\" if it returns to power, with a raft of welfare schemes, including a right to healthcare for all and pensions for the elderly and disabled.\nAny party or a coalition needs a minimum of 272 MPs to form a government.\nIndia Election Commission\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Congress party's Nandan Nilekani","BJP's Ananth Kumar","Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Nina Nayak"]},{"role":"Date","values":["began on 7 April and will conclude on 12 May"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["India"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister is leading in Afghan presidential election, 2014 with 44% votes followed by Ashraf Ghani with 33% votes, according to latest partial results. (BBC)","document":"Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has extended his lead over his rival Ashraf Ghani, according to latest partial results from the presidential election.\nDr Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has 44% of the vote while Mr Ghani has 33%, election officials say. About half the votes have been counted.\nAbout seven million people voted across 34 provinces in the 5 April poll.\nA runoff will take place in late May if no candidate gets a majority.\nFinal results are expected on 14 May. Independent Election Commission chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani has warned that the current statistics are \"partial\" and \"changeable\".\nSpeaking after the latest results were announced, Dr Abdullah said he was ready for a second round.\n\"It's important that the process is a free and fair one,\" he told AP news agency. \"If it goes to the second round in accordance to the rule of law, we are ready for that as well. At this stage, we believe that another round might not be needed.\"\nZalmai Rassoul, another former foreign minister, who is believed to be President Hamid Karzai's preferred successor, has 10% of the vote from the first round.\nThe Taliban failed to disrupt the first round but warmer weather, at the height of the so-called fighting season, would make a second round more of a security challenge, the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul reports.\nIf this lead widens further as more results come in, then Dr Abdullah's ability to form a government on his terms would be unstoppable, our correspondent adds.\nPossible electoral fraud has been a concern, but the election body responsible for dealing with complaints has previously said that it would be weeks before it rules on the issue.\nThere were allegations of large-scale fraud when Mr Karzai was re-elected in 2009. Dr Abdullah came second in that poll.\nMr Karzai is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term.\nThe next president will face several challenging issues, including the expected withdrawal of foreign combat troops from Afghanistan and ongoing attacks by the Taliban.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":null},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Abdullah Abdullah","Ashraf Ghani"]},{"role":"Date","values":["5 April"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":["44","33"]},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":["presidential election"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2014 Voters in Iraq go to the polls for parliamentary elections that have already been marred by violence from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. (SBS Australia)","document":"Iraq's premier says he has enough support to keep his post, but with election results not due for weeks and parties bitterly divided, forming a government will probably take months.\nNuri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term in office, will have to court disaffected parties within his own Shi'ite community, as well as Sunnis and Kurds who have angrily voiced opposition to his rule, but he expressed confidence following Wednesday's polls.\nHis remarks to journalists came as new figures showed April was among the bloodiest months since Iraq was embroiled in a brutal Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead in 2006 and 2007.\nThe protracted surge in bloodshed, with more than 3000 people killed already this year, is among the long list of complaints, along with rampant corruption, high unemployment and what critics of the government say is insufficient improvement in public services.\nPreliminary results from Wednesday's election are not expected for at least two weeks, but initial figures from the election commission show around 60 per cent of 20 million eligible voters had cast a ballot.\nTurnout in the last election in 2010 was 62 per cent.\nAs was the case after previous elections, forming a government is likely to take months, but Maliki said on Thursday that he had the votes to put together a ruling coalition.\n\"We have confidence that we will achieve a political majority,\" he told reporters in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.\nHowever, he insisted he would not cling to the post.\nWhile Maliki's bloc is tipped to win the most seats, no single party is expected to win a majority on its own and Iraq's various political alliances and communal groups will have to form coalitions.\nraqis in a vehicule voice their support for Iraqi Turkmen Front chairman Arshad al-Salihi on the day of the election (Getty) Iraqis have defied a rash of attacks that killed 14 people and voted in the first general election since US troops withdrew, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki proclaiming \"certain\" victory.\nQueues formed from early morning at tightly guarded polling stations, and turnout by midday on Wednesday was around 40 per cent, according to a diplomatic source.\nPolls closed at 6pm (0100 AEST), and the election commission was expected to give overall turnout figures later in the evening.\nIn Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Iraqis had \"courageously voted\", sending \"a powerful rebuke to the violent extremists who have tried to thwart the democratic process and sow discord in Iraq and throughout the region.\"\nIraqis complain of myriad grievances, from poor public services to rampant corruption and high unemployment, but the month-long campaign has hinged on Maliki's bid for a third term and dramatically deteriorating security.\nThe runup to the election, the first parliamentary poll since US forces departed in December 2011, has seen Baghdad and other major cities swamped in posters and bunting.\nParties have held rallies and candidates have angrily debated on television, but their appeals have largely been made on sectarian, ethnic or tribal grounds rather than political and social issues.\nAnalysts had expressed fears much of the electorate would stay at home rather than risk being targeted by militants, who killed nearly 90 people over the two previous days.\nAnd fresh attacks were launched soon after polls opened, killing 14 people and wounding dozens.\nSecurity officials reported more than 50 incidents in all, with mortar fire, roadside bombs and suicide attacks mostly targeting polling stations or people on their way to vote in the north and west.\nA bomb near a polling station in north Iraq killed two women on Wednesday, officials said, as voters cast their ballots under tight security following a surge of pre-election violence.\nThe blast occurred in the town of Dibs, near the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk, according to a police official and a doctor at a nearby hospital.\nElsewhere, militants seized another polling station in north Iraq, evacuated election staff and voters and set off explosives, destroying the building, according to a security official and an election commission employee.\nAn Iraqi policeman searches a voter heading for a polling station during the Iraqi legislative election in Baghdad, Iraq. (EPA) Polls have opened on Wednesday in Iraq's first parliamentary election since US troops withdrew, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki seeking a third term in power amid the country's worst violence in years.\nVoters began streaming into election centres nationwide, as more than 9,000 candidates compete for 328 seats in parliament.\nIraqis have a long list of grievances, ranging from poor public services to rampant corruption and soaring unemployment, but the month-long campaign has centred on Maliki's bid for a third term and a dramatic deterioration in security in recent months.\nThe run-up to the election has seen Baghdad and other major cities swamped in posters and bunting.\nParties have staged rallies and would-be lawmakers have angrily debated on television, though appeals to voters have largely been made on sectarian, ethnic or tribal grounds rather than the issues themselves.\nAttacks on polling stations and campaign gatherings in recent days have cast a pall over the vote, and spurred fears that much of the electorate could stay home rather than risk being targeted.\n","event_type":"Election","arguments":[{"role":"Voting method","values":["polling stations"]},{"role":"Election Goal","values":null},{"role":"The Final Seats Result","values":null},{"role":"Turnout(who win who lost)","values":null},{"role":"People Casting Key Votes","values":null},{"role":"Candidate Scandal(Allegations of fraud, etc.)","values":null},{"role":"Candidates and their Political Parties","values":["Nuri al-Maliki"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday","6pm (0100 AEST)"]},{"role":"The Final Votes and Percentages","values":null},{"role":"Electoral System","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Iraq"]},{"role":"Election Name","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Extending India’s navy ties: Making Exercise Malabar a quartet that includes Australia","document":"Does the exclusion of Australia from the Malabar series of multi-lateral exercises serve any discernible purposes of statecraft? Here is some background. Since 1992, the US and India have had nearly- regular annual maritime exercises under the Malabar series. While initially these were held off the Malabar coast, subsequent editions have been convened elsewhere in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and in the Western Pacific as well. Interestingly, in April 2007, Malabar had been conducted in the Western Pacific for the first time and Japan joined in too. In September 2007 the scope was enlarged with the inclusion of Japan, Australia and Singapore. This pentagonal event, Ex- Malabar 2007-2, was held in the southern Bay of Bengal. China took up cudgels in several ways to point out its concerns on this “anti-China” formulation. Its pressure seemed to have worked on Canberra and Australian keenness to participate declined. On its part, Delhi too became very sensitive to drawing China’s ire. It may be recalled that China voiced its unhappiness about several issues including waiving visas for residents of Arunachal since it was part of “South Tibet”; against the Dalai Lama; any important visits by central leaders to Arunachal; denial of visas for some military officers and so on. In the event, Malabar continued in the bilateral mode when held in waters close to India and with Japanese participation when in the Pacific. Realising the benefits in terms of statecraft, regular Japanese participation in the series was confirmed in 2015. It was felt that sending clearer signals to China on strategic consonance, mutuality of concerns regarding Beijing’s actions in the South and East China Seas and the need to build and maintain interoperability among forces had become necessary. However, there was still some reluctance to invite Australia back in even when it was signalling that it wanted to. The rationale for a quartet and perhaps a few more naval ensigns in future Malabars has never been stronger. Firstly, appeasing China has been counter-productive and appeasement always is. China almost never let’s go any real or perceived remark, action or diplomatic move against its changing goal-posts and expanding interests without a strong response. Secondly, its own proclivity to provoke, push and prod is seen all the time. While it expects acquiescence to its sensitivities from others, the US included, Chinese statecraft not only gives no quarter for such niceties, but it also widens the breach. Third, its own spread of deployments, exercises and military hardware relationships with an increasing number of nations in the “Indo-Afro-Pacific” should neither be ignored nor left bereft of counter-measures. Fourth, it seems more evident than ever before that it is China that is coherently proceeding along with an Indo-Pacific strategy while not acknowledging such a formulation. Moreover, this strategy is underpinned by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Fifth, no matter how tentative and light-footed the Quadrilateral dialogue, that includes Australia, is portrayed to be, it can have meaning only when it is ready to be a “squad” marching in robust steps that includes military- operational potential. China has often talked about this potential and for some Quad members to say that it is for economic consonance, HADR and other such benign goals not only cuts no ice with Beijing, but it also inhibits the strategic objectives of statecraft. Further, within Australia, there has been a sea-change in its recognition of the potential security threats due to China’s inroads and influence within Australia. It has been only in the past few years that the political establishment, universities, media and most surprisingly, even businesses are admitting to the insidious danger. Earlier there were few takers for the concern that security agencies and the Department of Defence were voicing. Prosperity simply trumped security. That is now water under the bridge. Of course, China is an important customer for its commodities including LNG, coal, iron ore, uranium, agriculture, education business to name the primary sectors. In any case, China is an important country even for the other three “Malabari” nations. The US, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia or India (to name a few) understand quite well that trade; talks and negotiations can continue even when concerns are not camouflaged to invisibility. With this backdrop, the quartet do have shared concerns and reasons to come together to contribute to a degree of deterrence. Since Malabar is a primarily maritime exercise, it brings together four very competent navies and other instruments based on land that would benefit from greater and regular inter-operability. India and Australia have a growing defence and security relationship; Australia and Japan do as well. Individually, they are both treaty partners of the US. Japan has developed competencies in East Asia and the Western Pacific littoral; India in the IOR; Australia in the two- ocean littoral that it straddles as well as in the expanse of the South Pacific. The US as a global power with a global military footprint is a player throughout the Indo-Pacific. Individually, however, each nation and its armed forces have some weaknesses in terms of what they can bring to bear to enhance deterrence through potential pressure on China. In cooperation, the quartet could matter. What’s more, it should not be beyond the realm of possibility to cooperate with more nations like Indonesia and some other ASEAN states that remain wary of China’s power and intent. But, as a start, Australia could be invited back for “is bar– hum char—Malabar!” (This is Hindi for “Us four in Malabar this time.”) ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Japan, Australia and Singapore","Japan","US and India"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Malabar"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["April 2007","September 2007"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Western Pacific","Bay of Benga","Malabar coast","elsewhere in the Arabian Sea"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Building the Community of Mankind for Shared Future More Urgent than Ever Before","document":"During the month of August 2021, the global community is witnessing at least four large military exercises with scale and frequency rarely seen in the past four decades since the end of the Cold War. The first two are the Large Scale Exercise 2021 (LSE2021) staged by US Navy Fifth Fleet and Second Fleet close to Europe in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea between August 3-August 15, 2021 and the Large Scale Global Exercise 21 led by the US and its allied forces with a focus on the Indo-Pacific Ocean between August 2 and August 27, 2021. While lasting about a month, these military exercises are being conducted with China and Russia as their imaginary enemies. To demonstrate China’s readiness to defend itself in response to these military exercises, China alone conducted a large-scale military exercise in South China Sea between August 6 and August 8, 2021. In addition, China and Russia reportedly conducted a large joint military exercise called “ZAPAD/INTERACTION-2021 in Ningxia, China’s Northwest Region during the period of August 9-13, 2021. While the two military exercises staged by the US and its allies are both maritime, the two military exercises staged by China and Russia is one maritime and the other one land based. While the former military  exercises initiated by the US Navy are far from the US homeland geographically and thus viewed as aggressive  by China and Russia, the latter by China and Russia are geographically at the front or backyard of China and Russia respectively and thus thought to be self-defensive. It thus appears that both the US-led Western powers are  defending its so-called maritime liberal global order, whereas China and Russia are declaring and defending the continental order as both sovereign nation-states of  continental Asia and masters of Central Asia and possibly Euro-Asian landmass (nicknamed “the world island”) covered by member countries of Shanghai Cooperation. As one of the results of this great power competition, the consolidation of strategic power between China and Russia is almost on par with the so-called Communist Block led by USSR in the early part of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the world is slipping back into a Cold War mode which began seven decades ago and the US is going back to its starting point of the project of Pax Americana after World War II. Its ambitious project to liberalize the world after the American model since the end of the Cold War is being declared bankrupt with the staging of these military exercises against one another. Underlying this kind of dramatic military showdowns towards each other are a series of deeply embedded divides such as resurfacing ideological differences, historical-cultural differences, political differences and so on which are further decoupling US-China relations and further isolating Russia-West relations. This geopolitical divide and rivalry, fueled by these growing divides, is running a higher risk of both splitting Asia into two blocks, the maritime Asia and the continental Asia, and halving the world, resulting in another Cold War, even possibly World War III, with all spheres divided into halves, land, maritime, cybersphere in the form of splinternet, airspace, outer space, and ice space and so on. With two oppositional, rivaling, and dueling forces carving out its own order and expanding its own sphere of influence by trying to weaken or conquer the other, a polarized world would be full of miserable souls and losers on both sides. Is this what both sides originally wanted? If not, how have both sides got here? The current status of the world is one world with two dreams, with the US leading in championing for a struggling capitalistic democracy to the entire world in order to maximize the interest of the elite class and China leading in championing for a still elusive  yet all-inclusive, all-win, equitable, and just world for all with such ideas as shared peace, shared prosperity and shared freedoms. How can the two power blocks pause over such intense and comprehensive rivalry, and pursue a mechanism and platform for dialogue, mutual listening and mutual learning, a much less costly, more constructive, and thus more civilized means of conflict management and resolution, in lieu of military exercises, a mutually defeating and barbaric means defending the status quo? How can the two allow mutual peaceful coexistence in this world as a minimum condition? How can the two sides stop bickering and practicing double standards as well? For example, while the US is accusing China of practicing “debt trap” diplomacy with developing countries, President Biden has forced conventionally neutral countries such as Switzerland, Singapore , New Zealand and so on to purchase F-35 planes from the US and join the US-led military club. Also, can President Biden’s Global Democracy Forum be changed to “Global Democracy Reform Forum so that more focus would be on improving its own internal deficiencies than external threats from the so-called “authoritarianism”? Only if the answers to my above questions are positive can the “guardrail” as suggested by US Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman be set in place to effectively manage if not stop this global power competition! My ultimate advice to both sides and the third parties for averting this trend of global decoupling is as follows: Read Chinese President Xi’s remarks on building the community of humankind with a shared future and other similar ideas articulated by other world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, former US President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and so on with sincerity and get inspired for real solutions to such grave challenges and problems posed by this engulfing global divisions as illustrated by the four military exercises discussed above. Japan and emerging Indo-PacificFebruary 4, 2019In \"East Asia\" Changing dynamics in the SCS and increasing Chinese aggressionOctober 8, 2020In \"Defense\" How terrible the consequences of the Cold War can beOctober 18, 2021In \"Americas\" As Exercise Malabar turns 25, the Quad edge makes it sharper today Afghanistan Crisis: Security Problems for Russia and Central Asian States Wenshan Jia, Ph. D. & Professor, School of Communication Chapman University, USA. A prolific scholar, he is also a CGTN columnist, among others. New US sanctions on China: enough is enough UN chief welcomes China-US pledge to cooperate on climate action Why India Will Never Be Part of U.S. Alliances Rafale ghost resurrected? Analysing the new American alternative project to Chinese Belt and Road Is China in a quandary over Quad and the AUKUS? Published on By A French portal Mediapart has alleged that their investigation, within framework of OECD guidelines, has revealed that Dassault Aviation paid kickbacks amounting to at least 7.5 million euros to an intermediary Sushen Gupta in Mauritius between 2007 and 2012. The secret commissions were paid to clinch  the Rs 59,000-crore ($9.3-billion)  inter-governmental deal with India for the supply of then 36 (now 126) Rafale fighter jets. Indian media points out that the then ruling Indian National Congress coalition government had negotiated a price of Rs. 526 crore but the present Bharatiya Janata Party coalition approved the deal at exorbitant price of Indian Rs. 1670 crore. Thus Rs 144 per crore as commission, or kickbacks, went into the middleman’s pocket. Mediapart revealed, `It involves offshore companies, dubious contracts and false invoices. that detectives from India’s federal police force, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), and colleagues from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which fights money laundering, have had proof since October 2018 that French aviation firm Dassault paid at least 7.5 million euros (equivalent to just under Rs 650 million) in secret commissions to middleman Sushen Gupta’. An independent French judge has been appointed to investigate the charges. But, even Mediapart itself is pessimistic about an early judgment. The reason for pessimism is that it is a complex case. And, the judge will have to seek the least-likely cooperation of the Indian government. In 2019, India’s Supreme Court and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had already declared the deal “transparent”. The BJP shrugged off the opposition’s allegation saying that the period during which the commissions were paid related to the period Indian National Congress, INC (“I need commission”) ruled India. Mediapart itself is not optimistic about earl On October 11, 2018, Mauritius’ attorney general provided India’s Central Bureau of Investigation documents about payment of commission connected. Within less than two weeks, October 23, 2018, the CBI’s headquarters were raided by the Delhi Police and the CBI’s Director Alok Verma was removed in, what opposition called. The opposition interprets this move as a nocturnal conspiracy to bury the murky Rafale ghost. Unanswered questions The deal engenders several questions. The delay in finalization of the procurement deal is obvious. What about India’s claims about indigenization of defence equipment? What about Teja aircraft? Why neither the Dassault nor the CBI responded to the Mediapart’s allegations? How a deal between Dassault and the Anil Ambani group was signed even before any official announcement? All defence contracts have a mandatory anti-corruption clause  “no bribery, no gift, no influence, no commission, no middlemen”. And this clause is included in the tender for purchase of fighter aircraft. Why did the Indian prime minister Modi abrogate this clause? How did middleman Sushen Gupta get hold of confidential documents belonging to the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) in 2015 from the ministry of defence? The documents detailed the stance of Indian negotiators during the final lap of negotiation and, in particular, how they calculated the price of the aircraft. This gave a clear advantage to Dassault Aviation (Rafale). The documents  included the ‘benchmark price document’ of August 10, 2015, the ‘record of discussions’ by the INT of the defence ministry, the ‘excel sheet of calculations made by defence ministry’ and ‘Eurofighter’s counter offer of 20% discount to the government of India’. A note from June 24, 2014, sent to Dassault by Gupta, offering a meeting with “the political high command” was also recovered and asked if such a meeting had taken place with the “high command” in the Modi government. Why Modi did not initiate an investigation into the role of the middleman despite recovering incriminating documents from him? Concluding remarks It appears all governments in India pay lip service to defence reforms. Criminals are perched in Indian parliament. According to the Association of Democratic Reforms, the ruling BJP has 116 MPs or 39 percent of its winning candidates with criminal cases, followed by 29 MPs (57 per cent) from the Congress. Nearly half of the newly-elected Lok Sabha members have criminal charges against them, a 26 per cent increase as compared to 2014 (43% newly-elected Lok Sabha MPs have criminal record: ADR,  The Hindu dated May 26, 2019). A pauper in India can hardly aspire to become a law maker. India’s Tehelka Commission of Inquiry headed by Mr Justice S N Phukan had suggested (Apr 15, 2004) that a sitting Supreme Court Judge should examine all defence files since independence. Concerned about rampant corruption in defence purchases, he desired that the proposed Supreme Court Judge should by assisted by the Central Vigilance Commission and the CBI. He stressed that unless the existing system of defence procurement was made more transparent through corrective measures, defence deals would continue to be murky. He submitted his report to the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on February 4. The Commission examined 15 defence deals including the AJT, Sukhoi, Barak missiles, T-90 tanks, tank navigation systems, simulators, hand-held thermal imagers, Karl Gustav rocket and Kandla-Panipat pipeline. The irregularities in the scrutinised defence deals compelled the Commission to suggest de novo scrutiny of all defence purchases since independence. Rampant corruption, particularly in defence purchases, is a source of deep concern, to the Indian electorate. The courts absolved then Rajiv Gandhi of involvement in the BOFORS scam (as the present Supreme Court absolved Modi). The BJP, then in opposition, exploited Rajiv’s acquittal as an election issue. Kuldip Nayyar, in his article “The gun that misfired” (Dawn dated February 14, 2004), lamented, “There was practically no discussion on Bofors-guns kickbacks in the 13th Lok Sabha which has been dissolved for early elections. Once Rajiv Gandhi died the main target – the non-Congress parties lost interest in the scam”. The mechanisms of public accountability in India have collapsed. Corruption has become a serious socio-political malady as politicians, bureaucracy and Armed Forces act in tandem to receive kickbacks. Because of lethargic investigation, the anti-corruption cases, filed in courts, drag on for years without any results. To quote a few past case: (a) Bofors-gun case (Rs 64 crore) case was filed on January 22, 1990 and charge-sheet served on October 22, 1999. Among the accused were Rajiv Gandhi, S K Bhatnagar, W N Chaddha (middleman), Octavio, and Ardbo. The key players in the scam died before the court’s decision). (b) No recoveries could be made in the HDW submarine case (Rs 32.5 crore).The CBI later recommended closure of this case. Like Modi, the previous prime ministers kept the recommended reforms on the backburner. For instance, then Central Vigilance Commissioner P Shankar alleged (October 2003): “The CVC had submitted its defence deals report on March 31, 2001. Yet a year later, the government has not conducted the mandatory departmental inquiry to fix responsibility”. Shankar explained that the CVC had examined 75 cases apart from specific allegations made by former MP Jayant Malhoutra and Rear Admiral Suhas V Purohit Vittal. Malhoutra’s allegations were about middlemen in defence deals. After his report, the ministry lifted the ban on agents in November 2001 to regularise the middlemen. Purohit, in his petition in the Delhi HC on a promotion case, had alleged unnecessary spare parts were bought from a cartel of suppliers instead of manufacturers, at outrageous prices and at times worth more than the original equipment. The problem is that the modus operandi of corruption ensures that it is invisible and unaccounted for. There are widespread complaints that the politicians exercise underhand influence on bureaucracy to mint money. With middlemen’s raj, the situation is unchanged even today. Published on By The European Union defended its independent approach to trade and investment with China, by clarifying its approach that, unlike the United States, we find that (the European Union does not seek economic separation from China), hence the various positions and methods of American-European confrontation, regarding the mechanism of dealing with  China, which resulted in several problems between Europe and the United States of America, as follows: After reaching a (Comprehensive Investment Agreement between the European Union and China), which is likely to enter into force in 2022, after its ratification by the European Union governments and the European Parliament, and it is expected that the European-Chinese agreement will give much greater freedom to (companies of European and Baltic countries) to expand their business with China. The European Union refused to agree with the United States of America to form a common front against Beijing. The European Union defined its economic relationship with China, according to three names, as follows:  China is a partner of the European Union: (on climate change). China is a competitor to the European Union: (on trade, investment, economy, intellectual property rights), and other such issues. China is a systematic competitor to the European Union: (in terms of values ​​and governance). The European Union still follows this policy towards China, and is reluctant to stand by the United States against China. The European Union is keen to “benefit from Chinese trade and investment, which is fueled by China’s sustainable economic growth”. After the European Union reached a comprehensive political and economic agreement with China in December 2020, regarding (signing a new comprehensive investment agreement between China and the European Union countries), known as:  “CAI” So, under that agreement between China and the EU, this would (improve the access of European companies to the Chinese market), as for Chinese companies, they already enjoy largely free access to the European market. The American criticism of the European Union came because it does not have a better negotiating power with the Chinese side, and its inability to reach a multilateral agreement. Most notably, Chinese President “Xi Jinping” personally intervened to make a large number of the final concessions needed to secure the (bilateral agreement between China and the European Union), which led to a rift in the relationship between the European Union and the United States. In fact, the European Union realizes the difficulty of achieving the American desire as a partner country with it in the “NATO” alliance to disengage with China, according to the Europeans, the economies are always highly intertwined, and therefore, (It will not be possible for the Europeans to completely sever ties with the Chinese side, and achieve the desire of  Washington). We also find the failure of American pressure on its European partners themselves, and an attempt to persuade them to (diversify supply chains away from China, in order to avoid dependence on China for vital supplies). Through this analysis, we conclude the fact that the European Union is less interested than Washington in the matter of China. Evidence that (Germany has actually decided to allow the Chinese company Huawei to provide equipment for its new communication networks, with full French approval, given that France is the receiving party for the Chinese peace cable for digital communications from China to Europe), with the French and German welcoming the investments of the Huawei factory on their lands. Published on By To demonstrate the credibility of its nuclear deterrence, India test-fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometres on October 27. With Agni-5, India can strike nearly all of China. Moreover, it is already capable of striking anywhere inside Pakistan. Subsequently, India’s sharpening of its missile arsenal necessitates Pakistan to take similar measures concerning its own nuclear forces. To reinforce its defense, Pakistani policymakers need to spend resources wisely in innovations in artificial intelligence, big data analysis, quantum computing, and quantum sensing and biotechnology. Sparing more resources into science and innovation results in the modernization of both conventional and nuclear forces. While Pakistan is passing through the worst economic crisis, the defence budget is facing constraints. An arms race initiated by India is a completion at an odd time for Pakistan to enhance its defence capabilities. Whereas other challenges like environment, Pandemic, Poverty, etc., are yet to be addressed, but Indian threats may push everything on the back burners and focus on defence. Unfortunate! India’s confidence in the steady progress of the BMD program and struggle to develop hypersonic missiles capability adds a new variant in India-Pakistan’s competitive strategic dyad. As a result, Pakistani security experts agree that Islamabad needs to continue modernizing its nuclear forces.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["China","China and Russia"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["the Large Scale Exercise 2021 (LSE2021)","the Large Scale Global Exercise 21","“ZAPAD/INTERACTION-2021"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["US Navy Fifth Fleet and Second Fleet","the US and its allied forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["August 3-August 15, 2021","August 2 and August 27, 2021","August 6 and August 8, 2021","August 9-13, 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea","South China Sea","Ningxia, China’s Northwest Region"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Go WestRussia holds the largest military exercise in Europe for 40 years","document":"The zapad (“west”) military exercise of 1981 was the largest and grandest exercise ever conducted by the Soviet Union, mustering as many as 150,000 troops from across the ussr and its alliance of satellite states, the Warsaw Pact. Cold-war nostalgics may be pleased to learn that this year’s iteration, which began on September 10th, might be larger still. Zapad-21 could involve up to 200,000 troops from Russia, Belarus and several other countries, if Russia’s defence ministry is to be believed, outnumbering even the very largest NATO exercises of recent times. That reflects both the frostiness of Russia’s ties with the West, and the strengthening of those with Belarus. Whether Zapad-21 will in fact match the spectacle of 1981 is not entirely clear. In part, that is because Russia is caught between playing down the scale of its exercises, for diplomatic reasons, and embellishing them, to awe its enemies. The Vienna Document, a confidence-building measure agreed between Russia and the West in 1990, says that exercises with more than 13,000 troops must be reported and open to foreign observers. In recent years, Russia has simply insisted that what appear to be huge drills are in fact a series of distinct, smaller ones, and thus exempt. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Russia, Belarus and several other countries","Soviet Union"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Zapad-21"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["150,000 troops","200,000 troops"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1981","September 10th"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"South Korea, US Prepare to Conduct Joint Military Exercise","document":"Between talks with North Korea and the COVID-19 pandemic, this will reportedly be the third year in a row where exercises are held only via computer simulation. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, United Nations Commander, Combined Forces Commander, and United States Forces Korea commander; and Gen. Leem Ho Young, Combined Forces Command deputy commander, welcome Pacific Amphibious Leaders Symposium (PALS) participants to South Korea, Mar. 17, 2017. South Korea and the United States agreed to conduct a nine-day joint military exercise starting on March 8, according to local news reports. The South Korean Defense Ministry has not yet announced detailed information regarding the joint military exercise but it will be conducted as planned, according to statements by Defense Ministry officials. The joint military exercise will be divided into two parts and will be conducted via computer simulations, not as a field training exercise, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The allies have been conducting joint exercises as computer simulations since 2018 to support denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea. Pyongyang has frequently complained about the drills, calling them a preparation for “invasion” of the North. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in his New Year’s press conference on January 18 that the two Koreas might be able to discuss the U.S.-South Korea military drills through a joint inter-Korean military committee if necessary. However, U.S. officials expressed indirectly that it is not a topic for discussion with Pyongyang, and that scaling down the exercises was not desirable. Robert Abrams, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, once criticized the new way of conducting the drills, saying that the joint military exercises should not be like a computer game. U.S. Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing on February 22 that he is confident that Abrams will cooperate with counterparts in Seoul to ensure the highest level of readiness of the exercise. Hawks in both Seoul and Washington have been worried about the recent exercises. South Korean and U.S. military forces had previously carried out command post exercises and large-scale field training exercises. But they decided to reduce the existing large-scale joint military exercises in the wake of the inter-Korean summit on April 27, 2018 and the North Korea-U.S summit on June 12 of the same year. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. As a result, large-scale field training exercises with troops between South Korea and the United States, such as the previously annual “Foal Eagle” drill, have not been conducted for more than two years. Former military generals and security experts have expressed their opinion that the field training exercises should be resumed, lest it become difficult to maintain the U.S.-ROK alliance’s military posture. “As Kim Jong Un already raised the issue with the joint drill during the eighth party congress of the Workers’ Party in January and demanded Washington to withdraw its hostile policies against the North, there is a possibility that North Korea will provoke after the U.S.-ROK joint military exercise,” Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha University, told The Diplomat. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. “If North Korea provokes through short-range ballistic missile launches such as the KN-23 and KN-24, Seoul and Washington are likely to restart conducting joint military exercises normally from the second half of this year,” Park said. To prepare for possible provocations from the North on the basis of what Kim mentioned in January, Seoul and Washington intelligence authorities are going to watch for signs of activity around the birthday of Kim Jong Il, Kim’s predecessor and father, on March 16. However, Kim Young-jun, a professor at Korea National Defense University, told The Diplomat that “the reduction of the joint military exercise does not mean a security threat” and it is important for the drills to be conducted under a strong U.S.-ROK alliance. “The joint military exercise includes not only missile system defense drills, but also all kinds of combined defense systems and power enhancement drills in preparation for all-out warfare and provocations,” Kim said. Just as experts have different perspectives on the function and purpose of the exercises, Seoul and Washington have different goals for the drills. Before the end of Moon’s term, Seoul wants to take back wartime operational control (OPCON) from Washington, which had been turned over in 1950. Restoring OPCON to Seoul is one of Moon’s pledges. To reach that goal, military exercises should be conducted with full operational capabilities to evaluate and verify the military’s status, but Washington has said that it would be challenging to do that because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2014, the military authorities of the two countries agreed on three conditions for Seoul to fulfill to take back wartime OPCON. Three stages of verification and evaluation are underway to test the mission performance capabilities of Korean military, and its readiness to assume full control in a hypothetical war situation on the peninsula. Initial operational capability, which is the first stage of this process, was completed in 2019. The second stage is full operational capability, which was scheduled to be evaluated through a joint military exercise in 2020. That could not be done due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even a year later, experts say it is unreasonable to involve U.S. troops stationed not only in South Korea but also in other countries in a large-scale drill at a time when the pandemic is still active. Several military officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have tested positive for the coronavirus recently. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["the United States and North Korea"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, United Nations Commander, Combined Forces Commander","United States Forces Korea commander; and Gen. Leem Ho Young, Combined Forces Command deputy commander"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["The joint military exercise"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":["missile system defense drills","all kinds of combined defense systems and power enhancement drills"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Chinese military conducts drill along India border with advanced equipment: Report","document":"According to reports, China has stepped up night drills near the Himalayan border with India in order to familiarise troops with its new equipment. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) reportedly wants \"higher standards\" from troops stationed at high altitudes.  China's state-run Global Times had reported last month that the PLA's Tibet military command had conducted large-scale joint exercises in the Tibet plateau region.  Watch: The exercise known as \"Snowfield Duty-2021\" involved ten brigades and regiments affiliated with the PLA Tibet military command. The drill included the latest weapons and equipment as PLA troops held the exercise at an elevation of 4,500 meters. Also Read: China building 30 airports near India’s border in Tibet, Xinjiang: Report The night and day exercise was conducted with howitzers, multiple rocket launcher systems including anti-aircraft batteries. Reports claimed the PLA also used attack helicopters and Type 15 light tanks during the exercise. PLA daily claimed forces in the Xinjiang military district have been carrying out night drills at an altitude of around 5,000 metres. Earlier, senior military commanders linked to PLA had conducted an exercise at Zhurihe training base. The military exercise was reportedly conducted to ensure \"combat readiness\".  There were at least 200 military commanders from three theatres during the exercise including from Tibet and Xinjiang. The heightened Chinese military exercises come as President Xi Jinping visited Tibet in July. During the visit, Xi reportedly also visited the Nyingchi railway station to plan the Sichuan-Tibet railway line. The Chinese president reportedly met locals and spoke in front of Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lama. Xi had last visited the region in 2011 when he was vice-president.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["China"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["familiarise troops with its new equipment"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["howitzers, multiple rocket launcher systems including anti-aircraft batteries"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["\"Snowfield Duty-2021\""]},{"role":"Scale","values":["at least 200"]},{"role":"Army","values":["PLA's Tibet military"]},{"role":"Date","values":["July"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near the Himalayan border with India","Tibet plateau region"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"China and Russia hold large-scale joint military drills","document":"Exercise in north-central China to feature 10,000 ground troops and air forces as Beijing and Moscow eye closer ties. Russia and China have begun holding a large-scale joint military exercise in China’s north-central Ningxia region, drills which come as the pair spar with Washington and its Western allies over a range of issues, including human rights and regional security concerns. The Sibu/Cooperation-2021 exercises launched on Monday and will run until Friday. They will involve more than 10,000 ground troops and air forces. The Russian military said that it had sent Su-30SM fighter aircraft, motorised rifle units and air defence systems to China as part of the exercise. The drills mark the first time Russian soldiers are using Chinese weapons, with the pair having conducted joint exercises since 2005, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported. The exercises aim to “deepen … joint anti-terrorism operations” and “demonstrate the firm determination and strength of the two countries to jointly safeguard international and regional security and stability”, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Chinese and Russian officials. “It reflects the new height of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era and of the strategic mutual trust, pragmatic exchanges and coordination between the two countries,” Xinhua said. Richard McGregor, a China expert at the Australia-based Lowy Institute think-tank, said the burgeoning relationship between Beijing and Moscow was more than a “marriage of convenience”. “That [phrase] underestimates the depth of their shared interests, and of course the biggest one is opposing the US and undermining the US and the West,” McGregor told Al Jazeera.    The Ningxia region borders Xinjiang, where China is accused of detaining more than one million Uighurs in internment camps. Critics, including the US, have said those held have been subjected to human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, forced sterilisation and family separation. China has denied the allegations and claimed the camps are “re-education” centres set up to fight “separatism and terrorism” and boost economic development. Xinjiang shares a narrow frontier with Afghanistan, and Beijing is concerned about violence spilling over its border if the Taliban continue their advance and take control in the country amid intense fighting sparked by the withdrawal of US troops. Separately, Russia on Tuesday completed joint drills in Tajikistan with Uzbek and Tajik forces near the Afghan border. Moscow also said it was bulking up its military base in Tajikistan with assault rifles and other weapons. The Russia-China relationship grew stronger in 2014 as Moscow’s political ties with the West sank to post Cold-War lows over the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. China is Russia’s biggest trade partner. Moscow has backed Beijing in its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, over which China clashed with the US on Monday at a high-level UN Security Council meeting on maritime security. China, Taiwan and ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have overlapping claims in the disputed waters and have been locked in increasingly tense territorial standoffs for decades. China built seven disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases in recent years, ratcheting up tensions with rival claimants, along with the US and its allies.  This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to China’s increasingly assertive claims to the strategic waterway by warning that any conflict there or in any ocean “would have serious global consequences for security and for commerce”. The area has seen “dangerous encounters between vessels at sea and provocative actions to advance unlawful maritime claims” that seek to “intimidate and bully other states lawfully accessing their maritime resources”, Blinken said. China’s deputy ambassador, Dai Bing, accused the US of becoming “the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea” and calling its “hype” in the Security Council “entirely politically motivated”. China has refused to recognise an international arbitration ruling in 2016 that invalided most of its claims in the South China Sea. Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile hit ground target more than 350 kilometres away, Russian defence ministry says. Day after NATO and Ukraine began Black Sea exercises, Moscow says it has tested Crimean air defence systems. US Navy says its guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur conducted a routine transit through the sensitive waterway. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Russia and China"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["“deepen … joint anti-terrorism operations”","“demonstrate the firm determination and strength of the two countries to jointly safeguard international and regional security and stability”"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Su-30SM fighter aircraft, motorised rifle units and air defence systems"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["The Sibu/Cooperation-2021"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["10,000"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["China’s north-central Ningxia region"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"France to lead Quad naval drill in Indo-Pacific challenge to China","document":"NEW DELHI/PARIS -- In a first, India will join its Quad partners -- Australia, Japan and the U.S. -- in a French-led naval drill in the Bay of Bengal next week, as the nations seek to improve Indo-Pacific maritime security. The first edition of the La Perouse exercise, named after an 18th century French naval officer and explorer, was held in 2019 without India. Three days of drills will take place from Monday. They \"will provide an opportunity for these five like-minded, high-end naval forces to develop closer links, sharpen their skills, and promote maritime cooperation throughout a free and open Indo-Pacific,\" the French embassy in New Delhi said in a statement on Wednesday. The drill follows the maiden summit of Quad leaders, held virtually on Mar. 12, and viewed as a defining moment in Asia's geopolitics. That was followed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's visit to New Delhi as part of his first overseas trip since taking office -- a tour that also included Japan and South Korea. The four Quad nations joined hands for a maritime exercise after the November 2020 Malabar drill in the Indo-Pacific. With France, the four nations are expected to take this cooperation to a new high. \"The significance of this coming together of the Quad nations for a multilateral military exercise is not lost on those keenly watching this space,\" N.C. Bipindra, a defense and strategic affairs analyst and editor at news portal Defence.Capital, told Nikkei Asia. \"Obviously, China will be one of those observers of what is going on closer home, as it has in recent years raised the stakes in the Indo-Pacific region through its aggressive military activity.\" The Quad -- a loose security grouping -- and France frequently talk at various forums about the need for freedom of navigation in Indo-Pacific, a euphemism for China's \"illegal\" maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea. \"It is but natural to see the La Perouse maritime military exercise as a move by these five nations to practice naval maneuvers for interoperability during a crisis situation in the region,\" Bipindra said. \"It is an indicator of how the future will unfold in the region's geopolitical dynamics,\" he said, adding it also seems like the initial flicker at the end of the tunnel for the Quad itself expanding with inclusion of other democracies that have stakes in the region such as France and the U.K. \"Already, there is talk of Quad emerging as Asia's NATO.\" Isabelle Saint-Mezard, an associate researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, said the upcoming La Perouse exercise signals that France \"is a stakeholder in like-minded and variable-geometry coalitions\" that want to promote the law of the sea, freedom of navigation, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and to sum up, a rules-based multilateral order. \"This type of cooperation, which is flexible and still not very institutionalized, seems to be a privileged tool for action in the immense space that is the Indo-Pacific,\" she told Nikkei Asia. Days ahead of La Perouse, the navies of India and the U.S. also conducted an exercise in the eastern Indian Ocean Region on March 28-29. The Indian side deployed guided-missile frigate INS Shivalik and long-range maritime patrol aircraft P8I, while the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group participated from the American side. An Indian navy spokesperson said the exercise consolidated synergy and interoperability achieved during Malabar 2020. In La Perouse, two French warships -- Tonnerre and Surcouf -- will participate. The two vessels form the Jeanne d'Arc battlegroup, which set sail from France in February for a five-month deployment in the Indo-Pacific with the aim of providing training to a new cohort of 148 French naval officer cadets. \"I look forward to the La Perouse joint exercise, during which these two French navy ships will be joined by ships from India, Australia, Japan, and the USA for a concrete demonstration of multilateralism at sea and our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,\" French ambassador to India, Emmanuel Lenain, said in the Wednesday statement. Pankaj Jha, a former deputy director of India's National Security Council Secretariat and now a professor of defense and strategic studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, said the larger aim of the exercise is to build a nexus on two counts: a trilateral France-Australia-India mechanism, and Quad plus France in the Indian Ocean. \"France has been aware of the fact that Chinese have been making certain under sea moves [scavenging for minerals and resources], particularly in French territories in the Indian Ocean, so they wanted [to do something that] acts as a deterrent and also as a collaborative effort,\" he added. In an opinion piece published in the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece Global Times on Mar. 16, Beijing-based military analyst Wei Dongxu called the upcoming drill \"a publicity stunt\" and Quad \"a loosely knit group which was established for temporary interests of its members.\" At the same time, Wei wrote, the military moves of Quad \"are obviously aimed\" at China. \"What China needs to do now is to improve its own military capabilities and to strengthen its comprehensive maritime combat abilities while proving to the world that a stronger Chinese navy will safeguard world peace and stability.\" Analysts in New Delhi say that while Beijing is making lots of noise over such exercises in the region, it is mainly concerned about some of the countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including those with which it has territorial disputes in South China Sea, tilting toward a Quad plus set-up. \"If France joins Quad plus it doesn't make much difference to the Chinese, but if Vietnam, Indonesia or the Philippines joins the Quad then it makes a huge difference [to Beijing] because these countries will offer their naval bases [in the region to Quad members],\" Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Nikkei Asia. \"The French will have to come this far to conduct exercises and obviously, after that, they will have to go home. But, the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Indonesians or Malaysians are here only and they will offer their naval bases, which will aggravate the situation for the Chinese,\" he added. Meanwhile, two Royal Australian Navy ships, HMA Ships Anzac (III) and Sirius -- which are conducting a two-month deployment throughout the Northeast Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia -- will participate in La Perouse. \"We are strongly committed to our vital work with regional partners to address shared challenges, including our region's maritime security,\" Australia's acting defense minister Marise Payne said on March 15. \"Regular cooperation with our partners and neighbors is critical for maintaining a peaceful, inclusive, sovereign and resilient Indo-Pacific region, where the rights of all states are respected.\"         ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["India","Australia, Japan and the U.S"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["guided-missile frigate INS Shivalik and long-range maritime patrol aircraft P8I","USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group","two French warships -- Tonnerre and Surcouf"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["La Perouse","Malabar"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["navies of India and the U.S"]},{"role":"Date","values":["next week","the November 2020","Days ahead of La Perouse","March 28-29"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Indo-Pacific","the Bay of Bengal","the eastern Indian Ocean Region"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Japan to hold first drills with UK aircraft carrier off Africa","document":"TOKYO -- Japan will hold joint exercises with the British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth for the first time in waters off the coast of the Horn of Africa, likely next week, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters Friday. Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force will partner with the U.K. carrier strike group for drills in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, ahead of a planned port call in Japan this summer. Naval forces from the U.S. and the Netherlands accompanying the strike group are expected to join in as well. The focus will be on counter-piracy exercises, with destroyers involved in anti-piracy operations in the area set to participate on the Japanese side. \"We will take on the global security challenge of piracy together with the U.K.,\" Kishi said. \"We will show we have the will and ability to ensure safe maritime transit.\" Commissioned in 2017 and the U.K.'s largest-ever aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth carries state-of-the-art F-35B stealth fighter jets. The strike group departed in May on a long-term deployment to the Pacific region. Japan and the U.K. agreed on the joint exercises in a \"two-plus-two\" meeting of top defense and diplomatic officials in February. The upcoming drills are set to be the first of multiple during the Queen Elizabeth's stint in the region. In addition to Japan, the carrier is scheduled to make port calls in India, Singapore and South Korea. It is slated to engage in joint drills with Japan again around the time of its port call there, showcasing unity between two countries with shared values in the face of Beijing's active military presence in the East and South China seas. The U.K., Hong Kong's former colonial ruler, has soured on China amid Beijing's clampdown there under the territory's security law, on top of concerns about its early handling of the coronavirus outbreak and alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The Pacific deployment aims to demonstrate its engagement in regional security. Germany is set to send a naval frigate to the Pacific region this year, reinforcing the message of European cooperation with Japan and the U.S.         ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Japan"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["F-35B stealth fighter jets"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":null},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth","Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force","U.K. carrier strike group"]},{"role":"Date","values":["next week"]},{"role":"Location","values":["waters off the coast of the Horn of Africa","the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Europe’s military presence highlights Asia’s importance","document":"                     The British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth docked at Yokosuka Naval Base this week, after holding military drills with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) and other navies. European military forces have an expanding presence in this part of the world, a recognition of the ever-larger role the Indo-Pacific has assumed in those governments’ strategic calculations and of emerging threats to regional stability. European attention is welcome but we shouldn’t have outsize expectations of the role it can play. The HMS Queen Elizabeth, a 65,000-ton aircraft carrier and the largest surface vessel ever built in the U.K., is making its maiden voyage through the Indo-Pacific, engaging with 40 countries on its journey. Its strike group includes two destroyers, two frigates and a submarine. Prior to the port call, the strike group held a drill with MSDF forces, as well as exercises with U.S. and Dutch forces. Earlier in the journey, in July, the vessels participated in drills with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean. A few weeks later, the U.K. ships joined the U.S.-Australia Talisman Sabre exercises, in which Japan, Canada, South Korea and New Zealand also participated, while India, Indonesia, Germany and France were observers. The U.K. will reportedly deploy two patrol vessels to the region on a permanent basis later this year. London isn’t the only European government showing the flag in the region. A French nuclear-powered attack submarine transited the South China Sea early this year. In April, the French led exercises in the Bay of Bengal included for the first time all the “Quad” navies — Japan, Australia, India and the U.S. In May, Japanese, Australian, U.S. and French forces participated in a drill in the East China Sea, the first time France had joined such exercises. Finally, Germany dispatched a warship last month on a six-month deployment that will include a transit of the South China Sea, the first by a German naval vessel in two decades, and which was the result of urging by Japan last year. Those warships are here because of the inescapable significance of this region to their national interests. Governments across Europe have produced strategic documents that make that point. For example, Britain’s recently released Integrated Review of Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy has been called “a tilt to the Indo-Pacific,” a region that is “the crucible for many of the most pressing global challenges.” France, Germany and the Netherlands have also written Indo-Pacific strategies and the European Union is developing its own. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace explained that the region’s importance obliges London to work with partners “to defend democratic values, tackle shared threats and keep our nations safe.” That view was echoed by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who noted that “important decisions on peace, security and prosperity will be made” in the Indo-Pacific region. Her colleague, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas added that “We aim to be involved and to take responsibility for maintaining the rule-based international order.” European governments voiced growing interest in and concern about the region in June meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden. At the U.S.-EU and U.S.-NATO summits, U.S. and European leaders pledged to closely consult and cooperate on the full range of issues as they deal with China. That list includes developments in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, the situation in the East and South China Seas, and specifically mentioned — and opposed — unilateral attempts to change the status quo. They also noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and encouraged the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues. The NATO summit was notable for highlighting that China’s growing influence and international policies can present challenges that need to be addressed “together as an Alliance.” The leaders warned that China presents “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security,” and they endorsed a broad-based response that would “protect critical infrastructure, strengthen resilience, maintain our technological edge and address these challenges to the rules-based international order.” That doesn’t mean that those governments are hostile to China or see it as the enemy. They also pledged to engage in constructive dialogue with Beijing and find areas to cooperate, a view that mirrors that of Japan. They would prefer a forward-looking relationship with Beijing, one that benefits both sides. But those preferences are no substitute for a clear-eyed assessment of Chinese actions and intentions. While we welcome that engagement, caution is in order. Europe remains a world away. If those governments decide to maintain a permanent presence, it will inevitably be small and unable to tip the balance in a crisis. If European governments want to make a truly substantive contribution to Indo-Pacific security, then they should do more to prepare for their own defense, a move that would free up resources that the U.S. could then devote to this region. That should not diminish our readiness to engage European partners. Their presence is another sign of the centrality of this region to global affairs. Efforts, even if symbolic, are valuable and statements of support are a reminder of the larger stakes that regional crises have. Recent events in this part of the world have the potential to do far more damage than shift a few borders; they threaten the very fiber of the global order. In this, Europe has a unique interest. The EU is a different kind of world power. Its standing and influence much depends on its support for norms and principles, and especially the rule of law. The dispatch of warships, no matter how big, doesn’t change that. The Japan Times Editorial Board Washington seeks to establish some mechanisms or rules to prevent conflict with Beijing. With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name             in the Profile section of your subscriber account page. Your subscription plan doesn't allow commenting. To learn more see our FAQ          Putin pushes confrontation with NATO as hard-liners prevail                  How fake news on Facebook helped fuel a border crisis in Europe                  Calm and cool Adam Jones came up big when the Orix Buffaloes needed him most                  If the Internet were a toy, it would look like this. Would you let your kid play with It?                  Freedom needed for commerce to flourish, says Japan's new economic security minister             DEEP DIVE        Episode 106: What did Japan bring to the COP26 climate summit?    In search of Japan’s lost wolves Is this enigmatic beast — said to be extinct since 1905 — still out there? In a five-part series, we track an enduring mystery that has captivated the imaginations of many.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Japan, Canada, South Korea and New Zealand","Japan, Australia, India and the U.S","French","U.S.-Australia"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth","U.K. ships"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Talisman Sabre"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["MSDF forces","Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) and other navies","U.S. and Dutch forces","Indian Navy","Japanese, Australian, U.S. and French forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["July","A few weeks later","April","May"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Indian Ocean","the Bay of Bengal","the East China Sea"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"India Air Force in Israel for First-ever Joint Military Exercise","document":"India will participate in the Blue Flag training event with a C-130J special operations aircraft and Garud commandos  A delegation of the India Air Force landed in Israel on Wednesday to participate in the biennial Blue Flag exercise, which will take place from November 2 to 16 at the Ovda Airbase in southern Israel. According to India's Ministry of Defense, \"This is the first time the Indian Air Force is operating with Israeli AF in a multilateral exercise setting.\" India will participate in the training event with a C-130J special operations aircraft and Garud commandos, the statement said.  Read more: Why India Loves Israel: For Its Brains - Opinion \"The exercise would provide a platform for sharing of knowledge, combat experience and in improving operational capability of the participating nations,\" the ministry added. This year, Blue Flag will have many firsts. With almost 70 foreign planes from nine countries, along with hundreds of pilots, scheduled to take part, the event will constitute the first time such a large number of foreign planes and air forces will participate in a training exercise in Israel. In another first, Germany has sent fighter jets to the excercise, along with an aerial refueling plane, pilots and senior officials from its army and air force.  In addition to India and Germany, France will send its Rafale fighter aircraft, and Greece, Italy, Poland and the United States will also participate by sending planes and crews. As part of the exercise, foreign crews will practice handling the threat of advanced surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles, with the Israel Air Force’s so-called Red Squadron playing the role of the enemy. The exercise will include flights in formation with planes from different countries, with no countries opposing each other, said the senior officer. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["India","Germany","France","Greece","Italy, Poland and the United States"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["C-130J special operations aircraft","70 foreign planes","fighter jets","Rafale fighter aircraft"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Blue Flag"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["hundreds of pilots"]},{"role":"Army","values":["India Air Force"]},{"role":"Date","values":["November 2 to 16"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ovda Airbase in southern Israel"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"African Lion 2021 Concludes With Spectacular Final Day","document":"Rabat - As the African Lion military exercises come to a close, a final day of specular military demonstrations concludes the successful event in style. African Lion’s last day featured an exhibition this Friday, June 18, showcasing live military maneuvers performed by both Morocco and the United States.  Morocco World News has been on the ground in Tan-Tan, reporting on the event. The concluding day’s event took place in the Cape Draa Observation Post, 33 km northwest of the city of TanTan, with the presence of military personnel from the Netherlands, Egypt, Qatar, Italy, Senegal, Uganda, NATO, and Belgium, all observant delegations.  The Moroccan-led exercise kicked off with three low flyovers from Moroccan F-16 Fighting Falcons, an impressive show of skill matched by American jets making similar maneuvers and featuring the fighter aircraft.  Today’s impressive events featured exercises for Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo airplanes, followed by the Moroccan aircraft, resulting in a spectacular display of both country’s military might. The 173rd Airborne Brigade, an airborne infantry brigade combat team of the United States was present to perform a parachute drop at the end of the aerial exercise, but it was canceled due to strong winds and unexpected weather conditions.  The aerial exercise was followed by ground force maneuvers from infantry units and artillery brigades from both Morocco and the United States.  The event features controlled targeted strikes performed by FAR units using artillery, anti-armor missiles, and M1 Abrams tanks. In-depth bombing followed shortly after, which the US units took over, using the same arms and artillery used by the Moroccan units. The 1st Battalion, an infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps based out of Camp Pendleton, California, opened with the infantry fire, followed by the Georgia National Guard 214 field artillery regiment.  The Georgia National Guard infantry was the largest American presence during this morning’s event.  The finale of this explosive last day is yet to be seen, Morocco World News will report back on what is sure to be an exemplary closing to a “very successful” military exercise, as relayed by the organizing committee to MWN.    ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Morocco and the United States"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["artillery, anti-armor missiles, and M1 Abrams tanks","Moroccan F-16 Fighting Falcons","American jets","Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo airplanes"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["the African Lion"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["airborne infantry brigade combat team of the United States","The 173rd Airborne Brigade","infantry units and artillery brigades from both Morocco and the United States","The 1st Battalion","Georgia National Guard 214 field artillery regiment"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Morocco","the city of TanTan"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"China conducts military exercises southwest of Taiwan","document":"                     China announced Saturday that naval and aerial military exercises were conducted in areas southwest of Taiwan a day earlier for the second time in a month. Combat ships, early-warning aircraft and bombers were among the forces that joined the exercises “to improve integrated operational capability” in territory southwest of Taiwan, Shi Yi, spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said in a statement Saturday, without saying how close to the democratically ruled island the drills were. Shi said military exercises will be “conducted regularly” based on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and the need to maintain sovereign security. They came the day after Taiwan announced a $9 billion boost to military spending to counter the threat from China. Shi described repeated collusion between the U.S. and Taiwan had become “the largest source of trouble” for security and stability in the area. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement Friday that ten Chinese military aircraft, including two Y-8s, two J-11s, and six J-16s, were detected in Taiwan’s southwestern air defense identification zone. The Chinese patrols and drills also coincided a transit by a U.S. destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Friday, which the U.S. Navy called a “routine” passage through international waters. The Eastern Theater Command, which overseas Chinese military in eastern China, said on Saturday in a separate statement that the USS Barry was monitored on its entire course. Speaking Friday, Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang said the government had to take the threat from China seriously. “The Chinese Communists plot against us constantly,” he said. Taiwan’s defense spending “is based on safeguarding national sovereignty, national security, and national security. We must not relax. We must have the best preparations so that no war will occur,” he added. China’s government, for its part, criticized Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Friday for comments this week in which he said Taiwan was a “sea fortress “blocking China’s expansion into the Pacific. Wu’s “aim is to deceive public opinion, to rope in and collude with anti-China foreign forces,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement. The voyage, the 11th declared freedom of navigation exercise of the year, \"demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,\" the 7th Fleet said in a statement.           How fake news on Facebook helped fuel a border crisis in Europe                  Calm and cool Adam Jones came up big when the Orix Buffaloes needed him most                  If the Internet were a toy, it would look like this. Would you let your kid play with It?                  Freedom needed for commerce to flourish, says Japan's new economic security minister                  Mud could help decide timing of any move by Russia against Ukraine             DEEP DIVE        Episode 106: What did Japan bring to the COP26 climate summit?    In search of Japan’s lost wolves Is this enigmatic beast — said to be extinct since 1905 — still out there? In a five-part series, we track an enduring mystery that has captivated the imaginations of many.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":["to improve integrated operational capability"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Combat ships, early-warning aircraft and bombers","two Y-8s, two J-11s, and six J-16s"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":null},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["a day earlier for the second time in a month"]},{"role":"Location","values":["areas southwest of Taiwan"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Indian Navy takes part in US Navy-led SEACAT exercises with 19 other Indo-pacific nation in Singapore","document":"The Indian Navy demonstrated its maritime maneuvers in U.S. Navy-led Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) military exercise in Singapore. The military exercise also included navies of 20 other partner nations as well. Nations like Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, East Timor, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam took part in SEACAT. The maritime exercise aimed to foster enhanced cooperation between Southeast Asian countries by incorporating tactics, standardized training, and procedures to combat contingencies or illegal activities in the maritime domain. Further, the drill is designed to encourage countries to use their naval forces to bolster understanding of the operational environment, build capacity for humanitarian support missions, and uphold international laws and norms. Notably, the exercise featured a maritime operations center based out of the International Fusion Centre in Singapore, which will serve as a centralised hub for crisis coordination and information sharing of suspicious vessels during the simulation. In total, the exercise witnessed close to 400 personnel and 10 ships, including the U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ship Tulsa, P-8A Poseidon aircraft from Task Force 72, along with personnel from Task Forces 73 and 76, and the Pacific and 7th fleets. Interestingly, the location of maritime exercise is dubbed as one of the most busiest waterways around the globe and has become an increasing focus of maritime interest. SEACAT began in 2002 as “Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism” and this is the 20th iteration of the exercise. In 2020, the event was conducted as part of a virtual symposium amid the COVID-19 pandemic.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, East Timor, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["foster enhanced cooperation between Southeast Asian countries by incorporating tactics, standardized training, and procedures to combat contingencies or illegal activities in the maritime domain","encourage countries to use their naval forces to bolster understanding of the operational environment, build capacity for humanitarian support missions, and uphold international laws and norms"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["littoral combat ship Tulsa","P-8A Poseidon aircraft"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT)"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["400"]},{"role":"Army","values":["The Indian Navy","Pacific and 7th fleets"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Singapore"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Navy and Marine Exercise to Span 17 Time Zones on a Scale Last Seen During the Cold War","document":"NAPLES, Italy -- A U.S. naval and amphibious exercise billed as the largest of its kind in 40 years begins Tuesday, in a globe-spanning effort that analysts say aims to send a message to Russia and China that America can simultaneously answer aggression on multiple fronts. Large Scale Exercise 2021 is a return to similar Cold War exercises in the 1980s demonstrating resolve and new capabilities, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet said in a recent statement. The exercise also comes as the military updates its long-standing combat doctrine to defend against attacks on its communications systems and logistical networks. A simulated battle against a high-end enemy in October exposed those vulnerabilities and spurred changes, Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month. Large Scale Exercise runs through Aug. 16 and will include units in 17 different time zones, the Navy said. \"LSE will test our commanders across the spectrum of naval warfare from the tactical to the strategic, integrating the Marine Corps to demonstrate the world-wide fleet's ability to conduct coordinated operations from the open ocean to the littoral,\" said Vice Adm. Gene Black, U.S. 6th Fleet commander. LSE potentially puts adversaries on notice that the U.S. can simultaneously address challenges in the Black Sea, eastern Mediterranean Sea, South China Sea and East China Sea -- shutting down efforts to spread American military forces thin, said James R. Holmes, the J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. It also aims to demonstrate that U.S. naval and Marine forces can deny adversaries control of the seas, which is especially crucial in the Western Pacific, where the U.S. hopes to prevent China from occupying Taiwan or seizing the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, Holmes said. But it isn't certain if Russia or China will interpret the exercise in those ways or if they are even paying attention, Holmes said. Even so, the exercise also tests U.S. operational methods and technologies, such as deemphasizing large ships and high-end systems to create a nimble, efficient and effective force designed to take a loss and continue fighting without measurable impact, Holmes said. \"In that sense we're reverting to our World War II approach, when we had lots of inexpensive, good-enough stuff and could lose some of it and still carry on,\" Holmes said. \"If we show our adversaries this approach works, we bolster our ability to deter them from assailing ourselves or our allies.\" About 36 ships and more than 50 virtual units, in addition to military, civilian and contract personnel, will participate in the exercise. Six naval and Marine Corps component commands, five U.S. fleets and three Marine Expeditionary Forces will be involved. USS Mount Whitney, the 6th Fleet flagship, also will participate. The first LSE will include only U.S. forces, but future exercises are planned to include allies and partners, the statement said. The Bidens visited the Coast Guard station at Brant Point to meet with personnel there. Arleigh Burke’s patrol in the Black Sea follows that of the destroyer USS Porter, which left earlier this month. The U.S. warned allies that Russia may decide to invade Ukraine in the next few months. Some Ethiopians were outraged when a U.S. Embassy security message warned its citizens of possible terrorist attacks. The deadline to be vaccinated is Dec. 15 for active-duty soldiers and June 30 for Reserve and Army National Guard troops. Retired Adm. Vyacheslav Popov charged in an interview that the NATO submarine inadvertently bumped into the Kursk. There are 104 GI Bill beneficiaries on MIT's campus, worth some $3 million in tuition to the university. The report shows a U.S. military agency collaborating with German authorities to collect German income tax penalties on U.S... The USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class submarine, struck an unidentified seamount or underwater mountain on Oct. 2. The Bidens visited the Coast Guard station at Brant Point to meet with personnel there. Arleigh Burke’s patrol in the Black Sea follows that of the destroyer USS Porter, which left earlier this month. The U.S. warned allies that Russia may decide to invade Ukraine in the next few months. Some Ethiopians were outraged when a U.S. Embassy security message warned its citizens of possible terrorist attacks.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["America"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["36 ships and more than 50 virtual units","USS Mount Whitney"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Large Scale Exercise 2021"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["Six naval and Marine Corps component commands, five U.S. fleets and three Marine Expeditionary Forces","the 6th Fleet flagship"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Three military bases in Colorado Springs participate in training exercises starting Tuesday","document":"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever AFB and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station will be doing training exercises from Tuesday until Thursday, April 15. The military base says the first time all three bases will exercise together as part of the Peterson-Schriever Garrison. Residents in the area may hear simulated gunshots, loud booms and sirens or see smoke while the training is happening. The exercise is intended to make sure military forces have the proper techniques, tactics and procedures to protect missions and on-base communities. Col. James Smith, Peterson-Schriever Garrison commander says this excercise is a very important opportunity for miliary personel. “It’s extremely important that our installations participate in exercises. This is a great opportunity to test our readiness and ensure our no-fail missions continue in the face of real-world emergency scenarios” said Smith. People traveling on and off base might experience temporary gate closures and blocked areas of roads on base. Army & Air Force Exchange Service facilities plan to stay open throughout the training.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":["to make sure military forces have the proper techniques, tactics and procedures to protect missions and on-base communities"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["Col. James Smith, Peterson-Schriever Garrison commander"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Peterson-Schriever Garrison"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["from Tuesday until Thursday","April 15"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever AFB and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"India's Marine Power & Blue Economy","document":"The Blue Economy, with its untapped seabed minerals and renewable ocean energy, could prove that light at the end of the tunnel for Covid-19 afflicted India. The nation’s strategic location in the IOR and its potentials as a maritime power is a blessing for both the security of the region and the Indian economy.  INDIA’S ROLE AS A MARITIME power is crucial as 90 per cent of trade by volume and over 74 per cent by value takes place via sea routes. More than 80 per cent of India’s energy supplies also arrive along these sea lanes. For many years, we argued that our development planning must be premised on our being a maritime economy. Still, our plans, investment and defence program have remained dominantly focused on our land-based resources.  The Indian peninsula is ensconced by seas & oceans. The country’s location in the Indian Ocean, jutting out 1000 miles into it as it does, is of strategic advantage. The peninsula straddles some of the most critical sea lines of communication. A great deal of global trade travels along these routes. India’s two island territories, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, are of great strategic importance too. India has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of over 2.3 million square kms and has deep seabed mining rights in the southern Indian Ocean region. An active presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is necessary for India to be able to protect its vast 7,500 kilometre coastline. Simultaneously, the country needs to ensure open sea lines of communication.  If India has to thrive and recover its growth momentum in the post Covid-19 world of ultra geo-economic activities, the country must trade with the world. Maritime Power and the Blue Economy could be a way out of the abyss the pandemic induced slowdown has hurled India into. On Navy Day in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of the Navy of the Chola kingdom of ancient India as one of the strongest navies of its era, accounting for the economic supremacy of the regime. India aspires to be a maritime power once again. The Indian Ocean Region is vital for India. As the legendary Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, had summed up succinctly, “Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean, would be a prominent player on the international scene.” “However, India cannot call itself a maritime power,” laments Commodore Anil Jai Singh, Vice President, Indian Maritime Foundation. “While the Indian Navy is the most powerful navy in the Indian Ocean and is amongst the top five navies in the world, the other elements of maritime power are lagging. India’s share of global shipbuilding is less than one per cent. And its 13 major and almost 200 non-major ports are not globally competitive and in need of modernisation,” says he. India’s marine-based economy is way behind in terms of standard global practices and needs focus. As Commodore Jai Singh points out, “Its 200 million strong coastal community, which depends on the sea for a livelihood continues with archaic practices of fishing etc. The potential of the island territories remain untapped. Seabed exploration for mineral and other resources has barely begun.” These pertinent issues about the country’s maritime power and Blue Economy need top priority now. An infinite swathe of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is India’s responsibility and maritime power and a Blue Economy can be a possibility with the right allies and through strategic international outreach. Beyond the IOR, $3 trillion worth of trade passes through the South China Sea, over which China attempts to keep a hold. Importance of the Indian-ocean-trade, security & norms (Credit Laxman Kadirganar Institute)The concept of the ‘Blue Economy’ is spreading fast through the globe and aims at transforming the world’s economy, habits and the planet itself during the 21st century. A Blue Economy is about oceans, seas and the resources they hold. India’s Blue Economy In the Indian context, a Blue Economy would be the sum total of economic activities involving marine resources. Fisheries, deep sea mining and offshore oil and gas make up a large part of India’s Blue Economy. It is necessary for India to tap into the enormous potential of the ocean-based resources, which could propel the nation into a higher growth trajectory. The development of the Blue Economy can serve as a growth catalyst in realising the vision to become a $10 trillion economy by 2032. Most of the country’s oil and gas is imported through sea routes, a dependence that is expected to rise exponentially by the year 2025. Of the 2.3 million square kilometres available to India in the EEZ, 1.5 million has been explored across both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. India has filed a claim in 2009 to raise its approved claim of 200 nautical miles to 250 nautical miles – the maximum permissible limit. Chief of Naval Staff (CNS)Admiral Karambir Singh In 2010 the Indian government released a 10-year maritime agenda (2010-2020) with ambitious plans to develop the maritime sector. Thereafter, the present government in its first term initiated Sagarmala, a multi-crore programme aimed at revitalising India’s ports and maritime infrastructure, including inland marine transportation and coastal shipping. The Sagarmala Programme has identified over 600 projects, entailing an investment of around Rs 8 lakh crore ($120 billion) by 2020. This will save the country nearly $6 billion per annum in logistics costs, besides creating 10 million new jobs and boosting port capacity by 800 million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA) to an overall 3,500 MMTP. Yet, halfway through 2020, there is no mention of the 10-year maritime agenda. The ambitious Sagarmala programme is also not progressing at an ideal pace. As Commodore Anil Jai Singh points out, “One of the problems in India is the multitude of departments and ministries linked with the maritime sector with no central empowered authority to synergise or even coordinate their activities. This has been highlighted many times in the context of maritime security, but has found little resonance with the government.” This special focus area was recognised at the 14th Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Ministerial Meeting in Perth, Australia, on 9 October 2014. As an economic model the Blue Economy comprises: Indo-Pacific & the QUAD India’s Blue Economy is poised for growth. According to the IORA charter, while the region is not yet a hub of Global Value Chains (GVC) oriented trade and investment – the kind that has driven East Asian industrial success in the past four decades – trade in parts and components is increasing. This is currently concentrated among Southeast Asian IORA members, and in a few sectors, notably electrical machinery with $231.4 billion of exports, road vehicles ($77.1 billion of exports), office machines ($64.5 billion), and telecommunication equipment ($31.8 billion). The charter says cooperation among the IORA members could result in greater intra-regional services trade. Weak regional institutions and formal legal structures to effectively support regional trade and investment-related cooperation that create tariff and non-tariff barriers, prove a problem, however. In November 2017, India, the US, Japan and Australia formed the “Quad” coalition to build up a cohesive strategy to keep critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free and open under the international maritime code of conduct. And in 2018, the United States’ National Defense Strategy (NDS) prioritised the Indo Pacific command. Initially, India was slow to respond, but the developments in Ladakh and the South China Sea have necessitated the urgency of the alliance. These developments have necessitated both immediate response and long term perspective planning to counter similar designs by China in future. The India-Australia Virtual Leaders’ Summit between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Modi held on 4 June was a breakthrough, elevating Comprehensive and Strategic Partnership, especially in defence and security. Australian Minister for Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds (see interview) told this correspondent, “I am also open to exploring the possibility of trilateral cooperation with India and other countries in our region, including Indonesia.” Though relatively late to start, the India-Australia Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) has finally been signed. Since 2015 cooperation between the two nations had been confined to the bilateral naval exercise, AUSINDEX. Will it gather momentum by including Australia into the Malabar naval exercise? Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said, “It will also enable greater crossservice military activity, building from the success of our most complex exercise to date, AUSINDEX 2019, which focused on anti-submarine warfare. More than half of Australia’s global trade – including oil – crosses the Indian Ocean.”  India is now considering Australia’s interest in being part of the Malabar exercise which will be the bedrock of India’s international collaboration. For the United States too, the Indo-Pacific Strategy has already assumed utmost prominence. It is well defined as the region that spans from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian subcontinent. \"The American people and the whole world have a stake in the Indo-Pacific’s peace and prosperity,” US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said in 2018 when he set the initiative in motion. It is the reason why the Indo-Pacific must be free and open. No country invests more in the Indo-Pacific than the United States, which had $940 billion in foreign direct investment fueling growth in the region as of 2018, he had pointed out. India’s Marine Muscle &Shrinking budget  Marine power has the true potential to augment India’s economic strength. So far that is not the case, however, as speed is missing in enhancing India’s marine power. On Navy Day, the Chief of the Indian Navy, Admiral Karambir Singh, raised the red flag on the dwindling Navy budget. The budget, which was increased by 18 per cent in 2012, has been raised by a paltry 13 per cent in 2019-20. Though predominantly a Maritime Nation, among the three forces, the Indian Navy gets the lowest share of the defence budget.  While the Indian navy has long articulated a need for 20% share of the defence budget, in 2019-2020 Government allocated 23,156 crore, landing a big blow to its ambitious plan to be among the best in the world. Budgetary constraints hamper the critical modernization plan of the Indian Navy. Despite such constraints, Indian navy has been ahead of the curve as far as indigenization is concerned. The thrust on indigenisation has led to 88 per cent orders for Indian vendors and shipyards, however, and 50 ships and submarines are currently under construction. On India’s security strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, Admiral Singh said the Indian Navy was ready to work with like minded nations based on common interests to ensure safe and secure seas and to promote a rules-based order. IAC Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard Even as Lieutenant General-level dialogues are taking place between Indian and Chinese armies in an effort to resolve the month-long standoff in eastern Ladakh, the Indian Navy has been reporting Chinese naval presence closer home in the Indian Ocean Region. According to a former Rear Admiral of the Indian Navy, “Within the IOR region, the Chinese interests are far greater than a mere border dispute.’’ The South China Sea is already wellknown as disputed waters, with China always on an aggressive stance. Large traffic of Chinese ships and submarines have been recently reported by the Indian Navy in the ocean from the Malacca Straits to the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. These submarines were both conventional and nuclear types, which are obviously covert activities. China has, moreover, been sending off Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) in the IOR and has completed 3,400 observations lately.  String of PearlsLast year, India exercised its composite combat capability through the Navy’s largest biennial war game, Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX-19),  Admiral said. The Indian Navy has also upped the operational dimensions with Friendly Foreign Countries(FFCs). “From a conservative figure of eight exercises in 2015, we are now participating in close to 30 bilateral/multilateral exercises,” he said. In addition, under the Government of India’s overall ambit of ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, the Navy also undertook Joint EEZ patrols of Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius as well as Coordinated Patrols (CORPATs) with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia,\" CNS highlighted. ( See below the Photo Indian Ocean) As per Maritime Capability Perspective Plan, the Indian Navy initially planned to have 200 warships, 500 aircraft and 24 attack submarines where the warships were cut to 175. At present, the Navy has around 132 ships, 220 aircraft and 15 submarines. Currently, the Indian Navy has only one aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya & we require at least three aircraft carriers. Gaps are widening as some of the key projects turn tardy. The Project 75I (6 new diesel-electric submarines) is still scouting for foreign partner and the  induction of the indigenously built Scorpene class continues after years of delay. A visible threat warrants a comparison and a closer look at China from the naval perspective. China’s People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) currently has some 400 naval ships and gearing up for 100 submarine by 2030. A veteran navy Cmde Anil looks at the critical capability gaps points out:  “Carrier capability is being compromised, the undersea warfare dimension is in need of immediate attention, the naval air arm is deficient in numbers, expeditionary capability has had a setback with the delay in the LPD programme, and mines counter measure capability is virtually non-existent.”  While he also points out the clear and present dangers in the prevailing security environment said: “This is compounded by the fact that all navies in the region are augmenting their naval forces, with our major adversaries on overdrive in their naval expansion.” Notwithstanding its budgetary constraints, the Indian Navy is deemed to be the seventh most powerful navy in the world. India has an opportunity to harness its marine power and supporting the region for its Blue Economy initiatives. It is a net security provider in the IOR and the pillar that could propel India into a maritime power. Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds ( credit-Australian Department of Defence)  ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["India-Australia","India"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["AUSINDEX","Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX-19)"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["the Navy"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Since 2015","Last year"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ukraine conducts international military excercise amid tensions with Russia","document":"                                  Ukraine's relations with Russia has been on the downhill ever since the Russian military annexed Crimea in 2014. The Rapid Trident military exercise which involves 15 countries comes after Russia and Belarus conducted their military drill. The \"Rapid Trident\" military international military drills continued in Ukraine with fifteen countries gathered for the joint exercises. One of the first drills included the simulation of the liberation of a captured town from hybrid extremist groups. The joint multinational unit of the armed forces of Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland are involved in the exercise with over 6,000 servicemen including around 150 representatives from the US armed forces taking part in the drills. Also Read: US engaged in new cold war with rivals China and Russia, say most Europeans in poll   Ukraine which is at war with Russia-backed separatists since 2014 began hosting the joint military exercises with the US and other NATO troops on Monday.  Ukraine has been seeking integration with NATO in order to thwart Russia's military power on its border. The relations between Ukraine and Russia have been on the edge since 2014 when the Russian military annexed Crimea. Also Read: Russian military spotted near Ukraine border after US warning The drills are set to last until October 1. The US said the exercise was meant to \"enhance interoperability among allied and partner nations\". Also Read: Putin to review Russian military might as tensions with West soar  The exercise comes after Russia staged a drill near EU borders of Russia and Belarus recently which Moscow said involved at least 200,000 troops even as nearly 20 Russian warships began large-scale live-fire exercises in the Black Sea on Monday. The drills have become a major point of friction between Ukraine and Russia as Moscow gathered thousands of troops on Ukraine's border in April as tensions escalated in the region. Putin's regime however pulled back troops later.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Russia and Belarus"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["\"enhance interoperability among allied and partner nations\""]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["nearly 20 Russian warships"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["The Rapid Trident"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["over 6,000","at least 200,000"]},{"role":"Army","values":["The joint multinational unit of the armed forces of Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Ukraine","the Black Sea"]},{"role":"Projects","values":["the simulation of the liberation of a captured town from hybrid extremist groups"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"The US isn't doing itself any favors by conducting military exercises in Europe's most tense region","document":"            The joint military exercise known as Sea Breeze recently took place in the Black Sea, where the US conducted exercises with nations including Ukraine. According to the US Navy, the Sea Breeze exercise is an annual joint operation that brings the United States, \"most\" Black Sea Nations, and NATO allies together to pursue increased capability. Though joint military exercises are not inherently belligerent and unwise, any joint military exercises the US takes part in should align with its strategic national security interests. The recent activities in the Black Sea do not meet that standard. The 2021 iteration was the largest since the inaugural exercise in 1997. Thirty-two countries from six continents participated. Every Black Sea nation was represented except Russia. Russia's exclusion isn't unexpected considering NATO's foundation and current tensions with Ukraine. However, US participation is an unnecessary provocation given that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia remains unresolved, and Russia's absence signals their role as the potential adversary. Sea Breeze raises an important question. How does the exercise align with US strategic national security interests? The most direct answer is that it doesn't. Ultimately, the exercise is counter-productive. The training started just a week after a controversial interaction between the British HMS Defender and Russian fighter jets. Accounts of the exchange are contested, but the Kremlin's statement illustrates that their goal is to produce a narrative in which they face a hostile threat but can respond successfully. The opening ceremony in Odessa made clear the Sea Breeze's mission is to prepare for a Russian conflict. During the opening ceremony, Ukrainian Naval Commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa stated that the exercises send a \"powerful message to maintain peace and stability in our region.\" USS Navy Capt. Kyle Gantt, along with other US commanders, emphasized that their maneuver emphasizes solidarity with Ukraine and sends the message that the Black Sea is an international sea and not the property of one nation. Gantt went on to say the exercises take place \"exclusively in Ukrainian and international waters,\" which aligns with NATO's position regarding Russia's annexation of Crimea as illegal and illegitimate. These statements rest upon significant logical flaws. First, Ukraine's strategic value to the United States is overstated. Ukraine isn't an ally or NATO member, shouldn't be one, and occasional US hints that Ukraine is being considered for eventual NATO admission risk delaying a settlement between Kyiv and Moscow. NATO expansion toward the Russian borders has already stoked tensions in the region. Second, what happens in the Black Sea is not a national security risk to the United States. Given the events of 2014, the most significant risk in the Black Sea is to US reputation if it overinflates its commitment to Kyiv. Joint military exercises are often defended for their contribution to deterrence. In this case, that defense fails to hold water, considering the Sea Breeze exercises are an annual event, yet Russia still annexed Crimea in 2014. The US balked when Russia invaded Crimea. That is not to say the US should have intervened. Balking was a comparatively restrained decision. However, pledging US solidarity with Ukraine seems like an empty promise, given the low chance of the US committing to fight a war to defend Ukraine against the only other nuclear superpower. Other tests of resolve lie on the horizon, namely, Taiwan. If the US hopes to deter Chinese actions in forceful unification pursuits, pledging solidarity and claiming strategic importance in the Black Sea, then reconsidering when the moment arises undermines that message elsewhere. In April 2021, the US and NATO called on Russia to deescalate tensions in the Black Sea and condemned its plan to restrict Black Sea access for military maneuvers. Three months later, Sea Breeze elevates tensions. The United States should make decisions based on strategic national security interests. As in other areas, those decisions should apply to joint military exercises. Securing Ukraine's access to Sea of Azov ports and passage through the Strait of Kerch are not US national security interests. Scott McCann is a Marcellus Policy Fellow with the John Quincy Adams Society and a finalist for the Charles Koch Institute's Koch Associate Program in foreign policy. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Louisiana State University and a master's in international studies with concentrations in international security, intelligence, and conflict resolution from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["US","Ukraine"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["increased capability"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["Ukrainian Naval Commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa","USS Navy Capt. Kyle Gantt"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Sea Breeze"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Black Sea"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Jade Helm 15 conspiracy theorists predict government death squads, ice cream truck morgues, apocalyptic asteroid","document":" The seven-state U.S. military training exercise that's induced mass hysteria among zany conspiracy theorists is finally here.  Jade Helm 15 — which is either a routine though unusually large Special Operations program or a government takeover designed to wipe out freethinkers — begins Wednesday and runs through September 15 in seven Southwestern U.S. states.  The military has not detailed what exactly the troops will be learning, but said in a statement that it \"periodically conducts training exercises such as these to practice core special warfare tasks, which help protect the nation against foreign enemies.\"  The near-mum answer left many Americans uneasy and cultivated a wave of apocalyptic, panicked and straight-up bizarre conspiracy theories.  Even Chuck Norris said the operation was \"likely more than a military exercise.\"  So when Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Air Force specialist and other troops head to the seven states — Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado — tomorrow, truthers will be anxiously watching.  Here are some of the wildest takes on Jade Helm 15:  DEATH SQUADS \"COMING TO KILL THE RED LIST\"  American troops are invading the Southwest with marching orders to kill free-thinking citizens who would oppose a government coup, conspiracy theorists explained on the All News Pipeline blog.  In preparation for the death squad mission, U.S. leaders have drafted three lists of citizens — a classification system that was first detailed by conservative radio host Steve Quayle about 10 years ago.  The green list is full of sheeple who mindlessly abide by government orders. The blue list is for people who could be good, nonthinking citizens with a little re-education. And the red list is made up of people who would fight back if the government tried to take over: constitutionalists, veterans, Christians and gun-owners.  \"The endgame so to speak … is 'coming to kill the red list,'\" theorist Susan Duclos wrote on the blog. Meanwhile, blue-listers will be sent to FEMA-run reconditioning camps, and green citizens will be allowed to live in mindless peace.  ICE CREAM TRUCKS USED AS \"MORGUE TRUCKS\"  When several Blue Bell Ice Cream trucks were spotted traveling with a military convey in Colorado, apocalyptic theories about their use quickly emerged.  All News Pipeline detailed one theory: the treat trucks would be \"'hidden in plain sight' refrigerated morgues which can be used to carry bodies 'out of sight out of mind.'\" Once the government killed off its \"red list,\" the victims could be discreetly carried away, some said.  Blue Bell quickly denied the theory.  \"It just so happened that our trucks were traveling on the same highway as the military convoy, but there is no relation to their activity,\" the company said in a statement.  CLOSED WALMARTS TURNED INTO TROOP HEADQUARTERS  Several Texas Walmart stores temporarily closed ahead of Jade Helm 15. While the megastore chain said the locations were shut down for plumbing fixes, theorists came up with some more creative answers.  \"Will these massive stores soon be used as 'food distribution centers' and to house the headquarters of invading troops from China, here to disarm Americans one by one as promised by Michelle Obama?\" truthers on All News Pipeline wrote.  TROOPS TO DISARM CITIZENS  Forty-three percent of Texans believe the government is sending troops into the state to take away gun owners' weapons. The Texas Tribune poll also showed that 44% of Texans — including 31% of Democrats — believe the operation is a mission to impose martial law on the state.  \"JADE HELM = CHINA IS IN COMMAND\"  Some speculated that China could play a role in the three-month operation. As the Chinese government allegedly pushes to replace the U.S. dollar with the yuan as the world's reserve currency, the Asian nation is especially eager to gain dominance stateside, claimed All News Pipeline.  While the theorists didn't explicitly detail how China would be involved, they pointed out that the name of Jade Helm 15 references the green rock that is iconic is Chinese culture.  \"Jade Helm = China Is In Command,\" the blog wrote.  \"RUSSIAN TROOPS WILL EXTRACT AMERICAN CITIZENS FROM THEIR BEDS\"  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is working with Russia for the Jude Help \"takeover\" — and Putin's army is already here, one conspiracy theorist wrote.  Russian soldiers were spotted in Tennessee and will travel to the Southwest for the three-month operation and help the U.S. kill off free-thinking citizens, the Common Sense Show claimed in its blog.  \"Russian troops will fire upon American citizens. Russian troops will extract American citizens from their beds in the middle of the night,\" the post read.  AN ASTEROID IS COMING  Not every Jade Helm 15 theory centered around the U.S. government's mission to turn on its own citizens. The 800 Whistle Blower blog suggested Jade Helm is a way to ready troops for the chaos that will come after a massive asteroid hits the U.S. in September.  The Armageddon-esque asteroid will hit the American southwest between Sept. 22 and 28, doomsdayers claimed. While NASA reassured the public that wasn't going to happen, the theorists maintained the natural catastrophe would set off riots.  \"Jade Helm will have troops in place to put down what is going to be pandemonium and revolution,\" the blog claimed.  LOOKING FOR ALIENS IN TEXAS  Another nontakeover theory suggests the mystery military mission is really about finding UFOs that landed in the desert.  Jade Helm 15 \"is in reality a massive hunt for suspected 'Nordic alien forces' whose crafts have broke into our Earth's atmosphere over El Paso, Texas,\" a theorist on whatdoesitmean.com explained.  The space creatures landed in April and June — and now the government must find them, according to the theory. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Jade Helm 15"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["The seven-state U.S. military"]},{"role":"Date","values":["begins Wednesday and runs through September 15"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado","seven Southwestern U.S. states"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"A new hypothesisThe French armed forces are planning for high-intensity war","document":"IN THE FORESTS and plains of the Champagne-Ardenne region, where once the great powers went into battle, the French armed forces are beginning to prepare for the return of a major conflict. Planned for 2023, Exercise Orion is a full-scale divisional exercise that will last several days, based probably out of camps at Suippes, Mailly and Mourmelon. It will involve the full range of French military capacity on a scale not tested for decades. The drill will include command-post exercises, hybrid scenarios, simulation and live-fire drills. Around 10,000 soldiers could take part, as well as the air force and, in a separate maritime sequence, the navy. Belgian, British and American forces may join in. There are other signs that the French armed forces are in the midst of a generational transformation. In January the general staff quietly established ten working groups to examine the country’s readiness for high-intensity war. French generals reckon that they have a decade or so to prepare for it. The groups cover everything from munition shortages to the resilience of society, including whether citizens are “ready to accept the level of casualties we have never seen since world war two”, says one participant. The spectre of high-end war is now so widespread in French military thinking that the scenario has its own acronym: HEM, or hypothèse d'engagement majeur (hypothesis of major engagement). The presumed opponents are unnamed, but analysts point not only to Russia, but also Turkey or a North African country.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":["Around 10,000"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Exercise Orion"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["Belgian, British and American forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2023"]},{"role":"Location","values":["out of camps at Suippes, Mailly and Mourmelon"]},{"role":"Projects","values":["command-post exercises, hybrid scenarios, simulation and live-fire drills"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Hamas announces live-fire military exercise in Gaza amid heightened tensions","document":"Hamas on Saturday said it would hold a pre-planned military exercise in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, as Israel boosts its forces along the border ahead of a planned mass march on Passover eve. The terror organization said explosions and sounds of gunfire were expected to be heard during the drill. The group’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, stressed that the exercise was “defensive” only. Hadashot news reported Saturday that the Israeli military was completing preparations for a planned Palestinian “day of rage” on Passover Eve this coming Friday, when thousands of Palestinians in the Strip are expected to try to storm fences marking the borders with Israel. The coming days will see a significant boost in forces situated along the Gaza border. The cabinet will focus on the expected protests during its weekly meeting Sunday. The TV report said the IDF has briefed local council heads adjacent to Gaza ahead of the anticipated tensions in the coming days. On Passover Eve, March 30, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza will mark Land Day, commemorating an Israeli decision in 1976 to expropriate land in the Galilee — a move that sparked widespread riots that resulted in the death of six Arab Israeli citizens. Palestinian groups are planning a “Mass March of Return,” which they hope will see tens of thousands of participants surging toward border fences. The military is said to be seeking to strike a balance between preventing anyone from breaching the fences while also averting fatalities, to prevent escalation. Tensions between Israel and terror groups in the Palestinian enclave have risen in recent weeks after a number of bombs exploded near IDF patrols along the border, sparking reprisal attacks. Last Sunday Israel destroyed two tunnels in Gaza. Hamas claimed Israel had merely struck an old tunnel that hadn’t been used for years. According to IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus, the cross-border passage destroyed Sunday was an “old tunnel” that was built before the 2014 Gaza war and partially destroyed during the conflict. He said Hamas was trying to “revive” the passage by connecting an intact portion that penetrated Israeli territory to a new tunnel. The other target, which was destroyed by Israeli fighter jets around midnight on Saturday, was a “subterranean complex” in the central Gaza Strip, according to Conricus. Earlier Sunday, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum responded to the IDF strikes in Gaza by blaming Israel for the escalation of tensions. “If the Israeli enemy thinks this escalation will break the will of the Palestinian people and achieve its goals, it is deluding itself and misunderstanding our people’s nature.” Additionally, he said, Israel would “bear the consequences for the continued escalation and loss of life.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the international community that its aid money to the Gaza Strip was being used by terror groups to build tunnels for attacking Israel. “It is time for the international community to recognize that the Gaza aid money is being buried underground,” he added, addressing recent attempts at the UN to raise funds for Gaza, which is facing a severe humanitarian crisis. The comment came as donor countries and others have worked to raise money for the beleaguered Strip, which UN officials say is facing a crippling shortage of clean water among other ills. “Our policy is to take determined action against any attempt to harm us and to systematically eliminate the terror tunnel infrastructure, and we shall continue to do so,” Netanyahu said. Since October 30, Israel has destroyed four border-crossing tunnels that entered Israeli territory from Gaza, three of them belonging to Hamas and the fourth to the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. In addition, several tunnels  located inside the coastal enclave have also been targeted using a newly developed system that allows Israel to hit them from the air. Israeli officials have for years warned that Hamas and other groups were trying to rebuild the tunnel infrastructure, which were used extensively during the 2014 war in attacks on soldiers. Israelis fear the tunnels could be used to carry out attacks on communities or army posts near the border. Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report. Here’s a Hanukkah gift that sparks knowledge and insight about Israel and the Jewish people. A Times of Israel Community gift membership entitles your recipient to one full year of membership benefits, at a special discounted price. We’re really pleased that you’ve read  X Times of Israel articles in the past month. That’s why we come to work every day - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["a planned mass march"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Gaza Strip"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"405th AFSB to establish facilities for 4,200 more Afghan evacuees in Germany, Kosovo","document":"KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Evacuees from Afghanistan began arriving in Kaiserslautern this week as part of Operation Allies Refuge. Initially, the Deployment Processing Center at Rhine Ordnance Barracks here – configured to accommodate just over 2,200 people – was activated to support the arriving Afghan evacuees, but thanks to the 405th Army Field Support Brigade’s contracting capabilities as part of its Logistics Civil Augmentation Program-Europe, ROB’s capability will increase by 3,000 more in the next few days to a total of more than 5,200. Additionally, LOGCAP-Europe has issued a contract to support 1,200 more individuals at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, at part of Operation Allies Refuge, which is also scheduled to be fully operational in the next few days. The 405th AFSB LOGCAP contracts will provide fest tents, containerized shower systems, containerized latrine systems, a laundry capability for individuals and for linens, a full-service dining capability, cots and everything else life support related, said Michael Johnson, LOGCAP-Europe senior planner for the 405th AFSB. Johnson said this no notice mission, from concept to execution, was completed in record time. “I’ve seen LOGCAP in the past operate super-fast,” said Johnson. “In weeks, we’ve supported exercises. In just 10 days, we supported a regionally aligned forces rotation of a thousand Soldiers, but what happened with Operation Allies Refuge – we were able to receive notice on Friday they might need something. By Saturday night we issued the contract to increase capacity by an additional 3,000. In four days, we had equipment arriving on site and in an additional four days, the site will be fully operational.” Although this is one of the first no notice requirements for LOGCAP, Johnson said all the exercises and training up until now – the Defender Europe, Saber Guardian and Saber Strike exercises – have definitely prepared the 405th AFSB for this. “I think the most amazing thing about this operation as a whole is – pretty much every military member I’ve talked to who has done a deployment to Afghanistan has had some sort of positive experience with the Afghan population,” said Johnson. “So I think the entire military community has made it a priority to make this happen. Because of that – from the senior leadership all the way down to the individuals on the ground – every single person is motivated. I think that is the number one reason this is happening so quickly and so efficiently.” The process was flattened as much as possible, and everything that is required to be done to get the contractor on the ground to execute has happened, said Johnson. Johnson said the 405th AFSB has also been tasked to increase capability at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, to support 1,200 more personnel – to include beds, tents, latrines, showers, food service and all life support needs. “The contractors are mobilizing now and are expecting to have the first 600 beds ready either tonight or tomorrow. The next 600 will be available about three days after that, and by the end of the week we’re going to have the capacity in place to support 1,200 individuals down at Camp Bondsteel,” Johnson said. Operation Allies Refuge is facilitating the quick, safe evacuation of U.S. citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan. This initiative follows through on America’s commitment to Afghan citizens who have helped the United States, and provides them essential support at secure locations, where they and their families can complete the SIV process safely. The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and under the operational control of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The brigade is headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. Forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging the U.S. Army Materiel Command materiel enterprise to support joint forces. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Operation Allies Refuge"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["The 405th AFSB"]},{"role":"Date","values":["this week"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Kaiserslautern"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ukraine to hold land military drills with US, Poland, Lithuania","document":"U.S. marines take part in a military exercises near Kherson, as Ukraine and the United States stage land military exercises involving more than 30 countries as part of multinational Sea Breeze 2021 drills, in southern Ukraine, July 2, 2021.  REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo KYIV, July 5 (Reuters) - Ukraine, the United States, Poland and Lithuania will hold a large military exercise in the western part of Ukraine later in July, the Ukrainian military said on Monday, the second round of war games involving Kyiv and foreign partners in a month. The drill, Three Swords-2021, will involve more 1,200 servicemen and more than 200 combat vehicles and will last from 17 to 30 July at Yavoriv training ground in Lviv region. \"Three Swords-2021 create favourable conditions for the development and effective coordination of units of partner states, in order to improve the quality and increase the level of combat capabilities,\" the military said in a statement. Last week, Ukraine and the United States started a military exercise, Sea Breeze, involving more than 30 countries in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine, despite Russian calls to cancel the drills.  read more Sea Breeze 2021 follows a rise in tensions between NATO and Moscow, which said last month it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea. Relations between Kyiv and Moscow plummeted after Russia seized Crimea and over Russia's support for a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has said it had urged NATO to speed up Ukraine's entry through a Membership Action Plan and welcomed the Alliance statement confirming Ukraine's eventual entry into the military alliance.  ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Ukraine, the United States, Poland and Lithuania","Ukraine and the United States"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["improve the quality and increase the level of combat capabilities"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["more than 200 combat vehicles"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Sea Breeze","Three Swords-2021","Sea Breeze 2021"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["more 1,200"]},{"role":"Army","values":["U.S. marines"]},{"role":"Date","values":["later in July","from 17 to 30 July","Last week"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the western part of Ukraine","the Black Sea and southern Ukraine","southern Ukraine","near Kherson","Yavoriv training ground in Lviv region"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"China Aghast Over Recent US Led Naval Exercise In Indo-Pacific Region","document":" Terming recent US-led multinational Quad joint naval exercises in the Indo-Pacific region as ‘forming gangs’, China on Thursday said ‘instigating confrontation will only lead to tension’. “Practicing unilateralism and instigating confrontation will only lead to tension, instead of bringing about so-called \"freedom and openness\", Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defence, told an online media briefing while commenting on the recent US-led multinational joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region as well as Malabar naval exercise by Quad countries - India, the US, Australia and Japan. The US military recently held the Large-Scale Exercise (LSE) 2021 with the UK, Australia and Japan with the aim to strengthen the rules-based regional order and maintain a \"free and open Indo-Pacific\". The Malabar naval exercise are scheduled to be held from August 26 to 29 off the coast of Guam amid mounting global concerns over China's growing military muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific region. Tan said that the US, for some time, by perceiving some other countries as its imaginary enemies, “organised large-scale military exercises, formed gangs in relevant waters and showed off its military strength”, the Chinese military’s official website, chinamil.com.cn, reported. Such movements of the US have severely undermined regional peace and stability and run counter to the common aspiration of countries in the region to pursue peace, cooperation and development, Tan said. Some analysts say that the exercises mainly target China with increasingly intensified maritime activities, the report said. Tan said China always holds that international military exchanges and cooperation should be conducive to safeguarding regional peace and stability and enhancing mutual understanding and trust, rather than targeting or undermining the interests of any third party. China will continue to adhere to the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and is willing to work with the countries in this region to deepen security cooperation, jointly cope with threats and challenges and make the Asia-Pacific region a stable plate in the global framework, Tan added.(With PTI inputs) Tired of the unceasing, ungainly internet entertainment updates? Walk dazzling lanes and by lanes with Outlook. The right tech that defines you. Your aspirations. Your styles. Right in time. Stay on top of the market moves. Analysis and information for you to take smart decisions. Know what's behind the apparent and what doesn't show. Your journey into the myriad shades of truth with Outlook. Money market essentials, analysis and data delivered to your mailbox with precision timing. ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["India, the US, Australia and Japan","UK, Australia and Japan"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["to strengthen the rules-based regional order and maintain a \"free and open Indo-Pacific\""]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["Malabar","Large-Scale Exercise (LSE) 2021"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["The US military"]},{"role":"Date","values":["from August 26 to 29"]},{"role":"Location","values":["off the coast of Guam"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"US-led war games underway in Morocco near disputed W.Sahara","document":"US-led forces are carrying out war games near the disputed region of Western Sahara, in exercises jointly organised with Morocco and touted by US Africa Command as its largest. More than 7,000 personnel from nine countries and NATO are taking part in the exercises codenamed \"African Lion\", which kicked off on June 8, according to US Africa Command (Africom). The manoeuvres, due to conclude on Friday, have seen rockets fired near Western Sahara, navy boats patrol off the coast of Spain's Canary Islands and air forces conduct training exercises. \"African Lion is US Africa Command's largest exercise,\" Africom said on its website, adding \"the training is focused on enhancing readiness for US and partner nation forces.\" Moroccan Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani said in a tweet ahead of the exercises that the event \"marks the consecration of American recognition of the Moroccan Sahara\". But the US take on the exercises differed. \"Exercise locations are spread mainly across Morocco, from Kenitra Air Base in the north to Tan Tan and Guerir Labouhi training complex in the south,\" Africom said in a statement. In the past days, AFP correspondents have seen exercises, including parachute jump training and rocket fire, taking place in the desert on the edges of Western Sahara. The manoeuvres were staged some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Algerian desert town of Tindouf, where the separatist Polisario Front has a base. Morocco laid claim to Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony with rich phosphate resources and offshore fisheries, after Spain withdrew in 1975. The Polisario Front took up arms to demand independence, proclaiming the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976 and fighting a 16-year war with Morocco. Morocco now controls 80 percent of the territory, while the rest is held by the Polisario Front. Rabat has offered Western Sahara autonomy, but maintains that the territory is a sovereign part of the kingdom. Former US president Donald Trump recognised Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara last year after Rabat normalised ties with Israel, sparking an angry response from the Polisario. Morocco's armed forces, which usually keep a low profile, have praised the \"perfect conditions\" under which the joint exercises are taking place. And in recent days pictures, videos and statements have been posted on the unofficial Facebook page of the Far-Maroc (armed forces) of the military games. In one video, US Major General Michael J. Turley is heard saying that Morocco has \"one of the most modern armies and air forces and navies within the world.\" Countries taking part in the exercises include Tunisia and Senegal, as well as Britain and Italy.  The material girl was really feeling herself in her latest photoshoot. Six other students who watched \"Squid Game\" were sentenced to hard labor and their teachers may be sent to remote mines, Radio Free Asia reported.  The conspiracy theory-loving Colorado Republican tweeted a weird brag about PCR tests, going maskless and soy replacement meat. John Schneider starred in \"Dukes of Hazzard\" as Bo Duke alongside Tom Wopat and Catherine Bach. Just before Maggie Gyllenhaal told her husband to get into bed with a beautiful and talented woman 13 years her junior, she found herself wondering if it was such a good idea.  The reaction to this incident is more interesting than the ejection itself. UPDATED with WHO news: The U.K. added six African countries to its travel quarantine list on Thursday after a new, potentially more-transmissible variant of Covid-19 was identified there. The BBC said the countries are South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini. Twenty-two positive cases of the variant, which is being called B.1.1.529, have been […] Princess Victoria, Queen Letizia and more dipped into the royal jewelry vaults for a visit 40 years in the making  Brooke Shields donned a red swimsuit for a new holiday tradition Critics pointed out the irony of the ex-president's son posting the doctored \"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation\" scene. SAN ANTONIO — Raymond Hernandez was a boy when his grandfather would take him on walks to the Alamo, pointing at the grounds around the Spanish mission founded in the 18th century. “He’d tell me again and again, ‘They built all this on top of our campo santo,’ ” said Hernandez, 73, using the Spanish term for cemetery. An elder in San Antonio’s Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan Nation, he added, “All the tourists flocking to the Alamo are standing on the bones of our ancestors.” On a busy day, thousands of  Anyone who’s a serious fan of Sonic, or of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, is probably aware of the 1993 event in which a Sonic the Hedgehog float became caught in high winds, struck a lamppost and injured two people. The thing is, despite knowing this happened, we didn’t have any surviving video of the incident. 'I think it is pathetic to isolate a family member for those reasons, but that is a choice they have made.' A Colorado judge affixes a price to spreading the former president's 'Big Lie.'  The Cowboys set a record with 166 penalty yards Thursday in the overtime loss to the Raiders. The previous record was the 161 they had against Washington in 1970. The 28 total penalties — 14 on each team — called by referee Shawn Hochuli’s crew were the most ever in a Cowboys game. “Twenty-eight penalties,” [more] Rivals Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka will go head-to-head in The Match V. Heres info on the start time, TV channel, betting odds and more.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Morocco","Tunisia and Senegal, as well as Britain and Italy"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["rockets","navy boats"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["\"African Lion\""]},{"role":"Scale","values":["More than 7,000"]},{"role":"Army","values":["air forces","US-led forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["June 8"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the desert on the edges of Western Sahara","near the disputed region of Western Sahara"]},{"role":"Projects","values":["parachute jump training and rocket fire"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"AFRICOM cancels annual ‘African Lion’ military exercises","document":"The United States says it has decided to cancel an annual military exercise held in partnership with African nations, out of concerns stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement was made Monday by the U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM said the decision was taken in careful consideration and coordination with African partner nations. This year’s exercise was set to begin on March 23 and run through April 4. Partner nations included Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal, with Spain included in the original plans. Nearly 5,000 personnel also were to come from Egypt and Mauritania, seven European nations alongside Spain, including some hit hard by the virus, and Canada and Australia. Morocco was set to host a medical readiness exercise, with a large-scale live-fire exercise in addition to air, maritime and forward command post training exercises. It was to be the largest African Lion exercise held by AFRICOM to date. “Out of an abundance of caution, the decision to cancel the exercise was made based on international travel restrictions associated with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and to minimize the risk of exposure to U.S. and partner nation service members,” the statement said. AFRICOM said last week that African Lion would be scaled back to protect against COVID-19, but continued to evaluate the situation. “While African Lion 2020 has been canceled, planning continues for 2021,” said AFRICOM. “U.S. Africa Command continues to work with international allies and African partners to enhance stability and security on the continent.” Image: AFRICOM file Rwanda becomes 15th nation in U.S. AFRICOM program13 December 2019In \"SECURITY\" AFRICOM welcomes new command as Waldhauser set to retire29 July 2019In \"SECURITY\" Report: U.S. concerned about broader Russian influence in Africa14 August 2019In \"SECURITY\" The British government is urging its citizens to leave Ethiopia immediately, because of conflict that… Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the twin bomb blasts that killed four people in… In Togo, President Faure Gnassingbé said Monday that the country’s security remained a top priority,… The United States announced new financial sanctions on Friday in connection with the ongoing conflict… Ethiopia’s government says a United Nations report on the year-old conflict centered in the Tigray… ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Morocco","Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal"]},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["African Lion"]},{"role":"Scale","values":["Nearly 5,000"]},{"role":"Army","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["begin on March 23 and run through April 4"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":["a large-scale live-fire exercise","air, maritime and forward command post training exercises"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Japan, US, France joint military drills set for Kyushu in May","document":"TOKYO -- Japan's defense minister, Nobuo Kishi, announced at a news conference on Friday that Japan, the U.S. and France will conduct joint military drills on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu in May. Japan Ground Self-Defense Force troops, U.S. Marines, and French Army troops will participate. The drills aim to bolster their ability to conduct joint operations to defend remote islands. With China's increasingly frequent maritime forays in the East China Sea in mind, particularly around the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing, Japan hopes to improve its ability to work with allies in defense. The drills will be held from May 11 to 17 at Camp Ainoura, in Nagasaki Prefecture, where the GSDF's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, a unit specializing in the defense of remote islands, is stationed. Exercises will also be held at the Kirishima Training Ground, in Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures, and in the sea and airspace west of Kyushu. According to the GSDF, this will be the first time for Japanese, U.S. and French troops to conduct joint field exercises in Japan. France, which has territories in the Pacific Ocean, has been increasing its training in the Indo-Pacific this year, strengthening its cooperation with Japan and the U.S. This month, India took part for the first time in \"La Perouse,\" a French-led joint maritime exercise with the Maritime Self-Defense Force, the U.S., and Australia in the Bay of Bengal. \"France is a comrade in our Indo-Pacific vision. We want to improve our tactical skills in island defense,\" Kishi stressed at the news conference. The SDF has been strengthening its ties with European nations. The British Royal Navy will dispatch the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to Asia later this spring. And Germany is sending a frigate to Asia. It is also coordinating exercises to take advantage of port calls.         ","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Japan, the U.S. and France","France","India","the U.S., and Australia"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["bolster their ability to conduct joint operations to defend remote islands"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["\"La Perouse"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["Japan Ground Self-Defense Force troops, U.S. Marines, and French Army troops"]},{"role":"Date","values":["May","This month"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the sea and airspace west of Kyushu","the southern Japanese island of Kyushu","Camp Ainoura, in Nagasaki Prefecture","the Kirishima Training Ground","Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Egypt, Russia begin anti-terrorism military drill","document":"Egypt and Russia on Monday launched a joint military exercise to combat terrorism, according to the Egyptian military. The “Defenders of Friendship-3” drill includes members of parachute units from both countries, military spokesman Col. Tamer Rifai said in a statement. The military exercise, which will continue until Oct. 26, is being held at the Mohamed Najib military base in northwestern Egypt. The drill aims to “exchange training experiences of special units..., and combat training for special and counter-terrorism forces according to the latest training systems,\" the statement said. The exercise comes as Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi began a three-day visit to Russia on Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.  A similar military training was held between Russian and Egyptian forces in the southwestern city of Novorossiysk last year.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":["Egypt and Russia"]},{"role":"Goal","values":["combat terrorism","“exchange training experiences of special units..., and combat training for special and counter-terrorism forces according to the latest training systems,"]},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":null},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":["“Defenders of Friendship-3”"]},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["Russian and Egyptian forces"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday","Oct. 26","last year"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Mohamed Najib military base in northwestern Egypt","southwestern city of Novorossiysk"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Joint U.S.-Britain military exercises integrate F-35B, F-35C fighter jets","document":"Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Aircrafts from the U.S. Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and Britain's U.K. Carrier Strike Group 21 have conducted joint military exercises for the first time, the U.S. Navy announced. The two strike groups completed the joint interoperability flights in the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet on Aug. 26. During the flights, the aircraft conducted missions intended to validate joint integration techniques and procedures, such as mid-air refueling. The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group was embarked with aircrafts from the Carrier Air Wing Two that included four F-35C Lightning IIs, five F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, two EA-18G Growlers and one E-2D Advanced Hawkeye. The U.K. Carrier Strike Group 21 aircraft included a total of four F-35Bs from two different squadrons. \"Integrating British and U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs into a flight with U.S. Navy F-35Cs continues to reinforce the tactical flexibility and interoperability of the F-35,\" Col. Simon Doran, U.S. senior national representative to the U.K. Carrier Strike Group, said Wednesday in a press release. \"Additionally, the mission further demonstrates the F-35s ability to support distributed maritime operations,\" Doran said. Capt. Tommy Locke, commander of the Carrier Air Wing Two, said in a statement that the exercises combined the fight generation capabilities of a joint strike fighter aircraft from two services and a partner nation with the capabilities of the entire air wing. He said the exercise demonstrated the value of having agile fifth-generation maritime power in the Indo-Pacific region. The training was also the first time the U.K. Carrier Strike Group 21 engaged with the F-35 \"C\" model assigned to Carrier Air Wing Two. Previously, Britain's two F-35B squadrons had been deployed together with the HMS Queen Elizabeth.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["Col. Simon Doran, U.S. senior national representative to the U.K. Carrier Strike Group","Capt. Tommy Locke, commander of the Carrier Air Wing Two"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["four F-35C Lightning IIs, five F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, two EA-18G Growlers and one E-2D Advanced Hawkeye","four F-35Bs"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":null},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["U.S. Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and Britain's U.K. Carrier Strike Group 21"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":["validate joint integration techniques and procedures, such as mid-air refueling"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"The Russian military has been practicing taking out an enemy carrier strike group in the Pacific","document":"            The Russian military has been training to destroy a carrier strike group in the Pacific, the Russian Ministry of Defense said this week, shedding light on recent drills. Roughly two dozen Russian combat ships, submarines and support vessels, together with as many aviation assets, recently conducted a major exercise in which Russian forces conducted a simulated attack on an enemy carrier strike group. Russian forces divided into two teams about 300 miles apart, with one playing the role of the enemy. The defense ministry did not identify any specific adversary. The opposing military force, consisting of the cruiser Varyag, destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, and two smaller corvettes, carried out a simulated conventional missile strike on the mock enemy. The attack also involved air assets. Russia said its forces \"worked out the tasks of detecting, countering and delivering missile strikes against an aircraft carrier strike group of a mock enemy.\" Russia said that the exercise took place around 2,500 miles southeast of the Kuril islands. Media reports on the exercises put the drills within several hundred miles of Hawaii, though US Indo-Pacific Command told The Drive that some Russian ships came a lot closer, in some cases within 20 to 30 nautical miles. The Russian Ministry of Defense statement on the exercise does not say when it occurred, but, as Military.com noticed, a Russian state media article announced on June 13 that a force of the same size and involving the same ships started training in the Pacific. On June 17, just a few days after the Russian drills in the Pacific began, the US Navy announced that Carrier Strike Group One led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was active in the Hawaiian Islands Operating Area. US defense officials recently told CBS News that while the Vinson's activities were planned, they were moved closer to Hawaii in response to the Russian exercises. The US also scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian bombers during this time, according to ABC News. Insider contacted Third Fleet for comment on the Vinson's activities but has not yet received a response. Vice Adm. Steve Koehler, the commander of US Third Fleet, said in a statement last week that \"operating in Hawaii provides unique opportunities for Vinson to train jointly while positioned to respond if called.\" The admiral added that \"they train to a variety of missions, from long range strikes to anti-submarine warfare, and can move anywhere on the globe on short notice.\" US carrier strike groups, which consist of not just a carrier and its air wing but also other surface combatants, bring tremendous firepower to a fight and have been critical components of America's power projection capabilities for decades, at times making them a focus for US rivals. The recent Russian military exercises follow an episode in late January in which a large force of Chinese military aircraft, including fighters and bombers, conducted a simulated missile attack on an American carrier strike group in the South China Sea. Though the Chinese aircraft remained more than 250 nautical miles from the carrier group and \"at no time\" posed a threat to it, INDOPACOM characterized China's actions as \"the latest in a string of aggressive and destabilizing actions.\" The command said China's \"actions reflect a continued [People's Liberation Army] attempt to use its military as a tool to intimidate or coerce those operating in international waters and airspace.\"","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":null},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["Roughly two dozen Russian combat ships, submarines and support vessels","aviation assets"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":null},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["The Russian military"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Russian Navy kicks off large-scale drills in Pacific","document":"MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. The Russian Pacific Fleet has kicked off large-scale drills in the central part of the Pacific Ocean, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday. \"In accordance with the plan of training military command centers of the Pacific Fleet’s forces (troops) in 2021, an operational exercise of the Fleet’s combined arms forces is running in the distant maritime zone,\" the ministry said in a statement. The Pacific Fleet’s \"naval tactical groups have made a transit about 4,000 km long from naval bases and combat watch areas and deployed the Fleet’s groups in the designated area of the Pacific for accomplishing training tasks,\" the statement says. The exercise in the distant maritime zone involves up to 20 surface combatants, submarines and support vessels, including the Fleet’s flagship, the Guards Order of Nakhimov Missile Cruiser Varyag, the ministry said. The large-scale naval maneuvers in the Pacific also involve the large anti-submarine warfare ship Admiral Panteleyev outfitted with guided missile weapons, the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, the corvettes Gromky, Sovershenniy and Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov, the measuring ship Marshal Krylov and also logistics support vessels, the statement says. The exercise also involves about 20 aircraft, including Tu-142M3 long-range anti-submarine warfare planes, MiG-31BM high-altitude interceptor-fighters and other aircraft of Russia’s Aerospace Force, the ministry specified. The forces engaged in the naval maneuvers \"are practicing the tasks of exercising command and control of a combined arms group at a considerable distance from naval bases in protecting and defending sea (oceanic) lanes and interoperability of the operational taskforce of warships and aircraft in searching for and tracking a notional enemy’s submarines and naval groups,\" the statement says. The exercise is running under the direction of Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Sergei Avakyants, the ministry said.","event_type":"Military Excercise","arguments":[{"role":"Participating Countries","values":null},{"role":"Goal","values":null},{"role":"Commanders and their Position","values":["Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Sergei Avakyants"]},{"role":"Weapon and Equippment","values":["up to 20 surface combatants, submarines and support vessels","Tu-142M3 long-range anti-submarine warfare planes, MiG-31BM high-altitude interceptor-fighters and other aircraft","the Fleet’s flagship, the Guards Order of Nakhimov Missile Cruiser Varyag","warfare ship Admiral Panteleyev","the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, the corvettes Gromky, Sovershenniy","Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov","the measuring ship Marshal Krylov"]},{"role":"Military Exercise","values":null},{"role":"Scale","values":null},{"role":"Army","values":["The Russian Pacific Fleet"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the central part of the Pacific Ocean"]},{"role":"Projects","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Grandmother jailed after not answering her phone during class is ordered released from prison sentence","document":"A 76-year-old woman who was taken back into custody last month after not answering calls during a computer class from officials was ordered released Tuesday. After serving 16 years in federal facilities for dealing heroin, Gwen Levi moved to Baltimore to live with her 94-year-old mother, build relationships with her sons and grandchildren, and volunteer at prisoner-advocacy organizations as she searched for a job. She was one of about 4,500 prisoners allowed to serve their sentences at home as the coronavirus swept through federal prisons, killing 240 prisoners and four Federal Bureau of Prisons staff members. Her release, however, was revoked after she attended a computer word-processing class in Baltimore on June 12 and didn’t return calls from officials monitoring her. A grandmother didn’t answer her phone during a class. She was sent back to prison. Out of contact for more than four hours, according to a Federal Bureau of Prisons report, Levi was accused of “escape” and sent to the D.C. jail to await transfer back to the federal system. Her case drew attention after reports on former inmates who might have to go back to prison when the pandemic ends. On Tuesday, court documents showed, a federal judge granted Levi compassionate release, reducing her sentence to time served. Levi’s request for release was filed before she was sent home last year. Judge Deborah K. Chasanow, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, wrote that Levi “has done well on home confinement, the current question of the missed call notwithstanding.” “Because of her release to home confinement, the most pressing initial concerns (COVID, age, and health) were addressed,” the opinion said. “The court concludes that it would do little (if anything) to serve the goals of sentencing to require her to return to full custody.” Levi, due to be released Tuesday evening, was not immediately available to comment. In an email, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley referred questions about Levi to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In a tweet after Levi’s re-incarceration was reported late last month, he said that “inmates who have had their transfer to home confinement revoked based on a violation may appeal that decision through the Administrative Remedy Program based on the particular circumstances of their case.” Levi’s attorney, Sapna Mirchandani of Maryland’s Office of the Federal Public Defender, said Levi elected to ask for a ruling on a long-pending motion for sentence reduction rather than pursue the appeal. “If Gwen stayed in the BOP’s custody, we would go the ‘administrative remedy’ route, which is a painfully long bureaucratic maze that, in my experience, is a waste of time,” she said. “The BOP always backs up what the BOP does.” Mirchandani said Levi will have to report to a probation officer for five years, but the terms of her release will be less restrictive. She also will be able to ask for early termination of supervision after one year. Kristie A. Breshears, spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, declined to comment on Levi’s case. The Justice Department had opposed Levi’s motion for compassionate release, according to Chasanow’s opinion, noting a “criminal history that includes prior felony drug-trafficking and firearms convictions.” “It did, however, acknowledge that she likely does not pose a significant danger to the community,” the opinion said. Levi’s release comes as prisoner-rights advocates press President Biden’s administration to prevent inmates sent home during the pandemic from being returned to prison. They are asking for a change in policy established in the final days of Trump’s presidency. On Jan. 15, a binding Justice Department memo called for nearly all people sent home because of the pandemic to return to prison when the public health emergency ends. The White House and the Justice Department have not said whether they plan to rescind the memo. Breshears said 190 inmates sent to home confinement because of the pandemic have been returned to secure custody — 185 for alleged violations, five for alleged new crimes. Kevin Ring, president of nonprofit prisoner advocacy organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said in a statement Tuesday that the bureau’s decision to send Levi back to prison was “shameful.” “She deserves to be home,” he said. The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["16 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["A 76-year-old woman"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":["coronavirus"]},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["dealing heroin"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Joy and scepticism as Myanmar frees hundreds held since coup","document":"Families wait outside Insein prison after Myanmar's authorities announced to free around 700 prisoners in Yangon, Myanmar June 30, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer June 30 (Reuters) - Myanmar freed more than 2,000 detainees on Wednesday, among them journalists and others who the ruling military said had been held on incitement charges for taking part in protests, local media reported. The release was described by some activists as a ploy by the ruling military to divert attention from an ongoing security crackdown. The army has been under pressure from Western countries and Myanmar's neighbours to release thousands of people detained during protests since it ousted the elected government of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1. Many of the military's opponents have been held, some convicted, under a law that criminalises comments that could cause fear or spread false news and is punishable by up to three years in jail. Suu Kyi is on trial for a similar offence, among others, and remains in detention. Military spokesman Zaw Min Tun said most of those freed had been charged with incitement for joining protests. \"A total of 2,296 people have been released. They took part in protests but not in leading roles. They didn't participate in violent acts,\" he told Irrawaddy new site. Reuters could not reach Zaw Min Tun for further comment. Videos posted on social media showed a stream of mostly young detainees pouring off buses from Yangon's colonial-era Insein prison, smiling, waving and embracing family members who wept as they arrived. Others showed a succession of buses leaving the rear entrance of the jail, with passengers leaning from windows and waving at small crowds that gathered outside. The military has struggled to impose order since it took power, with daily protests nationwide and paralysing strikes. Ethnic insurgencies that beset Myanmar for decades have flared anew and civilians angered by a wave of arrests have taken up arms against security forces. Insein prison chief Zaw Zaw had earlier told Reuters that some 700 people would be released, without giving a reason. He did not respond to subsequent calls seeking comment. The news portal Myanmar Now said its reporter Kay Zon Nway was freed after 124 days charged with incitement. \"Like many other political detainees, she was unfairly arrested. She has suffered a lot in prison. But today, I'm glad to see her again in great spirits,\" Swe Win, Myanmar Now's editor-in-chief said in a text message. The Irrawaddy said six journalists were freed altogether. State-run MRTV made no mention of the release in its nightly newscast. Western countries have demanded political prisoners be freed and condemned the military takeover. Myanmar's neighbours in April sought a commitment from its military rulers to initiate dialogue, end the violence and release detainees. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a non-profit based in Thailand, said the mass release was engineered to give the impression the military's sweeping crackdown had eased. \"Today's events intend to make it seem like there has been a relaxation in the junta's oppression. This is not the case,\" it said in a statement. More than 5,200 people are being held, according to AAPP. It also says 883 people have been killed - a figure challenged by the military leadership, which has blamed the unrest on \"terrorists\" among supporters of Suu Kyi's party. Reuters has been unable to confirm the numbers. On Tuesday, the army-run Myawaddy television said authorities had dropped charges against 24 celebrities on wanted lists under the anti-incitement law. Salai Za Uk Ling of the Chin Human Rights Organisation, a group from Chin state, a centre of opposition to the takeover by the military, said the release was \"quite meaningless\" and intended to appease the international community. He said people were still being arrested daily in Chin state and elsewhere in Myanmar. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm his statement. \"We will face this same problem until they stop the unlawful arrests,\" he added. \"People will not feel safe in their homes.\" Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Subscribe for our daily curated newsletter to receive the latest exclusive Reuters coverage delivered to your inbox. Melbourne's pubs and cafes can have unlimited patrons from Thursday night, while stadiums can return to full capacity as authorities lifted nearly all remaining COVID-19 restrictions for the vaccinated residents in Australia's second-largest city. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. Information, analytics and exclusive news on financial markets - delivered in an intuitive desktop and mobile interface. Access to real-time, reference, and non-real time data in the cloud to power your enterprise. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["June 30, 2021","Wednesday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["around 700 prisoners"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Barry Morphew murder case file released; reveals sparring between defense, prosecutors","document":"A Colorado judge publicly released the entire case file for Barry Morphew on Monday, which details the back-and-forth between prosecutors and defense lawyers over multiple issues, months before he is scheduled to stand trial for the disappearance of his wife. Morphew appeared in court Tuesday for a pre-trial hearing where a number of issues were likely to be discussed. The hundreds of pages of court documents outline a series of motions made by Chaffee County prosecutors and defense lawyers dating back to earlier this year. Included was a list of hundreds of potential witnesses for Morphew's upcoming trial. The first two names that appear are Macy and Mallory Morphew, the daughters of Barry and Suzanne Morphew. Other names include officials with the local law enforcement, the FBI, Google, Facebook Security, and credit reporting companies. COLORADO JUDGE ALLOWS BARRY MORPHEW TO CONTINUE LIVING NEAR MARITAL HOME DESPITE GPS TRACKING ISSUES Four weeks have been set aside for the legal proceeding but defense lawyers have asked for an additional week so jurors can listen to dozens of hours of police interviews with Morphew. Morphew was arrested in May and is charged with first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body, and other crimes in connection with the presumed death of Suzanne Morphew, who disappeared on Mother's Day 2020. Her body has not been found. Morphew has maintained his innocence and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His attorneys requested limited media coverage of the case, according to the documents, which also show motions between prosecutors and the defense over DNA collected from the glove box of Suzanne Morphew's vehicle. The sample came through a database as a partial match for \"single or multiple individuals across the country involved in sexual assault cases,\" defense attorneys wrote in an August letter. They said the sample belongs to a sex offender living in Arizona. The prosecution knew about the DNA results long before they informed the defense, Morphew's lawyers argued in the court documents. Barry Morphew was released from the Chaffee County jail in September on a $500,000 bond. He was seen leaving the facility with his two daughters. In another motion, prosecutors requested a judge order Morphew to leave the residence of a couple who took him in after posting bond over concerns about him living near two potential witnesses he is not allowed to have contact with. In October, a judge ruled that he could live in an Airbnb rental home in the same neighborhood where he and his wife once resided, despite issues with his GPS monitoring reception in the area. He can continue living there as long as he reports to a nearby town so his GPS data can be downloaded. The defense has also requested limits on pre-trial publicity and possible sanctions against Linda Stanley, District Attorney for the 11th Judicial District, for giving media interviews. The defense also claimed that prosecutors have not given them access to evidence such as forensic images of Morphew's cell phone and recordings from a spy pen. Investigators said that Suzanne Morphew planned to leave her husband and allegedly texted him days before she vanished that she was \"done, let’s handle this civilly,\" according to an arrest affidavit. The affidavit said Barry Morphew refused to take a polygraph in the days after his wife vanished. He is expected to stand trial in May 2022. The suspect surrendered when deputies arrived, officials say. She waited five years to confront Tom Privett, her former high school teacher, the man who groomed and manipulated her on campus. The man who raped her over and over inside his classroom.  Police say they found the man with his pants down wearing an open jacket. New Hampshire Attorney General’s OfficeA New Hampshire mother texted a friend about her 5-year-old’s uncontrollable behavior, comparing her son to a couple of prolific serial killers. “I want him gone,” she allegedly wrote. Four months later, the child’s body was discovered in the Abington woods.The haunting messages from Danielle Dauphinais were shared with The Boston Globe by her childhood friend, Erika Wolfe. Though Wolfe said she and Dauphinais had not spoken in years, Dauphinais reached out “You have a misunderstanding, I’m afraid, of what conspiracy is,” a federal judge told white nationalists Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell.View Entire Post › Meet, Share Interests and Get Closer! Great Mature Singles are Ready to Talk Twenty-five years ago, a man feeding ducks with his nephew spotted a cardboard box wrapped in rope and duct tape floating down a Miami Lakes canal. Thinking it might be something valuable, they corralled the box, opened it and were immediately met with the smell of rotting flesh. The customer was angry hot soup had melted its plastic lid, according to the worker’s TikTok video. Mark McCloskey compared himself to Kyle Rittenhouse, saying they have both been prosecuted and were defending themselves from an “angry mob.” Language Learning Advice From An Expert It has the makings of a Hollywood thriller: A determined dad rescues his teenage daughter from an alleged Seattle sex trafficking ring and then takes brutal Baker Mayfield, Kim Kardashian West and others have shown their support for the execution of Julius Jones, an Oklahoma man, to be called off. The rawness of these past few months in Kenosha spills out onto the Kenosha County Courthouse steps as people wait for the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. The newly established sports retailer added Instagram ads to its Facebook campaigns, and attained 2.3X incremental add-to-cart events. Sunset Hills police say Christy Meier finished her shift at 7 a.m., saw her husband and went to bed. When he returned home later, he found Meier, a 14-year officer, dead. Kyle Rittenhouse's defense team filed an updated motion for mistrial with prejudice ahead of Monday's closing arguments. Stephen B. Morton/GettyTravis McMichael, the Georgia man accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery last February, took the stand on Wednesday and told jurors he only shot the 25-year-old unarmed Black man because it was a “life or death situation.”“He had my gun. It was obvious that he was attacking me and if he’d have gotten the shotgun from me, it’d be a life and death situation,” McMichael said while testifying on his own behalf in Glynn County court. McMichael, his father, Gregory, and William “Rod Streamline the way work gets done and have more time to score bigger wins. The woman was charged with child neglect, deputies said. Katherine Janness, who was fatally stabbed July 28 in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, had the letters 'F' 'A' and 'T' carved onto her chest, an autopsy report says. One night in late May, a 39-year-old Virginia Beach woman joined several friends for a night of barhopping. The woman’s son had agreed to serve as the designated driver, and waited in his vehicle in the parking lot while the woman and her friends went into their final stop of the night — Seaside Raw Bar at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The last thing the woman remembers about that evening was ... All trading carries risk. With no hidden fees and leading margin lending rates, we offer better value than you might think. Invest with Saxo. The Florence County Coroner confirmed to a local TV station that Sheridan Wahl suffered internal injuries. Her body was found at the bottom of the fire station’s training tower. The Pennsylvania gas station's sole worker at the time left a note saying, \"Closed because the people of Moon Township treat our employees horribly!\" Unlike in the trial of Kenosha vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, the Georgia judge overseeing the trial of three white men accused in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery ain’t picking up what the defense is putting down. On Monday, the lawyers for Greg and Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan for the second time tried to make an issue of Black ministers sitting in the courtroom in support of the Arbery’s family. And again, according to the New York Times, Judge Timothy Walmsley shut it down when they","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Timothy Walmsley"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":["September"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Barry Morphew"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["first-degree murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Teens charged with murdering Fairfield Spanish teacher ask to be released without bail","document":"The two 16-year-olds facing murder charges in the death of a Fairfield High School teacher have asked a judge to release them, without bail. On Tuesday, defendant Jeremy Everett Goodale, formally waived his right to a public hearing in which prosecutors would have had to show they had enough evidence for the case to move forward. Fairfield police arrested Goodale and co-defendant Willard Noble Chaiden Miller Nov. 4 after a search party found the corpse of missing, 66-year-old Spanish teacher Nohema Graber the previous day. Each teen is charged in adult court with counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit a forcible felony. More:Nohema Graber's friends, students gather for candlelight vigil at Fairfield High School In court papers Monday, Miller's attorney claimed he is indigent and asked that the cash bail amount of $1 million be removed or \"significantly reduced,\" and that he be released to the supervision of his parents.  Lawyer Christine Branstad, who acknowledged that Miller's parents have funds, said Miller would agree to wear a GPS monitoring device and to 24-hour supervision by his family.  In papers filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Miller is a risk to the community based on his \"numerous statements indicating his involvement which include his state of mind at, before, and after the commission of the crime.\" \"Any promise of home supervision is particularly insufficient since this crime occurred while the defendant was residing at home presumably under the supervision of his parents and the support of his family,\" wrote Special Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown. READ: In criminal complaints, police say social media exchanges revealed suspects’ motive to kill Iowa teacher, attempts to conceal crime Goodale's attorneys filed similar documents Tuesday in which they said he lacked the resources to post the $1 million bail and that he would appear for trial if released on his own recognizance or placed on pre-trial supervision. If prosecutors object to that request as well, each would likely be entitled to a bail review hearing before District Court Judge Joel Yates, who is presiding over the cases. Meanwhile, the preliminary evidence hearing for Miller remains scheduled for Friday, although it too could be cancelled. Such hearings are routinely waived by defendants, and in most cases prosecutors file documents detailing charges while providing sealed testimony for confidential review by the judge and defense lawyers. Prosecutors had not yet filed those formal charging papers in either case by Tuesday afternoon. More:What we know about the death of Spanish teacher Nohema Graber in Fairfield, Iowa ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Joel Yates"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Christine Branstad"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Goodale","Willard Noble Chaiden"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Corunna man's charge upgraded from second- to first-degree murder","document":"The family of a woman killed late last year experienced a range of emotions after learning the Sarnia-area man accused in her death – and already facing a second-degree murder charge – had been rearrested and charged with first-degree murder. “I screamed,” a sibling said. “Cried.” A niece of the woman, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, said the family was “surprised.” “We’re just happy that he’s back in jail,” she said. “We were really, really heartbroken that he got bail.” Shawn Trowbridge, a 51-year-old Corunna resident at the time the second-degree murder charge surfaced late last year, was granted bail on May 26. The boilermaker spent 146 days behind bars following his Dec. 31, 2020, arrest but was eventually released on bail and ordered to live with two sureties, his brother and sister-in-law, in nearby Mooretown. “Our whole family was devastated,” the niece said. But multiple sources confirmed Trowbridge, now 52, was rearrested this past Thursday – 162 days after his release – and charged with first-degree murder. Under Canadian law, first-degree murder is defined as a killing that was planned or deliberate, while second-degree murder is an intentional slaying that was not planned. A new information – the public document filed at the courthouse – is expected to replace the original information, leaving just the single, updated charge.   Lambton provincial police and the Lambton Crown attorney’s office declined to comment on what led to the more serious charge being laid nearly one year after the first. “It must be new evidence they found,” one of the family members speculated. “I don’t know how or if someone came forward. I don’t really know.” Tyler MacDonald, Trowbridge’s Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment about the new charge. Lambton OPP released few details about the alleged homicide and most of what was issued is now covered by a pair of court-ordered publication bans. The identity of the deceased is protected by one of them, which includes a ban on information “revealing the names of victims, witnesses and justice system participants, where the order is deemed necessary for the proper administration of justice.” The names of the two family members The Observer spoke with for this story can’t be published either due to this ban. The reasons for Justice John Desotti’s decision to release Trowbridge in late May, along with all evidence heard at the bail hearing, were covered by a separate publication ban under a different section of the Criminal Code. The onus was on MacDonald to argue in favour of his client’s release during the April 27 bail hearing, but Desotti deferred making a decision for about one month. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and blue mask as he sat inside a small room in the Sarnia Jail, Trowbridge showed little emotion when Desotti ordered his release over Zoom from a Sarnia courtroom. Trowbridge was released to four sureties on a combined $159,000 bail. The couple he temporarily lived with pledged $50,000 while another brother put up $100,000 and a friend agreed to offer $9,000. It was without deposit, though, meaning they didn’t have to fork over any money unless Trowbridge was caught breaking the terms of his release. Those included strict house arrest, electronic monitoring, and rules about staying away from weapons, alcohol and 15 people. He also couldn’t discuss the case with four other people. Trowbridge’s sureties still likely won’t have to pay the money they pledged, as his latest arrest and the new charge aren’t considered a breach of the terms of his release and it’s not a new incident, one source said. Trowbridge is scheduled to appear Friday by video from the jail in front of a justice of the peace. A bail hearing would once again have to be held in Superior Court in front of a judge due to the type of charge laid. In the meantime, a preliminary hearing has also been scheduled for Nov. 22 to Nov. 26. Judicial pre-trials and focusing hearings have been held in previous months. The incident took place during a run of homicide investigations by Sarnia police and/or Lambton OPP that led to 10 second- or first-degree murder charges between March 2020 and January 2021. An 11th charge was laid this past summer linked to one of those cases. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["May 26"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Tyler MacDonald"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["Dec. 31, 2020"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Shawn Trowbridge"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":["Sarnia"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["second-degree murder charge"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Houston teenager charged with 3 counts of murder released from jail, permitted to attend school","document":"       The teenage immigrant in Houston who was charged with murder and aggravated assault in a car crash that killed three valet drivers has made bail.  Ahmedal Tayeb Elnouman Modawi, who is originally from Sudan and not a U.S. citizen, was charged with three counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury following the Oct. 1 crash, Click 2 Houston reported.  ABANDONED HOUSTON CHILDREN FOUND LIVING WITH SKELETAL REMAINS OF 9-YEAR-OLD BROTHER: POLICE The 17-year-old made bail this weekend and is required to wear an ankle monitor under house arrest until his next court hearing on Dec. 15. He will be permitted to attend school and church during that time.        Ahmedaltayeb Elnouman Modawi (Houston Police)       (Houston Police) Modawi’s bond was originally set at at $350,000, which included $100,000 for each murder count. A judge later reduced the bond to $220,000 - $60,000 for each murder count, plus $40,000 for the aggravated assault. HOUSTON AQUARIUM SLAYING WAS LATEST KILLING BY A DEFENDANT OUT ON BOND: REPORTS Modawi, who also worked as a valet, was reportedly doing doughnuts in a parking lot on the evening of Oct. 1 in a client’s car. A police officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop, but Modawi took off.  The car then hit three valets, 22-year-old Eric Orduna, 23-year-old Nick Rodriguez and 18-year-old Fnan Measho, before flipping and crashing into a fence. The men were declared dead at the scene.  Modawi and a passenger in his car also sustained injuries.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["this weekend"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Ahmedal Tayeb Elnouman Modawi"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["three counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Polk deputies nab killer, released early from prison, wanted for new murder in New Jersey","document":"Courtesy: Polk County Sheriff's Office WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - Deputies in Polk County say they tracked down a convicted killer from New Jersey who was wanted for a new murder in September. Prosecutors in New Jersey say James Lewis fatally shot a man back on September 18 during a carjacking in the community of East Orange. They say he tied up the victim’s girlfriend and stole the vehicle with her in it, before crashing a short time later. He was on the run until deputies caught up with him in Winter Haven on Tuesday. The 51-year-old was arrested at a home on Kinghill Court SE, where deputies say they also found evidence linked to the New Jersey crime scene. Lewis was previously convicted of homicide, robbery and possession of a weapon in a 1989 case. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but Sheriff Grady Judd pointed out that Lewis only served 30 years in combined jail and prison time. \"He spent only 30 years in prison when he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for homicide, robbery, and possession of a weapon. In less than two years of being released early, he murdered again,\" Judd said. \"The reason we have prisons is to keep violent and repeat criminals away from victims and innocent people in the community.\"","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["40 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["1989"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Lewis"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["homicide, robbery and possession of a weapon"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Man Sentenced for Murder as Teen, Then Released, Back in Prison for Stabbing","document":"A man previously sentenced to a state prison term as a juvenile for murder, then released last year due to changes to state law regarding juvenile defendants, has been sentenced to six years in state prison for robbing and stabbing a stranger in El Cajon earlier this year. Dejon Satterwhite, 32, was previously convicted of murder and attempted murder for a trio of gang-related shootings committed in 2004, when Satterwhite was a teenager, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. Two people were killed and three others were wounded in the shootings. Satterwhite and two others were convicted and he was sentenced to 196 years to life in state prison. He was released from prison last fall and then arrested about six months later for the robbery and stabbing, which prosecutors say happened on March 11.         According to the DA’s Office, changes to state law that led to Satterwhite’s release included the passage of Proposition 57, which requires transfer hearings for juvenile defendants 14 or older to determine if their case should be transferred to adult court, and SB 1391, which bars defendants under 16 from being tried as adults or receiving transfer hearings. Since Satterwhite was 15 at the time of the murders, his convictions were converted into juvenile convictions. In the El Cajon case, prosecutors allege Satterwhite asked the victim for money and offered to share drugs with him. When the victim produced a wad of cash from his sock, Satterwhite snatched the roll and ran, and the victim gave chase. When the man caught up with Satterwhite, the defendant stabbed him, causing the victim to suffer a punctured left lung, prosecutors said. Satterwhite later pleaded guilty to robbery and allegations of causing great bodily injury and using a deadly weapon and was sentenced Tuesday to the new prison term.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["last fall"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["196 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Dejon Satterwhite"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":["changes to state law regarding juvenile defendants"]},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ex-principal who spent 33 years in prison for wife's murder fights to clear his name","document":"Joe Bryan, a former Texas high school principal, spent more than three decades behind bars for the 1985 murder of his wife, Mickey Bryan. Out on parole, Bryan recently celebrated his 81st birthday, and he hopes to be exonerated for his wife’s death. “I'm not a killer. I didn't kill Mickey. I loved Mickey, she was my other self,” Bryan said. “I hope to be found actually innocent so it's really truly over with. Then for the first time in 34 years I can have a sigh of relief, and I can go visit Mickey's grave and tell her, ‘We know who did it.’” Watch the full story on \"20/20\" FRIDAY at 9 p.m. ET on ABC Bryan said he and Mickey built “a wonderful life” together in Clifton, a small city in central Texas. He was the principal at Clifton High School and she was a fourth grade teacher at the local elementary school. “Mickey was the salt of the earth... very practical, very dependable,” Bryan said. “When you have your soulmate…  and you love each other and you respect each other, it makes life wonderful.” The last time he spoke to Mickey, he said, was on the phone the night of Oct. 14, 1985. Bryan said he was at a principal’s conference in Austin, Texas, about 120 miles away at the time. “I said, ‘I love you and I'll see you tomorrow.’ She said, ‘I love you, too. I'll see you tomorrow,’\" and it didn't happen,” Bryan said. The following morning, Mickey Bryan didn’t show up for work. Eventually, her boss, the elementary school principal, decided to go over to her house, accompanied by her parents. They discovered her body in the bedroom. Mickey Bryan had been shot four times with a .357 caliber revolver loaded with snake shot rounds -- a round with a plastic cap filled with tiny lead pellets. The Bryans used a similar gun to kill rattlesnakes in their yard. At first police thought it was a possible burglary gone wrong. The Bryans had left their garage doors open and there were no signs of forced entry, but investigators discovered some jewelry and about $1,000 in cash missing. Bryan said he was in shock when a colleague pulled him out of the conference to tell him the news. “You don't want to admit that your life [has] totally changed, and that someone would have the audacity to go [into] our home and kill the most precious person in your life,” Bryan said. The town was rocked by Mickey Bryan’s killing. It was the second time in four months a gruesome murder had been committed in the tight-knit community. Judy Whitley, a 17-year-old sophomore at Clifton High School, was found raped and murdered in June 1985. Her body was left in a wooded area near a local grocery store. “She played in the band at the high school,” her sister Patricia Whitley told ABC News. “She liked to read… she was a good kid.” As the investigation of her death unfolded, the police got a tip from her friends that Judy allegedly kept a diary, which was rumored to be at her grandmother’s house. In the early morning on the day they planned to search her grandmother’s house, it mysteriously exploded before burning down  while the grandmother was out of town. The Whitley case remained unsolved for years, but many wondered if the two murders were linked. When Mickey Bryan’s brother flew in from Florida for her funeral, he borrowed Joe Bryan’s car. He also asked a friend who was a former FBI agent and a private investigator to come to town to advise him on her murder investigation. While they were driving around discussing the case, they found a flashlight in the trunk with what authorities said appeared to be specks of blood and pieces of blue plastic  on the lens that resembled bits of plastic found scattered around the crime scene. This was a time before DNA forensics, but the Texas Rangers crime lab determined that a speck of blood on the flashlight matched Mickey Bryan’s blood type and the plastic pieces matched the plastic from the snake shot found at the crime scene. The last time Joe Bryan had seen that flashlight, he said, was on the dresser in their bedroom. Two days later, Joe Bryan reported to police that he had found the missing cash in his car, saying that he forgot he and Mickey had taken the money with them for a shopping trip a few weeks earlier. But when the flashlight was discovered, investigators searched his car and didn’t find the money. On Oct. 23, 1985, just eight days after Mickey Bryan was killed, police arrested Joe Bryan and charged him with murder. At trial, prosecutors argued Bryan left his conference, drove home, killed his wife and returned to Austin. One motive, suggested by the lead investigator, was that Joe Bryan killed Mickey for a life insurance payout. Prosecutors leaned heavily on the flashlight evidence and the testimony of Robert Thorman, a police detective called in by the Texas Rangers who had received bloodstain pattern analysis training -- a relatively new forensic discipline at the time. Thorman testified that in his opinion, the killer held the revolver and the flashlight at the same time when he committed the murder. The revolver has never been recovered. “Thorman also testified that the killer would have to have changed his clothes and his shoes in order not to leave a bloody trail,” said Matt Murphy, a former prosecutor and ABC News consultant. “So the implication was that if it was your bedroom, your clothes and your shoes, it would be easy to change and that implicated Joe Bryan.” Bryan and his defense attorneys argued it was impossible for Bryan to do a roundtrip from Austin to Clifton, commit the murder and get back in time for the conference. He has always maintained he was asleep in his hotel room when his wife was killed. But Bryan was convicted of first-degree murder in April 1986 and sentenced to the maximum penalty of 99 years in prison. Man convicted of wife’s 1985 murder, his family recalls impact of life in prison “Everything you've worked for has been taken from you,” Bryan said, reflecting on the verdict. “Everything you love has been taken from you. Everything materially that you had been taken from you. All you have is just yourself.” He appealed his conviction and it was overturned because the judge had erred by not allowing additional testimony about Mickey Bryan's life insurance policy, which was worth half the amount that had been stated in court. Prosecutors decided to try him again. The trial was moved to another town, but was overseen by the same judge, and again, prosecutors leaned heavily on the flashlight evidence and Thorman’s testimony. Bryan was convicted a second time and spent the next three decades behind bars. As Bryan served his sentence, the late Leon Smith, a publisher and editor at the local newspaper, The Clifton Record, reached out to him in the 1990s for an interview. Smith was looking into the Whitley cold case and wondered if it was linked to the Bryan case. Former Clifton police officer Dennis Dunlap had been with the force for a few months in 1985 when Whitley was killed. He was considered a suspect in her murder, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, according to Kenneth Fields, another former Clifton police officer who worked with him.In 1991, Smith began corresponding with Dunlap through letters, asking him about the murder. “On my last letter to him, I mentioned points in which he was considered a suspect to Judy Whitley's murder,” Smith told ABC News in his last interview before he died last year. Dunlap flatly denied having any involvement. In April 1996, he killed himself. After his death, police interviewed one of Dunlap’s ex-wives, who said he worried he was going to be contacted by investigators for a crime that occurred when he was working in Clifton, and that he told a friend he had killed Whitley. She said Dunlap also told her he had dated “the lady” that “the principal murdered.” “All he told me was that he dated her. He was dating that lady… he was going, I want to say, I'm not for sure, he dropped her off that night or that evening” she was killed, she said to police. Texas residents remember 'pure evil' they encountered with 1985 murder case suspect Authorities tried to pursue a posthumous indictment of Dunlap for Whitley’s murder but were unsuccessful. The Clifton Police Department announced in 1999 that Dunlap was responsible for Whitley’s death and they considered the case cleared. Although authorities never tied Dunlap to Mickey Bryan’s murder, Joe Bryan and his family are convinced Dunlap is the one who killed his wife. “I believe that if the Clifton Police Department and the Texas Rangers, along with the justice system, would have arrested Dennis Dunlap for the murder of Judy Whitley, Mickey would still be alive today, and my uncle obviously would not be in jail,” said Bryan’s niece Cindy Bryan. To this day, prosecutors maintain Bryan killed his wife and they put the right man behind bars. Mickey Bryan's sister Penny Blue told ABC News she still believes he committed the crime. Over the years, Bryan and his defense team made more attempts to have his conviction overturned, but have been unsuccessful. As DNA technology became available, the specks of blood on the flashlight were retested in 2012 and 2018 but the results were inconclusive. In 2016, Bryan’s defense team filed a complaint with the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which reviewed Thorman’s analysis and testimony from 1985 and ruled that his testimony was unreliable. Blood spatter expert Celestina Rossi testified that Throman’s testimony in the original trials was “false, it’s unscientific, and... the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read in my life.” During a 2018 evidentiary hearing, Bryan’s legal team presented new evidence, including the Texas Forensic Science Commission’s rulings, in an attempt to secure a new trial. Thorman submitted a written affidavit saying, “some of my techniques and methodology were incorrect. Therefore, some of my testimony was not correct.” But in his affidavit, he continued, “in no way did I lie in my report or testimony, as I was doing what I thought was correct as a result of my training at the time.” Bryan’s defense also pointed to Dunlap as the possible killer of Mickey Bryan, and introduced the statements made by Dunlap’s ex-wife in her interview with police as evidence. Prosecutors rejected that Dunlap was an alternate suspect and argued that the ex-wife’s recollection years later was “spotty, uncertain and inaccurate.” They pointed to other evidence that they said tied Joe Bryan to Mickey’s murder. Ultimately, the court sided with the prosecution, deciding not to grant a new trial and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Bryan’s conviction. The wild twists in Bryan’s story were the inspiration for John Grisham’s 2019 book, “The Guardians.” The famous crime thriller novelist said he believes Bryan is innocent and “was struck by... the really incredibly sloppy science that was given to the jury,” referring to Thorman’s testimony. “I think a just ending to Joe's story is to tell the story of who killed... his beloved wife Mickey, the woman he loved, that would be a great ending,” Grisham said. Over the years, Joe was denied parole seven times. His eighth parole attempt, however, was successful and Bryan was released on March 31, 2020. Although his murder conviction remains in place, Bryan is grateful to be outside of prison walls and is still fighting for full exoneration. He plays the piano when he can and attends church regularly. He has faith that one day he and his wife will be reunited. ”Mickey loved life,” Bryan said. “She and I were a real good match... I've got a big picture of her in my bedroom, of the two of us together, and sometimes I catch myself talking to the picture [and I say] ‘I'm ready to see you. I can't wait to see you again.’”","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["March 31, 2020"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["99 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["April 1986"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Bryan"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Manitoba RCMP Look for Released Murder Suspect","document":"WINNIPEG - Manitoba RCMP are asking for help with locating a man they consider violent who had been released from jail while facing manslaughter charges. Mounties say Robert Fleury is wanted on two arrest warrants after being charged in early March this year in connection with the homicide death of 40-year-old Matthew Swain in mid-August 2019. Officers responded to a report of an assault on Highway 16 in northwestern Manitoba. The victim was rushed to hospital but succumbed to his injuries. Investigators say a Manitoba court placed Fleury under release conditions before he was discharged from custody, but has since breached those conditions and remains at large. Fleury is described as 5'9\" tall and 280 pounds, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Police are warning anyone who sees Fleury not to approach him and to immediately call 911. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["arly March this year"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Robert Fleury"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["homicide"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ex-cop Noor set for June release after resentence in Ruszczyk killing","document":"A Hennepin County judge on Thursday resentenced ex-Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor to nearly five years in prison, the maximum allowed for second-degree manslaughter, for the 2017 killing of 911 caller Justine Ruszczyk after the Minnesota Supreme Court last month overturned his murder conviction. With time already served, Noor, 36, is expected to be released from prison on June 27 next year. The manslaughter charge carried a much lower presumptive sentence than the 12 1/2 years he initially received for killing Ruszczyk. The 40-year-old Minneapolis woman called 911 to report she heard someone screaming and believed an assault was happening. When Ruszczyk appeared at the police vehicle’s window, Noor shot her. The new sentence came after the court heard victim impact statements from Ruszczyk’s family members and arguments from prosecutors and Noor’s lawyers. In a statement read to the court, the family wrote “our sorrow is forever” and urged the judge to impose the stiffest possible penalty, saying the jury that convicted Noor believed the officer committed murder. “The truth is that Justine should be alive,” Don Damond, Ruszczyk’s fiance, told the court by video conference. “No amount of justification, embellishment, coverup, dishonesty or politics will ever change that truth.” Speaking to Noor, Damond added: “I have no doubt she would have forgiven you, Mohamed, for your inability to manage your emotions that night.\" In asking for a 57-month sentence, prosecutor Amy Sweasy told the court this case is more serious than other manslaughter cases because Noor \"wore the badge.\" Ruszczyk, she added, “did nothing to bring about the circumstances of her own death.” In a brief statement to the court before the sentence, Noor apologized again for the pain he’d caused Ruszczyk’s family and said he was grateful for Damond’s statement of forgiveness. “I will take his advice and be a unifier,” he said. Noor’s attorney, Thomas Plunkett, had sought a sentence for Noor of 41 months, which along with time served could have led faster to Noor’s supervised release. On Thursday, he described the killing as a “horrible mistake, but not an act motivated by cruelty or distaste for human life.” Plunkett  also argued in a court brief that Noor should be sentenced at the low end of the guidelines partly because of the “harsh conditions” he experienced while held in prison segregation and that he’s been a “model prisoner.” Noor has spent most of his time at a correctional facility out of state. Judge Kathryn Quaintance, however, said a harsher sentence was justified because Noor endangered his partner, a bicyclist and other residents nearby that night when he fired out the window of his squad, across the body of his partner who was driving, shooting Ruszczyk. Quaintance also cited her comments from Noor's first sentencing in 2019, reading the concerns jurors expressed to her then about the culture of policing, the lack of accountability, and the Minneapolis Police Department, asking what was going to change. Jurors then, she noted, “remarked the priority of the police was supposed to be protect and serve the public.” At Noor’s previous sentencing, he apologized to Ruszczyk’s family for taking her life. Her fiance, Damond, told the court in his victim impact statement that the day she was killed was the last time he felt “happiness, a sense of trust and that everything could be OK.” Ruszczyk’s father, John Ruszczyk, said he would never feel whole again and asked that Noor be given the maximum sentence. Ruszczyk, who was also known as Justine Damond, called 911 on July 15, 2017 to report she’d heard a possible assault happening outside her home in the city’s Fulton neighborhood southwest of Lake Harriet. Noor and his partner Matthew Harrity responded to the call, driving through the alley with their headlights off. Harrity and Noor testified that they were about to leave the alley when they heard what sounded like a thump on the squad. Noor, who was in the passenger seat, testified that he saw a blonde woman in a pink shirt and feared for his and Harrity’s life. He fired once, hitting Ruszczyk in the abdomen. She died at the scene. Neither officer activated body-worn cameras until after the shooting. The video from Noor, Harrity and other officers show a chaotic scene as firefighters and paramedics tried to save Ruszczyk’s life. Officers repeatedly switched off body cameras, including the sergeant overseeing the crime scene while interacting with Noor in what she told the court was a “private conversation.” Ruszczyk’s killing sparked protests in the Twin Cities and outrage in her native Australia. It also led to the resignation of police Chief Janeé Harteau. The family later reached a $20 million civil settlement with the city of Minneapolis in Ruszczyk’s killing.  Thursday’s resentencing was needed after the Minnesota Supreme Court in September threw out Noor’s third-degree murder conviction, saying the evidence was “insufficient” to maintain it. In appealing the murder conviction, his attorneys had focused on language in the rarely used statute that speaks of “perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.” The charge is often used against drug dealers in overdose deaths where the defendant didn't single out a particular victim. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Noor's conviction, ruling that the third-degree murder charge applied even though Noor fired his gun at a specific person. The Minnesota justices, however, said “the mental state necessary for depraved-mind murder … is a generalized indifference to human life,” which the court said did not exist in this instance. You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives. Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Kathryn Quaintance"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":["June 27 next year"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Thomas Plunkett"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Mohamed Noor"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["second-degree manslaughter"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"KARE 11 Investigates: Rapes, murders, assaults undercut DHS claim they release mentally ill suspects safely","document":"Part 4 of “The Gap: Failure to treat, Failure to protect” exposes how no one tracks crimes committed after suspects still incompetent to stand trial are released.  In the last five years, 30-year-old Alandes Augustin has been charged with a bevy of crimes, from bank and store robberies to domestic assaults. He is also severely mentally ill. Many of his charges were put on hold or outright dismissed after judges found him mentally incompetent to stand trial. Then in March 2020 prosecutors charged Augustin with beating his girlfriend and stabbing a man in the chest several times all on the same night. After being found incompetent to stand trial, a judge ordered the Department of Human Services to treat Augustin’s mental illness.  But DHS would not hold on to Augustin for long, releasing him five months later based on a policy the state agency announced in 2018, records show. RELATED: Mentally ill suspects charged with crimes go untreated; the public goes unprotected Citing a shortage of hospital beds, DHS said it would release mentally ill patients back to the community when the agency deemed that they no longer needed hospital care – even if they still were not competent to stand trial.  DHS says such releases – called provisional discharges – are done safely. “If a person is not able to go back to jail and they’re not able to be maintained safely in the community then we don’t provisionally discharge them,” said DHS Chief Medical Director Dr. Kylee Stevens. “It’s as simple as that.” Augustin’s case and a host of others show otherwise. About six months after DHS provisionally discharged Augustin from a secure treatment facility, police were called to a St. Paul apartment building where they found him once again stabbing a man, according to the criminal charges. Augustin is far from the only suspect provisionally discharged by DHS who has gone on to cause more harm to the public. A KARE 11 investigation has identified beatings, stabbings, sexual assaults, and murders by patients who were released who were still incompetent. DHS says it has provisionally discharged 665 defendants back to the community since 2018, though won’t reveal their names citing patient confidentiality. The agency says it does not know how many have been discharged while still incompetent to stand trial. What’s more, when KARE 11 asked Dr. Stevens whether DHS tracks how many patients provisionally discharged under the new policy have committed new crimes, she replied: “We have no way of tracking that information.”  So, KARE 11 attempted to do what no one else has: Identify how many provisionally discharged defendants have gone on to be charged with new crimes. Even with limited access to court records, KARE 11 identified 58 such cases so far. Some of those released were later charged with minor crimes such as trespassing, public urination or sleeping on public transit, suggesting they live in extreme poverty or are homeless. Others are far more serious. They illustrate how a lack of treatment and supervision can result in a revolving door in which defendants are repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial, but are considered well enough to be released into the community – where they commit new crimes. Some of those cases: Then there’s Terrion Sherman, found incompetent to stand trial for aggravated robbery and assault charges, then committed to the St. Peter State Security Hospital in October 2018. Although he was still not competent to stand trial, DHS provisionally discharged him to a Fridley group home in May 2019, where records show he missed taking medications 76 times in just eight months. Despite reports from the group home that he repeatedly failed to follow his treatment plan, KARE 11 documented how his provisional discharge was never revoked.  Free to come and go from the group home, in February 2020 Sherman was charged with brutally murdering his girlfriend, Abigail Simpson, in an apparent psychotic episode. “Oftentimes there isn’t real monitoring for these individuals who are provisionally discharged and that’s what puts the public in danger,” said Brandon Vaughn, an attorney representing Simpson’s family in a potential lawsuit. “If we as society have made a policy decision that we’re going to do it this way, we need to know what the consequences of that are,” said retired Senior Judge Kathryn Messerich. “And we need to do better.”  Prior to 2018, Minnesota already had one type of gap case – where mentally incompetent defendants are not ordered to DHS for treatment. Instead, the charges are often dismissed, and the defendants released back into the community. Some of those defendants – including Gregory Ulrich – went on to commit additional crimes. Records show Ulrich called 911 to admit he was responsible for the mass shooting at a Buffalo medical clinic earlier this year. He is awaiting trial on first degree murder charges. DHS’s 2018 policy change created another type of gap case. The agency decided to provisionally discharge defendants committed as mentally ill if doctors decided they no longer need hospital care. They are released even if they still are not competent to stand trial.  That puts mentally ill defendants in legal limbo. If they are not competent to stand trial, they cannot be held in jail indefinitely where there’s no treatment, Judge Messerich explained. As a result, they’re often just released into the community. “There’s not a lot you can do,” she said. “It’s very much a problem,” Ramsey County Chief Public Defender Jim Fleming told KARE 11. Fleming says it’s no secret that people are falling through the gaps. “Everybody knows about them who are working in the system. We all know about them. The prosecutors know, the defense attorneys know, the judges know.” But DHS officials argue their policy change is not to blame.  “Do things happen sometimes when people are on provisional discharge? Certainly. I don’t – and I can’t – tie that to any change that we made in our process,” Dr. Stevens said.  Before DHS provisionally discharged him in 2020, Alandes Augustin had already been charged with numerous thefts, twice with domestic assault, punching a jail guard and robbing a downtown Minneapolis bank. Then on March 16, he beat his girlfriend, according to video and police records.   Records indicate his rampage continued.  Augustin went to a nearby room and knocked on the door. When the man inside opened, Augustin allegedly pushed his way in and stabbed the man repeatedly in the chest and arms, according to surveillance video described in the criminal charge and police report. He was found incompetent to stand trial and committed to DHS in April 2020. But the agency provisionally discharged him in September. Augustin would end up living with a friend at low-income apartment building in St. Paul, where in February police reports say the two got into an argument over a missing phone. Augustin grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed his friend in the head, chest and stomach, according to the criminal complaint and police records. A judge once again found Augustin incompetent to stand trial. He was ruled mentally ill and sent back to DHS for treatment.  Three months later, in July 2021, records show DHS again provisionally discharged him to a residential treatment facility. When KARE 11 tried to speak with him, we were told he no longer lived there.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["2020","May 2019"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["February 2020"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Sherman","Alandes Augustin","Gregory Ulrich"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["a bevy of crimes, from bank and store robberies to domestic assaults","numerous thefts, twice with domestic assault, punching a jail guard and robbing a downtown Minneapolis bank","aggravated robbery and assault","brutally murdering","first degree murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Cops Facing Murder Charges Booked In, Released In Dead of Night","document":"ATLANTA — A pair of law enforcement officers indicted last week on murder charges turned themselves in early Wednesday morning while Atlanta recovered from Braves revelry and election watching. Eric Heinz, a U.S. Marshals assistant chief inspector, and Clayton County Police officer Kristopher Hutchens both were charged with two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, first-degree burglary, making false statements (two counts for Hutchens), and violation of oath by a public officer. Court records say that both men lied to a Georgia Bureau of Investigations agent during the inquest following the officer-involved shooting. Hutchens and Heinz were part of a U.S. Marshals fugitive task force team sent to serve an arrest warrant to Jamarion Robinson in August 2016. Details of the incident remain unclear, but the 26-year-old Robinson, who is Black, had been accused at some point of pointing a gun at an officer. The officers are white. Hutchens was booked into the Fulton County Jail at 12:32 a.m., according to jail records. Heinz was booked in at 1 a.m., records show. Both were released by 2:40 a.m., each on $50,000 bonds. A lawsuit claiming the two officers and eight other policemen used excessive force is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["2:40 a.m"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["12:32 a.m","1 a.m"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Eric Heinz","Kristopher Hutchens"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, first-degree burglary, making false statements (two counts for Hutchens), and violation of oath"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"They were supposed to die in prison. Instead, they earned freedom as college graduates","document":"The 25 graduates marched to the middle of the prison yard. A recording of “Pomp and Circumstance” played but was drowned out by cheers. Dozens of mothers, fathers, friends and professors sat in the blazing sun looking toward a stage set up on the basketball court, just beyond a blue mural that said “Forgive.” One woman beamed and teared up at the sight of her grandson dressed in a cap and gown. Allen Burnett, dressed in a white button-down shirt and black pants, sat among the crowd and watched the men at California State Prison in Lancaster take their seats. Tin Nguyen entered the prison yard that day for the first time in nearly two years — a guest, not an inmate — and noticed his old gambling table was still there. Over the summer, Burnett and Nguyen had crossed a different stage at Cal State Los Angeles; Burnett with magna cum laude honors, and Nguyen with  summa cum laude status. Most every day since, Burnett said he gets a call from prison. Oftentimes, it’s one of his former classmates on the inside asking him about life as a college graduate beyond the barbed wire-topped walls. :: Burnett, 48, and Nguyen, 48, are among 37 freed and currently incarcerated men at the prison who were the first inmates to earn a bachelor’s degree from a California public university as part of an expanding initiative that has gained statewide attention. Launched at Cal State Los Angeles by a communications professor, the degree program imparts an otherwise unheard-of message to its students: You are worthy. Politics Once shunned, people convicted of felonies find more employers open to hiring them Labor shortages are prompting more companies to consider the 20 million people with convictions, but criminal background checks, job restrictions and other barriers hold back hiring. Oct. 5, 2021 Along with Burnett and Nguyen, 10 of the 37 graduates are now free and one more is expected to be released in March. Some of the freed men work as advocates for the incarcerated. Burnett works at Human Rights Watch’s Leadership Council, which campaigns to stop life-without-parole sentences. Many who remain imprisoned intend to find a way to work on rehabilitation programs on the inside. On his first day out of prison after 27 years, Burnett bought shoes from a discount store, visited Target and stopped at the beach to smell the ocean air. Then he made his way to the place he had dreamed about the most while behind bars: Cal State L.A. Column One A showcase for compelling storytelling from the Los Angeles Times. Burnett had been serving a life sentence for a crime he committed when he was 18, when he was involved in a fatal carjacking. His sentence was commuted after his mother encouraged him to apply for early release under Gov. Jerry Brown. He learned in 2019 that he’d get the chance to go before a parole board to make his case, and he was granted freedom in 2020. As he puts it, he was supposed to die in prison. He had learning challenges as a kid and didn’t believe that he was worthy of a higher education. But in prison, books and education became a respite. Burnett earned an associate degree, then in 2016 got a chance to enroll in classes from Cal State L.A. He read Henry David Thoreau’s transcendentalist writings about Walden while sitting in a cell at night. He studied Google and social media in the classroom and typed on computers without access to internet — technology he encountered only after he was released. And he met professors — people who for the first time in his life believed in his ability to transform himself. Opinion Apodaca: UC Irvine law professor sees college degrees as a way to reduce recidivism Investing in prison education can improve the life of not just the incarcerated but society at large. Feb. 1, 2021 They seemed to understand that although he lives with the tremendous weight of his mistakes, his past alone — a kid who’d found his father dead from a drug overdose at the age of 5, who’d suffered abuse when he was young and got caught up in a life of crime — did not define his future. “We were teaching the professors about life without parole and what it feels like to be isolated, to be told that you’re not worthy, that you should die in prison, because that’s what it is — death by incarceration,” Burnett said on the Cal State L.A. campus. “And then they were telling us, ‘You are worthy. You do deserve an education. You do deserve to sit in this space and have these conversations with us.’” He now hopes that he can help change a system like the one he grew up in. “I’m educating people who don’t really know about our criminal justice system — talking to people about how childhood trauma is trans-generational, and how we — our trauma — develops into this other thing where we can hurt other people. Like they say, hurt people hurt people. But healed people help people.” :: For the record: 7:38 p.m. Nov. 4, 2021A previous version of this article identified Bidhan Chandra Roy as a communications professor. He is an English professor. It started with Bidhan Chandra Roy. The  English professor initially visited the prison while volunteering with Paws for Life, an outreach program that teaches inmates how to care for dogs. When he started teaching uncredited writing classes through Words Uncaged — a writing therapy program he founded at the prison — he was compelled to further help the men. “When you come in here, you just see these buried, incredible people that have kind of been thrown away and forgotten. And when you sit down and speak to any of these men, you’re like, ‘Why is no one paying attention to you; why are you not getting a chance to have an education?’ And it’s a glaring kind of disjuncture for anyone, I think, with an ethical sensibility,” he said. “I’m not justifying any actions done — but these people are not the same people anymore. And just to kind of throw lives away seems like a terrible travesty,” he said, adding that the men he’s met have enriched his own life. Opinion Editorial: For former prisoners to have a shot at a normal life, we need successful reentry programs Coming home after prison can be even more hazardous than being locked up. People reentering society need a comprehensive program of of public and private services Oct. 28, 2021 He approached Taffany Lim, executive director of Cal State L.A.'s Center for Engagement, Service and the Public Good, to launch a B.A. program in communications for men who had already earned their associate degree — or oftentimes, multiple associate degrees — while in prison. Associate degree programs in prisons were not a new concept. The ability to get a bachelor’s degree, however, had been something less common, but one that Lim believed made sense. In 2016, after the prison initiative was approved with initial funding from the nonprofit education-focused Opportunity Institute and later from the Mellon Foundation, it was one of 67 college and university programs selected by the Obama administration to receive Second Chance Pell Grant funding for incarcerated students. “I was behind concrete, barbed-wire razor, a gun tower. But when I walked in that class and the professor shook our hand and shut the door, I was free.” Tin Nguyen The program began with 45 students. Some have since been transferred to different prisons; one died from COVID-19. In all, 37 students have graduated from the program, including 12 from the classes of 2020 and 2021 who were granted an early release after a life sentence. “Correctional education is transformative. And any student you talk to that has succeeded in earning a trade certification or diploma — it’s life altering,” said Shannon Swain, superintendent of correction education at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill to expand higher education for incarcerated individuals. But Burnett recognizes it’s an opportunity some may not believe he deserves after preventing another person from living out their future. “Other people will read this and they’ll think about that,” he said. Someone who has lost someone may wonder, “‘What about my son, or my daughter who was going to school, who was working and then someone just came and just took their life? What about them? Nobody’s saying anything about them.’ I’m mindful of that.” “I think as I’ve learned as a crime survivor, it’s possible to hold two emotions,” said Tinisch Hollins, executive director of the California branch of the victims rights and the criminal reform group Alliance for Safety and Justice. The person suspected of killing her brother in 2017 is in custody awaiting trial. While she too waits, she also believes that a person doesn’t change on their own simply because they’re in prison. It takes work. “We know the majority of people in jail or prison are going to come home,” she said. “How do we ensure our communities become safer and remain safe? I think many people would agree that education is part of that” restoration process.:: Nguyen felt as if he’d won the Super Bowl in July as confetti poured down during his graduation ceremony while his mother and sisters cheered him on. While in prison, Nguyen started taking community college classes, which set him up with enough credits to enter the Cal State program. In class, he was no longer just an inmate or a number — he felt like an individual. “I was behind concrete, barbed-wire razor, a gun tower. But when I walked in that class and the professor shook our hand and shut the door, I was free,” he said. Nguyen felt like he grew up  trapped between Vietnam and the United States. Fluent in neither country’s language, the Vietnamese refugee grew up believing he was dumb. He got involved with gang life at a young age, and when his friend was shot and killed in front of him as a teenager, a rage erupted. He landed behind bars for the first time when he was 17. At 24, he was sentenced to life without parole for taking the life of a man during a robbery. “I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. I served 28 years, and the last 10 years I spent on this yard enrolling and learning with these men.” Allen Burnett Nguyen, like Burnett, spent two decades in California State Prison  before his lifelong sentence was commuted and he was released. But he was immediately detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which wanted to send him back to Vietnam. Ten months later, he was freed. The crime that landed him in prison for the last two decades is never absent from his mind. He won’t make peace with it, he said, until he gets the chance to apologize in heaven. Until then, he’ll strive for redemption. “If you give us an opportunity, a chance, we can change. If you give us some form of redemption, we can change,” Nguyen said. “I’m not the same man I was back then — that young, immature, impulsive, violent, dangerous, angry guy. When society allowed me to redeem myself, to give me the opportunity to change, I took it. And I think there’s a lot of guys out there in prison right now just like me.” He is now pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. :: In the prison yard, the crowd shielded themselves from the sun with their commencement programs as the graduation ceremony unfolded. A handful of students performed during the ceremony, sharing pieces in a style of group slam poetry they’d learned in a class taught by one of their communication professors, Kamran Afary. “We are sons, fathers, husbands, humans — college grads rising above the status quo.Forget what statistics say.We’re communication scholarsat Cal State L.A,” one student said. Before the names were read and the tassels turned, Burnett walked up to the stage. He addressed his professors: “You didn’t just come here and just have us recite a bunch of stuff and just give lectures — you added to our understanding of who we are as human beings. Through you, we were able to develop the language where we can go out and be advocates for ourselves. You allowed us to believe in ourselves, and we did. You gave us the tools, you gave us the understanding and then we taught you something too — that there’s human beings inside these prison walls.” And he addressed his friends: “I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. I served 28 years, and the last 10 years I spent on this yard enrolling and learning with these men.” For more than a year, he’d told those inside the prison about his simple joys: tending to a garden when he’d gone years without access to plants beyond a sliver of a crack in the prison yard that let him see shades of wildflowers in the distance; sitting in traffic knowing that he was going somewhere. Now, he shared his dreams with them for their future. “What do I want my legacy to be? I want to see all y’all free.” The view from Sacramento For reporting and exclusive analysis from bureau chief John Myers, get our California Politics newsletter.         ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Oct. 5, 2021"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["28 years","27 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Tin Nguyen","Allen Burnett"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["carjacking","robbery"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Fat Trel released from prison","document":"D.C. rapper Fat Trel has been released from prison. On Friday (Oct. 15), footage circulated of the emcee as he made his way out of the prison facility. “You know what the fuck it is,” he’s heard saying in the clip. “The king of Northeast is back nigga, and you know what the fuck is up with me nigga.” Trel, born Martrel Rayshard Reeves, was arrested on July 8, 2018 for possession of a firearm and ammunition. At the time, cops pulled the rapper over for traffic violations and discovered that he was without identification or a driver’s license as it had previously been suspended. JAY-Z reportedly fighting for release of fan sentenced to 20 years in prison over weed Trel — who allegedly reeked of alcohol and marijuana — was asked to step aside as officers conducted a search on his vehicle and found a .40-caliber pistol loaded with 10 rounds of ammunition. The pistol was later identified as a “ghost gun,” meaning it was created to function as a firearm. Per Justice.gov, these types of pistols typically lack serial numbers, making them difficult to trace. The D.C. rapper pleaded guilty for the illegal possession of a ghost gun last year and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison. Last month, however, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis revealed he would only be sentenced to two years and six months in federal prison and three years of supervised release. FBG Duck’s alleged killers arrested Fat Trel, who is signed to DTLA Records, is a former signee of MMG and Atlantic Records. Throughout the course of his rap career, he’s released a slew of mixtapes featuring collaborations with Rick Ross, Big K.R.I.T., Chief Keef, Wale, Gucci Mane, E-40, YG and more. His most recent effort Big Homie dropped last year with 18 tracks and guest appearances from artists, including No Savage, Big Flock, Goonew, Trippa and Z-Wayne. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Friday (Oct. 15)"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["two years and six months"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Fat Trel"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["possession of a firearm and ammunition"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Judge denies Mike Davis’ motion for early release from prison","document":"COLUMBUS, Ohio — A judge has denied a motion by former 10TV meteorologist Mike Davis for an early release from prison on a child pornography sentence. In January 2020, Davis pleaded guilty to four counts of pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor. At the sentencing hearing, he apologized to his friends and family and said there was \"no excuse\" for his compulsive collection of close to 16,000 images of children being sexually abused. He initially faced between 25 to 29.5 years in prison but was sentenced to a minimum of four years. In court documents, Davis' attorney Adam Nemann said he was eligible for judicial release consideration after serving approximately 16 months of his sentence. Nemann argued Davis should be released due to the fact he did not have a prior criminal record, sought out therapeutic treatments to address his issues prior to his sentence and had \"shown genuine remorse for his crimes.\" In a rebuttal, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Kara Keating said Davis failed to acknowledge his crimes in his request nor that he is a sexual offender. On Thursday, Judge Karen Held Phipps denied the request, saying Davis offered arguments and evidence that was considered at the sentencing hearing and any new information “does not sufficiently demonstrate Defendant is amenable to community control sanctions.” “Additionally, Defendant persists in arguing that his ‘fall from grace’ should be considered in the context of whether he has been punished enough,” Phipps wrote. “Defendant's references to damage to both his personal and professional life merely show the consequences of his criminal conduct but are not statutory factors to be considered in determining the appropriate punishment under the purposes and principles of sentencing.”","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Karen Held Phipps"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["four years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Adam Nemann"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":null},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["child pornography"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Kalamazoo man acquitted of murder released after serving 711 days for weapons charge","document":"Gabreon Wells-Lindsey was sentenced Nov. 8, 2021 to time served in Kalamazoo County Jail. He was convicted on one felony count of carrying a concealed weapon and acquitted of first-degree murder and felony firearms by a jury Oct. 14, 2021. KALAMAZOO, MI — A man convicted of a weapons charge and acquitted of a murder charge was sentenced to time served Monday morning. Gabreon Wells-Lindsey, 24, appeared via video Nov. 8 in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court for sentencing on one felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon. He was acquitted by a jury of first-degree murder and felony firearms Oct. 14. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["Nov. 8, 2021"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Gabreon Wells-Lindsey"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":["Kalamazoo County Circuit Court"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["a weapons charge and acquitted of a murder charge"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Man previously charged with capital murder released from jail, charges dismissed","document":"   by: Roland Richter Albert Love, who at one time had been on death row and who had been waiting for his appeals court ordered new trial has now been released from jail after the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him,  saying the office would not be able to go to trial against him at the present time. The motion noted that a combination of things had led to the decision. The motion noted that two  crucial items of evidence supporting the case against Love that were available during the initial trial are now now longer available for the new trial that had been scheduled to begin October 25th.  District Attorney Barry Johnson had sought a delay of the trial but that motion has been denied. Text messages that were critical evidence in the original trial have been ruled inadmissible by the Court of Criminal Appeals.  In addition, a witness who had provided a recorded statement and who was anticipated to testify at trial that Love was present at the murders of Keenan Hubert and Tyrus Sneed on March 28, 2011, bearing an AK-47 style rifle and wearing a red hoodie and red sweatshirt,  has now recanted his statement and asserts his recorded statement was false. DNA processing of a red hoodie and red sweatshirt recovered at the murder scene that might have provided evidence of Love’s presence at the time and place of the murders was begun,  but would not be complete in time for the scheduled trial. Forensic examination of ammunition recovered from the car of one of the co-defendants in the case was also underway with DNA being sought. Cell phone tower data was also being studied,. But it was noted that the processing of all that potential evidence would not be completed for at least 90 days,  and the motion to dismiss noted that prior to the processing of that potential evidence, that the prosecution felt it could not safely proceed to trial. It was noted that dismissal avoids prejudicing the State’s right to proceed as appropriate in the future against Albert Love or others who may be incriminated by additional evidence. A spokesman for the DA’s office said that further indictments in connection with these murders would be considered in the future as appropriate when all necessary evidence is available. A jury convicted Love and his friend Rickey Cummins of capital murder and sentenced them both to death in 2013. McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson had earlier decided not to ask for the death penalty when Albert Love, Jr. was to be re-tried for Capital Murder. The cost of the trial and the possible appeals was one reason Johnson decided to take the death penalty off the table.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Barry Johnson"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["2013"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Roland Richter Albert Love"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Daughter of Penelope Jackson releases statement after Berrow murder judgement","document":"The daughter of Penelope and David Jackson has issued a statement following the high-profile murder case in Berrow. Penelope Jackson, 66, stabbed 78-year-old David Jackson with a kitchen knife at their home in Berrow’s Parsonage Road on February 13th. Penelope was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison at Bristol Crown Court last Friday as reported here. Daughter Isabelle Potterton has released a statement, saying: “On 13th February my whole world fell away from my feet. From the moment when the police knocked on our door and told us what had happened, I had not only lost my dad but I had lost my mum too. My life was changed forever.” “I have dealt with the looks of pity and people contacting for the gossip. I have dealt with people asking the most inappropriate questions. I have done all of this because I have had to. I have to be strong for dad. I have to be strong for mum.” “I have lost the man that I looked up to and loved. I have lost the man that was always there for me no matter what. The man that came and fixed things in my house which I didn’t know even needed fixing. The man that could make me laugh.” “But I feel I have also lost my mum. I have lost the woman who always knew how to make me feel better. The woman who was my friend, my champion and my support. The woman who cared, cherished and loved me.” “Yes I know mum is here but she’s not the same person I knew. I don’t know what the future holds but I do know that the relationship I once cherished can never be built back to what it was.” “However, I love both of them. I always have and I always will. I would finally like to thank family and friends who have supported us over the past eight months, especially my husband who has been a rock to me.”","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["18 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["last Friday"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Penelope Jackson"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Man Convicted in ’81 Brink’s Robbery Wins Release From New York Prison","document":"David Gilbert, whose 75-year prison sentence was commuted in one of Andrew Cuomo’s last acts as governor, was granted parole. By Michael Wilson and Ed Shanahan David Gilbert, a participant in the politically motivated ambush of a Brink’s armored car in 1981 that left two police officers and a guard dead, has been granted parole after spending 40 years in prison for his role in the armed attack, officials said on Tuesday. Mr. Gilbert, 77, will be released by Nov. 30, officials said. He was granted a parole hearing this month after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — in one of his last acts before leaving office under a cloud of sexual abuse allegations — commuted his 75-years-to-life sentence. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Nov. 30"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["75-year"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["David Gilbert"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["armed attack"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Benjamin Glynn released from prison after jail term backdated, to be deported from Singapore","document":"SINGAPORE — Benjamin Glynn, who was jailed for six weeks on Wednesday (Aug 18) for not wearing a mask on an MRT train and outside the State Courts has been released from prison. The 40-year-old Briton was also on Wednesday handed over to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), which will be making arrangements for his deportation, the Singapore Prison Service said on Thursday. It is not known when he will be deported. TODAY has sought comments from ICA. The Singapore Prison Service said in a press statement that Glynn’s sentence was backdated to the date of his remand in prison on July 19, where he was held until Aug 4.  Thereafter, District Judge Eddy Tham ordered that he be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health from Aug 5 to 18 to assess if he had any mental conditions. On Wednesday, the court was told that Glynn was found to have no mental conditions. The prosecution proceeded with his trial, which lasted more than eight hours.  Glynn contested four charges of failing to wear a mask without reasonable excuse, being a public nuisance and using threatening words towards a public servant. At the hearing, Glynn told the court that the basis of his defence had nothing to do with his actions, but rather, that he had not “agreed to this contract” of wearing a face mask and there was “no jurisdiction over him”.   District Judge Tham, who found Glynn guilty of all four charges, told the man that he was misguided in thinking that he was above the law, which applies to anyone who steps foot into Singapore. WOMAN WHO DISRUPTED HEARING REFERRED TO POLICE During the trial on Wednesday, District Judge Tham told an unidentified woman to leave the courtroom as she was not wearing a mask. The woman refused, saying that her mask was broken and that she was a “living, breathing person” and could not be told what to do. She also told District Judge Tham that she did not respect him and that he was presiding over a “kangaroo court”, a term that refers to an unofficial court where people are found guilty of offences especially without sound evidence. The State Courts said on Thursday that the matter has since been referred to the police. “Trials and hearings, which are held in open court, are open to the public,” it said. “However, those attending must at all times observe court etiquette and decorum. They must act appropriately, show the court proper respect and comply with the judge’s directions.” Those who misbehave, disrupt court proceedings or fail to heed a judge’s directions or court rules may be told to leave the courtroom. They may also be reported to the police, it added.     TODAY has asked the police for comment. By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Eddy Tham"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["six weeks"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Benjamin Glynn"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["not wearing a mask on an MRT train and outside"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Samsung Electronics vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong was released on parole on Friday","document":"UIWANG, SOUTH KOREA (REUTERS) - Samsung Electronics vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong, was released on parole on Friday (Aug 13), with hopes high at the tech giant that he will also soon be allowed to work as big investment decisions await him. Lee, 53, appeared outside the Seoul Detention Centre, wearing a dark grey suit and looking thinner than when he was last detained in January. “I’ve caused much concern for the people. I deeply apologise,” Lee told reporters. “I am listening to the concerns, criticisms, worries and high expectations for me. I will work hard.” Support for his parole, both political, public and from the wider business community, had grown amid anxiety that key strategic decisions are not being made at the South Korean conglomerate. Convicted of bribing a friend of former President Park Geun-hye, Lee has served 18 months of a revised 30 month sentence. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. He initially served one year of a five-year sentence from August 2017 which was later suspended. That court decision was then overturned and while the sentence was shortened, he was sent back to jail in January this year. He will still need to gain permission from South Korea’s justice ministry to resume work, but that is expected to be a formality. Although the day-to-day running of the world’s biggest memory chip maker and smartphone manufacturer has not been affected by his absence, company sources say decisions on major investment and M&A projects should only be made by Lee. In particular, a decision on the location of a US$17 billion (S$23 billion) US plant to produce advanced logic chips awaits his return at a time when there is a global chip shortage and rivals like TSMC and Intel Corp are making large investments. In a symbolic move, Samsung Electronics on Thursday made good on a promise by Lee by announcing it had signed its first-agreements with four company labour unions that cover the provisions of offices and assurances that union activities will be allowed. Lee vowed in May 2020 to improve labour rights at the tech giant. A raft of Samsung employees have been found guilty of sabotaging labour union activities.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Friday (Aug 13)"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["30 month"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["January"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["Lee Jae-yong"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["bribing"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mossimo Giannulli released from prison and will serve remainder of sentence from home","document":"LOS ANGELES — Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli has been released from a California prison and is under home confinement following his imprisonment for his role in a college admissions bribery scheme, according to a person familiar with the matter. Giannulli, 57, is married to former “Full House” star Lori Loughlin. They pleaded guilty last year to paying half a million dollars to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California. Loughlin was released from a prison in Dublin in December after spending two months behind bars. The two were among the most high-profile parents charged in the scheme, which authorities say involved hefty bribes to get undeserving teens into schools with rigged test scores or bogus athletic credentials. Giannulli was released to home confinement on Friday, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. He is expected to serve the remainder of his sentence at home, the person said. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. More:Lori Loughlin released from prison after serving 2-month sentence in college bribery scheme Giannulli, whose Mossimo clothing had long been a Target brand until recently, had been in custody at a federal prison in Lompoc near Santa Barbara. He reported in November and was scheduled to be released in April. A release to home confinement in Giannulli’s case is not out of the ordinary, in part because of the short nature of his sentence. Records show he is under the supervision of a Bureau of Prisons facility in Long Beach, that manages a halfway house as well as inmates who are under home confinement. The records say he will be released from home confinement on April 17. The Justice Department has ordered the increased use of home confinement and the expedited release of eligible inmates by the Bureau of Prisons — with priority for those at low- or medium-security prisons — starting with virus hot spots. But advocates have raised concerns about racial and financial inequities in those who are granted home confinement.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Mossimo Giannulli"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["bribery"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Murder suspect released from jail a day after remains found","document":" DRUM: A federal agent looks at a drum marked with crime scene tape. The drum was discovered Wednesday during the search for the remains of Michael Castro in the Jånum Point area in Yigo. Dontana Keraskes/The Guam Daily Post Murder suspect Troy Ryan Damian has been released from jail and placed under house arrest. Damian’s release comes a day after police investigators located remains in Yigo that they believe are Michael Castro's. Castro was last seen on Oct. 29, 2020. Success! An email has been sent to  with a link to confirm list signup.                          Top stories delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday. Superior Court of Guam Judge Maria Cenzon signed the release order on Thursday. Damian was released to third-party custodians and placed on electronic monitoring. He was ordered to have no contact with the victim’s family and with his co-defendant Nicholas Wayne Moore. Both Damian and Moore face charges of aggravated murder. Damian is scheduled to appear back in court on Nov. 19. There's no word if Damian is negotiating a plea deal with the government.  The Post has confirmed Damian was released temporarily into police custody on Wednesday morning. He went with officers to a remote jungle area in Yigo where the remains believed to be Castro’s were found in a container. A forensic examination will be performed to confirm the identity of the remains. Police were seen retrieving a drum and marking it with crime scene tape during the discovery of the remains. Castro's parents were called to the site and were seen thanking investigators for their efforts. Castro was shot in his car on Oct. 30, 2020, according to documents filed by authorities. “DNA testing further indicated the blood found in the victim’s vehicle and the blood later found on the pistol matched the DNA of (Castro),\" the court documents state. The victim's vehicle was found in the compound of a business being run by Moore's father. Soon after his arrest, Moore posted $1 million bail in July. He and Castro were acquaintances, according to court documents. Moore is under electronic monitoring and must not leave a residence on Aguilar Street in Yona without informing authorities, according to the conditions of his release. The defense had argued shortly after Moore's arrest that the prosecution has not shown there is a body to tie Moore to a murder.  Poll results are published every Monday in The Guam Daily Post. The executive team at Atkins Kroll Guam, including company president Wendi Herring and sales manager John Acfalle, made a dramatic reveal of a new vehicle being introduced into the Toyota product line, the 2022 Corolla Cross at the Micronesia Mall.  TURKEY TASTING: Dante Evangelista, sous chef at the Sheraton Laguna Guam Resort, carves a serving of turkey during a turkey and ham tasting promotion on Monday morning at the Sheraton in Tamuning. The tasting, which included all the trimmings including roasted Brussels sprouts and house-made… The public is invited to an online job and internship fair at 10 a.m. Nov. 24. On Tuesday, a jury in the federal court found a Guam man, James Rumbaua Damaso, guilty of possession with intent to sell methamphetamine.   I do not understand why people subject themselves to the horrors of holiday travel. You’d think by now I would, but it becomes more perplexing… Read more If the COVID-19 virus is still here, don't change school protocols. The \"cohort\" schedule is working to reduce student contact and there is no… Read more","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Maria Cenzon"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Wednesday morning"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":null},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["aggravated murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mob hitman to be released from prison by end of October","document":"BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Luciano Spataro, a mob hitman, had been convicted of second-degree murder, crime solicitation in the second degree and suspected of even more from 1984 to 1986. He was sentenced to 25 years to life, but now, all these years later, he’s getting a chance at freedom. Sisters and sisters-in-law of John Pinelli said they feel like justice has been unserved. Pinelli, who was almost 25 at the time of his death, was Spataro’s son-in-law. While Spataro did not pull the trigger to take Pinelli’s life, he reportedly planned and arranged his killing in Eden in 1986. “I don’t understand why they’re letting him out,” Pinelli’s sister Tammy Simonian said.  Simonian received a letter from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The letter notifies her of Spataro’s release ‘on or about October 27.’ “I don’t want this man to be walking the streets. Let alone, God forbid, one of my family members run into him,” Simonian said. In a statement, Spataro’s defense attorney, Thomas Eoannou said: “A model prisoner? Come on. That is sickening. Not a prisoner, a murderer.” Spataro almost walked free seven years ago. In 2014, the state granted the now 88-year-old parole, only to reverse that decision after hearing from relatives of one of his victims. Now, with the release moving forward, Pinelli’s loved ones do not believe Spataro should spend his last days with his family. “We weren’t able to spend minutes with my brother before they took his life,” Simonian said.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["25 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Thomas Eoannou"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Luciano Spataro"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["second-degree murder, crime solicitation in the second degree"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"J.T. Burnette sentenced to 3 years in prison for role in City Hall corruption","document":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Tallahassee businessman J.T. Burnette was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in corruption at Tallahassee City Hall. Sentencing was previously scheduled for Oct. 28, 2021, after Burnette was found guilty of extortion, honest services mail fraud, Travel Act and lying to the FBI. Five character witnesses spoke at the sentencing hearing, including Burnette himself and his wife Kim Rivers. He is due to begin his prison sentence on Jan. 9, 2022, and has a year of supervised release once he gets out as well. Burnette was also ordered to pay a $1,250,000 fine and $20,000 in restitution. The defense has until Nov. 23 to appeal. BACKGROUND: Corruption at city hall, it's the scandal the FBI released on February 5 of 2018. Recent Stories from wtxl.com That's when Scott Maddox, who was serving as a Tallahassee City Commissioner and Paige Carter-Smith, who was serving as the Downtown Improvement Authority Director, was named in search warrant affidavits. Those documents say through a consulting company named Governance, they were paid to vote in favor of various groups lobbying to move into Tallahassee. Maddox called the claims untrue a week later. In December of that year, federal prosecutors found enough to charge him with 44 counts including bribery, extortion, bank fraud, and racketeering. Just one day later, Former Governor Rick Scott suspended Maddox. Carter Smith stepped down from her role as well. Not done with the players at hand, prosecutors indicted Tallahassee businessman J.T. Burnette on May 9, 2019. In August of that year, Maddox and Carter Smith entered guilty pleas. The plea agreement only dealt with three charges: two for extortion and one for tax fraud. Thirty-nine of the charges were dropped because of that plea deal. That same day, the US Attorney's Office launched a new statewide division made up of the US Attorney's Office, FBI agents, the IRS, and the Department of Justice to crack down on any form of corruption in government. Scott Maddox was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment, followed by 1-year supervised release. In addition, Maddox was ordered to pay restitution to the IRS of $76,763.00, and forfeiture of $70,000 jointly and severally with codefendant(s). Paige Carter-Smith was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment, followed by 1-year supervised release. In addition, Carter-Smith was ordered to pay restitution to the IRS of $115,619, and forfeiture of $70,000 jointly and severally with codefendant(s).","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["3 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":["Jan. 9, 2022"]},{"role":"Released People","values":["J.T. Burnette"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["corruption"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Parole board recommends release for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten for fifth time","document":"A California parole board again recommended Tuesday that Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten be released from prison. It’s the fifth time officials advocated for the release of Van Houten, 72, who is serving a life sentence for helping cult members murder Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, with forks and knives in 1969. Their prior recommendations were rejected by two governors. Van Houten was 19 when the LaBiancas were randomly slain by the Manson family, who smeared “Death to pigs” in their blood on the walls of their Los Angeles homes. The murders came a day after the cult — without Van Houten — killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others. The two-person panel’s recommendation was once again headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk after a 120-day procedural review. The Democrat has twice vetoed Van Houten’s release, on the grounds that she “poses an unreasonable danger to society,” and his last rejection is being reviewed by two courts, her lawyer said. “I predict he will reverse this grant as well,” attorney Rich Pfeiffer said, even though he claimed commissioners had addressed the reasons for her previous rejections. Van Houten was a teenage runaway when she was introduced to Manson, who was living at an abandoned movie ranch outside LA. Manson plied his followers with psychedelic drugs and galvanized them to commit random killings to survive a supposed race war that he envisioned. Van Houten, who was the youngest member of the “family,” previously told the board she took responsibility for “Manson being able to do what he did to all of us. I allowed it. I accept responsibility that I allowed him to conduct my life in that way.” Manson died of natural causes in 2017 while serving a life sentence. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":null},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["a life sentence"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Rich Pfeiffer"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Leslie Van Houten"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Crown drops charges against Cape Breton man accused of murder in Annapolis Valley","document":"The Crown has withdrawn all charges against one of two people accused of murdering a Hants County man in May 2020. Brandon Michael Doucette, 28, of L’Ardoise, Richmond County, was charged with second-degree murder, criminal negligence causing death and four firearm-related offences in the death of Robert Campbell of Falmouth. Doucette was released from custody Tuesday after appearing in Kentville provincial court via a video link from the Northeast Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Pictou County. Prosecutor Dan Rideout told the court the Crown continually assesses the evidence in cases and had determined there was no realistic prospect of conviction on the charges against Doucette. Doucette and three other individuals were arrested last May, a year after Campbell’s body was found in a burned-out van in St. Croix, Hants County, on May 24, 2020. The van matched the description of a vehicle that was seen leaving the scene of a home invasion on Ridge Road in Melanson, Kings County, a few hours earlier. Rebecca Elizabeth Moir, 37, of Five Islands, Colchester County, is charged with second-degree murder, criminal negligence causing death, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, unauthorized possession of a firearm and breaching a firearms prohibition. Moir’s preliminary inquiry in provincial court is set for 10 days beginning Oct. 3, 2022. She was granted bail in July and placed on house arrest at Holly House, a Dartmouth facility for women, operated by the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia. The inquiry will determine if there is sufficient evidence for the charges to proceed to Nova Scotia Supreme Court for a jury trial. It will also give defence lawyer Ken Greer a chance to test the strength of the Crown’s case. Two Kings County men - Darroll Murray Atwell, 43, of Robinson Corner and Devyn Adam Dennis, 27, of Bishopville - are charged with break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence, interfering with human remains, arson and two counts of obstruction of justice. Atwell and Dennis were initially accused of being an accessory after the fact to murder, but those allegations were withdrawn this fall and replaced with the obstruction charges, which relate to the events in both Kings and Hants counties. The pair were granted bail in Supreme Court back in the spring. They’ve waived their right to a preliminary inquiry and have a six-week trial slated for Supreme Court in Kentville beginning May 2, 2022. When RCMP announced the arrests last May, they said all four people charged were known to Campbell, 51. A police spokesman said no stone was left unturned in the year-long investigation. Campbell, who was survived by a daughter, was retired from the Canadian Armed Forces. He was a master corporal in the army, served with the West Nova Scotia Regiment and the Royal Canadian Regiment, and did a peacekeeping tour in Cyprus. Contacted later Tuesday, Rideout said he couldn’t elaborate on the Crown’s decision to drop the charges against Doucette “because we still have the outstanding prosecution” against Moir. “Mr. Doucette was adamant that he wasn’t involved in the death of Mr. Campbell, and the Crown has conceded that there’s no evidence to contradict him,” defence lawyer Scot Stanfield told The Chronicle Herald. “This is a young man with no criminal record. He just spent six months in jail for allegations that there was no evidence to support.” On Wednesday, the Crown took issue with the defence lawyer’s remarks about the evidence, saying they were “incorrect.” “The Crown simply conceded there wasn’t a realistic prospect of conviction, which is necessary to proceed with a prosecution,” Rideout said. Doucette got bail in October, only to be re-arrested the following day because of a miscommunication about the residency requirement in his release order. Port Hawkesbury RCMP charged him with breaching his release conditions, but that matter was withdrawn Tuesday as well. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Brandon Michael Doucette"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["second-degree murder"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"EntertainmentNEWS","document":"Choi Jong-hoon, 31, former leader of K-pop band FT Island, was released from prison on Nov. 8 after serving two and a half years in prison for gang rape. On May 9, 2019, Choi Jong-hoon was arrested on charges of gang rape and illegal filming of women along with Jung Joon-young, former mainstay of the Korean TV show “2 Days & 1 Night” and three others. Former FT Island member Choi Jong-hoon (left) was released from prison while Jung Joon-young will finish his sentence in October 2025 (Instagram, Jonathan Hicap) They were accused of gang raping women in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province in January 2016 and in Daegu in March 2016. On Nov. 29, 2019, the Seoul Central District Court found them guilty of violating Korea’s Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, Etc. of Sexual Crimes and sentenced Choi Jong-hoon to five years and Jung Joon-young to six years in prison. The Seoul court also convicted Jung Joon Young for distributing illegally filmed sex videos on KakaoTalk chat rooms in 2015. Under Article 299 on Quasi-Rape, Quasi-Indecent Act by Compulsion of Korea’s Criminal Act, “A person who has sexual intercourse with another or commits an indecent act on another by taking advantage of the other’s condition of unconsciousness or inability to resist shall be punished in accordance with Article 297, 297-2, or 298.” After their conviction, Choi Jong-hoon and Jung Joon-young filed appeals in December 2019 to overturn their sentences. On May 12, 2020, the Seoul High Court reduced Choi Jong-hoon’s sentence from five to two and a half years after submitting to the court an agreement with the victim. Jung Joon-young’s sentence was reduced from six to five years. After his release from prison, Choi Jong-hoon must participate for 80 hours in a program for the treatment of sexual violence and is barred from being employed in institutions related to children and youth, and welfare facilities for the disabled. Jung Joon-young will be released from prison on Oct. 1, 2025. Choi Jong-hoon debuted in FT Island in 2007 and left the band in March 2019 due to the scandal. He also retired from the entertainment industry.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":null},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Oct. 1, 2025","Nov. 8"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["five years","six years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Choi Jong-hoon","Jung Joon-young"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["gang rape and illegal filming","illegally filmed sex videos"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"A federal judge in Detroit on Wednesday ordered the release of Aref “Scarface” Nagi","document":"A federal judge in Detroit on Wednesday ordered the release of Aref “Scarface” Nagi, a former vice president of the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club who was the lead defendant in a huge federal racketeering case alleging conspiracy to murder, assault, theft and drug trafficking. In ordering Nagi's compassionate release, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds cited Nagi’s health in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and what she described as extraordinary steps he has taken to rehabilitate himself while in federal prison. Federal prosecutors oppose the release of Nagi, who was not due to be let out of a federal prison in Minnesota until 2024. They say neither Nagi's health issues nor his prison record, or the serious crimes he committed, justify early release. In 2011, a federal jury in Detroit convicted Nagi, 58, of racketeering, conspiracy, assault with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to transport stolen motorcycles across state lines, conspiracy to remove vehicle identification numbers, conspiracy to traffic illegal drugs, and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. The firearm charge was later overturned on appeal. He was initially sentenced to 37 years in prison, though his sentence was later reduced to 20 years. Nagi was one of more than 30 defendants sent to prison in a case that targeted 91 club members and associates, including police officers and an attorney. Edmunds said Wednesday that Nagi's sentence should be reduced to time served and he should be placed on supervised release for five years.  Nagi's \"prison records show an astounding effort towards rehabilitation,\" she said in a written order. \"Defendant has participated in well over 100 educational courses ranging from basic math and history classes to business, wellness, problem solving, and law classes. He has also completed multiple vocational apprenticeships in trades, including culinary arts, automotive technology and industrial housekeeping.\" Edmunds also cited Nagi's community service work and said his longtime use of steroids could leave him with a compromised immune system as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread in federal prisons. Further, he is needed as a caregiver for his elderly mother, she said. Federal prosecutors disagreed, saying Nagi's health issues are not extraordinary, he has already had COVID-19 and recovered, and he initially refused to take the Moderna vaccine while in prison, though he later agreed to take the Pfizer vaccine after it received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. \"Nagi was convicted of being part of a criminal RICO enterprise, the Detroit Highwaymen outlaw motorcycle gang — an extremely dangerous group that was involved in murder, extortion, arson and drug trafficking, and was often in hostile territorial conflict with other outlaw motorcycle gangs,\" Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Straus said in a court filing opposing Nagi's release. Nagi was \"significantly involved\" in an incident at a Detroit-area bar that \"included the discharge of a firearm and defendant Nagi bringing at least a half dozen fellow Highwaymen … to exact revenge on the victim for disrespecting the gang.\" The Highwaymen, founded in Detroit in 1954, gained infamy in the 1970s when some members were convicted of bombing and raiding homes and clubhouses of rivals. The outlaw motorcycle gang, which at least until the indictments was Detroit's largest, was seen by many as an outlaw among outlaws — banned from a federation of Detroit clubs founded by a former Outlaws president. Nagi was a restaurant and bar owner prior to his indictment and a graduate of Wayne State University. It was not clear Wednesday whether prosecutors might appeal Edmund's order or when Nagi's release might take place.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Nancy Edmunds"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["20 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Aref “Scarface” Nagi"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":["health issues"]},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder, assault, theft and drug trafficking","racketeering, conspiracy, assault with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to transport stolen motorcycles across state lines, conspiracy to remove vehicle identification numbers, conspiracy to traffic illegal drugs, and use of a firearm during a crime of violence","murder, extortion, arson and drug trafficking"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Isaiah Brooks to be released from prison after serving two years in Zach Munday’s death","document":"Updated: Nov 1, 2021 / 09:01 PM EDT  KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Isaiah Brooks, one of the people convicted in the death of 15-year-old Zach Munday , was released into society Monday after serving two years in prison. Brooks, 20, will be serving the rest of his sentence on probation, starting immediately in a halfway house according to court records filed on Friday. Brooks’ attorney, T. Scott Jones, said they have made arrangements at a halfway house and are expecting his imminent release. Knox County records showed Brooks released at 6:47 p.m. Monday. “Isaiah and his family are looking forward to his assimilation into society having learned a painful lesson and now having served an appreciable sentence relative to this terrible tragedy that has destroyed multiple families. Prayers for healing for all involved,” Jones said in a statement. Police: Alcoa teen ‘snapped’ before kidnapping arrest Jones said the judge granting a Rule 35(b) motion for a reduction of sentence is rare in the legal world. According to the court documents, Judge Scott Green said the court previously sentenced Brooks the 10 years in prison , while also ‘stating it would consider reducing the length of incarceration if a timely Rule 35 Motion were filed.’ Scott Lanzon, an attorney with Hindman & Lanzon, LLC., has no involvement in Brooks’ case, but based on reading the court records said Brooks’ release from prison is different. He explained split confinement usually occurs before someone goes to jail. “It’s a middle ground for court to not send someone to prison, and gives them a chance to be rehabilitated,” Lanzon said. He said since the motion for a reduction of sentence was filed and granted, it’s understandable the process was reversed. Greenback butcher shop reprimanded for inhumane slaughter “This will allow him to get credit for the time he’s already served and go straight out to probation and be enrolled in a halfway house,” Lanzon said. Halfway houses aren’t only for people struggling with addiction. Lanzon said halfway houses are used for people who need to be reacclimated to certain rules. He explained a halfway house is like moving back in with your parents and being a teenager again, but a lot more strict. “Rather than releasing (Brooks) out into the public with less supervision and just to probation, I think what the judge is doing is trying to ensure he can be successful. So, he gets used to additional parameters, additional restrictions,” Lanzon said. Lanzon said the other difference with Brooks’ situation is he will have probation, instead of being on parole. He said usually when a prisoner is released, they follow rules set by the Tennessee Department of Corrections . In this case, Brooks will be following rules set by Judge Green and a probation officer. According to the court order, some of the conditions of Brooks’ probation will include abstaining from alcohol, no contact with the Munday family, and not being anywhere near the Munday’s home. Munday died after an incident at a party where underage drinking was involved. According to police, Brooks and Munday got into a fight at the party. Munday sustained injuries to his head, and doctors said those injuries would have been treatable had he been taken to the hospital. Lanzon said Brooks will have a heavy burden to bare once out on probation because the other part of the motion filed by Brooks’ attorney was asking the court for judicial diversion. Judge Green denied that motion, which means Brooks will forever have reckless homicide on his record. “He’s a young man who’s got the majority of his life in front of him and he will be a felon with this attached to his name forever. And not only that, he’s got 8 years left, in which he will be under the thumb,” Lanzon said. Lanzon said Judge Green is not a judge to be trifled with. He said if Brooks makes a poor decision while on probation, he will be back in prison quickly. According to the court order, Brooks serving only two years of his sentence in prison follows what the Munday family asked the court back in 2019. 6 On Your Side reached out to Munday’s family, but have not heard back yet.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Release","arguments":[{"role":"Judge","values":["Green"]},{"role":"Release Time","values":["6:47 p.m. Monday"]},{"role":"Prison Term","values":["10 years"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["T. Scott Jones"]},{"role":"Jail Time","values":null},{"role":"Released People","values":["Isaiah Brooks"]},{"role":"Release Reason","values":null},{"role":"Sentencing Location","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1996 Secaucus train collision","document":"On February 9, 1996, two NJ Transit commuter trains collided at Bergen Junction (since removed/abandoned) in Secaucus, NJ. This accident occurred during the morning rush hour just south of the current Secaucus Junction station. It is NJ Transit's deadliest accident to date and was the first in which NJ Transit passengers and crew died. 3 people were killed and 162 others sustained injuries. The trains involved in the accident were Trains #1254 and #1107. Train #1254 had departed Waldwick at 8:03 a.m. EST, about 5 minutes later than the 7:58 a.m. departure time. The train would make stops at Ho Ho Kus, Ridgewood, Radburn Fair Lawn, Broadway Fair Lawn, Plauderville , Garfield, Rutherford, and Harmon Cove. The train's final stop was supposed to be Hoboken Terminal with an arrival expected at 8:44 a.m. Aboard the train was engineer was John J. DeCurtis, conductor Stephen Miller, as well as an unnamed assistant conductor. Train #1254 consisted of one Comet II cab car (#5146), 4 trailer Comet I cars, and a GP40PH-2 #4110. Train #1254 made all stops on the Bergen County Line except Glen Rock Boro Hall; the train also made a stop at Harmon Cove (it was replaced by Secaucus Junction by 2003). At the time of the collision, the train had over 250 passengers aboard. [1]\n\nTrain #1107, headed for Suffern, had departed Hoboken Terminal at 8:31 a.m. EST, about one minute late. Train #1107 was operated by engineer Alfonso Debonis, as well as an unnamed conductor and assistant conductor. #1107 consisted of GP40PH-2 #4148, 5 Comet I trailer cars, and one Comet I cab car (#5120). At the time of the collision, the train held 125 passengers and 2 deadheading NJT employees who were traveling to Suffern so they could operate another train that originated there. Both trains were running in push-pull configuration. [1]\n\nTrain #1254 had left Harmon Cove station at 8:33 a.m. with 275 passengers and accelerated to 53 mph. Meanwhile, Train #1107 departed Hoboken at 8:31 a.m. with 125 passengers aboard. Train #1254 soon passed a medium approach position light signal telling the train to slow down at 34 mph, according to black box data. The next signal would show the engineer a stop indication at Bergen Junction to wait for Train #1107 to pass before Train #1254 would be allowed to continue to Hoboken. Train #1254 continued to slow until about 71 feet before the stop signal. The engineer then accelerated the train to 20 mph after passing the red signal. Shortly afterward, the engineer realized his mistake and the train went into emergency braking. Several moments earlier, Train #1107 had been shown a clear signal and was approaching the western end of Bergen Junction at 53 mph (the track speed for that section was 60 mph). Train #1254 was moving at 18 mph when the collision occurred. Passenger accounts on Train #1254 describe the sound of the brakes and the blaring of the train horn moments before the collision. [1]\n\nCab Car #5146 was ripped open in the collision, killing the engineer John J. DeCurtis and a passenger aboard train #1254, Arthur David Stern. Locomotive #4148's roof collapsed in on the cab on impact thereby killing Engineer Alfonso Debonis instantly. In addition, 162 passengers were injured. [2]\n\nThere were three fatalities:\n\nThe accident was New York City's worst train accident since the 1958 Newark Bay rail accident. [2]\n\nFollowing the accident, Comet II cab car #5146 was scrapped, while GP40PH-2 #4110 and Comet I cab car #5120 continued in revenue service until its eventual retirement and donation to the Whippany Railroad Museum in New Jersey. One year later, In 1997, GP40PH-2 #4148 was rebuilt, and put back in service as #4219 following the rebuild. The New Jersey Transit Police Department was notified at 8:40 am and arrived at the accident site 13 minutes later. Other emergency services arrived within about 10 to 20 minutes after the first several 911 calls were made. [1]\n\nThe conductor of train #1254 was able to evacuate all passengers of the train with the help of the assistant conductor. The conductor aboard train #1107 was reported to be visibly upset, repeatedly crying that \"people are dead\" which also worried many passengers, the 2 deadheading NJ Transit employees helped evacuate the train instead. After the evacuation, the remaining crew members stood watch to flag down any oncoming trains. Both crews abroad both trains did not use the public address system to communicate with passengers, they instead went from car to car yelling for passengers to exit the train. The assistant conductor aboard train #1254 later reported that he did not know if the public address system was working or not, so he did not use it. The conductor aboard train #1107 could not recall if the system worked or not. Throughout the evacuation process, both train crews communicated by hand held radio. The accident was first reported by the engineer of an eastbound NJ Transit train on the Main Line at 8:45 am. [1]","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["Trains #1254 and #1107"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing Engineer Alfonso Debonis instantly. In addition, 162 passengers were injured","3 people were killed and 162 others sustained injuries","NJ Transit passengers and crew died","engineer John J. DeCurtis and a passenger aboard train #1254"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["On February 9, 1996"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Bergen Junction"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Bad Aibling rail accident","document":"\n\nOn 9 February 2016, two Meridian-branded passenger trains were involved in a head-on collision at Bad Aibling in southeastern Germany. Of approximately 150 people on board the two trains, 12 people died and 85 others were injured, including 24 seriously. [1][2][3][4][5][6][8]\n\nTwo months after the accident, investigators announced that it had been caused by the responsible Deutsche Bahn train dispatcher who gave incorrect orders to the two trains while distracted by a game he was playing on his mobile phone. [10] The dispatcher further compounded his error when, realizing it, he tried to send emergency codes to the trains but entered the wrong combination into his computer. The collision occurred at 06:46:56 CET (05:46:56 UTC)[11]:22 on the single-track Mangfall Valley Railway (German: Mangfalltalbahn) on a curve between the stations of Kolbermoor and Bad Aibling-Kurpark close to the Bad Aibling sewage works in Bavaria. [1][12][13] As of 11 February 2016[update], a total of 11 people had died, including several railway employees. In total 85 people were injured; 24 injured seriously and 61 injured less seriously. [1][2][3][5][6][8][14][15][16][17] A twelfth victim died from his injuries two months after the accident. [18]\n\nThe two trains were Stadler FLIRT3 multiple-units, operated under the Meridian brand by the Bayerische Oberlandbahn (BOB), a subsidiary of Transdev Germany. [19][20] The eastbound train was a six-car unit with 333 seats (ET 325), scheduled to run from Munich to Rosenheim, while the westbound train was a three-car unit with 158 seats (ET 355), scheduled to run from Rosenheim to Holzkirchen. [21][22] There were more than 150 passengers on board the two trains,[23] considerably fewer than usual because of Carnival Holidays. [24] The trains were equipped with a total of three train event recorders. [20] The line and both trains were equipped with the Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung (PZB), a train protection system which was designed to reinforce line-side signalling and prevent drivers from accidentally passing signals at danger. [25]\n\nThe eastbound and westbound trains were scheduled to pass each other at Kolbermoor railway station, with the westbound train (M 79506) towards the direction of Munich timetabled to wait for five minutes for the eastbound train from Munich (M 79505) to arrive. [26] The westbound train departed Kolbermoor on schedule but the eastbound train was four minutes behind schedule. One train was travelling at 52 kilometres per hour (32 mph) and the other at 87 kilometres per hour (54 mph). [11]:22[14]\n\nThe rescue operation involved a total of approximately 700 emergency service workers,[27] including 180 firefighters, 215 Bavarian State Police officers, 50 Federal Police officers, 30 federal civil protection employees of Technisches Hilfswerk, and 200 rescuers from the Bavarian Red Cross, including Water Rescue and Mountain Rescue units. [27] A total of 11 helicopters took part in the rescue efforts. Air ambulances from both Germany and Austria were used to transport the injured to hospitals. [28]\n\nThe site of the accident was difficult to reach because it lies between the Stuckenholz forest and the canalised Mangfall river (Mangfallkanal). This made rescue work considerably more difficult because rescue workers had to be transported by boat and casualty extraction supported by air ambulance. [29] Injured people were extracted by boat to the opposite bank of the river. [12]\n\nOn 9 February 2016, two breakdown cranes belonging to the DB Netze Emergency Technical department (DB Netz Notfalltechnik) were dispatched from Fulda and Leipzig to assist in recovery and removal of the two damaged trains. [30] The crane from Fulda is capable of lifting 160 tonnes, and the second crane from Leipzig is capable of lifting 75 tonnes. [31]\n\nGerman Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt visited the site of the accident. He said it was a \"horrifying sight\". Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that it was \"difficult to comprehend\" how the accident happened. [14] Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was \"dismayed and saddened\" by the crash. [14] German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated: \"My deepest sympathy goes to their families. \"[32] Minister-President of Bavaria Horst Seehofer said \"The whole of Bavaria has been shaken\". [33]\n\nAs a result of the accident, the carnival celebrations on Shrove Tuesday in Rosenheim, Bad Aibling and the surrounding area were cancelled. [34] The traditional political debates on Ash Wednesday in Lower Bavaria were called off. [35]\n\nThe German Rail Accident Investigation Agency (Eisenbahn-Unfalluntersuchungsstelle des Bundes, EUB) opened investigation number 04/2016 into the accident. [36] The German police opened a separate investigation. [4] Police confirmed that nine of the eleven deaths had been identified as being local men from the districts of Rosenheim and Traunstein aged 24–59. [37] The cause of this accident was unclear. [38] By the evening of 9 February 2016, Federal Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt reported that two of the trains' three train event recorders had been recovered. The third was still located in one of the wedged train carriages. [39] On 12 February it was announced that the third event recorder had been recovered. Police said that the recorder was damaged, but attempts would be made to extract the data. Data from the other two recorders had thus far provided no indication of human error on the part of the train crew. [40]\n\nIn a press conference on 16 February 2016, the local prosecutor (Staatsanwalt) identified \"human error\" as the cause of the crash. A train dispatcher at the signalling centre in Bad Aibling had given a wrong instruction. [41] German investigators said they found no evidence of mechanical failure or technical defects that would have caused the crash. [42] The dispatcher was also charged with gefährlicher Eingriff in den Bahnverkehr (dangerous interference with railroads),[43] which is punishable with up to ten years' imprisonment. [44]\n\nMany German railway main signals are equipped with an additional subsidiary signal called \"Zs 1\" (shown as three white dots in a triangle shape). This subsidiary signal replaces a written order authorising a train driver to pass the signal while it is showing a stop aspect. The train dispatcher can activate it from the signal box. There are no safety controls in the signal box, other than special operating rules, for the dispatcher to activate a Zs 1 signal. When a Zs 1 subsidiary signal is shown to the train driver, he must press and hold the PZB button \"Befehl\" (\"Order\") in the cab while moving the train over an active 2000-Hz emergency stop inductor located at the main signal.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["Deutsche Bahn train dispatcher who gave incorrect orders to the two trains while distracted by a game he was playing on his mobile phone"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["12 people died and 85 others were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["9 February 2016"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["single-track Mangfall Valley Railway (German: Mangfalltalbahn) on a curve between the stations of Kolbermoor and Bad Aibling-Kurpark close to the Bad Aibling sewage works in Bavaria","Bad Aibling"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["German investigators"]},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Bayerische Oberlandbahn (BOB)"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Dahlerau train disaster","document":"\n\nThe Dahlerau train disaster was a railway accident that occurred on May 27, 1971, in Dahlerau, a small town in Radevormwald, West Germany, in which a freight train and a passenger train collided head-on. Forty-six people perished in the accident; forty-one were senior year pupils of the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Radevormwald. [1] It was the deadliest accident in West Germany since its foundation in 1949, surpassed after German reunification by the Eschede train disaster in 1998. On the evening of May 27, 1971, shortly after 21:00, a train made up of two class VT 95 railbuses of the Deutsche Bundesbahn was running as special service Eto 42227 (units 795 375 + 995 325) on the single-track line between Wuppertal-Oberbarmen and Radevormwald, the Wupper Valley Railway [de]. The train was filled with senior year pupils of a Radevormwald middle school, their teachers and accompanying railway staff, on the return journey from a class trip to Bremen. The service was about 30 minutes delayed by the time it left the previous station at Wuppertal-Beyenburg. A regular local freight train, Ng 16856 (pulled by 212 030, a DB Class V 100 engine) was approaching Dahlerau station in the opposite direction at this time, so the signalmen at Dahlerau and Beyenburg agreed that the freight should stop at Dahlerau station to let the delayed special pass. In normal operation, the freight train would not stop at Dahlerau. Dahlerau station was equipped with entrance signals, which could show aspects Hp 0 (stop) or Hp 1 (proceed); but it lacked exit signals to control departing trains. In place of exit signals, 'stop' boards were provided at the end of the platform. In absence of any other signal, all trains were obliged to stop at the board to await instructions; the signalman, however, could show a green hand lamp to an approaching train, which allowed its crew to ignore the stop board. This is what would normally have happened to the freight train. The freight train passed the entrance signal as normal and proceeded slowly into the station, expecting the signalman's instructions. Although not strictly necessary according to the rules, the signalman declared that he showed a red hand lamp to the approaching freight train to make absolutely sure it would stop (according to the rules, the 'stop' board was enough to halt the train). It is unclear what happened next, but the train failed to stop as it was meant to, and departed toward Wuppertal. The driver later claimed that the signalman had displayed a green hand lamp, the signal to pass the 'stop' board. The train trailed the points already set for the passenger train; the points' seal, which ruptures in such an event, was later found to be missing. About 800 metres (2,600 ft) north of the station, on a curve, both trains collided. The motor coach of the two-car special train was compacted to one third of its length and pushed backwards 100 metres (330 ft) by the freight locomotive, which was five times as heavy and 20 centimetres (7.9 in) higher than the railbus. The signalman at Dahlerau tried to stop the departing freight train by running alongside it and giving emergency signals, but failed to get the driver's attention. He then immediately telephoned the signalman at Beyenburg to try and stop the passenger train, but it had already left. Neither of the stations nor the trains were equipped with radio, and there were no further signals in between the trains. The signalmen were powerless to stop the trains. Faced with a now-inevitable crash, the Dahlerau signalman phoned the emergency services and told them what was about to happen. Ambulances, firefighters and police were promptly sent from Radevormwald, Wuppertal and Solingen. The rescue effort was hindered by the inaccessibility of the accident site on a hillside and by parents who had waited for the train at Radevormwald station and had now come to search for their children, as well as onlookers who were attracted by the rescue effort. Thanks to quick rescue and medical treatment, 25 people survived despite severe injuries, but 41 pupils, two teachers, a mother and two railway staff died. A single pupil was the only person to escape uninjured. A crisis squad was established at the Radevormwald town hall. Due to the high body count, the dead were laid out in the Bredderstraße gymnasium. Some of the funeral homes that were asked to supply coffins at night time first thought they were receiving prank calls due to the supposed improbability of such a severe accident. The legal proceedings investigating the cause of the accident carried on for a year. The exact sequence of events was never determined, as the Dahlerau signalman died in a car accident shortly after the train crash. It was proven that the car accident was not caused by the signalman, ruling out suicide. The driver of the freight train, who survived the accident, testified in court that he saw a green light from the signalman's hand lamp, signalling him to pass through the station without stopping. The true cause of the accident was never fully clarified. It is generally accepted that the likely cause was some form of human error. As the dispatcher died during the hearings, the case never went to court. As a consequence of the incident, the Deutsche Bundesbahn removed the coloured lens from the hand lamps, which could previously be switched between showing a green and a red light, to avoid the risk of confusion. The rules were changed so that a train which was to make an unscheduled stop at a station without exit signals had to be stopped at the entry signal before it being allowed into the station. The accident also provoked criticism of the lightweight construction of the railbus, which dated back to the 1950s. Their replacements, the DB Class 628 railcars that were built from the mid-1970s on, were constructed considerably more sturdily. After the investigation ended, the damaged railbus was dismantled on September 1, 1971. The engine of the freight train, which did not suffer major damage, was rebuilt and continued in service until 2001. [2]\n\nRadevormwald was a small town with a population of about 20,000, and the effects of the accident were devastating on its population. An entire year of pupils was wiped out, and virtually everyone was affected directly or indirectly. Most of the dead teenage pupils were laid to rest in a separate grave on the Radevormwald cemetery. The funeral took place on June 2, 1971, a remarkably hot day, and was attended by about 10,000 people, among them Chancellor Willy Brandt, the Minister of Transport and the president of the Bundesrat. Public life came to a halt on that day, as shops closed and train service on the railway line was suspended during the funeral. Condolences arrived from places as far as France and Great Britain.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["likely cause was some form of human error"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["Ng 16856"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Forty-six","41 pupils, two teachers, a mother and two railway staff died"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["May 27, 1971"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":["25 people survived"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Dahlerau"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Friedewald train collision","document":"\n\nThe Friedewald train collision was a railway accident on 12 September 2009 in Saxony, Germany. It involved two steam-hauled passenger trains of the narrow gauge heritage Radebeul–Radeburg railway (German: Lößnitzgrundbahn). One hundred and twenty-one people were injured, four of them seriously. Substantial damage was sustained by the locomotives and rolling stock. On the weekend of 12–13 September 2009,[1] the 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) gauge Lößnitzgrundbahn was holding a gala to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the opening of the railway. [2] Four train compositions (three of them were extra trains from various other narrow-gauge railways) were operating on the line as part of the gala, performing fifty-five train journeys on the line instead of the usual twenty-eight. [3] Some of the trains were assembled to represent distinct periods in the railway's history, one of them recreating a train from 1955 used rolling stock from the Mansfelder Bergwerksbahn in Saxony-Anhalt. [3] The last and a resident train were later involved in the head-on collision. [4]\n\nAnother accident had already happened earlier the afternoon. [4] A double-headed train hauled by Saxon-Meyer 0-4-4-0Ts Nos.145 and 176 was in collision with a BMW car at an open level crossing in Radebeul. [2][5] The result of this accident was that the planned timetable had to be abandoned. The Lößnitzgrundbahn is single track with passing loops at some stations. Because of the schedule disruption, trains were not passing each other at the planned locations. [2]\n\nAt 17:45 local time, two passenger trains were involved in a head-on collision on the single track at between Friedewald Haltepunkt and Friedewald Bad stations of the Moritzburg municipality,[1] approximately halfway between the streets Karlstraße and An der Siedlung. [6] The train hauled by No. 99 1789-9 was on a regular scheduled service train while that hauled by No. 20 was one of the extra gala trains. [5] Around 250 passengers were travelling on the two trains. [2] Both trains were travelling at a speed of about 25 kilometres per hour (16 mph), and entered a single-tracked long turn in a narrow, forested valley from opposite directions. [7] The drivers were able to notice one another's trains only at short distance, and while both drivers promptly started braking, the trains collided[7] with a speed of 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph). [8] Five carriages derailed. [4]\n\nAs a result of the accident, all trains on the line were cancelled, as was the rest of the gala. Ambulances and a helicopter were used to ferry the injured passengers to hospital. Buses were laid on to replace the train service. [5] Work began on 13 September to remove the damaged trains. [2] The line was closed until 15 September and re-opened on early 16 September. [9]\n\nOne hundred and twenty-one people, including passengers as well as both drivers and firemen,[7] were injured,[10] four seriously, but not critically. [1] Fifty-two injured passengers, including seven children under ten years of age,[2] were rescued from the collision site by the local police and fire departments and the German Red Cross,[4] and taken to six different local hospitals. [1] The other injured registered in the days after the accident. [10] By 14 September, only one person was detained in hospital. [4]\n\nThe first locomotive involved was No. 99 1789-9, a 2-10-2T built in 1956 and resident on the line. [5]\n\nThe second locomotive involved was No. 20, an 0-8-0. This locomotive built by Lokomotivbau Karl-Marx, Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1951. [11] Four hundred such engines were built as part of the East German World War II reparations for the Soviet Union. [12] In 1996, No. 20 was bought as scrap metal in Estonia and transferred to Saxony-Anhalt by the Mansfelder Bergwerksbahn association, and since 2000, after an extensive overhaul, operated on the association's narrow gauge railway with the same name. [12] It was visiting the Lößnitzgrundbahn railway as part of the gala. After the accident, the badly damaged locomotive was taken to the Sächsische Dampfeisenbahngesellschaft (SDG) workshops in Oberwiesenthal for assessment. [13] There were reports that the locomotive was so badly damaged that it might be written off,[5] but it was repaired. Locomotive No. 20 suffered severe damage in the accident, as did the carriages it was hauling at the time. The cost of repairs was estimated at €1,000,000 (£900,000). [5] After the derailed carriages had been lifted back on the track with hydraulic jacks, both damaged locomotives and seventeen carriages were transported from the collision site to Radebeul Ost station by diesel locomotives for inspection. [14] After inspection in October 2009, locomotive No. 20 was being disassembled and repaired in Oberwiesenthal from November 2009, its boiler was repaired in Piła. Repairs to locomotive 99 1789-9 followed. According to the Lößnitzgrundbahn's vice manager, Mirko Froß, the repair costs are covered by the railway's insurance. The track, which had only suffered minor damage, was repaired before the line reopened on 16 September.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["1,000,000 (£900,000)"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["The drivers were able to notice one another's trains only at short distance, and while both drivers promptly started braking, the trains collided"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["No. 99 1789-9, a 2-10-2T","No. 20, an 0-8-0"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["One hundred and twenty-one people, including passengers as well as both drivers and firemen,[7] were injured","One hundred and twenty-one people were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["12 September 2009"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":["Fifty-two injured passengers, including seven children under ten years of age"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Saxony, Germany"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Radebeul–Radeburg railway"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Garmisch-Partenkirchen train collision","document":"The Garmisch-Partenkirchen train collision took place on 12 December 1995, when a Regio Express train running from Innsbruck to Munich departed from the station of Garmisch-Partenkirchen against a red light due to distraction, colliding with a tourist train, killing one person and injuring 51 others. The first train was RegionalExpress number 3612, pulled by ÖBB 1044 235, a scheduled train running from Innsbruck HBF to Munich HBF, which was stopping at Garmisch-Partenkirchen railway station for 10 minutes. The second train was the famous \"Glass Train\" (DB Class 491 001), a historical tourist train that was running as a special train on that day on the Mittenwald Line, on the reversed route of the RegioExpress. At Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the 2 trains would cross each other (the line is single-tracked at the entrance from all 4 ends into the railway stations, from the Mittenwald Railway, from the Garmisch Railway, the Aussenfern Railway and the Zugspitze Railway), hence the 10 minute wait of the RE3612, and then they would both depart for their destinations. The 1044 was made from a very robust structure, ensuing that an impact at lower speeds would only do minor damage to the locomotive (such as dents, scratches, etc.). The 491, however, had a very weak structure that was like this because of the panoramic windows. This panoramic experience was at the cost of safety in train crashes. The age of both trains also differed, 1044 235 being completed at the SGP workshops in 1992 and 491 001 having been in service since 1935 (Waggonfabrik Fuchs). The guard of the RE train had tucked inside the building of the station to get a cup of coffee. However the station staff had just ran out of coffee, and so he had to wait until the coffee was ready, going through the coffee machine. Whilst he was awaiting, a colleague informed him he had to depart, at the surprise of the guard. The guard then ran back into the train, whistled for departure, and automatically closed the doors. The station signal for the track where the RE train was standing was obstructed, however, by the train and the platform roof. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were light snowfall at temperatures around zero degrees. The driver heard the whistle, and then started accelerating whilst looking back at the train and the station, quickly picking up speed due to the acceleration force of the locomotive. The train driver forgot about the signal, which was indicating a Hp0 (Stop), to allow the Glass Train to arrive into the station. When the RE driver was attempting to get into the position in the drivers' seat, he noticed the other train just a few meters away. Despite applying an emergency brake, the train could not stop, and hit the Glass Train at 47 km/h, whilst the Glass Train itself was going at 37 km/h. A person died aboard the Glass Train, and another 27 were injured, due to the flying glass shards from the panoramic windows, and another 14 were injured aboard the RE train. The front end of the Glass Train was crushed to the point that it was pushed back into the train, and the motor bogie was so damaged that it was completely irreparable, meaning that the trainset will not be able to drive ever again, unless a new motor bogie is reconstructed, however at a high unaffordable price. The train was towed back to Nürnberg in January 1996, and since 2005 it is stabled at Bahnpark Augsburg. It is stored in the locomotive shed with the destroyed front end being stored in the shed itself. The train will be likely to be not repaired anytime soon, due to the high repair costs. The 1044 suffered slight damage and was quickly repaired and put back into service. Since 2002 it was modified into a Class 1144 locomotive, having modernized equipments aboard the train. It still runs as of August 2018. The locomotive driver of the regional express was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment on probation and a fine of 9,000 DM and the guard to a fine of 6,000 DM.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["RegionalExpress number 3612, pulled by ÖBB 1044 235","(DB Class 491 001)"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing one person and injuring 51 others","A person died aboard the Glass Train, and another 27 were injured","14 were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["12 December 1995"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the station of Garmisch-Partenkirchen"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Genthin rail disaster","document":"The Genthin rail disaster happened on 22 December 1939, when an express train crashed into a preceding express in Genthin station, in today's Saxony-Anhalt state of Germany. Varying sources report 186 to 278 fatalities and several more injuries. [1] It still is the worst train accident involving passenger trains in German history. [2]\n\nThe Berlin–Magdeburg railway was equipped with Indusi train protection system at the time. [3]\n\nChristmas Day 1939 fell on a Monday, which many families and soldiers used as a long weekend. Because of the Second World War, spare locomotives or coaches for relief trains were not available,[3] so the existing trains were overcrowded. Express train D 10 (23:15 from Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof to Cologne) had left Berlin on time, but due to excessive dwelling time and the blackout (most lights at stations were turned off) it was quickly delayed to up to 30 minutes. [4]\n\nThe following D 180 was scheduled to run from Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof (departure 23:45) to Neunkirchen (Saar). It was pulled by a DRG Class 01 steam locomotive (no. 01 158), whose Indusi equipment was taken out for repairs. Due to the ongoing locomotive shortage it was put into service nevertheless. D 180 had fewer stops than the preceding express, so it quickly caught up with D 10 and was running one block behind it. [3]\n\nOne station before Genthin, the D 180 passed Belicke block post signal at danger. The locomotive was not equipped with the Indusi system, which would have stopped the train. [5] The driver later stated that all signals were showing a \"green\" aspect, which was denied by the signalman at Belicke. Speculation regarding the misinterpretation of the signals included difficult signal-sighting at night or driver error. After the train passed the signal at danger, the signalman at Belicke immediately warned the next signal box down the line at  Genthin Ost (Genthin East). The signalman there tried to stop the D 180 by waving an emergency red lamp. This was seen by the driver of the preceding D 10, who made an emergency brake application and the train came to a stand at Genthin station at 00:51. Instead of then putting his signals to danger, the signalman at Genthin East continued to use the red lamp to try to warn the driver of D 180, but he did not notice it, presumably because he 'read through' to the next signal which was displaying the green aspect intended for the D 10. At 00:55 D 180 crashed  into the rear of the stationary D 10 at approximately 100 kilometres per hour (62.1 mph). The rear four coaches of the D 10 were partly destroyed and telescoped. The locomotives and six coaches of D 180 derailed. Official figures of Deutsche Reichsbahn report 186 fatalities and 106 injured. Other sources, including the memorial, claim 278 deaths and 453 injuries. [2] Together with the 1948 BASF tank car explosion in Ludwigshafen, where 207 died and around 4.000 were injured, this is the worst railway accident in Germany. Emergency services on site proved difficult, as lights were not allowed to be used, because of the blackout. A special permission was needed to install floodlights. Many firemen were drafted for military services and were unavailable; in addition, temperatures sank to −15 °C (5 °F) in the night and many injured froze to death. The driver and fireman of D 180 survived. The driver was later sentenced to prison for three years and six months. Locomotive 01 158, which pulled the D 180, was repaired and rejoined service in 1941. It is preserved today as 01 1531 in Bahnbetriebswerk Arnstadt railway museum in Arnstadt, Thuringia. [6]\n\nOn the same day, a goods train and an overcrowded passenger train crashed on the Lake Constance Belt Railway in the Markdorf rail disaster. More than 100 died. Railway historian Albert Kuntzemüller described the day as ‘the darkest in German rail history’. [7]","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["180","10"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["186 to 278 fatalities"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["22 December 1939"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":["The driver and fireman of D 180 survived"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Genthin station"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Hordorf train collision","document":"\n\nThe Hordorf train collision occurred on 29 January 2011, when a freight train and a passenger train collided near Hordorf in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany on the Magdeburg–Thale line. The passenger train derailed in the collision. Ten people were killed and 43 people were injured, some of them critically. Initial reports of 33 injured persons[1][2] were later corrected to 23, some of them critical. [3] Around 100 rescue workers were at the collision site, which is about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west of Berlin. [2]\n\nThe local passenger train with about 45 to 50 passengers on board was approaching the end of a single-track section at approximately 100 km/h (62 mph), where it collided head-on in very foggy conditions with the freight train, which was travelling at about 80 km/h (50 mph). [1][4] Both trains had reduced their speeds prior to impact – while the freight train slowed only marginally to 68 km/h (42 mph), an emergency brake application on the passenger train had slowed it down from 98 to 66 km/h (61 to 41 mph). [5] The impact derailed the passenger train, which fell on its side next to the track. The front part of the passenger train was crushed. [4] The freight train ran on for another 500 metres (1,600 ft) before coming to a halt. Subsequent investigations showed that the freight train had most likely passed a signal at danger, as well as the preceding distant signal giving advance warning of the stop signal ahead. [5] The line had been on the list for installation of the PZB automatic train protection system for years, but at the time of the accident this had not been carried out and there were only visual signals. [6] When the freight train ran through the points, which were already set for the passenger train, the signalman in the signal box at Hordorf was alerted. [7] He testified that he immediately radioed an instruction to stop via Zugbahnfunk but got no response until after the collision, which occurred just seconds later. [5]\n\nSince many people were severely injured, it was considered likely that the death toll could rise in the immediate aftermath of the incident. [4] The nine killed passengers had lived in the Harz region; the driver of the passenger train, who was also killed, came from Mecklenburg. [8]\n\nThe passenger train involved in the incident was a lightweight Baureihe 648 operated by Harz Elbe Express, which was traveling from Magdeburg to Halberstadt. [4] It had a tare weight of 63.5 t.\n\nThe freight train was operated by the Peine-Salzgitter company and carried calcium carbonate. [4] It had a gross weight of about 2700 t pulled by two Vossloh G1700 BB locomotives. About 100 police and specialized rescue workers were involved in the rescue efforts. [4] Ambulances were used to transport the wounded, as heavy fog meant helicopters were unable to fly. [4]\n\nTwo days after the incident, it was announced that the driver of the freight train was under investigation for \"alleged involuntary manslaughter\" and was under suspicion of failing to stop for a red signal prior to the crash. [9] On 1 February, it was reported that investigators believed that the freight train had passed signals showing both caution and stop prior to the crash. [10] Investigators hoped to question the driver of the freight train, who was in a state of shock at the time, later that week. [10]\n\nIn response to the crash, the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn said that it would improve safety systems on all single-track lines in the country, including installing automatic train stop systems as required. [10] The installation of PZB at Hordorf had already been planned for March 2011 (in order to increase the line speed limit to 120 km/h (75 mph)) and this work was finally done at the end of May 2011. The final investigation report was published on 14 September 2011. It discounted any equipment failure, concluding human error to be the root cause. The actual severity of the fog at the time and location of the accident remains uncertain due to the rapid changes of these weather phenomena, but the driver of the preceding train reported a visibility range of 100 to 150 m. Rumours of the freight train driver being on the second locomotive were rejected in the report as unfounded. [11]\n\nCriminal charges were brought against the freight train driver on 3 January 2012 and the trial began on 8 October 2012 in Magdeburg with accusations of killing ten persons (\"fahrlässige Tötung\" criminally negligent manslaughter), injuring 22 persons (\"fahrlässige Körperverletzung\" criminal battery through culpable negligence) and the railway damage (\"Gefährdung des Bahnverkehrs\" reckless endangerment of rail traffic). [12][13] On 28 November 2012 the freight train driver, 41-year-old Titus S., was convicted and sentenced to one year on probation at the suggestion of both state attorney and defense. The defense stated, however, that Deutsche Bahn should bear the main share of the blame for ignoring known safety issues on the line (a near collision of two passenger trains had occurred a few kilometers away in 2006 leading to a plan for an immediate installation of automatic train stops, but this was delayed until after the Hordorf collision). [14][15][16] Two joint plaintiffs criticized the result, filing an appeal, which was rejected by the BGH supreme court on 6 August 2013. [17]\n\nThe Sixth Railway Regulations Change Act (Sechste Verordnung zur Änderung eisenbahnrechtlicher Vorschriften) as of 25 July 2012 tightens the rules for the EBO railway regulations so that most minor lines, as well as more important ones, need to be equipped with automatic train stops by 1 December 2014. [18] (requirement is on all lines with a line speed over 80 km/h, on all lines where multiple trains may run at more than 50 km/h, and on all passenger lines where multiple trains may run, at any speed)","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["negligent"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Ten people were killed and 43 people were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["29 January 2011"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Hordorf in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany on the Magdeburg–Thale line"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Harz Elbe Express"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Lathen train collision","document":"\n\nThe Lathen train collision occurred on 22 September 2006 when a Transrapid magnetic levitation (or \"maglev\") train collided with a maintenance vehicle near Lathen, Germany, killing 23 people. It was the first fatal accident involving a maglev train. The Transrapid 08 was still doing trial runs but would sometimes carry passengers along the 31.8-kilometre (19.8 mi) test track to demonstrate the maglev technology. [1] The Emsland test track runs from Lathen, near where the accident occurred, north to Dörpen, with a loop at each end and a depot side track near the southern loop. Speeds of up to 450 km/h (280 mph) are reached on the test track. [1]\n\nMaglev trains use powerful magnets to hover 1 centimetre (0.39 in) above the tracks. [2]\n\nEvery morning a wheeled, diesel-powered maintenance vehicle ran along the tracks to check them for debris. When its work was finished it would wait in front of the last switch. There were two workers on the maintenance vehicle. They radioed the line dispatcher for clearance to leave the track but did not get a response. They were unaware of a test run scheduled that morning half an hour earlier than usual. The test run was carrying visitors from associated companies, including employees at Transrapid, workers from a local nursing care company, and workers from local utility company RWE. The maglev train was boarded according to usual routine. It left the station at 09:43 and firstly went for a brake test, then had to wait for clearance from the line dispatcher. The line dispatchers energized the tracks at 09:52 and one line dispatcher radioed the maglev train to proceed. No communication with the maintenance vehicle is recorded. The train rapidly accelerated to the 170 km/h that was common for the first test round before the 450 km/h on the subsequent test rounds. The train started moving at 09:53, and 57 seconds later emergency braking was recorded. Approximately half a second and 25 metres later the maglev train hit the maintenance vehicle at a speed of 162 km/h. The aerodynamic design of the Transrapid train caused it to dive under the 60-tonne maintenance vehicle, ripping off the roof of the maglev train. The wreckage continued for another 300 metres on the track before coming to a halt. There were 23 fatalities and 11 injuries, 10 severe. [3] The two-man crew of the maintenance vehicle were among the survivors as they were at the opposite end of the vehicle. Three survivors from the Transrapid were rescued by removing the bottom panel when they were heard knocking underneath. Two engineers sitting in the rear section of the maglev survived, and three other passengers were saved later by cutting through the remains of the maglev train. None escaped unscathed. Firefighters used turntable ladders and aerial platforms to reach the wreckage 4 metres (13 ft) above ground level. Immediately after the accident, German transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee held an emergency meeting with representatives from Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp, the two companies jointly responsible for the Transrapid. He commented afterwards that \"major safety failings\" were the clear cause of the accident, and that two key questions requiring answers were whether the Transrapid's safety measures were adequate, and whether they were applied on the test track. [4] He also promised an independent inquiry. [4]\n\nGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel left a conference in Berlin in order to attend the scene. [5] Wu Xiangming, head of the Shanghai maglev project, also visited the scene. [4]\n\nGerman authorities conducted an investigation into the accident. Rudolf Schwarz, head of operators at test track operator IABG, said, \"This accident would not have been possible if all regulations were adhered to.\" According to IABG, the crew of the maintenance vehicle, which clears the test track of debris and dirt every morning, was supposed to radio the line dispatcher once the work was finished. German police therefore suspected human error as the likely cause of the accident. Prosecutors obtained and examined radio transcripts from the vehicles involved. [1]\n\nIn May 2008, a court in Osnabrück concluded that the tragedy was caused by a chain of human errors, including the failure to set an electronic braking system that would have prevented the train from operating while maintenance work was being carried out. Two staff members were found guilty on 23 counts of manslaughter and 11 counts of causing negligent injury and were fined 24,000 and 20,000 euros respectively. The line dispatcher who radioed the clearance to the maglev train was unable to take part in the trial because of suicide fears. [2][6] The trial of the two line dispatchers both resulted in convictions and prison sentences of one year and six months in one case, and one year in the other. Both sentences were suspended as the defendants were exceptionally remorseful, still mentally ill, and retired. They accepted the verdicts immediately. [7]\n\nOne year after the accident, a memorial stone was installed at the crash site. A panel of steel, set into the stone, is stamped with 23 small crosses, one for each of the lives lost in the accident. [8]\n\nCoordinates: 52°52′28″N 7°21′05″E / 52.87444°N 7.35139°E / 52.87444; 7.35139","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["a chain of human errors, including the failure to set an electronic braking system that would have prevented the train from operating while maintenance work was being carried out"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["23"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["22 September 2006"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":["The two-man crew","Two engineers","three other passengers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["near Lathen, Germany"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["German authorities"]},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Transrapid"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Rüsselsheim train disaster","document":"The Rüsselsheim train disaster occurred on February 2, 1990, on the Main Railway near the Rüsselsheim station in West Germany. With 17 persons killed and 145 injured the train collision is amongst the most serious in rapid transit. On February 2, 1990, at 16:42 a Rhine-Main S-Bahn train arrived at Rüsselsheim station. The mass rapid transit DB Class 420 train was on its way from Mainz to Frankfurt on the S14 route. The station is equipped with distant signals before the station platforms and stop signals after them. The Indusi inductor system provides a level of Train protection. As he approached the station, the train driver acknowledged the warning of the distant signal (1000 Hz Indusi), but subsequently forgot about it after carrying out platform duties. A second DB Class 420 train was approaching from Frankfurt. However, its usual platform was already occupied on this occasion and so it had to be routed to another platform on the other side of the station. This required the train to cross the path of the first train some way before the platforms. Both trains were fully packed during rush hour with an estimate of 500 passengers per train. Although the next signal was at danger a few hundred meters beyond the station, the driver accelerated quickly as he departed from the platform. The regular speed of S-Bahn trains is about 80 km/h[citation needed] and the powerful trains can attain that easily. Although both trains had activated the emergency brake—also enforced by an automated train stop (2000 Hz Indusi) on the main signal—the collision occurred at a speed estimated to be about 40 to 70 km/h. The impact was so intense that one of the control cars was lifted upright into the air then fell sideways into a nearby car park. The train driver was sentenced to ten months probation and a penalty of 2500 Deutschmark; he never drove trains again. The train porter dispatching the train was acquitted as his duty was to ensure that all the doors were closed; he was not required to remind the driver that the next signal was at danger. The traditional Indusi train protection system does not enforce any speed restrictions. With the stop signal put at a braking distance the safety overlap depends on an assumed maximum speed and weight of the train. Although operation regulations imposed a maximum speed after a distant signal warning it was not enforced. This disaster led to the extension and rollout of PZB90 – in the final modernisation program of 1995 the Deutsche Bahn equipped 10,000 trains with it (1000 Hz Indusi enforcing a maximum of 45 km/h) and more than 10,000 additional speed restrictions were installed (500 Hz Indusi enforcing a maximum of 25 km/h). All trains in Germany were required to be equipped with PZB90 by 1998. ","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["DB Class 420"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["17 persons killed and 145 injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 2, 1990"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Main Railway near the Rüsselsheim station in West Germany"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Gaisal train disaster","document":"\n\nThe Gaisal train disaster occurred on 2 August 1999,[1] when two trains , the Avadh Assam Express and the Brahmaputra Mail, carrying approximately 2,500 people collided at the remote station of Gaisal, Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal, approximately 19 kilometers from Kishanganj Station. The crash involved such high speeds that the trains exploded upon impact,[2] killing at least 290 people. [3]\n\nThe crash occurred at about 1:45 a.m. on 2 August, 1999, when the Avadh Assam Express from New Delhi collided with the Brahmaputra mail at the Gaisal railway station. Through a signaling error at Kishanganj, the Avadh Assam Express from Delhi was transferred onto the same track as the mail train. No one on either train or in the signals and station master's office noticed the error. The staff at intermediate stations between Kishanganj and Gaisal also failed to notice that the Assam express was on the wrong track. As a result, Brahmaputra Mail train crashed headlong into the front of the Avadh Assam Express at Gaisal. [4] The Avadh Assam Express WDM-2 locomotive was thrown high in the air, and passengers from both trains were propelled into the neighbouring buildings and fields by the force of the explosion. Three of the four lines at Kishanganj station were non-operational because a doubling of lines was in progress. Only one line was being used to carry the load usually carried by four: 31 trains per day. Track circuiting and interlocking were also not correctly functioning at the station, because of the work in progress. Track circuiting is an electrical procedure by which the station master, and consequently the train driver, can know that the track ahead is occupied. The signals will remain red, interlocking the track, which effectively means that the series of signals cannot be turned green unless the station master allows. The signals can be changed from the relay room which can only be opened jointly by the station master and the signal inspector. In such a situation, the points in the track have to be set manually by a \"cranking\" procedure, whereby a crank handle, available at stations, is rotated manually on the orders of the station master for setting the points, which are then clamped and locked. The entire process takes around 30 minutes. The driver B.N. Roy who was heading Avadh Assam Express had already moved the train to downline and on the same track, BC Wardhan heading Delhi bound Brahmaputra Mail was coming. The cause of disaster was duty negligence made by ASM of Kishanganj Railway Station as due to setting wrong points manually on the track by track men, Avadh Assam Express shifted to downline which should have been upline otherwise. At the same time, information was passed to the next station that Avadh Assam Express had been sent to upline from Kishanganj station which was incorrect from the fact that Avadh Assam Express was running on downline track. The convergence point of two trains was at Gaisal Railway station (near to Kishanganj) where both trains collided. According to the witnesses, engine of Avadh Assam express jumped several feet high and engine of Brahmaputra Mail rammed into several buggies of Avadh Assam Express resulting in one of the grim disasters of the Indian Railways. If perhaps the driver of Avadh Assam Express had seen the signal lights by peeping outside from his seat, he could have averted the disaster as on his line, all signals were pointing opposite side green instead of usual front facing green signals. That opposite side green signal was for the driver BC Wardhan of Delhi bound Brahmaputra Mail. Moreover, if station cabin of Kishanganj Railway station could have checked the green signal of upline not turned to red which was supposed to be red in case Avadh Assam Express would have touched upline, this disaster could have been averted. Whenever any train crosses the Advance Starter point of railway station, green signal is turned to red either manually or automatically and again becomes green after train crosses nearby one or two stations. Since Avadh Assam express had not touched the upline, green signals on upline were lighting up green and had not turned red. If perhaps this had been noticed by cabin staff of Kishanganj Railway station on time, trains could have been stopped before Gaisal and this disaster could have been averted. Assistant Station Master (ASM) of Kishanganj station, S P Chandra, later admitted[5] to sending the Avadh Assam Express on the wrong (down) line, causing it to collide with the Brahmaputra Mail on August 1[clarification needed], first presented by a preliminary inquiry report of Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety (CCRS). Immediately after the incident Chandra absconded and was arrested in Katihar on August 10. The line was blocked by wreckage, and the Gaisal emergency services were utterly overwhelmed, as fire swept through the ruined vehicles and station buildings, killing many of the injured people trapped in the trains. Many vehicles and aid support services had to undertake the 14-hour drive from Calcutta to reach the site, by which time many of those they could have helped were already dead. Those who were picked up by rescuers were taken to hospitals in Kishanganj and Islampur, which were also overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Heavy rains helped dampen fires the following day, and rescue workers began trying to separate the twelve mangled carriages of the train and identify the bodies contained inside. Many were unrecognizable and never identified. The official death toll released was set at 285 killed and over 300 injured in the crash. Unofficial totals have claimed that over 1000 or even more were killed, including 90 soldiers. This is possible because although there were only 72 seats in each of the seven general compartments that were involved in the accident, all of them were crowded far beyond capacity. Moreover, there were many ticketless travelers who were not included in the official count. Because of the nature of the crash and fire, as well as the large number of ticketless people who may have been on the trains, the bodies could not be separately identified. There has also been speculation that explosives carried on the military train may have been the cause of the explosion following the impact, rather than the trains themselves. This has been denied by the Indian military, but has remained a controversial issue. This was the worst Indian rail disaster since the Firozabad rail disaster in 1995, and is comparable to the Bihar train disaster of 1981, in which as many as 800 people were reported to have died. ","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["vehicles and station buildings"]},{"role":"Cause","values":["Track circuiting and interlocking were also not correctly functioning at the station","signaling error"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["285 killed and over 300 injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1:45 a.m. on 2 August, 1999"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["hospitals in Kishanganj and Islampur"]},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["at the remote station of Gaisal, Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":["Chief Commissioner of Railway Safety (CCRS)"]},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Avadh Assam Express","Kishanganj Railway"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ghatnandur train crash","document":"\nThe Ghatnandur train crash occurred on 3 January 2003, when a passenger train travelling from Secunderabad to Manmad crashed into the rear end of a heavy goods train near Ambajogai tehsil Ghatnandur in Maharashtra, India. The accident happened in the early morning of the 3rd, when the passenger train, which was supposed to bypass the station on a loop line, was not transferred onto this line by the station officers at Ghatnandur, and so collided with the stationary freight train berthed on the main line of the station. Three carriages were derailed, thanks to the driver, who was killed, slowing the train down at the last minute. Rescue operations, initially carried out by local people, then by military and emergency services, were able to rescue most of the trapped and injured people quickly, helped by the wreckage not catching fire, as often happens in the circumstances. 18 passengers were killed instantly, and 41 badly injured, including several children who were airlifted to hospital in Hyderabad, over 300 km away, by the Indian Air Force. The rail authorities offered compensation to the victims and families of victims, as is customary, with the amounts decided with a sliding scale based on the severity of the injury. The station officials, realising what their mistake had caused, fled in panic, and remained in hiding for many days. Eventually, all were caught and suspended without pay for the duration of an investigation, which found that they had failed to change the track of the approaching train, and to warn the driver of the hazards ahead in sufficient time. They were  Prashant Kumar Verma, Vinayak Neelakantha, Shesharao Sayedu, Srinivas Suryavanshi and G Krishnaih. Indian Railways minister, Nitish Kumar was quoted in the aftermath as saying: \n\n\"It was a human failure as the point was not set for the train which went ahead on the same track where another train was already stationed\".","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["18 passengers were killed instantly, and 41 badly injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["3 January 2003"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["hospital in Hyderabad"]},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["near Ambajogai tehsil Ghatnandur in Maharashtra, India"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Sainthia train collision","document":"\n\nThe Sainthia train collision occurred on 19 July 2010, at the Sainthia Junction railway station in Sainthia, India, when the Uttar Banga Express[1][2][3] collided with the Vananchal Express as it was leaving the platform. 66 people died as a result of the accident,[4] and 165 people were reported injured. [5]\n\nThe collision occurred 191 km from Howrah at 02:00 am (IST) when the Uttar Banga Express, travelling from New Cooch Behar to Sealdah, hit the Bhagalpur – Ranchi Vananchal Express which was just leaving Sainthia railway station. The impact destroyed the 3 rear compartments of the Vananchal Express. Injured people were sent to hospitals in Sainthia and Suri. [5] A need for much faster response to such accidents has been expressed by the Home Minister. [6]\n\nRailway officials initially described how there may have been something wrong with the drivers of the Uttar Banga Express, detailing how the train had passed through a red signal at high speed, with no evidence of a brake application and with no apparent attempt by the driver or co-driver to jump clear of the train cab before the collision. Both were found dead in the wreckage, still in their seats. [7] The possibility of the two drivers of Uttar Banga Express being drugged had triggered alarm in the railways. [8] However, the post mortem of the drivers at the Suri hospital did not show any evidence of drugs. [9] As a precaution, drivers and guards have been asked not to buy any food or drink at stations. [8]\n\nSainthia railway station was a scheduled stop for the express, but the train is believed to have passed over a bridge 1.2 km before the accident at three times the line speed. [10] The crew had taken charge of the train at Malda Town 5 hours before the accident, and had appeared fit and well to station staff during a previous unscheduled stop at Gadadharpur, 7 km ahead of the accident site. [11]\nThe signalman in-charge at the station claimed to have heard the station master trying to alert the driver of the Uttar Banga Express via walkie-talkie, but got no response. [12]\n\nThe enquiry has found no fault with the train's brakes[10] although, the guard, when questioned said that he had applied the emergency brake after the driver did not respond to him on the walkie-talkie, but the brake failed. [13] Also there was no signal failure, the approach signal was red. [10] Probable causal factors found are the drugging of the drivers and not setting a diversion route when the Vananchal Express was standing at the platform. [8] It was too late to operate points and divert the train when the Uttar Banga Express was seen. [11]\n\nThe driver of the Vananchal Express, said that \"even though the green signal was given at 1.54am, we could start the train only at 2.01am because we had not received any signal from the guard\". [8]\n\nRailway Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced compensation of a total of ₹500,000 for the dead, ₹100,000 for the seriously injured, and ₹25,000 for minor injuries. [14]","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["66 people died","165 people were reported injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["19 July 2010"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":["hospitals in Sainthia and Suri"]},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Sainthia Junction railway station in Sainthia, India"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["the Uttar Banga Express","the Vananchal Express"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Vadodara train crash","document":"\n\nThe Vadodara train crash occurred on 21 April 2005 at the village of Samlaya near Vadodara in Gujarat when the Sabarmati Express passenger train crashed at high speed into a stationary goods train carrying cement. The passenger train was carrying over 430 passengers to holy city of Varanasi, when at 3.30am it collided with the cement train which was on the same track. Local citizens rushed to help pull survivors from the wreckage, which did not catch fire. They were joined later in the day by soldiers armed with cutting equipment as well as police and medical personnel. Initial reports claimed that 24 people had been killed in the crash, but these were subsequently scaled down to 17 or 18, with at least 80 people seriously injured and requiring hospitalisation. The railway authority authorised a payment of 100,000 rupees to the families of the dead, and other provisions for those less injured. The cause of the crash was apparently the train's failure to stop at a signal warning the driver that there was an obstacle on the track ahead. The driver, Sita Ram, was killed in the crash, so his testimony will never be known, but the schools of thought on the cause of the crash are that either the driver did not see or did not pay attention to the signal, or that the signalman in Samlaya failed to produce the signal, or finally that the wiring from the box to the signal was faulty, thus mislaying the message. The manager of the rail line concerned, M. Z. Ansari provoked controversy, by declaring just a few hours after the crash that \"Prima facie the accident appears to have been caused by human error on the part of the staff at B Cabin in Samlaya\", which caused much anger amongst the local people aiding the rescue operations, particularly since Mr Ansari was not at the site, and could not have known the full details of what had caused the crash. \n\n\n\n","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["the train's failure to stop at a signal warning the driver that there was an obstacle on the track ahead"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["17 or 18","80 people seriously injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["21 April 2005"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the village of Samlaya near Vadodara in Gujarat"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["Sabarmati Express"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"1967 Thirsk rail crash","document":"\n\n\nThe Thirsk rail crash occurred on 31 July 1967[2] at Thirsk, Yorkshire, England on the British Rail East Coast Main Line. The 12:00 1A26 express train from King's Cross to Edinburgh and Aberdeen[3] collided at speed with the wreckage of a derailed freight train around 15:17 on that day. Seven people were killed and 45 injured, 15 seriously. Following the accident, three of the four lines (the Up [Southbound] and Down [Northbound] Fast lines and the Down Slow line)[4] were blocked by the wreckage of the collision. The Up Slow line was not damaged and was used by special trains to take the dead and injured to Newcastle upon Tyne. The line was also used later that day for both Up and Down trains to clear other trains stranded in the area by the blockage  but was later used only for Up trains, Down trains being diverted via Harrogate over the Harrogate-Northallerton line which, though it had been closed, was re-opened for the purpose. [5] Special bus services were introduced between Leeds and Northallerton and between York and Thirsk to replace local train services disrupted by the accident. Breakdown cranes were ordered from York, Leeds and Gateshead (Newcastle), and the derailed vehicles were cleared from the track by 23:30 on 1 August. Repairs to the track were speedy and the three damaged lines were all open by 16:20 on 2 August, all with an initial speed limit of 20 mph (32 km/h). An extract from The Ministry of Transport report into the accident states:\n\nThe 02:40 Cliffe to Uddingston cement train was travelling on the Down Slow line at about 45 mph (72 km/h) - the maximum speed permitted at the time for trains conveying loaded wagons of this type, when the rear axle of the 12th wagon became derailed towards the cess on plain track. As the train proceeded, the derailed wheels moved further towards the cess smashing the timber sleepers in the track until, after travelling some 170 yards (155 m); the coupling between the 11th and 12th wagons fractured and the vacuum hose pipe parted, causing the brakes to become fully applied on both portions of the train. The front portion proceeded along the line for 470 yards (430 m) and then stopped. The 13th to 20th wagons in the rear portion became derailed and went down the embankment, and came to rest mostly on their sides. The 23rd wagon, however, was slewed round more or less at right angles to the line and stopped with its leading end some 2 ft (0.61 m) foul of the Down Fast line. The passenger train was the 12:00 express from King's Cross to Edinburgh, and it comprised 13 coaches drawn by a Type 4 diesel-electric locomotive. It was running under clear signals on the Down Fast line at about 80 m.p.h. (128 km/h) close behind the freight train. The driver saw at a distance of about 600 yd (549 m). what seemed to him to be a cloud of dust and then he saw the cement wagon foul of the line on which his train was travelling. He applied the brakes fully but he could not prevent a collision, and the left-hand side of the locomotive struck the wagon at a speed of about 50 mph (80 km/h). The locomotive and the leading seven coaches were derailed towards the Up Fast line but they remained upright and inline; the rear six coaches remained on the track. The left-hand side of the locomotive was extensively damaged and the driver and second man were fortunate to escape injury. The derailed coaches were all severely damaged but the most serious damage was to the leading coach which had its left-hand side ripped away, and to the next two coaches which were severely torn, all by contact with the wagon. The train was well filled and I regret to report that seven passengers were killed and 45 were injured and removed to hospital where they were detained; the injuries to 15 passengers were serious. The collision was witnessed by a farm-hand working nearby who immediately went to a telephone and summoned assistance. The driver of the freight train also rang the signalman at Thirsk from the telephone on a signal near which his locomotive had stopped, and asked for the emergency services to be sent urgently. These services responded with commendable promptitude and, despite the difficult access to the site, the first ambulance arrived at 15:40; the last of the injured had been removed by 16:30. [6]\nAfter the derailment and separation of his train, the freight train driver ran back to use a telephone[7] on a signal post about 100 yards (90 m) behind his locomotive. He had no time to speak to the signalman before, to his horror, he first heard and then saw 1A26 loom into view and despite heavy braking, strike the fouling wagon. The buffer beam, draw-gear and coupling shackle of this wagon were ripped clean off by the force of the impact and thrown 71 yd (65 m) into an adjacent field. As 1A26 had approached signal D19, the driver was not accelerating as hard as he normally would have been because he was uneasy about the view ahead—he should have been able to see the next signal but it was obscured by a cloud of smoke or dust and he had instinctively backed off the throttle. As he passed D19 he became aware of the cement wagon across his path about 400 yards (365 m) ahead. He made an emergency application of the train vacuum brake and the locomotive air brake. He operated the sanding gear to increase the grip on the rails and shut down the engine of his locomotive to reduce the risk of fire in case the derailed tank wagon contained flammable liquid as he realised he now had no chance to avoid the collision. As he approached the obstruction he became aware of the freight train guard running back towards him waving his hands. The Thirsk signalman averted further disaster by throwing all his signals to danger and sending an \"obstruction danger\" bell code to the Northallerton and Pilmoor boxes either side, stopping a London-bound express at Thirsk station less than 5 miles (8 km) to the north. 1A26 had come to rest fouling the Up Fast line and this express would have struck the wreckage only a few minutes later. Locomotive DP2[8] was damaged beyond repair and finally cut up for spares in 1970. It was a prototype English Electric Type 4, fitted with a design of traction equipment that subsequently appeared later in 1967 as the Class 50, but using a spare bodyshell from the earlier Class 55 'Deltic' Type 5 programme. Locomotive D283, the English Electric type 4 diesel hauling the goods train was undamaged. The wagon derailment was blamed on excessive wear in the suspension components, thought to be caused by cement dust abrasion, in combination with slight variations in both wheel-set diameter and track alignment. This resulted in a typical \"waddling\", lateral oscillation of \"CemFlo\" tank wagons. Furthermore, it was a number of other accidents involving suspected poor riding of CemFlo wagons that resulted in progressively more severe speed restrictions being placed on any trains containing this type. At the Thirsk crash, the oscillation built up to such a state that it eventually threw the rear wheel-set of one wagon off the rails, even though the train was travelling below the maximum 45 mph (72 km/h) permitted for four-wheeled wagons. Indeed, the pronounced waddling of this very train was noted by the signalman at Pilmoor in his log as he recorded its passing about 6 minutes before the derailment. Also at Pilmoor, two men were watching the trains pass. One of them had noted that the leading wheel-set of a wagon \"somewhere just forward of the halfway point\" had dropped heavily into the gap on a cross-over then rebounded higher than the rest. At the time, although he noted it, he thought little of it, but on hearing of the accident he felt compelled to bring this to the attention of the authorities. Following the accident, wagon LA201 was selected for rolling-road tests at Doncaster having been judged to be in an almost identical condition to LA223 - the first vehicle to derail in the crash. As speed increased, flange-to-flange hunting (moving from side to side) was noted to set in under both laden and unladen conditions.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["1A26 express train","a derailed freight train"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Seven people were killed and 45 injured, 15 seriously"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["31 July 1967"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Thirsk, Yorkshire, England on the British Rail East Coast Main Line"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1984 Eccles rail crash","document":"\n\nThe 1984 Eccles rail crash occurred on 4 December 1984 at Eccles, Greater Manchester, when an express passenger train collided at speed with the rear of a freight train of oil tankers. The driver of the express and two passengers were killed, and 68 people were injured. The cause of the accident was determined to be that the driver of the express train had passed a signal at danger. [1]\n\nThe passenger train involved was 1E79, the 10:05 service from Liverpool to Scarborough, formed of a Class 45 diesel locomotive  No.45147, seven passenger coaches and a parcels van. The freight train was 6E85, the 09:00 service from Stanlow Oil Refinery, Ellesmere Port to Leeds, composed of a Class 47 locomotive No.47310 and fifteen tanker wagons containing fuel oil. The freight train had just passed Eccles station and was starting to accelerate away when the passenger train, having passed both the Eccles distant signal at caution and home signal at danger, collided heavily with its rear. It was estimated that the freight train was travelling at about 10 mph, whilst the passenger train's speed was between 45 and 50 mph. The force of the collision threw the rearmost tanker to the side, but the next two wagons were thrown into the air, with one falling back onto the passenger locomotive. The wagons were badly damaged and escaping fuel oil was ignited by the hot exhaust gases of the locomotive, setting fire to it and the leading two coaches. Fortunately, the leading coach was empty of passengers or the death toll would probably have been much higher. However, the express driver and one passenger were killed instantly, whilst another passenger succumbed to injuries a month later. A number of people received impact injuries and burns and many were also treated for smoke inhalation. Rescue efforts were assisted by the location of the accident, which was adjacent to the M602 motorway, enabling easy access for emergency services. The inquiry into the accident was inconclusive. There had been problems with the signalling in the area, and track circuits had been affected by a maintenance gang working on the track nearby, but the inspector was satisfied that the signals which had been passed at danger were working properly and showing the correct aspects. They were, however, not fitted with the AWS warning system to alert the driver to his error. In the absence of any conflicting medical evidence, the inquiry was forced to conclude that the driver had simply allowed his attention to wander and had missed the Eccles signals – it was testified by staff that it was rare for these signals to be at danger. The report recommended that these signals be fitted with AWS, work which was quickly completed. The home signal was also fitted with a white backplate, in order to make it more visible against the road bridge that stands behind it. [2]\n\nCoordinates: 53°29′05″N 2°19′15″W / 53.4847°N 2.3209°W / 53.4847; -2.3209","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["the driver of the express train had passed a signal at danger"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["1E79","6E85"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["The driver of the express and two passengers were killed, and 68 people were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["4 December 1984"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Eccles, Greater Manchester"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1990 Stafford rail crash","document":"\n\nThe train crash at Stafford on 4 August 1990, resulted in the death of a train driver and injuries to 36 people. The 11:36 pm empty coaching stock train from Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham Soho TMD ran into the rear of the 10:18 pm express passenger train from Manchester Piccadilly to Penzance, which was standing in platform 4 at Stafford station. The empty train was signalled to draw up behind the express in order to clear the way for another train. [1]\n\nThe driver of the empty train, who was the only fatality, was considered not to have kept a good lookout. This was possibly compounded by excessive working hours and by the alcohol that was subsequently found in his bloodstream. [2]\n\nThe Rule Book was changed to avoid this situation. Now if a train is to be signalled into an occupied section and that train is not booked to call at that location, the driver must be first advised. Also before a train can be signalled behind another, the signal ahead of the stationary train must be at danger until the second train has come to a stand, to avoid potential 'over-reading' of the signal by the second driver. Coordinates: 52°48′12″N 2°7′21″W / 52.80333°N 2.12250°W / 52.80333; -2.12250\n\n\n\nThis England rail transport related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":["coaching stock train"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["the death of a train driver and injuries to 36 people"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["4 August 1990"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Stafford"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1996 Stafford rail crash","document":"\n\nOn 8 March 1996, a Transrail freight train travelling from Mossend, North Lanarkshire, to Willesden, North London, derailed after an axle on a wagon carrying liquid carbon dioxide failed due to fatigue at Rickerscote 1.4 miles (2.2 km) south of Stafford. [2] Almost immediately after the derailment, a Travelling Post Office mail train hauled by a Rail Express Systems British Rail Class 86 electric locomotive (no 86239) collided with a section of the derailed freight train on the adjacent line and fouled the path of the TPO mail train. One person, a mail sorter, was killed in the crash and twenty others including the driver of the mail train were injured. [3]\n\nThe cause of the collision was the failure of an axle on one of the tanker wagons of the freight train. It caused the wagon and adjacent ones to derail, into the path of the closely approaching mail train, which was travelling at 60 mph (97 km/h). The driver of the mail train had no time to brake and the force of the collision spun the locomotive around and catapulted it up the embankment, where it came to rest against the end wall of a house. [4]\n\nThe liquid carbon dioxide formed into a gas as it was no longer under pressure and interfered with the rescue effort. One bystander who had gone to help was later found unconscious after suffering the inhalation effects of carbon dioxide. The rescue services were on the scene within four minutes of being notified, despite the signaller at Stafford having to relay the emergency information via another office because the crash had cut his external phone lines, but he was able to phone his supervisor at Crewe. [5]\n\nThe fire service on site were given the wrong staffing list for the mail train - they had been given a manifest for the number of mail workers who would have been on the train northbound after leaving Crewe. However, the ambulance service were given a correct head count list from the Royal Mail workers at the lineside. [6]\n\nDuring the investigation, it was discovered that the wagon had travelled 69,000 miles (111,000 km) since its last inspection. The recommendation at the time was that wagons were tested every 24,000 miles (39,000 km). [7]\n\n\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["the failure of an axle on one of the tanker wagons of the freight train"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["One person, a mail sorter, was killed","twenty others including the driver of the mail train were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["8 March 1996"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Rickerscote"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Abbots Ripton rail accident","document":"\n\nThe Abbots Ripton rail disaster occurred on 21 January 1876 at Abbots Ripton, then in the county of Huntingdonshire, England, on the Great Northern Railway main line, previously thought to be exemplary for railway safety. In the accident, the Special Scotch Express train from Edinburgh to London was involved in a collision, during a blizzard, with a coal train. An express travelling in the other direction then ran into the wreckage. The initial accident was caused by:\n\nThe accident (and the subsequent inquiry into it)[1] led to fundamental changes in British railway signalling practice. A coal train preceding the Flying Scotsman on the main East Coast up (south-bound) line was normally scheduled to be shunted into a siding at Abbots Ripton to allow the much faster Flying Scotsman to pass. Because of a very bad snowstorm, both the coal train and the Flying Scotsman were running late and the signalman at Holme, the next station north of Abbots Ripton, judged that the coal train needed to go into sidings at Holme if it was not to delay the Flying Scotsman. He therefore set his signal levers to danger so as to stop the coal train, but it continued on the main line until it reached Abbots Ripton, where as expected the signalman waved it on to his box with a hand lamp, and directed it to shunt. The goods train had nearly completed shunting into the Abbots Ripton siding when the Scotch express ran into it at speed. The wreckage obstructed the down (northbound) line and a second collision occurred some minutes later when a northbound express to Leeds crashed into the wreckage. Thirteen passengers died in the collisions, and 53 passengers and 6 traincrew members were injured. The Great Northern was operating on the block system, which was supposed to eliminate such accidents, so the accident caused considerable alarm. It was soon established that the main problem was with signals and snow:\n\nThe coal train had therefore seen nothing to make it stop at Holme, and the Flying Scotsman whilst catching up with it had run through a number of signals which were showing 'clear' although their levers had been set to 'danger'. Abbots Ripton is about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) north of Huntingdon (and 12.8 miles (20.6 km) south of  Peterborough ) on the East Coast main line, which handled both fast passenger trains and slow goods (largely coal) traffic. North of Peterborough passenger and coal traffic took different routes. South of Peterborough, they shared the same route; this was twin track in 1876, but stations with 'shunting sidings' were provided at frequent intervals to avoid slow goods trains, typically travelling at 20 mph (32 km/h), obstructing fast trains such as the prestigious 'Scotch express', which averaged 45 mph (72 km/h) (hence its unofficial nickname 'The Flying Scotsman'),  A slow train being caught up by a faster one would stop at such a station and reverse into the shunting siding, taking about four minutes to clear the main line. After the fast train had passed, the slow train would resume its journey. Abbots Ripton station had a shunting siding; for a south-bound ('up') train the previous siding was 5.8 miles (9.3 km) further north at Holme, 7 miles (11 km) south of Peterborough. Traffic along the line was regulated by block working. Abbots Ripton and Holme had signal boxes and between them were two intermediate boxes. All controlled 'home' signals near the box and 'distant' signals about half a mile (c 800m) before the home signals. The line was thus divided into three blocks, each roughly 2 miles (c 3.1 km) long; entry to each block was controlled by the signal box at the start of the block. [2] Shunting into the siding at Abbots Ripton took place in a fourth block. The 'home' signals at Abbots Ripton were interlocked with the siding points, so that whenever the points were open to the main line the Abbots Ripton home signal lever had to be at 'danger'. All boxes could communicate with adjacent boxes by their block telegraph. Signals were normally kept at 'all clear' but were set to 'danger' to protect trains as follows. When a train entered a block by passing a home signal, the signalman would set the home signal to 'danger', thus preventing a following train entering the same block. The distant would also be set to 'danger'. Trains were required to stop at a home signal at 'danger', but were allowed to pass a distant signal at 'danger' as this merely warned an approaching driver to moderate his speed to be ready to stop the train at the home signal. Both signals would be returned to 'all clear' when the next box telegraphed 'line clear'. Normally, as soon as a train was past a box's home signal, the signalman would telegraph 'line clear' to the preceding box. During foggy or snowy weather, however, when a train stopped at a station 'line clear' was not sent until the train had restarted, or been shunted into a siding. [3] In good weather therefore a goods train being shunted into a siding at Abbots Ripton should have been protected against another train running into it by the Abbots Ripton 'home' and 'distant' signals ; in falling snow, the home and distant signals of the previous box should have given further protection and the fast train should always have been at least one full block away. Signal boxes serving stations/sidings had, as well as the block telegraph, 'speaking telegraph' instruments. These were not telephones, but Morse code senders, used for messages (for example how late a train was running). The signals used on the Great Northern to work the block system were lower quadrant semaphores. [note 1] A lever in the signal box was connected by a wire (under tension, and passing over intermediate pulleys) to a counterweighted arm on the signal. To set a signal to all clear, the signalman pulled the appropriate lever in his signal box; this moved the arm down (which was pivoted in a slot in the signal post), against the pull of the counterweight, \"to a vertical position in the post\". [4] When the lever was moved to set the signal to danger, this did not positively drive the signal to “danger” but paid out slack in the wire and allowed the counterweight to take the arm to a horizontal position. [note 2]\n\nSince by day the signal arms were clearly visible from the signal box from which they were worked, the system had no repeater in the signal box to confirm a signal was actually showing the aspect corresponding to the lever position. In emergency the signal could be set to ‘danger’ by cutting the wire; but a heavy weight lying on the wire would keep the signal at ‘all clear’ by effectively pulling on it: since the signals were normally set to ‘all clear’ any fault which stopped them being moved would almost certainly keep them at ‘all clear’ as well. At night (or in poor visibility in daytime) an oil lamp displayed a white light when the signal was at 'all clear'; when the signal arm moved to the horizontal “danger” position it brought a red lens in front of the light, so that a red light was then displayed to oncoming trains. In poor visibility, GNR regulations called for detonators to be laid if possible on the track at the home signal when this was set to danger; at stations where platelayers were available, this should also be done at the distant signals. The express trains were made up of non-bogie non-corridor four- or six-wheel carriages. There were 13 on the Leeds express, giving a weight (including the engine and tender) of somewhat over 200 tons. At this period, other railways often had to resort to using more than one engine to maintain a high top speed; the Great Northern (favoured with one of the best engine classes of the period – the Stirling 8-foot singles) prided itself on not doing so. As with all the other railways, though, it had considerable difficulties in stopping the trains rapidly once they were at speed. To stop a train, the driver could shut off steam, get his fireman to apply a handbrake[note 3] on the tender and put the engine into reverse. He had no means of applying brakes to the rest of the train; indeed most of the carriages had no brakes. Two or three of the carriages were brake carriages with handbrakes, each with a guard who would apply them when (and if) he heard the driver \"whistle for brakes\". In trials carried out after the accident under favourable conditions this was shown to bring the train to rest within 800–1150 yards when travelling at 40–45 mph.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["Because of a very bad snowstorm, both the coal train and the Flying Scotsman were running late and the signalman at Holme, the next station north of Abbots Ripton, judged that the coal train needed to go into sidings at Holme if it was not to delay the Flying Scotsman. He therefore set his signal levers to danger so as to stop the coal train, but it continued on the main line until it reached Abbots Ripton, where as expected the signalman waved it on to his box with a hand lamp, and directed it to shunt. The goods train had nearly completed shunting into the Abbots Ripton siding when the Scotch express ran into it at speed"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Thirteen passengers died in the collisions, and 53 passengers and 6 traincrew members were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["21 January 1876"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Abbots Ripton"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1913 Ais Gill rail accident","document":"\n\nThe Ais Gill rail accident occurred on the Settle–Carlisle line in the north of England on 2 September 1913. The proximate cause of the crash was a signal passed at danger, but there were many contributing factors. The two trains involved were both passenger trains, which had left Carlisle railway station in the early hours of 2 September, destined for St Pancras station. The Midland Railway, which owned and operated the Settle-Carlisle line, had a policy of using small engines, and the two locomotives had barely sufficient power to surmount the steep gradients on the line with the heavy trains they were assigned. In theory, the load pulled by the first engine, No. 993 4-4-0, was 13 long tons (13 t) over its maximum limit of 230 long tons (230 t), so the driver asked for assistance from a pilot engine, but was not given one. To make matters worse, the coal with which both engines were supplied had not been properly screened and was full of slack and 'small coal', which did not fire well and tended to clog the grates. The first train left Carlisle at 1:38 am. As it struggled up the gradient to Ais Gill summit, the highest point of the Settle-Carlisle line, the steam pressure steadily dropped to the point where the locomotive's ejectors were unable to generate enough vacuum to hold the train brakes \"off\", and so the train stopped one-half-mile (800 m) short of the summit. As they cleaned out the grate and tried to build up steam pressure, the driver and fireman made the mistake of telling the guard that they would only be standing for a few minutes. The guard therefore did not protect the train in the rear, which could be done by laying detonators on the rails or walking a considerable distance along the line with a lantern. Meanwhile, the second train, hauled by No. 446 4-4-0, was also struggling, although it had a lighter load. Just short of Mallerstang, a few miles north of Ais Gill, the driver left the cab, to walk round the outside framing and oil some of the working parts while the train was in motion. Even though that procedure was no longer necessary because wick lubricators were in use, drivers apparently continued to do it out of habit and pride. While the driver was out of the cab, the fireman was having difficulty getting an injector to work, so the water level in the boiler was dropping. When the driver returned, both men worked on the injector, and eventually restarted it. While they were distracted by the problem, their train had passed all the signals at the Mallerstang signal box, which were at danger. The crew also missed a red lantern being waved from the signal box by the Mallerstang signalman, and another being waved by the guard of the first train. Shortly after, they looked up from their distractions to see the first train stalled not far in front of them, and far too late to stop. The crash caused an unexpectedly high number of casualties. Even though the last vehicle of the first train was a parcels van, the second train demolished it and ploughed into a third-class coach ahead. The roof of the parcels van slid over the roof of the second engine and sliced into a first class sleeping car behind it. As with many railway collisions in Britain about this time, flammable gas escaping from the cylinders for the gas-oil lighting system ignited and rapidly spread a fire. Fourteen people in the first train died at the scene, and very few remains were later found. Two passengers subsequently died of their injuries. Thirty-eight passengers in the second train were seriously injured. The subsequent inquiry blamed the crew of the first train for neglecting to protect the rear of their train, and the enginemen (particularly the driver) of the second train for failing to proceed with caution knowing that they must have passed several signals without observing them. The Mallerstang signalman was also criticised, although his actions did not contribute to the accident. The section controlled three main signals; the \"distant\", which could indicate \"clear\" or \"caution\", and the \"home\" and \"starting\", which could both indicate \"clear\" or \"danger\". The signalman had thrown all his signals to \"caution\" or \"danger\" after the first train passed. As the second train approached, he thought it was proceeding slowly under caution, and lowered the home signal to allow the train to proceed as far as the starting signal. When he realised that the train was actually steaming hard, he could not throw the home signal back to \"danger\" until the train had already passed it. The inquiry made several recommendations. Most concerned the enforcement of regulations on drivers, firemen, guards and signalmen to ensure closer attention to their primary duty; the care and safety of trains. The more extensive use of Automatic Train Control (ATC), then under extended trial on the Great Western Railway, was discussed. This would sound a siren in the cab to alert the crew of a train if they passed a signal at danger or caution and then automatically apply the brakes if they failed to acknowledge and cancel the warning. Signalboxes should be fitted with detonator placers, to alert engine crews who missed signals or were unable to observe them in fog or thick weather. Electric lighting was clearly safer than gas oil lighting, and steel-framed carriages were less likely to be crushed than wooden-framed stock. With regard to the issue of lack of motive power, the inquiry found that the Midland's policy was not to use pilot engines on engines that were on or slightly over their weight limit as the time lost in calling up a pilot engine, attaching it to the train and then removing it further along the line was greater than the time lost by a slightly overloaded train unable to keep up to time. The company did not discipline drivers who failed to keep to time because their trains were overloaded. The site of the crash was quite close to the site of the Hawes Junction rail crash which had taken place less than three years earlier, and to which the Midland Railway's small-locomotive policy had also indirectly contributed (in this instance by leading to a large number of light engine movements). The train crash plays an important role in the plotline events of the Kate Morton novel The Forgotten Garden.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["signal passed at danger"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Fourteen people in the first train died","Two passengers subsequently died","Thirty-eight passengers in the second train were seriously injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2 September 1913"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the Settle–Carlisle line in the north of England"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["The Midland Railway"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Barnes rail crash","document":"\n\nThe Barnes rail crash, in which 13 people were killed and 41 were injured, occurred at Barnes railway station late in the evening of Friday 2 December 1955. [1]\n\nThe Southern Region of British Railways 23:12 electric passenger train travelling from London Waterloo to Windsor & Eton Riverside and Chertsey collided with the rear of a LMS class 8 2-8-0 hauled freight train from Herne Hill to Brent at about 35 mph. The wreckage from the passenger train short-circuited the third rail; an electrical arcing started a fire in the wooden coach frames, and the leading coach of the passenger train was burnt out. The coaches were classified as 2-NOL and were converted in the 1930s from old London & South Western Railway steam carriages. [2]\n\nThe accident was caused by irregular operation of the block apparatus by the signalman at Barnes Junction. The signals were interlocked so that they could not be freed to show clear unless the block ahead was clear. A manual release key could be used to circumvent this interlocking if, for example, a broken mechanical link or track circuit gave a false indication of a train on the line. The signalman for Point Pleasant, the block behind Barnes, offered the passenger train forward improperly, without waiting for the \"Train out of section\" acknowledgement from Barnes. The Barnes signalman had forgotten about the freight train and used his release key to clear the signals. A contributory factor was the failure of the circuit breakers supplying the traction current to the section to trip when the collision occurred – the subsequent arcing and fire caused most of the fatalities. The official report concluded that the current drawn by the short-circuit (approx 5700 A) was only slightly higher than the trip current (5000 A), and the breakers failed to trip due to poor response speed and stiffness of operation. One of the passengers killed was Bernard Crouch, an England table tennis international and world championship medallist. [3]\n\n","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["irregular operation of the block apparatus by the signalman at Barnes Junction"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["LMS class 8 2-8-0 hauled freight train"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["13 people were killed and 41 were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["late in the evening of Friday 2 December 1955"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Barnes railway station"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Battersea Park rail crash","document":"\n\nThe Battersea Park rail crash occurred on 2 April 1937, just south of Battersea Park railway station on the Southern Railway, in London. Two electrically driven passenger trains collided on the Up Local line; the second train, from Coulsdon North to Victoria, had been allowed into the section while it was still occupied by the first train, from London Bridge to Victoria. The signalman at Battersea Park, G. F. Childs, believing there was a fault with the Sykes electromechanical interlocking apparatus which was installed at the box, had opened up the case of the instrument and inadvertently cleared the interlock which should have prevented this situation. The official enquiry ruled that he subsequently accepted the Coulsdon train, although he should have been aware that the London Bridge train had not cleared the section. Ten people were killed, including the guard of the London Bridge train, and eighty people were injured, seven sustaining serious injuries. [1][2]\nAnother accident had occurred at Battersea Park in 1881. On 2 April 1937, Battersea Park signal box was operated by Relief Signalman G. F. Childs, rather than the usual signalman (F. W. Harvey). Although Childs was a very experienced and well-respected signalman within the SR, and had been passed as competent to operate the box two weeks previously, this was the first time he had operated it unsupervised, and he had never operated it during the morning rush-hour. During the course of the morning, he made several mistakes, the last one of which was the direct cause of the accident. [1]\n\nThe various boxes on this section of the railway used Sykes electromechanical \"Lock and Block\" interlocking, which used treadles to detect the presence of trains on the line rather than electrical track circuits, and prevented unsafe signal indications by mechanically locking the signal slides in the box, rather than interrupting an electrical circuit. A feature of the Sykes system was that the various actions needed to set up a route for a train and clear the appropriate signals had to be completed in the correct order, otherwise the apparatus would lock up and require releasing. On the boxes to the south of Battersea Park, the apparatus could be released by the signalman alone using a key, but Battersea Park and the boxes to the north required the signalman to request a release from the next box in the chain – for Battersea Park, this was Battersea Pier box. This procedure required the signalman making the request to send a bell signal, then for both signalmen to press the appropriate button in their respective boxes – the interlocking would only be released if both buttons were pressed simultaneously. [1]\n\nChilds' first mistake occurred at approximately 0605, when his apparatus locked up after the passage of a boat train. In his evidence to the enquiry, he described this as a \"treadle failure\", but it was ruled that the lock-up had been due to his operation of two signals in the wrong order. He was able to clear the interlocking in this case without requiring permission from any other box. Between 0757 and 0804, no fewer than ten trains were due to pass Battersea Park, and Childs was working under considerable pressure. The three trains directly involved in the accident were the 0737 train from London Bridge to Victoria, referred to in the report as the \"South London\" train, the 0730 from London Bridge to Victoria via Tulse Hill, referred to as the \"London Bridge\" train, and the 0731 from Coulsdon to Victoria, the \"Coulsdon\" train. All three trains were due to depart Battersea Park on the Up Local line, the South London train from the Wandsworth Road line, and the other two from the Clapham Junction line; the box immediately on the country side of this line from Battersea Park was Pouparts Junction. Childs accepted the South London train at 0758, and the London Bridge train at 0759, intending to hold the London Bridge train at the Up Local home signal until the South London train had cleared the section. He made his second mistake at this point; he failed to put the switch-hook on the Clapham line Up Local plunger, which had to be pressed to accept a train on the line. The switch-hook would both mechanically prevent the plunger being depressed, and electrically prevent the block indicator at Pouparts Junction from showing \"Line Clear\". While attempting to allow the South London train into the station, Childs made his third mistake; he attempted to clear the home signal for this train before setting the points correctly. This again caused the Sykes apparatus to lock up, and, on this occasion, it would have to be released by Battersea Pier box. Childs sent the bell signal, but (his fourth mistake), he pressed the wrong release button, leaving the apparatus locked. Rather than attempting the release again, or contacting Battersea Pier by telephone to investigate the problem, Childs assumed the apparatus had failed, and decided to open the case and reset it manually. He was permitted to do this by the regulations then in force, but this procedure should only have been used in an emergency. While resetting the signal slide for the South London train, Childs inadvertently also cleared the interlock for the London Bridge train, which was still standing at the home signal. This caused the block indicator at Pouparts Junction to return to \"Line Clear\", as it was not being held on by the switch-hook circuit. The signalman at Pouparts Junction (T. P. G. Hillman) then offered the Coulsdon train forward. He should not have done this until he had received the \"Train out of Section\" bell signal for the London Bridge train, which Childs denied strongly that he had sent. The enquiry made no definite ruling on this point – it was possible that Hillman had mistaken another bell signal relating to a down train for the \"Train out of Section\" signal. However, Childs' fifth and fatal mistake then occurred. He pressed the plunger to accept the Coulsdon train, and, as the enquiry ruled, sent the acceptance bell signal to Hillman. Hillman cleared his signals, and the Coulsdon train entered the occupied section at approximately 40 mph. The driver of the Coulsdon train initially thought that the London Bridge train was on another line, and only realised there was a conflict a few seconds before the accident. He made an emergency brake application, but the speed was not significantly reduced. The leading car of the Coulsdon train overrode the rear car of the London Bridge train, completely destroying the wooden bodywork of all but one of its compartments. Nine of the ten fatalities occurred in this car. The leading car of the Coulsdon train also suffered considerable damage, but there was no significant damage to any other car of either train, and neither train derailed. [1]\n\nThe immediate cause of the accident was Childs' acceptance of the Coulsdon train into the occupied section. The interlocking apparatus should have prevented him doing so, but his interference with it, and his failure to apply the switch-hook, rendered the interlocking ineffective. [1]\n\nThe enquiry recommended that the paragraph of the rules which permitted signalmen to manually reset the apparatus in an emergency should be deleted, so that any such maintenance tasks would only be performed by qualified linemen, and that the conversion of the signalling in the area from electromechanical interlocking to entirely electrical track circuiting should be expedited. [1]\n\n","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["there was a fault with the Sykes electromechanical interlocking apparatus which was installed at the box, had opened up the case of the instrument and inadvertently cleared the interlock"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Ten people were killed, including the guard of the London Bridge train, and eighty people were injured, seven sustaining serious injuries"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2 April 1937"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["south of Battersea Park railway station on the Southern Railway, in London"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Charfield railway disaster","document":"\n\nThe Charfield railway disaster was a fatal train crash which occurred on 13 October 1928 in the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire. The Leeds to Bristol London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) night mail train failed to stop at the signals protecting the down refuge siding at Charfield railway station. The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signalmen. A freight train was in the process of being shunted from the down main line to the siding, and another train of empty goods wagons was passing through the station from the Bristol (up) direction. The mail train collided with the freight train and was derailed, coming into collision with the up train underneath the road bridge to the north of the station. Gas used to light the carriages ignited, and four carriages were burnt out. The driver of the mail train claimed that he had seen a clear distant signal on approach to the station, and therefore had assumed that the home signals protecting the station were also clear; however, testing of the signals after the accident confirmed that the distant had been correctly in the yellow \"caution\" position. The driver was charged with manslaughter, but was subsequently acquitted. The 10:00 pm LMS down passenger and mail express from Leeds to Bristol consisted of Midland Railway Class 3 4-4-0 No. 714 steam locomotive hauling a 6-wheel tender, a 6-wheeled parcels van, a goods van, a composite passenger coach, two third-class coaches, another composite coach, a TPO sorting van, a TPO tender, a pair of TPO vans and a passenger brake van. Of these cars, the parcels van, front composite, both 3rd class Coaches and all four TPO vehicles' lighting was powered by flammable gases. In total, the train was carrying 23 gas canisters in these carriages. Only the front goods van had been constructed with electrical lighting, whilst the rear composite and brake van were built to use gas lighting, but had been converted. All eleven carriages were wooden and old at the time of the crash, with the newest coach being the goods van which was built in 1915, the oldest vehicles were the TPO vans which dated back to 1885. All but the two front vans on the train had vacuum brakes which could be activated from the locomotive. The locomotive also carried a steam brake to brake itself and its tender. Both brakes were able to be activated from the footplate of the engine, and the vacuum brakes could be activated from the guard's van. In the locomotive was driver E.H Aldington and fireman F.C Want whilst in the Brake Van. at the rear of the train was guard Miller. All three men knew each other well and were experienced. Aldington had worked on the railways since 1891, had been driving goods trains since 1916 and passenger trains since 1924. His last working day prior to the crash was 12 October, where he had driven the 1:45 am mail train from Birmingham to Bristol and then the 7:40 am Birmingham to Bristol mail train. Aldington had considerable experience running on this line, having been scheduled to work it every five days for eleven weeks. Fireman F.C Want had worked on the railways since 1917 with nine and three quarters of a year as a fireman and had known Aldington since December 1926. Unlike Aldington, Want was much less experienced on the route, having only handled it 30 times before. Guard Miller had worked on the railways since 1921. The 9:15 pm Great Western Railway (GWR) down semi-fitted goods train from Oxley bound for Bristol. This train consisted of GWR 4300 Class 2-6-0 Locomotive No. 6381, a 6-wheeled tender, forty-nine loaded wagons and a brake van. The locomotive, tender and the front fifteen wagons had vacuum brakes to be operated from the engine, but the remaining 34 wagons were braked via the brake van. The crew aboard this train consisted of driver Gilbert and fireman H. Sutton in the engine and guard W. Fortune in the brake van. The 4:45 am LMS up empty goods train from Westerleigh to Gloucester consisted of a 0-6-0 locomotive hauling its tender, forty-five empty wagons and a brake van. The crew aboard this train consisted of driver G. Honeyfield and fireman A. Clarke in the engine and guard Callaway. Although not in the crash itself, two more trains were involved in the lead-up to the disaster, these being the 12:45 am down parcels train from Leicester to Bristol and the 10:35 pm down goods train from Washwood Heath to Bristol, both operated by the LMS. Approaching Charfield at high speed, Aldington told Want to look out for the down distant signal, even though Want wasn't as experienced on this line as he was, and the fog and lack of knowledge meant he was unsure as to the signal's location. [1] However, 60 yards from the down distant, Want claimed to see the green signal and said to Aldington \"He's got it off mate!\" before shovelling in some more coal to the engine. As he returned the shovel to the tender, Aldington saw the GWR goods engine emerge from the fog. [2] Realizing a collision was about to occur, he quickly applied the brakes before ducking down. The mail train crashed into the GWR goods train, the engine of the LMS train clipping the edges of the two front-most goods vans of the GWR Train before crashing into the tender, which at that point was slightly askew of the main line as it was being shunted clear. The LMS engine crashed into the right-hand side of the GWR tender and derailed to the right, ploughing into two empty wagons of the up LMS train before it overturned onto its right side against the up slope near the bridge. The GWR tender was flung onto its left side against the north side of the bridge, while the GWR engine became wedged against the abutment, causing the first six vehicles (the parcel van, the other van, the front composite, the two 3rd class carriages and the rear composite) to become wedged under the bridge. Whilst the engine of the mail train was derailed and tossed clear, the tender was derailed but remained on the track. The sudden deceleration caused the two vans, the front composite coach and first 3rd class coach to violently telescope. The rear 3rd class coach hit the rear of the front coach, forcing the front of the carriage to become entangled with the coach ahead of it, causing both underframes to bend upwards until it came to rest leaning on the north side of the bridge. Part of the roof was torn off and thrown onto the bridge. The rear composite and the cars behind it came to an abrupt halt, but remained on the rails, each receiving varying amounts of damage. [1]\n\nThe GWR goods train's first two wagons which were still being shunted clear when the LMS train hit received glancing blows whilst the tender of the train received the brunt of the impact. Both 6381's tender and engine were pinned against the wall by the mail train's carriages. The remaining forty-seven wagons mostly received either minor damage or were undamaged.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["train failed to stop at the signals protecting the down refuge siding at Charfield railway station"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["13 October 1928"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Charing Cross (District line) tube crash","document":"\n\nThe Charing Cross (District line) tube crash occurred on 17 May 1938 at about 09:55 hours, between Charing Cross (now Embankment) and Temple stations. Six people were killed when a Circle line service ran into the rear of a District line service held at an automatic signal. A wiring error had caused the preceding signal to incorrectly display a green aspect. The track circuits connected to the signal cabin at Charing Cross had been converted to alternating current on the morning of 8 May. As a result, there was some wiring which needed to be secured. This work was carried out during the engineering hours on 17 May. The signal wiring engineer had secured and reconnected all wires between the various circuit breakers in the cabin. However, one wire, which linked circuit breaker number 8 to circuit breaker number 9 had been put on the wrong terminal of circuit breaker number 9. This caused signal EH9, the eastbound starter signal, to clear even though the section ahead was occupied by a train held at automatic signal number 823. The cabin was put into automatic mode as this was how it was normally set, but no testing was carried out, and traffic began with no observation from the engineers. Manual working was only used when a train was to be reversed at Charing Cross. The problem did not appear until the line became busy. On arrival at Temple at 09:40, a motorman reported that he had nearly run into the train ahead. The message was conveyed to Charing Cross but no action was taken despite further reports that the signal was working incorrectly. By the time it became clear that there was a significant problem, it was too late to prevent the collision. The Ministry of Transport report held the Signal Installer and Chief Lineman responsible for the wiring error and the failure to test the signals thoroughly. The Station Foreman, Porter and Inspector were responsible for not acting promptly to prevent a collision. A similar accident involving a signal wiring error had occurred near the same station on the Northern line on 10 March.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["one wire, which linked circuit breaker number 8 to circuit breaker number 9 had been put on the wrong terminal of circuit breaker number 9"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Six people were killed"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["17 May 1938 at about 09:55 hours"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["between Charing Cross (now Embankment) and Temple stations"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Charing Cross (Northern line) tube crash","document":"\n\nThe Charing Cross (Northern line) tube crash occurred at 08:32 hours on 10 March 1938, when a Northern line train ran into the rear of a stationary train near Charing Cross (now Embankment). Twelve people were slightly injured. The accident was caused by a signal technician carrying out a temporary repair to a faulty signal even though he was not familiar with the layout and did not have access to the signalling diagram. [1]\n\nDuring the morning rush hour, the advanced platform starter signal on the northbound line at Waterloo station had developed an intermittent right side fault which sometimes caused it to show 'danger' even though the line ahead was clear. This was causing significant delay to the service because drivers were having to carry out the 'stop and proceed' rule which required them to wait one minute, pass the signal and then proceed slowly with caution as far as the next signal. [1] The signal lineman for the area was unavailable and so one was summoned from Kennington station. When he arrived, he gave instructions for the platform staff to hold the next train even if the signal turned green, and then he and the Stationmaster entered the tunnel to look for the fault. He quickly found a faulty signalling relay, which although it was energised had a voltage across a front contact (a contact that is made when the relay is energised). As a temporary measure to get the trains moving, he shorted out the contact with a piece of wire terminated in two crocodile clips. This cut the relay out of action and reduced the clearing distance of the signal. The lineman knew this but did not expect it to incur a significant risk as the track circuit for a starter signal is only short. Because he only had a wiring schematic and not a signalling diagram he didn't appreciate that the starter signal was 'slotted' to four other track circuits, and was only supposed to clear once all those sections of line ahead were unoccupied. The effect of his actions meant that the signal would now revert to clear once a train had passed it by just 33 yards, rather than the 615 yards it was designed to. [1] When he returned to the station he stood by the tunnel headwall with a red hand lamp and held every train for one minute after the signal turned green as a precautionary measure. After several trains had passed he went in search of a second wire with the intention of temporarily connecting the faulty signal's circuit to an unused pair of contacts on the same relay, to restore normal operation. While he was searching the collision took place just beyond Charing Cross station. In the inquiry, the signal engineer was held wholly to blame, because although his temporary fix was reasonable under the circumstances, the instructions that he gave to the platform staff were incorrect. The holding of the train for one minute after the green aspect was reasonable, but the driver should have been instructed to, \"... proceed at caution and be prepared to stop short of any obstruction\". The absence of the last instruction meant that the driver would proceed at full speed and be unable to stop short of another train. As a result, the berth circuit (not to be confused with the berth track circuit) was developed whose purpose was to detect contacts that were closed when they shouldn't have been and to rupture the relay supply fuse if such a condition was detected forcing the controlled signals to show an unchanging danger indication. The berth circuit was retrofitted to every automatic signalling system in Britain.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["a signal technician carrying out a temporary repair to a faulty signal even though he was not familiar with the layout and did not have access to the signalling diagram"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Twelve people were slightly injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["08:32 hours on 10 March 1938"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["the rear of a stationary train near Charing Cross"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Chelford rail accident","document":"\n\nThe Chelford rail accident occurred on 22 December 1894 at Chelford railway station. [1] The stationmaster was supervising shunting operations, during which a high-sided wagon was fly-shunted (i.e. run-off) into a siding in strong winds and rapidly fading light. As another six wagons were being run onto an adjoining road, the stationmaster saw the high-sided wagon being blown out of its siding by the wind to meet them. [2] A collision occurred derailing the runaway in such a way that it fouled the main line just as the 16:15 Manchester to Crewe express approached, drawn by two locomotives, LNWR Waterloo Class 2-4-0 No 418 Zygia and Experiment Class No 518 Express. [1]  The stationmaster ran towards them waving a red lamp but the drivers thought he was signalling to the shunters and did not slacken speed. Zygia derailed and fell on her side whilst her tender ran up the platform ramp. Express remained upright but the first carriage demolished the front of a signalbox. In all, 14 passengers were killed and 48 injured. [3]\n\nThe inquiry had little comment to make as this seemed to be a freak accident but advised that, in future, the brakes of all shunted wagons should be immediately pinned down. [4]\n\nA contemporary photo supposedly shows the re-railed damaged locomotive Zygia shortly after the accident. [5]\n\nCoordinates: 53°16′19″N 2°16′42″W / 53.27198°N 2.27834°W / 53.27198; -2.27834","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["The stationmaster ran towards them waving a red lamp but the drivers thought he was signalling to the shunters and did not slacken speed"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["LNWR Waterloo Class 2-4-0 No 418 Zygia and Experiment Class No 518 Express"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["14 passengers were killed and 48 injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["22 December 1894"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Chelford railway station"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Chester General rail crash","document":"\n\nThe Chester General rail crash occurred on 8 May 1972 at Chester railway station (traditionally known as Chester General station) in northwest England. The 19:31 freight train from Ellesmere Port to Mold Junction consisted of 38 wagons hauled by a Class 24 diesel locomotive no. 5028. The first five wagons were tank wagons containing kerosene, petrol and gas oil. At around 20:50 the train was approaching Chester on a 1 in 100 falling gradient when the driver discovered that the brakes had failed. It ran past a signal at danger and through a set of points which were set for no. 11 bay platform, where an empty diesel multiple unit was standing. As there was nothing more he could do, the driver jumped out onto the platform with the train still travelling at around 20 mph. It ploughed straight into the DMU and completely destroyed the first coach. The second coach was torn from its bogies and thrown up onto the platform where it demolished the refreshment room wall. There were very few people on that part of the station, although the staff in the refreshment room had to shelter themselves from falling masonry. A major fire broke out when the burst fuel tanks of the trains ignited, but the fire brigade were based nearby and arrived within a couple of minutes. They were able to rescue a trapped postal worker and evacuated several passengers from an adjacent lightly loaded train before it too was engulfed by the fire. Damage caused to the trains was severe, especially after petrol from two of the tank wagons began to boil and was forced out of the pressure relief valves, whereupon it ignited. The fire was not  extinguished until 00:20 the following day. The trains involved were all written off and a section of the station roof was damaged and consequently removed. The first eight wagons were equipped with the vacuum brake but the pipes had not been connected. The train had run from Ellesmere Port as an unbraked freight train and stopped at Helsby, where it needed to reverse. The guard had forgotten to connect the vacuum pipes when the locomotive coupled up to the opposite end of the train, so that extra brake power was not available on the falling gradient into Chester. The driver had also omitted to carry out a brake test before departure.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["the brakes had failed"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["no. 5028"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["8 May 1972"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Chester railway station"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Clapham Junction rail crash","document":"\n\nOn the morning of 12 December 1988, a crowded passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal just south of Clapham Junction railway station in London, and subsequently sideswiped an empty train travelling in the opposite direction. A total of 35 people died in the collision, while 484 were injured. [1]\n\nThe collision was the result of a signal failure caused by a wiring fault. New wiring had been installed, but the old wiring had been left in place and not adequately secured. An independent inquiry chaired by Anthony Hidden, QC found that the signalling technician responsible had not been told that his working practices were wrong, and his work had not been inspected by an independent person. He had also performed the work during his 13th consecutive seven-day workweek. Hidden was critical of the health and safety culture within British Rail at the time, and his recommendations included ensuring that work was independently inspected and that a senior project manager be made responsible for all aspects of any major, safety-critical project such as re-signalling work. British Rail was fined £250,000 for violations of health and safety law in connection with the accident. On 12 December 1988 the 07:18 from Basingstoke to London Waterloo, a crowded 12-car train made up of four-car 4VEP electric multiple units 3033, 3119 and 3005, was approaching Clapham Junction when the driver saw the signal ahead of him change from green (\"proceed\") to red (\"danger\"). Unable to stop at the signal, he stopped his train at the next signal and then reported to the signal box by means of a line-side telephone. He was told there was nothing wrong with the signal. Shortly after 08:10,[2][3] the following train, the 06:30 from Bournemouth, made up of 4REP unit 2003 and 4TC units 8027 and 8015, collided with the Basingstoke train. A third train, carrying no passengers and comprising 4VEP units 3004 and 3425, was passing on the adjacent line in the other direction and collided with the wreckage immediately after the initial impact. The driver of a fourth train, coasting with no traction current, saw the other trains and managed to come to a stop behind the other two and the signal that should have protected them, which was showing a yellow \"proceed with caution\" aspect instead of a red \"danger\" aspect. [3][4]\n\nAs a result of the collisions, 35 people died, and 69 were seriously injured. Another 415 sustained minor injuries. [5]\n\nThe driver of the Basingstoke train was off his train and standing by the line-side telephone when his train was pushed forward several feet by the collision. He picked up the receiver and spoke to the signalman, informing him of the collision and asking him to call the emergency services. The signalman immediately switched all the signals he could to 'danger', and signalled to the adjacent signal boxes he had an obstruction on the line. However he had no control over automatic signals, and was not able to stop the fourth train. He then called the Clapham Junction station manager and asked him to call the emergency services. [6] The accident had tripped the high-voltage feed to the traction current. The operator in the nearby Raynes Park electrical control room suspected there had been a derailment and re-configured the supply so that the nearby Wimbledon line trains could still run. [7]\n\nPupils and teachers from the adjacent Emanuel School, who were first on the scene of the disaster,[8] were later commended for their service by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. [9]\nRescue was hampered because the railway was in a cutting, with metal fence at the top and a wall at the bottom of a wooded slope. [10] The last casualty was taken to hospital at 13:04 and the last body was removed at 15:45. [5]\n\nAn initial internal investigation showed that a wiring fault meant that the signal would not show a red danger aspect when the track circuit immediately in front of the signal was occupied. [11] Work associated with the Waterloo Area Resignalling Scheme meant new wiring had been installed,[12] but the old wiring had been left connected at one end, and loose and uninsulated at the other. [11]\n\nAn independent inquiry was chaired by Anthony Hidden, QC for the Department for Transport. His eventual report included 93 recommendations, for changes to the working practices of both British Rail and the emergency services. [13]\n\nA 1978 British Rail Southern Region report had concluded that due to the age of the equipment the re-signalling was needed by 1986. However, approval was given in 1984 after a report of three wrong-side signal failures. [14] The re-signalling project had been planned assuming more people were available, but employees felt that the programme was inflexible and that they were under pressure to get the work done. [15] Installation and testing was carried out at weekend during voluntary overtime, the technician having worked a seven-day week for the previous 13 weeks. [16] The re-wiring had been done a few weeks previously, but the fault had only developed the previous day when equipment had been moved and the loose and uninsulated wire had created a false feed to a relay. The signalling technician who had done the work had not cut back, insulated, nor tied back the loose wire and his work had not been supervised, nor inspected by an independent person as was required. [17] In particular, a wire count that would have identified that a wire had not been removed was not carried out. [18] There had been inadequate training, assessment, supervision and testing and, with a lack of understanding of the risks of signalling failure, these were not monitored effectively. [19]\n\nCritical of the health and safety culture within British Rail at the time,[19] Hidden recommended that unused signal wires needed to be cut back and insulated, and that a testing plan be in place, with the inspection and testing being done by an independent person. Signal technicians needed to attend refresher courses every five years, and testers needed to be trained and certified. Management was to ensure that no one was working high levels of overtime,[20] and a senior project manager made responsible for all aspects of the project. [21] Unprotected wrong side signal failures – where the failure permitted a train to go beyond where it was permitted – had to be reported to the Railway Inspectorate. [22] Cab radios, linking driver and signalman, were recommended[23] and to begin installing public address system on existing trains that were not expected to be withdrawn within five years. [24]\n\nTesting was mandated on British Rail signalling work[25] and the hours of work of employees involved in safety critical work was limited. [26] Although British Rail was fined £250,000 (equivalent to £541,000 in 2019[27]) for breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974,[28] there was no prosecution for manslaughter. In 1996 the collision was one of the events cited by the Law Commission as reason for new law on manslaughter, resulting in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. [29]\n\nA memorial marking the location of the crash site is atop the cutting above the railway on Spencer Park, Battersea. [30]\n\nThe Basingstoke train stopped at the next signal after the faulty signal, in accordance with the rule book. Railway historian Adrian Vaughan suggests this may not be the best way of handling faulty signals.","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["a wiring fault"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A total of 35 people died","484 were injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["the morning of 12 December 1988"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["south of Clapham Junction railway station in London"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":["British Rail"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Clayton Tunnel rail crash","document":"\n\nThe Clayton Tunnel rail crash occurred on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England. At the time it was the worst accident on the British railway system. A train ran into the back of another inside the tunnel, killing 23 and injuring 176 passengers. Three north-bound trains left Brighton station within a few minutes of one another. At the southern entrance to Clayton Tunnel an automatic signal failed to return to danger after the first train passed, allowing the second train to follow it into the tunnel. The signaller at the south end of the tunnel belatedly waved a red flag in an attempt to stop the second train, but thought that it had not been seen. However the driver of the second train had briefly glimpsed the flag and stopped his train inside the tunnel. The signaller then misinterpreted a 'line clear' telegraph message from the signal box at the north end of the tunnel as referring to the second train instead of the first, and signalled the third train into the tunnel. [1]\n\nIn his cabin close to the southern entrance of the tunnel, signalman Henry Killick was in charge of a signal linked to an alarm bell, and a needle telegraph. He controlled the signal using a wheel in the cabin, and the signal would normally be at \"danger\" unless he set it to \"clear\" to allow a train to enter the tunnel. When a train had passed it, the signal was designed to return automatically to \"danger\", but if it did not, the alarm bell would ring. The needle telegraph was linked to a signal box at the northern entrance of the tunnel. When the signalman in the southern box pressed and held down a switch, it gave a \"train in tunnel\" indication to the signalman in the northern box. Otherwise, the needle on the telegraph would hang vertically. Except for the Clayton Tunnel, the line was worked on the time-interval system, which required trains on the same track to be separated by five minutes. Despite that, the three trains left Brighton within the space of seven minutes:\n\nAt the southern entrance of the Clayton Tunnel, the first train passed the signal at \"clear\", but the alarm bell rang to warn Killick that the signal had not returned to \"danger\". He sent a \"train in tunnel\" message to Brown in the north cabin, but did not return his signal to \"danger\" in time to stop the second train from passing it and entering the tunnel. It was only three minutes behind the first, so it was possible that it would catch up with the train ahead. Because the first train was still in the tunnel, Killick rushed out of the cabin, waving his red flag to stop the second train just as it was passing. However, he could not be sure that the driver had seen his flag. He telegraphed Brown at the northern mouth of the tunnel: \"Is tunnel clear?\" At that moment, the first train left the tunnel, so Brown signalled back to Killick: \"Tunnel clear\". Tragically, Killick thought that Brown was referring to the second train and not the first. In fact, the driver of the second train had seen the red flag. He stopped his train about half a mile (800m) into the tunnel and began reversing back to the south end. Meanwhile, Killick saw the third train approaching, which stopped at his signal. Thinking that the tunnel was clear, he waved his white flag to allow it to proceed. The second and third trains collided in the tunnel with great force. The second train was pushed forward, and the locomotive of the third train destroyed the guard's van of the second train before smashing into its last carriage. The locomotive of the third train rode up over the carriage roof and smashed its chimney against the tunnel roof before stopping. Many of the 23 deaths were in that last carriage, in which passengers were burnt or scalded to death by the shattered engine. The bodies of a number of the victims were stored temporarily in the cellar of The Hassocks Hotel. A nine-day inquest into the deaths of the 23 victims was held at Brighton town hall. It concluded with the jury finding that Charles Legg, the assistant stationmaster of Brighton station, was guilty of manslaughter, because of his negligence in starting three trains so close together, against the rules of the company. The jury did not find any negligence by either signalmen Killick or Brown. [2] Legg was committed to trial for manslaughter, but found not guilty. [3]\n\nThe catastrophe publicised the problem of trains travelling too close together, with signalmen having to appraise the situation too quickly for safety's sake. A simple communication mistake between the two signal boxes caused havoc that Sunday, but the telegraph was also blamed for the tragedy because it did not register without continual pressure on the switch. The signal, too, was also at fault for not returning to \"danger\" immediately after the train had passed. The accident encouraged the use of the block system (rather than the time interval system) for the remainder of the railway system. One other aspect of this accident was that Signalman Killick was working a continuous 24-hour shift that day, rather than the regulation 18 hours to gain a complete day off duty. In his report on the accident Captain Tyler stated that \"it was disgraceful that a man in so responsible a position as Signalman Killick should be compelled to work for twenty-four hours at a stretch in order to earn one day of rest a week. \"[4]\n\nCharles Dickens may have partly based his story \"The Signal-Man\" on this accident,[5] dramatising the events (especially the bells and the telegraph needle), as well as adding other incidents. His own experience at the Staplehurst rail crash may have inspired him to write this ghost story. Readers of the story in December 1866 would likely have still remembered the Clayton accident. Other accidents in which the signalman forgot, or got confused about, the presence of a train include:","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["automatic signal failed to return to danger after the first train passed, allowing the second train to follow it into the tunnel"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing 23 and injuring 176 passengers"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday 25 August 1861"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Colwich rail crash","document":"\n\nThe Colwich rail crash occurred on the evening of Friday 19 September 1986 at Colwich Junction, Staffordshire, England. [1]  It was significant in that it was a high speed collision between two packed express trains. One driver was killed, but no passengers died because of the great strength of the rolling stock involved, which included examples of Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 coaches. Colwich Junction lies between Rugeley and Stafford and is where the four-track West Coast Main Line from London splits into two routes. Approaching from the south, two tracks go to Manchester via Stoke-on-Trent and two tracks go to Stafford and Crewe. In the middle of the layout, two of the lines cross each other at a diamond crossing. In August 1986, the signalling was altered so that drivers of northbound trains taking the Stoke line would see flashing yellow signals on approach. The rulebook meaning of this was:\n\n\"A flashing yellow aspect means facing points at a junction ahead are set for a diverging route and the speed of the train must be reduced\". [2]\n\nThis sequence of signalling was designed for use at higher-speed turnouts as a replacement for approach release, where the junction signal is held at red until the train is near to it. Over the next few years, flashing yellows were also installed at locations where trains cross over between different tracks travelling in the same direction, e.g. from a \"fast\" line to a \"slow\" line. While not \"junctions\" in the traditional sense, the signalling sequence was identical to that given at a \"diverging\" route. On 19 September 1986, the signalman at Colwich saw that the 17:00 express train from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly was approaching the junction at roughly the same time as the 17:20 express from Liverpool to Euston. He decided to give precedence to the latter and so the Manchester train might need to wait its turn over the junction. The Manchester train needed to cross from the Down Fast to the Down Slow line before turning off towards Stoke. The signals presented to its driver were as follows:\n\nAfter passing over the crossover he saw that CH23 was still red. Having interpreted the flashing yellows to mean that the route was set all the way over the junction to Stoke, he was expecting this signal to clear as he approached it (as under the approach release system). But as he got nearer he realised it had not. The driver made an emergency brake application but the train did not stop before reaching the diamond crossing. At that moment he saw the Liverpool train approaching at high speed and shouted a warning to a trainee driver who was also in the cab. They both jumped from the locomotive almost immediately before the Liverpool train collided with it. The locomotive of the Liverpool train was 86211 City of Milton Keynes. It hit the other locomotive 86429 The Times side-on, which finished up in the wreckage with its body twisted and split open. The passenger coaches were scattered in all directions and some had their ends badly damaged. Eric Goode, the driver of no. 86211, was killed. [3]  It was also reported that Nicaragua's ambassador to Britain, Francisco d'Escoto, was one of the injured passengers. [4]\n\nAfter the accident, the driver went to the signal box and told the signalman \"You had double flashing yellows and the route was set for Stoke\". [5][6]  With \"traditional\" junction layouts in mind, flashing yellows would have meant that the route was set for him right through the junction, with at worst, the red signal on the far side. It was not; at Colwich the signalling system was designed for the 'diverging route' to be only the crossover from the Down Fast to the Down Slow, and the driver was not expecting to see a red signal before taking the Stoke line. In this respect railway nomenclature had unwittingly set a trap; he had after all seen a 'Junction Indicator' illuminated and thus assumed that his train had been routed across the junction. [7]\n\nThe public inquiry centred on whether the driver had had adequate training on the recently introduced flashing yellow signals and the implications at multiple junctions (Hall 1987). The driver admitting to signing for, but not actually reading, the Notice that referred to the installation of flashing yellows at Colwich the previous month. A contributory factor was the lack of flank protection given the layout at Colwich Junction. The accident would not have happened if the points had been set to route the train away from the diamond crossing, rather than head-on into the Liverpool train's path, as would have been normal practice in an older manual installation. This feature was not included in the junction design because it would have prevented a parallel movement from being signalled on the down fast line,[8] even though in this particular case the train had approached on the down fast line anyway. This lesson was not learnt; lack of flank protection would again prove a significant factor in a head-on collision, at the Ladbroke Grove rail crash in 1999 (Hall 2003). The Inspector's report recommended changing the signalling system so that a flashing yellow sequence could only occur when the route was set across the whole junction, as the driver was expecting. [note 1] A second recommendation was to inhibit wheel slide protection (WSP) during an emergency brake application – practical tests suggested the train could then have stopped before fouling the junction. The latter recommendation was not implemented. Local resident Alf Taylor created a memorial to Eric Goode at the site of the accident, which he looked after until his death in 1997. On 17 September 2006, the Sunday before the 20th anniversary of the accident, the garden was re-dedicated. [9]\n\nCoordinates: 52°47′18″N 1°59′16″W / 52.78833°N 1.98778°W / 52.78833; -1.98778","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["two of the lines cross each other at a diamond crossing"]},{"role":"Train No.","values":["Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 coaches","CH23"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["One driver was killed"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["the evening of Friday 19 September 1986"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Colwich Junction, Staffordshire, England"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Coppenhall Junction rail crash (1962)","document":"\n\nOn the evening of 26 December 1962, cold weather and snow in and around Crewe had caused points to become frozen and trains were being detained at signals. About midway between Winsford and Crewe, the 13:30 Glasgow Central to London Euston Mid-Day Scot, hauled by an English Electric type 4 diesel, with 13 coaches and 500 passengers, was stopped at a signal but the driver found the telephone to Coppenhall Junction, the next signal box ahead, out of order. Seeing the next signal ahead he decided to proceed down towards it and use the telephone there, but too fast. [1] In the darkness he failed to notice the 16:45 express from Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham New Street, hauled by an electric locomotive with eight coaches with 300 passengers, standing on the line ahead and collided with it at about 20 mph (32 km/h). [1]\n\nThe collision killed 18 passengers; 33 other passengers and one railwayman were seriously injured. [1] All these casualties were in the two rear coaches of the Liverpool train, which were telescoped after a coupling fractured. [1][2]","event_type":"Train Collisions","arguments":[{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Train No.","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 18 passengers; 33 other passengers and one railwayman were seriously injured"]},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["the evening of 26 December 1962"]},{"role":"Attending Hospital","values":null},{"role":"Survivors","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["About midway between Winsford and Crewe"]},{"role":"Accident Investigator","values":null},{"role":"Train Agency","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mudslides on Organ Mountains left drivers stuck for hours","document":"SAN AUGUSTINE PASS, New Mexico - Marina Gandara and her son Jacob had already spent 16 hours on the road home to Las Cruces when they encountered \"mud rivers\" running through Organ Mountains on Sunday night. \"We got probably halfway up when there were these \"mud rivers,\" recalled Gandara. \"We did not know this at the time, but there had been a mudslide. The whole road was covered in mud.\" RELATED STORY: U.S. 70 in southern New Mexico reopens after mudslides The Gandaras had been visiting family in the Dakotas. Marina and Jacob decided to take the scenic route home, driving south on U.S. 54 through Carrizozo and Alamogordo, intending to travel west through San Augustine Pass to get home to Las Cruces. By the time they had arrived home, they had spent close to 22 hours on the road. Marina thanked the first responders who worked tirelessly to get the road clear so they could return home. \"My mom always said, 'We'll take any rain we can get,'\" Marina remembered with a smile. \"I don't know if I like the mud river portion, but we needed the rain. As long as people weren't injured and they got to a safe spot, that's the priority.\" WARNING! San Augustine Pass on US 70 is CLOSED. Detours are on US 54 and US 380. Overnight storms in southern New Mexico caused flooding and mud slides on various roadways. Use caution. Do not drive around barricades. Crews are clearing the roadway. ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Las Cruces","U.S. 70 in southern New Mexico","Organ Mountains"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday night"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Atmospheric River' Causes Disastrous Flooding, Mudslides in California","document":"Exceptionally heavy rain caused debris flows and flash flooding that damaged as many as two dozen homes and buildings in California's Salinas Valley on Wednesday. In Paso Robles, unhoused people living in the Salinas Riverbed are especially in danger and local officials were working to alert them to the potential 20-25-foot rise in water levels. The heavy rains produced by an atmospheric river also caused flooding and knocked out power for thousands in the Bay Area and the threat of landslides and debris flows remains across the state after the state's record-smashing 2020 wildfire season. The landslides are an example of the compound disasters made more frequent as human caused climate change makes wildfires more extreme and extreme precipitation more frequent. As reported by KPIX : The heavy rain triggered a mudslide in the River Road area near the Salinas River and Highway 101 south of Salinas. KSBW reported an estimated 50 large animals that were stuck in mud that had to be rescued. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Monterey County confirmed Wednesday afternoon that it had taken in 41 animals for shelter due to people having to evacuate the area. As of Wednesday afternoon, SPCA Monterey County had taken in nine dogs, 14 cats, 17 horses and a donkey for residents who did not have anywhere else to take the animals. Anyone in the county who needs assistance with sheltering animals is asked to call the organization at (831) 373-2631 during day hours and (831) 264-5424 at night. River Road has been closed by the California Highway Patrol from Chualar River Road north to Parker Canyon Road due to flooding and mud. MCRFD working with local property owners on damage assessment In the River Rd area. Thank you to all the local ranc…  The weather service said its tracking has the Big Sur coastline as the 'bullseye' for the storm front that has been intensified by the moisture from an atmospheric river. \"Our local in-house model is showing extensive storm totals in the Big Sur hills in excess of 20 inches with a bullseye amount in excess of 31 inches,\" the weather service said.","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["two dozen homes and buildings"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the California Highway Patrol"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["River Road area near the Salinas River","Highway 101 south of Salinas","California's Salinas Valley","Paso Robles"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["Exceptionally heavy rain"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mudslide closes Avalanche Creek Road in Pitkin County","document":"and last updated 2021-07-22 23:18:30-04 PITKIN COUNTY, Colo. — A mudslide has blocked off Avalanche Creek Road near Highway 133 in Pitkin County, according to the sheriff's office. The Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said it happened approximately a half-mile away from Highway 133. Due to the risk of further mudslides overnight, resources will not be able to clear the road Thursday. Campers will hunker down until the morning. Mudslide on Avalanche Creek Road (Crystal Valley) approx 1/2 mile off Hwy 133. Resources will not be able to clear it due to the risk of further slides overnight. Campers will hunker down until the AM. ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Avalanche Creek Road near Highway 133 in Pitkin County","Avalanche Creek Road (Crystal Valley) approx 1/2 mile off Hwy 133","a half-mile away from Highway 133"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mudslide In East Troublesome Fire Burn Scar Leads To Closure Of Highway 125","document":" (CBS4) – Heavy rain on Monday evening caused a mudslide in the East Troublesome Fire burn scar and a section of Highway 125 in northern Colorado was closed just before 8 p.m. The debris came down on the road a little more than 5 miles north of Highway 40. The closure is in both directions from Highway 40 near Granby up to Willow Creek Pass, which is where Grand County meets Jackson County. ? @ColoradoDOT just put in place a closure on Hwy 125 in the #EastTroublesomeFire burn scar w/no est. time of reopening. Closure on south side is 5.5 miles from Hwy 125 & Hwy 40. North closure is near the top of Willow Creek Pass at the Jackson County line.  — Grand County Sheriff (@GrandCoSheriff) July 6, 2021 There was no estimated time given for when the highway will reopen. A photo shared on social media from the Grand County Sheriff’s Office showed a crew using heavy equipment to clear mud from the highway. Stay updated on road closures at @ColoradoDOT https://t.co/4JyFGZ9EDQ ? Hwy 125 is currently closed from mile marker 6-16 due to a mudslide in #GrandCounty . ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["road a little more than 5 miles north of Highway 40","both directions from Highway 40 near Granby up to Willow Creek Pass, which is where Grand County meets Jackson County","East Troublesome Fire burn scar and a section of Highway 125 in northern Colorado"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Monday evening"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["Heavy rain"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Many Still Missing in Atami Mudslide as Search and Rescue Operations Continue","document":"Teams from police and fire departments alongside troops from Japan’s Self-Defence Force continue to search through mud and debris looking for the many people still feared missing in the mudslide that struck the coastal city of Atami in Japan on 03 July 201. Search and rescue operation after the mudslide in Atami, Japan 03 July 2021.  Search and rescue (SAR) operations involving of over 1,000 personnel, sniffer dogs and drones, have been ongoing for more than 80 hours. Two fatalities were reported on 03 July. Since then 3 more bodies have been located, bringing the total of fatalities to five. As of 06 July, between 25 and 29 people were still unaccounted for. The disaster occurred after torrential rainfall in the area pushed mud and debris down slopes surrounding the seaside city of Atami in the district of Itazuma in Shizuoka Prefecture. More than 120 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Japan’s Geospatial Information Authority released the aerial photographs of the site showing that the debris flow travelled a significant distance from slopes above Atami before widening and crashing through homes and streets of the city below. Search and rescue operation after the mudslide in Atami, Japan 03 July 2021. ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["More than 120 homes"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["Teams from police and fire departments alongside troops from Japan’s Self-Defence Force"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["the coastal city of Atami in Japan"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["the total of fatalities to five"]},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":["25 and 29 people"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["03 July 2021"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["torrential rainfall in the area pushed mud and debris down slopes"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Displaced and underinsured: Thursday mudslide impacts Avon residents","document":"Thursday’s mudslide in Avon fills the parking lot of the Sonnen Halde condominiums on Nottingham Road in Avon. Special to the Daily The Thursday afternoon mudslide in Avon meant traffic delays for many , but for some residents it has meant displacement and extensive damage that, in many cases, will be a cost shouldered by them and them alone. For the residents of two housing complexes — Beaver Bench in Nottingham Park and the Sonnen Halde condominiums on Nottingham Road — Thursday’s mudslide was a horror they were completely unprepared for, one local said Friday. “My main fear is that something could happen again before we have a chance to clean up and assess the damage from the first time, and make sure that we can do any permanent changes to avoid this happening in the future,” said Jennifer Lance, a resident of Sonnen Halde. “We’re definitely worried that it could get worse before we have a chance to make it better.” Lance said she was working in her living room when the rain and hail began to fall Thursday afternoon. It wasn’t long before she began to hear a strange noise of gushing water “like a pipe had burst or something,” she said. She got up to look around and suddenly saw “muddy water shooting in underneath (the) front door.” “I tried to open the door, but it was stuck closed,” Lance said. “Thank heavens, because if I had opened it, a tidal wave of 5 feet of water would have come in the house. After maybe five minutes of (water) just shooting in, then it was just more of a steady seep and then it just slowly filled our entire kitchen, hallway and living room area.” Half an inch of mud fills the home of Jennifer Lance, a resident of Sonnen Halde condominiums in Avon who had recently finished remodeling her home before Thursday’s mudslide came bursting through her front door, she said. Special to the Daily Lance and her husband, who rent the home from his parents, recently remodeled and put in new flooring in their main living area, which is now coated in half an inch of mud, she said. She estimates they will need to install new flooring in addition to replacing their baseboards and cutting out the bottom portion of dry wall to avoid mold. Much of the furniture in their living room and kitchen was also damaged. But when Lance and her husband tried to file a claim with their insurance company to get help in paying for these damages, they were told that mudslides were listed as an exclusion on their insurance policy and, therefore, nothing would be covered. As a result, the family will likely be displaced from their home for “at least three weeks” as they try to repair the damage done to their home without any assistance, which Lance said will be difficult. “We spent all the money we had to invest in our home last year during COVID and then we also run a business and we run our business out of our home too, so that is all being impacted by it,” she said. Even now, Lance said she is terrified of what will become of her home if this weekend’s rains bring more flooding. “Oh no, it started to rain,” Lance said as she spoke with the Vail Daily on Friday afternoon. “Oh my gosh, my heart is beating so fast right now because it’s raining.” Sandbags are laid outside of a housing unit in the Sonnen Halde housing complex in Avon to prevent further flooding after Thursday’s mudslide. Special to the Daily As the town of Avon begins to process the implications of Thursday’s extreme weather event, Town Manager Eric Heil said he is interested to understand just how record-breaking the afternoon’s rainfall was. “This was a much higher water event than anyone can remember Avon receiving for decades with a much higher amount of debris flow and damage, so we’ll have to take a look and see what the rain event was and how much that exceeded what we planned for and anticipate year over year,” Heil said. Fortunately, the town recently invested in improvements to its drainage infrastructure along Benchmark and Avon Roads, otherwise the damage may have been much worse, he said. Still, conversations will certainly be had about how the town can plan for future mudslides and flooding, he said. “I’m sure we’ll look at what happened in this event and what we can do for additional improvements to try to control it, but … there’s only so much we can expect in controlling nature, and I think we see plenty of places throughout Colorado and everywhere where nature overwhelms the human environment,” Heil said. The town of Avon’s public works department worked tirelessly to clear the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 and a portion of Nottingham Road, which were closed Thursday afternoon until just after 6 p.m. due to intense flooding. Friday, the work continued as workers attempted to pull mud and water from the town’s drainage systems to prepare for more rain in the forecast this weekend, Heil said. The public works department has enlisted the help of private contractors when possible and has been using every tool at its disposal to clear debris from roadways and drainage areas, Heil said. Snowplows, front-end loaders, trucks and street sweepers are all being put to work to clean up the town, with some public officials working for hours on end, he said. “I am really so proud of our public works department,” Heil said. “They really dug in hard and got a lot of work done yesterday, and between yesterday and today, did a lot of work to clean out our drainage system, so I think we’ve done the best that we can.” The town has also coordinated with the Vail Valley Salvation Army and the local branch of the American Red Cross to find a place to stay for the residents whose homes were left uninhabitable by the slide, he said. “They’re being denied by their insurance companies and some of them have definitely lost everything,” said Tsu Wolin-Brown, a coordinator at the Salvation Army. Wolin-Brown said the nonprofit has already heard from the residents of eight housing units between Sonnen Halde and Beaver Bench, most of whom have requested assistance with finding a place to stay. For now, the Salvation Army has paid to put these residents up in the Christie Lodge in Avon, which offered shelter at a discounted rate, she said. The town is working to prepare a local fire station to house more residents until they are able to safely return to their homes. Wolin-Brown said she fears there are likely more residents that are struggling and are unaware that they can reach out to the Salvation Army for assistance. She welcomed anyone to call the nonprofit at 970-748-0704 for assistance. The Salvation Army and the Red Cross are also giving out gift cards to anyone who may need help securing groceries or other essential items during this time, she said. Lance said she and her husband will be setting up a GoFundMe page to help other residents who were denied insurance coverage, which will be listed under Jason and Jennifer Lance and posted to the popular community Facebook group “Eagle County Classifieds.“","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["The town of Avon’s public works department"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Avon"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday afternoon"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Extensive flooding, mudslides across Colorado over the weekend","document":" LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Clean up is underway across Colorado after heavy rain over the weekend brought floods and mudslides to parts of the state.   Parts of Larimer County were under voluntary evacuations Friday and Saturday, including the Retreat subdivision in Glen Haven. “You could really hear the rumbling through the culverts, the rocks were rumbling through. And then we saw the rushing water come out on the road up above us,” said Michael Markovich, a resident of the subdivision. Loveland Pass reopens after mudslide Markovich’s pond was destroyed by the floodwaters. The creek running through the neighborhood spilled over its banks, filling the pond with debris and silt. He says the area sustained flood damage in early July as well, but this round of storms was much more destructive. The water washed out some of his neighbors’ driveways. Glenwood Springs woman describes harrowing escape from mudslide “The Cameron Peak Fire and all the fires caused more havoc after the fires were put out. This is an example, all of this debris,” said Markovich. The heavy rain also caused issues over the Grizzly Creek Fire burn scar. A portion of I-70 remained closed Monday morning as Colorado Department of Transportation crews worked to clear debris from the latest round of mudslides. ‘Extreme damage’ keeps I-70 closed through Glenwood Canyon “This is an all hands on deck response. We have out maintenance crews, operation crews and also engineering staff out in the canyon,” said Tamara Rollison, CDOT spokesperson. Rollison says it’s unclear when the closure will be lifted . More rain in the forecast could slow their progress. “When there is a flash flood warning and we know that rain is going to be imminent, we got our crews out of the canyon. We evacuate them so they can get to safety,” said Rollison.","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["Colorado Department of Transportation crews"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Parts of Larimer County","Retreat subdivision in Glen Haven"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["weekend"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["heavy rain"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Guatemalan mudslide survivors’ dilemma: a place ‘not fit to live in’ but ‘no way out’","document":"NUEVO QUEJA, Guatemala — The day before Victor Cal left for the United States, he went from relative to relative, collecting money for food during the journey north. His mother was disconsolate. “I begged him not to go, that we could live here,” she says. “But the decision had already been made.” Cal hitched a ride to a place miles away to find electricity so he could charge his phone “to receive calls so the coyote can tell me where and when we will finally meet.” The makeshift town where he lived offers only hunger and death. To Cal, 26, the United States seemed the only way out. American authorities have stopped more than 150,000 Guatemalans at the border this year, four times the number in 2020. Many were like Victor Cal, famished and impoverished. An indigenous Mayan who speaks Pocomchí, he didn’t find work in Guatemala City after serving in the army. When the pandemic hit, he joined thousands fleeing to their agricultural hometowns in the mountains. Pascuala Jonaj sits against a wood-burning stove as her son Victor Cal feeds the fire a day before he begins his journey to the United States. “I begged him not to go,” Jonaj says. Rodrigo Abd / AP He thought at least he’d have food by staying on his father’s land in Quejá, with coffee, cardamon, corn and beans. Then came Hurricane Eta’s rains that brought down a mountain and destroyed everything — house, land, town. He and his parents were left destitute, relying on relief from international organizations in a shabby settlement people dubbed Nuevo Quejá. Now, hours away from leaving it behind, he packed what fit in his yellow backpack: a shirt, a sweater, jeans and extra shoes. He’d lost pretty much everything else when a landslide buried his house. It had been raining for 25 days. The people of Quejá had been cooped up for 10 days, roads cut off by flooding. Without electricity, phones were dead. The rain the previous 24 hours was five times the average monthly amount, but no one told the villagers that or that they were at risk and should leave. At lunchtime Nov. 5, the first trees fell. The hillside began to melt. “Those of us who had time to flee could only carry our children on our backs” says 28-year-old Esma Cal — many in Quejá share the last name Cal, though it isn’t always clear how they might be related. Within seconds, 58 people disappeared. Most of their bodies will never be recovered. Forty homes were buried under tons of mud. Dozens more were left inaccessible. Crossing torrents of water on ropes, survivors walked to the nearest town, where people shared their remaining food and put them up in schools and at the market. When helicopters finally arrived, “Some of us had been without food for almost two days,” Esma Cal says. Quejá was founded 100 years ago, says Erwin Cal, 39, when families got access to a coffee plantation. “My grandfather was a slave,” he says. “They had to harvest without pay before they were allowed to build their shacks and use some plots of land for their own fields.” There were corn and beans to eat, then coffee and cardamom for market. In time, they made enough to buy the land. In the 1980s, some joined the Guatemalan army. At the turn of the century, with violence plaguing the country, they hired on as private guards and, with some money now, shacks turned into cement houses with tiles, big windows, refrigerators. “I had a laptop, a sound system and cable TV,” Erwin Cal says, all now gone. After a church service, women and children walk to a communal meeting to discuss problems regarding housing and donations received by the international community in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Quejá. Guatemala. Rodrigo Abd / AP By January, Esma Cal, Erwin Cal, their childhood friend Gregorio Ti and others organized a development council. By February, they’d founded a temporary settlement near their buried homes, though it had just one-third the amunt of agricultural land. Thus was born Nuevo Quejá. This would be home, for the moment anyway, to about 1,000 survivors. “We know how to work,” says Ti, 36, who lost his pregnant wife, their 2- and 6-year-old sons and his mother in the mudslide. His surviving daughters, 11 and 14, cling to him. All day, everyone cuts and transports wood and clears land with machetes. The shacks are zinc sheets donated by a priest and wooden planks from pine trees villagers cut down. Rain pours in through the roofs. Esma Cal’s 37-year-old uncle Germán Cal — who returned to Quejá after 20 years in Guatemala City to breed chickens, only to lose everything — is trying to bring electricity to Nuevo Quejá. But Guatemala’s government has declared the new settlement uninhabitable. Therefore, since Nuevo Quejá doesn’t exist, at least not officially, it isn’t eligible for the electric poles it needs or road repairs or an improved water supply. The townspeople have gotten help from non-governmental organizations, One provided wheelbarrows, picks and shovels and brought psychologists to play with the kids, reminding them how to clean their teeth. Another visited to ensure donations of water and sanitation kits were used correctly. UNICEF donated a new school. But it has been closed for five months because no one could find the key to get inside. UNICEF had given it to a teacher who resigned and left with it. So school was held in a shack next door. But it leaks. So the floor is often flooded and muddy. The furniture rots. The school serves 250 children. Of 12 teachers from before the storms, just four remain. And their materials are in Spanish, but the students speak only Pomachi, a teacher says. “None of them will go to high school,” the teacher says. “School failure is total.” Students wait for their instructor as they look into their classroom flooded the night before by a heavy rain. Rodrigo Abd / AP At least once a month, nurse César Chiquin, 39, visits Nuevo Quejá. Mothers bring their children. “Malnutrition has doubled,” Chiquin says. “One in three are stunted. Virtually all are at risk.” The people of Nuevo Quejá can’t raise the food they need. Having lost last year’s crops to the hurricanes, “We arrived in Nuevo Quejá too late for planting properly,” Esma Cal says. They have a third of the land they had before the storms. And rains washed away the topsoil. “We harvested two times a year,” Esma Cal says. “Now, we have only one, much smaller harvest.” The local council figures the villagers need 75 acres more. But they have no money. The government has a land trust. Some day, it could provide the land they need — but it could be elsewhere, in another region. Since most of the villagers don’t speak Spanish, only their indigenous language, a move would obliterate their culture. “This place is not fit to live in,” Esma Cal says. “And, for the moment, we have no way out.” Eduardo Cal Chen, 23 (left), and his 20-year-old brother Edgar chop wood in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Queja, Guatemala. Rodrigo Abd / AP There seem to be only two ways out of Nuevo Quejá. One is death. The other is emigrating to the United States. Most people in the village say the only thing keeping them from emigrating is that they can’t afford it. But Victor Cal, calculating that, by staying, a person might make just $4 for a full day’s work, found a way. He contacted a distant cousin, who’s been in Miami for years, who agreed to advance the $13,000 to buy a coyote package — a deal that offers him two tries to successfully enter the United States, coming in via the Arizona desert. Hector Cal and his wife Paulina Jonay pray with an evangelical minister days after their 26-year-old son Victor Cal began his journey to the United States. Rodrigo Abd / AP Cal has a plan in mind once he succeeds. “My objective is to be able to send money so my parents have a real house again and some land,” he says. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t go. I will be back as soon as possible.” He says goodbye. And he leaves without looking back at Nuevo Quejá. After a brief goodbye to his family, Victor Cal begins his journey to the United States, leaving his home in Nuevo Quejá.","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Forty homes"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["NUEVO QUEJA"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["58 people"]},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["At lunchtime Nov. 5"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":["1,000 survivors"]},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"I-70 reopens east of Grand Junction after mudslide closes roadway","document":"CDOT closed I-70 in both directions at exit 46, Cameo, near Palisade, due to the mudslide just before 7:30. Author: Laura Casillas Published: 8:20 PM MDT July 28, 2021 Updated: 10:36 PM MDT July 28, 2021 COLORADO CITY, Colo. — The Colorado Department of Transportation ( CDOT ) closed Interstate 70 in both directions at the Cameo exit, near Palisade due to a mudslide Wednesday just before 7:30 p.m. The road reopened a little after 10 p.m. A message from CDOT's Twitter account said there may still be water and mud on the road and urged drivers to be cautious.  This closure comes after I-70 in Glenwood Canyon has closed numerous times this summer due to mudslides.  CDOT automatically closes that flood-prone stretch of highway anytime a Flash Flood Warning is issued by the National Weather  Service .   The Grizzly Creek burn scar is located right near the highway, and burn scars are especially vulnerable to flash flooding due to the lack of vegetation to absorb moisture. As a result, flood-driven mudslides are common near or even over the interstate.  If detouring, CDOT asked motorists to use the northern alternate route, which adds an extra 2.5 hours of travel time.  Westbound motorists from the Denver metro area should plan on exiting I-70 at Exit 205 at Silverthorne and traveling north on Colorado 9 toward Kremmling or exiting I-70 at Exit 157 at Wolcott and traveling north on Colorado 131 toward Steamboat Springs.  > Watch video above: I-70 back open in both directions after Glenwood Canyon mudslides Travelers will continue west on U.S. 40 and then south on Colorado 13 to complete the alternate route and return to westbound I-70 at Exit 90 at Rifle.   Motorists traveling eastbound from Utah or Grand Junction can reach the Denver Metro area by traveling the route above in reverse. ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["The Colorado Department of Transportation ( CDOT"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Interstate 70 in both directions at the Cameo exit, near Palisade"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday just before 7:30 p.m"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["flood-driven"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mudslides Close Loveland Pass Leaving Hazmat Vehicles Running Behind Schedule","document":"(CBS4) – A mudslide near Arapahoe Basin Ski Resort shut down Loveland Pass for much of Saturday morning. The closure was still in place at noon, the Colorado Department of Transportation says. Drivers were told to use Interstate 70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel as an alternative.  CBS4 spoke with a truck driver who says he tried delivering a load of fuel to a gas station in Avon when he encountered one of two closures on Loveland Pass. On his way back to Denver, Chris Cleveland says the pass had just reopened when crews closed it again for a second mudslide.  He says he drove back to Dillon to get on I-70. Because of precautions, hazmat vehicles, like Cleveland’s fuel truck, have to wait to travel through the Eisenhower Tunnel until the top of the hour. #US6 eastbound/westbound: Safety closure between MM 220 and MM 228.7. Hazmat vehicles are to stage at Eisenhower Tunnel and will be run at the top of the hour or as traffic allows.  Cleveland says that time adds up on an already-stressed group of drivers in the midst of a driver shortage, and in turn, can lead to fuel shortages at gas stations. CDOT updated the situation at around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday saying because of the amount of debris and mud, they don’t expect to reopen Loveland Pass until Sunday night. ","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["the Colorado Department of Transportation"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Loveland Pass for much","Arapahoe Basin Ski Resort"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday morning"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"CDOT helping control mudslides with super sac","document":"GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Recent rainfall in Glenwood Canyon has caused a lot of mudslides to happen. Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is continuing to work on repairing parts of I-70 that got damaged by a mudslide in August. To help limit mudslide activity on the highway, CDOT has implemented a massive “sand like” bag called the Super Sac and put them in the Blue Gulch area. CDOT fills the Super Sac with debris that is picked up and weighs about 3000 pounds. There are about 156 Super Sacs, with some implemented right away. The remaining are on stand-by, which are for additional support to the current ones. The Super Sac can also potentially help as a temporary diversion to any mudslide activity that can happen.","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT)"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Glenwood Canyon","parts of I-70"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["Recent rainfall"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Gift for El Salvador mudslide victims comes at steep price","document":"SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Eulalia García was stunned when she opened an envelope to find an invitation from none other than the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. It promised a bus would take her family the following day to receive a surprise Christmas gift. Garcia had survived a mudslide that killed four in her extended family and destroyed their humble home on the slopes of the San Salvador volcano. “It will be a good way to end the year after all we’ve been through,” Garcia told her husband, Ramon Sanchez. A neighbor in Los Angelitos, Inés Flamenco, was so grateful for her invitation that she spent three days’ earnings on a gift for the president -- a bouquet of red, white and pink roses that would turn into a beautiful photo opportunity for Bukele. “I wanted to tell him how happy I was,” she recalled. But the Christmas joy would be short-lived. Flamenco and many other guests of the president would soon discover their gifts came with a steep price tag.  The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, one of the worst ever for Central America, wiped out homes and crops and displaced more than half a million people. Honduras and Guatemala were hardest hit by back-to-back hurricanes, and their governments’ failure to respond fueled soaring migration to the United States. Even where one government in the region did act, its response was marred by politics, disrespect for the rule of law and a tendency to embrace simple answers to complicated problems. In El Salvador, a populist president saw opportunity where tragedy struck. After the tropical storm in October, Bukele moved quickly to demonstrate that he could deliver to hundreds of families from Los Angelitos and another community, Nueva Israel, with a program that surely would be appreciated by his countrymen. There was a problem, though. Bukele forgot to ask the people what they needed to recover. While some appreciated his help, others said they were left out and still others criticized his program, saying it was typical of the way the president governs -- using public funds for political propaganda. “He acts fast. He does not consult, does not plan and does not listen to anyone,” said Francisco Altschul, a former ambassador of El Salvador to the United States. After a tropical storm in October, El Salvador's president moved quickly to show he could deliver to families with a program that surely would be appreciated by his countrymen. But he forgot to ask the people what they needed to recover. (Sept. 3) ___ On the night of Oct. 29, it rained so hard on the tin roof of their house that Ramon Sanchez fell into a hypnotic “sleep of death,” as he called it. Heaps of broken trees and rocky soil created a dam high on the volcano during the torrent. The accumulation of groundwater throughout the winter, plus days of pounding rain, caused the dam to break and the landslide that devoured Los Angelitos. Around 10:40 that night, Sánchez was awakened by what felt like an explosion. “A rock had hit a tree behind my house, the walls shook and water started coming in everywhere.” ADVERTISEMENT Sanchez and García grabbed their two children and got out, fighting the water. A creek to the left and a road to the right were flooded. They reached high ground nearby and, in minutes, a monstrous ball of earth, logs and water that had traveled nearly four kilometers (2 1/2 miles) down the volcano’s slope came to a halt behind them. Sanchez´s mother, brother and two nephews who were sleeping in an adobe house next to theirs were buried alive. They were among 11 people who died as 78 houses were demolished. “It was over as quickly as it began,” Sánchez said. Nearby, Inés Flamenco, 73, awoke to see her kitchen gone and her goats bleating for help. “If I tried to get closer and got a foot in the current, I would be pulled go away and die with them,” she recalled. She started running only to encounter the mangled body of a neighbor dragged to death by mud and stones. She breaks into tears every time she remembers him. After the deluge, everything seemed to happen fast, like in a movie. Contrary to what usually happens in Central America, solutions arrived, along with cameras recording everything for the Bukele administration’s social media feed. Within an hour of the mudslide, Defense Minister Rene Merino appeared on the scene and tagged President Bukele in Twitter to let him know that he had taken personal command of the search and rescue operation. Hundreds of soldiers and trusted inmates from a nearby prison started digging for survivors and bodies. At dawn, Interior Minister Mario Durán joined the effort with drones and cameras. When he spoke to the media, he had smudges of dirt on his face -- proof that the government was in the thick of it. Almost as quickly, Adolfo Barrios, mayor of Nejapa and a member of the opposition Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, arrived with his own camera and interrupted Durán. “I just want to pose some questions to the minister,” he said. He couldn’t even finish his first question when the general director of the police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, politely but firmly told him to leave. He organized his own press conference to say he, too, would divert money from the city budget to help the families. Funerals and burials were held and shelters were set up in schools for the newly homeless. Within 48 hours, Housing Minister Michelle Sol arrived with a promise:. The government would give homeless families houses. And while they waited, she gave them money to rent houses. Less than a month after the deluge, almost every family had moved to rental locations where, another month later, they received the invitation to meet with the president. ___ The trip to receive their surprise gift was 15 minutes and a world away. When the bus left the main road, they were surrounded by trucks and cranes. García said, “I think the gift is a house.” Her husband, a man of few words still traumatized by what had happened weeks before, replied, “How can they give us a house?” They could. And they did. The mudslide survivors crossed a security barrier and entered Ciudad Marsella, a huge private residential development under construction, then saw a succession of gleaming new houses on a street so clean and perfect that it didn’t seem real. With mouths agape, they were taken off the bus and asked to form a line. “It was very fast. A guide came up to us, checked our names and took us straight to the door of a house, gave us the keys, said it was ours and told us to wait because the president was on his way,” Garcia said. Each family was given a check for $25,300 to buy their house and documents were exchanged. With the houses came a long list of conditions that they signed without reading them. And suddenly, these homeless families -- small-scale farmers, shopkeepers, gas deliverymen -- were part of a middle-class community. In record time, 50 days after the storm, the government had delivered its gifts. Survivors from Los Angelitos and Nueva Israel, another neighborhood flooded in the capital in June 2020, received 272 furnished houses in a private development, with access to play spaces for children, a swimming pool, outdoor cinema, medical visits, psychological support, food bags, $250-a-month checks until August and a temporary exemption from paying the expenses for security and common premises. President Bukele arrived with cameras for a short speech, hugs and pictures. At a podium, he lambasted Congress for failing to approve an emergency declaration that would have allowed him to use government funds without legislative oversight. Instead, he had earmarked $5 million that he said was “saved” from the construction of a hospital in the capital to spend on a privately owned, already built residential community with available houses. There was no public bidding, just his decision to give the victims money to buy houses in Ciudad Marsella. He knew the decision he had taken was considered unconstitutional by many, but Bukele said, “rain cannot be unconstitutional.” García was grateful: “We lived in adobe in a ravine. When were we going to be able to buy a house? Never.” ___ Then the problems began to emerge. After hugging and giving the bouquet of roses to Bukele, Inés Flamenco remembered that she had to go back to Los Angelitos to tend her animals. She milks the five cows and some goats that survived the mudslide and sells that milk to make a living. She realized that the bus ride would cost $3 round trip. “I panicked. I barely make $5 a day.” Security guards at the gated community couldn’t understand why she had to leave in the wee hours to get to her animals. And she felt they treated people like her differently than the middle-class residents who had bought their own homes. “Darker, with no vehicles, walking in and out, wearing humble clothes, we feel abused by guards who follow and question us all the time,” she said. Naively perhaps, she asked if she could bring her animals to the residence and let them graze in the common areas. They looked at her as if she was crazy. “I didn’t know who to talk to,” she said. So, she went to the mayor. “How am I going to live?” she asked him. On Jan. 15, he called another press conference, this time to criticize the president’s actions, surrounded by a dozen people who were ready to give the houses back to the government. Flamenco was the first person to speak. “The house is beautiful, but I feel depressed, it is not for me. I want to ask the government if they could look for a place in the countryside,” she said. Others continued with similar complaints. In Ciudad Marsella, it is prohibited to keep animals, and that means no chickens and no eggs to eat or sell. In any case, they weren’t allowed to set up small stores to sell their farm goods. They also cannot plant trees for shade and fruit to eat. Unemployed, displaced, earning $3 a day, they said they wouldn’t be able to afford utility payments of about $70 per month when the government-subsidized period ends. And there is no agricultural employment near Ciudad Marsella for laborers who earn $200 a month when they find consistent work. “The minister called me immediately, outraged, asking me why I was so ungrateful with a government that had given me so much, and had agreed to be used in an opposition political show,” Flamenco said in tears. “They took me to a place without asking and then accused me of being ungrateful for a gift that I didn’t ask for.” García and Sánchez do not plan to give up their houses, but share the concerns of those who do. “We have no income, we have no idea how we are going to survive, the government will have to give us solutions,” García said. Sánchez´s grandmother, Victoria Crisóstoma, added, “We are not allowed to cook with wood and we have to pay for gas. I cannot afford it. We are not allowed to grind corn so I cannot make my own tortillas and I have to buy them. I have no income.” As of July, at least 28 families had decided to return the houses. Like Flamenco, most of them went back to Los Angelitos. “I am defeated. I’m afraid of dying here as soon as it starts raining again,” Flamenco said. ___ For now, popular support is going Bukele’s way. He is getting credit for providing housing to the victims of mudslides as his counterparts in Honduras and Guatemala have yet to do. After trying to stop the president’s plans since the first night of the tragedy, the opposition mayor of Nejapa, lost local elections in a political landslide to the candidate of Nuevas Ideas -- Bukele´s party. But the problems continue. The Orellana family is among the residents of Los Angelitos who did not receive an invitation from the president and feel no one is listening. Their shack of wood pallets and aluminum sheeting held up in the tropical storm, so they await the next hurricane season with fear. “They say we are not in danger,” said Lourdes Orellana, 27. “How do they know how high the water will rise the next time it rains?” Cecilia Flores’ ailing mother got a house in Ciudad Marsella because she held the title to their family house even though it was not completely destroyed. But her mother, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, could not live alone in the new house because of her health, and it was not large enough for all 11 family members. If Flores was to move in with her mother, she’d have to leave her children behind with the others. She’d also have to leave her business selling lunches to workers at a nearby factory -- her only source of income. They thought of renting out the new house to live off the income and fix up the old house, but it turned out they weren’t allowed to do that in the new neighborhood. “What is this property that cannot be sold or rented? Either it is ours or not,” Flores said. So they abandoned the gift house, which now sits empty, and returned to the adobe house where they survived the tragedy. But now the house in Los Angelitos has been seriously damaged by government when it cleared land after the mudslide. There are cracks running along the walls and the floor is sinking. “There were options for land nearby and tailored to our needs,” Flores said, “but instead of sitting down to listen and think about the options, Bukele looked for a quick photo op and created a bigger problem for people who already had a lot of problems.”","event_type":"Mudslides","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["78 houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":["Hundreds of soldiers and trusted inmates from a nearby prison"]},{"role":"Affected Areas","values":["Los Angelitos"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed four in her extended family","11 people"]},{"role":"Influence People","values":null},{"role":"Missings","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Oct. 29"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":["days of pounding rain"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Cristiano Ronaldo Sets All-Time Record for Most Goals Scored in European Championship History","document":"In Portugal ‘s recent match against Hungary, Cristiano Ronaldo broke yet another record, becoming the all-time leading men’s goalscorer at the UEFA ‘s European Championship.\nJust as the clock was running out, the Portuguese forward scored two late goals to beat Hungary 3-0 in the Euro 2020 match. At the 87th minute, Ronaldo scored a penalty and later a close-range strike two minutes into stoppage time. The 36-year-old’s goals brought his record to 11, two more than the former France captain Michel Platini. With the goals, Ronaldo is now only three international goals away from tying Ali Daei, Iran’s striker for the all-time men’s international scoring record at 109 goals. He is expected to have the opportunity to eclipse Daei before the end of Euro 2020 to place himself ahead of all other players in men’s international scoring.\nIn addition to the aforementioned record, Ronaldo also broke another record during Portugal’s match against Hungary, becoming the first men’s player to ever play in five different Euros. Ronaldo is set to appear in the next two games, which sees Portugal face off against Germany and France. Throughout his career, Ronaldo has been unable to score on either of the teams in the 10 games he has played against Germany and France.\nIt remains to be seen what other records Ronaldo will break throughout the course of Euros 2020.\nFirst player to play in 5 Euros.\nFirst player to score in 5 Euros.\nOnly 3 goals behind Ali Daei’s record for all-time international goal scorer.\nCristiano Ronaldo is a machine ? pic.twitter.com/q0FIZsWPJI\n— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 15, 2021\nCristiano Ronaldo fires home the powerful PK, follows up with the mean mug and secures the three points for #POR\n— Planet Fútbol (@si_soccer) June 15, 2021\nAnd Cristiano Ronaldo gets a second! Make that *11* all-time goals in the Euros and *106* goals in his storied international career, three shy of tying Ali Daei’s record. 3-0 #POR !","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["109 goals"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":null},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["score in 5 Euros","all-time men’s international scoring record","men’s player to ever play in five different Euros"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Cristiano Ronaldo"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Ali Daei"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Athletics-Crouser wins gold in men's shot put, breaks Olympic record","document":"Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Athletics - Men's Shot Put - Final - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan - August 5, 2021. Ryan Crouser of the United States poses with his national flag after winning gold and a new Olympic Record REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach\nRead More\nRegister now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com\nRegister\nTOKYO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Chasing the \"bigger throw\", Ryan Crouser of the United States retained his title in the men's shot put in Tokyo on Thursday, breaking his own Olympic record three times in the final as he grabbed gold with a mark of 23.30 metres.\nHe set the previous record of 22.52m at the Rio Games five years ago when he won the title.\nHis compatriot Joe Kovacs took silver and Tomas Walsh of New Zealand claimed bronze with a season's best mark of 22.47. The final results mirrored the 2016 final.\nRegister now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com\nRegister\nIt was the first time in any individual sports event at the Olympics that the same athletes won gold, silver and bronze in a specific event at consecutive Games.\nAfter he won, Crouser held up a card to a camera that read \"Grandpa, we did it, 2020 Olympic champion\".\nWearing shades and a hat with the U.S. flag emblazoned on it, Crouser, who broke the world record in June with a 23.37 mark, started the final in blistering fashion, breaking his Olympic record on his first attempt and then improving on it with his second.\n\"My mindset was really good going in,\" Crouser said. \"The key was getting a big one (throw) early. I managed to do that.\"\nFor a moment, it looked like his own world record was in danger of falling.\nHe calmed down slightly in his later attempts before unleashing a 23.30m throw with his last attempt, breaking his Olympic record again, and coming within a whisker of the world record.\n\"I had solidified the win by the end so I got a little more aggressive and chased that bigger throw and finally connected with it,\" he said.\nThis is only the third time that an athlete has broken the Olympic record three times during the shot put competition.\nCrouser donned a cowboy hat afterwards and celebrated with his countryman Kovacs, as they both draped the U.S. flag on their backs.\nKovacs was pleased with his silver.\n\"Of course you always (want to) come back with all the gold, but I had one of my best throws of all time. It feels like a privilege and an honour to come back with a medal,\" he said.\nWalsh said he hoped for a better result.\n\"I definitely wanted a different kind of medal,\" he said. \"I gave myself the best chance out there today to throw far and almost got it. That's all I can ask for.\"\nWalsh said that the rivalry between the three athletes has pushed them to be better.\n\"Between the three of us we're always pushing each other,\" he said.\n\"We're all searching for that little bit (more) and Ryan at the moment has got it.\"","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["22.52m"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["23.30 metres"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's shot put"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ryan Crouser"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Report a digital subscription issue","document":"If you are being blocked from reading Subscriber Exclusive content, first confirm you are logged in using the account with which you subscribed. If you are still experiencing issues, please describe the problem below and we will be happy to assist you.\nSubmit\nTokyo Olympics: American Ryan Crouser wins shot put gold, breaks his own Olympic record\nUpdated: Aug. 05, 2021, 12:09 a.m. |\nPublished: Aug. 04, 2021, 11:46 p.m.\nRyan Crouser, of United States, reacts after winning the final of the men's shot put at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)AP\nBy The Associated Press\nTOKYO (AP) — Ryan Crouser broke his own Olympic record on his way to defending his shot put title Thursday on a hot day in Tokyo.\nOn his last attempt, Crouser went 23.30 meters (76 feet, 5½ inches) to earn the first track and field gold medal for the American men at the Tokyo Games. U.S. teammate Joe Kovacs finished second and Tomas Walsh of New Zealand was third.\nThe 28-year-old Crouser went 22.52 meters when he won at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.\nCrouser is already the world-record holder after breaking a 31-year-old mark on June 18 at the U.S. Olympic trials. His attempt that evening went 23.37 meters.\nIn the stifling heat at the Olympic Stadium, Crouser took the lead on his first attempt and saved his best for his final one. He clapped his hands — sending chalk dust into the air — and celebrated. He even donned his cowboy hat for the occasion.\nHis family and friends gathered for a watch party in Redmond, Oregon. Wearing “Crouser” shirts, they let out the largest cheer of all when the commentators announced those magical words: “Gold Medalist.”\nHe was competing with a heavy heart after his grandfather recently died. On a piece of paper, Crouser had a heartfelt message: “Grandpa. We did it. 2020 Olympic champion!”\nBy Pat Graham\nNote to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["22.52 meters"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["23.30 meters (76 feet, 5½ inches)"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's shot"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ryan Crouser"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ryan Crouser breaks his Olympic record in shot put, and there’s time for the world record too","document":"Update 11:18 pm: Crouser’s last throw was 23.30m, which was an Olympic record of course, and seven centimeters from the world record he set seven weeks ago. It’s two straight gold medals for Crouser, with teammate Joe Kovacs grabbing the silver at 22.65m. That would have been the Olympic record at the start of competition today. The bronze goes to Tomas Walsh of New Zealand at 22.47m.\nWithout a doubt, this is one of the dominant athletes in all of American sports right now.\nUpdate 10:45 pm: Crouser’s third throw was a 22.86, which would have been the Olympic record about 15 minutes ago, but his second throw was bigger and is the one that counts for now.\nRyan Crouser of Team USA was a -1000 favorite to win the shot put gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics from DraftKings Sportsbook . And with four throws remaining in the final, he’s already shattered the Olympic record that won him gold in Rio in 2016.\n**NEW OLYMPIC SHOT PUT RECORD** pic.twitter.com/dN2rNVns1n\n— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) August 5, 2021\nCrouser’s previous Olympic record was 22.52m, and his latest throw of 22.93 puts him 74 centimeters of teammate Joe Kovacs, who is in second place for silver. Tomas Walsh of New Zealand sits in third with a toss of 22.17.\nCrouser’s world record of 23.37 that he set in June of 2021 at the Olympic Trials would seem to be in play here. We’ll keep an eye on his last four throws and see if he can make even more history.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["22.52m"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["23.30m"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":null},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Crouser"]},{"role":"Date","values":["today"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["him"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"US shot putter Ryan Crouser wins gold, breaks own Olympic record","document":"Gold medalist Ryan Crouser, of the United States, poses during the medal ceremony for the men's shot put at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, in Tokyo.  (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)\nBy: The Associated Press & Scripps National\nPosted at 8:49 AM, Aug 05, 2021\nand last updated 2021-08-05 10:50:42-04\nRyan Crouser broke his own Olympic record on his way to defending his shot put title Thursday.\nOn his last attempt, Crouser went 23.30 meters to earn the first track and field gold for the American men at the Tokyo Games. U.S. teammate Joe Kovacs finished second and Tomas Walsh of New Zealand was third.\nThe 28-year-old Crouser went 22.52 meters when he won at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.\nCrouser is already the world record-holder after breaking a 31-year-old mark on June 18 at the U.S. Olympic trials. His throw that evening went 23.37 meters.\nIn the heat at Olympic Stadium, Crouser took the lead on his first attempt and saved his best for his final one.\nWhen he locked up the gold, Crouser brought out a handwritten sign and held it up for the cameras.\nIt read, “Grandpa, we did it. 2020 Olympic champion!”\nMatthias Hangst/AP\nRyan Crouser, of United States, holds a sign while celebrating winning the gold medal in the final of the men's shot put at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (Matthias Hangst/Pool Photo via AP)\nESPN reports that Crouser’s grandfather, Larry, was the person who introduced him to shot put. Sadly, he died last month, the day before Crouser left for Tokyo.\nBefore his grandfather died, ESPN says the Olympian would communicate with him via notes. On Thursday, the athlete told reporters that the celebratory sign was the last note he wanted to write to his grandpa.\nReport a typo\nCopyright 2021 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["22.52 meters"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":["June 18"]},{"role":"Grades","values":["23.30 meters"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's shot put"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ryan Crouser"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Brock Holt Hits 1st-Ever Postseason Cycle in Red Sox's Blowout Win vs. Yankees","document":"The game was essentially already over when the New York Yankees sent catcher Austin Romine to the mound in the ninth inning of Monday's blowout Game 3 of the American League Division Series.\nWhile they were just playing out the string and preserving the bullpen, Brock Holt had history to make.\nHolt launched a two-run homer into the right-field stands to cap off the scoring in the Boston Red Sox 's overwhelming 16-1 victory at Yankee Stadium. In doing so, he became the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit for the cycle in a playoff game, per MLB Stat of the Day .\nBleacher Report @BleacherReport\n? FIRST CYCLE IN MLB POSTSEASON HISTORY ?  (via @MLB) https://t.co/JrM7J1JyeN\nDavid Schoenfield of ESPN noted this isn't the first time the Red Sox second baseman hit for the cycle, as he did so in 2015 against the Atlanta Braves as well.\nHe said it was the first time he attempted to go deep in his career, but his success suggests he should have tried it in the past:\nPete Abraham @PeteAbe\nHolt said he went up in the ninth trying to homer. Moved up in the box and let it fly. Said it was the first time in his career he was trying to hit a homer.\nIt highlighted a record-breaking performance from the offense. According to David Adler of MLB.com, Boston set the all-time record for runs scored against the Bronx Bombers in a playoff contest (previously held by the Arizona Diamondbacks with 15 in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series) and its own franchise record for runs scored in a postseason game.\nMuch of Boston's damage came in a seven-run fourth inning, which Holt appropriately started off with a single. He added a two-run triple later in the frame to break open the game at 10-0.\nHis double was also of the RBI variety and came in the eighth inning.\nThe offensive explosion was notable for the Red Sox, but it was also a continuation of what they did throughout the season. They led the league in runs scored and feature MVP candidates in Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez alongside impressive contributors such as Holt.\nPerhaps more importantly in terms of their World Series fortunes, the Red Sox received a notable pitching performance from a starter other than Chris Sale. That remains an October concern since David Price sports a 5.28 playoff ERA and Rick Porcello's checks in at 5.33, but Nathan Eovaldi threw a gem with one earned run and five hits allowed in seven innings.\nIt is not difficult to envision the Red Sox winning the World Series if Eovaldi continues to pitch like that in support of Sale and Holt continues to hit like he did Monday in support of Betts and Martinez.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["15 in Game 6"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["16-1"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["all-time record for runs scored"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Boston"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Yankee Stadium"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Arizona Diamondbacks"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Cristiano Ronaldo breaks all-time Euro goals record","document":"Updated 6:57 PM, 16 June, 2021\n0\nCOMMENTS\nRonaldo now has 11 goals, two ahead of Michel Platini’s nine, who had held the record for the all-time scorer in this tournament since 1984\nCristiano Ronaldo became the top scorer in the history of the European Championship when he scored a brace in the final minutes of Portugal’s opening match against Hungary in the Puskas Arena in Budapest on June 15.\nRonaldo now has 11 goals, two ahead of Michel Platini’s nine, who had held the record for the all-time scorer in this tournament since 1984. However, Ronaldo is behind Platini in goals per game ratio since the latter had scored all his nine goals in a single tournament, the 1984 Euros.\n\nEven though Portugal, the defending champions, boast a stronger team compared to their Euro 2016 squad, victory did not come easy to them. The match was close for most of its duration until Raphael Guerreiro opened the deadlock with a goal in the 84th minute. Ronaldo also was absent through most of the game until the final 10 minutes when he scored two. His first at the 87th minute, which cemented him as the record highest scorer, was a penalty. He dribbled another goal in the 92nd minute to solidify Portugal’s comfortable victory over Hungary in stoppage time.\nRonaldo also got an early chance to achieve his record-breaking 10th goal in the 44th minute. Guerreiro had sent a cross in Ronaldo’s way, which the Portugal captain could not convert.\nAdvertisement\nIn retrospect, Ronaldo achieved his record at the best time. The Puskas Arena in Budapest is the only Euro 2020 venue that does not put constraints on crowd capacity due to COVID-19. The stadium holds almost 68,000 fans.\nThis was not the only record Ronaldo broke. He also became the first player ever to score at five different European Championships: 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020.\n⏰ RESULT ⏰\n? Cristiano Ronaldo becomes all-time EURO top scorer\n?? Ronaldo nets twice in Portugal win; Guerreiro also on target\nWho did it best? ? #EURO2020\n— UEFA EURO 2020 (@EURO2020) June 15, 2021\nThe 36-year-old is also only four goals away from breaking the all-time international scoring record of 109 goals by Iranian Ali Daei. Ronaldo currently has 106 goals in 176 appearances for his country.\nPortugal will be facing Germany next. They’re set to play against France, who were the Euro 2016 runner ups, on June 24, where the ex-challengers would look to even old scores.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["nine"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["11 goals"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the top scorer in the history of the European Championship"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ronaldo"]},{"role":"Date","values":["June 15"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Puskas Arena in Budapest"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Michel Platini"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ronaldo becomes highest goalscorer in international football","document":"The Manchester United forward has now 111 international goals, breaking record of 109 goals previously held by Iran’s Ali Daei.\nRonaldo is also the all-time top goalscorer in the Champions League [File: Toby Melville/Reuters]\nPublished On 2 Sep 20212 Sep 2021\nwhatsapp\nCristiano Ronaldo has become the record highest goalscorer in international football after he helped Portugal beat Republic of Ireland 2-1 in World Cup qualifying on Wednesday.\nThe Manchester United forward has now 111 international goals, breaking a record of 109 goals previously held by Iran’s Ali Daei.\nRonaldo, who is the all-time top goalscorer in the Champions League and the leading marksman in Real Madrid’s history, led his country to their only major tournament win at Euro 2016.\nThe 36 year old spoke of his pride after his latest milestone.\n“From all the records that I have broken during my career – and fortunately there have been a few – this one is very special for me and it’s certainly on the shelf of the achievements that make me truly proud,” Ronaldo said in a post on Instagram.\n“Scoring 111 goals for Portugal means 111 moments like the ones we experienced today in Algarve, moments of worldwide union and happiness for millions and millions of Portuguese citizens all around the globe. For them, every sacrifice is worth it.”\nRonaldo became the first player to feature in five European Championships at this year’s Euro 2020, winning the Golden Boot.\nAnd he could equal the record of playing at five World Cups should Portugal make it to Qatar next year.\nThe five-time Ballon d’Or winner, who secured a return to United from Juventus this week, hinted he has no intention of retiring from international football in the near future.\n“Thank you Portugal. Thanks to all my teammates and opponents for making this journey so unforgettable,” he added. “Let’s keep meeting inside the pitch in the years to come! I’m not closing the count just yet.”\nPortugal face Qatar in a friendly on Saturday before travelling to Azerbaijan on September 7.\nThanks to Ronaldo’s rescue act in the Algarve, Fernando Santos’s men top Group A of European qualifying, three points clear of Serbia, who have a game in hand.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["109 goals"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["111 international goals"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":null},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ronaldo"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday","today"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Algarve"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Ali Daei"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Stephen Curry's record-breaking 3-point shooting performance powers Golden State Warriors past Philadelphia 76ers","document":"Stephen Curry turned it on in Philadelphia, torching the short-handed 76ers for 49 points as he led the Golden State Warriors to a 107-96 win, \nCurry was up to his usual tricks, knocking down 10 3-pointers as he accounted for nearly half of his team's points as they handed the 76ers just their fifth home loss of the season.\nJoel Embiid continued his MVP-level play, recording 28 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, leading six players in double figures on the night. \nSteph re-writes history books\nCurry has been on a tear in recent weeks and tonight he punctuated his hot streak, breaking multiple records.\nThe 33-year-old has now buried 72 3-pointers in his past 10 games — the most in a 10 game stretch in NBA history. Even more impressively, he's connected on 50.3 percent of his 3s in that span!. \n72 threes in 10 games vibes for Steph. pic.twitter.com/1iVrEqJdZs\n— NBA (@NBA) April 20, 2021\nHis triple to tie the game at 86-86 made it 11 straight games with 30+ points, passing Kobe Bryant for the most by any player 33 or older , while his streak is the most by a Warriors player since Wilt Chamberlain in 1964.\nTonight's performance marked his sixth game this season knocking down 10+ 3s and the 21st in his career — no other player in NBA history has more than five. \n“There’s something beautiful about it. It really is an art,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “What he’s doing is amazing to watch. Nobody in the history of this game has ever done what he’s doing right now. And I’m talking the full gamut of shooting off the dribble, off the screen, running around like a madman when he’s off the ball.”\nSteph Curry in April (10 games):\n40.8 PPG\n7.2 3PG\n55/50/91%\nHe’s on pace to join James Harden, Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant (3x) and Wilt Chamberlain (11x) as the only players in NBA history to average 40 points in a month (min 10 games). pic.twitter.com/je9AUrm9OE\n— StatMuse (@statmuse) April 20, 2021\nCurry vs. Curry\nIn the City of Brotherly Love, Seth Curry and Steph Curry went back and forth like it was the family driveway, with Seth holding his own against his older brother early in the contest.\nPlaying without Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris, the 76ers deployed Seth against Steph, who played solid defence against his brother, stripping him on the 3-point line for an easy layup, before the Chef really started to get cooking.\n— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 19, 2021\nSteph finished the quarter with 11 points, tying it up at 24-24 with this triple at the buzzer, right over his brother. \nSteph beats the buzzer.. game-high 11 PTS through 1Q on ESPN. @warriors 24 @sixers 24 pic.twitter.com/wHVlJWNVjv\n— NBA (@NBA) April 20, 2021\nSeth impressed handling the ball at the point, running pick-and-rolls with Embiid and finding his own shot, scoring all 15 of his points in the first half. From there it was all Steph who dominated the second half, scoring 20 of his 49 in the fourth quarter alone.\nAfter Embiid made a pair of free throws to put the 76ers up 92-91, Curry responded with two of his own, which sparked a 10-0 Warriors run, including two more triples from Curry and a running layup from Andrew Wiggins to seize control of the contest.\nEmbiid shines for Philly\nWhile the MVP chants were raining down for Curry, Joel Embiid turned in another dominant performance tonight, recording 28 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists.\nIn the absence of Simmons and Harris, the Warriors defence was zeroed in on the MVP candidate, sending weakside help his way from the jump, but he responded well, whipping passes out of double teams and finding open shooters with regularity. \nHis eight assists were one shy of his season-high, an area he's greatly improved this season, reading the defence and making the right pass under pressure.  \n— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 20, 2021\nHill makes debut\nRecently-acquired point guard George Hill made his debut for the 76ers after being sidelined following thumb surgery\nHe finished with two points, two rebounds, and two assists in 18 minutes on court, but gave coach Doc Rivers a glimpse of what he can provide come playoff time. \n. @George_Hill3 's first bucket as a Sixer. pic.twitter.com/oagQgJc2gS\n— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 20, 2021\nThe 34-year-old veteran was poised handling the ball, finding teammates out of the pick-and-roll and looks like he will be able to provide some extra playmaking and stability for their bench unit.  \nWhat's next?\nThe 76ers will look to bounce back when they visit the high-flying Phoenix Suns on Thursday (AEST), while the Warriors are back in action on Wednesday against the Washington Wizards. \nThe views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA or its clubs.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["72 3-pointers in his past 10 games"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["11 straight games with 30+ points","the most in a 10 game stretch in NBA history"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Stephen Curry"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Kobe Bryant"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"American Sydney McLaughlin sets world record in Olympic 400m hurdles final","document":"The day before, Karsten Warholm crushed his old world record, finishing the men’s race in 45.94, and runner-up Rai Benjamin’s 46.17 also beat the old mark.\nIt was a lot to live up to for the women, whose race was even more eagerly anticipated. They exceeded expectations.\nStarting from Lane 7, Muhammad burst out of the blocks and made up the lag quickly — too quickly? — as they cruised down the backstretch.\nSlowly, steadily, McLaughlin drew even, and they were at nearly a draw when they reached the final 100 meters. McLaughlin scaled the last hurdle, then started inching away.\nThe .12-second margin was close — but not as close as in Doha, when McLaughlin lost by .07 in a race that changed her thinking.\nShe had burst onto the scene in 2016, a 16-year-old out of East Orange, New Jersey, who loved to tell the story about how she could juggle, and ride a unicycle, and do both at the same time. She could hurdle, too. To prove it, she earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in one of the most stacked events on the program,\nMuhammad, already in her prime, won a gold medal in Rio de Janeiro. McLaughlin was out in the semifinal round. A great learning experience.\nThe 2019 races in Des Moines, then Doha, showed how good McLaughlin really was, but left her with an undisputable reality. Muhammad was better.\nMcLaughlin changed coaches, moving over to work with the famed Bobby Kersee, whose expertise has helped produce what could be its own wing of a track and field Hall of Fame: Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner, Allyson Felix.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["45.94","46.17"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["men’s race"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Karsten Warholm","Rai Benjamin"]},{"role":"Date","values":["The day before"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his old world record"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"The Straits Times","document":"TOKYO (REUTERS) - China's Shi Zhiyong broke his own world record to win the men's 73kg weightlifting event at the Olympics on Wednesday (July 28) and claim a gold medal for the second Games in a row.\nThe 27-year-old lifted a combined 364kg to better his own world record of 363kg he set at the 2019 world championships.\nShi remained strong throughout the competition, breaking the Olympic record in the snatch with his second lift and again with his third.\nShi, gold medallist at the 2016 Olympics in the 69kg category, also broke the Olympic record for the clean and jerk on his first attempt.\nVenezuela's Julio Ruben Mayora Pernia won the silver medal and Indonesia's Rahmat Erwin Abdullah the bronze.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["363kg"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":["2016"]},{"role":"Grades","values":["364kg"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's 73kg weightlifting event"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Shi Zhiyong"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday (July 28)"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Weightlifting: China's Shi Zhiyong breaks world record to win gold in 73kg","document":"TOKYO: China's Shi Zhiyong broke his own world record to win the men's 73kg weightlifting event at the Olympics on Wednesday and claim a gold medal for the second Games in a row.\nThe 27-year-old lifted a combined 364kg to better his own world record of 363kg he set at the 2019 world championships.\nShi remained strong throughout the competition, breaking the Olympic record in the snatch with his second lift and again with his third.\nShi, gold medallist at the 2016 Olympics in the 69kg category, also broke the Olympic record for the clean and jerk on his first attempt.\nVenezuela's Julio Ruben Mayora Pernia won the silver medal and Indonesia's Rahmat Erwin Abdullah the bronze.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["363kg"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":["2016"]},{"role":"Grades","values":["364kg"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's 73kg weightlifting event"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Shi Zhiyong"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Weightlifting-China’s Shi breaks world record to win gold in 73kg category","document":"TOKYO, July 28 (Reuters) – China’s Shi Zhiyong broke his personal world report to win the lads’s 73kg weightlifting occasion on the Olympics on Wednesday and declare a gold medal for the second Video games in a row.\nThe 27-year-old lifted a mixed 364 kg to raised his personal world report of 363 kg, set on the 2019 world championships.\nVenezuela’s Julio Ruben Mayora Pernia gained a silver with a carry of 346 kg.\nIn a shock flip, Indonesia’s Rahmat Erwin Abdullah, who competed in a division with decrease weight entries, gained a bronze by lifting 342 kg in complete. read more\nShi remained robust all through the competitors, breaking the Olympic report within the snatch along with his second carry and once more along with his third.\n“My goal was to interrupt the world report, not solely to win the gold medal,” Shi informed reporters.\n“I’d have regretted not breaking the world report. I got here right here to do that, I waited 5 years to do that. I used to be certain I’d break my very own report.”\nShi, gold medallist on the 2016 Olympics within the 69 kg class, additionally broke the Olympic report for the clear and jerk on his first try.\nShi challenged the choice on his second try at a 192 kg clear and jerk, however the choice stood. He then lifted 198 kg on his third carry to match his world report.\nMayora Pernia tried to carry 199 kg on his third clear and jerk however failed.\nIndonesia’s Abdullah mentioned his father and coach advisable him to compete on the decrease weight division as a result of he could be “extra snug and relaxed” that means.\n“I’m so completely happy, the plan labored,” he mentioned, including that his father was not capable of compete on the Olympics in 2004 resulting from accidents.\n“At this time I’ve gained the medal for each of us, I dedicate this to him.”","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":["2019"]},{"role":"Grades","values":["364 kg","363 kg"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the lads’s 73kg weightlifting occasion"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Shi Zhiyong"]},{"role":"Date","values":["July 28","Wednesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["TOKYO"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Karsten Warholm wins 'best race in Olympic history' as he breaks 400m hurdles world record","document":"Updated 1745 GMT (0145 HKT) August 3, 2021\nJUST WATCHED\nBiles speaks out after Olympic achievement\nThe Olympic Stadium, Tokyo (CNN)\nIt started the way his races often do -- a slap of the chest, a pump of the fist, and a roar to the camera -- but ended like none have done before. As Karsten Warholm crossed the finish line of the men's Olympic 400-meter hurdles final and registered the numbers on the stadium clock, his face turned to a mixture of exhaustion, elation and disbelief. The Norwegian's time of 45.94 seconds in Tokyo on Tuesday is likely to shift perceptions of what is possible in this event as he held off the USA's Rai Benjamin and shattered his own world record by more than half a second. In a golden era for the men's 400m hurdles, this was the Olympic final the event deserved. Benjamin's time of 46.17 seconds for silver would have comfortably broken the previous record Warholm had set in July, while Brazil's Alison Dos Santos' bronze-medal time of 46.72 was just outside it. \"That was the best race in Olympic history ... everyone in this event should be getting paid big bucks, in all honesty,\" Benjamin later quipped. Read More\nWarholm reacts after his gold medal and world record in the 400m hurdles final at the Tokyo Olympics. The forerunner in this event since his world championship title in 2017, Warholm now has an Olympic medal to show for his efforts. He inched ahead of Benjamin after the final hurdle and ripped a huge hole down the middle of his sprint suit after crossing the line. \"The lactic acid is just crazy, I couldn't feel my legs,\" Warholm told reporters about the end of the race. \"I was just running over the line because I didn't take anything for granted today. All respect to Rai for running 46.17 -- that's just crazy.\" Running in lane six, Warholm quickly caught up with Dos Santos and Qatar's Abderrahman Samba in the lanes outside him. He was leading by the 200-meter mark, but the race was far from won as Benjamin slowly gained ground in the adjacent inside lane. The pair were practically level at the final hurdle, but Warholm summoned an extra ounce of energy to take the gold. \"I ran sort of scared, but that's something that I always do,\" Warholm added. \"I knew that with my fast opening, I was up on the side of dos Santos and Samba really early in the race. \"That was my tactic today, I think I won on tactics. I really went out hard and tried to get the guys with me ... after that I just ran for my life. I would have died for that gold medal.\" Warholm reacts to his 400m hurdles victory. Kevin Young's 400m hurdles world record from the 1992 Olympics had stood for nearly three decades before Warholm broke it a month ago -- a barrier the 25-year-old has previously likened to the race to get a man on the moon . But this Olympic final has redefined the discipline. The three athletes on the podium can lay claim to being the fastest 400m hurdlers ever; Samba, the fifth-fastest on the all-time list behind Young, finished fifth behind the British Virgin Islands' Kyron McMaster in the final. Fast track, fast times? For silver medalist Benjamin, there was a mixture of frustration and pride. \"It's a lot to process,\" he told reporters. \"I cried a little bit ... but I am really happy to be a part of history like this and just to show where this event can go. \"I don't think even Usain Bolt's 9.58 (at the World Championships in Berlin) topped that. I mean, three guys pretty much broke the world record.\" The Tokyo Olympics have so far yielded fast times on the track, notably Elaine Thompson-Herah's Olympic record in the women's 100m final . Some have put it down to advancements in shoe technology, while others have credited the favorable track surface. Warholm and Benjamin jump the final hurdle in the 400m hurdles final. \"It feels like I'm walking on clouds,\" said US sprinter Ronnie Baker. \"It's really smooth out there. It's a beautiful track, one of the nicest I've run on.\" Accoring to World Athletics and Mondo , the company that prepared the track ahead of the Games, more than 280 world records had been established on Mondo tracks prior to the Tokyo Olympics. However, Benjamin said that, in his race at least, the fast times were more about the athletes themselves. \"People say it's the track, it's the shoes. I would wear different shoes and still run fast, it doesn't really matter,\" he said. Fireworks explode over Tokyo's National Stadium at the end of the Olympics' closing ceremony on Sunday, August 8. The word \"arigato,\" seen at left, means thank you in Japanese. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe Olympic cauldron closes, extinguishing the Olympic flame at the end of the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nDancers perform during the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\n3 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe national flags of Japan, Greece and France fly during the closing ceremony. Greece is the birthplace of the Olympic Games. France will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe Olympic flag is folded after being lowered during the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\n5 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nKenya's Eliud Kipchoge, who won the gold medal in the marathon, listens as his country's National Anthem is played during his medal ceremony. The medal ceremonies for both the men's and women's marathon took place during the closing ceremony. And that meant two playings of the Kenyan National Anthem, as Kenya's Peres Jepchirchir won gold in the women's event. Hide Caption\n6 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nJets conduct a flyover next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. While the closing ceremony was held in Tokyo, a celebration was held in Paris. The French capital will be hosting the next Summer Games in 2024. Hide Caption\n7 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, makes a heart gesture as he delivers a speech at the closing ceremony. In his speech, Bach thanked the athletes and the Japanese people for their hard work and sacrifices in staging the most logistically challenging Olympic Games in history. \"We did it together,\" he said. Hide Caption\n8 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nAthletes watch performers take part in the closing ceremony. Because of Covid-19 protocols, all athletes were required to leave Japan within 48 hours of their competition, so there were fewer athletes at the closing ceremony than there were at the opening ceremony. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nPolish athletes take pictures as they attend the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe flags of each participating nation are brought into the stadium for the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nDignitaries applaud at the beginning of the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\n12 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nAmerican athletes show their medals to a video camera at the closing ceremony. The United States finished on top of the medal table for the third straight Summer Olympics, winning 39 gold medals and 113 medals in all. Second-place China finished with 38 golds and 88 medals in all. Host nation Japan had a third-best 27 golds and won a total of 58 medals. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe Japanese flag is brought into the stadium at the start of the closing ceremony. Hide Caption\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nFireworks explode over the National Stadium. Hide Caption\n15 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe United States' Brittney Griner, right, defends Japan's Maki Takada during the gold-medal basketball game on August 8. Griner scored 30 points as the Americans won 90-75. It is the seventh consecutive gold medal for the US women's basketball team. Hide Caption\n16 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nKenya's Eliud Kipchoge crosses the finish line August 8 to win the marathon for the second Olympics in a row. Kipchoge, the world-record holder in the event, finished with a time of 2:08:38. Hide Caption\n17 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nUS basketball player Sue Bird is congratulated by her partner, Megan Rapinoe, after the gold-medal game. Bird and teammate Diana Taurasi had just won their fifth career Olympic golds. Hide Caption\n18 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nSerbia's Nikola Dedović, Vladimir Vujasinović and Milan Aleksić jump into the pool as they celebrate winning the water polo final against Greece on August 8. Serbia won the match 13-10. Hide Caption\n19 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nJennifer Valente holds the American flag after winning gold at the Omnium track cycling event on August 8. It is the United States' first gold medal in track cycling since 2000. Hide Caption\n20 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe United States' Jordyn Poulter, right, sets the ball during the gold-medal volleyball match against Brazil on August 8. The Americans defeated Brazil 3-0. It is the United States' first-ever gold medal in women's volleyball. Hide Caption\n21 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nLinoy Ashram, a rhythmic gymnast from Israel, won gold in the individual all-around on Saturday, August 7. Hide Caption\n22 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nJapan's baseball team celebrates with manager Atsunori Inaba after winning the gold-medal game against the United States on August 7. Hide Caption\n23 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe United States' Allyson Felix runs in the 4x400-meter relay on August 7. The US team won gold, making Felix the most decorated American athlete in Olympic track-and-field history. Hide Caption\n24 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nBrazil's Hebert Sousa, center, celebrates after he knocked out Ukraine's Oleksandr Khyzhniak to win the middleweight final on August 7. Khyzhniak was leading the first two rounds when Sousa caught him in the chin with a left hook. Hide Caption\n25 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe Netherlands' Sifan Hassan places a bag of ice on her face after winning gold in the 10,000 meters on August 7. Hassan also won the 5,000 meters in Tokyo and finished third in the 1,500. She's the first person in Olympic history to complete a medley of medals across both the middle- and long-distance events in a single Games. Hide Caption\n26 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nThe United States' Nelly Korda, right, is congratulated by her sister, Jessica, after winning the gold medal by one stroke on August 7. Nelly Korda, the world's top-ranked female golfer, took the tournament lead after a second-round 62. Jessica Korda finished tied for 15th. Hide Caption\n27 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nKazakhstan's Sergey Ponomaryov, left, crashes with Malaysia's Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom during a keirin race on August 7. Hide Caption\n28 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nA Russian artistic swimmer competes in the team event on August 7. Russian swimmers won gold in both the team and duet events in Tokyo. Hide Caption\n29 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nJessica Springsteen, the daughter of rock star Bruce Springsteen, was part of the US equestrian team that won silver in jumping on August 7. Hide Caption\n30 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nBrazilian defender Dani Alves, left, and Spanish midfielder Carlos Soler react after Brazil defeated Spain 2-1 in the gold-medal football match on August 7. Brazil is the fifth men's team in history to win back-to-back titles at the Olympics. Hide Caption\n31 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nAshleigh Johnson celebrates after the United States defeated Spain in the water polo final on August 7. It's the third straight gold for the Americans, who won 14-5. That's the largest margin of victory in the history of water polo's gold-medal matches. Hide Caption\n32 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\n33 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nUS basketball players celebrate after defeating France 87-82 in the gold-medal game on August 7. It's the Americans' fourth straight gold in men's basketball. Hide Caption\n34 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nChinese diver Cao Yuan competes in the 10-meter platform event on August 7. He won the gold and became the first athlete to win Olympic gold medals in three different diving events. He won gold in the 3-meter springboard in 2016, and he won gold in the 10-meter synchronized event in 2012. Hide Caption\n35 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nKenya's Peres Jepchirchir crosses the finish line to win the marathon on August 7. Her countrywoman Brigid Kosgei earned the silver medal. Hide Caption\n36 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nItaly's Filippo Tortu, bottom, finishes ahead of Great Britain's Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake by just .01 seconds to win gold in the 4x100-meter relay on Friday, August 6. Hide Caption\n37 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nGermany's Annika Schleu was leading the modern pentathlon after two events. But in the show jumping event on August 6, her horse, Saint Boy, refused to cooperate with her wishes. The horse just wouldn't jump, and Schleu broke into tears as her medal hopes faded away. In the modern pentathlon, horses are assigned to athletes via a draw. Hide Caption\n38 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nTeammates mob Canada's Julia Grosso after she scored the winning penalty in the shootout against Sweden on August 6. The gold-medal match was tied 1-1 after extra time, so a shootout had to decide the winner. It is Canada's first gold medal in women's football. Hide Caption\n39 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nCuban boxer Julio César La Cruz poses with his gold medal after winning the heavyweight final on August 6. Hide Caption\n40 of 312\nPhotos: The best photos from the Tokyo Olympics\nChina's Liu Shiying competes in the javelin final on August 6.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":null},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["400m hurdles","the women's 100m final"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Warholm","Elaine Thompson-Herah"]},{"role":"Date","values":["a month ago"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Kevin Young"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Georgia’s Lasha Talakhadze breaks weightlifting world record","document":"Reigning Olympic and world champion Lasha Talakhadze retains his continental title and sets snatch world record. Photo: AP\nComments\nAgenda.ge, 9 Apr 2017 - 12:31, Tbilisi,Georgia\nGeorgian weightlifter Lasha Talakhadze has made history by snatching 217kg at the European Weightlifting Championships in Split, Croatia last night.\nThat is the most amount of weight any human being has ever snatched in a weight-lifting competition in recorded history.\nTalakhadze broke the men's over-105 kilograms snatch world record on his way to retaining his continental title on the final day of the competition. \nThe 23-year-old won the snatch with a lift of 217kg, besting Iranian Behdad Salimi's 216kg set at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and then won the clean and jerk with 250kg.\nIt gave the reigning Olympic and world champion an overall total of 467kg and a winning margin of 21kg.\nAnother Georgian athlete Irakli Turmanidze came third in the snatch with 201kg, but he did not contest the clean and jerk due to a leg injury. ","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["216kg"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["217kg"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men's over-105 kilograms snatch world record"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Lasha Talakhadze"]},{"role":"Date","values":["last night"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Split, Croatia"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Behdad Salimi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Olympics: Emma McKeon Pops Olympic Record in Prelims Of 100 Freestyle As Aussie Assault Continues","document":"The strength of the Australian women’s arsenal has been on full display through the first half of the Olympic Games in Tokyo . A world record from the Dolphins’ 400 freestyle relay. A pair of gold medals from Ariarne Titmus. A title from Kaylee McKeown . And there is – almost surely – more to come.\nIn the preliminaries of the 100-meter freestyle, Emma McKeon ripped an Olympic record of 52.13, good for the eighth-fastest time in history, to secure the top seed for the semifinals. Already a member of Australia’s gold-medal 800 freestyle relay and the bronze medalist in the 100 butterfly, McKeon is riding a wave of momentum. She will be joined in the semifinals by countrywoman Cate Campbell, who went 52.80 for the fourth seed.\nThe fact that McKeon emerged from prelims as the fastest performer was hardly a shock, given that she split 51.35 in the 400 freestyle relay. She was followed in the second position by Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey, who went 52.70 while following up a silver medal in the 200 freestyle during the morning session. The third seed is Great Britain’s Anna Hopkin, who clocked a British record of 52.75.\nIn fifth was Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, the world-record holder who is looking sharp despite suffering a fractured elbow earlier this year that interrupted her training. Sjostrom touched in 52.91, just ahead of the 52.95 of Canada’s Penny Oleksiak, who was the joint champion in the event in 2016, sharing the gold medal with Simone Manuel. Also dipping under the 53-second barrier was Denmark’s Pernille Blume in 52.96.\n“It feels OK; nothing comes for free and I really have to fight out there,” Sjostrom said. “Even if I feel a bit tired, I can still keep up the speed during the whole run, so I’m happy with that.”\nA swimoff for the final spot in the semifinals was scheduled, due to the 16th-place tie at 53.71 between the Netherlands’ Ranomi Kromowidjojo and France’s Marie Wattel. But Kromowidjojo, the 2012 Olympic champion in the event, opted to scratch and focus on the 50 freestyle later in the week.\nCanada’s Kayla Sanchez, who finished 10th, also scratched, so the two swimmers who originally tied for 18th place, the USA’s Erika Brown and China’s Wu Qingfeng, swam off for the last spot. Brown dominated that swim-off, winning 53.51 to 54.47.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["52.13"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":null},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["100-meter freestyle"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Emma McKeon"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Tokyo Olympics Athletics LIVE: India’s Men’s 4x400m relay team breaks Asian Record but fails to enter Finals","document":"India’s Gurpreet Singh has dropped out of the race after competing for around 35Km as he was cramping due to the gruelling heat and humidity.\nAt halfway point of 25km, he was in the 49th position with the time of 2:01:54 #Tokyo2020 #Olympics\nIndian Athletes in Action on Friday\nGurpreet Singh will be India’s sole competitor in the Men’s 50km racewalk finals\nBhawna Jat and Priyanka Goswami will feature in the women’s 20km racewalk finals.\nMeanwhile, the likes of Muhammed Anas, Amoj Jacob, Arokia Rajiv, Noah Nirmal Tom and Naganathan Pandi will hope to make their mark in the 4×400 relay event.\nIndia at Tokyo Olympics Day 15 Full Schedule, Match Timings & LIVE Updates\nATHLETICS – 2:00 AM: Men’s 50km Race Walk Final (Gurpreet Singh)\nGOLF 5:29 AM: Women’s Individual Stroke Play Round 3 (Diksha Dagar)\nGOLF 5:48 AM: Women’s Individual Stroke Play Round 3 (Aditi Ashok)\nHOCKEY 7:00 AM: Women’s Bronze Medal Match (India vs Great Britain)\nWRESTLING – 8:07 AM: Women’s Freestyle 50kg 1/8 Final (Seema Bisla vs Sarra Hamdi of Tunisia)\n8:49 AM: Men’s Freestyle 65kg 1/8 Final (Bajrang Punia vs Ernazar Akmataliev of Kyrgyzstan)\nATHLETICS 1:00 PM: Women’s 20km Race Walk Final (Bhawna Jat, Priyanka Goswami)\nATHLETICS 5:07 PM: Men’s 4x400m Relay Round 1 – Heat 2 (Amoj Jacob, Naganathan Pandi, Arokia Rajiv, Nirmal Tom Noah, Muhammed Anas Yahiya)\nTokyo Olympics India LIVE – Tokyo Olympics Athletics LIVE: Gurpreet Singh (Athletics- Men’s 50km Race Walk Final)\nGurpreet Singh is currently ranked 104 and qualified for Tokyo 2020 by the world ranking quota. Singh clocked 3:59:42, managing to breach the four-hour mark at the national championships in February this year.  The 37-year-old who has a career-best ranking of 80, will face stiff competition from Ukraine’s 2018 European champion Maryan Zakalnytskyy, local favourites Satoshi Maruo and Masatora Kawano, and 2019 world championship silver medallist Joao Vieira of Portugal, who all will be aiming to finish on the podium.\nTime: 2:00 AM IST\nVenue: Sapporo Odori Park\nTokyo Olympics India LIVE – Tokyo Olympics Athletics LIVE: Bhawna Jat, Priyanka Goswami (Athletics- Women’s 20km Race Walk Final)\nPriyanka Goswami and Bhawna Jat will be making their Olympics debut and will hope to make their mark in the race walk final on Friday. at held the national record by clocking 1:29:54 and qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics at the National Open Championships in February last year. However, Priyanka Goswami set a new Indian record of 1:28.45 and qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics winning the Indian Racewalking Championship in the 20 km race. After the disappointing performances of Sandeep Sharma, K. T. Irfan and Rahul Rohilla on Thursday, the onus will be on Jat and Goswami to set the record straight.\nTime: 1:00 PM IST\nVenue: Sapporo Odori Park\nAlso Read:  India at Tokyo Olympics LIVE: Hockey-India vs Great Britain- Women’s Bronze medal match; head-to-head stats, previous results and all you need to know\nMen’s 4 x 400m Relay Round 1 – Heat 2\nMuhammed Anas, Amoj Jacob, Arokia Rajiv, Noah Nirmal Tom and Naganathan Pandi will feature in the Men’s 4x 400m relay Round 1 Heat 2 on Friday. The quartet made it to Tokyo with a fine performance at the Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships, clocking 3:01.89s to win their heats in Patiala. They will hope to capitalise on their ticket to the Summer Games and aim to make it to the finals.\nTime: 5:07 PM IST\nVenue: Olympic Stadium\nTokyo Olympics India LIVE – Tokyo Olympics Athletics LIVE: Follow all LIVE Updates as Indian Athletes take on World’s top runners & walkers on InsideSport.co","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["3:59:42","1:28.45"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the four-hour mark","the Indian Racewalking Championship"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Singh","Priyanka Goswami"]},{"role":"Date","values":["February this year"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Caeleb Dressel breaks world record in 100-meter butterfly, Katie Ledecky beats Aussie Ariarne Titmus","document":"Caeleb Dressel (left) greets Kristof Milak of Hungary after wining the gold medal in the men's 100-meter butterfly Saturday morning.David Goldman/Associated Press\nTOKYO — Caeleb Dressel added a world record to his growing medal haul.\nKatie Ledecky closed out her Olympics with another victory, too.\nContinuing his march to being perhaps the biggest star of the Tokyo Games, Dressel won his third gold medal with a world record in the 100-meter butterfly Saturday.\nAbout 20 minutes later, Ledecky claimed her expected gold in the 800 freestyle, though she was pushed hard by Australian rival Ariarne Titmus.\nLedecky finished up with two golds, two silver and a fifth-place finish at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre — not as successful as she was five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, but not bad at all.\nAdvertisement\nCaeleb Dressel surged to a world record in his 100-meter butterfly win.Ryan Pierse/Getty\nDressel led right from the start and held off Hungary’s Kristof Milak to touch in 49.45 seconds, breaking the mark of 49.50 that the American set at the 2019 world championships in Gwangju.\nMilak, winner of the 200 fly, earned the silver with a blistering 49.68. The bronze went to Switzerland’s Noe Ponti.\nWhen he saw the “WR” beside his name, Dressel smiled and joined hands with Milak in the lane next to him. They raised their arms together before Dressel flexed his left arm and pumped it in the air.\nFrom the nearly empty stands, the cheers from Dressel’s teammates rang through the arena. When he was announced as the Olympic champion, he raised his right arm again as he walked along the deck.\nHe didn’t want to exert too much energy; he had two more races on his morning schedule.\nKatie Ledecky captured gold in the 800-meter freestyle.JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images\nLedecky became the first female swimmer to capture six individual gold medals with her third straight Olympic title in the 800 free.\nLedecky led all the way in a race she hasn’t lost since 2010, winning with a time of 8 minutes, 12.57 seconds .\nTitmus closed strong to claim the silver in 8:13.83, while the bronze went to Italy’s Simona Quadarella in 8:18.35.\nAdvertisement\nLedecky lost her first two individual matchups with Titmus, but finally beat the Terminator in their final showdown.\n“To be able to watch Katie actually race somebody this Olympics was really exciting,” American teammate Katie Grimes said. “We don’t get to see that very often.”\nThe Australian women did claim another gold.\nKaylee McKeown completed a sweep of the backstroke events with a victory in the 200 butterfly. Her winning time was 2:04.68.\nThe silver went to Canada’s Kylie Masse in 2:05.42, with another Australian, Emily Seebohm, claiming the bronze in 2:06.17.\nAmericans Rhyan White and Phoebe Bacon finished fourth and fifth. The world-record holder, Regan Smith, stunningly failed to qualify for the event at the US trials.\nIt’s been a huge Olympics for the Aussie women. They have won six of their team’s seven gold medals at the pool.\nDressel’s victory started off a busy morning.\nJust minutes after collecting his gold medal, he hustled back to the deck for the semifinals of the 50 freestyle, where he set the top qualifying time of 21.42.\nHe also anchored the 4x100 mixed medley relay, a new Olympic event that features two men and two women on each team. Britain claimed gold with a world record of 3 minutes, 37.58 seconds.\nThe silver went to China in 3:38.86, while Australia took the bronze in 3:38.95.\nThe American swimmers were fifth, ending Dressel’s bid to win six gold medals. His hopes were snuffed out before he even dove in the pool.\nAdvertisement\nThe Americans tried a different strategy than everyone else, going with Dressel on the freestyle while the other seven teams all closed with a woman.\nWhen 18-year-old Torri Huske passed off to Dressel after the butterfly leg, the Americans were more than 7 seconds behind the leaders in last place.\nDressel turned in the fastest time, but it wasn’t nearly enough to chase down all the teams ahead of him.\nSimone Manuel leaves the pool Saturday after failing to qualify for the finals in the women's 50-meter freestyle.David Goldman/Associated Press\nMeanwhile, Simone Manuel’s Olympics are over.\nThe American swimmer failed to advance from the semifinals of the 50-meter freestyle. Her time of 24.63 seconds was 11th-fastest, eliminating her from Sunday’s final. Only the top eight advance.\nAt the 2016 Rio Games, Manuel became the first Black American woman to win an individual swimming gold medal in the 100 freestyle. She also claimed a silver in the 50 free.\nThis time, her preparations were hampered by overtraining syndrome. She failed to make the US team in the 100 free, leaving the 50 as her only individual event. She did claim a bronze medal in the 4x100 free relay.\nAustralia’s Emma McKeon was the top qualifier, setting an Olympic record for the second day in a row with a time of 24.00.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["49.50"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["49.45 seconds","3 minutes, 37.58 seconds","24.00"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the 100-meter butterfly","4x100 mixed medley relay"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Caeleb Dressel","Britain","Emma McKeon"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday","the second day"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["the American"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Aussie swimmer McKeown breaks Olympic record to win women's 100m backstroke","document":"Australian swimmer Kaylee McKeown claimed the women's 100m backstroke gold in an Olympic record time of 57.47 seconds at the Tokyo Olympic Games here on Tuesday.\nTopics\nType address separated by commas\nYour Email:\nEnter the characters shown in the image.\nSend me a copy:\nOlympics 2021 qualification: Indian swimmers may compete in Europe in June\nAustralian swimmer Kaylee McKeown claimed the women's 100m backstroke gold in an Olympic record time of 57.47 seconds at the Tokyo Olympic Games here on Tuesday.\nThe result was 0.02 seconds behind her own world record, but enough for her to beat second-placed Kylie Masse of Canada, who finished in 57.72 seconds.\nThe bronze went to 19-year-old Regan Smith of the United States.\nTom Dean and Duncan Scott led a one-two finish for Britain in the men's 200m freestyle.\nThe 21-year-old Dean sprinted for the gold in one minute and 44.22 seconds, with Worlds bronze medallist Scott 0.04 seconds behind.\nBrazilian Fernando Scheffer took the bronze in 1:44:66.\nRussian (ROC) swimmers dominated the men's 100m backstroke as Evgeny Rylov and Kliment Kolesnikov claimed the gold and silver, edging defending champion Ryan Murphy to third.\nFinishing sixth at Rio 2016, Rylov touched first this time in 51.98 seconds, setting a new European record. His compatriot Kolesnikov was 0.02 seconds behind, taking home the silver in his Olympic debut.\nWorld record holder Murphy had to settle for a bronze, unable to catch up with the two Russians after the first 50m, clocking 52.19.\nChina's reigning world champion Xu Jiayu finished fifth in 52.51.\nLydia Jacoby of the United States won the women's 100m breaststroke in her Olympic debut. The 17-year-old beat South African Tatjana Schoenmaker to second in the final sprint, clocking one minute and 04.95 seconds for the gold.\nSchoenmaker, leading for the majority of time, had to settle for silver in 1:05.22. Olympic and world champion Lily King took the bronze in 1:05.54.\n--IANS\nakm/\n(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)\nDear Reader,\nBusiness Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world.  Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger.  Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.\nWe, however, have a request.\nAs we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["57.47 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the women's 100m backstroke"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Kaylee McKeown"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Australian swimmer McKeown sets Olympic record to win gold in Tokyo 2020","document":"Kaylee McKeown of Team Australia poses with her gold medal for the Women's 100m Backstroke Final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Tokyo, Japan on July 27, 2021. Photo: Mustafa Yalcin - Anadolu Agency\nANKARA\nAustralian swimmer Kaylee McKeown broke an Olympic record to win a gold medal in the Tokyo 2020 on Tuesday.\nMcKeown, 20, secured the top spot on the podium with a degree of 57.47 in the women's 100-meter backstroke final at Tokyo Aquatics Centre. She was followed by Kylie Masse with 57.72 as the Canadian swimmer had the silver medal.\nMasse was 0.25 seconds behind McKeown.\nRegan Smith of the US was awarded a bronze for her 58.05 in the backstroke final.\nGold medalist McKeown still holds the world record in this category with 57.45 that she set in Australia's Adelaide on June 13.\nMeanwhile, in the men's 100-meter backstroke final, the Russian Olympic Committee's (ROC) Evgeny Rylov won a gold medal, completing the final in 51.98 seconds.\nRylov set a European record.\nAnother ROC athlete made the podium in this final; Kliment Kolesnikov had a 52.00 degree to win the silver.\nRyan Murphy from the US had the bronze. He was 0.21 behind Rylov.\nIn addition, US swimmers Lydia Jacoby and Lilly King bagged medals in the women's 100-meter breaststroke final.\nJacoby had a degree of 1.04.95 to win the gold medal.\nSouth Africa's Tatjana Schoenmaker was 0.27 seconds behind Jacoby to have silver.\nJacoby's compatriot King earned a bronze with a degree of 1.05.54.\nBritish duo Tom Dean and Duncan Scott were the best two swimmers in the men's 200-meter freestyle final.\nDean won the gold medal with a degree of 1.44.22. Scott bagged a silver. He was 0.04 seconds behind the champion.\nBrazilian swimmer Fernando Scheffer was awarded a bronze medal for his 1.44.66 degree in the freestyle final.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["57.45"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["57.47"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the women's 100-meter backstroke"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Kaylee McKeown"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo Aquatics Centre"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["McKeown"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"‘Her dad would be so proud’: The force that drove McKeown to gold","document":"Kaylee McKeown has put aside family heartbreak to triumph in the 100m backstroke final, winning her first Olympic gold medal and Australia’s third in three days in the pool.\nThe 20-year-old Australian from the Sunshine Coast turned in third place, 0.29 seconds off the pace, but powered home to touch the wall first in 57.47s. Her father died 11 months ago from brain cancer.\nKaylee McKeown after winning gold in the 100m backstroke.\nCredit:Getty\nMcKeown’s time was just 0.02 seconds off her own world record.\nIn her first Olympics, McKeown cruised through the heats and semi-finals to qualify third fastest.\nWith form on the board, McKeown delivered on the biggest stage of all, edging out Canada’s two-time world champion Kylie Masse (57.72) and American star Regan Smith (58.05) in a superb swim.\n“It’s definitely something that people dream of,” McKeown said on Channel Seven. “Something I have dreamed of to make it reality. I’m just thankful I have a good support team.”\nKaylee McKeown receives her gold medal.\nCredit:Getty Images\nAsked if she had a message to her family, McKeown let fly an expletive.\n“F--- yeah. Oh!” she continued.\nAdvertisement\n“To dad: I hope you’re proud and I keep doing you proud,” McKeown said.\nMcKeown’s mother Sharon said: “Her dad would be so proud. It hasn’t sunk in. So happy and excited. Can’t wait to give her a cuddle. It’s been pretty tough. You know, COVID’s probably been a bit of a blessing and Kaylee’s been able to focus and fly under the radar. She’s done a great job.\n“She knows dad is watching over her.”\nAsked about the swear word in excitement, McKeown snr laughed, before saying, “I will have to have a word to her later”.\nAustralian Emily Seebohm, in her fourth Olympics, performed admirably, finishing fifth in a time of 58.45.\nMcKeown broke Smith’s world record at the Olympic trials last month in a time of 57.45, and put the world on notice, particularly given her ability to consistently clock fast times.\nAfter losing her father to brain cancer 11 months ago, McKeown pushed on with the guidance of her coach Chris Mooney.\nKaylee McKeown with her late father Sholto, mum Sharon and her silver medal from the 2019 world championships.\nHeading into Tokyo, McKeown was the fastest in the world in the 100m and 200m backstroke events, plus the 200m individual medley.\nHowever, on the eve of the Games, McKeown withdrew from the 200m IM to focus on her individual races.\nMeanwhile, Ariarne Titmus and Katie Ledecky will once again go head-to-head - this time in the 200m freestyle final on Wednesday - following their epic 400m freestyle final.\nTitmus took a while to warm up in semi-final one but touched the wall in first place (1:54.82), ahead of Hong Kong athlete Siobhan Bernadette Huaghey (1:55.16) and China’s Yang Junxuan (1:55.98).\nLedecky also won her semi-final (1:55.34) but the Australian qualified fastest.\n“Happy with that,” Titmus told Channel Seven a day after her maiden Olympic gold medal. “I got hold of mum and dad last night quickly before I went to sleep. They were obviously still so hyped about it. It took me a while to fall asleep. Once I did, I woke up feeling pretty good.”\nFellow Australian Madi Wilson finished fourth in semi-final two (1:56.58) and will contest the final from lane eight.\nIn the final of the 100m backstroke, Mitch Larkin finished a disappointing seventh (52.79), 0.81 seconds off Russian Evgeny Rylov.\nMeanwhile, Great Britain managed the 1-2 quinella in the 200m freestyle, with Tom Dean (1:44.22) and Duncan Scott (1:44.26) winning gold and silver.\nAnd in the 100m breaststroke final, reigning Olympic champion Lilly King (1:05.54) has finished third, behind fellow American Lydia Jacoby (1:04.95) and South African Tatjana Schoenmaker (1:05.22).\nOn Tuesday evening, Kyle Chalmers will get his individual campaign underway in the 100m freestyle heats.\nThe reigning Olympic champion swam a sensational final leg of the 4x100m freestyle relay on Monday to power Australia to third place, behind the US and Italy. His split time was the fastest of all 32 competitors in that final.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["57.45"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the 100m backstroke"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["McKeown"]},{"role":"Date","values":["last month"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Smith"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Hungarian swimmer Milak bags gold in Tokyo, breaks Phelps' Olympic record","document":"U.S swimmer Ryan Murphy (C) finishes first in his group in backstroke on the fifth day of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan on July 28, 2021. ( Elif Ozturk Ozgoncu - Anadolu Agency )\nANKARA\nHungarian swimmer Kristof Milak on Wednesday won a gold and set a record in the Tokyo Games' 200-meter men's butterfly.\nMilak, 21, broke the Olympic record of swimming legend Michael Phelps set during the Beijing 2008 Games.\nThe Hungarian athlete secured the top spot with time of 1:51:25. Japan's Tomoru Honda was 2.48 seconds behind to claim silver, whereas Italy's Federico Burdisso came third to bag the bronze.\nPhelps, 36, was a longtime record holder in the 200-meter butterfly category as he had 1.52.03 degree in the 2008 Summer Games.\nRetired in 2016, he is still the most decorated Olympian of all time, winning 28 medals including 23 golds.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["1:51:25"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["200-meter men's butterfly"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Kristof Milak"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Michael Phelps"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Olympics: Kristof Milak Cruises to Top Seed in 200 Butterfly","document":"It was 21 years ago that a gawky 15-year-old kid from Baltimore first stepped onto the global stage in the men’s 200 butterfly.\nIn the five Games since that fateful day in Sydney, Michael Phelps never finished lower than fifth in his signature event. He won three gold medals, two silvers, through a record-breaking 28-medal haul, one retirement and a full adult life in the spotlight of world sports.\nMonday, for the first time this millennium, we got to look at what an Olympic 200 fly without Phelps looked like. And for most of the field, it looked like the field of Kristof Milak.\nThe world record holder from Hungary dominated the pack, winning his heat by more than a second and taking the top seed my nearly that margin in an easy 1:53.58.\n“I wanted 1:54, now I went 1:53.5. That’s nice,” Milak said. “I felt a little fatigue after the relay final in the morning, but recovered quickly so it’s all square.”\nMilak was installed as the favorite at the 2019 World Championships, when he downed the world record. Next in his sights is the Olympic mark that Phelps set in 2008 (1:52.03).\nSecond was Chinese Taipei’s Eddie (Kuan-Hung) Wang in 1:54.44 with Leonardo de Deus of Brazil in third. Both Americans are through, with Zach Harting (1:54.92) in fourth and Gunnar Bentz (1:55.46) 12th. Both of Japan’s swimmers advanced, including ninth-place Daiya Seto, who appears to have recovered a bit from his sluggish 400 IM . Tomoru Honda is sixth.\nTwo of the principal animators from Rio are barely hanging on in Tokyo. Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi, the bronze medalist in Rio, was eighth Monday night. Chad le Clos, the gold medalist in 2012 and fourth-place finisher in Rio, was 16th in 1:55.96, grabbing the final lane for the semis.\nMilak is already talking like a veteran beyond his 21 years as he approaches Tuesday’s semifinals.\n“I don’t want to hit the top gear tomorrow morning either, as I will have more swims,” he said. “So I need to preserve some energy and, honestly, I don’t see any reason that I should push that hard. … I want to have a great final, win the gold and clock a time which leaves a mark.”","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":null},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the men’s 200 butterfly"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Kristof Milak"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2019"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Norway’s Karsten Warholm breaks own world record to win Olympic 400 hurdles; United States’ Rai Benjamin takes silver, ‘happy to be part of history’","document":"Norway’s Karsten Warholm breaks own world record to win Olympic 400 hurdles; United States’ Rai Benjamin takes silver, ‘happy to be part of history’\nUpdated: Aug. 02, 2021, 10:21 p.m. |\nPublished: Aug. 02, 2021, 9:13 p.m.\nKarsten Warholm (right) of Norway leads Rai Benjamin of the United States in the final of the men's 400-meter hurdles at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, in Tokyo. Warholm won in 45.94 seconds, breaking his own world record of 46.70. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)AP\nBy Eddie Pells | AP National Writer\nTOKYO — Karsten Warholm of Norway obliterated his own world record in the Olympic 400-meter hurdles Tuesday, finishing in 45.94 seconds to break the old mark by .76 seconds.\nOne of the most anticipated races on the program more than lived up to the hype.\nSecond-place finisher Rai Benjamin of the United States finished in 46.17, also bettering the 46.70 record that Warholm set just last month.\n“Sometimes in training, my coaches keep telling me this could be possible with the perfect race,” Warholm said of the prospect of breaking 46 seconds. “But it was hard to imagine it because it’s a big barrier, and it’s something you don’t even dream about.”\nWarholm tore open his jersey when he crossed the line first. He flashed the same mouth-gaping look of amazement as when he announced himself on the world stage with his victory at world championships in 2017.\nKarsten Warholm of Norway reacts after winning the men's 400-meter hurdles final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)AP\nBenjamin — well, what was there to say?\n“If you would’ve told me that I was going to run 46.1 and lose, I would probably beat you up and tell you to get out of my room,” he said. “I’m happy to be part of history.”\nAlison dos Santos of Brazil finished third in 46.72; he was among the six runners in the eight-man field to break either a world, continent or national record.\nThat included Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands, whose run of 47.08 left him in fourth.\nAfter the second hurdle, McMaster said he thought: “If you go after them, it’s suicidal.”\nIt took until 1948 for a man to run a flat 400 meters under 46 seconds, and the world record in the 400 flat is 43.03. That’s only 2.91 faster than what Warholm did with 10 hurdles in front of him.\n“I knew it was possible to do the perfect race at the Olympics,” he said. “But I still can’t believe it. It’s the biggest moment of my life.”\nAll in all, it was a race that more than lived up to expectations on a steamy afternoon at a mostly empty Olympic Stadium.\nAmazing but not unexpected.\nThe hype for this showdown started building at the U.S. Olympic trials in June, when Benjamin became only the fourth man to break 47 seconds with a run of 46.83 and pronounced he thought he had a low-46 in him.\nWarholm responded a few weeks later by running the 46.70, and breaking the 29-year-old world record held by American Kevin Young since the Barcelona Olympics.\n“I made some mistakes on the backstretch that cost me a little,” Benjamin said, as he held his thumb and his index finger a tiny space apart. “But he’s a great competitor. He runs really fast. You just have to get better.”\nStarting in Lane 6, Warholm flew out to the lead, and by the midpoint, he had drawn so far ahead of Benjamin that the real race appeared to be Warholm vs. the clock.\nCovering the distance between hurdles 13 powerful steps at a time, Warholm never came close to breaking stride. He sped over the line with arms-a-flailing, but that didn’t cost him much.\nLow-46 had been a long-imagined dream for most of these hurdlers. Now, the mark is in the high-45s.\n“Forty-seven would’ve been a record, or an Olympic record, four years ago, three years ago, eight years ago, whatever the case is,” said McMaster, the fourth-place finisher. “But 47.08 doesn’t get you a medal” today.\nAnd, this race might have simply been the undercard for the women’s battle Wednesday morning in Tokyo.\nWarholm’s record came 24 hours before Americans Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad were scheduled to square off in the women’s 400 hurdles — a race in which they’ve broken the world record the last three times they’ve squared off in a major competition.\n-- The Associated Press\nNote to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["46.70"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["45.94 seconds","46.17"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["400-meter hurdles"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Karsten Warholm","Rai Benjamin"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Norway's Karsten Warholm breaks his own 400-meter hurdles world record, rips shirt in celebration","document":"Norway’s Karsten Warholm ripped his shirt in celebration as he broke his own world record in the 400-meter hurdles on Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics .\nWarholm narrowly beat Team USA’s Rai Benjamin to claim the gold medal and set the new mark. He crossed the line at 45.94. Brazil’s Alison dos Santos won the bronze medal. Warholm beat his old mark by 0.76 seconds. He had just set the record last month.\nCLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM\n\"Sometimes in training, my coaches keep telling me this could be possible with the perfect race,\" Warholm said of breaking 46 seconds. \"But it was hard to imagine it because it's a big barrier, and it's something you don't even dream about.\"\nWarholm ripped his uniform and held his head in amazement.\nCANADA'S PAMELA WARE VOWS TO PERSEVERE AFTER FAILED OLYMPICS DIVE: 'I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE'\nBenjamin said he was happy to be a part of the moment.\n\"If you would’ve told me that I was going to run 46.1 and lose, I would probably beat you up and tell you to get out of my room,\" he said afterward. \"I’m happy to be part of history.\"\nIt is Warholm’s first Olympics medal. He had won gold medals in the World Championships, European Championships and European Indoor Championships before taking his talents to Tokyo.\nThe Associated Press contributed to this report.\nRyan Gaydos is the Sports Editor for Fox News and Fox Business. Follow Ryan Gaydos on Twitter @Gaydos_ and if you got a tip you can email Ryan at Ryan.Gaydos@fox.com","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["45.94"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the 400-meter hurdles"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Karsten Warholm"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Norway's Karsten Warholm breaks men's 400m hurdles world record","document":"Norway's Karsten Warholm broke Kevin Young's 29-year-old 400m hurdles world record when he completed the race in 46.70 seconds in front of his home fans at the Diamond League meeting in Oslo on Thursday.\nWarholm beat 1992 Olympic champion Young's mark of 46.78 secs, which was set four years before the Norwegian was born and was the longest-standing record in men's track.\nTwice world champion Warholm raced to an early lead and never let up as he was roared on all the way to the finishing line, which he crossed ahead of 2019 Pan American Games champion Alison dos Santos by more than six tenths of a second.\n\"I knew that I had a fast time in my body,\" said Warholm. \"It might take another world record to win the Olympics.\"\nThe achievement capped a series of solid performances at the Diamond League meet, where two-time Olympic medalist Andre de Grasse won the men's 200m in 20.09.\nRead More\n\"I was happy with that today. There are a few things to work on but I only arrived a couple of days ago so my body still needs to adjust after the jet lag,\" said the 26-year-old Canadian, who added that he planned \"to bring some medals back\" from the Tokyo Olympics.\nIvorian sprinter Marie-Josee Ta Lou torched the women's 100m in 10.91, a solid showing ahead of Tokyo, where she will face a field overflowing with talent.\nNorway's Karsten Warholm fired out a shot at potential Tokyo Olympic rivals when he shattered the long-standing 400m hurdles world record at Diamond League meet in Oslo and warned he had \"more in the tank\".\n\"When you start your season you just hope for no injuries, good training and to be ready for competition,\" said Ta Lou. \"There is a lot of great talent out there but I am always in competition with myself.\"\nKenya's Hellen Obiri, a silver medalist in Rio, won the 5,000m in 14:26.38 but made clear she wants to improve ahead of the Games, where she plans to compete in the 5,000m and 10,000m.\n\"I have a lot of speed work to do between now and then. I have worked hard on my endurance and now I need to concentrate on the last 300m,\" said Obiri, who picked up her second consecutive world championship gold in 2019.\nIn the women's 400m hurdles, 21-year-old Femke Bol clinched her second back-to-back Diamond League win in a personal best 53.33 seconds to extend her own national record for the Netherlands.\nIn the field events, world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber settled for third in the javelin with 59.30m, as German Christin Hussong won with 60.95m.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["46.78 secs"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["46.70 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["400m hurdles world record"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Karsten Warholm"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Kevin Young"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Caeleb Dressel Wins 100-m Butterfly and Sets New World Record","document":"Caeleb Dressel of USA during the 100m Butterfly semifinal on day seven of the swimming competition of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Tokyo Aquatics Centre on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.\nJean Catuffe—Getty Images\nBy Alice Park/Tokyo\nUpdated: July 30, 2021 10:25 PM EDT | Originally published: July 30, 2021 9:39 PM EDT\nThe 100-m butterfly has been largely dominated by Michael Phelps at the Olympics since 2004. Now it’s Caeleb Dresse l’s turn.\nDressel won the race in a blazing 49.45 seconds on Saturday in Tokyo, nabbing his third gold medal of the Summer Games and breaking his own world record by .05 seconds.\nKeeping to himself in a corner of the ready room before the race, Dressel didn’t sit in the chair reserved for him, choosing to stand off to the side. A self-described “loner” and “weirdo,” Dressel prefers not to talk to many people at meets, but talked to himself as he walked onto the deck to cheers from his fellow Team USA swimmers. It’s an approach that’s worked well for him. The only swimmer who was under 50 seconds in qualifying, Dressel led the race from the start, holding off rising star Kristof Milak of Hungary, who won gold in the 200-m butterfly earlier in Tokyo. Dressel, however, owns the 100-m distance, and popped off the blocks with one of the fastest reactions times of .60 seconds. Dressel hit the wall at 50 m in 23.0, and continued his blistering pace through the finish.\nSince he’s arrived in Tokyo, Dressel has been closing in on his own world record, which he set at the 2019 world championships; he set an Olympic record in the semifinals in Tokyo and shaved 0.03 more off that time to set the new world record in the final. It’s the first world record for an American swimmer in Tokyo, and only the second individual world record set at this Olympics (the other was set by South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker in the women’s 200-m breaststroke ).\nDressel now owns the five fastest times in the event. That’s no small feat given that the record he broke in 2019 belonged to Phelps, who was the first to break the 50-second barrier at the world championships in 2009, which Phelps swam in a type of fast suit that is no longer allowed in competition. Dressel’s time puts him in the company of other great American champions in the event, from Phelps to Ian Crocker, Pablo Morales and Mark Spitz, each of whom contributed to faster and faster races that set the stage for Dressel’s impressive time.\nThe gold is the second individual one for Dressel, who also claimed the 100-m freestyle title in Tokyo. His third gold medal in Tokyo came as part of the 4×100-m freestyle relay team alongside Blake Pieroni, Bowen Becker and Zach Apple.\nDressel has one more individual final, the 50-m freestyle, on the last day of the swimming competition in Tokyo. In his semifinal for the event, which he swam not long after winning the 100-m, Dressel recorded a time of 21.42 seconds—the fastest of any swimmer.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["49.45 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["The 100-m butterfly","women’s 200-m breaststroke"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Caeleb Dresse","Tatjana Schoenmaker"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Athletics: Venezuela's Rojas smashes women's triple jump world record to take gold","document":"TOKYO -Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela jumped 15.67m on Sunday (Aug 1) to smash the world record in the women's triple jump with her last attempt, having already secured the gold medal.\nThe previous record of 15.50m was set by Ukraine's Inessa Kravets in 1995 in Sweden.\nThe win made Rojas Venezuela's first woman Olympic champion.\nTokyo 2020 Olympics - Athletics - Women's Triple Jump - Final - OLS - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan – August 1, 2021. Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela reacts after winning the gold medal and breaking the world record REUTERS/Dylan Martinez\nTokyo 2020 Olympics - Athletics - Women's Triple Jump - Final - OLS - Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan – August 1, 2021. Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela celebrates after winning the gold medal REUTERS/Hannah Mckay\nPatricia Mamona of Portugal won silver with 15.01m, a national record. The bronze went to Spain's Ana Peleteiro, who also broke the national record with 14.87.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["15.50m"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["15.67m"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the women's triple jump"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Yulimar Rojas"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday (Aug 1)"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Inessa Kravets"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Keely Hodgkinson, 19, smashes Kelly Holmes' British record to win stunning 800m silver","document":"By Ben Bloom, Athletics Correspondent, In Tokyo ; Thom Gibbs, Senior Sports Writer, In Tokyo and David Cosgrove, Live Updates\n3 August 2021 • 3:59pm\nKeely Hodgkinson runs 1min 55.88secs to break Kelly Holmes' 26-year-old national record\nImperious American teenager Athing Mu leads from gun to tape to win 800m gold\nBrits Jemma Reekie and Alex Bell finish fourth and seventh in personal best times\nElaine Thompson-Herah completes 100m/200m double for second Olympics in succession\nKarsten Warholm obliterates world record in astonishing 400m hurdles final ​\nSix months ago, shortly after breaking the world indoor under-20 800 metres record, Keely Hodgkinson was asked whether she fancied competing at the Olympics this summer .\n“Yeah I suppose,” she said, without much conviction. “It would be silly not to try and qualify for the Olympics, but I really would like to win the European juniors.”\nThat she is now an Olympic 800m silver medalist and the fastest British woman in history - quicker than double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes - shows just how staggering her progress has been. No longer a name for the future, Hodgkinson is a star right now.\nSo quickly has the 19-year-old emerged that she does not even receive a penny in British Athletics funding, instead relying on a multi-millionaire philanthropist to pay for her to live as a professional athlete. That is guaranteed to change after becoming the first British track and field athlete to win a medal at these Tokyo Games. “I think so, we’ll see!” she said, laughing.\nHer time of one minute 55.88 seconds improved on Holmes’s record that had stood since 1995 - seven years before Hodgkinson was even born. With fellow 19-year-old Athing Mu, of the United States, claiming gold, a new era has arrived for women’s 800m running.\n“I am speechless right now,” said Hodgkinson. “Kelly is a massive legend of the sport. She seems so lovely and has been sending me messages the last few days being very supportive. Just words of wisdom and belief, that sort of thing.\n“The whole thing is cloud nine, and there wasn’t one 19-year-old in the race, there were two. It is unbelievable.\n“Hopefully we’ve got long careers ahead of us and probably more battles to come, which is great. Some people will say you're too young. Well, age is just a number.”\nKeely Hodgkinson ran an incredible race to finish second Credit: REUTERS\nFor some time it looked like Britain might have two women on the podium. With the imperious Mu evoking memories of David Rudisha by dictating proceedings from gun to tape to win in an American record 1.55:21, there was a fierce scrap for minor medals behind her.\nRounding the bend for the home straight, it was Hodgkinson and British team-mate Jemma Reekie who emerged as the most likely contenders, pulling clear of the chasing pack. But as Hodgkinson held her speed, Reekie faded with each step and was narrowly run out of the medals, having to make do with a personal best of 1.56:90 for fourth as America’s Raevyn Rogers claimed bronze.\nThere was also a big personal best for Britain’s Alex Bell, who was only called up to the team as a late replacement when Laura Muir decided not to contest the event, and ran 1.57:66 for seventh.\nGiven her imperious performance, it is easy to forget just how new this all is to Hodgkinson, whose shoes - the latest super spikes, of course - were covered in good luck messages from her friends and family.\nTeam GB's Keely Hodgkinson's shoes covered with messages from her friends Credit: Paul Grover \nHad the Olympics taken place last summer as originally scheduled, she would have stood little chance of making the British team. Prior to this year she could count the number of foreign events she had competed at on one hand.\nShe has also spent the past year juggling her athletics with the start of a criminology and psychology degree at Leeds Beckett University, although she readily admits: “I don’t really enjoy education”.\nWhen she speaks, she does so with the cheerful naivety of someone who has little concept of what she has accomplished at such a young age; someone for whom this is wonderfully unfamiliar.\nOne of her heroes growing up was Tom Daley, now a British team-mate at these Olympics. When she is not in halls at university she lives at home with her family, and was hilariously outed by one of her fellow athletes as having attempted to warm some milk by sticking it in the kettle the day before she competed in Tokyo.\nTom Daley was a hero of Keely Hodgkinson's growing up Credit: GETTY IMAGES ASIAPAC\nHer coach, Trevor Painter, and his wife, world 800m bronze medalist Jenny Meadows, have become accustomed to discussing race plans with her while she fine-tunes her make-up.\nShe plans on having “one guilt-free night out” in a club near her home in Leigh to celebrate when she flies back.\nIn so many senses, she is just a spectacularly normal 19-year-old. And yet she really is not. So is she prepared for her life to change forever?\n“I’m ready,” she said. “That’s what I’ve dreamed of. I want to do this. I want to be one of the best in the world. I’m going to do everything I can to be that.”\nWith kinesiology student Mu, whose parents emigrated from Sudan to America before she was born, things will never be the same either.\nOnly double Olympic champion Caster Semenya has run quicker than her winning time for the past decade. Semenya and her fellow medalists from Rio 2016 are all currently unable to compete over 800m due to controversial testosterone regulations and Mu says the next target is a world record that has stood since 1983.\n“I definitely think it is possible, especially with athletes competing like Keely,” said Mu. “She is amazing and only 19. I’m sure in the next couple of years we are definitely going to push each other. That record is going to go down, just because we are good athletes.”\nIt seems Hodgkinson is destined never to win that European junior title.\nThompson-Herah wins 200m in second-fastest time ever as Mboma claims remarkable silver\nBy Thom Gibbs, in Tokyo\nJust weeks after being forced to compete in the 200m, an event in which 18 year-old Christine Mboma had previously run only a handful of times, the little-known Namibian sprinter secured a record-breaking Olympic silver medal.\nMboma had originally been expected to feature at these Games as a 400m runner, a distance at which she and compatriot Beatrice Masilingi had excelled in a breakthrough season. But in the build-up to the Tokyo Games an investigation by World Athletics delivered the verdict that both Mboma and Masilingi are athletes with Difference of Sexual Development (DSD).\nTherefore, according to global governing body rules, they are unable to compete at distances ranging from 400m to 1 mile without lowering their naturally-occurring testosterone levels. World Athletics’ rules have been a source of controversy with double Olympic champion over 800m, Caster Semenya, having sought to legally challenge the directive. \nAfter qualifying for the Olympic 200m final on Monday, the Namibian teenagers had pleaded for World Athletics to change their testosterone regulations, in an echo of the situation Semenya experienced as an 18-year-old when she first emerged on the global stage. “I would love to compete in the 400m as well,” said Masilingi, who finished sixth in the final with a personal best of 22.28secs. “It is very strange. I don’t really understand it.\n“For me, it doesn’t make any sense at the moment. I hope there will be changes in the future.” Asked if she had a message for anyone who suggests DSD athletes should not be able to compete in an event without taking testosterone-lowering medication, Masilingi said: “I would say it’s really weird. I don’t understand why people come up with stuff like that. I just don’t get it. It’s very cruel of them.”\nA statement from Namibia’s National Olympic Committee (NNOC-CGA) about their ban last month had said: \"It is important to understand that both our athletes were not aware of this condition. Neither did any family member, their coach or the NNOC-CGA.\"\nMboma finished a distant second to Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah on Tuesday night but still managed to run quicker than the fastest woman in the world this year – Gabrielle Thomas of the United States, who took bronze – as well as Jamaica’s sprint icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce who finished outside the medals in fourth. Mboma’s time of 21.81seconds is a Namibian record, and makes her the fourth-fastest woman worldwide at this distance in 2021, also beating the personal best of Team GB’s injured hope for this race, Dina Asher-Smith.\nElaine Thompson-Herah wins the 200m ahead of Christine Mboma and Gabrielle Thomas Credit: REUTERS\nIn Mboma’s three 200m appearances in Tokyo, she set a new world under-20 record each time. Before Monday’s heat and semi-finals she had run just four races recognised by World Athletics in her career.\nMboma had spoken earlier in the week about the thrill of competing against Fraser-Pryce, one of her heroes. She did not appear overawed in the biggest race of her career. Asked how it felt to finish ahead of one of the greatest female sprinters ever Mboma said, \"I just saw some athletes and pushed past them. I don't know who they were.\"\n\"In the past, every time I ran against the best athletes I felt nervous. But I don't feel nervous now. \"I just came here for experience, I didn't expect to win a medal,\" she told the BBC.\nAfterwards she expressed her desire to focus on 200m for hereon in. \"I believe I can do better,\" she said. \"I'll just see what will happens in the future.\"\nAs it happened\n2:41PM\nMu makes history with 800m triumph\nAthing Mu's victory in the women's 800m was the United States' first gold medal in the event in more than half a century\nMu dominated the race, leading almost from the start and crossing the line clear of her rivals in a time of 1:55.21, to add gold to Madeline Manning's triumph in 1968.\nTeam GB's Keely Hodgkinson took silver and Mu's American team-mate Raevyn Rogers grabbed bronze.\nMu, whose parents moved to the US from Sudan two decades ago, said it was \"awesome\" that she won gold at such a young age and also set a new American national record.\n\"I wasn't really putting gold on that, but as it got closer to the final today, I was like, 'Yeah, we want gold',\" she said.\n\"I wanted to go early from the front and not let anyone mess up my race plan. I just wanted to do my own thing.\" Reuters\nAthing Mu dominated the women's 800m final and won gold for the United States Credit: REUTERS\nHere's one from the Telegraph Sport archives\nWhich proved fairly prescient given today's remarkable result.\n2:21PM\nCongratulations also in order\nFor Jemma Reekie and Alex Bell who were fourth and seventh in the women's 800m final respectively - both setting new personal bests in the process.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["1min 55.88secs","one minute 55.88 seconds","21.81seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["400m hurdles","the world indoor under-20 800 metres record","a Namibian record"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Keely Hodgkinson","Mboma","Karsten Warholm"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Six months ago"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Holmes","Kelly Holmes"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Italy’s Jacobs wins men’s 100 metres gold at Tokyo Olympics","document":"Lamont Marcell Jacobs wins gold, Fred Kerley of the US takes silver, and Canada’s Andre de Grasse takes bronze.\nJacobs, 26, timed a European record of 9.8 seconds, with American Fred Kerley taking silver in 9.84 seconds [Andrew Boyers/Reuters]\nPublished On 1 Aug 20211 Aug 2021\nwhatsapp\nLamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy won the men’s 100 metres gold at the Tokyo Olympics, breaking retired Jamaican star Usain Bolt’s 13-year hold on the event.\nJacobs, 26, timed a European record of 9.80 seconds in Sunday’s final, with American Fred Kerley taking silver in 9.84 seconds in one of the most understated major 100 metres races in recent times.\nCanada’s Andre de Grasse, a bronze medallist at the 2016 Rio Games, repeated the feat in 9.89 seconds.\nThe athletes were introduced in a dramatic light show – the stadium floodlights were shut off and 12 projectors cast 3D images of the world, zooming in to the Tokyo skyline, and then the name of each sprinter.\nThe lights came back on, swiftly followed by a horrendous false start for Zharnel Hughes in lane four, the Anguilla-born Briton not even bothering to question his disqualification.\nDressed in light blue singlet and lycra shorts, the US-born Jacobs, in lane three, made a good start, held his nerve through the drive phase and powered through to the line.\nJacobs joyously ran into the arms of Italian teammate Gianmarco Tamberi, who had just shared gold in the men’s high jump and was waiting at the finish line.\nLamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy crosses the finish line and wins gold in Tokyo [Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters]\nThe race, run in stifling temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit), had a distinctly underwhelming build-up and feel to it as hot favourite Trayvon Bromell bombed out of the semi-finals in which China’s Su Bingtian and Jacobs unexpectedly set Asian and European records, respectively.\nThe Tokyo Olympics are the first since Athens in 2004 to take place without Bolt, who went on to win three consecutive Olympic 100 metres titles in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro, as well as three straight 200 metres crowns.\nAnd for the first time since the 2000 Sydney Games, there was no Jamaican in the final, Bolt’s longtime former teammate Yohan Blake failing to qualify from his semi-final.\nThe field was instead filled with relatively unknown sprinters, with Jacobs’s main claim to fame a European 60 metres indoor title earlier this year.\nThe 100 metres in Tokyo, and the circus around it, has arguably been a pale imitation of Bolt’s glory years during which the charismatic Jamaican not only dominated the sprints but also captivated a truly global audience.\nWhile the spectacle that Bolt brought to the blue riband event has been missing since his retirement in 2017, so also has been the emergence of a new generation of sprinting hopes.\nMany have been lauded as the athlete to fill Bolt’s spikes, but no one has yet lived up to the considerable weight of expectation.\nAdded to that, the 68,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in Tokyo had no cheering fans because of coronavirus restrictions in the Japanese capital.\nInstead, there were sparse pockets of athletes and team officials who did their best to create something of an atmosphere at what is normally one of the most widely anticipated events of the entire Games, commanding a huge worldwide television audience.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["9.8 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["a European record","the men’s 100 metres"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Lamont Marcell Jacobs","Su Bingtian and Jacobs"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Canada’s Damian Warner sets Olympic record, claims decathlon gold in Tokyo","document":"Sportsnet insider Stephen Brunt joins Faizal Khamisa to discuss Damian Warner's amazing feat of becoming the first ever Canadian to win gold in decathlon, and why it will go down as one of the best accomplishments in our country's history.\n| August 5, 2021, 8:48 AM\n0\nDamian Warner became the first Canadian to ever win gold in the decathlon in Tokyo on Thursday, setting an Olympic record in the process as the only athlete to eclipse the 9,000-point plateau at the Games.\nThe 31-year-old capped off the arduous 10-discipline event with a fifth-place finish in the 1,500-metre race, cementing his place in history with a total of 9,018 points. No other Canadian, and only three other athletes ever, have broken the 9,000-point barrier in a decathlon.\nThe previous Olympic record was 8,893 points, shared between Ashton Eaton of the United States (2016) and Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic (2004). Kevin Mayer, who won silver in this year's Games, holds the world record of 9,126 points.\n\"It's been a long two days,\" Warner said after the race. \"When you go through the whole battle of the decathlon and finally finish and you get the result you were looking for, there is no greater feeling. This is a dream come true.\"\nCanada had two men in the decathlon. Pierce LePage of Whitby, Ont., competing in his first-ever Olympics, finished fifth after 10 events with a personal-best score of 8,604.\nWarner, who won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics, was a force to be reckoned with at Tokyo. He set Olympic decathlon records in the long jump and 110-metre hurdles, and tied his decathlon world mark in the 100 metres. He also set a personal best in the pole vault.\nWarner crossed the finish line of the 1,500 metres in four minutes 31.08 seconds. The time and fifth-place finish gave him 738 points in the final event, enough for the Olympic record.\n“When I came around 1,200, I think I was 3 seconds off the pace and I was just like ‘if I’m gonna get those 9000 points I have to go now,'\" Warner said after the race. \"I just gave it everything I had. It wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done.”\nIn the track and field community, Olympic decathlon winners are considered the \"world's greatest athlete\" and, draped in the Canadian flag with a broad smile on his face, Warner was met by his peers with congratulations befitting that description.\n\"By definition, he’s Canada’s greatest ‘Athlete,'\" Adam van Koeverden, an Olympic gold medalist in sprint kayaking who is now an MP, tweeted. \"Extraordinary achievement!\"\nWhen submitting content, please abide by our   submission guidelines , and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["8,893 points","Roman Sebrle"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["9,018 points"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the first Canadian to ever win gold in the decathlon","the only athlete to eclipse the 9,000-point plateau at the Games","the long jump and 110-metre hurdles"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Damian Warner"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Thursday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Ashton Eaton"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Elaine Thompson-Herah Breaks 33-year-old Olympic Record To Win Women's 100m At Tokyo","document":"Thompson-Herah broke Florence Griffith Joyner’s 33-year-old Olympic record in the women’s 100m final as Jamaica swept the medals\nElaine Thompson-Herah, of Jamaica, wins the women's 100m final at the 2020 Summer Olympics on Saturday, July 31, 2021, in Tokyo.        | AP Photo/Petr David Josek\nTrending\n2021-07-31T19:05:31+05:30 Elaine Thompson-Herah Breaks 33-year-old Olympic Record To Win Women's 100m At Tokyo\noutlookindia.com\nView All\nPublished: 31 Jul 2021, Updated: 31 Jul 2021 7:09 pm\nElaine Thompson-Herah broke Florence Griffith Joyner’s 33-year-old Olympic record in the women’s 100 meters, pointing at the scoreboard even before crossing the line in 10.61 seconds Saturday to defend her title and lead a Jamaican sweep of the medals. Tokyo Olympics  |  Full Schedule  |  Sports News\nGriffith Joyner set the old record of 10.62 at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.\nThompson-Herah beat her top rival, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, by .13 seconds. Shericka Jackson, who moved to the shorter sprints for the Tokyo Olympics, won bronze in 10.76.\nThis was the first Jamaican sweep of the medals since the women did it at the 2008 Beijing Games – a feat somewhat overshadowed that week by the record-setting performance by Usain Bolt.\nBut really, there is no overlooking the Jamaican women, who actually have a longer history of sprint success than the men in the island country. Fraser-Pryce finished on top in that 2008 race, and completed her Olympic set in the 100, where she now has two golds (′08, ′12), a silver and a bronze (′16).\nFrom the Magazine\nIn Terror Land, Pigeons Give Kashmiri Youths Wings To Embrace Peace\nFraser-Pryce and Thompson-Herah are headed for a possible rematch in the 200, where Thompson-Herah is also the defending champion.\nThis had been shaping up as a fast race for days, if not months. In June, Fraser-Pryce ran the fourth-fastest time in history at 10.63 seconds.\nAnd when the sprinters arrived in Japan, they discovered a fast track at Olympic Stadium. In the semifinals earlier Saturday, the Jamaicans all cracked 10.8 to get on the list of the 10 best times in Olympic history.\nThen, it was Thompson-Herah’s turn to make history.\nFlo Jo’s records are older than virtually every sprinter in the women’s game, save Fraser-Pryce, who was born about 18 months before the American set the marks. Griffith Joyner’s world record, the 10.49, is still out there, and no other woman has ever broken 10.6.\nFraser-Pryce came in thinking it could be her, and when she crossed the line in second, she flashed a look of disbelief, then stood stone-faced with her hands on her hips looking at the scoreboard.\nThompson-Herah wasn’t surprised. She was looking left toward the clock as she approached the line. She was pointing even before she got there, conjuring memories of Bolt, who celebrated with 10 meters to go when he ran 9.69 to break the men’s world record in 2008.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["10.61 seconds","9.69"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["women’s 100m","the men’s world record"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Thompson-Herah","Bolt"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday, July 31, 2021","2008"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Griffith Joyner"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Olympics-Athletics-American McLaughlin breaks world record to win women's 400 hurdles","document":"Aug 4, 2021; Tokyo, Japan; Sydney McLaughlin (USA) celebrates winning the gold medal in the women's 400m hurdles final in a world record time during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Olympic Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports\nTOKYO (Reuters) -Sydney McLaughlin shattered her own 400 metres hurdles world record to win gold in 51.46 seconds on Wednesday, getting the better of fellow American Dalilah Muhammad in a thrilling Tokyo Olympics final that lived up to all expectations.\nThe 21-year-old stuttered on the penultimate barrier and trailed Muhammad coming off the last hurdle but carried the momentum into the sprint to the line to cross first and beat her previous record of 51.90 set at the U.S. trials in June.\nMuhammad, the 2019 world and 2016 Olympic champion, ran the race of her life to take silver, coming home in a personal best 51.58, while Femke Bol of the Netherlands took bronze in a European record 52.03.\n\"I'm absolutely delighted. What a great race. I'm just grateful to be out here celebrating that extraordinary race and representing my country,\" said McLaughlin. \"I saw Dalilah ahead of me with one to go. I just thought, 'Run your race'.\n\"The race doesn't really start until hurdle seven. I just wanted to go out there and give it everything I had.\"\nThe showdown between McLaughlin and Muhammad, 31, was among the most highly anticipated of the athletics programme at the Tokyo Games and came a day after Norway's Karsten Warholm destroyed his own world record in the men's event.\nWhile silver was not the medal she had been hoping for, Muhammad was thrilled to have set a personal best of 52.16 and said she was proud of her team mate.\n\"Just like the men's race, all three of our times would have won any Olympics, any other year,\" she added. \"I'm so proud to be part of that history and even more proud of my team mate, Sydney.\"\nIt was McLaughlin's latest blockbuster performance since joining forces in 2020 with famed coach Bob Kersee, whom she credits with taking her to the next level after failing to reach the final at the 2016 Olympics.\nLinking up with Kersee also turned her idol -- six-time Olympic gold medallist Allyson Felix -- into her training partner.\n\"It's just about trusting your training, trusting your coach, and that will get your all the way round the track,\" said McLaughlin.\nBol, who beat fourth-place finisher Janieve Russell of Jamaica by more than a second for her first Olympic medal, said she knew she had to bring her \"A-game\" to stand a chance of getting on the podium.\n\"Those other girls are so strong,\" said Bol.\n\"I felt that I was super-fit. I thought, 'I'm going to go in hard and see where I finish'. I knew I was fast and I think I proved that to myself.\"","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["51.90"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["51.46 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the women's 400m hurdles","the men's event"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Sydney McLaughlin","Karsten Warholm"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Olympic Stadium"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["her previous record","his own"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Tokyo Olympics 2021: Ryan Crouser breaks shot put world record during U.S. Olympic Trials","document":"On the very first day of the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, a native son of the Beaver State punched his ticket to the Tokyo Olympics by shattering a world record that had stood even longer than he has been alive. And that achievement will set the tone for his Olympic title defense.\nOn Friday, Ryan Crouser broke the world record in shot put, heaving his sphere 76 feet and 8¼ inches (23.37 meters) into the record books. Crouser broke a record which stood for over three decades, when fellow American Randy Barnes threw 75-10¼ (23.12) in May of 1990.\nCrouser, who won gold in shot put during the 2016 Rio Olympics, parlayed his record into a renewed place on the United States' Olympic shot put team. Crouser will be joined in Tokyo by Joe Kovacs and Payton Otterdahl.\n\"I stayed big with my chest and relaxed and let the entry happen. I  didn't force it,\" Crouser said in a report by Pat Graham of the Associated Press . \"And once I did that well, I knew the throw was going to  be good, so I didn't do anything to mess it up from there.\"\nStanding at 6-7 and 320 pounds, Crouser is as physically imposing a presence as there is at an Olympic track meet. The latest in a family of throwers -- Crouser's father was an alternate on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team and his uncle qualified for two Olympic teams in javelin competition -- Crouser won gold in the 2009 IAAF World Youth Championships before competing in track & field at the University of Texas.\nIn addition to his gold medal at Rio, Crouser has also ranked in world championship competition, winning silver at the 2019 World Athletics Championship in Doha.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["75-10¼ (23.12)"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["76 feet and 8¼ inches (23.37 meters)"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["the world record in shot put"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Ryan Crouser"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Location","values":null},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["Randy Barnes"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Georgian weightlifter breaks three world records","document":"TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgian Olympic champion Lasha Talakhadze broke three world records at the European Weightlifting Championships in Georgia on Saturday.\nAll three records broken by ‘the strongest man in the world’ were set by himself.\nThe 25-year-old Georgia only needed four lifts to set records on snatch, clean and jerk, and total, and gave up the other two.\nThe crowd in Batumi roared when Talakhadze did a snatch of 218kg and a clean and jerk of 260kg. Both these attempts were world records, as well as a total sum of 478kg. Many in Georgia even speculate that Lasha one day might achieve the seemingly insurmountable 500kg total.\nOnly once in the history of weightlifting has anybody lifted more than that 260kg. That feat was achieved by Soviet lifter Leonid Taranenko at a sponsored super-heavyweight contest in Australia in 1988, when body weight classes were different. It now seems only a matter of time before Talakhadze overtakes him, Brian Oliver wrote for Insidethegames.biz.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":null},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["478kg"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["Weightlifting"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Lasha Talakhadze"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Georgia"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":["himself","Leonid Taranenko"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Ft. Dorchester alum Camacho-Quinn sets Olympic record in 100m hurdles","document":"Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, of Puerto Rico, wins a women's 100-meter hurdles semifinal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 1, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(Petr David Josek | AP)\nPublished: Aug. 1, 2021 at 11:06 AM EDT\nShare on Facebook\nShare on Pinterest\nShare on LinkedIn\nTOKYO (WCSC) - Jasmine Camacho-Quinn set a new Olympic record in the women’s 100 meter hurdles on Sunday morning winning her semifinal heat with a time of 12.26 seconds in Tokyo.\nCamacho-Quinn, a Fort Dorchester alum, will have a chance to earn a gold medal on Sunday night when the finals are run at 10:50 p.m.\nRunning for her mother’s native Puerto Rico, Camacho-Quinn will be one of the favorites in the finals after breaking the previous Olympic record of 12.35 seconds set in 2012.\nMt. Pleasant police officer Murlen Jean finished her heat with a time of 13.99 seconds and did not advance to the medal race.\nCamacho-Quinn, who’s running in her 2nd Olympic games, is attempting to become the 2nd Lowcountry native to earn a  medal this weekend. Burke alum Raven Saunders earned the silver medal in the women’s shot put on Saturday night.","event_type":"Break Historical Records","arguments":[{"role":"The Grades of the Previous Record Holder","values":["12.35 seconds"]},{"role":"Last Time the Record was Broken","values":null},{"role":"Grades","values":["12.26 seconds"]},{"role":"Record-breaking Project","values":["Olympic record in the women’s 100 meter hurdles"]},{"role":"Record Breaker","values":["Jasmine Camacho-Quinn"]},{"role":"Date","values":["Sunday morning"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tokyo"]},{"role":"Previous Record Holder","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1966 Varto earthquake","document":"The 1966 Varto earthquake occurred on 19 August with a moment magnitude of 6.8 a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 2,394 were killed and up to 1,500 people were injured in the town of Varto in the Muş Province of eastern Turkey. The earthquake devastated all the structures in Varto. [3][4] This disaster was preceded by an earthquake of magnitude 5.6 that hit Varto on 7 March 1966 killing 14 and wounding 75 people. [5]\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["2,394 were killed and up to 1,500 people were injured","killing 14 and wounding 75 people"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["town of Varto in the Muş Province of eastern Turkey"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["7 March 1966","19 August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a moment magnitude of 6.8","magnitude 5.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April 2009 Afghanistan earthquake","document":"The 2009 Afghanistan earthquake was a dip-slip doublet earthquake occurred in eastern Afghanistan, with an initial shock of magnitude of 5.2 Mw  at 01:57:51 April 17 local time, with a second shock of 5.1 Mw  occurring several hours later. The maximum Mercalli intensity was VI (Strong). The quakes struck a remote area about 50 miles (90 km) east of Kabul near the Pakistan border. A government representative told AP News that the quakes destroyed 200 mud homes in four villages that had damage that was described as serious. [9]\n\n.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["destroyed 200 mud homes in four villages"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["a remote area about 50 miles (90 km) east of Kabul near the Pakistan border"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["a second shock"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["eastern Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2009","01:57:51 April 17 local time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["an initial shock of magnitude of 5.2 Mw"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2020 Monte Cristo Range earthquake","document":"\n\nOn May 15, 2020 at 4:03:27 local time, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck ~35 miles (56 km) west of Tonopah, Nevada in the Monte Cristo Range near the California-Nevada border. [3] It was Nevada's largest earthquake in 66 years. [4][5]\n\nSouthwestern Nevada lies within a complex zone of distributed faulting known as the Walker Lane, which carries up to a quarter of the motion of the North American Plate relative to the Pacific Plate. [3] It extends from the Garlock Fault in the southeast along the northeastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, running parallel to the California–Nevada boundary. The central Walker Lane is characterised by a zone of west–east trending left-lateral strike slip faults that link northwest–southeast trending dominantly right-lateral strike-slip faults. [6]\n\nThe earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5 ML  and a hypocentral depth of only 2.8 km (1.7 mi). Shaking was felt throughout California and Nevada, with some reports from as far as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City. [7][8] The estimated maximum intensity of shaking was rated as VIII (Severe) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. The magnitude was initially reported as M 6.4, but was upgraded about 1 hour later by USGS to its current figure. [9] More than 22,300 people reported feeling the earthquake. [3]\n\nThe focal mechanism of the earthquake suggests either left-lateral strike-slip faulting on a west–east trending fault or right-lateral faulting on a north–south trending fault. [10] The distribution of aftershocks supports the first of these options. [11] The earthquake lies close to the projected eastward continuation of the Candelaria fault, which is known to have been active during the Quaternary period. [12] It also lies close to the northern end of the north–south trending Eastern Columbus Salt Marsh fault. [13]\n\nWithin the first 5 hours proceeding the main shock, there were 6 aftershocks measuring magnitude 4.5 or higher, the highest being a 5.1. [14]\n\nOn November 13, at 1:13 a.m. local time, a magnitude 5.3 aftershock took place. It is the largest aftershock of the sequence. [15]\n\nSince the earthquake occurred in a remote and relatively uninhabited area, few people were exposed to severe shaking, hence no casualties occurred. [8][16][17] The earthquake cracked U.S. Route 95 between Reno and Las Vegas, causing it to be temporarily closed. The highway was reopened 10 hours after repair operations. In Tonopah, displaced items, broken windows, cracked asphalt, masonry, and drywall were reported. [18][19][20]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["35 miles (56 km) west of Tonopah, Nevada in the Monte Cristo Range near the California-Nevada border"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["6 aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Shaking was felt throughout California and Nevada","as far as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["May 15, 2020 at 4:03:27 local time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a magnitude 6.5 earthquake"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1997 Manyi earthquake","document":"The 1997 Manyi earthquake (Chinese: 玛尼地震) occurred on November 8 at 10:02 UTC. [2] The epicenter was in Nagqu Prefecture in northern Tibet, China. The focal mechanism indicates a lift-lateral strike-slip movement. This earthquake had a surface rupture of 17 km (11 mi) long with up to 7 m (23 ft) of left-lateral slip along the Manyi fault, a westward continuation of the Kunlun fault, offset about 100 km (62 mi) to the south. [3] Normally, the continental crust is about 35 km (22 mi) thick, but it reaches 70 km (43 mi) thick under the Tibetan Plateau. This earthquake ruptured up to 20 km (12 mi) of the top part of the local continental crust. [4]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Nagqu Prefecture in northern Tibet, China"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["17 km (11 mi) long with up to 7 m (23 ft) of left-lateral slip along the Manyi fault, a westward continuation of the Kunlun fault, offset about 100 km (62 mi) to the south"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1997","November 8 at 10:02 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1980 Azores Islands earthquake","document":"\n\nStriking the Autonomous Region of Azores on 1 January, the 1980 Azores Island earthquake killed 61 people and injured over 400, causing severe damage on the islands of Terceira and São Jorge. Measuring 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale, it also shook the islands of Pico and Faial, and resulted from a strike slip fracture, typical of other historical Azorean earthquakes. In response to the earthquake, Portuguese president António Ramalho Eanes announced three days of national mourning, while relief efforts, initiated by agents of the local Air Force, were soon accompanied by government-supported agencies. In 1950, another strong earthquake had rocked the Azores Islands region, and this was the largest earthquake since. [1]\n\nVolcanic in origin, the Azores lie in a tectonically complex area on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, between the European, Eurasian and African plate boundaries, forming their own microplate. [2] The 1980 earthquake was the result of movement along the northwest to southeast trending strike-slip fault. [2]\n\nAfter aftershocks from the quake had concluded, examination took place, producing a focal solution to the small events. Movement of these shocks was similar to that of previous earthquakes around the Azores. For these earthquakes, scientists had determined that the conjugate nodal plane was responsible, seeing shearing on the right-lateral (dextral) side. [3] All faulting in this area is strike-slip-oriented, and on a rather large scale. [4] Because of this research, information now points towards Azores volcanism being controlled by earthquake movement. [3]\n\nThe earthquake that struck the Azorean islands was 6.9 Mw. It caused considerable damage on three separate islands (Terceira, São Jorge Island, and Graciosa),[5] destroying several buildings. [6] According to local reports, roughly 70% of the houses on Terceira were completely demolished, including the historic quarter of the island capital, Angra do Heroísmo. [1] In general, public buildings such as churches remained intact, while several buildings caved in on themselves. [1] Public utilities such as electricity and water, were reported cut in several areas. [1]\n\nInitially, the number of fatalities was set at 52,[6] but it was later revised to 61. [2] Additionally, the injuries were set at 300,[7] but this was also revised to more than 400. [5] At least 20,000 people were left homeless. [8] Minor damage was recorded at Pico and Faial islands. [1]\n\nNo fatalities were recorded at the Lajes Field air base, nor any major damage. [1]\n\nUnited States Navy and Air Force troops stationed at Lajes functioned as disaster relief workers,[1] sheltering as many as 150 families. [9] Portuguese Air Force members brought supplies to earthquake victims, while a João Coutinho class corvette navy ship transported medical officials to the island. The Portuguese President, António Ramalho Eanes, flew in on a plane accompanied by medical personnel and supplies (such as bedding). [1] Local officials including policemen and volunteer firemen cleared roads for relief supplies and transports. Responding to the situation, these officials were also involved in looking for survivors in the rubble. [1] Soon after, tents were erected to replace the destroyed or unsafe homes for approximately 200 families of the islands. Portable homes were constructed by the People to People International project fund, resulting in 100 shelters. [9]\n\nThree days of national mourning were declared by Eanes. [1] \nFollowing the relief efforts, 19 seismographic stations were installed to monitor seismic activities. Eleven of these were used to monitor earthquake activity, while the other eight also record information on the island's geothermal areas. [10]\n\nThe earthquake forced hundreds of people to leave the country for the United States. It occurred during a period of several major natural disasters in which many residents of the island left; in 1975, 8,000 residents left. In 1981, however, just 2,500 people left the island. [8]\n\nDino Meira, a Portuguese-American singer, recorded and sold a 45 single \"Acores 20 para as 4\" with the proceeds donated to the earthquake relief effort. Later studies of the events leading up to the tragedy found several factors contributing to the extent of the damage. A. Malheiro (2006) linked five major causes to damage from these earthquakes. The buildings most damaged by the earthquake were near fault lines on top of loosely packed soil. They tended to be of poor construction and did not conform to proper building code, nor had they been adequately examined. [11]\n\nThe area around the Azores remains active. Threats from earthquakes and landslides remain. [11]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["roughly 70% of the houses on Terceira were completely demolished"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["the number of fatalities was set at 52,[6] but it was later revised to 61","killed 61 people and injured over 400","the injuries were set at 300,[7] but this was also revised to more than 400"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the Autonomous Region of Azores","islands of Pico and Faial","three separate islands (Terceira, São Jorge Island, and Graciosa)","islands of Terceira and São Jorge","Pico and Faial islands"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":["United States Navy and Air Force troops stationed at Lajes functioned as disaster relief workers"]},{"role":"Date","values":["1980","1 January"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Measuring 6.9"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1992 Roermond earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1992 Roermond earthquake occurred on 13 April, around 3:20 AM (1:20 UTC) with a moment magnitude of 5.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). Striking on the Peel Boundary Fault, a normal fault near Roermond, it was the strongest recorded earthquake in the Netherlands and in Northwestern Europe, and caused substantial damage to older buildings in the Netherlands and adjacent countries of Belgium and Germany. A series of aftershocks followed. The city of Roermond lies above the Roer Graben, which forms the southeastern part of the Lower Rhine Graben (or Lower Rhine Embayment). These structures form part of the European Cenozoic Rift System, which formed within the foreland of the Alpine orogeny. The Roer graben formed during the Paleogene and is currently active as shown by the thickening of Quaternary sedimentary rocks into the basin. The graben is bounded by NW-SE trending normal fault systems, with the largest fault being the southwest-dipping Peel Boundary Fault, which displaces the base of the Quaternary sequence by about 175 m.[2] All the major faults show evidence of neotectonics. [3]\n\nThe earthquake's focal mechanism showed almost pure normal faulting on a plane dipping southwest at 68°, identified as the Peel Boundary Fault. [4] The epicentre of the earthquake lay kilometers away from the south of Roermond. The earthquake was recorded as 5.8 on the Richter magnitude scale (5.3 on the moment magnitude scale) and a maximum intensity of VII (Very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. [5]\n\nAn intensity of VII means people have difficulty standing, drivers feel their cars shaking, some furniture breaks and loose bricks fall from buildings. Damage is slight to moderate in well-built buildings; considerable in poorly built buildings. [6] The earthquake was not evenly spread as some areas were hit harder than others. This earthquake could be felt as far away as the Czech Republic, Switzerland, France and England. [5]\n\nIn the regions between Roermond, Maaseik (Belgium), and Heinsberg (Germany), buildings, especially old buildings, and cars were destroyed. [5] Two churches in Roermond, the Munsterkerk and Minderbroederskerk, were heavily damaged. [7][8] The economic cost of the earthquake was estimated to be around 275 million guilders (around 125 million euros), of which 170 million guilders (around 77 million euros) of damage in the Netherlands. [5]\n\nThe earthquake was followed by more than 200 aftershocks. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Two churches"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["to be around 275 million guilders (around 125 million euros), of which 170 million guilders (around 77 million euros) of damage in the Netherlands"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["lay kilometers away from the south of Roermond"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["A series of aftershocks followed","200 aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["regions between Roermond, Maaseik (Belgium), and Heinsberg (Germany)","Netherlands and adjacent countries of Belgium and Germany","Roermond, the Munsterkerk and Minderbroederskerk","felt as far away as the Czech Republic, Switzerland, France and England"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1992","13 April, around 3:20 AM (1:20 UTC)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["5.8 on the Richter magnitude scale (5.3 on the moment magnitude scale)"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1920 Haiyuan earthquake","document":"1920 Haiyuan earthquake (Chinese: 海原大地震; pinyin: Hǎiyuán dà dìzhèn) occurred on December 16 in Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province, Republic of China. It was also called the 1920 Gansu earthquake[1] because Ningxia was a part of Gansu Province when the earthquake occurred. It caused destruction in the Lijunbu-Haiyuan-Ganyanchi area and was assigned the maximum intensity on the Mercalli intensity scale (XII Extreme). The earthquake hit at 19:05:53 Gansu-Sichuan time (12:05:53 UTC),[5] reportedly 7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale, and was followed by a series of aftershocks for three years. Over 73,000 people were killed in Haiyuan County. A landslide buried the village of Sujiahe in Xiji County. More than 30,000 people were killed in Guyuan County. [2] Nearly all the houses collapsed in the cities of Longde and Huining. Damage (VI–X) occurred in seven provinces and regions, including the major cities of Lanzhou, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Xining and Yinchuan. It was felt from the Yellow Sea to Qinghai (Tsinghai) Province and from Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia) south to central Sichuan Province. Total casualties were reported as 200,000 in a summary published by the United States Geological Survey,[1] and 235,502 according to the Catalog of Damaging Earthquakes in the World (through 2008) maintained by the International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering. [3]  Many more perished because of cold: frequent aftershocks caused the survivors to fear building anything other than temporary shelters, and a severe winter killed many who had lived through the original earthquake. [6] Chinese seismologists published a revised estimate in 2010 of 273,400 deaths. [3][4]\n\nThe Sufi Jahriyya Muslim Hui leader Ma Yuanzhang and his son died in the earthquake when the roof of the Mosque they were in collapsed in Zhangjiachuan. [7][8]\n\nAbout 230 km (140 mi) of surface faulting was seen from Lijunbu through Ganyanchi to Jingtai. There were more than 50,000 landslides in the epicentral area and ground cracking was widespread. Some rivers were dammed; others changed course. [9] Seiches from this earthquake were observed in two lakes and three fjords in western Norway. [1]\n\nThe Muslim General Ma Fuxiang was involved in relief efforts in Lanzhou during the earthquake. [10][11][12]\n\n This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Geological Survey.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Over 73,000 people were killed","More than 30,000 people were killed in Guyuan County"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["felt from the Yellow Sea to Qinghai (Tsinghai) Province and from Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia) south to central Sichuan Province","Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province, Republic of China"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1920","December 16"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1994 Java earthquake","document":"The 1994 Java earthquake occurred on June 3 at 01:17:37 local time on June 2, at 18:17:37 GMT off the coast of Indonesia. The epicenter was off the eastern part of the southern Java coast, near the east end of the Java Trench. [2]\n\nThis earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 7.8 in a region which is characterized as having a weak seismic coupling. [3] Earthquakes with slow rupture velocities are the most efficient tsunami generators, and this earthquake was classified as a tsunami earthquake. [4]\n\nThe tsunami reached Java and Bali, with runups up to 14 m (46 ft) on the east Java coast and up to 5 m (16 ft) on the southwestern Bali coast. More than 200 people were killed in the tsunami. [5] The shock could be felt strongly across Bali, central and eastern Java, Lombok, and Sumbawa. [6]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["off the eastern part of the southern Java coast, near the east end of the Java Trench"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["More than 200 people were killed in the tsunami"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["off the coast of Indonesia","felt strongly across Bali, central and eastern Java, Lombok, and Sumbawa"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1994","June 2, at 18:17:37 GMT"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a moment magnitude of 7.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1965 Rat Islands earthquake","document":"The 1965 Rat Islands earthquake occurred at 05:01 UTC, on 4 February (19:01, 3 February local time[1]). It had a magnitude of 8.7 and triggered a tsunami of over 10 m on Shemya Island,[2] but caused very little damage. The Rat Islands form part of the Aleutian Islands, a chain of volcanic islands forming an island arc, that results from the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate. This plate boundary, the Alaska-Aleutian megathrust, has been the location of many megathrust earthquakes. The 1965 Rat Islands earthquake share common features with the 1963 Kuril Islands earthquake and the 1964 Alaska earthquake. [3]\n\nThe earthquake was associated with a 600 km long rupture along the plate boundary, based on the distribution of aftershocks. [4] The pattern of energy release suggest the presence of three asperities along the plate interface, each causing a pulse of moment release. Modelling of the tsunami supports the idea that the earthquake consisted of three sub-events, related to three structural 'blocks' within the overriding plate. [5]\n\nThe main shock was followed by an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 nearly two months later, that triggered a small tsunami. [1] This was not an aftershock, but a normal fault event within the outer rise of the subducting plate, triggered by the earlier event. [6]\n\nThe tsunami had a maximum run-up height of 10.7 m on Shemya Island, 2.0 m at Amchitka Island, 1.6 m at Attu Island and 1.1 m in northern Kauai, Hawaii. It was also observed in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, California, Japan and eastern Russia. [1]\n\nFlooding from the tsunami caused $10,000 worth of damage on Amchitka Island. [2] Minor damage from the earthquake was recorded on both Attu and Shemya islands in the form of cracks in runways.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["caused $10,000 worth of damage on Amchitka Island"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["The Rat Islands","Shemya Island","both Attu and Shemya islands"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["05:01 UTC, on 4 February (19:01, 3 February local time[1]"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a magnitude of 8.7"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1983 Luzon earthquake","document":"The 1983 Luzon earthquake struck the Philippines at 20:17 PST (UTC+08:00) on August 17. The shock had a surface wave magnitude of 6.5 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong), killing 16 people and injuring 47. Seven towns were damaged, several buildings collapsed, and electricity was cut off in Laoag. Features like sand volcanoes and cracks formed during the quake. The earthquake struck at 8:18 PM[4] and surface wave magnitude of 6.5. [3] It was the most powerful earthquake to strike the Philippines in seven years. Shaking lasted 20 seconds and damaged seven towns extensively,[4] its greatest damage occurring near Pasuquin, Laoag, Sarrat, and Batac in the Ilocos Norte province. [3]\n\nEarly reports claimed that 17 were killed and 80 were injured,[4] but these numbers were later revised to 16 and 47, respectively. [3] A four-storey building collapsed, and the salesmen inside waited as long as 17 hours to be rescued; one man was rescued only to die in the hospital. Two or three other buildings also collapsed, including one filled with people in San Nicolas. Churches were damaged in Bacarra, Vintar, and Sarrat; the Sarrat church was the site of the wedding of Ferdinand Marcos' daughter Irene, and it toppled, destroying its altar and the orchestra loft from the wedding. [4] A 300-year-old statue of Saint Monica fell apart, and its head landed on the ground intact. [4] Electricity was cut off in Laoag,[5] and downed a bridge elsewhere. [2]\n\nSand volcanoes and cracks as long as 24 m (79 ft) formed,[5] and as it ruptured, soil liquefaction and landslides occurred. A tsunami was reported but never confirmed. [3] Tremors also extended to Manila. [3]\n\nThe earthquake occurred exactly seven years after the 1976 Moro Gulf earthquake, which measured 7.9 Ms and caused about 8000 deaths. [6]\n\nPAGASA listed its magnitude at 5.7,[5] but the United States Geological Survey still lists it at 6.5. [3] It was assigned a Rossi–Forel scale rating of VII (Very strong tremor), indicating the potential to be damaging. [2]\n\nIn the destroyed church in Bacarra, church members wrote notes asking God for forgiveness and believing it was his warning. [4] Reports from Manila's radio stations claimed many casualties, and a news agency reported that there were at least 100 people trapped in a downed building. The wrecks of collapsed buildings were searched, and the dead were removed from the rubble. There were two aftershocks following the main shock. [5]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Seven towns were damaged, several buildings collapsed","Two or three other buildings also collapsed","the Sarrat church"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":["at least 100 people trapped"]},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["two aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing 16 people and injuring 47"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["near Pasuquin, Laoag, Sarrat, and Batac in the Ilocos Norte province","the Philippines","Bacarra, Vintar, and Sarrat","Manila"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["20:17 PST (UTC+08:00) on August 17"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a surface wave magnitude of 6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1909 Provence earthquake","document":"The 1909 Provence earthquake occurred on June 11 in Provence. Measuring 6.2 on the surface wave magnitude scale, it is the largest ever recorded earthquake in metropolitan France. [4]\n\nA total of 46 people died, another 250 were injured, and approximately 2,000 buildings were damaged. The most damaged communes were Salon-de-Provence, Vernègues, Lambesc, Saint-Cannat and Rognes. Fourteen people died in Rognes,[5] which was half destroyed, especially the houses on the flanks of the hill Le Foussa. People were relocated under tents on another hill (Le Devin) and near the primary school. The main shock occurred at 9:15pm. If the earthquake had happened an hour later, more people would have been in bed, and more casualties would have been recorded. [6]\n\nThe Vernègues castle and most of the houses in Vernègues were destroyed. Two people died in the village, which was later rebuilt at a lower altitude.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["approximately 2,000 buildings were damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["A total of 46 people died, another 250 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Provence","Salon-de-Provence, Vernègues, Lambesc, Saint-Cannat and Rognes","flanks of the hill Le Foussa"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["June 11"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Measuring 6.2 on the surface wave magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Superstition Hills and Elmore Ranch earthquakes","document":"The 1987 Superstition Hills and Elmore Ranch earthquakes were a pair of earthquakes Mw 6.2 and 6.6 that rattled the Imperial Valley of California. The earthquakes caused damage to places in California and Mexico, and was felt as far as Las Vegas and Phoenix. Both main shocks were larger than the deadly earthquake that struck Los Angeles on October 1, which was a magnitude 5.9. [1]\n\nBoth mainshocks were situated in the Salton Trough, a pull-apart basin caused by extension between offset strike-slip faults. The Brawley Seismic Zone is an area of extension and small divergent plate boundary that connects the Imperial Fault with the San Andreas Fault. Earthquake swarms are common in the fault zone, with the last one in 2021. [2][3] The San Jacinto Fault is a long, active strike-slip fault in Southern California that is part of the San Andreas Fault which accommodates the motion between the North American and Pacific Plate. The Imperial Valley is one of the most seismically active areas in California. There have been earthquakes of M 6 or greater in 1915, 1940, and 1979, with the strongest, an M 6.7 quake that killed seven people in 1940. The geological forces that caused the November 23-24, 1987, earthquakes are the same ones that rifted Baja California from Mexico to form the Sea of Cortez. The earthquakes consisted of two main shocks; the Mw 6.2 that was followed by an Mw 6.6 eleven hours later. Both epicenters are located within Imperial County, near the Salton Sea. The first shock occurred at 5:53 pm along a previously undetected north-east striking structure. It was associated with left-lateral (sinistral) fault rupture and had a maximum offset of 12.5 cm. The epicenter was located in a sparsely populated area 22.5 km north of Westmorland. [4]\n\nThe second main shock was larger and it was caused by movement on the Superstition Hills and Superstition Mountain faults, which are part of the San Jacinto Fault Zone, along which ground rupture was observed. [5] This event occurred at 5:16 am, nearly 12 hours later and centered 9.7 km southwest of the first quake. Right-lateral (dextral) rupture that was seen for 27 km. A maximum of 65 cm of dextral offset was measured on December 2, 1987. [4]\n\nThe first earthquake forced the closure of a runway at the Naval Air Facility, El Centro but no damage was found after inspection. [6] Telephone services were affected because the earthquake had destroyed some lines. The shaking triggered an \"unusual event\"  declaration at the San Onofre nuclear plant, but the facility was unaffected. Damage was reported at El Centro, Imperial and Westmorland. Fallen chimneys, pipes, and windows were seen in properties. Some roads needed to be replaced because they were offset or cracked from liquefaction. About 40 mobile homes were wrenched from their stands. The Southern California Irrigation District estimated  $600,000 to $750,000 worth of damage to canal facilities. [7] The initial earthquake resulted in minor buckling of the canal concrete reinforce while the second shock collapsed many of the concrete. [7] In Calexico, the wall of a furniture store collapsed on automobiles, and in El Centro, another brick wall fell onto a car. Many homes and businesses lost power following the earthquake. Fifty people were injured in Imperial County. California 86 between Westmorland and El Centro was damaged and closed off. California 98 was closed at Ocotillo at the junction with Interstate 8 after a road buckled. The entry station between Mexicali and Calexico was closed for damage inspection. [8]\n\nTremors were felt but there was no damage. Los Angeles County fire dispatcher reported calls from residents asking if there had been an earthquake. [6] Many people were frightened by the earthquake, in the wake of the Whittier Narrows quake two months earlier. In Orange County, people started stoking up in survival appliances such as water purification tablets and water bottles for their earthquake preparedness kits. The California Department of Transportation began inspecting freeways for possible damage. [8] This region experienced a deadly earthquake that killed eight on October 1 the same year. The first event struck while city councils were having a conference on the 12th floor, shaking caused some turmoil in the room. [6] The San Diego Fire Department reported minor cracks to five of their stations. [8]\n\nForty-four were injured in Mexico. The injuries included broken bones, sprains, cuts, and some heart attacks. In Mexicali, hundreds evacuated from buildings, and 35 were damaged, including several hospitals. [8] Structural damage and fires were reported. [9] Two people, a woman and her child were killed as they were fleeing a factory and was struck by an oncoming vehicle.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["35 were damaged, including several hospitals"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["600,000 to $750,000 worth of damage to canal facilities"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["epicenter was located in a sparsely populated area 22.5 km north of Westmorland","centered 9.7 km southwest of the first quake"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":["hundreds evacuated from buildings"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Fifty people were injured","Forty-four were injured","Two people, a woman and her child were killed"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["El Centro, Imperial and Westmorland","places in California and Mexico","the Imperial Valley of California","Mexico","Imperial County","Mexicali","felt as far as Las Vegas and Phoenix","Los Angeles County","Orange County"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["November 23-24, 1987"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw 6.2 and 6.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Craig, Alaska earthquake","document":"The 2013 Craig, Alaska earthquake (also known as the Queen Charlotte Fault earthquake) struck on January 5th, at 12:58 am (UTC–7) near the city of Craig and Hydaburg, on Prince of Wales Island. The Mw 7.5 earthquake came nearly three months after an Mw  7.8 quake struck Haida Gwaii on October 28, in 2012. [1] The quake prompted a regional tsunami warning to British Columbia and Alaska, but it was later cancelled. [2] Due to the remote location of the quake, there were no reports of casualties or damages. The Queen Charlotte Fault is a major right-lateral (dextral) strike-slip and transform fault running off the coast of British Columbia and into Southern Alaska, through the Saint Elias Range for more than 700 miles. [3] Its southernmost section joins a spreading ridge of the Gorda Plate and the Cascadia subduction zone while the northern termination section joins the a thrust fault where the Yakutat terrane plows into the North American Plate. It has been the source of several large earthquakes in the 20th century, and appears that much of its length has ruptured in these events. In 1949, it produced a magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the west coast of Haida Gwaii, then in 1958 a magnitude 7.8 earthquake generated a megatsunami more than 500 meters tall, killing five people. Other earthquakes in the region include a 7.6 near Sitka, and the 2012 event. The Queen Charlotte Fault bears a similar resemblance with California's San Andreas Fault, another transform fault to the south. The rupture zone is situated on a seismic gap between fault segments which ruptured in 1972 to its north, and the other to the south in 1949. [4][5] The largest earthquake prior to the 7.5 quake along this gap was a magnitude 6.8 to the south of the 2013 epicenter. [6] The 2013 earthquake ruptured for a length of 150 km (93 mi), 322 km (200 mi) north of the 2012 event. [3] A note to take into account, the 2012 temblor had a focal mechanism of thrust rather than strike-slip, like those observed along the fault. That earthquake was on the interface of the subducting Pacific Plate as it is underthrusted beneath the North American Plate. [7] The Craig earthquake on the other hand, was a near pure strike-slip event which was probably in response to stress transfer from the quake four months ago. [7]\n\nResearch found that the earthquake was a rare supershear event, and was the first of its kind to occur on an oceanic plate boundary. Supershear rupture initiated along the northern rupture zone for about 100 km with a velocity of 5.5 to 6.0 km/s, much faster that the propagation velocity of the S-waves. [8][9] The rupture propagated northwards, away from the epicenter, with an initial rupture velocity of 3.0 km. [9] This subshear rupture continued for the first 30 to 50 km. Afterward, rupture velocity exceeded the S-wave propagation speed of 3.8 km/s, reaching 7.0 km/s at its highest through the upper crust. [10]\n\nMore than 290 aftershocks greater than magnitude 2.5 were recorded in the aftermath of the earthquake from 2013 to 2020. Most of them were along other fault structures away from the main fault. This is also commonly seen in other supershear earthquakes. [8] The largest aftershocks were of magnitude 5.9, 5.5 and 5.2 which occurred on a different fault from the mainshock. [11][12][13]\n\nMaximum intensity of V (Moderate) to VI (Strong) was felt in Craig, Hydaburg, Klawock and Hyder without damage, but there were reports of items falling off shelves. The earthquake was mildly felt as far away in Seattle, Washington. [14] A tsunami warning was broadcast from Cape Fairweather, Alaska to northern Vancouver Island, while a tsunami advisory was issued to the coast of Washington. It was later canceled after no large waves were observed. [15] The shock frightened many who fled to higher grounds to avoid the tsunami. Because the earthquake was of almost pure strike-slip mechanism, only small waves were produced without damage. These waves were up to 14 cm high. [16] Seiches up to 1.5 meters high were also recorded at Deer Lake, Alaska, north of Port Alexander. The small waves however, were not detected by Ocean Networks Canada. [17]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["290 aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["near the city of Craig and Hydaburg, on Prince of Wales Island","mildly felt as far away in Seattle, Washington"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2013","January 5th, at 12:58 am (UTC–7)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["The Mw 7.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Earthquakes in 1995 details the major earthquakes that occurred around the world in the year 1995.","document":"Earthquakes in 1995 details the major earthquakes that occurred around the world in the year 1995. The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995 at 05:46 JST (January 16 at 20:46 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale (USGS),[1] and Mj7.3 (adjusted from 7.2) on the JMA magnitude scale. [2] The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 16 km beneath its epicenter,[2] on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe. Approximately 6,434 people lost their lives (final estimate as of December 22, 2005). [3] Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. Damage cost approximately ten trillion yen ($100 billion), around 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time. The 5.7 Mw earthquake occurred in Marathon, Texas on April 14, 1995. [4]\n\nThe a 6.6 Mw earthquake occurred in Knidi, Grevena, Greece on May 13, 1995. [5]\n\nThe Neftegorsk earthquake was a 7.1 Mw (7.3 MS) earthquake that devastated the town of Neftegorsk in northern Sakhalin Island, Russia on May 27, 1995 at 23:03 Russian time (13:03 UTC). [6]\n\nNeftegorsk was nearly destroyed completely by the earthquake. Approximately 2,000 of the 3,176 residents in the town were killed. [7]\n\nThe Antofagasta earthquake was an earthquake with a strength of 8.0 Mw[8] registered on July 30, 1995 at 05:11 UTC (01:11 local time). Its epicenter was located near off the coast in the Chilean Sea near Antofagasta, affecting coastal areas of Antofagasta Region. The Guerrero earthquake occurred on September 14, 1995 at 14:04 UTC (08:04 local time). This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 Mw, with the epicenter being located in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. Three people were reported dead. In the rural part of southeast Guerrero, many houses with adobe of poor quality suffered heavier damage. [9] The intensity in Copala reached MM VII. [10] The earthquake could be felt strongly along the coast from Michoacán to Chiapas. [11]\n\nThe 1995 Colima-Jalisco earthquake was an 8.0 Mw earthquake which occurred on October 9, 1995 at 15:36 UTC, off the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, with least 49 people dead and 100 more injured. The earthquake triggered a tsunami, which affected a 200 km coast. [12] The Cihuatlan-Manzanillo area, Colima, was more severely affected than other areas. The earthquake was felt in Mexico City and in high-rise buildings in Dallas and Houston. [13]\n\nThe 1995 Chiapas earthquake occurred on October 20, 1995 at 20:38 local time (October 21, 1995 at 02:38 UTC). The epicenter was located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, near Tuxtla Gutiérrez. [14] It had a magnitude of Mw 7.1,[11] or ML 6.5. [15] Building damage was reported. Around 70 people were reported injured. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, telephone and electricity services were momentarily interrupted. [16]\n\nThe Wuding earthquake occurred on October 23, 1995 at 22:46 UTC (October 24, 1995 at 06:46 local time). The epicenter was located near Fenduo Village (芬多村), Fawo Township (发窝乡) of the Wuding County, Yunnan, China. The magnitude of the earthquake was put at Mw 6.2, or Ms 6.5. 53 people were reported dead and 13,903 people injured. [17] Many houses and public buildings were damaged, including the Fawo Middle School (发窝中学) and the Fawo Township Office. [18]\n\nThe Gulf of Aqaba earthquake was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred on November 22, 1995 at 04:15 local time, in the eastern part of Egypt. At least 8 people were killed and 30 were injured in the epicentral region. Damage occurred in many parts of northeastern Egypt as far as Cairo. One person was killed and two slightly injured at Al Bad, Saudi Arabia. Some damage occurred at Jerusalem, Israel and Aqaba, Jordan. [19]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["ten trillion yen ($100 billion)"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe","epicenter being located in the state of Guerrero, Mexico","epicenter was located near off the coast in the Chilean Sea near Antofagasta","epicenter was located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, near Tuxtla Gutiérrez"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["53 people were reported dead and 13,903 people injured","2,000 of the 3,176 residents in the town were killed","8 people were killed and 30 were injured","least 49 people dead and 100 more injured","Three people were reported dead","6,434 people lost their lives (final estimate as of December 22, 2005)"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["major cities, Kobe","southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan","Neftegorsk in northern Sakhalin Island, Russia","felt strongly along the coast from Michoacán to Chiapas","felt in Mexico City and in high-rise buildings in Dallas and Houston","Some damage occurred at Jerusalem, Israel and Aqaba, Jordan","Marathon, Texas","Knidi, Grevena, Greece","many parts of northeastern Egypt as far as Cairo","Al Bad, Saudi Arabia"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday, January 17, 1995 at 05:46 JST (January 16 at 20:46 UTC)","April 14, 1995","September 14, 1995 at 14:04 UTC (08:04 local time)","May 27, 1995 at 23:03 Russian time (13:03 UTC)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a magnitude of 7.4 Mw","a magnitude of Mw 7.1","5.7 Mw","6.6 Mw","7.1 Mw (7.3 MS)","strength of 8.0 Mw","an 8.0 Mw","6.2, or Ms 6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2018 East Java earthquake","document":"On 11 October 2018, an earthquake struck off the coast of East Java, Indonesia, with the epicentre located off the coast of Situbondo Regency. The earthquake, which struck at dawn, killed 4 people in addition to destroying or damaging hundreds of houses, mostly in the small island of Sapudi. The earthquake occurred at 18:44:55 UTC (01:44:55 WIB), with a strength of Mw  6.0, 9 km depth and epicenter location of  WikiMiniAtlas7°27′11″S 114°27′22″E / 7.453°S 114.456°E / -7.453; 114.456 (USGS)[4] or Mw  6.3, 12 km depth and epicenter at  WikiMiniAtlas7°28′S 114°26′E / 7.46°S 114.44°E / -7.46; 114.44 (BMKG). [5][6] The epicenter was located underwater, around 60 km northeast of the town of Situbondo. [6] Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported 12 aftershocks, the strongest one occurring at 02:22 local time with a strength of Mw  3.5. [1] BMKG attributed the earthquake to a thrust fault movement of an unmapped fault, adding that the region historically saw relatively low seismicity and that the earthquake was not caused by the larger and more destructive earthquakes in Sulawesi and Lombok. [7][8]\n\nAccording to Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the earthquake was felt in 22 regencies and cities in East Java province, including the provincial capital and Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya. [9] No tsunami warnings were issued, and none occurred. Attendees of the 2018 International Monetary Fund Summit in Denpasar reported feeling the earthquake, but no damage occurred and the summit continued without significant disruption. [10]\n\nThe earthquake killed 4 people, and injured at least 26. As the earthquake struck around 2 AM, many of the victims were asleep during the shaking and could not escape. [3] Three of the deaths occurred in Prambanan village of Sapudi Island and were caused by falling roof shrapnel, while the fourth fatality was in Jember, where a 47-year-old man died after he slipped and hit his head when running out of his house during the earthquake. [2]\n\nNearly 500 houses were reported to be damaged by the day following the earthquake in Sapudi Island alone,[11] with lesser damage in other regencies. [12] Cleanup operations, assisted by soldiers from Kodam V/Brawijaya, began soon after the earthquake. [13] Social minister Agus Gumiwang visited Sapudi later in the day of the earthquake. [14] Governor of East Java Soekarwo also visited the island, and promised that the provincial government would incur the costs of repairing damaged houses, with the provincial administration allocating Rp 23.7 billion (US$1.6 million) for the purpose. [13][15] The central government also provided benefits of Rp 15 million (~USD 1,000) for the relatives of the fatalities, in addition to smaller benefits from the local governments. [16][17]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["500 houses were reported to be damaged","destroying or damaging hundreds of houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["epicentre located off the coast of Situbondo Regency","The epicenter was located underwater, around 60 km northeast of the town of Situbondo","epicenter at  WikiMiniAtlas7°28′S 114°26′E / 7.46°S 114.44°E / -7.46; 114.44 (BMKG)"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["12 aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 4 people, and injured at least 26"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["earthquake was felt in 22 regencies and cities in East Java province, including the provincial capital and Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya","the coast of East Java, Indonesia","small island of Sapudi","Prambanan village of Sapudi Island","Denpasar"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 October 2018"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw  6.0","Mw  6.3"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1929 Arthur's Pass earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1929 Arthur's Pass earthquake occurred at 10:50 pm NZMT on 9 March. The sparsely settled region around Arthur's Pass of the Southern Alps shook for four minutes. [1] Tremors continued almost continuously until midnight and sporadic strong aftershocks were felt for several days. The earthquake was measured at 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale and the intensity of shaking in the epicentral region has been assessed from historical records as VIII (Severe) on the Modified Mercalli Scale. Intensities of VI (Strong) were observed in Christchurch and Westport. [1] The earthquake occurred on the Poulter Fault, which was not identified and mapped until 2001. New Zealand lies along the boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates. In the South Island most of the relative displacement between these plates is taken up along a single dextral (right lateral) strike-slip fault with a major reverse component, the Alpine Fault. In the North Island the displacement is mainly taken up along the Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone, although the remaining dextral strike-slip component is accommodated by the North Island Fault System. [2] The Poulter Fault runs for approximately 50 km Northeast from the junction of the Bealey and Mahinga rivers to the valley of the Hurunui River. Between 16 km and 36 km of the fault ruptured, with dextral displacement of up to 4 metres and dip-slip displacement of 1–2 metres (North side up). [3]\n\nNumerous landslides were triggered, damaging the Midland Railway and blocking roads. The highway connecting Canterbury and the West Coast via Arthur's Pass was closed for several months. Many water tanks and chimneys were damaged or toppled. Two years after the earthquake, trampers in the Otahake Valley discovered that a 900m high section of the side of a mountain had collapsed, blocking the valley and sending debris 5 km downstream. Although (as of 2009[update]) this is one of the ten largest land-based earthquakes to strike New Zealand since European settlement, it was overshadowed by the more deadly 1929 Murchison earthquake a few months later.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Poulter Fault","around Arthur's Pass of the Southern Alps","Christchurch and Westpor"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["10:50 pm NZMT on 9 March"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["measured at 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"October 2016 Central Italy earthquakes","document":"\n\nA series of major earthquakes struck Central Italy between the Marche and Umbria regions in October 2016. The third quake on 30 October was the largest in Italy in 36 years, since the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. [5]\n\nA magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck 8 km (5 mi) east southeast of Sellano on 26 October at 19:11 local time (17:11 UTC)[6] at a depth of 10 km (6 mi). [7] The earthquake was also felt in the city of Rome. [6] In the region of Marche some houses collapsed, Italian media reported. There were also power failures and the telephone lines were interrupted. [8]\n\nA magnitude 6.1 intraplate earthquake struck 3 km (2 mi) west of Visso on 26 October at 21:18 local time (19:18 UTC). The earthquake, which occurred two months after a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in August, struck about 30 km (20 mi) to the northwest of the August earthquake's epicenter. [9] The civil protection, however, estimated the consequences less dramatically than feared. According to official data, a man died because he had suffered a heart attack as a result of the quake. [10]\n\nA third large, shallow earthquake of USGS preliminary magnitude 6.6 struck 6 km (4 mi) north of Norcia at 07:40 local time (06:40 UTC) on 30 October. [11] Early news and social media reports showed heavy damage to some structures. The village of Arquata del Tronto was destroyed,[12] as were several heritage buildings. These include the Basilica of Saint Benedict in Norcia,[13] the Church of San Salvatore and other churches in Campi. [14] Two women died of sudden heart attacks during the quake. [15]\n\n(Source: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia)\n\nThe quakes occurred in a seismic gap which is located between the areas hit by the 2016 August earthquake and the one in Umbria and Marche of 1997. In that gap no strong earthquake happened for more than 100 years[16] until 2016. As the process of faulting along the chain of the Apennine Mountains is a relatively recent one in geological terms, starting 500,000 years ago, the faults are more irregular, so more shaking occurs due to foreshocks according to seismologist Ross Stein from Stanford University. In this case the destructive shock on 26 October was preceded by the foreshock by two hours, causing people to leave their homes and be safer when the larger shock occurred. [17][18]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["The village of Arquata del Tronto was destroyed,[12] as were several heritage buildings. These include the Basilica of Saint Benedict in Norcia,[13] the Church of San Salvatore and other churches in Campi"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Two women died of sudden heart attacks during the quake","a man died"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the region of Marche","Central Italy between the Marche and Umbria regions","east southeast of Sellano","also felt in the city of Rome"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["26 October at 19:11 local time (17:11 UTC)","30 October","October 2016"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["magnitude 5.5 earthquake"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Kangding earthquake","document":"The 2014 Kangding earthquake struck Kangding County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China, with a moment magnitude of 5.9 on 22 November. [6] The earthquake killed five and injured 54 people. After the quake, the power and communication have not been interrupted, according to the local officials. [7] As of 20:40 (UTC+8) on November 22, 2014, there is a power outage in five villages of Tagong Township (塔公乡). [8] There is no major damage was reported in the town of Kangding, where CCTV, the official media, video showed residents strolling the town's streets, looking up at the steep surrounding hillsides and talking on their cellphones. [9][10] About 100 vehicles were trapped by a landslide on a highway connecting Sichuan and Tibet, and Chengdu-Kunming Railway was also halted in the area while workers checked on damage to the line. [9][11]\n\nAs of 19:20 (UTC+8) on November 22, the government received 16 reports about this earthquake from 16 townships. There are three houses collapsed and one house damaged. [3][4]\n\nSichuan Province launched the response of prevent disaster after the quake. [12] Ya'an City has sent five ambulances and 30 health care personnel to Kangding at 18:00 (UTC+8) on November 22. [13]\n\nXi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of China, said \"to emphasized the need for quick action\". [14] Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of China, has been response this quake, also said \"to emphasized the need for quick action\". [15]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["three houses collapsed and one house damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed five and injured 54 people"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Kangding County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["22 November","2014"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a moment magnitude of 5.9"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017 Ischia earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 2017 Ischia earthquake occurred in the island of Ischia, Campania, in southern Italy. The main shock occurred at 20:57 CEST (18:57 UTC) on 21 August 2017, and was rated 3.9 on the Moment magnitude scale. [6]\n\nDespite the moderate magnitude, several buildings and a church collapsed. One woman died in Casamicciola Terme, after being hit by rubble that fell from a church. [7] Another woman died when her house collapsed. [8]\n\nThe collapse of several buildings and the death of two women created much controversy and debate in Italy, because many geologists stated that with a moderate magnitude quake, modern buildings should not collapse. [9]\n\nMoreover, Ischia is a zone with a high number of irregular buildings, and many critics considered the poor construction materials as the main cause for the death of the two women and for the damage. [10][11]\n\nThe sharp increase of the population between 1950s and 1980s and the growing inflow of tourists increased the anthropic pressure on the island. Significant acreage of land previously used for agriculture has been developed for the construction of houses or residential buildings. Most of this development took place without any planning and building permits. Many houses and structures across the island sustained moderate to severe damage when the earthquake hit. [12]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["several buildings and a church collapsed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["One woman died","Another woman died"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["island of Ischia, Campania, in southern Italy"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["20:57 CEST (18:57 UTC) on 21 August 2017"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["3.9 on the Moment magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1977 Sumba earthquake","document":"The 1977 Sumba earthquake (also called the Sumbawa earthquake) occurred approximately 290 kilometres (180 mi) south of Bima, Sumbawa, and beneath the Indian Ocean, at 14:08 local time on 19 August. With a moment magnitude of 8.3, the earthquake is notable for having an unusually great magnitude for a shock with a normal faulting focal mechanism. [3] The shock occurred near the southern section of the Sunda Trench where several other tsunami-generating earthquakes have occurred. The earthquake was at the time the largest outer-rise earthquake ever recorded in Indonesia, and aftershocks along the trench extended about 130 kilometres (81 mi) eastward and 110 kilometres (68 mi) westward from the epicenter. [4]\n\nAlthough damage from the earthquake was limited to Indonesia, ground movement was reportedly felt as far afield as Albany in Australia, and the power supply was briefly cut in Port Hedland. [5] A tsunami was generated with observed run-up heights of up to 5.8 meters (19 ft) and inundation distances of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) at several locations on Sumba and Sumbawa. [4][6] The combined number of victims from both the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia was at least 107 confirmed dead and several dozen others missing, presumed dead; several sources combine the two for a total casualty figure of approximately 180 deaths and 1,100 injuries. [4][7]\n\nSources","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 107 confirmed dead","1,100 injuries"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["at several locations on Sumba and Sumbawa","290 kilometres (180 mi) south of Bima, Sumbawa, and beneath the Indian Ocean","ground movement was reportedly felt as far afield as Albany in Australia"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1977","14:08 local time on 19 August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a moment magnitude of 8.3"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1995 Colima–Jalisco earthquake","document":"The 1995 Colima–Jalisco earthquake occurred on October 9 at 15:35 UTC with a moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock occurred off the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, where a tsunami was triggered that affected a 200 km (120 mi) stretch of the coast. [4] The earthquake could be felt in Mexico City and in high-rise buildings in Dallas and Houston. [5] In Mexico, the Cihuatlan-Manzanillo was the most severely affected area. At least 49 people died and 100 were injured. This earthquake occurred in the area where the Rivera Plate subducts beneath the North American Plate. [6] It was the result of the relative movements between the North American Plate, the Rivera Plate, and the Cocos Plate. [7]\n\nAlthough the tsunami affected a 200 km stretch of coast, severe damage was confined to areas with shallow shoreline topography. Most of the flooding occurred in the Tenacatita Bay area. [4] Landslides blocked roads between Guadalajara and Manzanillo. [5] In Manzanillo, 18 people died in the collapse of an eight-story hotel. [8]\n\nThe earthquake rupture lasted for about a minute and involved a 200 km long break along the plate boundary. [6] The greatest displacement of the fault is about 5m. [9] A 14 cm subsidence occurred at Manzanillo. [4]\n\nThe variations in observed seismic intensity indicate that three asperities were ruptured during this event. [6]\n\nThe tsunami had a maximum run-up height of 5.1 m. There were at least two waves recorded. The tsunami was also observed in Ecuador, French Polynesia, Samoan Islands, Australia and Hawaii. [4]\n\nThe aftershocks of this earthquake marked a rectangular region of about 170 km by 70 km. [10] Postseismic deformation has been recorded after the main shock. If the postseismic moment release up to about two weeks after the main shock is included, it will be equivalent to 35% of that of the main shock, which will make the additional seismic moment equivalent to that of an Mw 7.7 earthquake. [11]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 49 people died and 100 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["off the coast of Jalisco, Mexico","Mexico, the Cihuatlan-Manzanillo"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["October 9 at 15:35 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a moment magnitude of 8.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1931 Dogger Bank earthquake","document":"\n\nThe Dogger Bank earthquake of 1931 was the strongest earthquake recorded in the United Kingdom since measurements began. It had a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter magnitude scale, and it caused a shaking intensity of VI (strong) to VII (very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. [1][2] The location of the earthquake in the North Sea meant that damage was significantly less than it would have been had the epicentre been on the British mainland. The tremor began at around 1:30 am on 7 June 1931 with its epicentre located at the Dogger Bank, 60 miles (97 km) off the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea. The effects were felt throughout Great Britain as well as in Belgium and France. [3] The earthquake resulted in damage at locations throughout eastern England. The coastal town of Filey in Yorkshire was worst hit, with the spire of a church being twisted by the tremor. Chimneys collapsed in Hull, Beverley and Bridlington, and Flamborough Head suffered crumbling of parts of its cliffs. It was also reported that a Hull woman died as a result of a heart attack caused by the quake. In London the head of the waxwork of Dr Crippen at Madame Tussauds fell off. [4][5]\n\nA small nondestructive tsunami wave was reported to have hit the east coast of England and other countries around the North Sea. [6]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["the Dogger Bank, 60 miles (97 km) off the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["a Hull woman died as a result of a heart attack caused by the quake"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["locations throughout eastern England"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["7 June 1931","1931"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1994 Bolivia earthquake","document":"The 1994 Bolivia earthquake occurred on June 9, 1994. The epicenter was located in a sparsely populated region in the Amazon jungle, about 200 miles from La Paz. [2]\n\nThe Harvard CMT Project assigned it a focal depth of 647 km and a magnitude MW of 8.2,[2] making it, at the time, the largest earthquake since the 1977 Sumba earthquake, later superseded by more recent larger events (e.g., 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake). It is also the second largest earthquake ever recorded with a focal depth greater than 300 km, along with the 2018 Fiji earthquake,[3] the largest currently being the 2013 Okhotsk Sea earthquake. South America also experienced the then second and third largest earthquakes at focal depths greater than 300 km: Colombia, 1970; and northern Peru, 1922. [2]\n\nThe rupture was located within the Nazca plate where it is being subducted beneath the mantle of the South American continent. [3] It shook the ground from Argentina to Canada and its oscillations were the first to be captured on a modern seismic network. [3] Such deep events are known as intraplate earthquakes because they occur within a tectonic lithosphere rather than at the boundary of two. The earthquake involved a particularly small slip area of only 30 km by 50 km. In 22 seconds, the rupture propagated with a velocity of 1.5 km/s, which is slower than the average rupture velocity of earthquakes. [4]\n\nThe quake also disproved scientists' opinions on deep earthquakes. According to the squeeze theory of earthquakes, pressures and temperatures at the depth of 200 to 400 miles should be so great that rock should not undergo frictional sliding. Most geologists had believed that the crushing pressures and increasing heat, below a certain depth, compressed rocks into deeper forms, creating huge cracks in the Earth's surface. [5] The Bolivian earthquake was 395 miles below sea level and, according to geologist Paul G. Silver, the earthquake \"looks and acts and talks like these shallow earthquakes. But it shouldn't exist. \"[5]\n\nThere are unconfirmed reports that five people were killed in Peru's Arequipa and Cuzco provinces. Three deaths from Arequipa Province were attributed to a landslide while the other two in Cuzco Province died from falling debris or a heart attack. Many more were left injured due to landslides in other parts of Southern Peru. [6] In Cochabamba, La Paz and Oruro, the windows of many tall structures shattered. Light damage to buildings was reported in Arica, Chile and Manaus, Brazil, although all these claims have not verified. Limited damage to buildings was reported in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto, Ontario, Canada as well. [5] In Chile, the tremors caused panic among residents of major cities, driving them out of buildings. The earthquake also disrupted power and communication services. [7]\n\nDue to the earthquake's great depth, it was felt at places extremely far from its epicenter. According to the Los Angeles Times and US Geological Survey, the earthquake was described as very gentle. Similar effects were observed in Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Minneapolis, and Omaha in the United States.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["five people were killed in Peru's Arequipa and Cuzco provinces"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["sparsely populated region in the Amazon jungle, about 200 miles from La Paz","It shook the ground from Argentina to Canada"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["June 9, 1994"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a magnitude MW of 8.2"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1810 Crete earthquake","document":"The 1810 Crete earthquake occurred at 22:15 on 16 February. It caused great destruction in Heraklion, some damage from Malta to northern Egypt and was felt from central Italy to Syria. 2,000 fatalities were reported from Candia (Heraklion). [3]\n\nThe Hellenic arc is an arcuate tectonic feature related to the subduction of the African Plate beneath the Aegean Sea Plate. It is one of the most active seismic zones in western Eurasia and has a history of large earthquakes that also affect Egypt. [4] Large earthquakes with epicentres near Crete and to the north of the island are typically intermediate depth events located at the subducting plate interface. Such events are often M>7, but due to their depths cause relatively little damage for their size, while being very widely felt. [5]\n\nThe earthquake caused severe damage in Heraklion and northeastern Crete. Damage was also reported from islands in the south Aegean, Cairo, Rosetta, Alexandria in northern Egypt and on Malta. Reports of the collapse of part of the Temple of Amon at Siwa Oasis in 1811 have been also been attributed to the 1810 event, rather than a separate earthquake, which is now regarded as a 'spurious event'. [6]\n\nThe earthquake was widely felt, and recorded from as far away as Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, central Italy and various parts of North Africa. [6][7] The main shock is reported to have lasted for two minutes in Malta. [3]\n\nThere are reports of a tsunami, with waves being recorded in the harbours of Malta and Alexandria and nearby canals, although these have more the character of seiches. [6][7]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near Crete and to the north of the island"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["2,000 fatalities were reported from Candia (Heraklion"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["It caused great destruction in Heraklion, some damage from Malta to northern Egypt and was felt from central Italy to Syria"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1810","22:15 on 16 February"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1964 Rosais earthquake","document":"The 1964 Rosais earthquake (Portuguese: Crise sísmica dos Rosais) was a series of seismic swarms occurring in February 1964, leading to two major earthquakes on 15 and 21 February, resulting in the destruction of most of the habitable dwellings on the western part of the island of São Jorge, in the archipelago of the Azores. The event resulted in the evacuation of approximately 5,000 residents from that island to Terceira, Pico and Faial. The island of São Jorge is divided into two tectonic regions by tectonic fractures oriented north-northwest to south-southeast, located along an axis between Norte Pequeno and Calheta (the Ribeira Seca fault). [1]\n\nThe northwest portion of the island is the most modern, consisting of basalt and intermediary rock (andesites) of the Rosais Volcanic Complex. [1] This region was also covered swaths of the Manadas complex and debris from the 1580 and 1808 volcanic eruptions. The first eruption (1580) resulted in lava flows in three areas northwest to southeast: along the Ribeira da Almeida, in Queimada (south of Santo Amaro) and between Ribeira do Nabo and the beach of Cruzes (west of Urzelina). [1] The second eruption (1808) resulted in andesite-basaltic lava flows in the southwest of Pico do Pedro, that extended to Urzelina. [1]\n\nThe São Jorge-Pico Channel that separates the islands of Pico and São Jorge is divided by fractures and faults extending north-northwest to south-southwest. [2] The northernmost group of faults on the island of São Jorge extend from Cerrado das Almas to the peak of Loiçano. [2] But, the island is almost bisected by a fault that extends from the promontory of Rosais to just north of Calheta (in the southeast). [2] The Rosais promontory, at a height of 250–400 metres (820–1,310 ft) above sea level, an area dominated by an area of scoria cones, the highest being Monte Trigo at 503 metres (1,650 ft) altitude. [1] A final group of fractures aligned to scoria cones northwest of Velas: to the southeast there are faults towards Pico do Carvão, while to the northeast of Velas are fractures responsible for the submarine eruption in 1964. [2]\n\nSão Jorge has had a history of tectonic movements associated with the submarine fractures between the island and Pico. The most violent of these events occurred on the night of 9 July 1757,[3][4] with its epicenter in Fajã dos Vimes. [2] This event resulted in landslides, opening fractures and resulting in the destruction of dwellings in Manadas (killing one fifth of the population, 1000 people). [2]\n\nThe February 1964 event was a phenomenon related to a submarine volcanic eruption 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) west-northwest of the village of Velas, 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) below sea level. [5]\n\nOn 21 August 1963, tremors were felt in the central group of the Azorean archipelago, including in the epicenter located in the Pico-São Jorge Channel. [5] This event resulted in damage to an area 100 kilometres (62 mi) around Cais do Pico, while the tremors reached an intensity of V-VI on the Mercalli intensity scale affected the parishes of Rosais, Santo Amaro and town of Velas. [5] After 13 December, seismographs in the observatory in Horta registered earthquake swarms linked to a volcanic eruption that continued until January 1964, related initially with Capelinhos. [5] There was a lull after December. On 29 January and 1 February 1964, two submarine cables with the São Jorge Channel were cut. [5] On 14 February volcanic tremors began to be felt, but just as the populace had assumed that the swarm had ended, on 15 February 1964, around 7:00 a.m., the tremors resumed with a violent earthquake (VII-VIII on the Mercalli intensity scale, recorded in the village of Terreiros), that resulted in destruction of homes. [5] Following this earthquake, within the next 24 hours, more than 179 tremors were felt (some reaching VI-VII on the Mercalli intensity scale) and 125 in the following day, before diminishing. [5]\n\nIn the first three days, the epicentre was situated in the middle of São Jorge, in the proximity of historical eruptions in Urzelina and Manadas. [5] In the beginning, the epicenter was located in Pico do Cabeço and Pico de Maria Pires, between Urzelina and Toledo, but later extended to the area of Pico da Esperança. [5] The tremors reached a level VI (Strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale, causing panic and flight of citizenry to the town of Velas: the earthquake affected the areas of Urzelina, Manadas, Santo António and Norte Grande, intensifying until 18 February. [5] On 18 February, the epicenters migrated to the northwest in the direction of the coast of Rosais, with the most intense tremors in the areas of Rosais, Beira, Velas, Santo Amaro, Manadas, Santo António and Norte Grande. [5] A few reached level VIII in Velas and Rosais, where many of the homes were destroyed or became uninhabitable. [5] After 18 February, low intensity earthquake swarms continued in the interior, with the largest hardly felt in Calheta or Topo. [5]\n\nA great number of tremors were noted that anticipated the next earthquake. [5]\n\nOn 21 February, between 5:14 p.m. and 5:25 p.m. three strong earthquakes destroyed the homes in Rosais, and caused damage to dwellings in Toledo, Serroa, Beira and the village of Velas. [5] The shocks attained VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale in Velas and Rosais, VI (Strong) in Urzelina and Manadas, V (Moderate) in Santo António, Norte Grande, Norte Pequeno and Calheta, and III (Weak) in Topo. The more intense phase terminated on 24 February, at 8:45 p.m. After this event the tremors began to decrease in intensity and frequency, and few were registered in the western part of island. [5] The earthquakes varied: epicenters in the centre of the island were situated approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) in depth; and others, near Velas, were located 10–20 kilometres (6.2–12.4 mi) in depth. Similarly, the more violent tremors were felt in the islands near São Jorge. [5] In total there were more than 500 aftershocks, with the event terminating on 25 February. [5]\n\nAbout 5,000 people abandoned the area affected by the earthquakes, most heading for Calheta; 1000 escaped over the São Jorge-Pico Channel. [5] Coincidentally, after 15 February 1964, a storm had begun, and weather hampered the rescue operations, contributing to a feeling of panic among the populace. [5] With lack of information, the constant tremors and poor weather conditions contributed to a general feeling of impending disaster among the citizenry. [5] The stormy weather continued along the week. As a result of the first days earthquakes, there was significant destruction in the town of Velas and surrounding hamlets. Approximately 400 homes were destroyed, with many of the buildings requiring repairs (about 250 in total). [5] The number of dwellings that were damaged exceeded 900. [5]\n\nLogically, the earthquakes presupposed a submarine volcanic eruption; the smell of sulphur was observed on 18, 19 and 20 February in the town of Velas, and later in Rosais, Beira, Santo Amaro and Norte Grande, and carried on the wind toward the southwest. [5] Yet, the stormy weather made it impossible to see evidence. [5] Meanwhile, a ship crossing the channel observed the presence of white caps on the surface of the water, indicating, possibly that there was a small eruption. [5]\n\nOwing to the general panic and lack of help, 5,000 people were evacuated to the islands of Terceira, Pico and Faial, and were lodged in local homes, in an act of solidarity. The evacuation was extremely troubling, given the persistent storms and waves along the channel between the islands, where waves reached 5 metres (16 ft), and where ships and ports had limited capacity to transport the evacuees. A majority of the evacuees were transported onboard international cargo containers, including specifically the English flag-carrier Remuera, which was travelling within the Azores at the time of the crisis. Lack of planning and excavation equipment, meant that many of the peoples fleeing their homes, leaving the possessions and abandoning their domestic animals.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["The number of dwellings that were damaged exceeded 900","400 homes were destroyed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["the epicenters migrated to the northwest in the direction of the coast of Rosais","middle of São Jorge"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["more than 500 aftershocks"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":["5,000 people were evacuated to the islands of Terceira","5,000 residents"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Rosais","the western part of the island of São Jorge, in the archipelago of the Azores"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["February 1964"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1897 Mindanao earthquakes","document":"The 1897 Mindanao earthquakes occurred on September 20, 1897 at 19:06 UTC and September 21, 1897 at 05:12 UTC. The estimated epicentres of the two earthquakes are identical, lying just off the southwestern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines, south of Basilan island. The earthquakes were originally given estimated magnitudes of 8.6 and 8.7 on the surface wave magnitude scale by Charles Richter,[1][2] but these were revised downwards by Katsuyuki Abe to 7.4 and 7.5 Ms, respectively. [3] Contemporary reports noted that with few exceptions, all the masonry buildings in Zamboanga and Basilan were left in ruins. [4]\n\nBoth earthquakes triggered tsunamis, with the second being quite destructive, with a maximum run-up of 7.0 m.[5] The tsunami was noted all along the southwest coast of Negros, the west coast of Panay, the south coast of Palawan, the west coast of Mindanao, and the east coast of Borneo. [6] At least 13 died as a result of the second tsunami, with a hundred or more casualties also being reported. [2]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["lying just off the southwestern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines, south of Basilan island"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 13 died as a result of the second tsunami, with a hundred or more casualties also being reported"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the southwest coast of Negros, the west coast of Panay, the south coast of Palawan, the west coast of Mindanao, and the east coast of Borneo","Zamboanga and Basilan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["September 20, 1897 at 19:06 UTC and September 21, 1897 at 05:12 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.4 and 7.5 Ms"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1953 Torud earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1953 Torud earthquake occurred at the northeastern border of the Great Salt Kavir in Torud, Semnan, Iran on 12 February. The shock had a moment magnitude of 6.6 and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). At least 800 people were killed. Sources\n\n\n\n","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 800 people were killed"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the northeastern border of the Great Salt Kavir in Torud, Semnan, Iran"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1953","12 February"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1932 Changma earthquake","document":"The 1932 Changma earthquake occurred at 10:04:27 local time (02:04:07 UTC) on 25 December. With an estimated magnitude of 7.6 on the surface wave magnitude scale, and a maximum felt intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale, the quake destroyed 1,167 houses and caused 275 deaths and 320 injuries. [1]\n\nThe earthquake was located close to the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. This area of thickened crust is a result of the ongoing collision of the Indo-Australian Plate with the Eurasian Plate. The way in which this zone accommodates the collision remains unclear with two end-member models being proposed. The first regards the crust as being made up of a mosaic of strong blocks separated by weak fault zones, the microplate model. The second regards the deformation as being continuous within the mid to lower crust, the continuum model. The change in width of the deformed zone along the collisional belt, with the narrow zone of western Tibet compared to the main part of the Tibetan Plateau, is explained as either lateral escape to the east along the Altyn Tagh and Karakorum faults in the microplate model or as the effect of the rigid Tarim Basin block causing heterogeneous deformation within a generally weaker lithosphere in the continuum model. [2] At its northern end, the Altyn Tagh fault progressively loses displacement by its interaction with a series of WNW–ESE trending structures, mostly with components of reverse displacement and sinistral (left lateral) strike-slip. The Changma fault is one of those structures. [3]\n\nThe region stricken by this earthquake included the entire Changma Basin and the western part of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu province. [1] The greatest damage occurred in Changma. In Gaotai, Jinta, Anxi and Dingxin part of the city walls and some buildings collapsed and many houses were damaged. In the town of Changma all 800 families were affected, 270 people died and at least another 300 were injured; deaths were also recorded in Gaotai (3) and Jinta (2). [1]\n\nA surface rupture of about 116 km was identified after the earthquake, including five separate fault segments,[1] the largest rupture observed for a reverse-slip event in Asia in the twentieth century. [4] Four of the segments that ruptured were reverse faults, the fifth was a strike-slip fault. Vertical offsets of more than a metre were observed on most of the segments, with a maximum of 5 m.[5]\n\nThe 1932 Changma earthquake shows that apparently separate mapped intracontinental reverse faults may rupture simultaneously in an earthquake. Estimates of the seismic hazard in an area based on the rupture of single reverse faults may lead to a major underestimate of the magnitudes of the largest possible earthquake. [5]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["destroyed 1,167 houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["close to the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["town of Changma all 800 families were affected, 270 people died and at least another 300 were injured; deaths were also recorded in Gaotai (3) and Jinta","caused 275 deaths and 320 injuries"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["The region stricken by this earthquake included the entire Changma Basin and the western part of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu province"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1932","10:04:27 local time (02:04:07 UTC) on 25 December"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["magnitude of 7.6 on the surface wave magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1997 Jabalpur earthquake","document":"The 1997 Jabalpur earthquake occurred on May 22, at 04:21:31 AM in Jabalpur District in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The epicenter of the earthquake was located near Koshamghat village. [4][5] According to geologist Dr V. Subramanyan,  former professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), the earthquake was caused by movement on the Narmada Fault. [6][7]\n\nMajor damage occurred to structures in the Jabalpur District, Mandla District, Seoni District and Chhindwara District in Madhya Pradesh. Jabalpur and Mandla were the worst affected districts. A total of 887 villages were affected. Approximately 8,546 houses collapsed and nearly 52,690 houses were partially damaged. [4] Some aftershock activity occurred, but they did not cause any additional damage. Longitudinal ground cracks were observed in some locations of the affected area[4]\n\nThe affected region consisted of both rural and urban areas and the campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University was the worst affected structure in the urban area. Diagonal cracks occurred in walls, buildings were partially collapsed and the hostel for postgraduate students was severely damaged. Approximately 1,500 houses owned by the Indian Railways were damaged. In Jabalpur, a 500,000 gallon-capacity shaft-supported water tank for storage and distribution of drinking water sustained both horizontal cracking and diagonal cracking. Some earthen dams located in the districts of Jabalpur and Mandla reportedly developed longitudinal cracks. [4]\n\nThe search and rescue operation after the earthquake was relatively small. Only raw materials for food were supplied to the victims rather than cooked food because of the summer heat. The Indian Army was called in to aid. Many people were given cloth tents as temporary shelters. In rural areas persons whose houses had collapsed were provided with 18 wooden posts and 50 wooden purlins for reconstruction and cash assistance of 3,000 rupees. [4] MPs belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided to donate their one day's salary to the victims. [8]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Approximately 8,546 houses collapsed and nearly 52,690 houses were partially damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["The epicenter of the earthquake was located near Koshamghat village"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Jabalpur District, Mandla District, Seoni District and Chhindwara District in Madhya Pradesh"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1997","May 22, at 04:21:31 AM"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April 2011 Miyagi earthquake","document":"The April 2011 Miyagi earthquake (Japanese: \"2011 Miyagi Prefecture earthquake\" (2011年 宮城県沖地震, 2011-Nen Miyagi-ken-oki jishin)) occurred off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, approximately 66 kilometres (41 mi) east of Sendai, Japan. The Mw7.1 thrust earthquake was classified as an aftershock of the March 11 Tōhoku earthquake, and occurred at 23:32 JST (14:32 UTC) on Thursday, 7 April 2011. Several tsunami warnings were issued for the northeastern coast of Honshu; however, they were all canceled 90 minutes later. [5] Over 3 million households in the area were left without power, and several nuclear plants suffered minor inconveniences. There was no major structural damage, but the quake killed at least 4 people and injured 141. [6]\n\nThe Mw7.1 submarine earthquake occurred at a focal depth of 49 km (30.4 mi) in the western Pacific Ocean on 7 April 2011 at 14:21 UTC, approximately 66 km (41 mi) east of Sendai. The quake was a direct result of thrust faulting on or near the subduction zone plate boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates. Initially estimated at a magnitude of 7.4, the tremor was felt in several areas near the east coast of Honshu as an aftershock of the 11 March magnitude 9.0 megathrust Tōhoku earthquake. The aftershock sequence of this event is ongoing since 11 March, and includes over 58 earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater up until 7 April 2011, with only two others of magnitude 7.0 or greater. [1]\n\nAlthough the quake was located several miles offshore, moderate to very strong shaking was reported as far inland as Tokyo, about 333 km (207 mi) from its epicentre. [7] Upon the detection of the earthquake, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for Miyagi Prefecture, as well as tsunami alerts for Iwate Prefecture, Fukushima Prefecture, Aomori Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture and the Pacific Rim. Waves of between 0.5 and 1 m were anticipated, and residents along coastal areas were urged to evacuate. All warnings and alerts were canceled within 90 minutes, however. [8] The tremor caused widespread power outages, with power still not restored to some 3.6 million households across several prefectures by 8 April. [9] Nuclear power plants within the region also suffered from the outages; two of three power lines supplying power to fuel coolers were cut off at the Onagawa power plant. [10] Radioactive water consequently leaked out of spent fuel pools at three of its reactors, though no change in the radiation levels outside the plant was reported. [11] Five coal-powered power plants also shut down, adding to concerns over energy shortages. Fukushima I power plant, which had earlier been struck by the 11 March quake, evacuated its workers as a safety precaution, but the plant sustained no damage. [9]\n\nFour people were reported dead as a result of the earthquake, including an elderly woman in Yamagata Prefecture who lost power to her medical ventilator. [4] An additional 141 people suffered minor injuries, ranging from cuts and bruises to bone fractures. [10] No major  losses were reported, though some roads sustained damage, as well as a few homes. [12] The Nikkei index fell sharply at the closing but rebounded the next day when reports of limited damage were confirmed. [13][14]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["occurred off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, approximately 66 kilometres (41 mi) east of Sendai, Japan"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Four people were reported dead as a result of the earthquake","the quake killed at least 4 people and injured 141"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Tokyo, about 333 km (207 mi) from its epicentre"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["23:32 JST (14:32 UTC) on Thursday, 7 April 2011"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw7.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1985 Nahanni earthquakes","document":"The 1985 Nahanni earthquakes is the name for a continuous sequence of earthquakes that began in 1985 in the Nahanni region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. [1] The largest of these earthquakes occurred on December 23, reaching 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale. [1] This is one of the most significant earthquakes in Canada during the 20th century. [2] The earthquakes had a long succession of aftershocks and jolts. [1] The earthquakes amazed both the general public and the earth science community and have been felt in the Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and southeastern Alaska. [1]\n\nSources","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Nahanni region of the Northwest Territories, Canada"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1985","December 23"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.9 on the moment magnitude scale"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2002 Kalehe earthquake","document":"The 2002 Kalehe earthquake occurred on October 24 at 06:08 UTC. This earthquake had a magnitude Mw 6.2, and the epicenter was located in Democratic Republic of the Congo, near Lake Kivu. Eight people were reported dead. Building damage was reported in Goma, Lwiro, Kalehe, and Mugeri. [1][2] The seismicity, volcanism, and uplift in the basin of Lake Kivu delimits the rift of a tectonic plate. [3] Lake Kivu belongs to the western branch of the East African Rift System (EARS). The western branch is usually divided into several segments, and Lake Kivu belongs to the northern segment. [4]\n\nLake Kivu is formed in an active rift basin that is part of the western branch of the East African Rift System. The basin is a half-graben, with the main controlling fault on the western side. The other margin is mainly unfaulted and flexural in type. The active extension is WNW–ESE trending, perpendicular to the main border fault. [5] The displacement rate across this part of the EARS rift system is in the range 3–5 mm per year. Most earthquakes in the rift system are normal in type. [1]\n\nThe earthquake had a focal mechanism consistent with normal faulting and a hypocentral depth of 11.0 km. [1] These observations have been combined with the analysis of InSAR data and the known geology of the area to conclude that the earthquake was a result of movement on one of the east-dipping rift border faults. [6]\n\nThe earthquake was preceded by an eruption in the Nyiragongo volcanic area to the north of Lake Kivu, in January 2002. This is interpreted to be a diking event. Analysis of the effect of the diking on the stress field to the south suggests that faulting like that seen in the earthquake may have been promoted by this event. [6]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Eight people were reported dead"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Goma, Lwiro, Kalehe, and Mugeri","Democratic Republic of the Congo, near Lake Kivu"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["October 24 at 06:08 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw 6.2"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1884 Colchester earthquake","document":"\n\nThe Colchester earthquake, also known as the Great English earthquake, occurred on the morning of 22 April 1884 at 09:18. [1] It caused considerable damage in Colchester and the surrounding villages in Essex. [2] In terms of overall destruction caused it is certainly the most destructive earthquake to have hit the United Kingdom in at least the last 400 years, since the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580. At 9:18 am the earthquake struck, centred mainly in the villages of Wivenhoe, Abberton, Langenhoe, and Peldon causing the surrounding area to rise and fall violently as the waves spread, lasting for around 20 seconds. Measuring 4.6 on the Richter magnitude scale, the effects were felt across England, as well as in northern France and Belgium. The earthquake damaged about 1,250 buildings,[3] including almost every building in Wivenhoe and Abberton, and in settlements all the way to Ipswich. The medieval church in Langenhoe was significantly damaged, as were those in the villages of Layer-de-la-Haye, Layer Marney, Layer Breton,[4] and Peldon. [5] In Peldon, the local newspapers claimed that every building had been damaged in some way. The Guardian reported that the earthquake was greeted with terror by the people near Colchester. There are some reports that between 3 and 5 people were killed by the earthquake, but this has been disputed by other contemporary accounts. The Times reported damage \"in the many villages in the neighbourhood from Colchester to the sea coast\", with many poor people made homeless, and estimated the cost of the disaster at £10,000. It did, however, mention the death of a child at Rowhedge, attributed to the earthquake. [6] Mary Saunders, of Manningtree, drowned herself in the River Stour some days later. [7] The large waves caused by the earthquake destroyed many small craft. It is believed that the earthquake resulted from movement along a fault in the ancient Palaeozoic rocks that underpin most of Essex, causing waves to propagate through the overlying Cretaceous and Tertiary layers. As is often the case, it is not always the strongest earthquakes that cause the most damage, and the British Geological Survey estimates that the 1884 earthquake's magnitude was only around 4.6 on the Richter magnitude scale, compared with 6.1 for the 1931 Dogger Bank earthquake. [8]\nLangenhoe Church was badly damaged. Masonry tumbled off the tower, crashing into the roof of the nave and chancel. The nearby rectory was also damaged.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["1,250 buildings"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["10,000"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["centred mainly in the villages of Wivenhoe, Abberton, Langenhoe, and Peldon"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Colchester and the surrounding villages in Essex","the effects were felt across England, as well as in northern France and Belgium"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["morning of 22 April 1884 at 09:18"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["4.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1932 Jalisco earthquakes","document":"The 1932 Jalisco earthquakes began on June 3 at 10:36 UTC with a megathrust event that registered 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale. [2] With a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale, at least 400 deaths were caused in Mexico and neighboring Guatemala. [2] It was the first of a series of seismic events that affected parts of western Mexico during the month of June 1932, all reaching magnitude 7 or greater. [4]\n\nThe Mexican subduction zone, the Middle America Trench, is seismically active and has generated both destructive and non-destructive tsunamis. Each earthquake in the series caused significant damage, injuries, and deaths, and in each case tsunamis of various heights were generated, with the June 22 catastrophic tsunami in Cuyutlán and San Blas being described as one of the most destructive events in the region based on all available historical records. [5]\n\nThis part of Mexico lies on a complex convergent boundary where the Rivera Plate and the Cocos Plate are being subducted beneath the North American Plate. The transform boundary between the Rivera and Cocos Plates is poorly defined. This earthquake is thought to have ruptured the south-easternmost segment of the interface involving the Rivera Plate,[6] although it may also have affected the north-westernmost part of the Cocos-North American Plate interface. [7]\n\nThe complex subduction zone off the coast of Colima and Jalisco experiences large recurring earthquakes. Prior events occurred in 1806, 1818, and 1900, and a recurrence period of 77 years was proposed for the region, but because of difficulty in positively identifying the rupture zones, this time frame was not precisely established. [8]  In 2003, near the same location, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 claimed 29 lives. The mainshock was preceded by a series of small foreshocks. [2] The rupture is thought to have initiated near Manzanillo, propagating to the northwest, although early reports from seismologists placed the epicenter farther southeast near the border of Oaxaca and Guerrero. [9] The length of the rupture is estimated to be about 220 km. [6] Seismometers located in New York, London, and Pasadena, California all measured the earthquake. [9]\n\nCarlos Valdez, director of the National Seismology Center at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, called the earthquake the most powerful quake in modern Mexican history. [10]\n\nThe initial earthquake of June 3 off of the coast of Colima and Jalisco caused extensive damage along western Mexico, with much of the deaths and injuries concentrated in the area of Guadalajara. Early reporting from the Los Angeles Times noted that there were 300 deaths or injuries in that area alone. [3]\n\nFifteen days after the first shock, June 18 at 4:15 am, there was a magnitude 7.7 event with an estimated rupture length of 60 kilometers (37 mi) and a duration of 22 seconds. [1] Similar patterns of damage occurred as in the first quake. This time the human loss was centered around the city of Colima with 3 deaths and twelve injured, with heavy damage reported in Manzanillo. [11] The low number of casualties may have been a result of many residents still sleeping outdoors since the previous quake. [11] The Governor of Colima's home partially collapsed, though he escaped injury. [12] The tsunami created from this event, reported to be 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) in height, was the smallest generated from the three June earthquakes. [13]\n\nThe final and smallest event occurred on June 22 with a magnitude 7 earthquake. A few minutes after the quake, there was a tsunami which resulted in the almost total destruction of the hotels and village homes in the city of Cuyutlán. [14] The wave(s) were reported to be up to 10 meters (33 ft) in height. [15] Up to 100 people were reported killed as the wave swept into the center of that small coastal village. [16] The port city of Manzanillo also saw heavy damage again, but early reports via messenger did not indicate any deaths in that area. [14] Both wired telegraph and radio communications were interrupted there. [11] As Governor Saucedo gathered reports of inadequate care for those affected in Cuyutlán following the destructive wave, he appealed to the Red Cross to fill gaps where federal and state aid were proving ineffective. [16] In the capital of Colima, where the residents were already recovering in their own neighborhoods, 2000 refugees were taken in from the wave swept coast. [16]\n\nThe earthquake triggered a tsunami that had a maximum run-up height of 3 m at Bahia San Pedrito in Manzanillo. The tsunami was also recorded at Apia, San Diego, Hilo and Honolulu. [17] Little damage was recorded from the tsunami other than the washing out of part of the railway line between Cuyutlán and Manzanillo and partial flooding of the port town of San Blas, Nayarit,[17] but no deaths occurred there. [18]\n\nThe earthquake caused significant damage and deaths in Colima, Ayotlán, Manzanillo, Cihuatlán,  Zamora and Acatlán de Juárez. In Colima almost 3,000 houses were damaged. [2] The sixteenth century Guadalajara Cathedral also sustained damage in the quake. [10] Farther south in Mexico city several buildings toppled over and numerous cracks formed on the streets. [9]\n\nFollowing the quake there were no communications coming in from the city of Oaxaca. [9] That city had suffered heavy damage the prior year in a magnitude 7.8 event,[4] and there was initial concern that there had been a repeat event with a high death toll centered in that area. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["at least 400 deaths"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Mexico and neighboring Guatemala"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["June 3 at 10:36 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["8.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2010 Haiti earthquake","document":"\n\nA catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. [7][8] The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. [9] An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. [10] Death toll estimates range from 100,000[4] to about 160,000[6] to Haitian government figures from 220,000[11][12] to 316,000,[4] although these latter figures are a matter of some dispute. [5] The government of Haiti estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. [13] The nation's history of national debt, prejudicial trade policies by other countries, and foreign intervention into national affairs, contributed to the existing poverty and poor housing conditions that increased the death toll from the disaster. [14]\n\nThe earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other cities in the region. Notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Joseph Serge Miot,[15] and opposition leader Micha Gaillard. [16][17] The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi. [18][19]\n\nMany countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. The most-watched telethon in history aired on 22 January, called \"Hope for Haiti Now,\" raising US$58 million by the next day. [20] Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritising flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince's morgues were overwhelmed with tens of thousands of bodies. These had to be buried in mass graves. [21]\n\nAs rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed. On 22 January, the United Nations noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day, the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors. The island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is seismically active and has a history of destructive earthquakes. During Haiti's time as a French colony, earthquakes were recorded by French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750–1819). He described damage done by an earthquake in 1751, writing that \"only one masonry building had not collapsed\" in Port-au-Prince; he also wrote that the \"whole city collapsed\" in the 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake. Cap-Haïtien, other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the Sans-Souci Palace were destroyed during an earthquake on 7 May 1842. [22] A magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the Dominican Republic and shook Haiti on 4 August 1946, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people and injured many others. [23]\n\nHaiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and is ranked 149th of 182 countries on the Human Development Index. [24] The Australian government's travel advisory site had previously expressed concerns that Haitian emergency services would be unable to cope in the event of a major disaster,[25] and the country is considered \"economically vulnerable\" by the Food and Agriculture Organization. [26] Haiti is no stranger to natural disasters. In addition to earthquakes, it has been struck frequently by tropical cyclones, which have caused flooding and widespread damage. The most recent cyclones to hit the island before the earthquake were Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, all in the summer of 2008, causing nearly 800 deaths. [27]\n\nThe magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake occurred inland, on 12 January 2010 at 16:53 (UTC−05:00), approximately 25 km (16 mi) WSW from Port-au-Prince at a depth of 13 km (8.1 mi)[7] on blind thrust faults associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system[28] and lasted less than 30 seconds. [29]\nThere is no evidence of surface rupture; based on seismological, geological and ground deformation data, it is also thought that the earthquake did not involve significant lateral slip on the main Enriquillo fault. [30] Strong shaking associated with intensity IX on the Modified Mercalli scale (MM) was recorded in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs. It was also felt in several surrounding countries and regions, including Cuba (MM III in Guantánamo), Jamaica (MM II in Kingston), Venezuela (MM II in Caracas), Puerto Rico (MM II–III in San Juan), and the bordering Dominican Republic (MM III in Santo Domingo). [31][32] According to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, approximately 3.5 million people lived in the area that experienced shaking intensity of MM VII to X,[31] a range that can cause moderate to very heavy damage even to earthquake-resistant structures. Shaking damage was more severe than for other quakes of similar magnitude due to the quake's shallow depth. [33][34]\n\nThe quake occurred in the vicinity of the northern boundary where the Caribbean tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 mm (0.79 in) per year in relation to the North American plate. The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in the south; both its location and focal mechanism suggested that the January 2010 quake was caused by a rupture of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which had been locked for 250 years, gathering stress. [35] However, a study published in May 2010 suggested that the rupture process may have involved slip on multiple blind thrust faults with only minor, deep, lateral slip along or near the main Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone, suggesting that the event only partially relieved centuries of accumulated left-lateral strain on a small part of the plate-boundary system. [30] The rupture was roughly 65 km (40 mi) long with mean slip of 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in). [36] Preliminary analysis of the slip distribution found amplitudes of up to about 4 m (13 ft) using ground motion records from all over the world. [37][38]\n\nA 2007 earthquake hazard study by C. DeMets and M. Wiggins-Grandison noted that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could be at the end of its seismic cycle and concluded that a worst-case forecast would involve a 7.2 Mw earthquake, similar in size to the 1692 Jamaica earthquake. [39] Paul Mann and a group including the 2006 study team presented a hazard assessment of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system to the 18th Caribbean Geologic Conference in March 2008, noting the large strain; the team recommended \"high priority\" historical geologic rupture studies, as the fault was fully locked and had recorded few earthquakes in the preceding 40 years. [40] An article published in Haiti's Le Matin newspaper in September 2008 cited comments by geologist Patrick Charles to the effect that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince. [41]\n\nThe U.S. Geological Survey recorded eight aftershocks in the two hours after the main earthquake, with magnitudes between 4.3 and 5.9. [42] Within the first nine hours, 32 aftershocks of magnitude 4.2 or greater were recorded, 12 of which measured magnitude 5.0 or greater; in addition, on 24 January, the US Geological Survey reported that there had been 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater since the main quake. [42]\n\nOn 20 January, at 06:03 local time (11:03 UTC), the strongest aftershock since the earthquake,[43] measuring magnitude 5.9 Mw, struck Haiti. [44] USGS reported its epicenter was about 56 km (35 mi) WSW of Port-au-Prince,[42] which would place it almost exactly under the coastal town of Petit-Goâve. A UN representative reported that the aftershock collapsed seven buildings in the town. [45] According to staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had reached Petit-Goâve for the first time the day before the aftershock, the town was estimated to have lost 15% of its buildings, and was suffering the same shortages of supplies and medical care as the capital. [46] Workers from the charity Save the Children reported hearing \"already weakened structures collapsing\" in Port-au-Prince,[43] but most sources reported no further significant damage to infrastructure in the city.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["52","32"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Death toll estimates range from 100,000[4] to about 160,000"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other cities in the region"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1954 Adelaide earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1954 Adelaide earthquake had its epicentre at Darlington, a suburb of the city of Adelaide in South Australia, some 12 km (7.5 mi) to the south of the Adelaide city centre. The quake took place at 3:40 am in the early morning of 1 March 1954 and had a reported magnitude of 5.6. [1] An area of more than 700 km2 sustained an intensity greater than V on the Mercalli intensity scale. As Australia lies in the middle of a tectonic plate, South Australia is relatively stable geologically. However, South Australia is the second most earthquake-prone of the Australian states with around 3–4 tremors each day. Most tremors are of a magnitude below 2.5, and so noteworthy only to seismologists. Since they are dispersed fairly evenly across the state, most occur well away from centres of human population. The 1954 Adelaide earthquake differed because of its magnitude, which made it the fourth most intense earthquake reported in the state since settlement in 1836, and because it occurred in an area of dense human settlement. The quake is thought to have started along the Eden-Burnside fault line, which is essentially the Hills face zone, at a depth of 4 km. However, due to a lack of instruments at the time, this is uncertain. [2] Due to the Adelaide plains being primarily heavy clay, amplification of the tremor was reduced, resulting in less damage than a quake of this size would be expected to cause in a metropolitan area. There were no reported fatalities, and 16 reported injuries. [2][3]\n\nThe total cost of the damage was estimated at around £17 million (2017: $578 million), but only £3 million (2017:$104 million) was paid out in insurance for 30,303 claims, covering around 22% of the damaged buildings. Adelaide in 1954 was still subject to wartime rationing, and most damaged property was uninsured. [3] The earthquake was the most destructive earthquake in recorded Australian history until 1989, when it was eclipsed by the 5.6 Richter magnitude Newcastle earthquake, which caused $4 billion damage, killed 13 people, and injured 160. One of the settlement's earliest buildings, the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street, suffered partial collapse. Other major buildings severely damaged included the local Catholic cathedral, St Francis Xavier Cathedral, the General Post Office clock tower, and a newly completed hospital in Blackwood which sustained major damage in all its wards and offices (though an operating theatre survived). [2] The Wakefield Street Private Hospital was damaged to the tune of £600, which was not covered by insurance. [4]\n\nThe Britannia statue in Pirie Street, Adelaide was badly damaged, and since it had also been similarly damaged in the 1897 Beachport and 1902 Warooka earthquakes, the clock in the statue was permanently removed. [5]\n\nOutside of Adelaide there was little damage. The Troubridge Island Lighthouse off the south east corner of Yorke Peninsula, 83 km west of Adelaide across the Gulf St Vincent, shut down after the quake damaged its generator, while the Cape St Albans Lighthouse on Kangaroo Island began flashing irregularly. [5]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["around £17 million (2017: $578 million)"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["epicentre at Darlington, a suburb of the city of Adelaide in South Australia, some 12 km (7.5 mi) to the south of the Adelaide city centre"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["3:40 am in the early morning of 1 March 1954"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["5.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1915 Asmara earthquake","document":"The 1913 Asmara earthquake took place outside Asmara, Eritrea on 27 February. The data as to the magnitude of the earthquake is imprecise due to the frequency and magnitude of aftershocks, but a maximum felt intensity of VI (Strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale was recorded at Asmara. [1] The \"felt\" area of the earthquake extended into Northern Ethiopia as well as Kassala in Sudan. The earthquake caused significant damage in Asmara (VI), Keren (IV), Massawa (V) and Adi Ugri (V). This Eritrea-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["outside Asmara, Eritrea"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["The \"felt\" area of the earthquake extended into Northern Ethiopia as well as Kassala in Sudan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["27 February"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1939 Erzincan earthquake","document":"The 1939 Erzincan earthquake struck eastern Turkey at 1:57:23 a.m. on 27 December local time with a moment magnitude of 7.8 Mw and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). This was one of the largest in a sequence of violent shocks to affect Turkey along the North Anatolian Fault between 1939 and 1999. Surface rupturing, with an horizontal displacement of up to 3.7 meters, occurred in a 360 km long segment of the North Anatolian Fault Zone. [4][5] The earthquake was the most severe natural loss of life in Turkey in the 20th century, with 32,968 dead,[5] and some 100,000 injured. [6]\n\nThe North Anatolian Fault in Asia Minor is a major transform fault boundary where the Eurasian Plate slides past the smaller Anatolian Microplate. Running for over 1,600 km, the fault stretches from Eastern Turkey to the Sea of Marmara. [7]\nThe North Anatolian fault has been, and remains very active. Erzincan has been destroyed by earthquakes at least 11 times since 1,000 AD. [8] Between 1942 and 1967, there were six major earthquakes along the same fault, with three above 7 Mw. [5][9]\n\nWith an epicenter near the city of Erzincan, the earthquake rupture propagated westwards for a length of 400 km. [10] Surface ruptures are still visible to this day. The shaking lasted for 52 seconds. [11][better source needed] It resulted in a tsunami with heights of 1–3 m (3.3–9.8 ft) that hit the Black sea coast. [12]\n\nThe earthquake seriously damaged some 116,720 buildings. [13] Occurring in winter, it was difficult for aid to reach the affected areas. Initially, the death toll was about 8,000 people. The next day, it was reported that it had risen to 20,000. An emergency rescue operation began. By January 5, almost 33,000 had died due to the earthquakes and to blizzard conditions, followed by heavy rains that caused floods. [14]\n\nThe total destruction of the earthquake prompted Turkey to adopt seismic building regulations. [15] So extensive was the damage to the city of Erzincan that its old site was entirely abandoned and a new settlement was founded a little further to the north.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["116,720 buildings"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["with 32,968 dead,[5] and some 100,000 injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["struck eastern Turkey"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1:57:23 a.m. on 27 December local time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.8 Mw"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2012 Afghanistan earthquakes","document":"\n\nOn 11 June 2012, two moderate earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan, causing a large landslide. The landslide buried the town of Sayi Hazara, trapping 71 people. After four days of digging, only five bodies were recovered and the search was called off. [3] Overall, 75 people were killed and 13 others were injured. [4]\n\nThe first earthquake struck at 09:32 local time (05:02 UTC), registering a magnitude of 5.4 at 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) depth. A second quake struck 25 minutes later, measuring 5.7 magnitude. [5] The epicenter of both quakes was approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) southwest of Fayzabad. [5] The quakes could be felt 170 kilometres (110 mi) away in the capital of Kabul. [6]\n\nThe quakes caused a large portion of a mountain in the Hindu Kush region to break off. An estimated, one hectare of land was covered in up to 100 metres (330 ft) of debris by the landslide in the Burka District of Baghlan Province. [5][7] The village of Sayi Hazara was hardest hit, buried under 30 to 100 meters of rock from the landslide. [5][7]\n\nAccording to Baghlan provincial governor Munshi Majeed, Sayi Hazara was completely destroyed by the landslide. He said there was little hope in finding any survivors in the 23 homes buried when a large portion of the nearby mountain broke free and inundated the village. Only one home survived. [6] Rescue workers worked throughout 11 June and into the night, but heard no human noises. Baghlan Provincial Council member Haji Wakil told reporters, \"The mountain was too big and strong... There is silence and silence alone. \"[6] Majeed added, \"This is a human tragedy. An entire village was lost... Two bulldozers are now there to recover the dead bodies but the amount of stones and debris that has hit the village makes the chances of survivors very slim. \"[6] At the time of the earthquake, most adult males were away from the village working farmland, so the victims are mostly women and children. [8] As of 13 June, only two bodies had been recovered. \"We have to dig and find the 69 other bodies,\" said provincial spokesperson Mahmood Haqmal. \"It is not an easy task, but the government has promised that they... will stay until they find the last bodies. \"[9]\n\nOn 14 June, the search was called off after only five bodies were recovered. The government said the area would be turned into a permanent memorial for the 66 people whose bodies were not found. [3] Religious leaders recommended the area be renamed \"Martyrs Hill\" in honor of the dead. [3] In total, more than 800 people helped with rescue efforts before the search was ended. [3]\n\nIn addition to Sayi Hazara, four other areas, across three districts, in Baghlan Province reported damage. [9][10] In Nahrin district, three people were killed, while in Guzargahi Nur, one person lost his life. [4] The United Nations and the Afghan Red Crescent Society have sent humanitarian aid to the area. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["The epicenter of both quakes was approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) southwest of Fayzabad"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":["71 people"]},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["75 people were killed and 13 others were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["In addition to Sayi Hazara, four other areas, across three districts, in Baghlan Province reported damage","The quakes could be felt 170 kilometres (110 mi) away in the capital of Kabul","northern Afghanistan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 June 2012","The first earthquake struck at 09:32 local time (05:02 UTC)","A second quake struck 25 minutes later"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a magnitude of 5.4"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"June 2011 Christchurch earthquake","document":"\n\nThe June 2011 Christchurch earthquake was a shallow magnitude 6.0 Mw earthquake that occurred on 13 June 2011 at 14:20 NZST (02:20 UTC). It was centred at a depth of 7 km (4.3 mi),[1] about 5 km (3 mi) south-east of Christchurch,[7] which had previously been devastated by a magnitude 6.2 MW earthquake in February 2011. The June quake was preceded by a magnitude 5.9 ML tremor that struck the region at a slightly deeper 8.9 km (5.5 mi). The United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 6.0 Mw and a depth of 9 km (5.6 mi). The earthquake produced severe shaking, registering at VIII on the Mercalli scale in and around Christchurch. It destroyed several structures and caused additional damage to many others which had been affected by previous earthquakes. The damaged tower of the historic Lyttelton Timeball Station collapsed before dismantling work could be completed. The earthquake downed phone lines and cut off power to 54,000 households. Restoration costs in Christchurch following the February earthquake were estimated to increase by NZ$6 billion (US$4.8 billion) because of the additional damage from this event. Forty-six people suffered injuries, two of which critical, and one elderly man died after being knocked unconscious. New Zealand lies along the boundary between the Australian and Pacific Plates. In the South Island most of the relative displacement between these plates is taken up along a single dextral (right lateral) strike-slip fault with a major reverse component, the Alpine Fault. In the North Island the displacement is mainly taken up along the Kermadec subduction zone, although the remaining dextral strike-slip component of the relative plate motion is accommodated by the North Island Fault System (NIFS). [8] A group of dextral strike-slip structures, known as the Marlborough Fault System, transfer displacement between the mainly transform and convergent type plate boundaries in a complex zone at the northern end of the South Island. [9] This zone of deformation is now known to be expanding south and east into the Canterbury region. Beneath the northern and eastern Canterbury Plains, a series of active SW-NE trending thrust faults have been recognised, linked by W-E trending strike-slip faults that at least in part reactivate Cretaceous age extensional faults. [10]\n\nNew Zealand has a history of earthquakes. Since the European settlement, the largest on record was a magnitude 8.2 ML major earthquake that occurred on 23 January 1855 near the Wairarapa plains of the North Island. [11] Another destructive magnitude 7.8 ML earthquake struck the region near Hawke's Bay on 3 February 1931; it is the deadliest earthquake recorded on the island to date, greatly affecting much of Napier and Hastings. [12]\n\nIn comparison, the South Island has experienced fewer large earthquakes. The magnitude 7.1 Mw event of 4 September 2010 produced by far the strongest ground motions ever recorded in the Canterbury region,[13] triggering a large number of aftershocks. Although similar aftershock sequences have historically occurred around the world, such occurrences were extremely unusual in the region, which had shown low levels of seismic activity for thousands of years. The event has led to the discovery of previously dormant geological faults across central-eastern South Island, in particular beneath regional plains and the adjacent seabed. [14]\n\nThe magnitude 6.0 Mw earthquake occurred inland on 13 June 2011 at 14:20 NZST, (02:20 UTC) at a shallow depth of 7 km (4 mi),[1] about 5 km (3 mi) to the south-east of Christchurch, New Zealand. [7] Owing to the interaction of the major Pacific and Australia Plates, much of the regional plate boundary along central South Island is characterised by land deformation. The earthquake was a direct result of strike-slip faulting at the eastern end of the rupture zone of a strong magnitude 6.2 MW earthquake, which occurred on 22 February 2011 along the Port Hills Fault. [15] The June earthquake was preceded by a magnitude 5.9 ML tremor with a similar focal mechanism that struck 1 hour and 20 minutes earlier. [16] Experts believe the quakes were triggered by a previously undiscovered fault in the region, located several kilometres south of the Port Hills Fault. [17] The United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 6.0 Mw and a focal depth of 9 km (5.6 mi) for the earthquake, while the precursor tremor was assigned a magnitude of 5.2 Mw at a similar depth. [18][19]\n\nSeismologists reported that the earthquakes were part of a prolonged aftershock sequence associated with the major magnitude 7.1 earthquake of September 2010, which includes the February 2011 event. [15] They were succeeded by multiple lighter aftershocks; the strongest, a moderate magnitude 5.1 ML struck a minute after the event. Another tremor 5.0 ML struck the region two days later. [20] Despite significant energy release, the earthquakes were believed to have increased the risk of an additional aftershock of similar magnitude; calculations from GNS Science indicated a 23 percent probability of a magnitude 6.0–6.9 ML earthquake occurring in the Canterbury aftershock zone within the 12 months following the event. [17] Weeks later, a magnitude 5.4 ML tremor jolted Christchurch overnight on 22 June, causing additional damage and prompting evacuations. [21]\n\nFocused only several kilometres below the surface, the earthquake resulted in significant shaking over a large portion of central-eastern South Island. Maximum ground motions registered at VIII (severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale in Christchurch, while strong shaking (MM VI) was felt in adjacent populated areas such as Rolleston and Lincoln. The landforms of Sumner recorded intensified shaking due to the effects of its topographic setting. [22] Widespread lighter motions were observed throughout much of the remaining region,[23] with slight property damage reported from as far afield as Dunedin. The earthquake was felt as far away as New Plymouth and Invercargill. [3]\n\nThe earthquake and the precursor tremor struck during the afternoon near a populated area, where most buildings had been left in precarious conditions by the February 2011 event. The June earthquake affected roughly 400,000 people, most of whom may have experienced strong (MM VI) shaking. [23] It caused damage to buildings and infrastructure alike, collapsing or otherwise destroying several homes. [24] There were at least 46 injuries: falling debris struck several people, and two others were hospitalised in critical condition. [6] In the city centre, two workers were brought to hospital after being rescued from a collapsed church. The following morning, officials confirmed the death of an elderly man who had been knocked unconscious from a fall in his nursing home. [5][25]\n\nIn the wake of the earthquake, multiple phone lines were down, and scattered power outages affected about 54,000 households. The tremor had damaged 70 underground 11,000 volt cables, contributing to the outages,[26] and ruptured water mains, resulting in widespread street flooding. [27] Officials ordered the precautionary closure of bridges in the area,[28] as one bridge had already succumbed to the strong shaking. [27] Several days after the tremor, dislodged electrical wiring from the ongoing aftershocks sparked a small fire in a control panel at Christchurch Hospital. [29]\n\nStrong ground motions caused many secondary effects, including gas leaks and widespread soil liquefaction.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["Restoration costs in Christchurch following the February earthquake were estimated to increase by NZ$6 billion (US$4.8 billion)"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["It was centred at a depth of 7 km (4.3 mi),[1] about 5 km (3 mi) south-east of Christchurch"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Forty-six people suffered injuries, two of which critical, and one elderly man died"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["The earthquake was felt as far away as New Plymouth and Invercargill"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["13 June 2011 at 14:20 NZST (02:20 UTC)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["a shallow magnitude 6.0 Mw earthquake"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1960 Valdivia earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1960 Valdivia earthquake (Spanish: Terremoto de Valdivia) or the Great Chilean earthquake (Gran terremoto de Chile) on 22 May 1960 was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale. [1] It occurred in the afternoon (19:11 GMT, 15:11 local time), and lasted for approximately 10 minutes. The resulting tsunamis affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia, and the Aleutian Islands. The epicenter of this megathrust earthquake was near Lumaco, approximately 570 kilometres (350 mi) south of Santiago, with Valdivia being the most affected city. The tremor caused localised tsunamis that severely battered the Chilean coast, with waves up to 25 metres (82 ft). The main tsunami traveled across the Pacific Ocean and devastated Hilo, Hawaii, where waves as high as 10.7 metres (35 ft) were recorded over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) from the epicenter. The death toll and monetary losses arising from this widespread disaster are not certain. [5]\nVarious estimates of the total number of fatalities from the earthquake and tsunamis have been published, ranging between 1,000 and 6,000 killed. [4] Different sources have estimated the monetary cost ranged from US$400 million to $800 million[6] (or $3.5 billion to $7 billion in 2020, adjusted for inflation). The 1960 Chilean earthquakes were a sequence of strong earthquakes that affected Chile between 21 May and 6 June 1960, centered in the Araucanía, Aysén, and Bío Bío regions of the country. The first three quakes, all registering in the planet's top 10 by magnitude for 1960, are grouped together as the 1960 Concepción earthquakes. The first of these was the 8.1 Mw Concepción earthquake at 06:02 UTC-4 on 21 May 1960. Its epicenter was near Curanilahue. Telecommunications to southern Chile were cut off and President Jorge Alessandri cancelled the traditional ceremony of the Battle of Iquique memorial holiday to oversee the emergency assistance efforts. The second and third Concepción earthquakes occurred the next day at 06:32 UTC-4 (7.1 Mw) and 14:55 UTC-4 (7.8 Mw) on 22 May. These earthquakes formed a southward migrating foreshock sequence to the main Valdivia shock, which occurred just 15 minutes after the third event. [7]\n\nThe earthquake interrupted and effectively ended Lota's coal miners' march on Concepción as they demanded higher salaries. [8]\n\nThe Valdivia earthquake occurred at 15:11 UTC-4 on 22 May, and affected all of Chile between Talca and Chiloé Island, more than 400,000 square kilometres (150,000 sq mi). Coastal villages, such as Toltén, were struck. At Corral, the main port of Valdivia, the water level rose 4 m (13 ft) before it began to recede. At 16:20 UTC-4, a wave of 8 m (26 ft) struck the Chilean coast, mainly between Concepción and Chiloé. Another wave measuring 10 m (33 ft) was reported ten minutes later. Hundreds of people were already reported dead by the time the tsunami struck. One ship, Canelos, starting at the mouth of the Valdivia River, sank after being moved 1.5 km (0.93 mi) backward and forward in the river; as of 2005, its mast was still visible from the road to Niebla. [9]\n\nThe Valdivian Fort System from the Spanish colonial period were completely destroyed. Soil subsidence also destroyed buildings, deepened local rivers, and created wetlands in such places as the Río Cruces and Chorocomayo, a new aquatic park north of the city. Extensive areas of the city were flooded. The electricity and water systems of Valdivia were totally destroyed. Witnesses reported underground water flowing up through the soil. Despite the heavy rains of 21 May, the city was without a water supply. The river turned brown with sediment from landslides and was full of floating debris, including entire houses. The lack of potable water became a serious problem in one of Chile's rainiest regions. [citation needed]\n\nThe earthquake did not strike all the territory with the same strength; measured with the Mercalli scale, tectonically depressed areas suffered heavier damage. The two most affected areas were Valdivia and Puerto Octay, near the northwest corner of Llanquihue Lake. Puerto Octay was the center of a north–south elliptical area in the Central Valley, where the intensity was at the highest outside the Valdivia Basin. [10] East of Puerto Octay, in a hotel in Todos los Santos Lake, stacked plates were reported to have remained in place. [10] Excepting poor building sites, the zone of Mercalli scales intensities of VII or more all lay west of the Andes in a strip running from Lota (37° S) southwards. The area of intensities of VII or more did not penetrate into the Central Valley north of Lleulleu Lake (38° S) and south of Castro (42.5° S). [11]\n\nTwo days after the earthquake Cordón Caulle, a volcanic vent close to Puyehue volcano, erupted. Other volcanoes may also have erupted, but none were recorded because of the lack of communication in Chile at the time. The relatively low death toll in Chile (5,700) is explained in part by the low population density in the region, and by building practices that took into account the area's high geological activity. One of the main aftershocks occurred on 6 June in Aysén Region. [12] This earthquake probably occurred along the Liquiñe-Ofqui Fault, meaning in this case that the fault would have moved as a consequence of the 22 May Valdivia earthquake. [12]\n\nThe earthquake was a megathrust earthquake resulting from the release of mechanical stress between the subducting Nazca Plate and the South American Plate, on the Peru–Chile Trench. The focus was relatively shallow at 33 km (21 mi), considering that earthquakes in northern Chile and Argentina may reach depths of 70 km (43 mi). Subduction zones are known to produce the strongest earthquakes on earth, as their particular structure allows more stress to build up before energy is released. Geophysicists consider it a matter of time before this earthquake will be surpassed in magnitude by another. The earthquake's rupture zone was 800 km (500 mi) long, stretching from Arauco (37° S) to Chiloé Archipelago (43° S). Rupture velocity, the speed at which a rupture front expands across the surface of the fault, has been estimated as 3.5 km (2.2 mi) per second.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["ranged from US$400 million to $800 million[6] (or $3.5 billion to $7 billion in 2020, adjusted for inflation)"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Its epicenter was near Curanilahue","near Lumaco, approximately 570 kilometres (350 mi) south of Santiago"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["between 1,000 and 6,000 killed"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["22 May 1960","21 May 1960"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["9.4–9.6","8.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1956 Chim earthquake","document":"The 1956 Chim earthquake was a destructive multiple-shock event that occurred on March 16 in Lebanon along a strand of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. [1] The epicenter was located in the south of Lebanon in the Chouf District. Six thousand homes were destroyed and another 17,000 were damaged. The number of persons killed was 136. [2]\n\nThe DST is a 1,609 km (1,000 mi) long transform fault that runs in a mostly north-south direction from the northern end of the Red Sea along the Jordan Rift Valley to the Taurus Mountains complex in southern Turkey. The left-lateral fault zone marks the boundary of the Arabian Plate and the Sinai-Levantine block and consists of multiple parallel faults. [3] As the fault moves through Lebanon and Syria the fault trace follows a restraining bend and splits into several strands that include the Serghaya, Rachaya, and Roum faults, as well as the prominent Yammouneh fault. [4]\n\nThe Roum fault runs for a length of 35 kilometers (22 mi) between the Hula basin the Awali river and is the westernmost strand of the fault system in that area. A paleoseismic trench investigation revealed that it may have been the source of the twin-shock event. [5]\n\nThe twin shocks were separated by less than fifteen minutes with the first event occurring at 19:32 and the second event at 19:43 hours. [2] The initial shock was estimated to measure (Mw  = 5.3) and the second event was rated (Mw  = 5.5).","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Six thousand homes were destroyed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["south of Lebanon in the Chouf District"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["The number of persons killed was 136"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Lebanon along a strand of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1956","March 16"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["The initial shock was estimated to measure (Mw  = 5.3) and the second event was rated (Mw  = 5.5)"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1973 Veracruz earthquake","document":"The 1973 Veracruz earthquake, also known as El Terremoto de Orizaba, occurred at 3:50 a.m. local time (9:50 GMT) on August 28, with the epicenter located in the vicinity of Serdán in the Mexican state of Puebla. It registered 7.0 on the Richter magnitude scale and had a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The effects of the earthquake were felt in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Puebla in southeast Mexico. The area that was damaged in Veracruz is tropical and mountainous; Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's tallest peak, is located there. The earthquake occurred during the rainy season, with heavy rain coming down before and after the event making search and rescue difficult. Serdán is located in the rain shadow of the mountainous area and has a more arid climate. [7]\n\nMexico's southwest coast is much more seismically active than the southeast area near Orizaba. Earthquakes there have been relatively infrequent. The last prior strong event in the region was on June 17, 1928, when a magnitude-7.8 event occurred south of Serdán. However, the area 100 to 300 kilometers south of Serdán does see more very strong earthquakes, with three events over magnitude 7 in 1928 alone. [8]\n\nThere was extensive damage, leaving hundreds dead and widespread devastation, in several cities in Puebla. The death toll was at least 600, with as many as 1,200 dead, and 212 casualties alone in the small Ciudad Serdán. [9]\nMajor cities affected were Ciudad Serdán, Orizaba, Ixtaczoquitlán, Córdoba, Ciudad Mendoza, Zongolica, Rio Blanco, and Acutzingo. In Orizaba, a twelve-story apartment building collapsed as result of the earthquake. Many of the occupants, up to 100, were sleeping at the time, and this was the number proclaimed dead at that site. [10]\n\nThis event was the most disastrous earthquake in Puebla until the 1999 Tehuacán earthquake. [3]\n\nSources","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["located in the vicinity of Serdán in the Mexican state of Puebla"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["as many as 1,200 dead, and 212 casualties alone in the small Ciudad Serdán"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Mexican states of Veracruz and Puebla in southeast Mexico"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1973","3:50 a.m. local time (9:50 GMT) on August 28"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1990 Luzon earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1990 Luzon earthquake struck the island of Luzon in the Philippines at 4:26 p.m. on July 16 (PDT) or 3:26 p.m. (PST) with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent) and produced a 125 km-long ground rupture that stretched from Dingalan, Aurora to Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya. The event was a result of strike-slip movements along the Philippine Fault and the Digdig Fault within the Philippine Fault System. The earthquake's epicenter was near the town of Rizal, Nueva Ecija, northeast of Cabanatuan City. [4] An estimated 1,621 people were killed,[5][6] most of the fatalities located in Central Luzon and the Cordillera region. The earthquake caused damage within an area of about 20,000 square kilometers, stretching from the mountains of the Cordillera Administrative Region and through the Central Luzon region. The earthquake was strongly felt in Metropolitan Manila, destroying many buildings and leading to panic and stampedes and ultimately three deaths in the National Capital Region,[10] one of the lowest fatalities recorded in the wake of the tremor. The Southern Tagalog (nowadays Regions 4A and 4B) and Bicol Regions also felt the quake, but with low casualty figures. The popular destination of Baguio, situated over 5000 feet above sea level, was among the areas hardest hit by the Luzon earthquake. The earthquake caused 28 collapsed buildings, including hotels, factories, and government and university buildings, as well as many private homes and establishments. [11] \nThe quake destroyed electric, water and communication lines in the city. [12] The main vehicular route to Baguio, Kennon Road, as well as other access routes to the mountain city, were shut down due to landslides and it took three days before enough landslide debris was cleared to allow access by road to the stricken city. [12]\n\nBaguio City was isolated from the rest of the Philippines for the first 48 hours after the quake. Damage at Loakan Airport rendered access to the city by air limited to helicopters. [12] American and Philippine Air Force C-130s evacuated many residents from this airport. Many city residents, as well as patients confined in hospital buildings damaged by the quake, were forced to stay inside tents set up in public places, such as in Burnham Park and in the streets. Looting of department stores in the city was reported. [13]\nAmong the first rescuers to arrive at the devastated city were miners from Benguet Corporation, who focused on rescue efforts at the collapsed Hotel Nevada. [14] Teams sent by the Philippine government and by foreign governments and agencies likewise participated in the rescue and retrieval operations in Baguio City. One of the more prominent buildings destroyed was the Hyatt Terraces Baguio Hotel, where at least eighty hotel employees and guests were killed. However, three hotel employees were pulled out alive after having been buried under the rubble for nearly two weeks, and after international rescue teams had abandoned the site convinced there were no more survivors. [15] Luisa Mallorca and Arnel Calabia were extricated from the rubble 11 days after the quake, while hotel cook Pedrito Dy was recovered alive 14 days following the earthquake. [16] All three survived in part by drinking their own urine[16] and in Dy's case, rainwater. [14] At that time, Dy's 14-day ordeal was cited as a world record for entombment underneath rubble. [15]\n\nThe United States Agency for International Development was sponsoring a seminar at the Hotel Nevada when the tremor struck, causing the hotel to collapse. 27 of the seminar participants, including one American USAID official, were killed in the quake. [11] Among those who were pulled out alive from the ruins of the hotel was future senatorial candidate Sonia Roco, wife of politician Raul Roco, who was pulled out from the rubble by miners after 36 hours. [17]\n\nIn Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, the tallest building in the city, a six-story concrete school building housing the Christian College of the Philippines, collapsed during the earthquake, which occurred during school hours. Around 154 people were killed at the CCP building. Unlike in Baguio City, local and international journalists were able to arrive at Cabanatuan City within hours after the tremor, and media coverage of the quake in its immediate aftermath centered on the collapsed school, where rescue efforts were hampered by the lack of heavy equipment to cut through the steel reinforcement of fallen concrete. [10] Some of the victims who did not die in the collapse were found dead later from dehydration because they were not pulled out in time. [18]\n\nA 20-year-old high school student, Robin Garcia, was later credited with rescuing at least eight students and teachers by twice returning under the rubble to retrieve survivors. Garcia was killed by an aftershock hours after the quake while trying to rescue more survivors, and he received several posthumous tributes, including medals of honor from the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and President Corazon Aquino's[19] Grieving Heart Award for his heroic effort that brought the world's attention to the quake due to quick media coverage in the city, since most of the buildings were damaged save for the CCP building which was collapsed totally. In Dagupan City, about 90 buildings in the city were damaged, and about 20 collapsed. Some structures sustained damage because liquefaction caused buildings to sink as much as 1 metre (39 inches). The earthquake caused a decrease in the elevation of the city and several areas were flooded. The city suffered 64 casualties of which 47 survived and 17 died. Most injuries were sustained during stampedes at a university building and a theater. Five municipalities in La Union were affected: Agoo, Aringay, Caba, Santo Tomas, and Tubao with a combined population of 132,208. Many buildings, including the Agoo Municipal hall,[20] the Museo de Iloko and the Basilica Minore of our Lady of Charity,[21] collapsed or were severely damaged. 100,000 families were displaced when two coastal villages sank due to liquefaction. The province suffered many casualties leaving 32 people dead. Based on preliminary analysis, cases and controls were similar in age and sex distribution. Similar proportions of cases and controls were inside buildings (74% and 80%, respectively) and outside buildings (26% and 20%, respectively) during the earthquake. For persons who were inside a building, risk factors included building height, type of building material, and the floor level the person was on. Persons inside buildings with seven or more floors were 35 times more likely to be injured. Persons inside buildings constructed of concrete or mixed materials were three times more likely to sustain injuries than were those inside wooden buildings. Persons at middle levels of multistory buildings were twice as likely to be injured as those at the top or bottom levels. [citation needed]\n\nThe earthquake caused different patterns of damage in different parts of Luzon Island. The mountain resort of Baguio was most severely affected, it had a high population density and many tall concrete buildings, which were more susceptible to seismic damage. Relief efforts proved difficult as all routes of communication, roads, and airport access were severed for several days following the quake.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Dagupan City, about 90 buildings in the city were damaged, and about 20 collapsed","The earthquake caused 28 collapsed buildings"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near the town of Rizal, Nueva Ecija, northeast of Cabanatuan City"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["An estimated 1,621 people were killed"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the island of Luzon in the Philippines"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1990","4:26 p.m. on July 16 (PDT) or 3:26 p.m. (PST)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1948 Lady Caycay earthquake","document":"The 1948 Lady Caycay earthquake occurred at 01:46 PST (UTC+08:00) on 25 January 1948 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). The epicenter was between the municipalities of Anini-y, Antique, and Dao (present-day Tobias Fornier in Antique) on Panay Island, Philippines. The earthquake was the second biggest on record in the country as it caused widespread damage in Panay and nearby islands. However, accounts of its intensity and the tsunamis it generated are sparse, possibly because the earthquake struck as the Philippines was recovering from the effects of the Second World War[2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Caycay is a Kinaray-a  and Hiligaynon term describing the scratches on the ground similar to those made by chickens. The effects of the earthquake, which chiefly manifested as fissures on the ground, were said to be similar to chicken scratches [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Much of Iloilo province lies on soft ground, which is one of the possible reasons for the numerous fissures that appeared, especially in low-lying parts of the province. José María Cuenco, the Bishop of Jaro, estimated that the damage to 15 churches destroyed on Panay alone amounted to ₱7,000,000. In the town of Anini-y (the earthquake's epicentre), no distinct damage was seen in the century-old church—the only confirmed masonry structure existing at the time [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). The church, which was originally built in 1830 had been damaged during the Second World War [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). In Pandan and Culasi towns, it was reported that 50% of the houses were destroyed. Massive landslides also occurred in the mountain area [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Ibajay Bridge and Kalibo Bridge, which were the two of the biggest bridges in Panay, sustained damage [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). The Immaculate Conception Metropolitan Cathedral in Capiz (now Roxas City) was reported to have been damaged by the earthquake [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Most of the significant damage was found in the Iloilo province, specifically to extant Spanish-era churches. Bridges, communication lines, as well as public and private buildings all sustained heavy damage. The churches in Igbaras, San Miguel, Oton and Maasin were severely damaged and were demolished [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). The belfries of churches in Alimodian, Duenas, Dumangas, Guimbal, Lambunao, Passi, San Joaquin, and Arevalo districts in Iloilo City collapsed, while Jaro Cathedral (the city's episcopal see) was also severely damaged. 21 were reportedly killed in the city as another 43 were injured. Damage to churches was estimated at ₱200,000, with the total damage to the city reaching ₱1,000,000 [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). The Coronet Tower in Arevalo District also collapsed, as did the old Central School and back portion of the church in León. The churches of Pavia, Tubungan, Miag-ao, and Tigbauan also sustained damage [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Fissures erupted in the streets, causing traffic disruptions. Fissures were also observed along the roads between Pototan and Dingle and along the Santa Barbara railway. Fissures were also noted in the streets of Oton [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Ground disruptions described as “little canyons”, possibly the sandblows, were observed in Pototan, Cabatuan, Dingle, Passi and Calinog. A new, small brook appeared after huge cracks appeared at Tiring Landing Field (now the site of the Iloilo International Airport) in Cabatuan. In the city's Fort San Pedro, large fissures 4 metres wide by 10 metres long opened such that seawater was already visible [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011). Local accounts have pointed to a 2-metre high wave that was seen after the earthquake. Fish corals from the Iloilo shore towns of Oton to San Joaquin were destroyed by tsunami. Damage was estimated to be at ₱250,000. The fish corals were detached from the log moorings. The waves did not move inward thereby sparing more damage to life and property [2](Bautista, M.L.P, et al., 2011).","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["damage to 15 churches destroyed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["Damage to churches was estimated at ₱200,000, with the total damage to the city reaching ₱1,000,000","Damage was estimated to be at ₱250,000"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["21 were reportedly killed in the city as another 43 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Panay and nearby islands"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["25 January 1948"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1968 Tokachi earthquake","document":"The 1968 Tokachi earthquake (1968年十勝沖地震 Sen-kyūhyaku-rokujūhachi-nen Tokachi-oki Jishin) occurred on May 16 at 0:49 UTC (09:49 local time) in the area offshore Aomori and Hokkaido. The magnitude of this earthquake was put at Mw 8.3. [2] The intensity of the earthquake reached shindo 5 in Aomori, Aomori and Hakodate, Hokkaido. [3]\n\nThis earthquake was located near the junction of the Kuril Trench and the Japan Trench. It was an interplate earthquake. [4] The focal mechanism of this earthquake showed movement on a thrust fault with a considerable slip-strike component. [2] The sum of interplate seismic moment release by seismic and aseismic faulting in this earthquake was about 28×1020 N m. The 1960s was noted as one of the peak periods of interplate seismic moment release in the offshore Sanriku region. [5]\n\nHeavy rain occurred due to a low pressure system in the days leading up to the earthquake and aggravated the damage. In Hokkaido, building damage was reported. A four-story RC building of Hakodate University collapsed. [6] In Aomori Prefecture, there was damage to railroads and highways in more than 200 places caused by collapses of artificial embankments. In Hachinohe, there was damage to buildings, water pipes, and gas pipes. The three-story building of Hachinohe Technical College suffered severe damage. [7] The communication between Honshu and Hokkaido was cut off. [8]\n\nA tsunami was triggered by the earthquake,[9] with a maximum height of about 6 m (20 ft). [10] An 11-centimeter (4.3 in) high tsunami was recorded in Tahiti. [11] In Japan, the tsunami caused flooding and damage to the aquaculture. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["area offshore Aomori and Hokkaido"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1968","May 16 at 0:49 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["8.3"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Yutian earthquake","document":"The 2014 Yutian earthquake struck Xinjiang on 12 February at 17:19 Beijing Time. The epicenter was located in Aqiang Township, Yutian County. The United States Geological Survey reported its magnitude to be 6.9. [1][4] News reports indicate that no people were killed, but the earthquake could be felt in the seat of Yutian County, Aqiang Township, and Aksu Prefecture far to the north. The earthquake was reported to be felt in Ngari, Zanda and Tholing, and as far away as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Kashmir, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, northern Pakistan, western Nepal, eastern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Almaty, in Kazakhstan. This Xinjiang location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This article about an earthquake in Asia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This article related to the history of China is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Aqiang Township, Yutian County"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the seat of Yutian County, Aqiang Township, and Aksu Prefecture far to the north"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2014","12 February at 17:19 Beijing Time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.9"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March 2021 Miyagi earthquake","document":"\n\nThe March 2021 Miyagi earthquake (Japanese: 宮城県沖地震, Hepburn: Miyagi-ken Oki Jishin) was an earthquake that struck offshore east of Tōhoku, Japan on March 20, 2021 at 18:09 JST (09:09 UTC). The magnitude 6.9 or 7.0 earthquake struck at a depth of 54.0 kilometers (33.6 mi) to 60 kilometers (37 mi). [2][3] It had a maximum JMA intensity of Shindo 5+ while on the Mercalli intensity scale, it earned a rating of VII (Very strong). [4] Power outages and some slight damage in Miyagi was reported. [5]\n\nA press release by the Japan Meteorological Agency confirmed that the earthquake was an aftershock of a magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck the east coast of Japan ten years ago. [6][7]\n\nThe earthquake occurred as the result of thrust faulting near the subduction zone interface plate boundary between the Pacific and North America plates. Moment tensor solutions indicate that slip occurred either on a moderately dipping fault striking to the south, or a moderately dipping fault striking to the north-northeast, consistent with the east-west oriented compression expected in this region. At the location of this earthquake, the Pacific plate moves approximately westward relative to the North American plate at a velocity of 70 mm (2.8 in) per year, subducting beneath Japan at the Japan Trench and dipping to the west beneath Japan. The earthquake epicenter is located 70 km (43 mi) west of the epicenter of the March 2011 earthquake. It came just nine days after the tenth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 disaster, and just over a month since a MJMA  7.3 earthquake struck south of the March 20 event. [8]\n\nThe earthquake caused 11 minor injuries in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima[18] Many of the injured were from Miyagi Prefecture. Four individuals from Sendai, Miyagi endured slight injuries. In Morioka, Iwate, a woman fell and suffered cuts. [19] Two elderly women aged 90 and 70 sustained minor head and shoulder injuries respectively when they were struck by furniture in Iwanuma, Miyagi. [20] There was one injury each reported in Date, Ishinomaki, Kesennuma and Tōno. [1]\n\nPower outages were reported in some parts of Tohoku, forcing the suspension of bullet train services by the East Japan Railway Company. [21] In Shiogama, a six-meter (20 ft) wall supporting an inclined surface breached and collapsed during the earthquake. [19]\n\nAs a precaution, authorities from the Tohoku Electric Power utility shut down the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant whilst the Tokyo Electric Power Company checked the conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. [22] No radiation anomalies or changes in cooling water levels were detected at the power plant. [23]\n\nFollowing the earthquake, a tsunami advisory was issued at 18:11 JST for Miyagi Prefecture for waves of up to 1 meter (3 ft 3 in). [24] Despite the warnings, no tsunamis were observed, this is because the earthquake had ruptured a deeper portion of the subduction zone. [20][25] The tsunami advisory was then withdrawn at around 19:30 JST. [26]\n\nOn May 1, at 10:27 local time, a Mw  6.8 or MJMA  6.6 earthquake struck the southern tip of the Oshika Peninsula. [27] The earthquake had a depth of 47.3 km or 66 km and a maximum intensity of VI (Strong) or Shindo 5 upper. [28] According to the Japan Meteorological Survey, the earthquake would not be considered an aftershock of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake as such announcements had ceased as of April 1 of 2021. [29] This is due to the decreasing rate of earthquakes which made it harder to determine if events like those of May 1 were actual aftershocks. [30] The agency also could not determine if this event was related to the earthquake of March 20. [31]\n\nMinor damage including broken windows and a water pipe rupture was reported. The earthquake resulted in the suspension of Shinkansen services in the Tohoku region. In addition, three people sustained minor injuries. Two of the victims were using a hot spring at Onagawa Station when the quake struck and shattered window panels. [31] A third individual from Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture fell while shopping at a supermarket and was taken to a hospital for treatment. [31]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["The earthquake caused 11 minor injuries in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["offshore east of Tōhoku, Japan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["March 20, 2021 at 18:09 JST (09:09 UTC)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.9 or 7.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1992 St. George earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1992 St. George earthquake was a Mw5.8 earthquake that occurred on September 2, 1992 at approximately 4:26 AM MDT along the Washington Fault zone near the larger Hurricane Fault about 5 miles (8.0 km) southeast of St. George in Utah, United States. The quake triggered a landslide that destroyed three houses and caused approximately US$1 million in structural and cosmetic damage to houses, roads, natural formations, and utilities. No people were killed by the quake. At 4:26 AM MDT on September 2, 1992, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred along the Washington Fault zone near the larger Hurricane Fault about 5 miles (8.0 km) southeast of St. George in Utah, United States. [1]\n\nReports on the magnitude of the earthquake vary. [1][2][3] The University of Utah reported the quake as a Mw5.8 in their official report via the Intermountain Seismic Belt Historical Earthquake Project,[4] which is supported by a 1994 news article from the Deseret News[5] and an official report from the Utah Geological Survey. [6] A contemporaneous report from the journal Arizona Geology reported Mw5.5 from the University of Arizona and Mw5.9 from the USGS. [1]\n\nMost of the force of the earthquake was directed away from the city of St. George toward Hurricane and Springdale. [5] In the Balanced Rock Hills area of Springdale, a landslide covered part of Utah State Route 9, taking several hours to complete movement. [6] The slide was about 1,600 feet (490 m) long and 3,600 feet (1,100 m) wide, contained boulders up to 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter, with a total volume of 18,000,000 cubic yards (14,000,000 m3) and total area of 4,400,400 square feet (408,810 m2). [2][6] It destroyed three houses as well as above- and below-ground utilities, causing about US$1 million in damage. [5][6]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["destroyed three houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["US$1 million"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["5.8"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["southeast of St. George in Utah, United States"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["September 2, 1992 at approximately 4:26 AM MDT"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1951 Kurşunlu earthquake","document":"The 1951 Kurşunlu earthquake occurred at 18:33 GMT (20:33 local time) on 13 August near Kurşunlu, Çankırı Province, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey. [1] The earthquake was one of a series of major and intermediate quakes that have occurred in modern times along the North Anatolian Fault since 1939. It had a magnitude of 6.9 on the surface wave magnitude scale and a maximum felt intensity of IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale. There were 50 casualties and 3,354 injuries. This article about an earthquake in Europe is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This Turkish history-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["There were 50 casualties and 3,354 injuries"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["near Kurşunlu, Çankırı Province, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1951","13 August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["It had a magnitude of 6.9"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1918 San Fermín earthquake","document":"The 1918 San Fermín earthquake,[5][6] also known as the Puerto Rico earthquake of 1918, struck the island of Puerto Rico at 10:14:42 local time on October 11. The earthquake measured 7.1 on the moment magnitude scale and IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The mainshock epicenter occurred off the northwestern coast of the island, somewhere along the Puerto Rico Trench. The earthquake triggered a tsunami with waves measured that swept the west coast of the island. The combined effects of the earthquake and tsunami made it one of the worst natural disasters that have struck the island. The losses resulting from the disaster were approximately 76–118 casualties[4] and $4–29 million in property damage. The epicenter of the 1918 San Fermín earthquake was located in the Mona Passage off the northwestern coast of the island. The strongest ground shaking has been estimated at intensity IX on the Mercalli intensity scale. The resulting tsunami affected primarily the west coast towns of the island (primarily Mayaguez). Numerous structures in the west coast suffered irreparable damage. Factories and production facilities were virtually destroyed, while bridges and roads were severely damaged. The earthquake caused several mudslides in areas where the intensity exceeded Level VII, but none caused numerous deaths. Also, the river currents were affected, which, in many cases affected the foundations of many bridges, resulting in their collapse. Telegraph cables under the ocean were damaged, cutting off the island from outside communication for a time. [7]\n\nThe reported casualties of the earthquake have been estimated somewhere between 76 and 116 deaths. Approximately 40 of these deaths were caused by the tsunami which swept shore communities. Damage to property was estimated to be between $4 and 29 million. In Mayagüez, the largest city affected, 700 masonry buildings were damaged and 1,000 wooden houses, so many people were homeless. Major buildings like the church, post office and hall were severely damaged. With fear because of the aftershocks, many people camped out in the hills for weeks. [7]\n\nAs a result of the earthquake, a tsunami lashed the west coast of the island, probably 4–7 minutes after the main shock. The highest waves were estimated at 6.0 m (19.7 ft) in Point Agujereada, 4.5 m (15 ft) at Point Borinquen, and 5.2 m (17 ft) at Point Jiguero. [8] Several coastal villages were destroyed and it has been estimated that 40 people drowned (32 in Aguadilla alone) as a direct result of the tsunami. [9]\n\nSeveral aftershocks were reported immediately after the main earthquake. On October 24 and November 12, two strong aftershocks were reported on the island. However, no damage was reported as a result. The response from the United States was to exempt the municipalities most affected from paying taxes for a short period immediately following the quake: those municipalities were Mayagüez, Aguada, Aguadilla, Añasco and Isabela. The U.S. appropriated funds for the repair of municipal buildings of the most affected municipalities. [10]\n\nCathedral of Mayagüez after the first earthquake; further damage toppled the left tower\n\nDestroyed brick homes in Mayagüez\n\nMap showing the epicenters of all the magnitude 5 and greater earthquakes around Puerto Rico for the last 100 years\n\nAguadilla Punta Borinquen Lighthouse Ruins—an 1889 lighthouse destroyed by the tsunami\n\nSources","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["700 masonry buildings were damaged and 1,000 wooden houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["4–29 million"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Mona Passage off the northwestern coast of the island"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["two strong aftershock"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["76–118 casualties"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the island of Puerto Rico"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1918","October 11"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2012 East Azerbaijan earthquakes","document":"\n\nThe 2012 East Azerbaijan earthquakes – also known as the Ahar earthquakes – occurred on 11 August 2012, at 16:53 Iran Standard Time, near the cities of Ahar and Varzaqan in Iran's East Azerbaijan Province, approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Tabriz. [7]  They comprised a doublet separated by eleven minutes, with magnitudes of 6.4 and 6.2 Mww. [8] At least 306 people died and more than 3,000 others were injured,[citation needed] primarily in the rural and mountainous areas to the northeast of Tabriz (though 45 died in the city of Ahar). [9] The shocks were felt in Armenia and Azerbaijan, though no major damage was reported. [10]\n\nIran lies within the complex zone of continental collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, which extends from the Bitlis-Zagros belt in the south to the Greater Caucasus mountains, the Absheron-Balkan Sill and the Kopet Dag mountains in the north. [11] The collision between these plates deforms an area of ~ 3,000,000 km2 of continental crust. It is one of the largest convergent deformation regions on Earth. [12] In northwestern Iran, the Arabian Plate is moving northwards at about 20 mm per year relative to the Eurasian Plate, somewhat oblique to the plate boundary zone. The deformation in the area near Tabriz is dominated by the North Tabriz Fault, a WNW-ESE trending right-lateral strike-slip fault, which has been responsible for 7 historical earthquakes of magnitude greater than 6 since AD 858. [13] Other known active faults include a W-E trending fault between the cities of Ahar and Heris. [14]\n\nThe 6.4 and 6.2 intraplate earthquakes occurred as a result of oblique strike-slip faulting in the shallow crust about 300 km east of the Eurasia-Arabian Plate boundary. The two earthquakes are separated by 10 km in an east–west direction. [8]\n\nIran's state television reported the quake hit near the towns of Ahar, Heris and Varzaqan in East Azerbaijan Province at 4:53 p.m. local time (12:23 GMT). \"268 people, 219 women and 49 men, lost their lives in hospitals\" while the rest were killed on the spot, Iran's Health Minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi said. The Iranian minister added that 3,037 people have been injured as a result of Saturday's temblors. According to the head of Iran's Rescue and Relief Organisation, access to villages has been cut and the only communication is via radio. The worst damage and most casualties were in villages near the towns of Ahar, Varzaghan and Heris. [15] In villages near Varzaqan, with most men away from home working, the many mud brick houses which collapsed trapped mainly women and children inside. [16]\n\nSixty-six rescue teams were sent to the affected region, along with about 200 ambulances and five helicopters. 130 villages were 70–90% destroyed, and 20 were completely leveled. At least 45 people died and more than 500 were injured in Ahar, where electricity and phone lines were cut after the quakes. [5][17] More than 40 people died in the city of Varzaqan and 50 were killed in Heris. [4][18] The medical infrastructure in the catastrophe stricken region is not sufficient, and many heavily injured did not survive the rather long way to the nearest hospital. [19]\n\nMost parts of Tabriz also lost electricity, and the city had a large traffic jam. Some buildings were structurally damaged. [9] Over 200 people in Varzaqan and Ahar were extricated from under the debris of collapsed buildings, and local provincial officials asked people in the region to stay outdoors during the night because of the danger of aftershocks. Some residents needed bread, tents and drinking water. [20]\n\nRescue teams continued searching for survivors through the night, Iranian officials[specify] said they expected the death toll to rise. Between ten and twenty villages close to the epicenter were still cut off from aid and it would take some time to reach them. The Iranian government estimated at least 16,000 people spent the first night after the quakes in emergency shelters. [5]\n\nA day after the quakes, more than 36,000 people had been given emergency shelter, and the Iranian government had dispatched nearly 100 ambulances, 1,100 Red Crescent workers, 44,000 food packages and 5,600 tents. According to Red Crescent officials, more than 1,000 villages were affected by the disaster, and at least 5,000 people were injured. Hospitals in the region's major cities were overcrowded and struggling to cope with the large number of people waiting for treatment. [21]\n\nAt least 80 aftershocks were felt. A 5.0 quake struck three hours later and a 5.1 aftershock struck 31 km southwest of Ahar on 12 August. [22][23]\n\nOn 14 August, three days after the initial quakes, another 5.1 aftershock struck the same area at a depth of 10 km. [22] An even stronger 5.3 tremor occurred on 15 August, approximately 34 km southwest of Ahar. [24]\n\nThe East Azerbaijan province governor announced two days of public mourning in the province. [citation needed] Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Minister of Interior and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, Minister of Health, traveled to Tabriz and Ahar. [citation needed]  The Iranian Red Crescent did not request any international assistance. [25]\n\nIn the first two days, the Iranian Red Crescent said they would not accept outside help. [26] Three days later, the Iranian government announced it would accept foreign help. [27]\n\nThe Iranian government was criticized regarding to crisis management of the earthquake. The decision to stop the search for survivors after 24 hours was based on a government assessment that all survivors had been rescued from the rubble; an unnamed local doctor disputed the likelihood of that assessment based on the remoteness of some villages. A lack of tents for the homeless was also cited by members of the Majlis. [45] The IRIB was criticised in an editorial in the Asr-e Iran newspaper for its perceived lack of news coverage of the earthquake. In a Majlis meeting on 13 August 2012, MPs from the affected region questioned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for not visiting the area and for not announcing public mourning. [46] That day, Iran then announced two days of public mourning. [47]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["the shallow crust about 300 km east of the Eurasia-Arabian Plate boundary"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["At least 80 aftershocks were felt"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":["more than 36,000 people had been given emergency shelter"]},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 45 people died and more than 500 were injured in Ahar","More than 40 people died in the city of Varzaqan and 50 were killed in Heris","\"268 people, 219 women and 49 men, lost their lives in hospitals\" while the rest were killed on the spot","At least 306 people died and more than 3,000 others were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["near the cities of Ahar and Varzaqan in Iran's East Azerbaijan Province"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 August 2012, at 16:53 Iran Standard Time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":["Over 200 people in Varzaqan and Ahar were extricated"]},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["with magnitudes of 6.4 and 6.2 Mww"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2013 Solomon Islands earthquake","document":"The 2013 Solomon Islands earthquake struck northeast of Australia on 6 February with a moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Its epicenter was the Solomon Islands, at the boundaries of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, causing local evacuations and a tsunami of 1.5 m (4.9 ft) and killing at least nine people. The Santa Cruz and Solomon Islands are located on the plate boundary between the Australian and Pacific plate. This highly seismic region has “near 90° bend in the boundary…\"[1] This area experiences much plate movement as the Santa Cruz Island “has upper plate strike-slip and normal faulting, plate boundary under-thrusting, outer rise extensional faulting, and intraplate faulting” and the Solomon Islands are located on the subduction zone of the two boundaries. [1] On February 6, 2013, the largest under-thrusting earthquake ever to be recorded in that area caused a tsunami and both were destructive to the area. Major villages on both groups of islands, Lata and Nendö were destroyed and at least 724 homes were confirmed as damaged. On 6 February 2013, at 12:12 local time (01:12 UTC) an earthquake struck the Solomon Islands, located in the south Pacific Ocean. [2] The epicenter was 76 kilometres (47 mi) west of Lata on Nendo Island. [2] The earthquake occurred due to the interaction between the Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate, and was preceded by dozens of foreshocks in the region. [2] The magnitude of this earthquake was put at 8.0 on the moment magnitude scale. [2] At least 20 aftershocks were reported,[3] including one measuring 7.1[4] on 8 February and two measuring M7.0. [5] “This event had a shallow dipping thrust faulting mechanism…” and “…produced a tsunami of ~ 1.5 height” on the Santa Cruz Islands. [1] Toward the end of the week before February 6, the area was very active and there were many magnitude 6 earthquakes that occurred in the area. The closest island to the epicenter, Nendo and its largest city, Lata were said to experience the largest amount of shaking. Even though there were aftershock earthquakes of magnitude 6, the most worrisome effect of the earthquake was the potential tsunami. As the wait for the tsunami continued, many villages had already been destroyed. For example, earthquake shaking destroyed many villages to the west and south of Lata, on the coastline, before the tsunami arrived. Many Pacific countries ordered evacuations, as their authorities did not take any risks. Countries that were not on the warning list were evacuated. Residents of the Solomon Islands and other surrounding islands were working their way to higher ground. Major traffic jams were caused in Honiara, the capital city of Solomon Islands as people attempted to flee the coming wave. After the main shock, the epicenter area was hit by 13 aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.”\n\nThe earthquake was formed on the boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates. This area has complicated faulting patterns that are close to the Solomon Island arcs and Vanuatu Island arcs. The area is used to high frequency, low to moderate intensity seismic activity. [1]\nMany of the “larger events recorded have involved intraplate and interplate earthquakes with magnitudes up to about 8.0, several of which were located near the abrupt bends in the arcs. [1]\nThe Solomon Islands appear to have more seismic activity than the other areas earthquake productivity than most areas. The area also seems to produce more earthquake “doublets” and “triplets,” a deviation from the normal earthquake aftershock in which a second and sometimes third earthquake can be produced from the aftershock of the first earthquake. [6] This occurs rarely, maybe once or twice a year, making this area a unique seismic area. In Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, residents evacuated to higher ground,[7] causing traffic jams. [8] Local news agencies reported that four villages were destroyed. [3] Houses were flooded in eastern Temotu Province. [5] On Santa Cruz Island, 1.5 m (4.9 ft) waves damaged 50 buildings. [9] In Lata, the tsunami damaged the airport and flooded low-lying areas,[10] killing nine people, five elderly and one child. [11] More than 100 houses on the island were damaged, and the water and electricity services were interrupted. [12] It was reported that almost all houses in Nela village were washed away, and some homes in Venga village were shifted by water. [13] Officials in Noumea ordered residents to evacuate along the eastern coast of New Caledonia and nearby Loyalty Islands. [14] Residents also evacuated to higher ground in Suva, the capital of Fiji. [3] The earthquake killed 9 people, and 5 people remain listed as missing. [11]\n\nThe Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji,[15] and several other islands in the region; the agency also issued a tsunami watch for Australia, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia. [7][16] The earthquake produced a tsunami measuring 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) at Lata, Solomon Islands,[7][16] that reached about 500 m (1,600 ft) inland. [3] Smaller tsunamis of 11 cm (4.3 in) and 50 cm (20 in) were reported in Vanuatu and New Caledonia, respectively. [8]\n\nThere are many human elements that affect the ecosystem and how both the Santa Cruz and Solomon Islands will recover from natural disasters. Though it was once one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, very little attention is given in the Solomons to biodiversity and environmental conservation. [17] 85% of the people on these islands live a subsistence lifestyle. [17] The population is growing about 4.4% annually and as it grows, the people must use more of their natural resources as food and shelter. [17] The ecosystems in both of these islands are already being threatened by invasive species, major loss of coastal land, and overharvesting. That means that sudden major loss of biodiversity, like that caused by both the earthquake and tsunami, can lead to “hunger, poverty, disease, and conflict and is a threat to internal security…” to both islands. [17]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["at least 724 homes were confirmed as damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["76 kilometres (47 mi) west of Lata on Nendo Island"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["At least 20 aftershocks were reported"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killed 9 people"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["northeast of Australia"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2013","6 February"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["8.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2012 Shwebo earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 2012 Shwebo earthquake occurred at 07:42 local time (01:12 UTC) on 11 November in Myanmar. It had a magnitude of 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. [2] The epicenter was near the town of Male, 52 km NNE of the city of Shwebo, 64 km west of Mogok and 120 km north of Mandalay. Significant damage and possible casualties have been reported from near the epicenter, with up to 26 people dead and many more injured. Part of a bridge under construction fell into the Irrawaddy River near Shwebo and a gold mine collapsed at Sintku. [3]\n[4] An aftershock with a magnitude of 5.8 followed at 17:24 local time (10:54 UTC). [5]\n\nCentral Burma lies within the complex zone of collision between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. In this area the collision is highly oblique and much of the plate convergence is accommodated by right lateral strike slip faults, of which the largest is the north-south trending Sagaing Fault, which takes up 18mm per year of this movement. [6]\n\nThe earthquake was caused by right lateral movement on the Sagaing Fault between Singu and Tagaung, with a rupture length of 60–70 km, and was followed by three large (M≥5) aftershocks in the area south of the mainshock epicenter,[7] and one to the north. [8]\n\nMany buildings, including monasteries, pagodas, a hospital, and a school collapsed in Male and neighbouring villages. Damage was also reported from Shwebo, Mogok and Mandalay. [7] The Radana Thinga Bridge, which was still under construction, fell into the Irrawaddy River, and several workers went missing. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near the town of Male, 52 km NNE of the city of Shwebo, 64 km west of Mogok and 120 km north of Mandalay"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["three"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["up to 26 people dead"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Central Burma"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 November"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Lombok earthquake","document":"On 17 March 2019, an earthquake measuring Mw  5.6 struck the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. [1] The earthquake triggered a landslide, killing three and injuring more than a hundred. The earthquake has its epicenter in East Lombok Regency, with a reported magnitude and depth of Mw  5.6 and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS),[1] while the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) reported a magnitude of Mw  5.4 and a depth of 11 kilometres (6.8 mi). BMKG attributed the earthquake to a local fault in the vicinity of Mount Rinjani. [2] Aftershocks exceeding Mw  5.0 were recorded. [3][4]\n\nThe earthquake caused a landslide which struck a group of Malaysian tourists visiting a waterfall in East Lombok, killing two of them. [5] Additionally, a 14-year old boy from the local area was also killed by the landslide. [6] The Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) recorded 182 injuries - residents of East and North Lombok regencies, in addition to 26 Malaysian tourists. [3]\n\nAccording to Indonesian Social Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, over 4,000 houses in East Lombok Regency alone was damaged. [7] On the other hand, BNPB reported a smaller number of 525 damaged houses (with 2,108 affected residents). [3]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["over 4,000 houses","525 damaged houses"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["East Lombok Regency"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["killing three and injuring more than a hundred"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["17 March 2019"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw  5.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes","document":"\n\n\n\nThe 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes (more commonly referred to in scientific literature as the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence) of July 4 and 5 occurred north and northeast of the town of Ridgecrest, California located  in Kern County and west of Searles Valley (approximately 200 km [122 mi] north-northeast of Los Angeles). They included three initial main shocks of Mw magnitudes 6.4, 5.4, and 7.1,[7] and many perceptible aftershocks, mainly within the area of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Eleven months later, a Mw  5.5 aftershock took place (the largest aftershock of the sequence) to the east of Ridgecrest. The first main shock (now deemed to be a foreshock) occurred on Thursday, July 4 at 10:33 a.m. PDT, approximately 18 km (11.2 mi) ENE of Ridgecrest, and 13 km (8.1 mi) WSW of Trona,[8] on a previously unnoticed NE-SW trending fault where it intersects the NW-SE trending Little Lake Fault Zone. [9] This quake was preceded by several smaller earthquakes, and was followed by more than 1,400 detected aftershocks. The M 5.4 and M 7.1 quakes struck on Friday, July 5 at 4:08 a.m. and 8:19 p.m. PDT approximately 10 km (6 miles) to the northwest. The latter, now considered the mainshock, was the most powerful earthquake to occur in the state in 20 years (after the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake). [10] Subsequent aftershocks extended approximately 50 km (~30 miles) along the Little Lake Fault Zone. Relatively minor damage resulted from the initial foreshock, though some building fires were reported in Ridgecrest near the epicenter. The main quake on July 5 cut power to at least 3,000 residents in Ridgecrest. [11][10] Effects were felt across much of Southern California, parts of Arizona and Nevada,[12] as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, and as far south as Baja California, Mexico. An estimated 20 million people experienced the foreshock, and approximately 30 million people experienced the mainshock. [13]\n\nAt 10:02 a.m. PDT (17:02 UTC) on July 4, 2019, a 4.0 Mw  foreshock occurred about 6.8 mi (10.9 km) southwest of Searles Valley, California. [14][15] A foreshock registering 6.4 Mw  occurred at 10:33 a.m. PDT (17:33 UTC) 7.5 mi (12.1 km) southwest of Searles Valley. [16] The most populated area near the epicenter was Ridgecrest, home to 28,000 people. [17] The foreshock originated along a strike-slip fault in the Eastern California Shear Zone, a region frequented by earthquake swarms, near the edge of Death Valley National Park. [17][18] The rupture occurred along a 10 mi (16 km) section of an unspecified fault. Earth on either side of the fault was deformed, with lateral shifts of 6–8 in (15–20 cm) in the immediate vicinity. [19] The exact fault it occurred on is uncertain with many small faults encompassing the region, though United States Geological Survey (USGS) seismologist Susan Hough stated it may have been the Little Lake Fault. [20] Focused at a relatively shallow depth of 6.6 mi (10.7 km), the foreshock affected a large region populated by 20 million people. [16][17] Residents near the epicenter reported that shaking lasted approximately 30 seconds. [20] Shaking was felt as far north as Sacramento, California, eastward to Phoenix, Arizona, and as far south as Baja California, Mexico, with evacuations taking place in Mexicali and Tijuana. [17][21]\n\nAt 8:19 p.m. PDT on July 5, a larger 7.1 Mw  earthquake occurred in the Ridgecrest area after being preceded by a 5.0 Mw  foreshock 3 minutes prior,[22] revealing the previous day's 6.4 Mw  earthquake to have been a foreshock. All three earthquakes have been described by the United States Geological Survey as occurring via shallow strike-slip mechanisms. Subsequent seismic activity occurred along two intersecting faults in the Little Lake Fault Zone. [23]\n\nA significant series of additional earthquakes followed the foreshock, with the majority of magnitudes ranging approximately 2–4 Mw . [24] By the evening of July 5, more than 1,400 earthquakes occurred,[25] the strongest of which measured 5.4 Mw  at 4:07 a.m. PDT (11:07 UTC) on July 5. [26] Shaking from this aftershock was felt as far north as Fresno, as far south as Laguna Hills (including Los Angeles), and as far east as Las Vegas, Nevada. No additional damage occurred from any of the aftershocks. [19] The number of aftershocks within hours of the earthquake were unusually high, but not unprecedented. [27]\n\nThousands more aftershocks occurred following the 7.1 Mw  event, with the total number of aftershocks exceeding 3,000 by the morning of July 7. [28] Geologists at the USGS estimate an additional 34,000 aftershocks in the six months following the earthquakes. [29]\n\nOn June 3, 2020, at 6:32 PM PST, a 5.5 Mw  aftershock was recorded 11 miles south of Searles Valley. This aftershock is tied for the strongest aftershock following the 7.1  Mw  mainshock. Structural damage and two building fires—one of which destroyed half of a home—occurred in Ridgecrest. [17][60] One mobile home was knocked off its foundation and deemed uninhabitable. [19] Around 20 injuries were reported, primarily from shattered glass and falling debris. [61][60] Some gas lines broke, prompting utility companies to shut off service. Businesses experienced product loss, with goods falling off shelves. [62] Emergency personnel responded to nearly two dozen incidents in the city and opened two shelters. [17] Fifteen patients at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital and residents in several apartment buildings were evacuated. [63] Approximately 6,900 customers lost power near the epicenter: 6,000 in Ridgecrest and 900 in Searles Valley. [64] A 4 in (10 cm) wide crack occurred along State Route 178 near Searles Valley and debris covered part of U.S. Route 395. [65][60] In Trona, several buildings sustained damage, water and gas lines broke, and power lines fell. Rockslides covered multiple roads around the community, blocking off mountain roads, including the section of State Route 178 that connects Bakersfield with Lake Isabella. [27] In Los Angeles proper, power outages affected the Fashion District and Granada Hills. [66]\n\nOne person died in Pahrump, Nevada, when a lifted Jeep he was working under collapsed. [5]\n\nSeveral fires broke out and five injuries were reported after the mainshock hit, most of them in Ridgecrest and Trona. [67][68] 3,000 people were left without power in Ridgecrest and the rest of Kern County. In Trona, severe damage was reported, with houses knocked off their foundations and numerous gas leaks.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["north and northeast of the town of Ridgecrest, California located  in Kern County and west of Searles Valley (approximately 200 km [122 mi] north-northeast of Los Angeles)"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["five injuries were reported after the mainshock hit, most of them in Ridgecrest and Trona","Around 20 injuries were reported, primarily from shattered glass and falling debris","One person died in Pahrump, Nevada"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Southern California, parts of Arizona and Nevada,[12] as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, and as far south as Baja California, Mexico"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2019","July 4 and 5"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw magnitudes 6.4, 5.4, and 7.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"July 2018 Lombok earthquake","document":"\n\nA Mw 6.4 earthquake struck the island of Lombok on the morning of 29 July 2018 at a shallow depth of 14 km (8.7 mi). [5] Widespread damage was reported in the area, and authorities confirmed that 20 people were killed in the earthquake while hundreds were injured. [3][6]\n\nThe epicentre was located in Sembalun Subdistrict, East Lombok Regency. The earthquake was a foreshock for the more powerful Mw  6.9 earthquake which struck the island a week later. [7]\n\nLombok lies on the destructive plate boundary between the Australian Plate and the Sunda Plate. To the east of Bali the plate boundary starts to involve a collision between the leading edge of the Australian continent and the eastern part of the Sunda Arc and the western end of the Banda Arc. [8] In response to this collision, the arc itself has begun to be pushed over the back-arc Bali Basin along a major thrust fault, the 500 km (310 mi) long Flores Thrust. The Lombok earthquake has been attributed to movement along the Flores Thrust. [1]\n\nThe earthquake struck on Sunday, at 06:47 local time, at a shallow depth of 6.4 km (4.0 mi). Residents reported severe shaking near the epicentre, with multiple structures reportedly collapsed. Dozens of houses were destroyed and widespread damages were reported. The shaking lasted for around 10–20 seconds. [9] Local residents have said it was the strongest quake to have ever hit Lombok. The earthquake was felt as far away as Denpasar, Bali. [10][11] and in Karangasem Regency, Bali, a temple collapsed and a local court was damaged. [12]\n\nLandslides struck the north portion of Mount Rinjani, where routes popular with hiking tourists are located. [13] Authorities confirmed that 826 hikers were trapped on the mountain and waited to be rescued. [14]\n\nIn Selong, the capital of East Lombok Regency, dozens of patients were evacuated from dr. Soedjono regional hospital while in Sembalun a Community Health Centre was significantly damaged. [15]\n\nAuthorities confirmed that 276 moderate aftershocks from 5.0–5.5 Mw were recorded by the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG). The largest aftershock at a magnitude 5.7 Mw recorded at 10:16 local time. [16] On 3 August, officials confirmed that more than 500 aftershocks had been recorded. [2]\n\nAuthorities confirmed that a Malaysian tourist was killed by a falling wall. [17] The Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) confirmed that 10 people were killed and 40 people were injured. [18] The government confirmed that 18 Malaysians were affected by the earthquake. [19]\n\nOn the evening of 29 July, officials announced that the number of people who had been killed by the earthquake had risen to 16. [20] Later the number rose to 17, then 20 on 5 August. [3]\n\nIn the aftermath of the earthquake, blackouts occurred throughout Lombok and telecommunications went down. The National Electricity Company (PLN) stated that they would temporarily cut the electricity in East Lombok Regency for examination. [21] They later announced that normal operation would resume within hours. [22]\n\nThe government immediately closed the Mount Rinjani National Park. Hiking and other activities were banned in the area due to fear of landslides. [23] Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who had planned to visit West Nusa Tenggara prior to the earthquake,[24] ordered Muhammad Zainul Majdi, the Governor of West Nusa Tenggara to immediately deploy search and rescue personnel to the affected areas. [25]\n\nAuthorities stated on 29 July 2018, that East Lombok Regency had suffered the most damage. Sembalun District and Sambelia District were regarded as the worst affected areas in the regency. Hundreds of tents were set up while dozens of search and rescue personnel, including members from the Indonesian Armed Forces, police and other government institutions, were deployed onto the declared disaster zone. [26]\nOn 29 July 2018, Bali Red Cross announced that they would send medical experts and volunteers to Lombok. [27]\nIndonesian Social Minister Idrus Marham confirmed that the government would send multiple aids to the victims. [28]\n\nOn 30 July, Joko Widodo, the Indonesian President, Muhammad Zainul Majdi the Governor of West Nusa Tenggara, and Idrus Marham, the Social Minister visited survivors and[29] victims of the earthquake and sent condolences to the affected families. [30][31] Majdi declared a state emergency for 3 days. [32] They distributed books and other supplies to the survivors and later examined the damage in the area. Joko Widodo later announced that the government would help the victims to rebuild their houses and infrastructures in Lombok. On 31 July he stated that the government would immediately provide compensation of at least 50 million rupiah for each damaged or destroyed building. [33] The renovation of the damaged buildings would be assisted by the Indonesian National Armed Forces. [34]\n\nSpokesman of the BNPB, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, stated that more than 1,000 structures across Lombok were either damaged or destroyed. [35] BMKG advised people not to enter their homes as more aftershocks are expected in the following days. [36]\n\nThe Malaysian government through their Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad have announced that aid would be sent to the Indonesian people who were affected by the earthquake,[37] with Mercy Malaysia also began to distribute essential relief items for the victims. [38] The Malaysian Global Peace Mission (GPM) have sending a team to identify the urgent needs by the victims, with an initial RM10,000 aid and additional RM50,000 aid will be brought the following week by their second aid team. [39]\n\nOn 5 August 2018 a Mw 6.9 or 7.0 earthquake struck Lombok, prompting tsunami warnings. [40][41]\n\nThe Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (SAR) announced that there were two main locations where trapped hikers were located. The first one was in Segara Anak Lake while the second one was at the basecamp.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":["826 hikers were trapped"]},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["20 people were killed in the earthquake while hundreds were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the island of Lombok","Sembalun Subdistrict, East Lombok Regency"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["29 July 2018"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["Mw 6.4"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"April 2010 Sumatra earthquake","document":"The April 2010 Sumatra earthquake occurred on April 7 at 5:15 AM local time with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock occurred near Banyak Islands, off the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. A tsunami watch was issued according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu[1] which was later canceled. [2]  A 40 cm surge was reported in the Banyak Islands an hour after the quake, along with 62 injuries. [3] Power outages were reported throughout the province of North Sumatra[4] as well as in Aceh. [5][6] This quake is one of the sequence of large earthquakes along the Sunda megathrust in 2000s. In Simeulue Regency, 21 were hospitalized in Gunung Putih, Teluk Dalam subdistrict,[7] and 41 were injured in Teupah Selatan subdistrict. Some of the injured were treated at Simeulue general hospital in Sinabang. [8]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["62 injuries","41 were injured in Teupah Selatan subdistrict"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2010","April 7 at 5:15 AM local time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"Galilee earthquake of 1837","document":"The Galilee earthquake of 1837, often called the Safed earthquake, shook the Galilee on January 1 and is one of a number of moderate to large events that have occurred along the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system that marks the boundary of two tectonic plates; the African Plate on the west and the Arabian Plate on the east. Intensity assessments for the event were VIII (Damaging) on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale and VIII (Heavily damaging) on the European Macroseismic Scale. A 1977 assessment of the event that was published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America had the epicenter just north of the city of Safed and the magnitude of 6.25–6.5, but in 1997 seismologist Nicholas Ambraseys argued that the event may have been more substantial. The event was well-documented by the nineteenth-century missionary, archaeologist, and author William McClure Thomson. The region in which the earthquake occurred was part of the Ottoman empire but at the time it was under control of the Egyptians who were occupying after seizing it during conflict. William McClure Thomson arrived in Beirut in 1833 for missionary work and was in the area at the time of the earthquake. He wrote, in fine detail, of the damage and personal tragedies he witnessed during his travels in the book The Land and the Book, Or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land. The book was published in 1861 and remained a best seller through much of the nineteenth century. [5] In the region, the Egyptians (led by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt), had recently succeeded in overpowering the Ottomans and gained control of Syria during the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833). During his time in the area Thomson was locked up with charges of spying. The Egyptians were ultimately flushed from the region by Turkey. [6]\n\nThe Dead Sea Transform, also known as the Levant Fracture, produces strong but infrequent earthquakes, and all pre-instrumental information regarding the area shows that it was experiencing an inactive period during the twentieth century. [7] Researchers M. Vered and H. L. Striem conducted a study on both the 1927 Jericho earthquake and the January 1837 event, with a close look at damage data to gain a good estimate of Modified Mercalli intensity values. The 1927 event was both macroseismically and instrumentally recorded, and that provided a good opportunity to closely examine the macroseismic and instrumental epicenter location, estimates of its depth, and methods used in the macroseismic investigation. Once validated, the processes of analyzing the macroseismic data were applied to the earlier 1837 event. The meizoseismal areas of both of these Jordan Rift Valley events were along a north–south line near the fault zone. [8]\n\nSeveral other previous events occurred in the same region, and by comparison both the 1202 Syria earthquake and the Near East earthquakes of 1759 had larger magnitudes than the 1837 event and have been associated with the Yammouneh fault in Lebanon. [9] However, no other earthquakes of similar size occurred in the Dead Sea zone after seismometers began being used around the turn of the twentieth century, so Nicholas Ambraseys mapped the intensity values reported from more than 120 locations within the affected area and used the values to create a relationship with a group of 158 earthquakes in nearby Turkey and northern Syria with known intensities and magnitudes to predict the surface wave magnitude for this event. The average radius of the isoseismals in the area helped to estimate a magnitude of 7.0 to 7.1 for the event. [4]\n\nThe main shock occurred around four in the afternoon, followed by a second strong shock five minutes later,[1] and was felt as far as 500 kilometers (310 mi) away. Damascus's maximum perceived intensity was estimated to be VII (Very strong) on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale, while Ramla and Baalbek were at VI (Strong), and cities such as Cairo, Tarsus, and Gaziantep (formerly Aintab) were at III (Weak). [10]\n\nAs a result of the earthquake, a strong seiche (standing wave) swept the shores of Tiberias causing additional death. [11][12]\n\nThe shock was comparatively slight in Beirut, but many houses were damaged and others completely destroyed. The wintertime slowed communication in the area, and nearly eight days passed before reliable reports came in from Safed regarding the nature of damage there. The letters stated that the town, along with Tiberias and many other villages, had been overthrown. Sidon was damaged considerably, and in Tyre the fallen homes made the streets nearly impassable, with people sleeping in boats and in tents alongside the shore. The village of Rumaish was mostly destroyed, with thirty deaths occurring as people were crushed in their homes, and many more would have suffered the same had they not been at evening prayers at the church there, which was a small building that was not seriously damaged. [13]\n\nThe types of homes that were built in that time and area, usually one story rubble masonry with heavy flat roofs that were often already damaged, were not resistant to even a small amount of shaking. Public structures like bridges and walls fared better, as they were usually constructed with higher standards. The heavy damage in certain areas occurred for various reasons. Some cities were built on steep hillsides overlooking the plains (done for security reasons), while other sites were located on unstable soil where landslides had occurred previously. These conditions made assessing the intensity of the earthquake difficult, but Ambraseys settled on a maximum value of VII–VIII (Very strong–Damaging) on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale for the event. That scale was used primarily in Europe and the Soviet Union up until the 1990s. A higher loss of life was probably seen as a result of the earthquake occurring on a winter evening, as most people were likely in their homes preparing dinner. [1]\n\nEvery house and the local church in the village of Jish was destroyed, and all the parishioners, totaling 135 people, were killed, with only the priest surviving the collapse of the vaulted stone roof there. The priest was protected by an arch over the altar. [14] The American scholar Edward Robinson passed through the village of Lubya, just west of the Sea of Galilee, in 1838 and noted that it had suffered greatly from the earthquake the preceding year, with 143 villagers reported dead. [15]\n\nIn the town of Safed, the homes on the hill were built in such a way that the roofs of the houses below became the streets for the ones above; the cascading style of construction was many layers deep, and when the earthquake happened, the homes collapsed onto one another from above. Many people were killed immediately and buried under the rubble, and some were fortunate to be alive yet could not extricate themselves quickly from the debris. Some survivors were pulled from the ruins as many as six or seven days after the earthquake. [16] The wounded and dying there were without much relief until January 19 when a temporary hospital was set up and a doctor hired who could distribute medicine and apply bandages. [17]\n\nIn Tiberias heavy damage was sustained, though not quite as severe as in Safed, and 600 people were killed there, with many homes and the walls of the city being destroyed. The wounded were transported to hot springs in that area for relief, and there may have been changes to the volume of water emanating from them at the time of the earthquake. [17]\n\nThree large aftershocks occurred several weeks after the main event. On January 16 in the northern end, January 22 near the middle, and in the north again on May 20 near the city of Hasbaya (west of Damascus). The aftershocks were spread over a distance of 70 kilometers (43 mi) and that length matches the north–south region of the epicentral area that was mapped by Ambraseys and could indicate that the Roum fault, and its extension south to the Sea of Galilee, were sources of the event. [9]\n\nIn the months and years following the earthquake, houses and lands lost to their dead owners were settled by new emigrants who had recently come from Russia, Germany, Poland, and elsewhere. [18]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["north of the city of Safed"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["all the parishioners, totaling 135 people, were killed","with 143 villagers reported dead"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["January 1","1837"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.25–6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1975 Haicheng earthquake","document":"The 1975 Haicheng earthquake hit Haicheng, Liaoning, China at 19:36 CST on February 4. This earthquake had an Ms magnitude of 7.5,[3] which is associated with total destruction of infrastructure and property. Haicheng had approximately one million residents at the time of the earthquake, which is known for being one of the few earthquakes to be successfully predicted throughout history. [4]\n\nEarly in the morning of February 4, 1975, Chinese officials ordered that the city of Haicheng be evacuated, believing there to be a large chance of an earthquake occurring. The prediction was allegedly based on reports of changes in groundwater and soil elevations over the past several months as well as widespread accounts of unusual animal behavior. A low-level alert was triggered by regional increases in seismicity (later recognized as foreshocks). [5] Both authorities and citizens were finally placed on high alert and an evacuation order was issued due to an increase in foreshocks. [6] Though this particular prediction of the earthquake was initially believed to be just the latest in a recent string of false alarms that had occurred in the preceding months, including one case of an earthquake swarm being caused by the filling of a reservoir,[7] the evacuation of Haicheng proceeded anyway and eventually paid off. The evacuation, despite successfully removing most of Haicheng's population, did not prevent deaths in its entirety. When the main quake struck at 7:36 pm, 1,328 (some says 2,041) people died,[8][9] over 27,000 were injured and thousands of buildings collapsed. However, the death toll was much lower than the estimate of over 150,000 dead  which is believed to have resulted if the evacuation had not taken place. [10] This was the only successful evacuation of a potentially affected population before a devastating earthquake in history. Another sign of the earthquake coming was the unusual animal behaviour. In December 1974, rats and snakes appeared \"frozen\" on the roads. Starting in February 1975 reports of this type increased greatly. Cows and horses looked restless and agitated. Rats appeared \"drunk\", chickens refused to enter their coops and geese frequently took to flight. [11]\n\nIn addition to damage in Liaoning Province and its surroundings, minor damage was also reported in Seoul, South Korea. The quake was felt in Primorsky Krai, Russia, and in Kyushu, Japan. In recent years, the success of the earthquake's prediction has come under scrutiny. Seismologists have agreed that the Haicheng earthquake can't be looked to as any sort of \"prototype\" for predicting future earthquakes, as the foreshocks that played a huge role in leading to prediction of this earthquake are not a regular, reliable occurrence before all earthquakes. However, Qi-Fu Chen, a research professor at Beijing's China Earthquake Administration, explained that this earthquake at least \"showed the importance of public education,\" prompting a further discussion about the necessity of making the public aware of the dangers, preparations, and warning signs related to earthquakes. [12]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["thousands of buildings collapsed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["1,328 (some says 2,041) people died","over 27,000 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Haicheng, Liaoning, China","February 4","1975"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1949 Olympia earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 1949 Olympia earthquake occurred on April 13 at 11:55:44 local time with a moment magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (Severe). The shock was located in the area between Olympia and Tacoma, and was felt throughout the state, as well as parts of Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. It is the largest recorded earthquake to occur in the Puget Sound region of Washington. Eight people were killed, a minimum of 64 people were injured, and the total damage is estimated at $25 million. Damage in Olympia from the earthquake was estimated between $500,000 and $1 million by Governor Arthur B. Langlie. [5] Eight buildings on the State Capital campus were damaged by the earthquake, as well as the Old Capitol Building in downtown Olympia. [6] A 23-ton cradle on the east tower of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge fell 500 feet, injuring two men.The earthquake caused geysers to explode along the railroad track in the Tacoma tidal flats and in Puyallup. Chimneys throughout western Washington collapsed. [7] In Seattle, nearly every building in the Pioneer Square neighborhood was affected in some way, with damage ranging from lost parapets to entire floors and in some cases entire buildings needing to be demolished over the following years. Most buildings still show the scars of earthquake damage and the mostly hasty repairs made to them. [citation needed]\n\nEight people were killed, including young crossing guard Marvin Klegman who shielded a second-grader from falling bricks. [7] At least 64 people were injured, and the total damage is estimated at $25 million. This Washington-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This article about an earthquake in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["Eight"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["25 million"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Eight people were killed, a minimum of 64 people were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["area between Olympia and Tacoma","parts of Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["The 1949 Olympia earthquake occurred on April 13"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.7"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1947 Wisconsin earthquake","document":"The 1947 Wisconsin earthquake took place on May 6, immediately south of Milwaukee at 15:25 (CST). It was the largest tremor to be historically documented in Wisconsin, but was not recorded by seismographs. The area had been previously shaken by the 1909 Wabash River earthquake, causing damage assessed at VII (Very strong) on the Modified Mercalli scale across the Wisconsin-Illinois border. Two earthquakes were also reported in the state in 1912. Shocks in 1919 and 1925, the first from Missouri and the latter from Canada, occurred over enormous zones and affected the entire region, though not seriously. Earthquakes struck Wisconsin again in 1937 and 1939. [1]\n\nThe area hardest hit was a 7,770 square kilometers (3,000 sq mi) strip of land in southeastern Wisconsin, while the earthquake was felt over a much more extensive 99 miles (159 km) wide area stretching across the Wisconsin-Illinois border, and to Lake Michigan and Waukesha. Damage consisted of broken windows and fallen porcelain, pots and dishes. [2] The locals' initial impression was that an explosion had taken place. Many evacuated buildings into the streets. [2] Corporate office buildings were emptied of workers. [3] Numerous calls were made local fire departments, police stations and newspapers. Three reports were made to the Milwaukee Fire Department, all describing explosions. [3]\n\nOften described as \"sharp\", this was the most powerful earthquake to date in Wisconsin's seismological history. The earthquake broke a seismograph at Marquette University. [3] Many hotels, such as the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee, were rocked by the tremor. However, the earthquake caused no serious damage or casualties. [3]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Wisconsin"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["felt over a much more extensive 99 miles (159 km) wide area stretching across the Wisconsin-Illinois border, and to Lake Michigan and Waukesha"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1947","May 6"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":null},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1918 Vancouver Island earthquake","document":"The 1918 Vancouver Island earthquake occurred in British Columbia, Canada at 12:41 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on December 6. [1]\nThe earthquake was most likely of the strike-slip type, and was estimated to have a maximum perceived intensity of VII (Very strong) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The epicenter was located east of the Stewardson inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, with damage occurring at the Estevan Point lighthouse on the Hesquiat Peninsula. [2] The event registered 7.2 on the moment magnitude scale and was felt as far as northern Washington state and the interior of British Columbia. The earthquake took place in the vicinity of the Cascadia subduction zone where the Juan de Fuca Plate and the Explorer Plate are being subducted under the North American Plate at a rate of 4 centimeters (1.6 in) and less than 2 centimeters (0.79 in) per year respectively, but the event was a crustal intraplate earthquake and was produced from the complicated interaction between the plates in the area. The source of the earthquake was the Nootka transform fault, which separates the Juan de Fuca and Explorer plates and has been the origin of at least five additional moderate to large events since 1918. [3]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["east of the Stewardson inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["12:41 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on December 6"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.2"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2002 Afyon earthquake","document":"\n\nThe Afyon Province of western Turkey was struck by an earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw on 23 February 2002 at 10:11 local time (07:11 UTC). It had a maximum felt intensity of VIII (severe) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. It damage hundreds of buildings and caused the deaths of 44 people and a further 318 injuries. [1]\n\nMost of western Turkey lies in an area of extensional tectonics that extends into the Aegean Sea. The cause of the extension is thought to be the rollback of the subducting slab of the African Plate that dips northwards beneath the Aegean. The overall N–S extension has resulted in a series of NW–SE to W–E trending seismically active normal faults with associated rift basins. The Afyon–Akşehir Graben lies in the hanging-wall of the low-angle Sultandağı Fault and contains nearly 1 km of late Miocene to Quaternary sedimentary fill. Part of this fault ruptured during a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in December 2000. [2]\n\nThe earthquake had a magnitude in the range 6.2–6.7 Mw . [3][4] The observed focal mechanism is consistent with normal faulting along a fault trending WSW–ENE, although the local trend of the basin-bounding fault is closer to WNW–ESE. The distribution of the aftershocks, however, is consistent with a rupture along part of the Sultandağı Fault of about 40 km in length. It also suggests that the rupture propagation was almost unidirectional towards the northwest, with the mainshock close to the southeastern end of the rupture. [2]\n\nA large aftershock, measuring 5.8–6.0 Mw , occurred roughly two hours after the mainshock near the western end of the Sultandağı Fault. [2][3]\n\nAnalysis of the coulomb stress transfer associated with the M6.0 earthquake on 15 December 2000 suggests that these stress changes triggered the 2002 mainshock. The epicentre of the mainshock lies near the termination of the rupture associated with the earlier earthquake, consistent with this interpretation. [2]\n\nThere was significant damage in 8 of the 18 districts in Afyon Province and some damage in Akşehir in Konya Province. A total of 4,051 residential and 339 commercial buildings either collapsed or were badly damaged. A further 10,402 residential and 884 commercial buildings suffered either low or medium levels of damage. The town of Çay suffered the most damage and had the greatest number of fatalities. [5]\n\nThe most damaged building type was the traditional Himis style, which consists of timber frames with adobe and rubble infill and heavy roofs. Collapse of this building type was responsible for causing most of the deaths and injuries in this earthquake. [5]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["A total of 4,051 residential and 339 commercial buildings either collapsed or were badly damaged"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near the termination of the rupture"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["caused the deaths of 44 people and a further 318 injuries"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["The Afyon Province of western Turkey"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["23 February 2002 at 10:11 local time (07:11 UTC)"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2010 Salta earthquake","document":"The 1948 Salta earthquake took place in the Argentinian province of Salta on 25 August at 03:09:28 local time The shock was 7.0 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum Mercalli Intensity of IX (Violent). Property damage and casualties occurred in several towns in the east and southeast of Salta, and also in northern Tucumán and Jujuy, affecting the capitals of both. It was the last major earthquake recorded in the Argentine Northwest until the 2010 Salta earthquake. ","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the Argentinian province of Salta","Tucumán and Jujuy"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1948","25 August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.0"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2014 Vrancea earthquake","document":"The 1738 Vrancea earthquake occurred on 11 June [O.S. 31 May] 1738, during the third rule of Constantin Mavrocordat. The seism aroused great panic and is mentioned in several sources. It occurred in the lower lithospheric block, at a depth of 130 km. Its effects were violent on large areas, the hardest hit being Bucharest, where several houses and churches collapsed. The Romanian territories were not the only affected. In Niš, a Serbian city where the Ottoman army was quartered, the fortresses on the Danube partially collapsed, and in the Nikopol on Danube four mosques collapsed. [3][4]\n\nAt an estimated magnitude of 7.7 on the Richter scale, the earthquake of 1738 is one of the strongest in the Romanian history. [1]\n\nAccording to the catalog of Cornelius Radu, several foreshocks of magnitude 5–6 occurred starting with March 1738. In a chronicle is mentioned a \"large\" foreshock on 8 May 1738. It occurred at \"5 o'clock\", but its magnitude is not known. The earthquake was felt especially in Bucharest, Iași, Focșani, Buzău and Sfântu Gheorghe. In Iași, 11 monasteries, 15 houses, 15 towers and a church steeple collapsed. [5] In the Carpathians, several rockslides occurred, a large one in the Buzău River Valley. [5] Significant damage was reported in citadels like Rupea, Șchei and Prejmer, where walls and defending towers were destroyed or severely damaged. [6] The seismic wave also affected the Neamț Citadel, where its thick walls collapsed. [7]\n\nIn the chronicle of Constantin Dapontes is mentioned that the walls of Princely Palace in Bucharest were cracked. In a book of hours appears that on 31 May the earth was shaken, and even \"split and came out water with smell of gunpowder and brimstone\". In the same book of hours is mentioned that many arches and walls of monasteries and houses in Bucharest were cracked, while \"outside\" churches and arches have collapsed. A Slavo-Romanian psalter gives information about the intensity of the earthquake: \"the earth trembled in the month of May, on 31, midday, very strong, and went to the east and again turned backward. And the trees were shaking, like the wind, and has destroyed homes and the earth made great noise\". [8]\n\nIn From yesterday Bucharest (Romanian: Din Bucureștii de ieri), George Potra reminds that the calamity \"began with a great roaring\". Many houses and churches were damaged and a \"deep fracture\" was open near Bucharest. [9]\n\nAcademician Gr. Ștefănescu wrote in a study published in 1901 that, during the earthquake in 1738, church bells began to ring themselves.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["11 monasteries, 15 houses, 15 towers and a church steeple collapsed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Bucharest","Niš"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["11 June [O.S. 31 May] 1738"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.7"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"The 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake","document":"The 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake,[4] also known as the Assam earthquake,[4] occurred on 15 August and had a moment magnitude of 8.6. The epicentre was located in the Mishmi Hills, known in Chinese as the Qilinggong Mountains (祁灵公山), south of the Kangri Garpo and just east of the Himalayas in the North-East Frontier Agency part of Assam, India. This area, south of the McMahon Line and now known as Arunachal Pradesh, is today disputed between China and India. Occurring on a Tuesday evening at 7:39 pm Indian Standard Time, the earthquake was destructive in both Assam (India) and Tibet (China), and approximately 4,800 people were killed. The earthquake is notable as being the largest recorded quake caused by continental collision rather than subduction, and is also notable for the loud noises produced by the quake and reported throughout the region. In an attempt to further uncover the seismic history of Northeast India, field studies were conducted by scientists with the National Geophysical Research Institute and Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. The study discovered signs of soil liquefaction including sills and sand volcanoes inside of at least twelve trenches in alluvial fans and on the Burhi Dihing River Valley that were formed by past seismic activity. Radiocarbon dating identified the deposits at roughly 500 years old, which would correspond with a recorded earthquake in 1548. [5]\n\nThe earthquake occurred in the rugged mountainous areas between the Himalayas and the Hengduan Mountains. The earthquake was located just south of the McMahon Line between India and Tibet, and had devastating effects in both regions. Today this area is claimed as part of Zayü and Mêdog Counties in the Tibet Autonomous Region by China, and as part of Lohit District in Arunachal Pradesh by India. This great earthquake has a calculated magnitude of 8.6 and is regarded as one of the most important since the introduction of seismological observing stations. It was the sixth largest earthquake of the 20th century. [6]  It is also the largest known earthquake to have not been caused by an oceanic subduction. Instead, this quake was caused by two continental plates colliding. Aftershocks were numerous; many of them were of magnitude 6 and over and well enough recorded at distant stations for reasonably good epicentre location. From such data the Indian Seismological Service established an enormous geographical spread of this activity, from about 90 deg to 97 deg east longitude, with the epicentre of the great earthquake near the eastern margin. [citation needed]\n\nThe 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake had devastating effects on both Assam and Tibet. In Assam, 1,526 fatalities were recorded[7] and another 3,300 were reported in Tibet for a total of approximately 4,800 deaths. [citation needed]\n\nAlterations of relief were brought about by many rock falls in the Mishmi Hills and surrounding forested regions. In the Abor Hills, 70 villages were destroyed with 156 casualties due to landslides. Landslides blocked the tributaries of the Brahmaputra. In the Dibang Valley, a landslide lake burst without causing damage, but another at Subansiri River opened after an interval of 8 days and the wave, 7 m (23 ft) high, submerged several villages and killed 532 people. [citation needed]\n\nThe shock was more damaging in Assam, in terms of property loss, than the earthquake of 1897. In addition to the extreme shaking, there were floods when the rivers rose high after the earthquake bringing down sand, mud, trees, and all kinds of debris. Pilots flying over the meizoseismal area reported great changes in topography. This was largely due to enormous landslides, some of which were photographed. In Tibet, Heinrich Harrer reported strong shaking in Lhasa and loud cracking noises from the earth. [8]  Aftershocks were felt in Lhasa for days. In Rima, Tibet (modern-day Zayü Town), Frank Kingdon-Ward, noted violent shaking, extensive slides, and the rise of the streams. [citation needed] Helen Myers Morse, an American missionary living in Putao, northern Burma at the time, wrote letters home describing the main shake, the numerous aftershocks, and of the noise coming out of the earth. [9]\n\nOne of the more westerly aftershocks, a few days later, was felt more extensively in Assam than the main shock. This led certain journalists to the belief that the later shock was 'bigger' and must be the greatest earthquake of all time. This is a typical example of the confusion between the essential concepts of magnitude and intensity. The extraordinary sounds heard by Kingdon-Ward and many others at the times of the main earthquake have been specially investigated. Seiches were observed as far away as Norway and England. (p. 63–64.) An article in Science, published in response to the 2001 Bhuj earthquake, calculated that 70 percent of the Himalayas could experience an extremely powerful earthquake. The prediction came from research of the historical records from the area as well as the presumption that since the 1950 Medog earthquake enough slippage has taken place for a large earthquake to occur. [10]  In 2015, the Himalayas were hit by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter further west in Nepal.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Mishmi Hills, known in Chinese as the Qilinggong Mountains (祁灵公山)"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["In Assam, 1,526 fatalities were recorded[7] and another 3,300 were reported in Tibet for a total of approximately 4,800 deaths"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Assam (India) and Tibet (China)"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1950","15 August"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["8.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1946 Dominican Republic earthquake","document":"The 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake occurred on August 4 at 17:51 UTC near Samaná, Dominican Republic. The mainshock measured 8.1 on the surface wave magnitude scale and an aftershock occurred four days later on August 8 at 13.28 UTC with a magnitude of 7.6. A tsunami was generated by the initial earthquake and caused widespread devastation across Hispaniola. The tsunami was observed in much of the Caribbean and the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. [3][4][5][6]\n\nA small tsunami was also recorded by tide gauges at San Juan in Puerto Rico, Bermuda and in the United States at Daytona Beach, Florida and Atlantic City, New Jersey. [7]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":["an aftershock"]},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["near Samaná, Dominican Republic"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["August 4 at 17:51 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["8.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1931 Zangezur earthquake","document":"The 1931 Zangezur earthquake occurred on April 27 at 20:50:45 local time with a moment magnitude of 6.5. The earthquake was located in the Zangezur Mountains near the boundary between southwestern Armenia and Azerbaijan's exclave, the Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic. Both territories were part of the Soviet Union at that time. [3]\n\nThe Pambak-Sevan-Sunik Fault extends in the NW–SE direction. The fault can be traced continuously for 400 km and consists of four major segments. The 1931 Zangezur earthquake was located in the area of the Sunik-Zanghezour segment, which is about 120 km long. [4]\n\nThe earthquake was located near the border between the Syunik Province of Armenia (Zangezur is an alternative name for the region of Syunik Province) and the Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. Up to 2,890 were reported dead. [3] In Armenia, 57 villages were destroyed or heavily damaged in the Sisian-Goris area and in Azerbaijan, 46 villages were destroyed or seriously damaged in the Ordubad area. [5] In another source it was reported that the earthquake destroyed 254 villages. [6] In southeastern Armenia, the historical Tatev Monastery was damaged. The MSK-64 intensity reached IX (Destructive) in Shamb and VIII (Damaging) in Jougha. [7] The Museum of History in Sisian has some photos taken after the town was hit by the earthquake. [8]\n\nThere was a period of increased earthquake activity in Armenia and its neighboring republics between 1911 and 1956 and the 1931 event was one of the strongest. It released about half of the total energy of all the earthquakes occurring in the Caucasus region near the Caspian Sea in that period. [9]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Up to 2,890 were reported dead"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1931","April 27"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2004 Al Hoceima earthquake","document":"The 2004 Al Hoceima earthquake occurred on 24 February at 02:27:47 local time near the coast of northern Morocco. The strike-slip earthquake measured 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum perceived intensity of IX (Violent) on the Mercalli intensity scale. Between 628 and 631 people were killed, 926 were injured, and up to 15,000 people were made homeless in the Al Hoceima-Imzourene-Beni Abdallah area. The moment tensor and pattern of surface cracks indicate left-lateral strike-slip faulting on a buried NE-SW trending fault. This earthquake occurred near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.0 Al Hoceima earthquake of May 26, 1994, that injured one person and caused significant damage to adobe buildings. [4]\n\nGround cracks and landslides were observed between Ajdir and Beni Abdallah and maximum peak ground acceleration of 0.24g was recorded near Imzourene. Several aftershocks killed at least three people and destroyed previously weakened buildings. This earthquake occurred near the eastern end of the Rif mountain belt, which is part of the diffuse boundary between the African and Eurasian plates.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near the eastern end of the Rif mountain bel"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["Between 628 and 631 people were killed, 926 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":null},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["24 February at 02:27:47 local time"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.3"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1968 Hyūga-nada earthquake","document":"The 1968 Hyūga-nada earthquake (Japanese: 1968年日向灘地震) occurred on April 1 at 09:42 local time. The earthquake had a magnitude of Mw 7.5, and the epicenter was located in Hyūga-nada Sea, off the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, Japan. The magnitude of this earthquake was also given as MJMA 7.5. [2] A tsunami was observed. [3] There were 15 people reported injured. [4] The intensity reached shindo 5 in Miyazaki and Kōchi. This was an interplate earthquake between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. In this region, the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting beneath the Eurasian Plate. The subduction interface around this region passes southwestwards from the Nankai megathrust to the Ryukyu Trench just south of Kyusyu. [5]\n\nThis earthquake is the strongest event recorded in the Hyūga-nada Sea region. The maximum slip was estimated to be 4 m.[6] It was estimated that, in the Hyūga-nada Sea region, earthquakes with magnitudes about 7.6 occur with a period of about 200 years, while earthquakes with magnitudes about 7.1 occur with a period of about 20 to 27 years. [7] It has been pointed out that there is a tendency of occurrence of inland earthquakes in Kyushu before and after large interplate earthquakes in the Hyūga-nada Sea region. [8]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Hyūga-nada Sea, off the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, Japan"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["There were 15 people reported injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["the Hyūga-nada Sea region"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["April 1"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2017 Botswana earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 2017 Botswana earthquake is a magnitude 6.5 earthquake which occurred in the Central District of Botswana. It is the second largest earthquake recorded in Botswana next to the 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Maun which occurred in 1952. [1]\n\nThe earthquake which happened at 19:40, local time according to the US Geological Survey. It was felt for 30 seconds in the country's capital of Gaborone and was reportedly felt in neighboring South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland. [2] At least 36 students were injured in a stampede sparked by the earthquake. [3]\n\nThe epicenter area of the earthquake is covered by wind-blown sediments and there is no trace of a fault at the surface prior to the earthquake. [4] The phenomenon was suspected to be an artificial earthquake allegedly caused by hydraulic fracking activity in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This speculation has been dismissed by the Botswana Geoscience Institute saying that the earthquake was natural, taking note that the earthquake was recorded at a depth of 29 km (18 mi). [1] Geophysical investigation of the epicenter region show that the earthquake is natural,[4][5] related to deep mantle fluids moving up the crust and causing the extensional reactivation of an ancient thrust fault. [4] Slip along a low-angle segment of the fault caused a slight ground deformation at the surface detectable only by satellite radar technology. [4]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["At least 36 students were injured in a stampede sparked by the earthquake"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Central District of Botswana"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2017"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["6.5"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1998 Pymatuning earthquake","document":"The 1998 Pymatuning earthquake occurred in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania on September 25 at 19:52 UTC. With a magnitude of 5.2 mbLg,[1][4] it was the largest recorded earthquake in Pennsylvania's history. The earthquake's epicenter was in the Southern Great Lakes Seismic Zone, about 25 kilometers (16 mi) southwest of Meadville; its depth was 5 kilometers (3 mi). The earthquake caused minor damage in towns near its epicenter and was felt in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Illinois and New Jersey, as well as Southern Ontario in Canada. [5]\n\nAfter the earthquake many wells in the epicentral region began to dry up, while new springs and old wells began to flow. A three-month date range revealed 120 dry household-supply wells on the ridge of  Jamestown and Greenville. [6] Declines of up to 100 feet (30 m) were observed on a ridge where at least 80 of these wells resided. The degree of the damage varied. Some of the wells lost all power or could barely hold their yields and some of the water in wells turned black or began to smell of sulfur. The most likely cause of the wells drying was because of the increase in hydraulic conductivity or \"hydraulic islands\" of shale rock under this area caused by the earthquake. [6] The quake affected the existing faults and created new faults in the shale. [6] This created more permeability for the water to leak down from the hilltops on the ridge down to the valleys following the contours of the Meadville shale down to the 14-18 square km area of the valley. [6]\n\nCoordinates: 41°29′N 80°23′W / 41.49°N 80.38°W / 41.49; -80.38","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["Southern Great Lakes Seismic Zone, about 25 kilometers (16 mi) southwest of Meadville; its depth was 5 kilometers (3 mi)"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":null},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["U.S. state of Pennsylvania"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1998","September 25 at 19:52 UTC"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["5.2"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1904 Douliu earthquake","document":"The 1904 Douliu earthquake (Chinese: 1904年斗六地震; pinyin: 1904 nián Dǒuliù dìzhèn) struck central Taiwan with a magnitude of 6.1 at 04:25 on November 6. The quake caused widespread damage and killed 145 people, making it the fifth deadliest earthquake of the 20th century in Taiwan. At 04:25 of the morning of 6 November 1904, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake centred on the town of Xingang, Chiayi County, shook towns in present-day Yunlin County, Chiayi County, and Tainan City. Despite the relatively light magnitude, the shallow depth of the temblor (7 km) coupled with the fact that it struck in a populated area meant that casualties were heavier than might be expected. [1]\n\nThe earthquake was one of the first major quakes in Taiwan to be monitored using seismographs that were introduced by the Japanese. This enabled government officials to pinpoint the magnitude, epicentre and hypocentre of the earthquake with more accuracy than ever before. The quake was felt throughout the island, and Japanese officials recorded sandblasting and soil liquefaction at several sites in the affected area. [1]\n\nAccording to Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau, there were 145 deaths, with 50 people seriously injured and 107 people less seriously injured. As a result of the quake 590 dwellings were completely destroyed, while a further 1,085 dwellings were partially destroyed. The cost of damage was assessed at the time as ¥105,155 (1904 Japanese yen). The worst affected area was Shinkō subprefecture (新港支廳) (Xingang, Chiayi), where 85 of the deaths occurred. [1]","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":["590 dwellings were completely destroyed, while a further 1,085 dwellings were partially destroyed"]},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":["105,155 (1904 Japanese yen)"]},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["there were 145 deaths, with 50 people seriously injured and 107 people less seriously injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["central Taiwan"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1904","04:25 on November 6"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["magnitude of 6.1"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"2005 Kashmir earthquake","document":"\n\nThe 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at 08:50:39 Pakistan Standard Time on 8 October in Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. It was centred near the city of Muzaffarabad, and also affected nearby Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some areas of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It registered a moment magnitude of 7.6 and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The earthquake also affected countries in the surrounding region where tremors were felt in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, India and China's Xinjiang region. The severity of the damage caused by the earthquake is attributed to severe upthrust. It is considered the deadliest earthquake to hit South Asia, surpassing the 1935 Quetta earthquake. [8]\n\nKashmir lies in the area of collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. The geological activity born out of this collision, also responsible for the birth of the Himalayan mountain range, is the cause of unstable seismicity in the region. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured its magnitude as a minimum of 7.6 on the moment magnitude scale, with its epicentre about 19 km (12 mi) northeast of Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, and 100 km (62 mi) north-northeast of the national capital Islamabad. Most of the devastation hit north Pakistan and Pakistan administered Kashmir. In Kashmir, the three main districts were badly affected and Muzaffarabad, the state capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was hardest hit in terms of casualties and destruction. Hospitals, schools, and rescue services including police and armed forces were paralysed. There was virtually no infrastructure and communication was badly affected. More than 70% of all casualties were estimated to have occurred in Muzaffarabad. Bagh, the second-most-affected district, accounted for 15% of the total casualties. The Pakistani government's official death toll as of November 2005 stood at 87,350 although it is estimated that the death toll could reach over 100,000. Approximately 138,000 were injured and over 3.5 million rendered homeless. According to government figures, 19,000 children died in the earthquake, most of them in widespread collapses of school buildings. The earthquake affected more than 500,000 families. In addition, approximately 250,000 farm animals died due to the collapse of stone barns, and more than 500,000 large animals required immediate shelter from the harsh winter. As Saturday is a normal school day in the region, most students were at schools when the earthquake struck. Many were buried under collapsed school buildings. Many people were also trapped in their homes and because it was the month of Ramadan, most people were taking a nap after their pre-dawn meal and did not have time to escape. Reports indicate that entire towns and villages were completely wiped out in northern Pakistan, with other surrounding areas also suffering severe damage. At least 1,350 people were killed and 6,266 injured in Jammu and Kashmir state in India.  The tremors were felt as far away as Delhi and Punjab in northern India. Four fatalities and 14 injured survivors were reported in Afghanistan. According to Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz \"made the appeal to survivors\" on 26 October to come down to valleys and cities for relief,[13] because bad weather, mountainous terrain, landslides and blocked roads are making it difficult for relief workers to reach each house and the winter snows are imminent.\" In Islamabad, the Margalla Towers, an apartment complex in sector F-10, collapsed and killed many of the residents. Four deaths were reported in Afghanistan, including a young girl who died in Jalalabad, after a wall collapsed on her. The quake was felt in Kabul, but the effects were minimal there. There were many secondary earthquakes in the region, mainly to the northwest of the original epicentre. A series of strong aftershocks occurred near Muzaffarabad. [14] As of 27 October 2005[15] there had been more than 978 aftershocks with a magnitude of 4.0 and above that continued to occur daily. Since then, measurements from satellites have shown that mountain parts directly above the epicenter have risen by a few meters, giving ample proof that the rising of the Himalayas is still going on, and that this earthquake was a consequence of that. [16]\n\nThe national and international humanitarian response to the crisis was extensive. In the initial phases of response, the Pakistan Medical corps, Corps of Engineers, Army aviation and a large number of infantry units played important roles. Lt. Gen Afzal, Maj. Gen. Imtiaz, and Maj. Gen Javid were the leaders of their formations. Maj. Gen Farrukh Seir was in charge of foreign relief co-ordination. The relief work in Jammu and Kashmir was led by IAS officers of the state administration, Bashir Runyal and Jaipal Singh Law. In early 2006, the Government of Pakistan organized a donors' conference to raise money for reconstruction and development of the area. A total of $6.2 billion was pledged and a large amount of the money was delivered in terms of services of international NGOs with high pay scales. The rest of the money pledged, which was given to the Government of Pakistan for reconstruction and development, was used by a reconstruction authority called Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, which was made by then military regime to accommodate retired high military officials and while keeping the command of the reconstruction and rehabilitation authority directly under the military. The basic infrastructure, including tertiary care, health, education, road networks, water supply, waste management and other basic needs, was still underdeveloped and had not reached pre-earthquake status in the region. Well over US$ 5.4 billion (400 billion Pakistani rupees)[17] in aid arrived from all around the world. US Marine and Army helicopters stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan quickly flew aid into the devastated region along with five CH-47 Chinook helicopters from the Royal Air Force that were deployed from the United Kingdom. Five crossing points were opened on the Line of Control (LOC), between India and Pakistan, to facilitate the flow of humanitarian and medical aid to the affected region, and aid teams from different parts of Pakistan and around the world came to the region to assist in relief. ","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":["near the city of Muzaffarabad"]},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["The Pakistani government's official death toll as of November 2005 stood at 87,350 although it is estimated that the death toll could reach over 100,000. Approximately 138,000 were injured"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Afghanistan, Tajikistan, India and China's Xinjiang region"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2005","08:50:39 Pakistan Standard Time on 8 October"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["7.6"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"1952 Hasankale earthquake","document":"The 1952 Hasankale earthquake occurred at 08:03 local time on 3 January in Hasankale (today Pasinler) in Erzurum Province, Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 5.8 and a maximum felt intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale, causing 41 casualties. This spot has been the subject of studies due to the amount of earthquakes that occur in Turkey. 17% of earthquakes, globally, occur in this area. This is because the Alpide belt crosses through Turkey. [3] The earthquakes are cause when the plates try to slide past each other on a transform boundary. [4]\n\n\n\n.","event_type":"Earthquakes","arguments":[{"role":"Number of Rebuilding House","values":null},{"role":"Number of Destroyed Building","values":null},{"role":"Economic Loss","values":null},{"role":"Epicenter","values":null},{"role":"Number of Trapped People","values":null},{"role":"Number of Aftershocks","values":null},{"role":"Aid Agency","values":null},{"role":"Number of Evacuated People","values":null},{"role":"Casualties and Losses","values":["causing 41 casualties"]},{"role":"Affected Area","values":["Hasankale (today Pasinler) in Erzurum Province, Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey"]},{"role":"Temporary Settlement","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["1952","08:03 local time on 3 January"]},{"role":"Number of Rescued People","values":null},{"role":"Magnitude","values":["5.8"]},{"role":"Aid Supplies/Amount","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"'Red tide' blamed as whale shark, turtles, dolphins wash up dead on Florida beaches","document":"\nDolphins, manatees and even a whale shark have washed up dead on the Gulf of Mexico beaches because of what locals call the Florida \"red tide\".\nRed tide is the name given to the blooms of a species of microorganisms that have a distinct red colour.\nThe bloom is an annual event in the waters around Florida and it usually breaks up with the wind and tide; but according to local reports, the current bloom has lasted for up to nine months and has killed more marine life than usual. It is believed a combination of coastal pollution and nutrient-laden water being flushed into the warm waters of the gulf from Lake Okeechobee have caused the particularly severe red tide.\nSocial media has been inundated with images of dead animals that failed to escape the toxic bloom washing up on the Gulf of Mexico beaches across Florida.\nWINK-TV News meteorologist Matt Devitt posted images on his Facebook page of fish, stingrays, manatees, turtles and a whale shark that had died.\n\"Pictures are recent and within July, most from Lee County,\" he wrote.\n\"We've also had issues for Collier, Charlotte, and Sarasota counties too.\"\nAccording to US network CNN, this year's effect of the red tide on marine life has been unprecedented.\nThe news agency said about 160.9 kilometres of coastline had been affected so far.\n\"It's hard to predict more than a few days out [when it will end],\" Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Michelle Kerr told CNN.\nRed tide is not the only algae outbreak that has killed marine life in Florida, with a blue-green algae bloom — that started in Lake Okeechobee — poisoning freshwater rivers in the region.\nAccording to reports, the US Army Corps of Engineers released water from the lake which had poisoned waterways downstream.\nThe Miami Herald reported the blue-green algae outbreak had grabbed national attention.\n\"This is horrific what we're enduring now, but it needs to be a wake-up call to people that clean water is important to more than just wildlife,\" Sanibel's Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife veterinarian Heather Barron told the Miami Herald. \"As the person dealing with all these hundreds of dying animals, I'm upset.\"\nShe began treating poisoned birds as early as October.\nThe US Federal Government met with Florida residents in late July to discuss the water quality issue after Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in the area around Lake Okeechobee.\n acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["a combination of coastal pollution and nutrient-laden water"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["annual","nine months","within July"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["WINK-TV News meteorologist Matt Devitt","Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Michelle"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the Gulf of Mexico beaches","the gulf from Lake Okeechobee","around Florida","Lee County","for Collier, Charlotte, and Sarasota counties too"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Health of Tamar River takes a dip under the impact of  pollutants stirred up by 2016 floods","document":"Health of Tamar River takes a dip under the impact of  pollutants stirred up by 2016 floods\n\nThe 2016 Launceston floods are partly to blame for a decline in the health of the Tamar Estuary in Tasmania's north, according to environment authorities.\nNatural Resources Management (NRM) North released the Tamar Estuary Report Card on Friday which showed the system's health had worsened in all but one section.\nThe only area that remained unchanged was the estuarine zone between Launceston and Legana, which retains its D score, the poorest of all five zones.\nThe findings are based on a year's worth of data collected from 16 sites.\nThe river has suffered for decades from Launceston's combined stormwater-sewerage system, which can cause raw sewage to be discharged into the river, and the regular build-up of silt and sediment.\nBut NRM North's operations manager, Amanda Locatelli, said the biggest factor in the drop in water quality was pollution from the 2016 floods.\n\"[They] delivered high loads of pollutants into the system, followed by a very dry and warm season, allowing the persistence of those pollutants in the system,\" she said.\nThe deluge pushed sediment containing heavy metals, pathogens and nutrients into sections of the Tamar that were usually healthier than the Zone 1 area between Launceston and Legana.\nEven without the flood, Zone 1 takes a heavy toll.\n\"The North and South Esk Rivers combined represent about 15 per cent of Tasmania draining into the Launceston area, so they transport a high range of pollutants from a very large and mixed land use area,\" Ms Locatelli said.\n\"Added to that is the location of the sewage treatment plants and Launceston as an urban area — both transport heavy loads of pollution into the system.\"\nImproving the river's health has long been the subject of lobbying and political promises.\nThe State and Federal Governments committed almost $95 million in February for infrastructure upgrades and other changes, with one of the project's aims to reduce sewage outflows by 70 per cent.\nThe cost of separating Launceston's stormwater and sewerage systems is considered prohibitively expensive, with authorities estimating it could cost $435 million.\nMs Locatelli said for the river's health to be improved long-term, governments needed to invest in improving the sewer system and working with farmers and the agricultural sector to reduce their contribution to river pollution.\nShe said that could take 10 to 20 years to see change.\n\"It does take time for systems to respond to change, and significant investment will be required to actually undertake enough of the recommended actions to actually see that shift in ecosystem health,\" she said.\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["committed almost $95 million in February for infrastructure upgrades and other changes, with one of the project's aims to reduce sewage outflows by 70 per cent","governments needed to invest in improving the sewer system and working with farmers and the agricultural sector to reduce their contribution to river pollution"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["the 2016 floods","Launceston floods","raw sewage","heavy metals, pathogens and nutrients"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["The State and Federal Governments"]},{"role":"Date","values":["2016"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Natural Resources Management (NRM)"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Tamar Estuary in Tasmania's north"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Faecal bacteria at dangerously high levels in popular Brisbane waterway, creek users not told","document":"\nA popular recreational creek in northern Brisbane regularly records dangerous levels of faecal bacteria in council testing, but many people using the waterway have told the ABC they know nothing about it. Experts warn exposure to the dangerously high levels of enterococci bacteria recorded in Cabbage Tree Creek could cause urinary tract, ear and skin infections.\nThe Brisbane City Council regularly tests all the city's waterways for pollution.\nLevels of enterococci above 40 per 100 millilitres are considered a risk to human health, according to national guidelines spelt out on the BCC water monitoring website.\nLast October, tests recorded a dangerously high pollution level of more than 16,000 organisms per 100mL in Oxley Creek in Brisbane's south-west.\nThen a month later, Cabbage Tree Creek near the popular Boondall Wetlands recorded an enterococci pollution level of 14,000 — 350 times the safe limit.\nWhile this was a spike in the pollution level, water in the creek regularly exceeded the safe limit for faecal pollution, with BCC estimating its long-term pollution average to be 563 faecal organisms per 100ml.\nBiomedical expert Professor Flavia Huygens from the Queensland University of Technology said those results were particularly concerning for Cabbage Tree Creek, which is used regularly by canoeists and recreational fishers.\n\"Anything above 500 organisms per 100mL of water is considered to be a risk to people who are exposed, so 14,000 organisms is definitely a very high risk for contracting some form of illness,\" Professor Huygens said.\n\"There have been many reports in the past where water contamination has caused public waterways to be shut down.\"\nFor the past five years the northern Brisbane waterway has experienced consistently high levels of the harmful bacteria.\nCabbage Tree Creek's pollution level spiked again on May 10, when BCC recorded 7,300 organisms per 100ml.\nThe water is tested monthly in winter and fortnightly during summer months. But Ben Jones, who lives two houses from the council's testing site, said he had been unaware of the problem.\n\"We've never heard anything about it, not even from the neighbours but definitely not the council — I had no idea,\" he said.\nHe said his son regularly went fishing at the testing site.\nBCC environment committee chairman David McLachlan said information about the bacteria threat was on the council's website.\n\"If people are interested or want to know what the condition of the waterway is, they're encouraged to go to the council website,\" he said.\nSigns in the area warn of the presence of bacteria and increased levels after heavy rainfall.\nVolunteer Marine Rescue Brisbane president Thomas Grice said no-one was ever contacted when high levels of bacteria were recorded in Cabbage Tree Creek.\n\"If there is an issue, people who enjoy the creek should be made aware of it, to be careful,\" he said.\n\"Especially in this day and age — there are plenty of ways to inform people and communicate with people.\"\nPhil Plant from Sandgate Canoe Club agreed BCC should be doing more to inform the public.\n\"You do have to go and find the information, so it is not particularly transparent,\" he said.\n\"It would be good to have some sort of warning system in place if they do have high readings rather than just taking a few days and putting on the website.\"\nCouncillor McLaughlin said he was willing to consider ways to improve awareness.\n\"If there's a need for better education about what happens after heavy rain events in our creek systems, I'm happy to take that forward as a recommendation,\" he said.\nQueensland Urban Utilities (QUU) owns and operates the Sandgate Sewage Treatment plant adjacent to Cabbage Tree Creek.\nSpokeswoman Michelle Cull said the effluent released into the creek was monitored regularly.\n\"The water is tested for a number of different things including the enterococci,\" she said.\n\"UV disinfection kills the bacteria in the waste water, so it is treated to a very high level.\"\nA 2012 QUU and BCC report showed the bacteria was predominantly caused by bats and horses, but there has been no further testing to confirm the source of recent bacteria levels.\nUnder its environmental licence, QUU is permitted to bypass the total water treatment process in heavy rainfall.\nMs Cull said during a bypass the water was not tested before being released into the creek.\n\"If a bypass does occur, the waste water is heavily diluted by storm water and it has also undergone partial treatment, including screening and removal of grit,\" Ms Cull said.\nShe said the bypasses \"potentially contribute to bacteria levels in the creek\".\nA bypass occurred last November, the day before pollution was found to have spiked in Cabbage Tree Creek.\nProfessor Huygens said the water should be tested weekly and that BCC needed to determine the \"disease-causing ability\" of the enterococci levels.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["the water should be tested weekly and that BCC needed to determine the \"disease-causing ability\" of the enterococci levels"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["Cabbage Tree Creek","faecal bacteria","enterococci bacteria","enterococci pollution"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Last October","a month later","the past five years","last November"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU","Biomedical expert Professor Flavia Huygens","Ben Jones","BCC environment committee chairman David McLachlan"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Brisbane's south-west","northern Brisbane"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"ADF ships drinking water to Katherine properties affected by contamination","document":"\nMore than 40 properties around an Air Force base near Katherine are being supplied with drinking water by the Defence Department, as residents express shock at discovering they have been drinking from a contaminated supply.\nThe contamination has been linked to chemicals in firefighting foams previously used at RAAF Base Tindal and at other Defence sites, civil airports and fire stations around Australia.\nKirsty Bartlett lives on a property close to Tindal and says she has been drinking contaminated water from a private bore on her property for the past 13 years.\nIn early November Ms Bartlett and her family were believed to be the first and only rural residents to start receiving deliveries of drinking water from Defence, but since then the number of water deliveries has been steadily climbing.\nSince Monday, Defence has been supplying 44 properties near Tindal with alternative drinking water, a spokesman told the ABC.\nThe provision of drinking water does not necessarily mean the bore water is contaminated.\n\"Defence has adopted a precautionary approach and will provide alternative sources of drinking water to eligible residents located in close proximity to RAAF Base Tindal who do not have a town water connection, and who rely on the use of a bore for drinking water,\" the spokesman said.\nMs Bartlett said it had been awful to watch friends who paid for tests on their private bores discover the water was contaminated.\n\"I've had quite a number of friends call me up and say, 'oh my god, I have just got my results, this is what they are',\" she said.\n\"The common emotion (in the community) is shock, shock and disbelief; your whole little reality has just crumbled,\" Ms Bartlett said.\n\"Thinking you've lived this idyllic lifestyle on a rural property in the Northern Territory in this pristine environment, you know, what could go wrong?\n\"You don't imagine you are going to find out that your bore water is contaminated and you have been giving that to your children from the moment they entered the world.\"\nMs Barlett said her family was receiving 30 litres of water per person each week, but that there had been problems with the way the water was being delivered.\n\"They are choosing to deliver the water bladders in cardboard boxes and they have been left out in the rain because we haven't gotten home in time to put them inside,\" she said.\n\"They have also just delivered to everybody three weeks worth of water to last over the Christmas and New Year period.\n\"So obviously it's really awkward to try and get the water bladders to your home and find somewhere to store them where they are not going to burst.\"\nThe water is also being delivered in trucks that carry 10,000 litres of water to fill tanks, but Ms Bartlett said the heavy vehicles were at risk of getting bogged in the dirt during the heavy wet season rains.\n\"When (a truck driver) came in to deliver water (on Wednesday) he was worried thinking he might be spending Christmas in our back paddock waiting for the ground to dry out,\" she said.\nMs Bartlett has three children, aged 12, nine and seven. She said if she'd known about the contamination when she was pregnant and when her children were born she could have made different decisions about what water they drank.\n\"There is also an underlying feeling, (a) sense of betrayal,\" she said.\n\"Defence say that they stopped using these chemicals in 2004, that that's when it came to light, that you know they were no good, yet nothing was done, nothing was said, everything seemed to me like it was all kept very quiet,\" she said.\n\"To me it's 12 years too late. It would have been really helpful to know back in 2004 that this had happened.\"\nLast month, Defence released a report into a preliminary sampling program at Tindal, RAAF Base Darwin and at Robertson Barracks in Palmerston, and said year-long in-depth studies for each site would begin in early 2017.\nThe report confirmed the toxic chemicals had been found at all 12 sites tested nationally by the department.\nIn the Northern Territory, 16 sites around RAAF Bases Tindal and Darwin as well as Robertson Barracks in Palmerston were sampled, and the chemicals were detected to varying levels on or around all three bases.\nDefence said the levels detected in the Northern Territory did not exceed its changed safety guidelines, which were adapted in September.\nHad Defence used the previous guidelines, two of the nine sites tested near Tindal, and two of the three sites tested near Darwin's RAAF base, would have exceeded the standards.\nDespite Darwin being slated for a more comprehensive investigation, samples of groundwater, which is used for drinking, were not collected for testing.\nAt RAAF Base Tindal, of seven groundwater sites tested, one returned levels higher than acceptable under the previous guidelines, as well as one of two surface water sites.\nAt Robertson Barracks, one surface water and four groundwater sites were tested, but the PFAS detected did not exceed interim screening levels.\nGovernment testing is still underway to determine what negative health impacts the chemicals could have. The International Agency for Cancer Research has classified one of the chemicals, known as PFOA, as a possible carcinogen but there is not yet conclusive evidence that the chemicals cause any specific illnesses.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["Defence has adopted a precautionary approach and will provide alternative sources of drinking water"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["chemicals in firefighting foams"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["Defence Department"]},{"role":"Date","values":["the past 13 years","early 2017"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Kirsty Bartlett","International Agency for Cancer Research"]},{"role":"Location","values":["RAAF Base Tindal and at other Defence sites, civil airports and fire stations around Australia","16 sites around RAAF Bases Tindal and Darwin as well as Robertson Barracks in Palmerston","Northern Territory","Darwin and at Robertson Barracks in Palmerston","near Katherine","44 properties near Tindal"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Marine debris app helps environmentalists track rubbish on a national scale","document":"\nEnvironmental groups have been armed with a new tool to help reduce plastic and other rubbish washing up on Australian beaches and waterways.\nThe Australian Marine Debris Initiative app, launched by environmental group Tangaroa Blue Foundation, allows rubbish found during clean-ups to be collated in one database.\nWhile the foundation has been collating data on beach clean-ups across Australia since it began in the south-west of Western Australia in 2004, managing director Heidi Taylor said the new app allows anyone across Australia to contribute.\n\"We're hoping it'll make it easier for people to record items that they are collecting on the go, but also just using the latest technology to enable us to collect even more details such as barcodes and take images for that database as well,\" she said.\nMs Taylor said barcodes can sometimes show where the item was made, which helps to trace the rubbish to its origin.\n\"Using that data to try and track the debris back to the source will help us figure out why these are ending up in our environment and what needs to change to prevent that in the future,\" she said.\nAccording to CSIRO research most of the rubbish that washes up on Australian beaches is plastic waste, and Ms Taylor said in some remote areas, very little is from Australia.\n\"Up in Cape York more than 90 per cent of the debris is actually coming from overseas,\" she said.\n\"We want the communities there to be able to show what they're actually dealing with and [scanning] the barcodes helps us do that.\"\nAaron Horsey has been involved in a number of beach and waterway clean-ups across the east coast of Australia, and said the app brought all the information together in one place.\n\"If we do it all together and it's all kept in one location it's going to be more valuable as a nation to make change,\" he said.\nIn June, Mr Horsey worked with a group of volunteers to audit the rubbish found in 14 drain sites across the Mackay central business district in north Queensland.\nThey found the city had a waste problem, with large amounts of plastic wrappers, cigarettes and cans found.\n\"Cigarettes were the big one, out of 14 traps I'd say we had a couple of thousand cigarette butts,\" he said.\nWhile cleaning out the drain prevents the rubbish running into waterways, he said not tracking what is found inside is a missed opportunity to create change.\n\"It gives us more ammo to approach businesses to say 'hey, you realise that there were 50 Mentos packets directly in that storm water pit',\" Mr Horsey said.\n\"To back that up with a few images and stuff, I think it's a fairly powerful image.\"\nSource: Department of Environment and Energy\nMr Horsey said the data also helps to show local businesses and governments how different coastlines can have different pollution problems.\n\"I have been to some clean ups down in Port Phillip Bay and the material that you'll capture down there is so much different to the beaches that we have up in Queensland,\" he said.\nFor Ms Taylor the app is just one more tool to help tap in on the growing public interest around marine pollution.\n\"This issue is now getting a lot of air time,\" she said.\n\"Back in 2004 it wasn't really on the radar.\n\"We are starting to look at this as a real serious issue, that we all need to address.\"\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["show where the item was made, which helps to trace the rubbish to its origin"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["debris","plastic and other rubbish","plastic wrappers, cigarettes and cans"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2004"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["The Australian Marine Debris Initiative app","environmental group Tangaroa Blue Foundation","Aaron Horsey","a group of volunteers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["east coast of Australia","Australian beaches and waterways","Cape York","in north Queensland"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"PFAS: Expert submits warning via federal inquiry that contamination more widespread than reported","document":"\nA contamination expert is warning a federal parliamentary inquiry that the spread of potentially harmful chemicals once used in firefighting foam is likely to have affected many more parts of Australia than previously reported.\nThe expert said the sites included all Australian airports, all landfill sites, and any locations where there had been a large fuel or chemical fire in the past 50 years.\nAdding to concerns, the ABC understands the Queensland Government, in its submission to the federal inquiry, said it knew of 15 sites in the state with contamination, including seven airports.\nIt told the federal inquiry a further and full investigation was needed to determine \"the nature and extent of PFAS contamination at airports\".\nLast year, researchers from two Queensland universities estimated Australia has 600 registered landfill sites, and up to 2,000 unregulated ones.\nKatherine is just one affected site in a major ongoing Australian public health issue.\nIn his submission to the inquiry, Associate Professor Robert Niven, from the University of NSW in Canberra, said sites highly likely to be contaminated with PFAS chemicals included:\nQueensland Health Minister Steven Miles said the Federal Government needed to do more to address community concerns on PFAS. \"They've failed frankly in managing the sites that they are responsible for,\" he said.\n\"Understandably there is a very high level of community concern about these pollutants.\n\"We've called upon the Commonwealth to ban their use federally, they continue to use them at sites that they regulate.\"\nThe State Government's submission also suggested the Commonwealth offer blood tests to people who have been potentially exposed to high levels of the chemicals.\nThe environmental engineer's warning comes as the ABC can reveal a woman living near and working at the Gold Coast's airport, where contamination has been confirmed, had blood tests that showed her PFAS levels were in the top 5 per cent of results for her age.\nJackie McDonald worked at the airport as an Aboriginal stakeholder overseeing cultural sites and has regularly eaten seafood from the neighbouring Cobaki Broadwater where the chemicals have been detected.\nHer blood tests show her PFOS (a type of PFAS chemical) levels are within the top 5 per cent of results for people her age.\nPFAS chemicals have been linked to lower birth weights in babies, reduced kidney function and increased cholesterol.\nAn Australian expert panel found the chemicals did not pose an increase in overall cancer risk, but the Environment Protection Authority in the US where the chemicals were manufactured has warned there were \"limited\" findings linking some of the chemicals to cancer.\nMs McDonald said she did not know what her results meant for her health.\n\"I am constantly listening to my body to see if it is telling me anything, it is a constant worry,\" she said.\n\"I keep thinking, 'well I have had a good life, but I am worried for my younger family members'.\"\nShe said she does not know why her levels are so high.\n\"I don't know what it is caused by. Is it caused by exposure while I have been in and out of the airport? Or is it caused by exposure from any past contamination in the Cobaki?\" she said.\nMs McDonald is a member of the community group the Tugun Cobaki Alliance, which has previously raised concerns about PFAS contamination at the Gold Coast airport.\nShe wants further testing of PFAS contamination in the area and more blood tests for workers and residents.\n\"How many people might have PFAS in their blood the same as myself, if not higher? Something is causing it,\" she said.\nIn his submission to the federal inquiry, which is focusing on Defence bases, Associate Professor Niven said that all of the possible PFAS large contamination sites in Australia need to be investigated by the Federal Government.\nHe said residents living near such sites should demands investigations and questioned why a national investigation has not yet taken place yet.\nThe Department of Defence admits it should have warned the public about a chemical contamination scandal three years earlier than it did.\n\"The fact that such a national initiative is not prominent in the media suggests either that these investigations are being conducted covertly, or conducted on an ad hoc basis, or alternatively that there is deliberate inaction by Commonwealth and state governments,\" he wrote.\nHe said that all industrial sites that likely had PFAS exposure and have been redeveloped for commercial or housing use \"must be considered suspect\".\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["suggested the Commonwealth offer blood tests to people who have been potentially exposed to high levels of the chemicals"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["PFAS chemicals","harmful chemicals once used in firefighting foam"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["in the past 50 years"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["The expert","Associate Professor Robert Niven","Environment Protection Authority","Tugun Cobaki Alliance"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Australia","Gold Coast's airport"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Marine debris on north Australian beaches doubles in a decade; foreign fishers may be to blame, researchers say","document":"Marine debris on north Australian beaches doubles in a decade; foreign fishers may be to blame, researchers say\n\nTrash from the sea washing up on Arnhem Land's once-pristine beaches has doubled in the last decade.\nResearchers say there is up to three tonnes of marine debris per kilometre along 11 monitored beaches in northern Australia, and that much of it is related to increasing foreign fishing activity, some of it illegal.\nIn June, the ABC spoke with residents of Cape Arnhem, near Nhulunbuy, who detailed the level of rubbish that was washing up on local beaches.\nDr Karen Edyvane is a marine debris expert from the Australian National University's North Australia Research Unit, and has been monitoring Top End beaches for 12 years.\nShe told ABC Radio Darwin on Tuesday that they are recording \"extraordinary\" amounts of rubbish.\n\"North Australian shores have recorded some of the highest levels of marine debris — particularly fishing-related debris — not only in Australia but the world,\" she said.\nA diver who filmed a \"slick\" of plastic in Indonesian waters says he's never seen anything on this scale of ocean pollution.\nDr Edyvane said it is currently the worst it has ever been.\nLocal Indigenous ranger groups and conservation volunteers have been working with researchers for almost two decades to research and monitor 11 beach sites for marine debris, and they have found that Cape Arnhem is registering the highest volume of rubbish.\n\"What has been recorded, particularly last year, is twice the amount of litter — debris — than we were recording 10 years ago,\" Dr Edyvane said.\nThe bulk of debris was fishing material, she found.\n\"It's not just the fishing nets and the buoys and the baits and the lures and so forth, but also the fact that when you're on a boat … for weeks at a time you also need to eat, need to shampoo,\" she said.\n\"Many of the fishermen smoke and use lighters, and many of them wear thongs, and we see a lot of thongs.\"\nThe situation is so bad at Cape Arnhem because the dry season's southeast trade winds and currents move the debris onto south-easterly facing beaches.\nNorth-east Arnhem Land resident Blue Douglas painted a vivid picture of the debris he found on a once-pristine beach:\n\"The beach was literally littered with plastic baskets, cigarette lighters, bottles in particular — shampoo bottles, oil bottles — and the sad thing is about a lot of these things, when you pick them up, they've obviously been punctured in some way to ensure that when they're thrown off the side of the boat they sink,\" he said.\n\"A lot of the oil bottles, the caps, there's been holes punctured in them, the shampoo bottles have had a slice put through the centre of them.\n\"There were empty steel gas cylinders — which I've never seen in past years — which surprised me.\n\"Bottle tops, squid lures, bits of net, rope, you could go on for an hour just describing what was there.\"\nAlthough the finger has previously been pointed at Indonesia, Dr Edyvane said researchers had not yet been able to establish a clear oceanographic link between debris recorded off Bali the western parts of Indonesia and the rubbish washing up in the Gulf of Carpentaria.\nA remote and uninhabited island wilderness in the South Pacific is literally a garbage dump and these photos prove it.\nBut she said the Cape Arnhem area was adjacent to some of the largest fisheries in south-east Asia, nearly all of them were located in the Arafura Sea, \"intimately connected\" with the Gulf.\nThe Arafura Sea is the only part of Indonesian seas where trawling is permitted, she said.\n\"It's a global hotspot for illegal fishing and that illegal fishing activity,\" Dr Edyvane said.\n\"In the Arafura Sea in Indonesian waters, industrial-scale fishing has doubled in the last 10 years.\n\"And when we look at our foreign fishing vessel sightings we get [from authorities], we know that the sightings of [foreign] fishermen on the border of Australia has [quadrupled] in that time, too.\"\nShe said that in 2000, authorities were sighting up to 9,000 foreign fishing vessels in Australia's border regions, whereas in 2012 it was close to 37,000.\nShe said, however, that it was difficult to pinpoint how much of the marine debris related to illegal foreign fishing, but that it was \"likely to be substantial\".\nThe marine debris is having a major impact on marine wildlife as well as affecting it when plastics were broken down and entered the food chain, Dr Edyvane said.\n\"Along the north Australian coastline we have some of the most globally significant populations of marine megafauna, particularly turtles, and they're the ones affected by driftnets and derelict fishing nets,\" she said.\nShe quoted a CSIRO study which found that in the five years between 2005-2010, it was estimated that up to 15,000 turtles had been entangled by up to 9,000 ghost nets.\n\"That's a lot of turtles potentially caught and drowned in those nets, huge impact,\" she said.\nDr Edyvane said Australia and Indonesia were working together to fight illegal fishing, and she urged consumers to buy sustainably sourced food to encourage supermarkets and MPs to put Australian fisheries at the forefront.\n\"Australia fisheries are well regulated and have very good environmental track records,\" she said.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["15,000 turtles"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["marine debris","Trash from the sea","industrial-scale fishing"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["in the last decade","in the last 10 year"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Dr Karen Edyvane","Local Indigenous ranger groups and conservation volunteers"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Arafura Sea in Indonesian waters","Arafura Sea","Arnhem Land's once-pristine beaches","along 11 monitored beaches in northern Australia","not only in Australia but the world","western parts of Indonesia and the rubbish washing up in the Gulf of Carpentaria","A remote and uninhabited island wilderness in the South Pacific"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Microplastics project to record amount, location and origin of pollution in the oceans","document":"\nA global citizen science project launched in Sydney will recruit students and volunteers to count and record some of the five trillion pieces of plastic in the oceans. The Australian Microplastic Assessment Project (AUSMAP) will train volunteers to collect micro and macroplastics from coastlines all over Australia.\nProgram director Dr Michelle Blewitt said the aim was to obtain data about the amount of plastic in the marine environment, where it is and where it's originating from. \"There is an estimated five trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans currently ... and there's only three trillion trees, so there's more plastics in the ocean than trees on our planet. \"Not only are plastics entangling animals, they're ingesting these plastics. The smaller plastics are also being ingested in animals as small as our zoo plankton, the basis of the food chain.\"\nThe project, designed to engage students from years 9 to 12, will use a rigorous scientific method to collect data from coastlines. Every plastic is fully recyclable, but not all can go into your household recycle bin.\n\"We're using two methods: a transect line where they're collecting the large stuff — plastic bottles, plastic bags, anything that's visible — [and] that data gets added into the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database,\" Dr Blewitt said. \"We're also collecting microplastic, which is one to five millimetres in size so it's visible to the naked eye.\n\"We collect the top two centimetres of sand in the quadrat and we sift that through different size sieves. What's left is what we collate, and we check and we count and we quantify.\"\nFollowing the launch, AUSMAP will work to create regional hubs where the equipment will be available for anybody to participate. \"The aim is to engage citizens ... because we feel that the more people are engaged with something like this, the more they're ready to be environmental activists to minimise our plastic rubbish going into our oceans,\" Dr Blewitt said. Volunteer straw snorkeler Harriet Spark said while the water could get a little nippy off Sydney over winter, the result made it worthwhile. \"I'm a dive instructor and I used to work at the aquarium, that's now closed down,\" she said.\n\"A colleague and myself always used to go snorkelling here and we'd find so many straws, and people were so shocked by them so I thought imagine if we collected them, we could show people just how much of an impact it's having.\"\nInspired to do more, Ms Spark launched Operation Straw which encourages volunteers to snorkel out into Manly Cove and collect plastic waste. \"We collect straws every weekend and count how many we find and use this to try and make businesses change their practices around straws and other plastics,\" she said. \"Over summer 2017-18 we found just over 2,500 straws.\"\n\"It does make me feel quite frustrated in regards to straws because they are an item that unless you have a medical condition you don't really need to use.\"\nThe Manly local said while the awareness around plastic straws was growing, there were still businesses whose practices she'd like to see change. \"We can all say no to a straw, but if a business says no to a straw they're cutting so many straws from ending up in landfill or bins or ultimately the ocean.\" )","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["the awareness around plastic straws was growing"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["five trillion pieces of plastic","micro and macroplastics"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["The Australian Microplastic Assessment Project (AUSMAP)","Program director Dr Michelle Blewitt"]},{"role":"Location","values":["in the oceans","coastlines all over Australia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Brass fittings leaching lead in drinking fountains, but daily use in households a larger concern","document":"\nBrass fittings and taps found to cause slightly elevated levels of lead in drinking water continue to be sold and installed in homes, businesses and schools across Australia.\nPublic drinking fountains were turned off in the cities of Geelong and Warrnambool after Victorian health officials detected higher-than-average amounts of lead in the water in May.\nThe Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) chief health officer, Charles Guest, said that \"drinking water fountains are not the main source of daily drinking water\" and that high-use fittings found in homes could be of even greater concern.\nMaster Plumbers Australia chief executive, Peter Daly, said that if people have concerns about the taps and fittings in their homes, they should discuss it with a licensed plumber.\n\"Lead is a long-term toxin and people should listen to the advice provided by the health authorities,\" Mr Daly said, but added that it was \"important that people don't overreact\".\n\"The industry is currently looking at how we can substitute lead-free pipes and fittings.\n\"Master Plumbers has a concern about cheap imported taps and our advice to consumers is quite simple — if you're installing taps at home, make sure they're watermarked and they're installed by a licenced plumber.\"\nThe issue lies with brass tap fittings which can slowly leach trace amounts of lead into drinking water.\nIn 2016, three researchers from Sydney's Macquarie University conducted a study which tested drinking water in New South Wales homes.\nTheir findings included the discovery that eight per cent of the homes tested had levels of lead above the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG).\nBy comparing the quality of water as it entered the home with the water that exited the internal taps, the researchers believed they found the culprit of the slightly increased lead levels.\n\"Analysis of household plumbing fittings (taps and connecting pipework) show that these are a significant source of drinking water lead contamination,\" the study stated.\nIt also referred to numerous previous studies dating back to 1988 highlighting \"brass taps and fittings have, for many years, been a known source of drinking water contamination\".\n\"Despite this knowledge, plumbing components containing large concentrations of lead continue to remain available to consumers,\" it said.\nAccording to the Victorian Government's Better Health website, \"lead exposure can permanently damage the brain and impair intellectual development\" and is particularly detrimental to young children.\nThe ABC understands that in the wake of drinking fountains being shut down in Geelong and Warrnambool, water authorities were briefed by the DHHS about concerns around plumbing fittings leaching lead into drinking water.\nThe DHHS refused to comment on the details of that briefing, saying its contents were not for publication.\nIt also said it would not comment beyond Professor Guest's statement, nor would the Victorian Building Authority, saying it was still investigating the Geelong matter.\nIn the wake of the Geelong discovery, the DHHS issued a statement from Professor Guest, stating:\nWhile the levels of lead detected are above the health guideline value in the ADWG, they are not of immediate concern, as drinking water fountains are not the main source of daily drinking water.\nCurrent evidence indicates that the issue may be related to plumbing materials associated with the drinking fountains.\nPeople do not need to be worried if they have consumed water from the affected drinking fountains.\nThe impacts of plumbing materials in contact with drinking water is an emerging issue worldwide.\nOnce the results of the Geelong investigation are available, the relevant state government departments and agencies may be required to coordinate a state-wide response.\nIt's too early to start a broader investigation at this time as the source of the lead is still being investigated.\nThe new Perth Children's Hospital had its opening delayed by three years, partly because of elevated lead levels in its drinking water, which was found to be caused by brass fittings in the building. In a report by the Western Australia chief health officer, Tarun Weeramanthri, the fittings were found to have corroded, leaching lead into the water system.\nA Building Commission report in April 2017 also found state-managed pipes which circle the whole medical precinct, as well as the brass fittings in the worksite itself, were a cause of the contamination.\nIn Queensland, the state's Building and Construction Commission confirmed it \"continually monitors plumbing products which may pose a health or safety issue\".\n\"Plumbing products which are found to contain lead, particularly those connected to drinking supplies, present a serious concern,\" a spokesperson said, before referring the ABC to the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB).\nIn response, the ABCB chief executive, Neil Savery, said the board \"has commissioned a research project through Macquarie University NSW to enable it to make an informed decision about possible changes to the Plumbing Code of Australia\".\nIt said the project would \"determine to what extent plumbing products and materials may contribute to lead levels in drinking water in excess of those permitted by the ADWG\".\n\"The research that has been commissioned by the ABCB is focused specifically on brass fittings in the context of Australian plumbing systems to determine if any further changes are necessary,\" Mr Savery said. Elizabeth O'Brien, vice president of not-for-profit organisation The Lead Group, said the sale and installation of fittings and taps made of brass is largely unregulated.\nThe group had advocated in the past for the removal of lead from petrol and paint in its battle against lead poisoning and pollution.\n\"Now it is clear that all this time we should have been looking at the plumbing standards and the sale of lead in brass in fittings,\" Ms O'Brien said.\n\"Unfortunately, the way water works in Australia is that the water authorities are responsible for [water] up to the house, [but] the homeowner then becomes responsible,\" she said.\n\"There's no regulation that says that you can't sell a product that's going to add lead to the water.\n\"All it says is that you shouldn't sell a product that doesn't comply with the standards, and when you look at the standards there is some grave problems that occur in testing.\"\nMs O'Brien also questioned the extent of product testing and whether it reflected \"real-life situations\".\nMr Daly confirmed \"there's nothing to stop non-watermarked products being on the market\" such as \"bubbler taps that we find in schools and in parks that have the potential to carry lead in water because they're not part of that [watermarking] scheme\". The Municipal Association of Victoria, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the office of Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, which deemed this a state issue, declined to comment on the matter.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["state-managed pipes which circle the whole medical precinct, as well as the brass fittings in the worksite itself, were a cause of the contamination","elevated levels of lead in drinking water","to plumbing materials associated with the drinking fountains","brass taps and fittings have","Plumbing products"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) chief health officer, Charles Guest","Elizabeth O'Brien, vice president of not-for-profit organisation The Lead Group"]},{"role":"Location","values":["in homes, businesses and schools across Australia","Geelong and Warrnambool","Queensland"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Filtering out heavy metals years away, despite high uranium detected in water","document":"\nThe Northern Territory Government has downplayed concern following the ABC's revelation that drinking water has been high in uranium in three Aboriginal communities for a decade — even as the Power and Water Corporation said a plan to filter heavy metals was still years away. The response came as the Australian Medical Association urged the water supplies be fixed, with Aboriginal health organisations describing the situation as \"unacceptable\".\nOn Tuesday, ABC's 7.30 revealed the central desert communities of Laramba, Wilora and Willowra supplied bore water with elevated levels of uranium.\nData from the Power and Water Corporation showed Laramba's water supply contained uranium at higher than 0.04 milligrams per litre (mg/L).\nAustralian Drinking Water Guidelines outline those levels should not exceed 0.017 mg/L — and the corporation agreed that several communities are drinking water above the national guidelines. Yet the Power and Water Corporation said a plan to filter out elevated levels of heavy metals like uranium from drinking water in some Central Australian communities is still years away.\nSome of Australia's poorest communities have been drinking water high in uranium, and residents have accused governments of ignoring the problem\nNorthern Territory Health Minister Natasha Fyles said she had been advised that there was currently no outstanding risk to any water supply in the Northern Territory.\n\"Territorians can absolutely be assured that that analysis takes place, that the Department of Health and [the Power and Water Corporation] work together to ensure the water supply is safe right across the Northern Territory,\" she said.\n\"You need to remember, with different factors, that there's tolerable daily intake levels, so for example someone can consume something for a short period and they will have an elevated level at that point, but over the whole of lifetime exposure, the Australian standards indicate that there isn't a risk.\"\nThe NT Health Department told the ABC that Aboriginal residents at the Garawa Camp Two at Borroloola in the Roper region were currently supplied with bottled water because of high lead levels in their reticulation system. The department told the ABC that recent testing indicated lead levels \"were very low\".\nDoctors said fixing the supply should be a priority.\n\"Contaminants which do make the drinking water unsafe to drink above the guidelines as stipulated, should be treated as a health priority,\" AMA president Dr Tony Bartone said.\n\"All governments — of either jurisdiction — need to ensure that all Australians have access to potable drinking water.\"\nDr Bartone said the AMA wanted safe drinking water levels to be part of the Closing the Gap targets, which are currently undergoing a review after 10 years of limited progress.\n\"Access to safe drinking water is a prerequisite for good health,\" he said.\n\"You can't really set aspirational targets for health without really pinning the strategy to the building blocks around good health — the social determinants of health.\"\nJohn Paterson, chief executive of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, said an independent review was needed \"as soon as possible\".\n\"Governments need to respond to this, we need the experts out there to explain how much contamination is in the water and what solutions have been provided,\" he said.\nRod Little, co-chair of National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, said he was shocked to hear of uranium levels not meeting health guidelines in Aboriginal communities.\n\"These kinds of things happening in our communities should not be tolerated — particularly when we have a lot of pride in how well we do [as] a nation. It is unacceptable,\" Mr Little said.\nLaramba residents told 7.30 the community should be supplied with more information about the uranium levels, and said their pleas for the bore water to be improved had been ignored.\nLong-term resident Billy Briscoe said: \"That's the main problem we have, just that water problem\".\n\"People need proper water,\" he said.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["the community should be supplied with more information about the uranium levels"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["uranium","high lead levels"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["for a decade","On Tuesday"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["the Power and Water Corporation","Australian Medical Association","Aboriginal health organisations"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Northern Territory","Laramba, Wilora and Willowra","three Aboriginal communities","Aboriginal residents at the Garawa Camp Two at Borroloola in the Roper region"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Anti-plastic crusader begins six-month, 8,800km swim across Great Pacific Garbage Patch","document":"\nSharks, freezing water, jellyfish and exhaustion are just a few of the obstacles Ben Lecomte will encounter as he begins his attempt to swim more than 8,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean today.\nThe swim will take him from Choshi in Japan to San Francisco via the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a huge area where plastic and other marine debris is accumulating in the North Pacific Ocean.\nMr Lecomte, who swam almost 6,000km across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998, said he hopes his swim will bring attention to the growing problem of ocean pollution.\n\"I've been swimming for a long time and the change just in the last 30 years is troubling, that you can see so much degradation,\" he said.\n\"Now I am a father, so I'm thinking about my kids and how [the future] is going to be for them.\"\nCheck this box to disable GIFs from automatically playing on the ABC News website.\nCrew onboard the support ship — a 67-foot yacht called Discoverer — will be collecting ocean samples during the 180-day journey.\nResearchers are planning to use the data to assess the distribution of radioactive material among the Garbage Patch from the Japan tsunami in 2011, and to study the transport of potentially invasive species using ocean plastic as rafts.\nThey will also be collecting data on Mr Lecomte's physical condition and mental health as part of collaborations with 27 different institutes, including NASA and Scripps Institute of Oceanography.\nToday is the culmination of years of preparation dogged by technical and logistical issues, which have repeatedly delayed the intended start date of May, 2013.\nHis previous support-ship captain suffered a heart attack, and another ship proved to be unfit for purpose.\nMr Lecomte will walk into the water at Choshi on Japan's east coast, meet his latest support vessel a few hundred metres offshore, and then begin swimming east.\nThe plan is to join the Kuroshio current, which will push him north-east up the coast of Japan, before merging with the easterly flowing North Pacific current.\nThe 50-year-old Frenchman, who lives in Texas, will be swimming without a cage and admits sharks are a concern.\n\"I had a shark following me for five days when I crossed the Atlantic, so I know my heart is going to race during those moments. But that's their world, so I hope they'll be kind enough to let me share that world for a while,\" he said. \"I have people around to track what is going on, and I have a device that creates a magnetic shield in the water to keep sharks at bay.\"\nMr Lecomte will swim eight hours a day, and will aim to cover almost 50km each swim.\nAt the end of each day, his team will GPS mark his location before he climbs aboard Discoverer so he can be dropped at the same spot in the morning.\nHe said that physical fitness is far less of a factor in his success than his psychological wellbeing, and that he will use his family as motivation to keep going. \"It's mind over matter — I'm not trying to be fast, but I'm trying to be consistent in doing days after days,\" he said.\n\"Sometimes that's very difficult to do, when you are dry and sleepy and in pain, to jump in the water and to stay in that water for eight hours when it's cold, so … mind is the big point there.\"\nThe currents he will be using to boost his speed during the swim are part of the greater North Pacific Ocean gyre (commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) — a huge clockwise-rotating body of water, now infamous for its high concentration of plastic.\nThe latest research estimates there is about 78,000 tonnes of plastic in the gyre spread across an area the size of Queensland.\nAlarmingly, researchers believe the amount of plastic in the gyre is \"growing exponentially\" due to expanding coastal development and residence and our increasing consumption of single-use plastics.\nFirst mate and research manager Tyral Dalitz said water sampling will begin from day one, and they will also be catching fish to analyse how plastics accumulate in the food chain.\n\"All the studies will be done by us as citizen science, relying on the help and equipment given to us from our various scientific partners,\" he said via email.\nAs well as drawing attention to the problem of ocean pollution, Mr Dalitz said they hoped their project would dispel a few \"dangerous\" myths about ocean plastics.\n\"One thing we want to address is the idea of the Great Garbage Patch being a floating island of rubbish,\" he said.\n\"This idea creates the false illusion that there could be an easy fix by simply cleaning up the 'island' … when in reality the truth is much worse — the ocean is now filled with microplastics.\n\"Rather than calling it an island of trash, it is more like 'plastic smog' throughout the ocean.\"\nMr Dalitz joined the Longest Swim team in 2016. He left Australia in 2014 in an attempt to circumnavigate the world without flying.\nHe was looking for a boat to sail across the Atlantic around the same time that the team had purchased Discoverer in the UK, and is now an integral team member.\nDutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat is sending the first of a series of ocean-clean-up devices to the Northern Pacific this year in the northern summer.\nAlong with a team of developers, he has been refining the design of an apparatus, which he claims will be able to remove around \"50 per cent of the patch in just five years\".\nThe design the team has settled on is a free-floating, 600-metre-long pipe, suspending a short net beneath its length, which will trap and hold plastic until it can be emptied onto ships which will carry the plastic back to the US mainland.\nMr Slat's project, called the Ocean Cleanup, is aiming to tow up to 60 of these devices into the Northern Pacific Ocean by the end of 2020.\nBut critics have said that the devices may break apart in rough seas, adding even more plastic to the problem.\nOceanographer Kim Martini told the ABC earlier this year the devices may even attract more marine animals into the patch.\n\"It really increases their exposure to plastic and also increases the risk of entanglement,\" she said.\nOthers like CSIRO research scientist Dr Denise Hardesty believe we should be focussing resources on stopping the problem at the source.\n\"We need to deal with this before it enters the ocean rather than when it's out in the middle of the ocean,\" Ms Hardesty said.\nBut for Mr Lecomte, the first step is raising awareness.\n\"The plastic is there and if we don't do anything it's going to grow exponentially,\" he said.\n\"We have the solutions in our hand, but we're not interested and engaged enough to change our behaviour.\"\nAudiences will be able to follow Mr Lecomte's swim live and post questions to the team.\nGet all the latest science stories from across the ABC.\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["We need to deal with this before it enters the ocean rather than when it's out in the middle of the ocean","the first step is raising awareness"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["plastic and other marine debris"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["in 2011"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["North Pacific Ocean","Great Pacific Garbage Patch"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"PFAS chemicals found in waterways near Richmond RAAF base","document":"\nAn investigation into contamination from potentially toxic PFAS chemicals at the Richmond RAAF base in north-west Sydney has found a 10-square-kilometre plume of the chemical in groundwater.\nMore than 25 surface water test sites were found to have PFAS levels above what is safe to drink, including Rickabys Creek and Bakers Lagoon, while low levels of PFAS were also found in the Hawkesbury River.\nAll major drainage systems on the base were found to contain levels of PFAS above reporting levels and five sites on the Air Force base were found to be the main sources of the chemicals, which were historically used in firefighting foam.\n\"People don't drink the surface water,\" assistant secretary of PFAS Investigation and Management Luke McLeod said.\nHe said they had not found anyone in the area who used bore water as their primary drinking source, but one person does provide bore water for cattle to drink.\n\"There have been a couple of detections above drinking water guidance but again it's not been used for drinking water,\" he said.\n\"There is one community member who does water stock with a bore, he sells those cattle into the marketplace.\n\"What we understand with cattle is when it's sold into the general marketplace the effect of PFAS is diluted as those cattle are put into the broader supply chain.\"\nMr McLeod said there was no need to advise anyone to not use or swim in the water.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["More than 25 surface water test sites"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["toxic PFAS chemicals","the Air Force base"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["north-west Sydney","Rickabys Creek and Bakers Lagoon","Hawkesbury River"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Call for a crackdown on industrial pollution after 'significant' spill in Melbourne creek","document":"\nA Melbourne environment group is calling on Victoria's Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to prosecute companies that regularly dump toxins into a creek in the city's east, after the watercourse was left covered in a white foam.\nCharlie Miller, of the First Friends of Dandenong Creek group, said there was a spill of some sort in the creek on Saturday. \"There are great balls of foam floating along the creek and on the grass beside the creek,\" he said.\n\"The wind has dissipated it but there is still lots of foam on top of the water and on the side.\n\"Sometimes it can smell like laundry water and that's what it looks like. I'm sure it is reasonably toxic.\"\nThe EPA has called it a \"significant pollution event\" involving some kind of detergent and is investigating.\nSpokesman Damian Wells called on anyone with information to contact them.\n\"The Dandenong catchment has a very complex drainage network,\" he said.  \"There are several significant industrial zones in that area. \"What we're looking to do, as best as possible, is to isolate the source of that pollution so we can hold the offenders to account.\"\nIt is not the first time a pollution event like this has happened.\nMr Miller said there had been \"fairly regular\" spills which always happen on weekends or public holidays when the Environment Protection Authority has limited staff. It also happened on Melbourne Cup day last year and carp and eels in the creek were found dead about five kilometres downstream.\n\"We report them on the weekend and the EPA does come out and does an inspection and sometimes takes some samples,\" Mr Miller said.\n\"But 99 per cent of the time the conclusion is source unknown.\"\nHe suspects the chemicals are being dumped upstream at an industrial area near Bayswater, at Joes Creek, which empties into the Dandenong Creek.\nMr Miller said the local councils have been running an education campaign to explain the impacts on the environment but it is not enough.\n\"They've probably been doing it for 10, 15 years … and getting away with it,\" he said.\n\"It comes down to the political will to go hard after them to actually prosecute them and fine them heavily.\n\"That would send a strong message to the rest of them doing the wrong thing.\" Mr Wells said people need to be aware that they must manage their businesses properly.\n\"This is completely unacceptable and for all the good businesses in the Dandenong catchment this casts aspersions on others.\n\"It's just not fair when there are just a few businesses behaving poorly that make it difficult for others,\" he said.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["isolate the source of that pollution so we can hold the offenders to account","actually prosecute them and fine them heavily"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":null},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["companies that regularly dump toxins into a creek in the city's east"]},{"role":"Date","values":["on weekends or public holidays","last year"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Victoria's Environment Protection Agency (EPA)","Charlie Miller, of the First Friends of Dandenong Creek group"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Melbourne","Bayswater, at Joes Creek"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Macquarie Harbour salmon: 1.35 million fish deaths prompt call to 'empty' waterway of farms","document":"\nAfter it is revealed more than a million farmed fish died within six months in Macquarie Harbour, one salmon company effectively says \"we told you so\", another says the dead fish were \"replaced quickly\" and the third says it has no obligation to detail its losses to the public.\nTasmania's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) confirmed 1.35 million salmon died in Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania's west coast since last October. An area management agreement report provided by Huon Aquaculture, Petuna and Tassal found the deaths were mainly due to an outbreak of pilchard orthomyxovirus (POMV), transferred from wild populations. That report had not been made available to the public.\nEPA director Wes Ford told ABC Hobart the 2017 \"mixing of young fish with old fish\" could exacerbate the likelihood of disease in the population.\n\"POMV can be exacerbated by stress caused by heat, low oxygen, and I think this summer we've seen some elevated temperatures and clearly some concerns about oxygen.\"\nHe confirmed the EPA would be reducing Macquarie Harbour's biomass limit by 21 per cent over the next two years, from 12,000 tonnes to 9,500 tonnes. Following today's news of the death toll, the companies affected by the mass fish kill issued statements.\nA timeline of salmon farming on Tasmania's west coast.\nHuon Aquaculture said it was \"disappointed\" that it had warned other farmers and the Government in September that mixing young and old fish at the same site would increase the risk, but was \"ignored\".\n\"Since then, we understand the practice [of mixing age groups] will cease in the future. Huon does not mix year classes of fish,\" the company said.\nHuon Aquaculture, which has clashed with rival Tassal in the past, said it was \"important as an industry we don't repeat the mistakes of the past\".\n\"We remain hopeful that biosecurity improvements will be a focus for the industry and the Government as a matter of urgency\".\nTassal said in a statement the fish deaths did not have a major impact on their activities.\n\"The POMV situation stabilised quickly and these fish were replaced quickly from our nursery, given they were only juvenile,\" it said.\n\"Tassal and Petuna have worked proactively to embed better biosecurity and environmental outcomes for the harbour via a joint-venture farming operation, which enables both separation of year, class and extended fallowing periods for leases.\"\nPetuna said the culling of two fish pen populations after veterinary advice had helped to reduce the spread of the disease within its lease.\nIt said it would not disclose data on the company's individual stock losses for the summer. \"Under the [Area Management] Agreement, each company confidentially provides its own specific data, which is then independently collated to ensure each company's competitive market positions are not compromised,\" Petuna said in a statement.\n\"The company is not required to report this information other than to the Marine Farming Branch, which it does monthly.\"\nThe EPA's Wes Ford said the losses would be \"significantly above\" what the companies would normally factor into production quotas.\nWhile the disease proved devastating for the farmed salmon, it did not transfer to the harbour's trout population, which survived, Mr Ford said.\nIndustrial salmon farming began in Macquarie Harbour in the 1980s, with Tassal establishing operations there in 2003, joined by Huon in 2008 and Petuna around 2011.\nThe ABC's Four Corners program takes a look at Tasmania's salmon farming industry and its effects on the environment.\nThe waterway, which is adjacent to a World Heritage Area, had a biomass limit set at 9,500 tonnes of fish across all companies, however lobbying began to increase that soon after the release of an environmental impact study which stated the harbour could sustain 29,000 tonnes — with the desires for expansion by salmon producers backed by the Labor primary industries minister Bryan Green.\nCome 2016, the Hodgman Liberal Government's Primary Industries Minister Jeremy Rockliff agreed to increase the biomass limit to 21,500 tonnes effective July 1 of that year.\nIn October, a Four Corners investigation into the Tasmanian salmon industry aired concerns from Huon Aquaculture that the waterway was on course for a catastrophe, with the Liberal Government later defending fish farming and its regulatory safeguards.\nIn November 2016, the EPA — which had taken over regulation of Macquarie Harbour — announced it was cutting the biomass limit to 14,000 tonnes \"following an assessment of the most recently available scientific data\".\nIn February 2017, the EPA ordered Tassal to de-stock salmon leases at Macquarie Harbour, with the ABC revealing a science report had found a so-called dead zone under one of Tassal's leases, the farming area closest to the World Heritage Area.\nOn today's release of the numbers of fish killed, the Greens' environment spokeswoman Rosalie Woodruff said the harbour had been damaged — perhaps irrevocably — and called on the Government to step in.\n\"We have to have a moratorium on all fish farming. The salmon farming companies have to get out of Macquarie Harbour,\" she said.\n\"It's clearly the case that the system there is damaged, possibly beyond repair.\"\nEnvironment Tasmania said more than 2,000 Tasmanians had petitioned salmon companies to release a fish death toll, and accused the Government of concealing the figures in the lead up to the March state election.\nLaura Kelly from Environment Tasmania said they were still looking for answers.\n\"The Government is still refusing to release the January 2018 [Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies] science on the harbour, while acknowledging that the report shows a worsening of conditions, increased marine species death under leases and four leases in breach of state regulations related to bacteria mats on the harbour floor,\" she said.\nMr Ford confirmed the EPA would be reducing Macquarie Harbour's biomass limit by 21 per cent over the next two years, from 12,000 tonnes to 9,500 tonnes. He said that would not come as a surprise to the companies, which had seen a series of mass fish deaths and stock reductions over the past two years.\n\"Clearly, I've had to step down the biomass over a number of years now because the harbour has not been performing as it should,\" he said. \"What I expect from this new biomass decision is that the harbour will actually improve, but of course there can be no guarantees.\" But Ms Kelly said the EPA's latest biomass limit would not be enough to restore the harbour to healthy levels. \"A biomass of 9,500 tonnes will be maintained when biosecurity, animal welfare and endangered species protection all demand that Macquarie Harbour should be emptied of fish and given a chance to recover,\" she said.\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["rom 12,000 tonnes to 9,500 tonnes","1.35 million salmon","the farmed salmon"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":null},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["In November 2016","since last October","1980s","In February 2017"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["the EPA","Tasmania's Environment Protection Authority (EPA","the Greens' environment spokeswoman Rosalie Woodruff"]},{"role":"Location","values":["in Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania's west coast","in Macquarie Harbour"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Whale dies in Thai waters after swallowing 80 plastic bags","document":"\nThailand coastal authorities say a whale found in the south of the country died after swallowing 80 plastic bags.\nThailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources says the small male pilot whale was found last week.\nThe whale was spotted in a canal near the Malaysian border, unable to swim.\nOfficials tried to help by covering it with a sunshade and attempting to use boats to help it float, the BBC reported.\nBut it suffered convulsions during the rescue attempt and vomited five plastic bags shortly before it died. How big is the problem and what can we do about it?\nAn autopsy revealed plastic bags weighing eight kilograms inside the whale's stomach.\nThailand is one of the world's largest consumers of plastic bags, which kill hundreds of marine creatures living near the country's beaches each year.\nLast month, the Thai government said it was considering a levy on disposable plastic shopping bags.\nA study published this year revealed there was up to 16 times more waste in the Pacific Ocean than previously thought.\nDrag netting and an aerial survey showed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covered 1.6 million square kilometres  — an area almost the same size as Queensland.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["a levy on disposable plastic shopping bags"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["plastic bags"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["last week"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["hailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources"]},{"role":"Location","values":["in the south of the country","a canal near the Malaysian border","in the Pacific Ocean","the Great Pacific Garbage Patch"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Snowy mountains residents claim Bombala town tap water far from pristine","document":"\nA town in the pristine snowy mountain region is battling authorities over tap water that residents say is undrinkable, smells like compost and makes them itchy to shower in.\nFor baker Kristen Brown, the situation came to a head when he opened his oven to find his white loaves baked with Bombala's town water had turned into brown bread.\n\"It looked like wholemeal bread without the fibre,\" Mr Brown said.\n\"It had this almost compost-like sort of smell. It was pretty gross.\"\nLast month, divers employed by the Snowy Monaro Regional Council vacuumed 70 cubic metres of sludge from the town's water plant after hundreds of angry residents turned up at a town meeting with jars filled with the dirty water coming from their household taps.\nBut residents, who have been having issues with their water for more than a decade, said it was a band-aid solution.\nThey said water from their taps still smelled \"like a pond\" and was undrinkable.\nOthers raised concerns about the balance of chemicals in the water.\nMr Brown said his morning shower now smelled like a swimming pool.\n\"When you get out of the shower your eyes are running and you're itchy and scratchy like when you've been swimming,\" he said.\n\"I think they've just covered up the colour and the smell with chorine.\"\nAt a recent public meeting, residents raised concerns the $15 million promised by the NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro to fix the water supply would be absorbed into broader infrastructure projects.\nIn a statement, the Snowy Monaro Regional Council Mayor John Rooney said he was taking \"appropriate steps\" to improve water quality.\n\"The township is receiving an unprecedented amount of funding to achieve this,\" he said in a statement.\n\"Residents are noticing these improvements with their water becoming clearer and with less odour.\"\nThe Council, however, is yet to submit its business case to officially apply for the State Government funding.\nWhen he moved to the town on the southern Monaro tablelands from Victoria's Yarra Valley, Mr Brown said he was shocked to discover the state of the water.\n\"City residents would be up and arms, they wouldn't put up with it,\" he said, adding that he was worried about how the town's sub-par water affected the quality of his food.\n\"In a Third World country the water has got to be better than it is here,\" he said.\nA cohort of ratepayers are refusing to pay for water until the situation is fixed.\nResident Jen Farrell said residents had wasted hundreds of litres by running dirty water through their taps in the hope it would run clear. \"The water is undrinkable. We cannot wash our clothes, it makes our clothes smell. All it is good enough for is putting on the garden,\" Ms Farrell said.\nBombala Maneroo Motel manager Sandra Hodge said thousands of dollars had been spent on re-washing linen stained from the town water.\n\"It's taking about three hours a day extra in washing to try and get things clean,\" she said.\nAccording to the Snowy Monaro Regional Council, the removal of sludge from the town's water plant was the first for the tank in 40 years.\nBut a former Bombala water plant manager said huge amounts of sludge — such as the 70 cubic metres removed last month — could accumulate in the system in a relatively short period of time.\nOssie Benson worked at the plant from the mid-1970s up until 2007 and said slime regularly gathered in the plant's clarifier.\nHe said if it was not monitored it could choke the town's water supply again.\n\"The clarifier only has to have a hiccup … and if that happened say four to six times it would put a lot of sludge into the system,\" Mr Benson said.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["he $15 million promised by the NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro to fix the water supply would be absorbed into broader infrastructure projects"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["tap water"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Last month","more than a decade"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["residents","Resident Jen Farrell","Bombala Maneroo Motel manager Sandra Hodge","Ossie Benson"]},{"role":"Location","values":["A town in the pristine snowy mountain region","southern Monaro tablelands"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Great Barrier Reef's microfibre problem increasing due to synthetic clothes, study finds","document":"\nA survey of pollution on the Great Barrier Reef has found microfibres to be an increasing problem, making up nearly 70 per cent of samples collected.\nThe fibres are microscopic and usually come from synthetic clothes.\nScientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science have been taking samples from areas between Townsville and Cairns for the past two years.\nResearch scientist Frederieke Kroon said they had been surprised by what they found.\n\"We found contamination at every single location we surveyed, and we found quite a few microfibres as part of the microcontaminants that we detected in our samples,\" she said.\nPrevious studies have found sewage treatment plants to be a major source of microfibres, which clothes shed when they are washed.\nDr Kroon said the effects of microfibres on the health of corals and animals was still being studied, but there was concern about what impact it would have on the reef.\nThe Australian Fashion Council said awareness about the problem had grown in the past few years.\nChief executive David Giles-Kaye said the industry was working to come up with a solution.\nAustralians are the world's second largest consumers of textiles, how is fast fashion affecting us?\n\"The position from the industry is that we need to take a design-led approach to resolving the problem,\" he said.\n\"That means working on the manufacturing supply chain, in the sense of dealing with how fibres come together, so they're more durable and they don't shed.\n\"Also in the way garments are washed by consumers and of course the recycling or afterlife of the product.\"\nEdda Hamar, who has set up an online app allowing users to swap clothes, said a growing number of fashion entrepreneurs were working to reduce the effects their products had on the environment.\n\"It's irresponsible and it's unacceptable to start a business that is producing fashion that isn't taking into account the impact it'll have on the planet,\" she said.\nMs Hamar said there were a few things consumers could do if they wanted to be environmentally friendly.\n\"It's about purchasing quality, purchasing clothes that will last, clothes they don't have to dispose of after a year of wearing them,\" she said.\n\"It's about looking at other alternatives. If you need something that you might not wear often, perhaps you can rent it, perhaps you can rent it from a friend.\"\nThe Australian Fashion Council is also looking to work with manufacturers to come up with better alternatives.\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["in the past few years","\"That means working on the manufacturing supply chain, in the sense of dealing with how fibres come together, so they're more durable and they don't shed","\"Also in the way garments are washed by consumers and of course the recycling or afterlife of the product","It's about purchasing quality","It's about looking at other alternatives"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["microfibres","synthetic clothes","sewage treatment plants"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["the past two years"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Research scientist Frederieke Kroon"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Great Barrier Reef","Townsville and Cairns"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Bundaberg suburb's contaminated water turned off a week after PFAS concerns raised","document":"Bundaberg Council has switched off drinking water from a reservoir in the suburb of Svensson Heights after unsafe levels of the potentially toxic chemical PFAS were confirmed in the water.\nQueensland Health said it was alerted by the council of a potential threat to the drinking water last week.\nBundaberg Mayor Jack Dempsey released a statement on Friday saying the contaminated bore was \"immediately\" removed from the area's supply system and that properties were already receiving water from other sources.\nBut chief health officer Jeannette Young said council notified the public health unit on Thursday, April 5.\nShe said she became aware the following day and further tests this week confirmed high levels of PFAS in the suburb's drinking water.\nThe council said it switched off the water on Wednesday this week and began draining the reservoir.\nIt said about 5,000 residents lived in Svensson Heights, a suburb near the city's airport, a former RAAF station.\nDefence Force bases have been closely linked with PFAS contamination across Australia, because of their use of firefighting foams.\nDr Young said the tests found PFAS levels were twice that of current national guidelines, but that Svensson Heights residents should not be alarmed.\n\"I really want to reassure residents that the risk of any consequence for the health of people in the community is low,\" Dr Young said.\nShe said it was the first time such a large populated area had been exposed to PFAS.\n\"It's possibly been in the water for many years,\" she said. \"Council is investigating that at the moment, they're not sure where the source of contamination is.\"\nThe council said the Department of Environment and Science was investigating the source of the contamination.\nCr Dempsey described the water issue as \"a shock\" to the council.\n\"It is only in this bore area,\" Cr Dempsey said of the contamination.\n\"Other tests have been conducted across our network and I can reassure residents the water that is in place certainly meets all of the state government guidelines.\n\"I can also reaffirm to the community there will be no interruption to the water supply, the mains have been flushed out, as well as the main stakeholders notified.\"\nQueensland Health said concerns about PFAS typically related to exposure over several decades.\nPFAS chemicals were components in firefighting foam, as well as household and industrial products. They have not been used in Queensland since 2003.\nThe effects of PFAS (perfluorinated) chemicals on human health and the environment are being investigated by Australian and international authorities.\nThey include perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluoro-octanoic acid (PFOA), which are resistant to heat, water and oil.\nPFOS was added to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2009, but Australia has not ratified that agreement.\nBoth PFOS and PFOA were previously used extensively in firefighting foams by both civilian and Defence Force firefighters around Australia.\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["5,000 residents"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["high levels of PFAS"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["last week","Thursday, April 5"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Cr Dempsey","Queensland Health","chief health officer Jeannette Young"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the suburb of Svensson Heights","in Svensson Heights, a suburb near the city's airport","Svensson Heights, a suburb near the city's airport, a former RAAF station"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"This species of freshwater mussel faces extinction by 2050","document":"\nExtinction looms for a West Australian species of freshwater mussel with researchers fearing it could be extinct within 30 years unless efforts are ramped up to save the waterways where it is found.\nSmall populations of the Carter's freshwater mussel can still be found in a diminishing number of waterways in the WA's southwest, however a drying climate, rising salinity levels, population growth and pollution are putting pressure on the species which is described as \"the lungs of WA's waterways\".\nA 2015 study published in the Australian Journal of Zoology concluded the \"range\" of Carter's freshwater mussel had declined by almost 50 per cent in 50 years while a secondary research study found populations had \"disappeared completely\" from 28 per cent of waterways where it had previously existed.\nMurdoch University Associate Professor Alan Lymbery said there were \"genuine concerns\" the mussel would be extinct within 30 years if the downward trend continued.\n\"Where you do find them, you can see them in reasonably sized numbers so they don't appear to be in trouble,\" he said.\n\"However, 50 per cent of the populations that used to occur have now been lost and there's no reason to think that rate of decline is decreasing, in fact we have recent evidence which shows it might be increasing.\n\"Taking that into account, we might think by 2050 this muscle could be extinct or certainly approaching extinction in the wild.\"\nProfessor Lymbery said mussel populations in the south west were declining at a dramatic rate that was likely to have severe impacts on freshwater ecosystems.\n\"If we don't do something about the decline of the mussel populations now it may be too late,\" he said.\nProfessor Lymbery said the plight of the Carter's freshwater mussel also mirrored that of other populations worldwide.\n\"Freshwater mussels are one of the most endangered groups of any animals or plants for that matter,\" Professor Lymbery said.\n\"They are extremely vulnerable to extinction, they're very slow to reproduce, they have a great mortality rate when they're young so it's very hard for mussel populations to reproduce themselves.\"\nWhile the Carter's freshwater mussel \"doesn't make for great eating,\" Professor Lymbery said its role in the waterways was \"drastically undervalued.\"\n\"Freshwater mussels are known as a keystone species in that they filter an enormous amount of water as they feed, removing tiny particles like plankton, algae and microorganisms,\" he said.\n\"If this species is lost from our rivers and streams, there is nothing else that will carry out the same function and that may have dramatic consequences for all freshwater life.\n\"During the summer and autumn months when many rivers stop flowing, freshwater organisms rely of refuge pools to survive. \"Mussels play an important role in maintaining water quality in these pools.\"\nAnother Australian species, referred to as the Glenelg freshwater mussel is currently listed as Critically Endangered with studies concluding it was under threat from contamination of its habitat by \"pesticide use, predation and habitat degradation by introduced Carp, bushfires and timber harvesting\".\nThe Glenelg freshwater mussel is said to be found in parts of the Crawford River, part of the larger Glenelg River in south-west Victoria, with as few as 1,000 left in existence.\nProfessor Lymbery said populations could be saved through the use of farming to create \"insurance populations,\" however it was not a method yet attempted in Australia and one fraught with difficulties due to the mussels' particular breeding habits.\n\"It's not easy because mussels have a pretty complex lifecycle,\" Professor Lymbery said.\n\"The first stage of the mussel is actually a parasite on fish so you've got to do some pretty fancy things, but it's been done, not in Australia but it's been done quite a lot in the United States and quite a lot in Europe so the technology is there to breed mussels in the laboratory. \"Certainly achievable, just never been tried before in Australia.\"\nLocal WA ecologist and Blackwood Basin Group chair Per Christiansen said \"educating the public\" on the plight of the species such as the Carter's freshwater mussel was the first step in helping preserve it.\n\"The best friend of conservation is the public,\" Mr Christensen said.\n\"If you can get the public onside, then they understand it, they're prepared to put money into it and so on. If the public doesn't understand and they're not interested, you're never going to get any funding towards it — it will go to all sorts of other things such as roads and railways.\"\nMr Christensen said the were \"sadly plenty of examples,\" of seemingly \"small, bit players,\" in WA's south west ecological make-up facing a similar fate.\n\"There's a lot of wetland species that are going extinct, not only in the water but things like the Australasian Bittern — that's almost disappeared from the south west,\" Mr Christensen said.\n\"These seemingly innocuous little creatures that you struggle to see in the cold light of day, all play a vital role in making-and keeping the environment so unique.\"\nSimilarly, Professor Lymbery said \"it's a struggle\" to keep adequate attention cast on species such as the Carter's freshwater mussel when stacked up against \"bigger, brighter and prettier\" species facing a similar plight.\n\"I mean, they're not charismatic are they?\" Professor Lymbery said,\nHe held a dead mussel on the bank of a small, rubbish-strewn waterway in the south west town of Dardanup.\n\"They're not big, they haven't got fur, they're not cute really — but what that doesn't reflect is how vital they are to the ecosystem,\" Professor Lymbery said. \"Really these things are essential to healthy freshwater ecosystems and that means life to a lot of creatures, including people.\"\n)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["mussel populations","Freshwater mussels","drying climate, rising salinity levels, population growth and pollution","pesticide use, predation and habitat degradation by introduced Carp, bushfires and timber harvesting"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["within 30 years","2015","in 50 years","by 2050"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Mr Christensen","Murdoch University Associate Professor Alan Lymbery"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Australia","WA's southwest","south west","larger Glenelg River in south-west Victoria","United States and quite a lot in Europe"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Rockingham fishing and swimming warning near Cape Peron after wastewater leak concerns","document":"\nThe Water Corporation is warning people not to swim, dive, kayak or fish within one kilometre of a wastewater outlet off the coast of Cape Peron in Rockingham.\nTesting of water near the outlet, four kilometres from the shore, has been showing elevated microbiology levels since mid-February.\nMore than 150 dead mullet, along with some jellyfish, washed up on the Safety Bay foreshore on March 28, but they were too decomposed to determine if there was a link.\nA Water Corporation spokeswoman attributed the rise in microbiology levels to recent works associated with a major upgrade of the Woodman Point Wastewater Treatment Plant.\nThe outlet has fed into a 20-metre deep channel running parallel to the shore since 1984.\nBetween 1991 and 1994 a Water Corporation study was conducted to determine the effects of nitrogen in the wastewater.\nIt found the effects of ocean disposal at the Point Peron outlet to be minor and not ecologically detrimental.\nWastewater in WA is diluted through physical and chemical processes to make it lighter and lower in density, so it rises and mixes with seawater to minimise the environmental impact.  However the Water Corporation said part of a $158 million upgrade to the Woodman Point facility had affected the efficiency of this.\nThe project is expected to completed by October 2019, but the work which is having an impact on the water quality is due to be completed before May.\nWater Corporation was undertaking further testing to determine with more certainty when the water will become safe again.\nIt has apologised for any inconvenience caused to users of the ocean in the area.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["Wastewater in WA is diluted through physical and chemical processes to make it lighter and lower in density"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["More than 150 dead mullet, along with some jellyfish"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["elevated microbiology levels"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["since mid-February","on March 28","October 2019","before May"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["The Water Corporation"]},{"role":"Location","values":["within one kilometre of a wastewater outlet off the coast of Cape Peron in Rockingham","near the outlet, four kilometres from the shore","Point Peron outlet"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Mount Morgan abandoned mine site brings environmentalists and farmers together","document":"It is not often you hear environmentalists and farmers asking government to help out a mining company — but that is what is happening in central Queensland as a resources project hangs in the balance.\nSince 2014, Australian company Carbine Resources has been working on a proposal to pull copper, pyrite and gold tailings from one of Queensland's biggest abandoned mines.\nIan Scott lives downstream from the old Mount Morgan gold mine, near the Dee River at Wowan, south-west of Rockhampton.\nHe swam in the river as a child and ate fish from it, and still to this day, his 82-year-old mother irrigates water from the river for her small herd of cattle.\nWaste has been trickling out of the mine into the Dee River in controlled amounts for years, but in 2013 after ex-tropical Cyclone Oswald, the mine's acidic dams overflowed for the first time in their history.\nMr Scott remembers the eerie effect on the Dee River.\n\"It was pale green, nearly luminescent,\" he said.\n\"The fish all died. It smelled. We obviously knew the water was toxic,\" he said.\nThe old mine is officially a ward of the State Government and it spends $3 million a year managing and maintaining the site, which is also a popular tourist attraction.\nSince 2013, earthworks at the mine have reduced the chances of another uncontrolled overflow, a Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy spokesman said.\nMore than 1,100 megalitres of toxic pit water has also been treated since 2013, they added.\nYet no government has ever costed a full rehabilitation of the site, with estimates for a partial rehabilitation starting at $450 million.\nWhile driven by profit, Carbine Resources claims its project would bring jobs to the struggling region, while also improving the old mine's acid mine drainage problem.\nFor Mr Scott, that is a better offer than what is happening now.\n\"While it's being pushed to the side, there's nothing getting done, there's no improvements, no infrastructure getting done,\" he said.\nThe company has most of its regulatory approvals but last month, it announced via the ASX that it has significant doubts about its project's financial viability, due to changes in exchange rates and expected mineral yield.\n\"It's extremely marginal,\" Carbine Resources managing director Tony James told the ABC.\nThe project is classified as a mining project, and Carbine Resources would therefore be expected to pay the state royalties on the tailings it pulls from the site.\nMr James said in order for the project to get private backing, the company needed $25 million from the state, either in the form of grants or a royalties reduction.\nMr Scott is backing the company's calls, as is a local farmer and environmentalist.\nFarmer Neal Johansen, chairman of the Wowan-Dululu Landcare Group, said the proposal was \"probably the best chance we've got for a clean-up at the Mount Morgan mine site\".\nCarbine Resources is at least the third company to consider pulling tailings from the site, and Mr Johansen is worried if the company baulks now, no others will come after it.\n\"The Queensland Government could definitely forgo the royalties on this project altogether,\" Mr Johansen said.\n\"They're getting a massive favour done.\n\"I know the government doesn't want to set a precedent with dealing with mining companies, but they really have an opportunity here to set a precedent with cleaning up abandoned mines.\"\nAustralian expert in legacy mines, Corinne Unger, said the devil was in the detail when it came to the extent of the environmental benefits of Carbine Resources' proposal.\nShe described the company's calls for help as a \"very significant opportunity\" for the government, given the abandoned mine's $450 million liability to the state.\n\"If we don't want taxpayers to foot that money, then offsetting it with gaining value from the site makes a lot of sense,\" Ms Unger said.\n\"We'll find further value not only in reducing environmental impacts but through employment and development of the local economy.\"\nMs Unger said the case highlighted how difficult it can be for added value to be found in the 50,000 abandoned mines now strewn across Australia.\n\"It's clear from Carbine's website that they've found this a fairly torturous path,\" she said.\n\"And that's likely because the legislation is not clearly articulated about how a company would re-process mining waste.\"\nQueensland Mines Minister, Anthony Lynham, said the government was continuing to work with Carbine Resources on its proposal.\n\"The Palaszczuk Government continues to work closely with Carbine Resources to help realise its ambition to reprocess tailings at the site of the former Mount Morgan Mine,\" he said.\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["bring jobs to the struggling region, while also improving the old mine's acid mine drainage problem"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["More than 1,100 megalitres of toxic pit water"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["acidic dams"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Since 2013","Since 2014"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Carbine Resources","Mr Scott","a Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy spokesman","Tony James","Farmer Neal Johansen, chairman of the Wowan-Dululu Landcare Group","The Queensland Government","Australian expert in legacy mines, Corinne Unger","Queensland Mines Minister, Anthony Lynham","The Palaszczuk Governmen"]},{"role":"Location","values":["the old Mount Morgan gold mine, near the Dee River at Wowan, south-west of Rockhampton","central Queensland"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Bali beaches swamped by garbage as tourists, hotel workers sweep up each morning","document":"It's garbage season in Bali, as an annual and worsening tide of trash swamps the beaches of the holiday island.\nFrom December to March, thousands of tonnes of plastic debris are washed onto the island's main tourist strip, polluting the sand and making the prospect of a swim less than appealing.\nThe shocking sight is having a real impact on tourism, and the official response is to try and sweep it away before visitors hit the beach each morning.\n\"This is so disturbing for the workers around here and of course for the tourists,\" Wayan Suadiana, from the Housekeeping Workers Association of Legian Hotels, says.\n\"The issue is to actually to find where the trash is coming from.\"\nThe association sends a team of about 100 hotel workers out onto the beach soon after dawn to sweep the sand.\nThey join thousands of volunteers who are deployed along 20 kilometres of beach to try to clean up the debris that's been washed onto the beaches overnight.\n\"I've been here for 10 years,\" long-term resident Kino says. \"But every January, February and March, you see it getting worse.\"\n\"I think it's disgusting,\" Danielle Paea, from Melbourne, says.\n\"We've just arrived last night and we're absolutely appalled by the rubbish on the beach.\"\n\"I won't bring my children down here to swim at the beach,\" Samantha Macri, also from Melbourne, says.\n\"And they want to come for the beach because they're young, and all they want to do is surf and be in the waves.\"\nSome of the plastic debris comes from Bali but plenty of it is from other Indonesian islands, like Java and Sumatra.\nFrom December to March seasonal winds and heavy rainfall push the rubbish onto Bali's south-westerly facing beaches at tourist hotspots like Kuta, Legian, Seminyak and Canggu.\nIce cream seller Edi Karyadi volunteers to sweep the sand at Kuta.\n\"This happens annually when the west winds come,\" Edi says.\n\"The rivers in Bali carry the trash, but some of it comes as far away as Java.\"\nIndonesia is one of the world's worst contributors of plastic pollution into the ocean, with an estimated 200,000 tonnes of plastic washing into the ocean — 16 per cent of the global total, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.\nFour Javanese rivers are listed in the global top 20 of plastic-polluted waterways.\nSingle-use plastic is common in Indonesia, and last week a lot of the debris on the beaches of Bali was disposable drinking cups and food packaging.\nRecycling right across the archipelago is haphazard, there are few rubbish bins and almost no separation of waste.\nA scheme to ban plastic bags in shops fizzed out almost as soon as it was announced.\nOrganised recycling is left up to a handful of private businesses, like Eco Bali in Canggu.\nThe company charges consumers a fee to collect separated waste, which it then trucks from Bali to the nearest recycling centre — in Java.\n\"There's a lack of awareness and infrastructure, like garbage bins and transporters,\" Eco Bali's Ketut Martaadi says.\n\"The big problem is that the dependency on plastics is too high.\"\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["A scheme to ban plastic bags in shops fizzed out almost as soon as it was announced"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["trash","thousands of tonnes of plastic debris","Single-use plastic"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["From December to March","January, February and March"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["in Bali","Indonesia","like Java and Sumatra"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Oil, gas drilling plan raises concerns for outback Coober Pedy's underground water supply","document":"The outback town of Coober Pedy's council is concerned that the town's water could become undrinkable if a plan to drill for commercial quantities of oil and gas goes ahead.\nMining company Tri-Star has proposed to do a stimulation drill to determine if commercial resources are in the Arckaringa Basin, an underground water source in outback South Australia.\nThe basin sits below the much larger Great Artesian Basin, which is the only water source for Coober Pedy, population 2,000.\nCoober Pedy water manager Colin Pitman is concerned about the potential impact the drilling could have on the water supply.\n\"The potential is there for aquifer water to be sucked into the shale deposits, if there's not a good enough seal in the shale deposits and the basin,\" Mr Pitman said.\n\"Any activity that actually causes fracturing of the rock below the Great Artesian Basin, which could cause the hydrocarbons to penetrate the basin, would be a concern.\"\nHydrocarbons are an organic compound consisting of hydrogen and carbon.\nTri-Star plan to mine between William Creek and Mount Barry, 167 kilometres east of Cobber Pedy.\nIn a written statement, a Tri-Star spokesperson said it did not expect there to be any effects on the environment.\n\"Tri-Star is a responsible custodian of the environment, with an enviable track record of exceptional environmental performance,\" the spokesperson said.\n\"We do not expect our operations to adversely impact the Great Artesian Basin or the local environment.\n\"There is approximately 500 metres to 1,500 metres of rock between the aquifer and Tri-Star's target formations.\n\"Tri-Star will have control measures in place to mitigate any risks, and our exploration and fracture stimulation activities will be undertaken in accordance with all regulatory requirements.\"\nA state government fact sheet said, before a project goes ahead it would need sufficient community support to proceed.\nMr Pitman said the District Council of Coober Pedy still had not decided if it wanted to support the project.\nCoober Pedy sits outside the targeted area for the drilling, however Tri Star has decided to involve it in the consultation, because of its connection to the Great Artesian Basin.\nHowever if it does decide to support it, Mr Pitman said councillors wanted to be involved.\n\"We'd want to be closely associated with the results,\" Mr Pitman said.\n\"If it doesn't go ahead, many of the council members would be in favour of it not proceeding.\n\"[Councillors] haven't taken a vote on it at this stage, but they've decided to gain the community's understanding of what they thought about the proposal.\"\nRepresentatives from Tri-Star and the state government will hold a community consultation session in Coober Pedy in early March to give locals more information on the project.\n\"We have a long history of working with local communities and stakeholders,\" the Tri-Star spokesperson said.\nSA Greens leader Mark Parnell slammed the project as wrong and dangerous.\n\"We have been told by scientists for many years that if we're serious about climate change, we have to leave most of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground,\" Mr Parnell said.\n\"This project is bad at so many levels.\"\nMr Parnell said drilling would cause harm to the natural landscape, despite Tri-Star saying it would protect the environment.\n\"The oil and gas industry, when they cut through aquifers, when they mess with underground water, it can end in tears,\" he said.\n\"It can cause huge amounts of pollution and it can damage water that other parts of the community rely on.\"\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["commercial quantities of oil and gas"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["Tri-Star"]},{"role":"Date","values":["early March"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["SA Greens leader Mark Parnell"]},{"role":"Location","values":["outback town of Coober Pedy","Great Artesian Basin","Arckaringa Basin","outback South Australia","William Creek and Mount Barry, 167 kilometres east of Cobber Pedy"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Defence tells Oakey residents toxic pollutants no health risk, just don't eat the local produce","document":"A Darling Downs resident is accusing the Defence Department of destroying his livelihood and says a report into the impact of the Oakey firefighting foam contamination scandal does not go far enough.\nOn Wednesday night, the Defence Department held a meeting in Oakey to tell residents there are no likely health impacts from PFAS, a chemical used in a toxic firefighting foam on the Oakey Army Aviation Base that has leeched into nearby groundwater. But a technical expert also said produce from the contamination zone is not fit for human consumption.\nAbout 480 Oakey residents are involved in a class action seeking up $200 million in damages from the Defence Department for declining property values.\nAt the behest of the department, results from groundwater, soil and blood testing were reviewed by an independent company, AECOM, which compiled a health and environmental report and presented it to Oakey residents.\nAECOM technical officer Amanda Lee said home-grown meat, vegetables, fish from Oakey Creek and eggs laid on local properties should not be eaten by residents living close to the contamination zone where high PFAS levels detected.\nThe environmental report showed PFAS had been detected in underground water up to 4 kilometres from the base.\nOakey resident Bernie Earsman, who attended the meeting and has not joined the class action, said the Defence Department had destroyed his dream of retiring on his small rural property with his wife Margorie.\nMr Earsman said the value of his land had fallen from $270,000 to $120,000 and the Federal Government needed to compensate affected residents.\n\"My ambition was that I'd die one day bringing up a bucket of fruit and vegetables to Margorie ... and then came along their Department of Defence and all their rot,\" he said.\n\"I have got enough money in the bank to pay for my funeral, Margorie has enough in the bank to pay for her funeral ... that's it.\"\nHe said the stress of the contamination problems had exacerbated his epilepsy and his wife's glaucoma.\nBefore the meeting, Defence Department spokesman Chris Birrer told the ABC he sympathised with affected residents.\n\"We understand there's a lot of frustration in the community and we understand that there's a lot of stress and anxiety, and we very much understand that the uncertainty has created a lot of anxiety,\" he said.\nMr Birrer said Defence had started two remediation projects, including work on the surface drains and a water treatment facility.\n\"Over the next 12 months the plant ... will treat 100 million litres of groundwater that's treated and then reinjected back into the aquifer, removing PFAS mass from the environment which could otherwise move out to the community,\" he said.\nDefence would also expand a plan to connect residents to reticulated water from Toowoomba.\nAECOM technical officer Paul McCabe said the contamination zone was still growing and authorities were still learning about the chemical.\n\"PFAS is an unusual contaminant compared to most of the things we normally deal with because it does affect soil, it affects groundwater,\" he said.\n\"It migrates very easily in surface and groundwater and it's taken up by plants and animals — there aren't many other contaminants that do all of those things.\"\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["the Federal Government needed to compensate affected residents","Defence had started two remediation projects, including work on the surface drains and a water treatment facility","Defence would also expand a plan to connect residents to reticulated water from Toowoomba"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["480 Oakey residents"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["firefighting foam","PFAS"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["On Wednesday night"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["AECOM","a technical expert","Bernie Earsman"]},{"role":"Location","values":["underground water up to 4 kilometres from the base","Darling Downs"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Plastic pollution the last straw for underwater clean-up volunteers at Manly Cove","document":"Check this box to disable GIFs from automatically playing on the ABC News website.\nA volunteer underwater clean-up project at Manly Cove is recovering hundreds of drinking straws from the sea and raising awareness of single-use plastic pollution.\nDive instructor Harriet Spark is the project's organiser and is involved in the local environmental group Sustainable Organisations of Manly (SO Manly). She was inspired to start the clean up after one of her colleagues recovered more than 600 straws during two short snorkels at Manly Cove. \"On one of our dives we actually found an octopus holding four straws in its tentacles,\" she told Josh Szeps on ABC Radio Sydney.\nMs Spark was alarmed at the amount of straws found in the cove and started \"Operation Straw\" to combat the pollution.\n\"When it comes to items like plastic straws, these items that we used for just seconds and at most minutes, they last on the planet for hundreds and hundreds of years.\n\"They're a bit of an unnecessary item that we can stop using.\"\nShe invited volunteers to collect the straws and record their colour which provides clues as to where the rubbish is coming from.\n\"One of the big offenders is the McDonald's straws; we find a lot of them,\" Ms Spark said.\n\"The data is the most important part of it because if we continue to clean the beaches and don't record what we find, it's hard to drive change.\n\"But if we record what we find, we can make a big difference.\"\nThe volunteers have already collected more than 1,200 straws from the cove after seven clean-up events.\n\"To put it into perspective, these straws end to end would stretch roughly the length of three Olympic swimming pools,\" Ms Spark said.\nThe majority of the discarded straws originated from nearby, but could also be washing in from the greater Sydney Harbour area, she said.\nThe data collected from the project will be used to encourage local businesses to change the way they dispense straws or eliminate their use altogether.\n\"Even just putting straws behind the counter and having some signage explaining 'we only give out straws when asked' — that reduces straws hugely,\" she said. \"Just making a few changes can make a big impact.\"\nRichard Nicholls has been running a dive store in Manly for 25 years and his business partnered with the volunteers to reduce the plastic waste in the cove.\nThroughout his career he has been heavily involved in underwater clean-up initiatives but witnessed little reduction in the amount of plastic being recovered.\n\"We pretty much get 1,000 kilograms a year from pretty much one spot in Manly Cove,\" he said.\n\"It's sad in a way. We always hoped that the amount would drop and for a while we thought it was dropping, but all that was happening was that we were getting more efficient at picking up rubbish from that spot.\n\"So we just widened our search area a little bit and basically produced the same results.\"\nMr Nicholls expressed concern about how the discarded plastic was affecting marine life and the flow-on effect to humans.\nSource: Plastic Free Manly\n\"When I was a kid in the '60s, the sea was the biggest rubbish dump in the world; people just threw everything in the sea without any thought of what could happen,\" he said.\n\"Now we're seeing the results of plastic pollution and the major problems that we're going to have as more of that gets in the food chain and people start ingesting plastic.\" After years of witnessing the pollution up close, he urged all plastic users including manufacturers, businesses and consumers to do their part for the environment.\n\"The most important thing is try and reduce the amount of plastic waste full-stop.\"\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["reduce the plastic waste in the cove","he urged all plastic users including manufacturers, businesses and consumers to do their part for the environment.\n\"The most important thing is try and reduce the amount of plastic waste full-stop"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["McDonald's straws","single-use plastic"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Dive instructor Harriet Spark","Sustainable Organisations of Manly (SO Manly)"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Manly Cove","greater Sydney Harbour area"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Meet the pioneers in the war on waste, creating treasure from trash","document":"On a single stretch of beach on Cape York Peninsula, volunteers spend four days collecting more than 7 tonnes of rubbish — 1,000 cigarette lighters, 2,280 toothbrushes, 3,320 plastic drink bottles, 5,500 thongs, miles of fishing nets.\nThe year before, they collected around 3 tonnes. In a year's time, after fresh currents have pushed in from the Coral Sea, a new group of volunteers will come back to find the same stretch of sand blanketed in trash.\nOur remote northern beaches bear the symptoms of a global waste pandemic that many will understandably view as an insurmountable curse; efforts to clean it up, well-intentioned but ultimately futile.\nBut a beach heaving with our plastic detritus can also look like an opportunity to Professor Veena Sahajwalla.\nThe very concept of waste, according to Veena, needs to be completely revolutionised.\n\"We've got to value [waste] as a resource. We really shouldn't have to send any overseas,\" she says.\n\"It's an important thing to be prepared to not just see it as a problem but also to see it as a fantastic opportunity.\"\nVeena's team at the University of New South Wales are developing micro-factories: small, modular recycling plants capable of turning a variety of waste into usable materials.\nTheir micro-factories are capable of turning plastics into filaments: long strands that form the \"ink\" in 3D printers and can be moulded into anything from car parts and everyday household items, to hardware, tools and medical equipment.\n\"We're looking at different types of waste plastics, it doesn't have to be the stock-standard PET bottles,\" Veena says.\n\"E-waste [such as] printers for example, and things like CDs — all of these we have shown that you can convert them into filaments.\"\nGrowing up in Mumbai — one of the world's largest industrial centres, Veena developed a fascination with the things people discard.\n\"Kids collect stamps, I used to collect rubbish — little glass bottles and little things that to me were like, 'OMG this is so cool!'\"\nHer micro-factories are also being developed to produce metal alloys from e-waste such as circuit boards, and to reform glass, food packaging and textiles.\n\"[The system] needs to be flexible enough at the micro-factory level and have different modules to process different types of materials,\" she says.\nThe idea, according to Veena, is to enable recycling to happen on a scale that allows rural towns and communities to turn their waste into a valuable commodity.\nA community like Lockhart River or Bamaga in Cape York for example, might be able to harvest the tonnes of rubbish that wash up on their beaches and via a 3D printer, convert it into something of use.\nHarvesting waste and turning it into something that can be used locally or exported is a disruption to manufacturing, in a similar way Uber is a disruption to transport, or Airbnb to accommodation, according to Veena.\n\"To me that is the ultimate empowerment — to be locally producing [materials] yourself,\" she says.\n\"Let's be exporting the products out to the world … filaments are something that everybody in the world will be using as people do more and more 3D printing.\"\nHer team are launching their micro-factories alongside industry partners later this year.\nMeanwhile, in Tonga, Phil Smith is coming at the waste issue from an entirely different angle.\nPhil's phone keeps dropping out mid-conversation, which he says is all part and parcel of living in Tonga.\n\"The spinoffs for being a smartarse have been unbelievable. I just can't believe it,\" he says in between drop-outs.\nRunning a successful whale-swimming business, Phil who worked for 38 years on a jackhammer in Sydney, was looking for a suitable building material to upgrade his own house and guest accommodation when he stumbled across the idea of building with plastic bottles.\n\"A couple of photos just struck me — the finishes, how beautiful they were, I thought, 'Well, why not? There's plenty of rubbish around the place, plenty of plastic bottles, plenty of willing helpers',\" he says.\nBuilding with bottles involves filling them with a rammed mix of limestone dust and sand — made out of crushed glass — and then setting the bottles within a solid mortar mix.\nThe resulting structure is said to be stronger than an equivalent brick wall, earthquake resistant due to the flex in the plastic, and has the added benefit of removing significant volumes of waste from the environment.\nBut for Phil, the ecological benefits have paled in comparison to the social outcomes he says have inadvertently sprung out of choosing to build a plastic-bottle house.\n\"A girl who's a very good environmentalist said to me, 'You're just an accidental environmentalist. You've done more for Tonga than anybody because of your smartarse idea',\" he said.\nNeeding upwards of 100,000 filled plastic bottles for the walls of his building, Phil enlisted the help of local school kids, adding 60 cents per bottle to a fund which he used to buy them laptop computers for their classrooms.\nBut as he began talking to principals and teachers, he discovered that there were some more basic items than computers that the schools were lacking.\n\"We think it's funny coming from Australia, but all they wanted was a mower … because it was costing them 150 local dollars every fortnight to get the lawn mowed, and that was the principal's whole budget,\" Phil says.\n\"In another school all they wanted was carpet. I couldn't find carpet, so their carpet's lino. Another school lost power to nine of their 12 rooms in cyclone Waka in 2002, so they haven't had power for 15 years. Now they have.\" Once the kids saw the rewards they were getting for their hard work, Phil says they began clearing the streets and shorelines for rubbish, and entire family groups got involved as well.\n\"There's one old guy in one group, he's a bit like a horse you'd put in the bottom paddock because he's too old to work on the plantations so he's just sitting at home,\" he says.\n\"Now he's filling bottles. When I rock up he smiles, you see both his teeth shining. Even if that just gives him a year or two of that bit of self-worth, well that's fantastic to me.\"\nWhen Phil dropped the mower off at the school, the principal organised a snap presentation.\n\"The emotion of these kids, it was six at night, they rang the bell, all the parents and kids came along, they all sat down neatly at the front and then started singing songs,\" he says.\n\"The town officers said a couple of prayers. The headmaster, he was crying making a speech just saying that the kids worked hard for this, they got blisters on their hands, they realised that they can work to achieve anything.\"\nPhil's building will eventually have enough space for around 20 guests, a presentation room for workshops, and his own accommodation. He has so far stockpiled 35,000 bottles, and needs another 65,000 to complete the build.\nAs well as the plastic bottles, he's imported a machine that crushes glass bottles into fine sand that he is using in the mortar mix. He estimates that he'll use around 400,000 glass bottles altogether.\nAlthough he is aiming to make the accommodation as near to 5-star as possible, he says a local custom is giving him some room for pause.\n\"It looks directly at the King's house. When he's in town he can look down at my place and in Tonga law if the King likes it he can come and take it. So I just hope he doesn't like it too much.\"\nWhen Martin Freney came across a bunch of books on earthships in 2007, he says the concept \"just made sense\".\n\"I think it was the environmental impacts [of house building] that were a big issue for me,\" he says.\nEarthships are a building design that have struggled to take off in Australia due to strict building regulations.\nPioneered by US architect Michael Reynolds, an earthship incorporates thick insulating walls usually set into a hillside, built from used car tyres filled with rammed earth.\nInternal walls are typically built from earth products such as mudbrick and with materials such as glass bottles inlaid. And within these, is a greenhouse where food is grown on recycled grey water, with passive solar and thermal systems providing heat and energy.\nIn 2011, Martin headed to the US to study the thermal properties of earthships, comparing them to more standard construction methods as part of his PhD research. His findings convinced him that the innovative design is the direction that housing construction needs to take.\nMartin set about constructing an earthship at Ironbank in South Australia that could comply with Australia's strict building codes.\nHe says he had to pick his way through building certifiers until he found one who was willing to do a bit of research.\n\"There are different ways of achieving compliance,\" Martin says.\n\"[We found] a private certifier that had the knowledge and resources and was interested in the idea [enough] to look into the national construction code.\"\nOnce he found the right certifier, he says getting the building to comply was relatively straight forward, but he ran into trouble with his grey water system.\nAlthough Martin initially had the system pumping into the greenhouse, council ordered it to be removed over health and odour concerns.\n\"I was foolish enough to brag about it in a newspaper,\" he says.\nDespite the compromise, Martin says his resulting earthship, which is now run as a bed and breakfast, has remained true to the principals of sustainable design.\n\"People are coming and enjoying it and experiencing it and, overwhelmingly, they want one, or they don't want to leave.\"\nGet all the latest science stories from across the ABC.\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["micro-factories: small, modular recycling plants capable of turning a variety of waste into usable materials"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["7 tonnes of rubbish — 1,000 cigarette lighters, 2,280 toothbrushes, 3,320 plastic drink bottles, 5,500 thongs, miles of fishing nets","mudbrick and with materials such as glass bottles inlaid"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["The year before","In a year's time"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Martin","Professor Veena Sahajwalla"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Lockhart River or Bamaga in Cape York","the Coral Sea","remote northern beaches"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Arctic birds, seals and reindeer killed by marine plastics; pollution expected to rise","document":"Think of the Arctic and you are likely to picture a vast white expanse of pristine snow and ice alongside crystal blue seas, with polar bears, seals and other wildlife in prime condition.\nBut increasingly this remote wilderness is becoming the last stop for vast amounts of plastic junk littering the ocean. A new report illustrates the scale of contamination in the Norwegian and Barents Seas north of Scandinavia, and shows that no corner of the Earth is immune from the scourge of plastic pollution.\nVirtually everywhere researchers look they find plastic, according to the report by the Norwegian Polar Institute.\nEven in remote areas with relatively low human impact, it says the concentration of plastic waste in the European Arctic is now comparable or even higher than in more urban and populated areas. And there are signs the amount of plastic is increasing, with global plastic production reaching 322 million tonnes in 2015 and predicted to grow by around 4 per cent a year.\nThe report warns ocean debris poses a threat to marine organisms via entanglement, ingestion or as a vector for alien species. And nowhere is the impact of plastic waste more heart-wrenching than on Arctic wildlife — from fish and small invertebrates, to seabirds, seals and even reindeer.\nIn Svalbard for example — an archipelago halfway between Norway and the North Pole — 87.5 per cent of fulmar birds (ocean birds in the petrel family) were found to have plastic in their stomachs, a quarter of which were at levels of 0.1 grams or more, contrary to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, which has set a target of less than 10 per cent of the fulmar population with such an amount.\nFulmars are particularly vulnerable to plastic ingestion because unlike gulls and many other birds they do not regurgitate and retain more plastic in their gastrointestinal tract.\nPrevious studies have shown surface-feeding birds, including fulmars, ingest far more plastic than pursuit feeders, which dive to obtain food, because these are less likely to ingest floating debris.\nDiving birds, however, are more likely to be susceptible to entanglement in abandoned nets and fishing gear or larger marine plastic debris.\nThe proliferation of discarded fishing gear affects more than just seabirds.\nSeals and reindeer have been found strangled or caught in ghost nets and rope, both on land and in the sea. In one case a reindeer, with its antlers caught in derelict fishing nets, had to be put down. Geir Wing Gabrielsen, one of the report's authors says abandoned fishing gear from boats and trawlers accounts for the vast majority of marine plastics found in Svalbard, although further south most plastics come from household goods.\nEnvironmentalists are particularly alarmed at the growth of microplastics, which range in size from 5 millimetres down to 1 micrometre, and include both fibres from fishing equipment or textiles, and fragments of larger plastics that have broken down.\nMicroplastics are now found everywhere in Arctic waters, and of the same order of magnitude as those found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. In some places researchers have found concentrations of up to 234 particles of plastic in one litre of melted sea ice, far higher even than in some of the most polluted currents in the open ocean. The Norwegian Polar Institute estimates microplastics make up about 1 million of the 8-12 million tons of plastic that enter the ocean annually. Of those, about 1 per cent are floating, 5 per cent are found on beaches, and the remaining 94 per cent sink to the ocean floor. It says the high levels of micro and small plastics found in sea ice highlight the importance of management action to reduce marine litter globally. Bo Eide, an environmental consultant at Norway's Tromso Council, spends much of his time working to clean up the country's Arctic fjords. \"Just last year I think we took 30 tonnes [of marine plastic and debris] — household litter, food wrapping, bottles,\" Mr Eide said.\n\"But the main part weight-wise is equipment from fisheries. Lots and lots and lots of pieces of rope. Some are cut. Some are obviously torn.\n\"The international fishing fleet is operating offshore. And we clearly find signs that they contribute to this. But still we find litter from all over Europe, and even some from across the Atlantic. \"I mean you can throw a thing into the ocean in Florida, and think, 'Hey, I've thrown it away'. And then it might end up on our shores. They rather quickly break down into smaller pieces and even tiny little fibres,\" he told the BBC.\n\"I think the coastline as a whole, I think you can characterise it as a microplastics factory. It's so obvious that what we're doing here is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But it is the visible tip really. This is what is readily available.\"\nThe report predicts global plastics production will double again within 20 years and quadruple by 2050. By then it is predicted there will be more plastic by weight than fish in the world's oceans, according to a prediction made in 2016 at the United Nations World Economic Forum. Asia is the largest producer of plastic, with 45 per cent of total world production, followed by Europe and the US at 40 per cent. Yet, on average barely 14 per cent of plastics are recycled. Around 40 per cent end up in landfill and 32 per cent in ecosystems such as the world's oceans.\nThe UN says leakage to the oceans is largest in Asia — at 82 per cent, against just 2 per cent from the US and Europe and 16 per cent from the rest of the world. Climate change also threatens to increase the contamination of Arctic waters. The colder waters of the Arctic have traditionally acted as a barrier to alien organisms attached to microplastics washed in on warmer currents. But that barrier has been weakened as the seas have warmed and sea ice has melted. The report also warns plastic litter will damage the travel and tourism industries, by diminishing the environmental and wildlife values of the Arctic circle.\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["87.5 per cent of fulmar birds","a quarter"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["plastic","ocean debris"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["2015"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Norwegian Polar Institute","Geir Wing Gabrielsen","Bo Eide, an environmental consultant at Norway's Tromso Council"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Arctic","Svalbard","Arctic waters","Norwegian and Barents Seas north of Scandinavia, and shows that no corner of the Earth","an archipelago halfway between Norway and the North Pole","North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Adelaide City Council fined $90,000 for failing to cap former Wingfield landfill site","document":"Adelaide City Council has been fined $90,000 for failing to cap a former landfill site to prevent harm to the environment, in what the sentencing judge described as a \"deliberate\" and \"unacceptable\" act.\nThe Council operated the Wingfield Waste and Recycling landfill site at Dry Creek from 1955 until 2004 for profit.\nIt was prosecuted in the Environment, Resources and Development Court for failing to cap the site by the required deadline in 2012 to prevent environmental harm.\nJudge Susanne Cole found the council guilty of breaching the Environment Protection Act and imposed a financial penalty of $90,000 plus court costs.\n\"It needs to be made clear to the Council that, like every other natural or legal person in the State of South Australia, the Council is subject to the rule of law,\" Judge Cole said in her judgment.\n\"It is unacceptable for anyone, but particularly for a public authority, to simply choose to disobey an Act of Parliament on account of the expense that would thereby be incurred.\"\nJudge Cole also noted that \"no expression of contrition or remorse was offered\".\n\"The offending was deliberate in the sense that the Council understood its obligations under its licence and did not appeal or object when the licence was issued.\n\"The Council was reminded of its obligations repeatedly by officers of the Environment Protection Authority, but did not undertake the capping required in accordance with the licence condition.\n\"This offending occurs in the factual context of much of the landfill remaining uncapped for nearly five years following closure.\"\nThe issue has been ongoing for years, with various capping plans approved in 2003 and 2008 on the four-hectare site.\n\"Nevertheless, instead of capping in accordance with one of those plans, the Council subsequently generated and submitted to the EPA several technically inferior and unacceptable capping plans,\" Judge Cole said.\nThe court heard that contaminants had been found along the landfill boundary within the upper and lower aquifer.\nLawyer for the Council, David Edwardson QC, told the court any penalty would have an impact on ratepayers.\nJudge Cole said she had taken that into account, but also pointed out the \"ratepayers of the Council benefitted from the conduct of the landfill for decades\".\n\"I also note that the ratepayers of the Council are part of the South Australian community which was placed at risk of harm by the failure of the Council to cap the landfill in accordance with its licence.\"\nThe Environment Protection Authority's chief executive, Tony Circelli, welcomed the court's decision.\n\"This is a unique case and the first time in South Australia a metropolitan council has been convicted for serious breaches of the Environment Protection Act 1993,\" Mr Circelli said.\n\"This outcome sets a strong precedent and demonstrates the EPA will take action against any organisation or individual not complying with EPA requirements.\"\nThe Adelaide City Council no longer holds a licence for the site.\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["imposed a financial penalty of $90,000 plus court costs"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["Wingfield Waste and Recycling landfill site"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["from 1955 until 2004","in 2003 and 2008"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Environment, Resources and Development Court"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Dry Creek","landfill boundary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Thousands of turtles, marine animals victims of plastic fishing nets polluting Gulf of Carpentaria","document":"Plastic fishing nets, some the size of football fields, are washing up on Australia's northern coastline, slowly killing endangered turtles and creating a \"global hotspot\" for plastic pollution.\nBen Pearson from World Animal Protection told a national plastic pollution conference that the Gulf of Carpentaria was being afflicted by so-called ghost net pollution. \"These nets can be absolutely massive,\" Mr Pearson said.\n\"They can weigh many tonnes and of course they're designed to catch marine animals, which is why they're so deadly.\n\"The turtles up there that are nesting and breeding are being caught in those nets and in some cases they're dying horrible deaths over many weeks.\"\nThe Gulf of Carpentaria is home to six of the world's seven sea turtle species, and is one of the largest nesting areas in the Indo-Pacific region.\nIn 2016 Australian authorities removed seven ghost nets weighing more than 29 tonnes from the Timor and Arafura seas.\nA remote and uninhabited island wilderness in the South Pacific is literally a garbage dump and these photos prove it.\nDiscarded nets are being brought in to the region on currents from the Arafura and Timor Seas.\nMr Pearson praised the Indonesian Government for its efforts to combat the problem, which he said is also killing fish, affecting food security and reducing commercial fishing takes by 10 per cent a year.\n\"In some cases we hear stories that when they catch illegal boats they blow them up as a deterrent,\" he said. \"That's a very good step but it doesn't eliminate the problem.\"\nThe CSIRO is working with Indigenous rangers from more than 30 communities to clean up the coast, and will conduct an audit in the Gulf of Carpentaria next year to determine the scale of the problem along 3,000 kilometres of remote beaches.\nThe last study, published in 2013, found at least 5,000 turtles were entangled in more than 8,000 nets.\n\"Clearly there are still a lot of nets up there in the Gulf and we're determined to go up there and try to solve the problem\" Mr Pearson said, adding that plastic fishing debris can last for 600 years in the environment.\nRicki Hersburgh from Plastic Oceans Australasia said that marine animals are also ingesting vast amounts of plastic.\nThe foundation recently produced the documentary A Plastic Ocean and sent a submarine to the sea floor to gather footage of large-scale pollution.\n\"About eight million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean annually\" Ms Hersburgh said.\n\"But those figures may be conservative. \"Unless people actually realise it is an emergency, not much is going to change.\"\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["The CSIRO is working with Indigenous rangers from more than 30 communities to clean up the coast, and will conduct an audit in the Gulf of Carpentaria next year to determine the scale of the problem along 3,000 kilometres of remote beaches"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["six of the world's seven sea turtle species","at least 5,000 turtles"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["ghost net","Plastic fishing nets","Discarded nets","8,000 nets","plastic fishing debris"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["in 2013"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Ben Pearson from World Animal Protection"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Gulf of Carpentaria","Timor and Arafura seas","Arafura and Timor Seas","Australia's northern coastline","A remote and uninhabited island wilderness in the South Pacific"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"Queenstown locals say mine leakage has turned Queen River into 'Pumpkin Soup Creek'","document":".\nResidents of Queenstown on Tasmania's west coast believe there has been an extraordinary polluting event that has turned the Queen River an even deeper shade of orange.\nThe Queen River, in all her glory. pic.twitter.com/6IoQhJNpaI\nFrom the 1880s, and for almost a century, the river was used by the nearby Mt Lyell copper mines as a drain. An estimated 100 million tonnes of sulfidic tailings were dumped into the river — the worst case of acid mine drainage in Australia.\nThe river's water is typically clear but rusty in colour, but Queenstown locals are saying the colour has intensified dramatically in recent months.\nThey believe a significant acid drainage event from the Mt Lyell copper mine has occurred.\nThey spoke to the ABC on condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions for speaking out against the mine, now owned by Copper Mines of Tasmania.\nThe mine has been in care and maintenance mode since 2014 after three miners were killed.\nThe owners are hoping to reboot operations — and rehire some of those workers they had to let go — when conditions suit.  \"I can't remember ever seeing it this bad, and I've been living in Queenstown on and off for 12 years,\" said one.\n\"This is the worst I've seen it in 13 years,\" said another\n\"We locals are beginning to call it 'Pumpkin Soup Creek'.\"\nThe ABC shot video of the Queen River last weekend and sent footage to Tasmania's Environmental Protection Agency.\nThe EPA said it had launched an investigation and would collect water samples for \"testing and ongoing discussion with Copper Mines of Tasmania\".\n\"Further information will be available next week, once the laboratory analysis of water samples has been done,\" the EPA said.\nCopper Mines of Tasmania has been approached for comment. )","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["100 million tonnes of sulfidic tailings","acid drainage"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["Mt Lyell copper mine","Copper Mines of Tasmania"]},{"role":"Date","values":["in recent months","since 2014"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Environmental Protection Agency"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Queen River","Queenstown on Tasmania's west coast","in Australia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2013 According to a new study, more than one million people per year die prematurely due to the air pollution in China. (NPR)","document":"                    Men walk along a railway line in Beijing on Jan. 12, as air pollution reached hazardous levels.\n                                                                        Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images\n                                    hide caption\nMore than 1 million people are dying prematurely every year from air pollution in China, according to a new analysis.\n\"This is the highest toll in the world and it really reflects the very high levels of air pollution that exist in China today,\" says Robert O'Keefe of the Health Effects Institute in Boston, who presented the findings in Beijing this week.\nAlarm has been growing in recent years about the air in China. On many days in many cities, it's thick with smog.\n\"When you get off the airplane, if you were to travel to Beijing, you would immediately feel your eyes stinging and your throat rasping,\" says Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's China program based in Beijing.\nIt's so bad that people commonly walk the streets wearing masks. Parents won't let their kids play outside.\n\"There are many days where we cannot see the building across the street,\" she says. \"It's a pea soup of pollution.\"\nO'Keefe and other researchers decided to take a closer look at a massive report about the world's health problems that was released in December by the journal The Lancet.\nThey found that in China, approximately 1.2 million people die prematurely from exposure to outdoor air pollution.\nIn fact, about two-thirds of all the deaths from air pollution are now occurring in Asia, most of them in China. And air pollution has become the fourth leading cause of death in China.\n\"For the most part, the air pollution effects are generally manifested in frail populations — people with asthma are generally more susceptible to the effects of air pollution,\" O'Keefe says. \"Also the very young and children who live in highly polluted areas for extended periods of time.\"\nThese photos of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, taken just one day apart, show how stifling pollution has plagued the region.\nThe main reason air pollution is such a huge and growing problem is clear: China's explosive growth.\n\"Cars are being added and trucks are being added to the streets in major cities at record numbers. Power plants burn significant amounts of very low-grade coal, and the energy consumption in China is rising dramatically.\" O'Keefe says.\nBut he says there are hints the government is starting to take the issue more seriously. Just the fact that the government allowed O'Keefe to present his report at an open forum in the nation's capital is promising, he says.\n\"There was a large amount of Chinese media there. I was very encouraged by that,\" he says. \"And I think it's another signal that the government is serious about beginning to engage on this very significant public health problem.\"\nThe government also recently started doing something else to acknowledge the problem.\n\"They've put in place — and this is quite remarkable — a nationwide monitoring network that is reporting, in real time, levels of air pollution,\" O'Keefe says. \"So for the first time the Chinese government is providing transparent levels of air pollution that the public can actually see.\"\nOthers agree that the new public monitoring system is a sign of progress. Only a few years ago, people just didn't realize what was happening.\n\"I remember going down the street and people saying, 'Very foggy day today,' \" Finamore says. \"They didn't recognize that it was smog and certainly deadly smog until that information started becoming available on a real-time basis.\"\nFinamore is encouraged by other steps the government is taking, including efforts to clean up exhaust from cars and trucks and cut sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants in half.\n\"So I think the tide has turned in China. The government recognizes that the people are demanding cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner food. And they have at least said they are going to do something about it,\" she says.\nBut Finamore says the key will be whether the government follows through on its promises to start cleaning up China's filthy air.","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["\"They've put in place — and this is quite remarkable — a nationwide monitoring network that is reporting, in real time, levels of air pollution,\" O'Keefe says. \"So for the first time the Chinese government is providing transparent levels of air pollution that the public can actually see.\"","efforts to clean up exhaust from cars and trucks and cut sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants in half"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["approximately 1.2 million people die prematurely"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["Cars are being added and trucks are being added to the streets in major cities at record numbers. Power plants burn significant amounts of very low-grade coal, and the energy consumption in China is rising dramatically"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["the government"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Beijing"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2013 Around 1,000 dead ducks are pulled from Sichuan River in southwest China, sparking health and environmental concerns among residents. Also, more than 16,000 dead pigs have been pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu River over the past two weeks. (BBC)","document":"Around 1,000 dead ducks have been pulled from a river in southwest China, local officials say.\nResidents found the dead ducks in Nanhe river in Pengshan county, Sichuan province, and alerted the environmental department, they said.\nLocal residents and livestock were not at risk as the river was not used for drinking water, officials added.\nThe news comes as the toll of dead pigs pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu river passed 16,000. Speaking in an interview with China National Radio on Sunday, Liang Weidong, a deputy director in Pengshan's publicity department, said that the authorities were first made aware of the ducks on Tuesday.\nOfficials discovered over 50 woven bags which contained the carcasses of around 1,000 ducks in the river.\nThey were unable to determine the cause of death as some of the ducks were already decomposed, Mr Liang said, adding that the bodies had been disinfected and buried.\nAn initial investigation suggested that the duck corpses had originated from upstream and were not dumped by local Pengshan farmers, he said.\nThe news has prompted concern and criticism from some users on weibo, China's version of Twitter, with many expressing incredulity at the government's assurance that the water is safe.","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":["Around 1,000 dead ducks"]},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":null},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["environmental department"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Nanhe river in Pengshan county, Sichuan province"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 The Government of the United States claims that nearly 5 million barrels of oil have spilt from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest accidental maritime oil spill ever. (New York Times)","document":"NEW ORLEANS — Nearly five million barrels of oil have gushed from the BP’s well since the Deepwater Horizon spill began on April 20, federal scientists said on Monday in announcing the most precise estimates yet of the well’s flow rate. The estimates would make this spill far bigger than the 3.3 million barrels spilled by the Mexican rig Ixtoc I in 1979, previously believed to be the world’s largest accidental release of oil.\nFederal science and engineering teams estimated that 53,000 barrels of oil per day were pouring from the well just before BP was able to cap it on July 15. They also estimated that the daily flow rate had lessened over time, starting at around 62,000 barrels a day and decreasing as the reservoir of hydrocarbons feeding the gusher was gradually depleted.\nThe teams believe that the estimates are accurate to within 10 percent. They also reported that of the roughly 4.9 million barrels that had been released from the well, about 800,000 had been captured by BP’s previous containment efforts. That leaves over four million barrels that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico between April 20 and July 15.\nThe amount of oil estimated to be pouring from the well has been a matter of dispute from the earliest days of the BP spill. Federal and BP officials initially announced that no oil appeared to be leaking, then 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000 a day, frequently repeating that spill estimates are rough at best and that the main goal was to stop the well. But criticism mounted that no effort was being made to measure the leak with more certainty.\nThe Obama administration announced the creation of a scientific group dedicated to analyzing the flow rate, which came up with a new estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day in late May, a figure that was almost immediately met with skepticism. That, too, was later revised upwards several times before Monday’s announcement. Previous estimates came from analysis of videos from remote controlled vehicles at the wellhead, modeling of the reservoir and measurements of the oil that was collected by surface ships in the response effort.\nAfter BP capped the well, these measurements could be reinforced by pressure readings within the well. Those pressure readings were compared with pressure estimates when the well was first drilled to determine if the rate had changed over time, which it apparently did.\nThe government is continuing to study the data and may refine the estimate.\nOfficials also postponed until Tuesday the \"static kill\" method of capping the well indefinitely. The plan involves pumping heavy drilling mud, and possibly cement, into the runaway Macondo well, with the aim of sealing it by the end of the week.","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["the creation of a scientific group dedicated to analyzing the flow rate","pumping heavy drilling mud, and possibly cement, into the runaway Macondo well"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["Nearly five million barrels of oil have gushed from the BP’s well since the Deepwater Horizon spill"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["BP officials"]},{"role":"Date","values":["between April 20 and July 15"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"March_2005 World Wildlife Fund states that Asian river dolphins are in danger due to pollution and damming of rivers. (BBC)","document":"Asia's river dolphins are in danger of extinction because of the damming of rivers and declining water quality, says global conservation body the WWF.\nOnce-thriving populations are being threatened by human activity.\nOnly a handful of individuals of a local species of dolphins are now left in China's Yangtze River.\nThe WWF's warning comes as part of the build-up to the United Nations International Decade of Water for Life, which is to be launched on Tuesday.\nFresh water dolphins are key indicators of the health of rivers, according to the WWF; not only because of the direct effects of low water quality on them, but because they prey on fish which are themselves sensitive to the state of their environment.\nDistinct species of dolphin inhabit the Yangtze, the Ganges, the Indus and the rivers of South East Asia.\nOnly 13 individuals now survive in the Yangtze River.  Elsewhere, they are numbered in just thousands.\nRisk to humans\nIndustrial and agricultural pollution is one problem. Residues of pesticides and herbicides have been found in dolphin tissues.\nHuman sewage is another. So is the damming of rivers - restricting their natural ranges, and destroying the spawning grounds for the species of fish they prey on.\nAbstraction of water from the rivers exacerbates the problems - only 5% of the water in the Ganges reaches the sea.\nBut the WWF is not simply concerned with the survival of some of nature's more elegant species.\nThe plight of the dolphins, the WWF says, should alert us to the risk to humans of low-quality water.\nAnd solutions that help dolphins can also help the hundreds of millions who live along the banks of Asia's great rivers, the group says.","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["Residues of pesticides and herbicides have been found in dolphin tissues"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["global conservation body the WWF"]},{"role":"Location","values":["China's Yangtze River"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2005 The Sellafield nuclear plant's Thorp reprocessing facility in Cumbria, England, is closed down due to a 20 tonne leak through a fractured pipe of water contaminated with radioactive uranium and plutonium. (The Guardian)","document":"A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant. The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter. Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques devised to repair the £2.1bn plant. The leak is not a danger to the public but is likely to be a financial disaster for the taxpayer since income from the Thorp plant, calculated to be more than £1m a day, is supposed to pay for the cleanup of redundant nuclear facilities. The closure could hardly have come at a worse time for the nuclear industry. Britain is struggling to meet its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2010, despite a substantial programme of wind farm construction, while generating capacity will also be hit by the rundown of some of Britain's coal-fired power stations. The decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations is among the most sensitive Tony Blair faces at the start of his third term. A leak of a briefing paper to ministers on the nuclear option yesterday revealed that the contribution new nuclear capacity could make to cutting greenhouse gases had not yet been considered because of opposition from Margaret Beckett, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a quango which took over ownership of the plant from British Nuclear Fuels on April 1, has a £2.2bn cleanup budget for this year, its first year of operation, of which £560m was to come from the Thorp plant. Richard Flynn, spokesman for the NDA, said: \"If the income from the plant is not forthcoming then obviously it will put back plans for cleaning up.\" On Friday the British Nuclear Group, a management company formed to run the Sellafield site on behalf of the NDA, held a meeting with the government safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), to discuss how to mop up the leak and repair the pipe. The company has to get the inspectors' approval before proceeding. A problem at the plant was first noticed on April 19 when operators could not account for all the spent fuel that had been dissolved in nitric acid. It was supposed to be travelling through the plant to be measured and separated into uranium, plutonium and waste products in a series of centrifuges. Remote cameras scanning the interior of the plant found the leak. Although most of the material is uranium, the fuel contains about 200kg (440lb) of plutonium, enough to make 20 nuclear weapons, and must be recovered and accounted for to conform to international safeguards aimed at preventing nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. The liquid will have to be siphoned off and stored until the works can be repaired, but a method of doing this has yet to be devised. The company has set up a board of inquiry to find out how the leak occurred. The NII will set up a separate investigation and has the power to prosecute if correct procedures have not been followed. The Thorp plant produces uranium and plutonium from spent fuel in such large quantities that only a tiny proportion of it can ever be reused for reactor fuel. Its critics also claim it is uneconomic because it has never operated to design capacity since it opened 12 years ago, and is years behind schedule in fulfilling orders. This has angered some customers and the British Nuclear Group is embroiled in a court case with one of its customers, the German owners of the Brokdorf power station, which is withholding fees of £2,772 a day for storage of spent fuel, claiming it should have been reprocessed years ago. In 12 years Thorp has reprocessed 5,644 tonnes of fuel from its first 10-year target of 7,000 tonnes. Last year it failed to reach its target of 725 tonnes, achieving 590. Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, said the NDA had been \"naive\" in placing trust on income from Thorp, given its track record. \"Reprocessing is blatantly incompatible with the official cleanup remit of the NDA, which will now find itself out of pocket as a result of the latest Thorp accident. The new owners would do the taxpayer the greatest service by putting Thorp out of its misery and closing it once and for all.\" The managing director of British Nuclear Group, Sellafield, Barry Snelson, who ordered the plant to be closed down, said: \"Let me reassure people that the plant is in a safe and stable state.\"","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["mop up the leak and repair the pipe"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["Thorp plant"]},{"role":"Date","values":null},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":null},{"role":"Location","values":["Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2019 Air quality warnings are issued for most of Alberta as a result of the thick smoke moving across the province. Places as far south as Calgary have reached 10+ on the Air Quality Health Index, and rated worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world. (Calgary Herald)","document":"Calgarians woke up with dry throats and watery eyes on Friday morning as heavy smoke blanketed the city.\nCalgary registered a 10+ on the Air Quality Health Index, considered a very high risk, to start the day.\nA special air quality statement from Environment Canada, Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services warned of symptoms such as increased coughing, throat irritation, headaches and shortness of breath due to the drifting wildfire smoke which originated in the province’s north.\nChildren, seniors, and those with cardiovascular or lung disease such as asthma are especially at risk and should avoid strenuous activities outdoors, according to the statement.\nIt warned that people with lung diseases can be particularly sensitive to air pollution, which can aggravate their conditions and lead to increased medication use, doctor and emergency room visits and hospital visits. Those with breathing difficulties were advised to stay inside, and if possible, to find an indoor place that’s cool and ventilated.\nThose with homes that aren’t air-conditioned should consider going to a public place such as a library, shopping mall or recreation centre, it stated.\nBy Friday evening, the Air Quality Health Index had dropped to 4, but conditions were expected to remain hazy into the weekend. A meteorologist said Thursday that smoke was expected to linger for at least another four to five days.\n“I don’t see a big push in clearing this stuff out until probably early next week,” said Dan Kulak of Environment Canada, noting a change in wind flow is expected early next week for the southern part of the province.\nThe air quality rating in Calgary was expected to fall to 5, a moderate risk, by Friday night and to 4 by Saturday.\nCalgary’s air quality was so poor on Friday that it was worse than some of the most polluted cities in the world, with a separately calculated Air Quality Index rating of 306 as of 8 a.m. Mountain time.\nConsidered “hazardous,” that rating was worse than both Delhi and Beijing, which each ranked in the top-10 most polluted capital cities across the globe in the 2018 World Air Quality Report.\nDelhi and Beijing had ratings of 155 and 91, respectively, as of 8 a.m. Mountain time.\nDue to the special air quality statement in effect, the City of Calgary cancelled all scheduled outdoor activities and events taking place Friday if they cannot be moved indoors. City athletic parks remained open, but individual sport leagues would determine if their activities will continue as planned.\nCalgary Minor Soccer Association (CMSA) cancelled all of its Friday night games, and called on coaches to reschedule those games as they would for any inclement weather situation. The association promised to update parents by 11 pm on both Friday and Saturday on games happening the following day.\nCMSA also chose to cancel its Minifest soccer festival on Saturday because of the uncertainty of the air quality. The group is hoping to reschedule the event, and will provide more details when they become available.\nThe Calgary Stampeders said they would make a call at 5:45 p.m. on whether or not to go ahead with a preseason game scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday.\nBut other events taking place across the city this weekend were still scheduled to go ahead, despite the hazy conditions.\nThe annual 4th Street Lilac Festival on Sunday will also run “rain, shine, or now smoky,” organizers say, adding there would be a high level presence of Calgary police and Alberta Health Services officials in case of emergency.\nCalgary will also host Western Canada’s largest motorcycle street festival on Sunday. The event is scheduled to proceed despite the smoke.\nThe status of the Calgary Humane Society’s “Dog Jog” on Saturday remains up in the air.\nPhil Fulton, manager of community outreach, said the Calgary Humane Society would play it by ear and decide the morning of the event whether or not to proceed.\n“Safety of participants and the animals is our main priority,” he said. “This kind of smoke can exasperate dogs that are already at risk of heat stroke.”\nHe said pet owners should stay informed on how smoke can affect their animals.\n“This would more severely affect dogs like . . . pugs, bulldogs, dogs with shorter snouts,” Fulton said. “If they’re overweight, that kind of thing, already have cardiovascular or airway abnormalities, just making sure that people are educated.”\nThe Calgary Zoo said it was taking “extra precautions” to ensure the health and safety of its animals, with some animals kept inside Friday.\nLast summer, Calgary broke a record for the number of smoky hours within the city as wildfire smoke from B.C. blew east throughout much of August.\n“Every year’s got its own personality,” said Kulak, commenting on how common it is for smoke to fill the skies this early in the year. “It just depends on how many fires go.”\nLocal school principals were asked by the Calgary Board of Education to avoid strenuous activities for students and to consider indoor lunch and recess on Friday.\nFor schools within the Calgary Catholic School District, all outdoor activities were cancelled and students were kept inside. Students would also be monitored for symptoms of poor air quality such as irritated eyes, increased mucus production in the nose or throat, coughing or difficulty breathing, the school district stated.\nKarla Gustafson, medical officer of health with Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone, said the most common symptoms some might experience during the smoke include irritation to the eyes or throat. Additionally, those with pre-existing health conditions might notice that their symptoms are aggravated or amplified.\nHowever, Gustafson said it’s difficult to measure the long-term effects of consistent exposure over time.\n“It’s hard to gauge these acute wildfire smoke effects, the impacts of those, and correlating that with other exposure to air pollution that happens in an ongoing way,” she explained.\nWhile people might struggle with the impact of wildfire smoke, horticulturalist Kath Smyth said plants are resilient and will adapt as needed.\nHowever, if the smoke cover in Calgary mirrors last year’s lengthy haze then she said it might affect plant growth. Smyth recommends people loosen their soil and avoid overwatering to protect their gardens.\n“If it continues, we could have some issues but I really, truly don’t think there will be a large scale affect,” she said.\nAccording to experts, Prairie provinces will see a longer fire season, in addition more frequent wildfires, heat and drought in the coming years, as a direct result of climate change.\n“On average, we’re going to see a lot more fire and a lot more smoke, but not necessarily every year,” said Mike Flannigan, professor with the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.\n“This is due to human-caused climate change; in particular, warming. The warmer we get, the more fire we see.”\nProjected warmer and drier conditions across the country mean an extended fire season, and more lightning, which also equals more fire, said Flannigan.\nCalling it the “new reality,” he said fire is unavoidably part of the province’s future. Since the early 1970s, Canada’s area burned has doubled.\nWhile it’s already been a more active year than usual for wildfire activity in Alberta, Flannigan said it’s not uncommon for fire season to start this early, as May is typically the busiest month for burns within the province.\nLonger lasting periods of weather stagnations — those without rain — have already had an effect on neighbouring regions in recent years.\n“Catastrophic fires in California, record-breaking seasons in 2017 and 2018 in B.C., were largely due to this stagnate pattern with the high pressure over the west coast,” Flannigan said.\nHe said the rest of the fire season in the province, which could be “historic,” will depend on weather patterns and the amount of rain that falls in Alberta.\n“It’s going to take a lot of rain to put these suckers out,” he said. “These fires will probably burn for weeks to months unless we get significant rain.”\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["Children, seniors, and those with cardiovascular or lung disease such as asthma are especially at risk and should avoid strenuous activities outdoors","advised to stay inside, and if possible, to find an indoor place that’s cool and ventilated.\nThose with homes that aren’t air-conditioned should consider going to a public place such as a library, shopping mall or recreation centre"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["heavy smoke blanketed the city","remain hazy"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["Friday morning","Friday evening"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["Environment Canada, Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services","a high level presence of Calgary police and Alberta Health Services officials"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Calgary"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2011 The World Meteorological Organisation reports that the ozone layer is damaged to its worst extent ever in the Arctic. (The Independent)","document":"The stratospheric ozone layer, which shields the Earth from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, has been damaged to its greatest-ever extent over the Arctic this winter.\nThe protective layer of gas, which can be destroyed by reactions with industrial chemicals, has suffered a loss of about 40 per cent from the start of winter until late March, exceeding the previous seasonal loss of about 30 per cent, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).\nThe phenomenon is annual in the Antarctic, where after its discovery in the 1980s it came to be known as the \"ozone hole\". Although CFC levels are now dropping, they remain in the atmosphere for so long that they will still be causing ozone depletion for decades in certain conditions, particularly the intense cold of the stratosphere.\nArctic ozone conditions vary more and the temperatures are always warmer than over Antarctica, where the ozone hole forms high in the stratosphere near the South Pole each winter and spring. Because of changing weather and temperatures, some Arctic winters experience almost no ozone loss – but others with exceptionally cold stratospheric conditions can occasionally lead to substantial ozone depletion.\nThis is what has happened over the Arctic this winter; for while at ground level the Arctic region was unusually warm, temperatures 15-20km above the Earth's surface plummeted. WMO officials say the latest losses, which are unprecedented, were detected in observations from the ground and from balloons and satellites over the Arctic.\n\"The Arctic stratosphere continues to be vulnerable to ozone destruction caused by ozone-depleting substances linked to human activities,\" said the WMO's secretary general, Michel Jarraud.\nLoss of ozone allows more of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet-B rays to penetrate the atmosphere. They have been linked to increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts and immune system damage.\nIn late March, winds blew the ozone-depleted region over Greenland and Scandinavia, and the WMO is warning people there to heed national alerts and forecasts of ozone levels. The development is unlikely to be risky for humans as the depleted ozone will soon merge into the background atmosphere, according to one of the world's leading ozone experts, Professor John Pyle, professor of chemistry at Cambridge University and co-director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.\n","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":null},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":null},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":["humans"]},{"role":"Date","values":["from the start of winter until late March"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)","Professor John Pyle"]},{"role":"Location","values":["Arctic","The stratospheric ozone layer"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2010 Landfall of the giant oil spill will result in widespread environmental harm to animals, birds and coastline areas. (The Washington Post) (CNN)","document":"The cord-grass marshes of south Louisiana are nurseries for baby shrimp, stalking grounds for blue crabs, and barriers that slow down waves before they bite off more of the mainland. On Friday, they were becoming defenseless sponges for sticky, dark oil.\nThe locals said the foul-smelling mass had the goopy look of chocolate mousse. The scientists said the enormous slick had the potential to bring environmental ruin to this treasured coastline.\nThe oil is spilling out of the seafloor at 5,000 barrels a day -- the equivalent of 210,000 gallons -- maybe much more, from a well about 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, and it could soon eclipse the volume of the infamous Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. That disaster spilled oil onto rocky Alaskan beaches, but it is at least possible to wash oil off a rock. In the Gulf, the oil is floating into wetlands that could hold on to its toxins for years.\nAnd, scientists said, the spill's damage could be magnified by its awful timing.\nAmong the animals that live along the Gulf Coast, this is the time for hatching and rearing: Species as diverse as pelicans, shrimp and alligators are all reproducing, or preparing to. That could bring sensitive young animals in contact with toxic oil or cause their parents to plunge into oily waters looking for food.\nAlready, rescuers from Delaware were using Dawn blue dish soap to clean the first bird found to be \"oiled\" in the disaster, the Associated Press reported. The bird, a young northern gannet, had been turned from white to black.\n\"I can't imagine we're not going to have some mass casualties\" among these birds, said Michael Parr of the American Bird Conservancy. \"It's got to be about the worst time right now\" for an oil spill to hit.\nOne environmentalist said the scenario created \"a potential mega-disaster.\" Along the Gulf, they were waiting for it with a dread usually devoted to hurricanes.\n\"The magnitude and the potential for ecological damage is probably more great than anything we've ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico,\" said Nancy Rabalais, a scientist who heads the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, a research center in Cocodrie, La. \"Once it hits the shoreline, it'll get into everything.\"\nThe oil has been flowing since April 22, when a drilling rig called the Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank 50 miles out in the Gulf.\nBy late Friday, federal officials estimated that the slick had reached land in Louisiana's isolated southeast corner and was being pushed ashore by strong winds.\nIt had already surrounded some of the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana, where thousands of brown pelicans are roosting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the islands, has protected them with a ring of floating booms.\nThat barrier so far has stopped the oil, despite heavy seas.\n\"We hope it holds,\" said Tom MacKenzie, an agency spokesman.\nIn south Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, fishermen were already seeing the oil as a thick, brown sludge, washing toward the town of Venice. \"It's the chocolate mousse, that's the term they've been using,\" said Albert \"Rusty\" Gaudé, a state extension agent who works with fishermen there. He said it had left many fearful that crabs, oysters and shrimp -- part of a Louisiana industry that produces 10 percent of the country's seafood -- could be devastated.\n\"There's only two things that are happening in Venice, and that's seafood and oil,\" Gaudé said. \"Could be catastrophic for both of them.\"\nIn the rest of the region, the oil was still unseen -- scientists and fishermen were left to wait and worry.\n\"There's a lot at risk here,\" said Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She noted that 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the continental United States are in Louisiana. \"Ninety-seven percent of commercial fish and shellfish in the Gulf depend on estuaries and wetlands during their life cycle,\" she said.\nIn the Gulf, some scientists worried about the marsh itself: In south Louisiana, the oil was hitting wetlands dominated by Spartina grass, with huge clumps of dead grass underwater. Thomas Shirley, a professor at Texas A&M University's Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, said that posed a problem that Exxon Valdez did not.\n\"There's no way to wash the oil out of a Spartina marsh,\" Shirley said. Instead, he said, it could take years to leach out with the tides. \"It's just a big sponge.\"\nThat could mean trouble for the marsh itself, and for the land behind it. If marshes die, that could remove a key natural barrier that takes the punch out of waves before they hit Louisiana's fast-eroding coast.\nAt Louisiana State University, Professor Ed Overton said his worries grew after a university laboratory analyzed a sample of the oil. \"It's not terribly toxic, but it does appear to be terribly sticky,\" he said, which meant it could coat blades of grass and kill them.\nOil is damaging for birds because it coats their feathers, destroying the natural chemistry that keeps them buoyant, warm and able to fly. When birds \"preen\" and try to remove the oil, they can swallow it and be poisoned.\nSo it is terrible timing that, at this time of year, huge numbers of birds converge on the marshes and empty barrier islands on this stretch of the Gulf Coast. Some are just stopping to recharge after a long flight over the Gulf from South America. But others have come to stay, preparing to raise their young in nests in the marsh and along sandy beaches.\nAmong other wildlife, scientists said, some fish would swim away from the oil -- provided they can flee to an oil-free place. The situation is worse for dolphins, which must surface twice a minute to breathe: They would inhale fumes from the oil.\nThe natural rhythms of many other species make them also particularly vulnerable. Tiny shrimp, just hatched and only a few millimeters across, will be swimming at the oily surface. Alligators, nearing their nesting season, might ingest the oil as they feed. Sea turtles will be coming ashore to lay their eggs on beaches.\nScientists said that huge die-offs are not assured: The wind could shift and blow the slick offshore, or the spilling oil might finally be capped, mitigating the damage.\nBut as of Friday night, neither of those fervently hoped-for things had come to pass.\n\"I'm going to be honest with you, it's got a lot of people very fearful,\" said Avery Bates of the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama in Bayou la Batre. He said the slick was expected to hit their stretch of coastline Sunday.","event_type":"Environment Pollution","arguments":[{"role":"Solution","values":["rescuers from Delaware were using Dawn blue dish soap to clean the first bird found to be \"oiled\" in the disaster","The wind could shift and blow the slick offshore, or the spilling oil might finally be capped, mitigating the damage"]},{"role":"Cause","values":null},{"role":"Number of Victims","values":null},{"role":"Pollution Source","values":["sticky, dark oil"]},{"role":"Party Responsible for Pollution","values":null},{"role":"Date","values":["The oil has been flowing since April 22","Friday"]},{"role":"Anti-pollution People/Organizations","values":["American Bird Conservancy","Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium","The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service"]},{"role":"Location","values":["south Louisiana"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2020 A man arrested in the Philippines in July 2019 is indicted by federal prosecutors in New York for plotting to carry out a 9/11style attack in the U.S. The suspect was allegedly directed by the terrorist organization alShabaab to attend a flight school in the Philippines and research how to hijack a commercial airliner. (NBC News)","document":" Follow NBC News Federal prosecutors in New York have indicted a man who they say took direction from a “senior al-Shabab commander” and went to flight school in the Philippines so he could hijack a commercial airliner. They say the man also sought information “about the tallest building in a major U.S. city.”\nThe indictment, unsealed Wednesday, charges Cholo Abdi Abdullah with six counts which include multiple counts of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy and conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens.\nProsecutors allege Abdi Abdullah attended a flight school from 2017 and 2019 in the Philippines and obtained training, “ultimately completing the tests necessary to obtain his pilot’s license.”\nThey say he also allegedly researched how he could hijack a commercial airliner and breach a cockpit door, and sought “information about the tallest building in a major U.S. city, and information about how to obtain a U.S. visa.”\nThe charging documents say that Abdi Abdullah has been in the custody of law enforcement authorities in the Philippines since July 1, 2019 and he is arriving in New York to face charges in the custody of the FBI and New York Police Department.\nIn federal court this afternoon Abdullah told the judge, “I plead not guilty to all the counts.”\nHe has been ordered detained pending trial and his attorney said they reserve the right to ask for bail in the future.\nThe U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement that the al-Shabab commander who allegedly directed Abdi Abdullah was responsible for planning the 2019 Nairobi hotel attack which killed 21 people, including a U.S. citizen who survived the 9/11 attacks.\nFBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said “he obtained a pilot’s license overseas, learning how to hijack an aircraft for the purpose of causing a mass-casualty incident within our borders.”\nActing U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss added, “this chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like al-Shabab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States.”\nMore details are expected to be announced today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.\nJonathan Dienst is a reporter for WNBC-TV in New York, leading its investigative reporting team and covering justice and law enforcement issues.\nTom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2019"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["multiple counts of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy and conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens","responsible for planning the 2019 Nairobi hotel attack which killed 21 people"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Cholo Abdi Abdullah"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2020 India arrests 75 Kashmiri political leaders and activists for \"preventive custody\" due to recent violence following local elections. (Al Jazeera)","document":"The arrests came after an anti-Modi alliance won majority of seats in local elections last week.\nThe Indian government has arrested at least 75 Kashmiri political leaders and activists to forestall political unrest after an alliance of Kashmir’s regional political parties won local elections, leaders and a police official said on Saturday.\nThe District Development Council elections, concluded early this week, were the first local polls since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the special status of the Muslim-majority region last year.\nNew Delhi then cracked down on the opposition and rounded up hundreds of people to preempt protests and violence.\nThe latest detentions, which include separatist leaders and members of the banned Jamat-e-Islami group, were for preventive custody, said a senior police official, who asked not to be identified.\nBut Imran Nabi Dar, spokesman for the National Conference, a regional party and a key member of the alliance, said thedetentions undermine the verdict of the people.\nOmar Abdullah, a former chief minister and head of the National Conference, said the alliance’s victory shows that Kashmiris have not accepted Modi’s decision to end Kashmir’s special status.\n\nThe People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), which is pro-India but favours self-governance in Kashmir, won 112 of a total of 280 seats in the local elections, which were held in a staggered eight-phase process from November 28 through December 19.\nPrime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 74 seats with just three of those in theKashmir Valley.\nIndian authorities have kept a tight grip on Kashmir since revoking its autonomy in August 2019 and have arrested most separatist leaders, who in the past have called for a boycott of elections.\nNew Delhi has annulled Kashmir’s constitution, split the area into two federal territories  Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir  and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.\nThe Kashmir-based politicians said the election results made it clear that Kashmiri people have rejected last year’s decision.\nKashmir is divided between India and Pakistan with both claiming the region in its entirety.\nRebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989.\nNew Delhi accuses Pakistan of sponsoring Kashmiri separatist fighters, a charge Pakistan denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, fighters and government forces have been killed in the conflict.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["from November 28 through December 19"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["The Indian government"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":null},{"role":"Accused People","values":["75 Kashmiri political leaders and activists"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2020 Bobi Wine, challenger to the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni who has been in office since 1986, is arrested along with his entire campaign team in the town of Kalangala. No information about the arrest has been made available. (CNN via MSN)","document":"Ugandan opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, was arrested on Wednesday alongside members of his campaign team in the country's central region, according to a post shared by an administrator on his official Twitter account. \"Bobi Wine and his entire campaign team arrested in Kalangala! Media blocked,\" the tweet said. Load Error\nNo further details of their arrest have yet been made available.\nWine is challenging incumbent President Yoweri Museveni -- who has been in power for more than 30 years -- in January 14 elections. The presidential candidate has accused Museveni of being a dictator responsible for human rights abuses, after at least 45 people were killed in protests last month sparked by Wine's earlier arrest for contravening coronavirus regulations at a campaign rally.\nHe said one of his bodyguards was run over and killed Sunday by a military police truck, while the guard was taking a journalist to the hospital.\nA spokesperson for the Ugandan military denied Wine's bodyguard had been targeted.\nIn an interview with CNN earlier this month, Wine said he had nearly been killed on two occasions in recent weeks and urged the international community to hold Uganda's government accountable ahead of elections next month.\nWhile authorities have said the restrictions are necessary to curb the spread of Covid-19, opposition members and their supporters say they are an excuse to limit campaigning before the election.\nUnited Nations human rights experts on Tuesday released a statement expressing serious concerns about the violence ahead of Uganda's presidential election. They urged authorities to \"put an end to the arrest, detention and judicial harassment of political opponents, civil society leaders and human rights defenders.\"\nNicholas Opiyo, a prominent human rights activist, was arrested along with four other individuals on December 23.  He is accused of money laundering and will be tried accordingly, a statement from authorities said. \"Since the publication of the guidelines on the conduct of elections during Covid-19 in June by the Uganda Electoral Commission, we have witnessed gradual shrinking of civic space, and misuse and abuse of health-related restrictions to curb dissent in the country ahead of the election on 14 January,\" said the UN experts.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Sunday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["being a dictator responsible for human rights abuses, after at least 45 people were killed in protests last month sparked by Wine's earlier arrest for contravening coronavirus regulations at a campaign rally"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, was arrested on Wednesday alongside members of his campaign team"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Authorities in Pakistan arrest Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, alleged leader of the LashkereTaiba group, which is blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. (ABC News)","document":"Pakistan’s security forces have arrested an alleged leader of the militant group that was behind the bloody 2008 Mumbai attacks in India\nMULTAN, Pakistan -- Pakistan's security forces arrested Saturday an alleged leader of the militant group that was behind the bloody 2008 Mumbai attacks in India.\nAn official with the Pakistani counterterrorism police, Shakil Ahmed, said that Zaikur Rehman Lakhvi was seized in the eastern city of Lahore, on terrorism financing charges.\nLakhvi is alleged to be a leader of the Lashker-e-Taiba group that organized the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that killed 166 people. Lakhvi was detained days after the Mumbai attacks but released in 2015 by Pakistani courts.\nPakitani authorities allege that Lakhvi was running a dispensary in Lahore as a front for financing militant activities.\nLakhvi was a prominent figure in Hafiz Saeed’s charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is believed to be a front for Lashker-e-Taiba.\nSaeed, who has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department and has a $10 million bounty on his head, is presently serving multiple jail terms in Pakistan after being convicted in several cases in recent months. The Pakistani government has seized Saeed’s extensive network of mosques, schools, seminaries and charities and other assets in the country.\nRelations between Pakistan and India were strained after the attack on India’s financial hub in 2008. The rival South Asian powers have fought two wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2008"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["a leader of the Lashker-e-Taiba group that organized the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that killed 166 people","terrorism financing charges"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Zaikur Rehman Lakhvi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 MP Margaret Ferrier is arrested after breaching COVID-19 restrictions. (The Times)","document":"Margaret Ferrier, the MP who travelled between Glasgow and London after testing positive for coronavirus, has been charged with culpable and reckless conduct.\nOfficers in Glasgow arrested Ms Ferrier, 60, last night, months after her case was referred to prosecutors. A report had been made in November to the procurator fiscal’s office, which investigated before deciding to prosecute.\nMs Ferrier disclosed in early October that she had taken a test on a Saturday before travelling to Westminster that Monday while awaiting the results.\nDuring a debate on the virus she thanked NHS staff and other key workers then learnt of her positive result that night. She returned to her constituency by train on the Tuesday morning. She was suspended by the SNP and has since","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["early October"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["culpable and reckless conduct","taken a test on a Saturday before travelling to Westminster that Monday while awaiting the results"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Margaret Ferrier"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio is arrested for destroying a Black Lives Matter sign at the Asbury United Methodist Church during a protest in Washington, D.C. last month. (NBC News)","document":" Follow NBC News Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested Monday and accused of destroying a Black Lives Matter sign at a historic Black church in Washington, D.C., last month.\nTarrio, chairman of the far-right, all-male self-described group of \"Western chauvinists,\" was taken into custody on suspicion of destruction of property after the incident during a pro-Trump rally Dec. 12 in downtown Washington, police said in a statement.\nOne of the city's oldest Black houses of worship, Asbury United Methodist Church, said last month that a Black Lives Matter sign was removed from its building and set on fire.\nTarrio, 36, who lives in Miami, was arrested upon entering the city Monday and found to have two high-capacity magazines, police said. He faces an additional gun charge, police said.\nMore pro-Trump protests are expected in Washington on Wednesday, plans that prompted the mobilization of the National Guard ahead of possible violence.\nSeparately Monday, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church sued Tarrio and the Proud Boys in connection with the destruction of a Black Lives Matter sign during the same Dec. 12 pro-Trump rally.\nIn a complaint filed in D.C. Superior Court, the church accused Tarrio and the group's members of \"engaging in acts of terror and vandalizing church property in an effort to intimidate the Church and silence its support for racial justice.\"\nEight unidentified members of the Proud Boys are also named in the suit.\nThe incident occurred the night of Dec. 12 after an event that featured right-wing figures like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.\nA widely circulated video showed several people destroying a Black Lives Matter sign in front of the church, which was founded in 1872 and hosted Frederick Douglass' 1895 funeral.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Dec. 12"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["destroying a Black Lives Matter sign at a historic Black church in Washington, D.C"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Enrique Tarrio"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 The man photographed sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk during the storming of the United States Capitol is arrested in Little Rock, Arkansas. (Newsweek)","document":"Richard Barnett, the man who was photographed sitting at Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk during Wednesday's riot at the Capitol, was arrested and faces multiple charges.\nKevin Daley, a reporter for The Washington Free Beacon, tweeted that the Justice Department announced Barnett's arrest in Little Rock, Arkansas, during a press call on Friday. Kurt Maddox, mayor of Barnett's home town of Gravette, Arkansas, also confirmed Barnett was in FBI custody. Barnett was photographed sitting in Pelosi's chair with his foot on her desk.\nBarnett, 60, faces charges of entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry and theft of public property, according to NBC News. He's one of at least 26 people sought by the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department, which offered a reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to their arrest and indictment.\nAhead of his arrest, Barnett told Arkansas TV station KFSM he had traveled to Washington, D.C., to hear President Donald Trump speak, adding that the \"crowds were unbelievable.\" By the time he reached the top of the Capitol steps, he said, the protesters had breached the doors and were trying to get inside.\nHe admitted to participating in the riot inside the building but said he was pushed into the building when the mob broke through the doors.\n\"I threw my feet up on the desk at that point. I realized some a**holes had cut me also and I bled on her envelope, so I picked up the envelope and put it in my pocket, and I put a quarter on the desk 'cause I'm not a thief,\" Barnett told KFSM.\nBarnett also told the TV station that \"hell no,\" he wasn't \"scared\" about the possibility that he might face federal charges for entering Pelosi's office. But he rejected the idea that had done \"anything,\" saying he was \"walking around looking for a bathroom.\"\nAlong with Barnett, West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans was arrested and charged in connection with the rioting on Friday, according to NBC News. Evans has rejected calls for him to resign from his position, and his attorney offered a story similar to Barnett's.\n\"Given the sheer size of the group walking in, Evans had no choice but to enter,\" attorney John Bryan said. \"Evans continued to film once inside. His footage showed that members of the public were already inside the Capitol by the time he entered. Evans' footage shows no riotous behavior taking place at that time. Protesters can be seen calmly walking around.\"\nEvans' peers in the West Virginia Legislature have called for him to be removed from office. Republican Delegate Steve Westfall told radio station WMOV there could be a vote to remove him from his position.\n\"I believe the first order of business after [selecting leadership] is there will be a motion made to remove Derrick Evans as a member of the House,\" Westfall said. \"And there'll be debate on it up and down, and there'll be a vote.\"\nThe delegate added, \"If there is a vote, I will vote to remove him. I just think he let us all down. He made us look bad.\"\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Wednesday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry and theft of public property"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Richard Barnett"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 The United States Attorney for the District of Columbia announces that Jacob Chansley (also known as Jake Angeli or \"QAnon shaman\"), who was photographed wearing horns, has been arrested. Additionally, Adam Christian Johnson is also expected to face charges for carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lectern. (The Guardian) (TMZ)","document":"The guy most everyone (infamously) remembers as the bare-chested insurrectionist with animal horns and face paint who stormed into the Capitol is now in federal custody.\nJacob Chansley -- more commonly known as Jake Angeli, per prosecutors -- was arrested Saturday in Phoenix on charges of knowingly entering/remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.\nHe was arrested along with two other Arizona men, who officials say also stormed the premise. However, Chansley stands above the rest because of his wild outfit.\nBTW, apparently, it was pretty easy to identify him ... prosecutors say they matched the guy's many photos from Wednesday with social media posts, including his YouTube channel. He also appears to have posed with one Rudy Giuliani not too long ago, this past November ... something Twitter users were quick to repost from his purported FB once it was deleted.\nNot only that, but he even called the FBI and straight-up confessed to being the horned man everyone saw roaming around with a spear and flag, and desecrating the building.\nAccording to prosecutors, Chansley said he came with other \"patriots\" because President Trump had instructed them to on Jan. 6 ... plain and simple. Prosecutors went on to say they're considering even more charges against Chansley.\nOf course, this comes on the heels of a growing number of arrests stemming from the Capitol insurrection. The guy who walked with Nancy Pelosi's lectern was also picked up by cops this weekend ... and many more are wanted by the FBI as well.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["knowingly entering/remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Jacob Chansley","two other Arizona men, who officials say also stormed the premise"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Two men who were photographed carrying plastic hand restraints in the Senate chamber during the storming of the United States Capitol, are arrested in Tennessee and Texas. (The Washington Post)","document":"U.S. counterterrorism prosecutors are investigating two men who allegedly wore tactical gear and held plastic restraints or zip ties in the U.S. Senate during the breach of the U.S. Capitol last week, the Justice Department announced. The men were arrested Sunday.\nLarry Rendell Brock, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, was arrested in Texas and charged with one count of knowingly entering a restricted building and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct, prosecutors said.\nBrock identified himself to the New Yorker last week as the man photographed in the well of the Senate chamber wearing a green combat helmet, tactical vest, and black and camo jacket. The photo shows the man holding a white flex cuff, used by police to restrain subjects, prosecutors said. The man in the photo was also recorded apparently exiting the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).\nA mob insurrection stoked by false claims of election fraud and promises of violent restoration\nEric Gavelek Munchel, arrested in Tennessee, was charged with the same counts, prosecutors said, after being allegedly photographed climbing over a railing in the Senate gallery carrying plastic restraints, a holstered object on his right hip and a cellphone mounted on his chest.\nInformation about attorneys was not immediately available for the two men, who did not respond to requests for comment by The Washington Post but have given news interviews explaining their actions.\nThe cases are being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the counterterrorism section of the Justice Department’s national security division, with assistance from federal authorities in northern Texas and central Tennessee.\nCounterterrorism authorities are involved in a wide range of cases, and their participation speaks more to the focus of the Justice Department’s investigation of Wednesday’s events than the actions of any particular defendant, analysts noted.\nFBI agents are exploring whether some of those who stormed the Capitol intended to do more than disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s November victory, including whether anyone sought to kill or capture lawmakers or their staffers, The Post has previously reported.\nTheir work includes trying to determine the motivations of those who had weapons or other gear suggestive of a plot to do physical harm. Zip ties, for example, are a plastic version of handcuffs.\nFBI focuses on whether some Capitol rioters intended to harm lawmakers or take hostages\nBrock joins a growing list of military veterans who have been arrested and charged in connection with extremist events over the last few years, including the August 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville.\nBrock, 53, a father of three from Grapevine, Tex., retired from the Air Force as deputy director of its admissions liaison officer program, which oversees personnel who recruit prospective military officers, the Air Force said. An Air Force official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Sunday night that Brock’s role in that position was administrative in nature and “fairly removed from students.” The official said it was possible that Brock did occasionally interact with students before retiring.\nHe previously served as an A-10 pilot, the Air Force said. And the New Yorker reported that he said in an interview that he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.\nBrock spoke to the magazine after members of the public traced him down partly through patches on his helmet and armor, which included the insignia of the 706th Fighter Squadron and a vinyl tag of the Texas flag overlaid on the skull logo of the Punisher, a Marvel comic-book character who has been adopted by police and military groups, and, more recently, by white supremacists and followers of  the QAnon far-right conspiracy theory.\nBrock denied to the New Yorker that he held racist views, echoed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud and said he assumed he was welcome to enter the building.\n“The President asked for his supporters to be there to attend, and I felt like it was important, because of how much I love this country, to actually be there,” he said, according to the New Yorker.\nAn FBI arrest affidavit cited two tips about Brock it received based on his photograph, including from one person who said Brock’s associates at a defense contractor where he previously worked knew he was traveling to D.C.\nInterviews with family members and a close friend indicate Brock’s political views had become increasingly radical in the past few years, to the point of alienating those closest to him.\nBut Brock told the New Yorker that he did not identify as part of any organized group. Brock added that he wore tactical gear because “I didn’t want to get stabbed or hurt,” citing “B.L.M. and antifa” as potential aggressors. He said he had found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor.\n“My thought process there was I would pick them up and give them to an officer when I see one ... I didn’t do that because I had put them in my coat, and I honestly forgot about them,” he told the magazine.\nOnline sleuths who linked Munchel to the man in the Senate gallery carrying zip ties said the person photographed wore a patch on his tactical vest in the shape of Tennessee with a thin blue line, a pro-police symbol.\nMunchel, 30, and his mother, Lisa Marie Eisenhart, 57, spoke with the Sunday Times as they were leaving D.C. and confirmed they were inside the building during the riot.\n“It was a kind of flexing of muscles,” Munchel told the publication. “The intentions of going in were not to fight the police. The point of getting inside the building is to show them that we can, and we will.”\nMunchel did not mention to the Times whether he was carrying restraints.\nHe, family members and neighbors did not respond to calls from The Post.\nMilitary veterans have criticized Brock, saying an active-duty service member who participated in the riot could face court-martial.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["photographed in the well of the Senate chamber wearing a green combat helmet, tactical vest, and black and camo jacket. The photo shows the man holding a white flex cuff, used by police to restrain subjects"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["knowingly entering a restricted building and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Larry Rendell Brock","Eric Gavelek Munchel"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Proud Boys supporter Eduard Florea is arrested in New York for threatening to lead an armed caravan to Washington, D.C. Additionally, Florea also threatened the life of Senator-elect Raphael Warnock. (WNBC-TV) (Fox News) (The New York Daily News)","document":" A heavily armed Proud Boys wannabe from Queens stood back and stood by Wednesday as Brooklyn federal prosecutors accused him of leveling death threats against Georgia Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock and other politicians.\n Eduard Florea, 40, watched via video feed as prosecutors described the discovery of his hateful and murderous posts on the far-right Parler app, along with a raid on his home, where authorities seized about 1,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 24 shotgun shells, 75 combat knives, two hatchets and two swords.\n “Dead men can’t write s--t laws,” read one of Florea’s Jan. 6 posts in the online forum. Authorities said the menacing remark referenced Warnock, a Black Democrat elected in Georgia’s Jan. 5 runoff election.\n The post was written from the defendant’s Middle Village home on the same day as last week’s U.S. Capitol riot, officials said.\n One day earlier, Florea  under the screen name “LoneWolfWar”  cast a wider net with another post referencing lawmakers in general: “I catch one of you f-----s in D.C. tomorrow, I’m definitely slicing a throat.”\n Photos obtained Wednesday by the Daily News captured an armored FBI vehicle rolling down the suspect’s street and the moment Florea raised his hands in surrender Tuesday night outside his home.\n “Florea, a previously convicted felon, made various social media posts about his plan to travel to Washington, D.C., to engage in acts of violence,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney. “We saved him a trip and paid him a visit instead.”\n Florea was ordered held without bail by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara after Brooklyn federal prosecutor Francisco Navarro argued the defendant was a flight risk. Florea is due back in court Jan. 27.\n “This is not just idle talk,” Navarro said of the threats. “The defendant told the FBI he supports the Proud Boys, an extremist organization, and he had applied to join. ... You can’t condemn what happened at the Capitol and hang out with the Proud Boys.”\n According to the prosecutor, Florea accompanied members of the ultraright group when they vandalized a Washington church Dec. 12. And in another Jan. 6 web posting, he advocated violence in the aftermath of President Trump’s November election loss to Joe Biden.\n “The time for peace and civility are over,” he wrote. “Three cars of armed patriots, guns cleaned and loaded, got a bunch of other guys waiting to deploy.”\n Defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg of Brooklyn Federal Defenders, while acknowledging that Florea wrote “some blather on the internet,” noted he was not in any car, does not own a car and never went to Washington for the riot at the U.S. Capitol following an incendiary speech by Trump.\n She added that Florea is simply charged in the federal criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday with illegal possession of ammunition, not with making online threats.\n “He rejects the entrance of any individual into the Capitol,” she said. “He does not condone [what happened on Jan. 6].”\n An ex-pal of the suspect said he didn’t believe Florea is as dangerous as the feds claim.\n “He’s a dog with all bark and no bite,” said Jake Preda, 41, who says he was friends with Florea for more than 25 years until they had a falling-out in 2015.\n “He’s just a passive-aggressive guy,” Preda said. “When he’s faced with a lot of stress he will pop off.”\n Florea was nabbed as part of a nationwide manhunt for alleged extremists who either participated in the Capitol siege or may be plotting a repeat around the presidential inauguration next Wednesday.\n Navarro made much of Florea’s conviction in 2014 for possession of illegal guns on Staten Island, and a criminal case the same year in involving choking his wife.\n But Eisner-Grynberg noted her client served a year in jail on the gun offense, his lone criminal conviction. She added that Florea was a software engineer employed since 2002, and lives with his wife and their two children  ages 8 and 4.\n In the end, Judge Bulsara sided with prosecutors and locked Florea up without bail.\n “While events were unfolding [at the Capitol], Mr. Florea continued to post and make clear frankly what reflects a premeditated plan to exact violence against people in New York and people in Washington  against United States senators,” Bulsara ruled.\n With Morgan B. Chittum\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["hateful and murderous posts on the far-right Parler app, along with a raid on his home, where authorities seized about 1,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 24 shotgun shells, 75 combat knives, two hatchets and two swords"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Brooklyn federal prosecutors"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Jan. 6","Dec. 12"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["leveling death threats against Georgia Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock and other politicians","vandalized a Washington church Dec. 12. And in another Jan. 6 web posting, he advocated violence in the aftermath of President Trump’s November election loss to Joe Biden"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Eduard Florea"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announces the arrest of Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who was seen carrying the Confederate flag during the storming of the United States Capitol. His son, Hunter Seefried, is also arrested. (CBS News)","document":"                \n        Two Delaware men, one of whom was seen in a viral photograph holding a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol during last week's riot, have been arrested on federal charges, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.\nKevin Seefried and Hunter Seefried were charged with unlawful entry into a restricted area, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and depredation of government property, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia.CBS station WDEL reports the men are father and son.\nThe U.S. Attorney's statement says both are alleged to have entered the Capitol through a broken window, which video footage allegedly shows Hunter Seefried punching out with a two-by-four. Kevin Seefried, whom WDEL reports is the elder Seefried, was photographed a short time later with the Confederate flag, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. According to court documents, Kevin Seefried said he brought the flag from his home in Delaware, where it is usually displayed outside.\nA co-worker of Hunter Seefried's told the FBI he \"bragged about being in the Capitol with his father on January 6, 2021.\"\nThe pair participated in voluntary separate interviews with the FBI on Tuesday, and Kevin Seefried told \"law enforcement that he had traveled with his family from Delaware to the District of Columbia to hear President Trump speak and that he and Hunter Seefried participated in a march from the White House to the Capitol led by an individual with a bull horn,\" according to court documents.\nWDEL reports Kevin Seefried, of Laurel, is expected to appear at a virtual court appearance Thursday. Tips to federal authorities led to his arrest, according to the station.\nFederal authorities are investigating more than 170 people  more than 30 of whom now face federal charges  in the January 6 Capitol assault that left five dead. Hundreds more charges are expected as federal investigators comb tips, video and social media to identify and arrest suspects across the country.\nThose already charged face a variety of counts including unlawful entry, disorderly conduct, theft, assault and weapons violations. A team of senior federal prosecutors are investigating more serious charges including sedition and conspiracy related to the \"most heinous\" acts at the Capitol, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin said Tuesday.\nClare Hymes contributed to this report.\nFirst published on January 14, 2021 / 2:08 PM\n 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.\nErin Donaghue reports and writes for CBSNews.com on topics including criminal justice, social justice and culture.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["video footage"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["January 6, 2021"]},{"role":"Witness","values":["A co-worker of Hunter Seefried"]},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["unlawful entry into a restricted area, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and depredation of government property","march from the White House to the Capitol led by an individual with a bull horn","Capitol assault","sedition and conspiracy related to the \"most heinous\" acts at the Capitol","have entered the Capitol through a broken window, which video footage allegedly shows Hunter Seefried punching out with a two-by-four"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Kevin Seefried and Hunter Seefried"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 The Department of Justice announces that Robert Sanford, a retired firefighter from Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, has been arrested for allegedly throwing a fire extinguisher at Capitol Police officers during the storming of the Capitol. (USA Today)","document":" Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.\nThe Department of Justice charged a retired firefighter on Wednesday, accusing him ofthrowing a fire extinguisher at police officers during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.\nRobert Sanford of Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, faces four federal charges, including assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers while engaged in the performance of official duties and disorderly or disruptive conduct on Capitol grounds.\nVideo published by Storyful from the Capitol steps shows a man heaving a fire extinguisher from an elevated position toward a line of officers who were trying to hold back a mob of rioters.\nRiot arrests:Here's the latest list of those who have been charged.\nAccording to charging documents, the extinguisher thrown by the man in the video ricocheted and hit three officers in the head, two of whom were wearinghelmets and one who was not.\nThe FBI received a tip from Sanford's friend, who identified the 55-year-oldand said Sanford had confessed that the FBI was looking for him, according to the documents. The friend told the agency Sanford recently retired from the Chester Fire Department.\nVideo that day captured a man wearing a knit cap with the letters “CFD” on the front, and the person who alerted the FBI confirmed it was Sanford. In an interview, the person who tipped off the FBI said Sanford told him he was on the Capitol grounds that day.\nThe Wall Street Journal first reported Sanford’s arrest.\nOfficials told The Wall Street Journal that the extinguisher Sanford is accused of throwing is different from the one that allegedly killed officer Brian Sicknick. The Associated Press, citing unidentified sources, reported Sicknick may have been hit in the head by a fire extinguisher. But no official cause of death has been released, and U.S. Capitol Police have said only that he died “due to injuries sustained while on-duty” and provided no other details.\nThe charges in Sanford’s case are only the latest among dozens of cases stemming from the riot, in which five people died. The Department of Justice has arrested people from at least 18 states, and the FBI is working to identify more.\nOn Tuesday, Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said the 170 subject files investigators had opened were just the “tip of the iceberg.”","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Jan. 6"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["ofthrowing a fire extinguisher at police officers","assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers while engaged in the performance of official duties and disorderly or disruptive conduct on Capitol grounds"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Robert Sanford"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 The Federal Bureau of Investigation announces that far-right activist Tim Gionet, commonly known as \"Baked Alaska\", has been arrested in Houston for participating in the storming of the United States Capitol. (New York Times)","document":"Anthime Joseph Gionet, a far-right media personality nicknamed “Baked Alaska” who is known for livestreaming himself participating in illegal activity, was arrested by the F.B.I. on Friday and accused of illegally storming the Capitol during the attack on the building by President Trump’s supporters last week.\nMr. Gionet, who has been banned from Twitter and YouTube for his content, livestreamed himself in the mob on DLive, a streaming service becoming more popular after a mass exodus of right-wing figures from more mainstream platforms. He posted a video that showed supporters of Mr. Trump taking selfies with officers in the Capitol who calmly asked them to leave the premises. The video showed the Trump supporters talking among themselves, laughing, and telling the officers and each other: “This is only the beginning.”\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["livestream"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["illegally storming the Capitol during the attack on the building by President Trump’s supporters last week","posted a video that showed supporters of Mr. Trump taking selfies with officers in the Capitol who calmly asked them to leave the premises. The video showed the Trump supporters talking among themselves, laughing, and telling the officers and each other"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Anthime Joseph Gionet"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny is arrested upon landing in Moscow, according to a statement from the prison service. The prominent Putin critic was arrested on charges of parole violations and terms of a suspended prison sentence and will be held in custody until a court makes a decision in his case. (Politico)","document":"\nMOSCOW  Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport after returning from Germany on Sunday, the prison service said.\nThe prison service said he was detained for multiple violations of parole and terms of a suspended prison sentence and would be held in custody until a court makes a decision in his case.\nNavalny, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent and determined foe, had spent the previous five months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent attack that he blamed on the Kremlin. Navalny decided to leave Berlin of his own free will and wasn’t under any apparent pressure to leave from Germany.\nThe prison service made the announcement after the flight carrying Navalny landed in the Russian capital, though at a different airport than had been scheduled. It was a possible attempt to outwit journalists and supporters who wanted to witness Navalny’s return.\nRussia’s prison service last week issued a warrant for his arrest, saying he had violated the terms of suspended sentence he received on a 2014 conviction for embezzlement. The prison service has asked a Moscow court to turn Navalny’s 3 1/2-year suspended sentence into a real one.\nAfter boarding the Moscow flight in Berlin on Sunday, Navalny said of the prospect of arrest: “It’s impossible; I’m an innocent man.”\nThe Kremlin has repeatedly denied a role in the opposition leader’s poisoning.\nNavalny supporters and journalists had come to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, where the plane was scheduled to land, but it ended up touching down at Sheremetyevo airport, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. There was no immediate explanation for the flight diversion.\nThe OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests, said at least 37 people were arrested at Vnukovo Airport, although their affiliations weren’t immediately clear.\nVnukovo banned journalists from working inside the terminal, saying in a statement last week that the move was due to epidemiological concerns. The airport also blocked off access to the international arrivals area.\nPolice prisoner-detention vehicles stood outside the terminal on Sunday.\nThe independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and opposition social media reported Sunday that several Navalny supporters in St. Petersburg had been removed from Moscow-bound trains or been prevented from boarding flights late Saturday and early Sunday, including the coordinator of his staff for the region of Russia’s second-largest city.\nNavalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later.\nLabs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.\nRussian authorities insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison and have challenged German officials to provide proof of his poisoning. They refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.\nLast month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as fake.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["violated the terms of suspended sentence he received on a 2014 conviction","multiple violations of parole and terms of a suspended prison sentence"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Alexei Navalny"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2021 Three members of the Oath Keepers far-right militia group are arrested by federal prosecutors for conspiring to breach the United States Capitol. (New York Daily News) (CNN)","document":" Three giddy members of a right-wing paramilitary group celebrated after storming the U.S. Capitol in a premeditated riot, with one encouraged by supporters to gas the members of Congress barricaded inside, court documents charged Tuesday.\n Oath Keepers members Thomas Caldwell, a 65-year-old Virginia man, along with bartender Jessica Watkins, 38, of Ohio, and former Marine Donovan Crowl, 50, also of Ohio, were part of an organized 30-to-40 member crew involved in the breach as Vice President Pence held a congressional hearing on President Trump’s challenge of the November election results, the federal court documents alleged.\n “All members are in the tunnels under Capitol,” read a Facebook message sent to Caldwell, identified by authorities as holding a leadership role in the organization. “Seal them in turn on gas.”\n “Tom take that b---- over,” read another.\n Social media posts and photos confirmed the presence of all three during the incursion that sent members of Congress scurrying for safety as the horde overran the building. A subsequent search of Watkins’ home uncovered “directions for making explosives” credited to “The Jolly Roger”  the name of the suspect’s bar, officials said.\n Authorities also released communications between the three suspects discussing their plans for the raid in advance, including hotel arrangements and other prep work.\n “Us storming the castle,” read a Facebook post by Caldwell after joining the insurrection following a Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally outside the White House. “Please share ... I am such an instigator! Didn’t even mind the tear gas.”\n Caldwell later described the rioting as “a good time,” suggesting a similar attack on the Ohio statehouse. And another video captured Crowl and Watkins celebrating the attack.\n “We took on the Capitol!” shouted Crowl, who served as a helicopter mechanic on an amphibious assault ship in the Persian Gulf. “We overran the Capitol!”\n Watkins and Crowl returned to Ohio and turned themselves in Sunday after laying low for several days at the Berryville, Va., home of Caldwell  known to his co-conspirators as “Commander Tom,” court papers showed.\n “I look forward to the opportunity to, in D.C., prove that every single charge is false,” said Caldwell after a Tuesday court appearance.\n The Oath Keepers were described in federal court documents as a “large but loosely organized” militia convinced that a bogus conspiracy was intent on stripping U.S. citizens of their rights. The group’s name comes from an oath sworn by members to defend the Constitution.\n Video captured Oath Keepers members “wearing helmets (and) reinforced vests ... moving in an organized and practiced fashion and forcing their way to the front of the crowd gathered around a door to the U.S. Capitol,” according to federal court papers from the District of Columbia.\n The documents also included photos of Watkins and Crowl at the Capitol, and one rioter’s vest bore the Oath Keepers motto: “Not on our watch.”\n Watkins posted a video boasting of her part in the “Historical Events” of the rioting: “Yeah. We stormed the Capitol today. Pushed our way into the Rotonda.”\n Crowl, in a New Yorker magazine piece published last week, boasted of “patriots (who) dragged this f---ing maggot off the wall and started beating his ass.” Photos of the defendant inside the building were matched with his Ohio driver’s license, court papers indicated.\n Prior arrests involving members of the Oath Keepers covered a wide range of criminal activities, including firearms violations, conspiracy to impede federal workers, possession of explosives and threatening public officials.\n Transmissions of audio chats between the rioters and off-site Oath Keepers included an exchange where an unidentified man urges Watkins to keep going: “Get it, Jess. Do your f---ing thing.”\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["video","Social media posts and photos","Photos of the defendant"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["a bogus conspiracy"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Thomas Caldwell","Jessica Watkins","Donovan Crowl"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2004 Two 'highvalue' alQaida targets are arrested in Pakistan. (Tampa Bay Online)","document":"Among those detained in the past two days were a policeman accused of passing information to al-Qaida militants, a Syrian arrested at a bus stop, and a man carrying suspicious documents who was seized trying to fly out of the country.\nOfficials said the suspects are believed to be linked to a militant already in custody who provided crucial intelligence leading to the arrest of a top fugitive last week and to Washington's issuing a warning Sunday of terror threats to U.S. financial institutions.\nPakistan's interior minister said the arrest of the high-ranking targets in eastern Punjab province was a major break only days after intelligence agents caught Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the Tanzanian sought by U.S. officials for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.\n\"In addition to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, whose bounty was $25 million, we have captured another most-wanted suspect with a bounty on him running into the millions of dollars,\" Faisal Saleh Hayyat told reporters in the capital.\nHe said both men were of African origin but refused to identify them or their nationalities.\nFour Egyptians and a Libyan on the FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorists are believed to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Each has a $5 million bounty on his head in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. There are two Kenyans on the list, though they were not believed to be hiding in the region.\nOsama bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, is from Egypt. He and the al-Qaida chief are believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghan border, far from Punjab province.\nThe arrests have come with stunning swiftness since the capture in Karachi on July 13 of an al-Qaida computer expert identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was allegedly sending coded e-mails to other operatives. An intelligence official said Khan led authorities to Ghailani, who was captured after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat.\nInformation Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Ghailani's home computers contained e-mails with instructions for attacks in the United States and Britain.\nIntelligence gained from Khan's and other arrests was a major factor in U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's decision to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on prominent financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.\nPakistani officials are also pointing to the arrest in June of Masrab Arochi, the nephew of former al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as providing useful intelligence. Arochi was arrested along with nine others in raids in Karachi.\nAn intelligence official in the capital, Islamabad, said Arochi led police to a network of other operatives and that several as yet undisclosed arrests have been made. He said Arochi has been made available to U.S. intelligence agents, though Pakistan has promised not to turn him over to the United States.\nMeanwhile, the police chief who led the raid that caught Ghailani told The Associated Press he received several threatening calls in on his cell phone warning him not to take action against the al-Qaida suspect - even as his men were storming the building.\n\"They said 'The people inside the house are serving Islam and any harm to them will be dangerous for you,'\" Police Chief Raja Munawar Hussain said the caller warned. \"They were highly organized terrorists. They were so well informed that they remained in touch with their men (on the outside) during the raid.\"\nHussain said police also arrested a Pakistani who acted as a front man for Ghailani, leasing a car and opening a bank account for him.\nThe announcement that two top terror operatives were in custody came within hours of news that at least six al-Qaida suspects have been arrested in separate raids:\n-Two Pakistanis and a foreigner were arrested on a road near Lahore. Police found five grenades and two AK-47 rifles in their sports utility vehicle, a high-ranking intelligence official told AP.\n-Mohammed Salman Eisa, alias Ibrahim, was captured at Lahore airport Monday night while boarding a flight to the United Arab Emirates, a senior intelligence official in the eastern city told AP. The official said Eisa was believed to be Nigerian, but it was not clear if he was one of the top suspects. There are no Nigerians on the FBI most-wanted list.\n-Raja Waqar, a policeman assigned to the office of Punjab province's top politician, is suspected of passing al-Qaida linked groups information on the whereabouts of top government officials, Lahore police chief Tariq Salim Dogar told the AP.\n\"The previous record of the policeman shows that he has been involved in jihadi activities and had links with al-Qaida. We have initiated a probe to find out how he managed to get posted to such a sensitive place,\" Dogar said.\n-Another suspect, arrested Sunday at a bus station in a town near Lahore, identified himself as Juma Ibrahim, a Syrian, said district police chief Aslam Ghauri. He said Ibrahim was turned over to Pakistan's spy agency.\nIt was not immediately clear if any of the six militants described by Pakistani officials included the two senior al-Qaida men that Hayyat said were wanted by the United States.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["home computers"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1998"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["a policeman"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["1998 bombings"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani","Ayman al-Zawahri"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2004 Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is arrested at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, on charges related to his alleged involvement in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. He is later released on bail, and is to return to court on November 25. (BBC) Meanwhile, his \"distressed\" mother returns from holiday in the US. (Guardian/Reuters) (AP)","document":"Sir Mark Thatcher's lawyer today claimed charges against his client were a \"showboating exercise to make a political point\", as Equatorial Guinea officially asked South Africa's permission to question the former prime minister's son over his role in the alleged coup plot.\nThis morning the government of Equatorial Guinea said it hoped to extradite Sir Mark, although no charges or arrest warrants have yet been issued in the country, which would normally be among the first steps in a legal extradition.\nThis evening, Reuters news agency reported that a request had been received from Equatorial Guinea to question Sir Mark.\nHowever, the South African government has already said it would be unlikely to extradite Sir Mark, who is now under effective house arrest in Cape Town, since the equatorial state still operates the death penalty.\n\nThis morning Ron Wheeldon, a solicitor acting for Sir Mark, insisted that his client would be demonstrated to be innocent of the allegations.\nMr Wheeldon also denied accusations that his client had his luggage packed and was ready to flee South Africa when he was arrested on Wednesday, and insisted he had \"nothing to hide\".\nSpeaking from Johannesburg, Mr Wheeldon told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Sir Mark would cooperate fully with the police investigation.\nMr Wheeldon was also asked about suggestions that Sir Mark featured on the so-called \"Wonga List\" of those who invested money in the alleged coup plot.\nHe said: \"Mark has no idea why he would be on that list, because he shouldn't be on that list.\"\nMr Wheeldon was asked whether Sir Mark had ever had discussions with mercenary Simon Mann about investing in any of his schemes.\nHe told the BBC: \"No, not at all. It is not the sort of thing that he would do. He is a public figure and he is quite an astute man, and it is not the sort of thing he would get involved in.\nMr Wheeldon was pressed on whether it was true that at any point Sir Mark had offered or given money to Mr Mann or his associates for anything they might have been planning to do in Equatorial Guinea. He said: \"Absolutely not.\"\nHe added: \"We would like it to be cleared up as soon as possible.\n\"We think that this is a political showboating exercise that is aimed at making a political point, rather than a criminal trial of Mark Thatcher.\nOn Wednesday Sir Mark was charged with violating South Africa's anti-mercenary law in connection with the alleged coup attempt.\n'Mann found guilty in Zimbabwe'\nEarlier today, Sir Mark's friend and former neighbour, Simon Mann, was found guilty by a Zimbabwean court of attempting to buy arms for the alleged coup. No sentence has yet been passed, but he could face up to 10 years in jail.\nIn another development, it was reported today that the elite South African police squad, the Scorpions, intend to question Jeffery Archer, the disgraced Tory peer and novelist, over the 74,000 payment by a \"JH Archer\" into a Guernsey bank account linked to an alleged coup attempt.\nLord Archer's initials are \"JH\", although his lawyers say he had \"no prior knowledge\" of the attempted coup.\nLady Thatcher returns home\nMeanwhile, Sir Mark's mother, Lady Thatcher, arrived back in Britain from a lecture tour of the US, refusing to comment to reporters on the affair.\nAccompanied by six armed bodyguards, she returned to her London home this morning; Sir Mark's twin sister Carol, arrived there later, saying only: \"I don't know anything about it at all, I'm very sorry.\"\nLady Thatcher, who is 78 and in failing health, had been speaking at the Jepson School of Leadership in Virginia, where she was the guest of honour at a dinner where other guests were instructed not to raise the matter of her son's situation.\nHowever, last night one of her closest advisers from her days as prime minister said she was \"obviously distressed\" over the affair.\nLord Bell told Channel 4 News: \"She is very confident about the South African legal process and she is sure he will be cleared and named innocent at the end of it.\"\nLord Bell, who is acting as Sir Mark's spokesman, dismissed claims that he was planning to flee South Africa when arrested.\nHe also said he was unaware of claims that Sir Mark had received death threats from people linked to those already facing trial. He repeated Sir Mark's insistence that he had nothing to do with any coup.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Ron Wheeldon"]},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["the South African government"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["violating South Africa's anti-mercenary law"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 Four Israel Defense Forces naval commandos are arrested by Israeli Military Police for suspected theft of laptops and cell phones from activists during May's Gaza flotilla raid. (Haaretz)","document":"At least four soldiers being detained on suspicion of stealing and selling laptops belonging to activists aboard the Mavi Marmara ship, Israeli media report.\nMilitary Police arrested an Israel Defense Forces officer suspected of stealing laptop computers from activists aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship raided by Israeli commandos in May and selling them to other officers.\nThe officer allegedly sold the computers to a friend, who in turn sold them to friends of his. Three officers who are suspected of having bought the computers have also been detained for questioning.\nThe officer, who holds the rank of first lieutenant, allegedly stole between four and six computers from activists on the Mavi Marmara, which was trying to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip when Israel raided it, leaving nine Turkish activists dead.\nIsrael Navy commandos boarded six ships that made up the Gaza-bound flotilla on May 31, in an effort to prevent them from breaking through an Israeli marine blockade and reaching Gaza.\nThe naval commandos who boarded the sixth ship - the Mavi Marmara - were met with violence and nine Turkish activists were killed in the subsequent clashes.\nNews of the officers' arrests was first reported by Ynet, which quoted a high-ranking officer who said, \"The investigation has just begun, but as it appears now it will prove embarrassing and shameful. These are soldiers who don't understand what their uniform represents.\"\nIsrael Radio reported that cellular phones were also stolen from the activists.\nThe IDF Spokesmans Office said the Military Police had opened an investigation, but said it remains unclear if the computers in question were indeed stolen from the Mavi Marmara activists.\nIn June, an Italian journalist who was detained by the IDF following the raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla says his credit card was used to purchase items after it was confiscated by the Israeli authorities. Automatic approval of subscriber comments.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["between four and six computers"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Military Police"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["stealing and selling laptops belonging to activists aboard the Mavi Marmara ship"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["an Israel Defense Forces officer","Three officers"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrests two suspects in Ottawa for alleged terrorism offences. (CTV)","document":"Two Ottawa residents have been arrested in relation to terrorism offences, the RCMP announced Wednesday, adding that more arrests are expected. The arrests took place when police swooped in on two separate west-end residences after an apparent year-long investigation. The Mounties issued a press release Wednesday announcing the early-morning arrests, but did not provide any further information on the identity of the suspects or the allegations. \"Search warrants are being executed in order to secure additional evidence,\" the tersely worded press release stated. First, police raided a townhouse in a quiet neighbourhood at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Officers spent most of the morning removing computer equipment from inside the home. RCMP also took photos of an automobile, which was later towed away. The car is registered to Misbahuddin Ahmed, a 36-year-old x-ray technician at The Ottawa Hospital. Officials there said he began working at the hospital two years ago after arriving from Montreal. Neighbour Janice Burtt told reporters at the scene that the couple who live in the home are in their early 40s or \"possibly younger.\" She added that the couple moved into the \"quiet neighbourhood\" more than six months ago. The Canadian Press spoke to a neighbour who said that the couple may have a baby. Matthew Weiler, who lives next door to the raided home, said that eight or nine police cruisers were on the scene during the arrest. Weiler added that the male neighbour had a beard and his wife appeared in public wearing a veil. Meanwhile, RCMP also raided a sixth-floor apartment in a west-end highrise Wednesday morning, but they have released very little information about the second raid. It is expected that the RCMP will release more details during a press conference scheduled for Thursday afternoon. CTV's Roger Smith reported that the RCMP were assisted by officers from both CSIS and the Ottawa Police Service. \"So far, the police are giving no details on the names of those arrested,\" he said. However, Smith said the arrests may be linked to a suspected bomb plot that was in a \"very formative stage.\" He added that police have been tracking the suspects for about a year. The arrests were made out of concern that a suspect was about to leave the country. \"One of the suspects that was arrested was apparently planning to travel abroad,\" Smith reported. There are also reports that the suspects had travelled to al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. Smith tempered those reports, saying that rumours may continue to surface in the hours before police release additional information. The arrests come mere weeks after the so-called Toronto 18 case wrapped up with two final guilty convictions. The Toronto 18 case centred upon Canadian citizens who had plotted to mount terror attacks on Canadian soil. The arrests also follow recent comments by CSIS Director Dick Fadden, who predicted that more homegrown terror arrests would be forthcoming. \"We have had very clear evidence in this country that there have been terrorists seeking to do harm. The Toronto 18 are a clear example. We're monitoring a number of other cases in which we think there may be similar circumstances,\" Fadden told the Commons public safety committee last month. \"I think if Canadians know about this kind of threat they will be inclined to let us know if they find anything that's worrisome.\" With files from The Canadian Press and a report from CTV Ottawa\nRCMP officers conduct a raid as part of a terror investigation in Esterlawn Private in Ottawa's west end, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["6:30 a.m. Wednesday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":["Janice Burtt","Matthew Weiler"]},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["the RCMP"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["in relation to terrorism offences"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Two Ottawa residents","Misbahuddin Ahmed"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 A man is arrested in connection to an alleged sports betting scam centered on the current Test match at Lord's Cricket Ground in London between England and Pakistan. (BBC)","document":"A man has been arrested in connection with an alleged cricket betting scam centred on the current Test match between Pakistan and England at Lord's.\nThe News of the World claims it gave 150,000 to a middleman for details about three no-balls which players later bowled at the times predicted.\nScotland Yard said a 35-year-old man was being held on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers.   England bowled out Pakistan on Sunday morning to win the match and series.\nThe News of the World alleges that Pakistani players were secretly paid to deliberately bowl no-balls during the match.\nThe allegations relate to three no-balls delivered by Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif on Thursday and Friday.\nA no-ball occurs when a bowler oversteps the line behind which balls should be delivered.\nThe News of the World said members of its reporting team posed as businessmen and paid a middleman who told them exactly what would happen in the three separate incidents during play.\nPakistan team manager Yawar Saeed confirmed police officers had taken statements from four players.\nHe said: \"Scotland Yard detectives visited the team hotel where they took statements from [captain] Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and [wicketkeeper] Kamran Akmal.\"\nMr Saeed added that as far as he knew the planned one-day international series against England would go ahead as planned. Pakistan sports minister Ijaz Hussain Jakhrani told the Reuters news agency that any Pakistan player found guilty of match-fixing would be banned from playing for the national side for life.\nBill Akass, managing editor of the News of the World, said: \"The idea that any activity during a game is prearranged for money undermines the integrity of an entire sport.\n\"I'm frankly astonished that this game is going ahead today.\"\nBBC cricket commentator Phil Tufnell said everything about the current Test had been \"brought into question\".\nA joint statement issued by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said that no player nor team officials had \"been arrested in relation to this incident\".\nIt added: \"As this is now subject to a police investigation neither ICC, ECB, PCB nor the ground authority, the MCC, will make any further comment.\"\nThe statement said the ICC, ECB, PCB, along with the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, were assisting the police with their inquiries.\nThe BBC's Andy Swiss said the allegations involved \"very minor, very small details within the match that might seem ridiculously trivial to a lot of people\".\nOur correspondent added: \"That sort of information is worth a huge amount of money in the betting world where you can put bets on the tiniest details within a cricket game.\n\"This is a difficult situation for cricket and there are going to be some uncomfortable questions for the Pakistan team.\"\nBetting on when no-balls happen in cricket, or how many are made, is a form of gambling called spot-betting.\nThis refers to betting on certain events taking place in a game, rather than the actual result.\nPrevious controversies\nAfter taking 14 Pakistan wickets on Saturday, England took the final six wickets on Sunday morning to win the match by an innings and 225 runs.\nThis gave them a 3-1 victory in the four-match series of Tests, which are international matches played over up to five days.\nEngland captain Andrew Strauss said  the spot-fixing allegations against members of the Pakistan team had taken the gloss off England's series win.\n\"I don't think anyone wants to finish a Test series in this scenario,\" he told BBC Radio Five Live.\n\"It has taken the gloss off the series win which is very disappointing because we had some outstanding performances.\"\nIt is the second successive England-Pakistan Test series that has ended in controversy.\nFour years ago, umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove ruled Pakistan had forfeited the fourth Test by failing to return to the field in time following the tea interval. The Pakistan team had been incensed about an earlier decision to penalise them five runs for alleged ball-tampering.\nIn July 2008, the ICC changed the result of the match from an England win by forfeit to a draw, but in February last year cricket's governing body made a U-turn and awarded a victory to England.\nIt is also the second time this year that the Pakistan team has found itself under investigation.\nAn inquiry was launched after they lost every international fixture on last winter's tour to Australia, resulting in four players being suspended by the PCB and three players fined.\nThree of the bans were subsequently lifted, including indefinite bans on former captains Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan, and the fourth is currently subject to an appeal.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Scotland Yard"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["a 35-year-old man"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 Alain \"Spiderman\" Robert climbs another building barehanded, this time in Sydney; he is later arrested. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (BBC) (Xinhua) (Sky News) (France24)","document":"A French climber, known as 'Spiderman', is facing charges after scaling a 57-storey building in Australia. Alain Robert was arrested by police when he reached the top of the building in Sydney without ropes or any other safety equipment. He has climbed a number of the world's tallest buildings over the years and has been arrested almost as many times.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["when he reached the top of the building in Sydney"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["scaling a 57-storey building in Australia"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Alain Robert"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2010 Alain \"Spiderman\" Robert climbs another building barehanded, this time in Sydney; he is later arrested. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (BBC) (Xinhua) (Sky News) (France24)","document":"A French stuntman renowned for climbing skyscrapers has once again been arrested in Sydney after he scaled a building using his bare hands.\nAlain Robert was taken into police custody as soon as he reached the top of the 57-storey Lumiere Building on Bathurst Street about 10.50am today while onlookers applauded.\n\nFrench Spiderman Alain Robert was arrested this morning after climbing a 57-storey skyscraper in Sydney's CBD.\nThe 48-year-old, known as the French Spiderman, took 20 minutes to scale the skyscraper without safety equipment and using just his hands.\n\"It's a wonderful achievement,\" his agent Max Markson said. \"He's the best at what he does.\nAlain Robert shows off his handiwork.Credit:AFP\n\"I'm sad he's been arrested, but hopefully he'll get out soon and we can have some champagne.\"\nRobert, wearing red trousers, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, started to climb the skyscraper at 10.30am.\nAbout 100 passers-by gathered to cheer him on, while police set up a crime scene on Bathurst Street.\nRachel Pepper, 11, said  she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Robert climb up the building.\nA police officer waits with a smile to take Alain Robert into custody at the end of his 57-storey climb.Credit:AFP\n\"I think it's amazing to climb that high without falling,\" she said.\n\"He's got superhuman strength.\"\nAlain Robert looks wistful after another adventure ends the same way ... in handcuffs.Credit:AFP\nHer mother Wendy Pepper agreed.\n\"It was a nice surprise when we turned the corner and got to see him,\" she said.\nI'm sad he's been arrested, but hopefully he'll get out soon and we can have some champagne\nThe crowd cheered as Robert reached the top of the building where police were waiting for him.\nHe was put into a police van and driven away.\nIt is not the first time Robert has fallen foul of the law in Australia.\nLast year, he was fined $750 for illegally climbing the 41-storey Royal Bank of Scotland building in central Sydney.\nAt the time, Downing Centre District Court Judge Graeme Henson lectured Robert for disrespecting the laws as a guest in the country.\nIn June this year, Robert was forced to call off a planned climb of the Deutsche Bank in Sydney after building security guards blocked his access.\nAnd in 2003 he was arrested for scaling the Sydney Harbour Bridge.\nHe was charged later today with risking the safety of another by climbing a building and entering enclosed land and granted conditional bail to appear at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.\nRobert has climbed about 80 buildings around the world to raise awareness of global warming and to draw attention to the One Hundred Months campaign.\nThe campaign stems from a belief that 100 months from August 2008 it may no longer be possible to avoid potentially irreversible climate change.\nRobert, who has said in the past he suffered from vertigo, started climbing when he was 12 and was locked out of his home.\nInstead of waiting for his parents to return, he scaled eight storeys to get in.\nSince then he has climbed all sorts of buildings including the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Eiffel Tower and The New York Times building.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["about 10.50am today"]},{"role":"Witness","values":["Rachel Pepper"]},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["risking the safety of another by climbing a building and entering enclosed land"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Alain Robert"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2010 Police in Brazil arrest almost the entire council in the city of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, on suspicion of fraud and corruption, leaving the city without a government. (BBC) (Latin American Herald Tribune)","document":"Brazilian police have arrested almost the entire local council in the southern city of Dourados, leaving an unprecedented power vacuum.\nMayor Ari Artuzi, his wife, deputy, and 25 other people were detained on suspicion of fraud and corruption.\nProsecutors accuse the mayor of heading a complex corruption racket. Mr Artuzi's allies reject the charges. A judge has been appointed to run the city of 200,000 people in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Legal experts say there are no legal provisions in Brazil for the situation in Dourados, where in effect there is no-one to run the government.\nA spokesman for the council said Dourados had been left in limbo by the arrests.\nPolice say some 200 officers were involved in the anti-corruption operation, which began in May.\nThey say 100,000 reais ($57,000; 37,000) was seized from the mayor's house during the investigation.\nProsecutors accuse Mr Artuzi and his collaborators of taking a 10% cut of all public works contracts and using the money for election campaigns and to bribe other local politicians. Among those arrested are the city's councillors for finance and administration and a hospital director.\nThe police have up to five days to charge or release the suspects.\nBrazil governor faces fraud probe\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["May"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["fraud and corruption"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Mayor Ari Artuzi, his wife, deputy, and 25 other people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2010 A man is arrested after a minor explosion at a hotel in Copenhagen, amid heightened security fears in Denmark. (BBC) (Deutsche Welle) (Reuters)","document":"COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark raised its terror attack preparedness on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, after a man set off a small explosion in a Copenhagen hotel on Friday.\nDaily newspaper Ekstrabladet, citing police sources, said police had found a map with the address of daily Jyllands-Posten’s headquarters in the city of Arhus circled among the man’s belongings.\nJyllands-Posten’s publication in 2005 of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad provoked protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in which at least 50 people died.\nLast year a plot to attack the paper was unveiled and in January the creator of the most controversial cartoon escaped an axe attack by a man with al Qaeda links.\nA Copenhagen court ruled on Saturday the man would be detained in custody until October 4 on suspicion of aiming to put others’ lives at risk, a police spokesman said.\n“With an overall assessment of the information, we cannot rule out that preparation for something terror-related has occurred,” Copenhagen Chief Police Inspector Jorn Aabye told a news conference.\nJakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), said in a statement: “There are circumstances that point in the direction of an unsuccessful terror attack.”\nThey did not elaborate but said it could also not be ruled out that the man had accomplices.\n“Due to this, we have taken a number of measures to protect potential terror targets and to sharpen the police’s attention regarding suspect situations.”\nA PET spokeswoman said that while police and airports had slightly raised their preparedness level against militant attacks, PET has not changed its assessment of the general level of terror threat against Denmark.\n“It is fairly high already,” she said.\nPolice with sniffer dogs walk outside Hotel Jorgensen in Copenhagen September 10, 2010. REUTERS/Jens Norgaard Larsen/Scanpix\nAfter the explosion, police surrounded the suspect in Orsted Park and security personnel removed a bag wrapped around his waist with remote controlled cutting pliers.\nThe man has injuries to his face and arm from the blast, police said. No one else was hurt.\nA police spokesman said on Friday the bag probably did not contain explosives as it had not exploded when shot at. Aabye declined on Saturday to say what had been in the bag, and also what had else had been found at the hotel so far.\nThe suspect, who remains in hospital, was not cooperating\nwith police and his identity is not yet known, Aabye said.\nHe said the suspect appeared to be European or North African and around 40 years old and spoke excellent English.\nPolice found a gun at the Hotel Jorgensen in central Copenhagen where the blast occurred in a toilet on Friday.\nIn its latest assessment of the terror threat against Denmark, PET said that threat was intensified by a high prioritisation of Denmark as a terrorist target by militant groups. “\n“Regardless of the background for the bomb detonation, it is important that we don’t allow ourselves to be guided by fear or change the way we live,” Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in a statement.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["bag wrapped around his waist with remote controlled cutting pliers"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["set off a small explosion"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2010 The Metropolitan Police arrest 6 people in London in connection to an alleged potential threat to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom. (BBC) (RT) (The Guardian)","document":"A sixth man has been arrested in London by police in relation to a potential threat to Pope Benedict XVI's visit. His arrest, at 1345 BST, came after five men were seized at 0545 BST after counter-terrorism officers received intelligence of a potential threat.\nAll six, who were street cleaners, have been taken to a London police station.  The BBC's Danny Shaw said the arrests were carried out as a precaution. Police are searching a number of premises. At least five of the men were not British nationals.\nThe cleaners worked for Veolia Environment Services, a major contract cleaning company that works for Westminster Council. Armed officers arrested the first five men at the company's Chiltern Street depot, Paddington, as they were preparing to go on shift. In a statement from Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police said that the men had been arrested in a Terrorism Act 2000 operation, launched by officers from the force's Counter-Terrorism Command. All six men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. They are 26, 27, 29, 36, 40 and 50 years old and most are understood to be Algerian. Police are continuing to search eight residential premises in north and east London and two business premises in central London. Officers have not found any hazardous items. In the statement, the Metropolitan Police said: \"Today's arrests were made after police received information following initial inquiries by detectives. \"Following today's arrests policing arrangements for the papal visit were reviewed and we are satisfied our current policing plan remains appropriate. The itinerary has not changed. There is no change to the UK threat level.\"\nThe current official threat level in the UK is \"severe\", which means that security chiefs believe a terror attack is \"highly likely\".\nThe BBC understands that the information acted on by the police was received by Scotland Yard and did not involve intelligence gathered by MI5, the domestic security service. Andrew Redhead, former national police firearms tactical adviser, told the BBC that \"every allegation, every bit of information that comes to light will be vetted and taken seriously\".\nHe added: \"Obviously it would appear that the concerns are such [in this case] that persons have been arrested, and it is being taken seriously.\n\"Is this just a group of people speaking loudly and someone has overheard, or is it something more sinister? Obviously the police authorities and the specialists will have to work through that in due course.\"\nReacting to the first five arrests, Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's press spokesman, said the Vatican was \"totally confident\" in Scotland Yard and the ability of its officers. The papal team had no direct information about the police operation, he said, adding that the Pope remained calm and had been welcomed warmly everywhere he had gone. \"The police have already said that the information demonstrated that there is no need to change the programme,\" he said.\nIn a statement, Dr Leith Penny of Westminster City Council, said: \"Veolia and Westminster City Council work closely with the relevant authorities to constantly ensure that all the people working on their behalf are subject to right to work checks as prescribed by the Home Office to assess their eligibility to work in the country.\n\"We are confident that these checks are robust and we will continue to work with the police and other authorities during this investigation.\"\nThe UK's top police officers from England and Scotland spent months planning the security arrangements for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK.  Those plans included threat assessments, standard arrangements covering the safe transport of significant public figures and the potential need to control crowds during the visit's major events. In all, the policing bill for the visit is expected to top 1m.  The BBC's Emily Buchanan, who was with the Pope at his visit to an assembly of children at a Catholic college in west London, described the security around the Pope as \"extremely high... with no lapses\".  Policing Pope's visit to top 1m\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["Officers have not found any hazardous items"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1345 BST, came after five men were seized at 0545 BST"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":null}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2010 A U.S. service member is in custody in connection with the shooting deaths of two other service members and the injury of a third in Iraq. They were assigned to 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia. (CNN)","document":"Read more about this story from CNN affiliate WFSB. Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier is in custody in connection with the shooting deaths of two fellow soldiers and the wounding of a third in Iraq, the U.S. military said Tuesday.\nSpc. Neftaly Platero is in pretrial confinement, a U.S. military statement said.\nPlatero is suspected in the deaths of Spc. John Carrillo Jr., 20, of Stockton, California, and Pfc. Gebrah P. Noonan, 26, of Watertown, Connecticut, the military said.\nCarrillo and Noonan died Friday of injuries sustained in a \"non-combat\" incident that occurred a day earlier, the U.S. Department of Defense said.\nThey were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia.\nThe incident remains under investigation.  \"Our condolences go out to the families of those service members whose lives were lost,\" Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in a statement. \"We are saddened by this tragic incident.\"\nCarrillo's mother, Desiree Carrillo, told CNN that her son was a good son and a good father to a 3-year-old and a 3-month-old.\n\"He was a very young father and he was in school, but he joined the military to provide more for his family,\" she said.\nDesiree Carrillo said the military notified them of Spc. Carrillo's death on Friday after family members learned through the media their son may have been killed by another soldier. Dane Street, Noonan's former track coach, told WFSB that Noonan was loved by nearly everyone.\n\"His big hair matched his big personality,\" Street said. \"He loved experiencing life, and it was great.\"\nSeveral people posted rest-in-peace messages on what appears to be Noonan's Facebook page. The page of \"Gebrah Noonan\" also lists \"Neftaly Platero\" -- the same name as the suspect -- as a Facebook friend.  CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Friday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["shooting deaths of two fellow soldiers and the wounding of a third in Iraq"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["U.S. soldier"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2011 Former French minister Georges Tron, who resigned last month due to allegations of sexual assault, is arrested by police. (BBC)","document":"French police have detained former minister Georges Tron over sex charges, the local prosecutor's office has said.\nMr Tron resigned as junior civil service minister last month after being accused of sexually assaulting two women who worked in the town hall where he is mayor.\nHe was arrested on Monday for questioning, as part of prosecutors' preliminary inquiries.\nHe has not been charged in the case, and denies the accusations.\nPolice can hold Mr Tron for 24 hours and extend his arrest for another 24 hours, said prosecutor Marie-Suzanne Le Queau.\nOne of his deputies at the Draveil town hall is also being held.\nA third accuser has also \"recently brought charges\" against Mr Tron, according to sources close to the investigation. Her identity or connection to Mr Tron is not known.\nThe first two accusers allege Mr Tron gave them reflexology foot massages which turned into forced sexual encounters.\nMr Tron resigned from the government at the end of last month over the allegations, a few days after ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York on sex crime charges. He remains mayor of Draveil.\nAt the time of his resignation, Ms Le Queau said that \"if the facts alleged were established, they could come under the headings of sexual aggression and rape\".","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Marie-Suzanne Le Queau"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["sex charges"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Georges Tron"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2011 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda passes judgement on six suspects in relation to massacres in the former Butare Province including Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, former Minister for Family and Women Affairs with Nyiramasuhuko receiving a life sentence. (The New Times) (CNN)","document":"(CNN) -- A former Rwandan minister has been jailed for life for genocide and incitement to rape at the United Nations-backed court for Rwanda.\nPauline Nyiramasuhuko, who is one of the first women to be charged with genocide, was minister for the family and women's affairs in the Rwandan government when some 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed in 1994.\nShe was accused of direct and public incitement to commit genocide and of being responsible for rape \"as part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population on political, ethnic and racial grounds,\" the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said.\nThe former minister was arrested in 1997 in Nairobi, Kenya, and taken to the U.N. court in Tanzania to await trial.\nHer son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, and four local officials were jointly charged with counts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. Judgements against them were also expected Friday.\nThe Rwandan genocide was triggered by the April 6, 1994, shooting down of a plane carrying the nation's Hutu president.\nEthnic violence erupted and Tutsis were killed systematically by Hutus.\nThe United Nations estimates that some 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the Rwandan genocide.\nIn all, 800,000 men, women, and children -- mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus -- died.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["genocide"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Pauline Nyiramasuhuko","Arsene Shalom Ntahobali"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2011 International campaigners against the drone attacks, carried out by the United States in Pakistan, launch their attempt to have former CIA legal chief John A. Rizzo arrested and charged with the murders of hundreds of people after his admission in Newsweek that he approved attacks each month since 2004. (The Guardian)","document":"Campaigners against US drone strikes in Pakistan are calling for the CIA's former legal chief to be arrested and charged with murder for approving attacks that killed hundreds of people.\nAmid growing concern around the world over the use of drones, lawyers and relatives of some of those killed are seeking an international arrest warrant for John Rizzo, until recently acting general counsel for the American intelligence agency.\nOpponents of drones say the unmanned aircraft are responsible for the deaths of up to 2,500 Pakistanis in 260 attacks since 2004. US officials say the vast majority of those killed are \"militants\". Earlier this week 48 people were killed in two strikes on tribal regions of Pakistan. The American definition of \"militant\" has been disputed by relatives and campaigners.\nThe attempt to seek an international arrest warrant for Rizzo is being led by the British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of the campaign group Reprieve, and lawyers in Pakistan. The lawyers are also building cases against other individuals, including drone operators interviewed or photographed during organised press facilities.\nA first information report, the first step in seeking a prosecution of Rizzo in Pakistan, will be formally lodged early next week at a police station in the capital, Islamabad, on behalf of relatives of two people killed in drone strikes in 2009. The report will also allege Rizzo should be charged with conspiracy to murder a large number of Pakistani citizens.\nNow retired, Rizzo, 63, is being pursued after admitting in an interview with the magazine Newsweek that since 2004 he had approved one drone attack order a month on targets in Pakistan, even though the US is not at war with the country.\nRizzo, who was by his own admission \"up to my eyeballs\" in approving CIA use of \"enhanced interrogation techniques\", said in the interview that the CIA operated \"a hit list\". He also asked: \"How many law professors have signed off on a death warrant?\"\nRizzo has also admitted being present while civilian operators conducted drone strikes from their terminals at the CIA headquarters in Virginia.\nAlthough US government lawyers have tried to argue that drone strikes are conducted on a \"solid legal basis\", some believe the civilians who operate the drones could be classified as \"unlawful combatants\".\nUS drone strikes were first launched on Pakistan by George Bush and have been accelerated by Barack Obama.\nMuch of the intelligence for the attacks is supplied either by the Pakistani military or the ISI, the country's controversial intelligence agency.\nBoth have blocked journalists and human rights investigators from visiting the tribal areas targeted, preventing independent verification of the numbers killed and their status.\nWhile Stafford Smith of Reprieve estimates around 2,500 civilian deaths, others say the number is closer to 1,000. US sources deny large numbers of civilian deaths and say only a few dozen \"non-combatants\" have been killed.\nWhile killing civilians in military operations is not illegal under international law unless it is proved to be deliberate, disproportionate or reckless, Stafford Smith believes the nature of the US drone campaign puts it on a different legal footing.\n\"The US has to follow the laws of war,\" he said. \"The issue here is that this is not a war. There is zero chance, given the current political situation in Pakistan, that we will not get a warrant for Rizzo. The question is what happens next. We can try for extradition and the US will refuse.\n\"Interpol, I believe, will have to issue a warrant because there is no question that it is a legitimate complaint.\"\nThe warrant will be sought on the basis of two test cases. The first centres on an incident on 7 September 2009 when a drone strike hit a compound during Ramadan, brought by a man named Sadaullah who lost both his legs and three relatives in the attack.\nThe second complaint was brought by Kareem Khan over a strike on 31 December 2009 in the village of Machi Khel in North Waziristan which killed his son and brother.\nBoth men allege Rizzo was involved in authorising the attack. The CIA refused to comment on the allegations.\nThe pursuit of Rizzo will further damage US-Pakistani relations, which are already under severe strain following years of drone attacks and the killing of Osama bin Laden in May. Last week the US suspended $800m (495m) in military aid to Pakistan.\nThe US launched its first drone strike against a target in Pakistan in 2004, the only one for that year. Last year there were 118 attacks after Obama expanded their use in 2009, while 2011 has so far seen 42.\nThe use of drones has been sharply criticised both by Pakistani officials as well as international investigators including the UN's special rapporteur Philip Alston who demanded in late 2009 that the US demonstrate that it was not simply running a programme with no accountability that is killing innocent people.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Clive Stafford Smith"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["7 September 2009"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["John Rizzo"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2011 Sixteen alleged members of the computer hacking group Anonymous are arrested in FBI raids across several states in the US. (CNN) (US Department of Justice)","document":"                 WASHINGTON - Fourteen individuals were arrested today by FBI agents on charges related to their alleged involvement in a cyber attack on PayPal’s website as part of an action claimed by the group “Anonymous,” announced the Department of Justice and the FBI. Two additional defendants were arrested today on cyber-related charges.\n      \n      The 14 individuals were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio on charges contained in an indictment unsealed today in the Northern District of California in San Jose. In addition, two individuals were arrested on similar charges in two separate complaints filed in the Middle District of Florida and the District of New Jersey. Also today, FBI agents executed more than 35 search warrants throughout the United States as part of an ongoing investigation into coordinated cyber attacks against major companies and organizations. Finally, the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police Service arrested one person and the Dutch National Police Agency arrested four individuals today for alleged related cyber crimes.\n             According to the San Jose indictment, in late November 2010, WikiLeaks released a large amount of classified U.S. State Department cables on its website. Citing violations of the PayPal terms of service, and in response to WikiLeaks’ release of the classified cables, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks’ accounts so that WikiLeaks could no longer receive donations via PayPal. WikiLeaks’ website declared that PayPal’s action “tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks.”\n      \n      The San Jose indictment alleges that in retribution for PayPal’s termination of WikiLeaks’ donation account, a group calling itself Anonymous coordinated and executed distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal’s computer servers using an open source computer program the group makes available for free download on the Internet. DDoS attacks are attempts to render computers unavailable to users through a variety of means, including saturating the target computers or networks with external communications requests, thereby denying service to legitimate users. According to the indictment, Anonymous referred to the DDoS attacks on PayPal as “Operation Avenge Assange.”       \n      The defendants charged in the San Jose indictment allegedly conspired with others to intentionally damage protected computers at PayPal from Dec. 6, 2010, to Dec. 10, 2010.\n      \n      The individuals named in the San Jose indictment are: Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, aka “Anthrophobic;” Joshua John Covelli, 26, aka “Absolem” and “Toxic;” Keith Wilson Downey, 26; Mercedes Renee Haefer, 20, aka “No” and “MMMM;” Donald Husband, 29, aka “Ananon;” Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, aka “Trivette,” “Triv” and “Reaper;” Ethan Miles, 33; James C. Murphy, 36; Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka “Drew010;” Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka “Jeffer,” “Jefferp” and “Ji;” Daniel Sullivan, 22; Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42; and Christopher Quang Vo, 22. One individual’s name has been withheld by the court.       \n      The defendants are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer. They will make initial appearances throughout the day in the districts in which they were arrested.\n             In addition to the activities in San Jose, Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21, was arrested today by FBI agents on charges of intentional damage to a protected computer. Arciszewski is charged in a complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida and made his initial appearance this afternoon in federal court in Orlando, Fla.\n      \n      According to the complaint, on June 21, 2011, Arciszewski allegedly accessed without authorization the Tampa Bay InfraGard website and uploaded three files. The complaint alleges that Arciszewski then tweeted about the intrusion and directed visitors to a separate website containing links with instructions on how to exploit the Tampa InfraGard website. InfraGard is a public-private partnership for critical infrastructure protection sponsored by the FBI with chapters in all 50 states.\n      \n      Also today,   a related complaint unsealed in the District of New Jersey charges Lance Moore, 21, of Las Cruces, N.M., with allegedly stealing confidential business information stored on AT&T’s servers and posting it on a public file sharing site. Moore was arrested this morning at his residence by FBI agents and is expected to make an initial appearance this afternoon in Las Cruces federal court. Moore is charged in with one count of accessing a protected computer without authorization.       \n      According to the New Jersey complaint, Moore, a customer support contractor, exceeded his authorized access to AT&T’s servers and downloaded thousands of documents, applications and other files that, on the same day, he allegedly posted on a public file hosting site that promises user anonymity. According to the complaint, on June 25, 2011, the computer hacking group LulzSec publicized that they had obtained confidential AT&T documents and made them publicly available on the Internet. The documents were the ones Moore had previously uploaded.\n      \n      The charge of intentional damage to a protected computer carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each count of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.       \n      An indictment and a complaint merely contain allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.\n      \n      To date, more than 75 searches have taken place in the United States as part of the ongoing investigations into these attacks.\n      \n      These cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Northern District of California, Middle District of Florida and the District of New Jersey. The Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section also has provided assistance.\n      \n      Today’s operational activities were done in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Service in the United Kingdom and the Dutch National Police Agency. The FBI thanks the multiple international, federal and domestic law enforcement agencies who continue to support these operations.   ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["June 25, 2011","June 21, 2011"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["their alleged involvement in a cyber attack on PayPal’s website","cyber-related charges"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, aka “Anthrophobic;” Joshua John Covelli, 26, aka “Absolem” and “Toxic;” Keith Wilson Downey, 26; Mercedes Renee Haefer, 20, aka “No” and “MMMM;” Donald Husband, 29, aka “Ananon;” Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, aka “Trivette,” “Triv” and “Reaper;” Ethan Miles, 33; James C. Murphy, 36; Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka “Drew010;” Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka “Jeffer,” “Jefferp” and “Ji;” Daniel Sullivan, 22; Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42; and Christopher Quang Vo, 22"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2011 Serbia arrests Goran Hadi, a Croatian Serb wartime leader, indicted for alleged crimes against humanity during the Croatian War of Independence. (Reuters via ABC Online)","document":"Serbia's last major war crimes fugitive, a Croatian Serb wartime leader indicted for crimes against humanity during the 1991-95 Croatian war, has been arrested, Serbian president Boris Tadic says.\nGoran Hadzic was a key figure in the breakaway Krajina Serb republic in Croatia, and after the arrest of wartime general Ratko Mladic earlier this year, he was Serbia's last remaining figure sought by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague.\nSerbia's leader held a press conference to announce the capture shortly after Hadzic's arrest at 8:24am (local time).\n\"With this, Serbia ends the most difficult chapter in its cooperation with the court,\" Mr Tadic told the conference.\nHadzic is charged with ordering the killing of hundreds and the deportation of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs from the area.\nMr Tadic said Hadzic was tracked down in the idyllic mountain region of Fruska Gora, near the northern city of Novi Sad, and arrested near Krusedol village.\nThe village is home to a famous Serbian Orthodox monastery, a popular tourist destination known for its icons.\nThe European Union, which hailed Belgrade for finding Mladic in May, has continued to insist on the arrest of Hadzic for Serbia to make progress towards European Union membership.\nHadzic lived openly in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad until July 13, 2004, when The Hague sent an indictment and arrest warrant to Belgrade.\nHe fled immediately, tipped off by nationalist hardliners in Serbia's security services.\nHis escape was kept a secret for days, while relatives said he was at home and police denied having orders to arrest him.\nThe Hague later made public surveillance pictures showing him leaving his house with a bag on the afternoon of July 13.\nAt the press conference Mr Tadic dismissed criticism that Serbia had been slow to arrest Hadzic and Mladic.\n\"I have been explaining everything we have been doing in the past few years that it has been very difficult for us to investigate those kind of people,\" he said.\n\"I will confirm once again we did everything possible and I am very proud of everybody who has been working on this issue.\"\nIn Serbia, Hadzic gained notoriety in the past for his involvement in murky deals including illegal exports of oak wood, wine as well as crude oil from an oil well which was under Serb control.\nHe was frequently seen in the company of Zeljko \"Arkan\" Raznatovic, a paramilitary leader and the head of Belgrade's underworld at the time.\nUnited Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the arrest.\nMr Ban's spokesman said the secretary-general \"commended\" the Serbian president and authorities for their \"leadership in ending impunity for those indicted for serious violations of international humanitarian law\".\n\"Mr Hadzic's apprehension sends a powerful message that those who are alleged to have committed such crimes cannot evade justice,\" the spokesman said, quoting Mr Ban.\nReuters/AFP\nWe acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.\nThis service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced.\nAEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1991-95 Croatian war"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["ordering the killing of hundreds and the deportation of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs from the area"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Goran Hadzic"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2011 Mexican Federal Police say suspected cartel leader José Antonio Acosta Hernández, who was arrested on Friday, has confessed to ordering the murder of 1,500 people in the country's northern state of Chihuahua. (BBC)","document":"Police in Mexico say a suspected cartel leader they arrested on Friday has confessed to ordering the murder of 1,500 people in northern Chihuahua state.  Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, 33, is also suspected of masterminding the attack on a US consulate worker and her husband in Ciudad Juarez last year.  Officials say Mr Acosta Hernandez is a key figure in the Juarez cartel.  Juarez is Mexico's most violent city, with more than 3,000 murders in 2010.\nThe suspect, who is better known as El Diego, is accused of being the leader of the La Linea gang, whose members work as hired killers for the Juarez cartel.  The cartel controls some of the main drug smuggling routes from Ciudad Juarez into the United States.  Police believe El Diego was also behind a car bomb attack which killed four people in the border city, the first such attack in Mexico's spiralling drug-related violence.\nHead of Mexico's federal police anti-drug unit Ramon Pequeno said Mr Acosta Hernandez had also admitted to ordering the killing of 15 people, most of them teenagers, at a party in Ciudad Juarez last year. The Mexican government had offered 15m Mexican pesos ($1,275,000; 778,000) for information leading to his arrest. US prosecutors said they wanted to try him in the case of the 2010 killing of US consulate employee Lesley Enriquez, her American husband Arthur Redelfs, and the husband of another consular worker, Jorge Alberto Salcedo. They were shot dead in their car after leaving a social event in the city. Ms Enriquez, 35, was four months pregnant when she died. The couple's seven-month-old daughter survived the attack and was found crying in the back seat. Mr Salcedo was killed in a near-simultaneous drive-by shooting as he drove away from the same event.  ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2010"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder of 1,500 people in northern Chihuahua"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 The European Court of Human Rights rules that Khalid ElMasri, a German citizen, was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by the Central Intelligence Agency and orders Macedonia to pay him 60,000 after it arrested him and sent him to the CIA. CIA agents then transferred him to a detention facility in Afghanistan. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian) (ECHR)","document":"European Court of Human Rights rules that German citizen was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by US agents.\n\nThe European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of a German citizen, after finding he was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by the CIA.\nMacedonia was ordered to pay Khaled el-Masri $78,000 on Thursday for arresting him and handing him over to the USin December 2003.\nEl-Masri spent five months in secret CIA jails for suspected links to armedIslamist groups.\nThe decisionis a victory forEl-Masri who has been trying in the US and Europe to get authorities to recognise him as a victim.\nEl-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, was arrested, held in isolation, questioned and ill-treated in a hotel in the Macedonian capital Skopje for 23 days, the court’s press service said.\nHewas then transferred to CIA agents who brought him to a detention facility in Afghanistan, where he was furtherbadly treated for over four months.\nThe European court, based in Strasbourg, France, ruled that El-Masri’s account was “established beyond reasonable doubt” and that Macedonia “had been responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the US authorities in the context of an extra-judicial rendition”.\nMacedonian authorities said they would not comment until they are formally notified of the ruling. The Macedonian government has denied involvement in kidnapping.\n‘Milestone’\nEl-Masri claimed during the flight to Afghanistan, he was stripped, beaten and drugged.\nHis ordeal ended when he was eventually dumped on a road in Albania after theUS realised they had got the wrong man.\nThough the case focused on Macedonia, it drew broader attention because of how sensitive the CIA extraordinary renditions were for Europe.\nThe operationsinvolved abducting and interrogating “terrorist” suspects without court sanction in the years following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, under former President George W Bush.\nA 2007 Council of Europeinvestigation accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centres, or carry out rendition flights, between 2002 and 2005.\nAmnesty International said the verdict was historic because “for the first time it holds a European state accountable for its involvement in the secret US-led programmes and is a milestone in the fight against impunity”.\n“Macedonia is not alone,” it said, in a joint statement with the International Committee of Jurists.\n.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["December 2003"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["suspected links to armedIslamist groups"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["El-Masri"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 The European Court of Human Rights rules that Khalid ElMasri, a German citizen, was an innocent victim of extraordinary rendition by the Central Intelligence Agency and orders Macedonia to pay him 60,000 after it arrested him and sent him to the CIA. CIA agents then transferred him to a detention facility in Afghanistan. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian) (ECHR)","document":"CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday.\nIn a unanimous ruling, it also found Macedonia guilty of torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese origin allegedly linked to terrorist organisations.\nMasri was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and handed over to a CIA \"rendition team\" at Skopje airport and secretly flown to Afghanistan.\nIt is the first time the court has described CIA treatment meted out to terror suspects as torture.\n\"The grand chamber of the European court of human rights unanimously found that Mr el-Masri was subjected to forced disappearance, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition outside any judicial process, and inhuman and degrading treatment,\" said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.\nHe described the judgment as \"an authoritative condemnation of some of the most objectionable tactics employed in the post-9/11 war on terror\". It should be a wake-up call for the Obama administration and US courts, he told the Guardian. For them to continue to avoid serious scrutiny of CIA activities was \"simply unacceptable\", he said.\nJamil Dakwar, of the American Civil Liberties Union, described the ruling as \"a huge victory for justice and the rule of law\".\nThe use of CIA interrogation methods widely denounced as torture during the Bush administration's \"war on terror\" also came under scrutiny in Congress on Thursday. The US Senate's select committee on intelligence was expected to vote on whether to approve a mammoth review it has undertaken into the controversial practices that included waterboarding, stress positions, forced nudity, beatings and sleep and sensory deprivation.\nThe report, that runs to almost 6,000 pages based on a three-year review of more than 6m pieces of information, is believed to conclude that the \"enhanced interrogation techniques\" adopted by the CIA during the Bush years did not produce any major breakthroughs in intelligence, contrary to previous claims. The committee, which is dominated by the Democrats, is likely to vote to approve the report, though opposition from the Republican members may prevent the report ever seeing the light of day.\nThe Strasbourg court said it found Masri's account of what happened to him \"to be established beyond reasonable doubt\" and that Macedonia had been \"responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the US authorities in the context of an extra-judicial 'rendition'\".\nIn January 2004, Macedonian police took him to a hotel in Skopje, where he was kept locked in a room for 23 days and questioned in English, despite his limited proficiency in that language, about his alleged ties with terrorist organisations, the court said in its judgment. His requests to contact the German embassy were refused. At one point, when he said he intended to leave, he was threatened with being shot.\n\"Masri's treatment at Skopje airport at the hands of the CIA rendition team  being severely beaten, sodomised, shackled and hooded, and subjected to total sensory deprivation  had been carried out in the presence of state officials of [Macedonia] and within its jurisdiction,\" the court ruled.\nIt added: \"Its government was consequently responsible for those acts performed by foreign officials. It had failed to submit any arguments explaining or justifying the degree of force used or the necessity of the invasive and potentially debasing measures. Those measures had been used with premeditation, the aim being to cause Mr Masri severe pain or suffering in order to obtain information. In the court's view, such treatment had amounted to torture, in violation of Article 3 [of the European human rights convention].\"\nIn Afghanistan, Masri was incarcerated for more than four months in a small, dirty, dark concrete cell in a brick factory near the capital, Kabul, where he was repeatedly interrogated and was beaten, kicked and threatened. His repeated requests to meet with a representative of the German government were ignored, said the court.\nMasri was released in April 2004. He was taken, blindfolded and handcuffed, by plane to Albania and subsequently to Germany, after the CIA admited he was wrongly detained. The Macedonian government, which the court ordered must pay Masri 60,000 (49,000) in compensation, has denied involvement in kidnapping.\nUN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, described the ruling as \"a key milestone in the long struggle to secure accountability of public officials implicated in human rights violations committed by the Bush administration CIA in its policy of secret detention, rendition and torture\".\nHe said the US government must issue an apology for its \"central role in a web of systematic crimes and human rights violations by the Bush-era CIA, and to pay voluntary compensation to Mr el-Masri\".\nGermany should ensure that the US officials involved in this case were now brought to trial.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["December 2003"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Macedonia"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2012 Russian police arrest prominent opposition leaders at a rally against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. (BBC)","document":"Russian police arrested prominent opposition leaders at a rally against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Blogger and activist Alexei Navalny said on Twitter he had been detained at the rally in Lubyanka Square, which was banned by the authorities.\nFellow opposition leaders Ilya Yashin, Ksenia Sobchak and Left Front head Sergei Udaltsov were also arrested.\nPolice eventually broke up the rally, one of several nationwide that marked a year of protests against Mr Putin.\nMr Navalny later tweeted that he and the other opposition leaders had been released without charge. In all, 40 people were arrested, police said.\nReports said police cleared the square by moving protesters towards a nearby metro station.\nMr Navalny, who has been one of the most vocal anti-Putin campaigners, tweeted: \"This is the traditional and not very original tweet from the police detention van.\n\"It's raving mad. They snatched me out from the crowd.\" There was a large police presence for the rally, which took place in freezing temperatures outside the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, which is the main successor agency of the Soviet KGB.\nPolice arrested Mr Yashin, a leading figure in the Solidarity movement and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak as they made their way to the rally.\nMr Yashin confirmed their arrest on Twitter, with a heavy dose of irony. \"Came with Ksenia Sobchak for a stroll on the Lubyanka Square. The police decided we were too cold and put us into a detention van,\" he wrote.\nReuters reported that Mr Udaltsov raised a fist in the air as police grabbed him under the arms and hauled him away into a waiting van.\nThe BBC's Steven Rosenberg in Moscow said the protesters had gone to place flowers on a small monument in the square to victims of Soviet repression. They laid flowers not only to honour victims of the past but as a warning that repression is returning, he says. Opposition \"Freedom March\" rallies also took place in other Russian cities on Saturday, Interfax news agency reported.\nIn St Petersburg, more than 25 people were arrested in a protest that had been allowed by city officials, Interfax said.\nOther large rallies were reported in Tomsk and Yekaterinburg.\nEarlier this week, Mr Putin used his annual state-of-the nation address to suggest that some opposition politicians were being paid by outside, foreign interests.\nLegal action against opposition figures has increased markedly since Mr Putin was re-elected to a third term in March.\nOn Friday, Mr Navalny was charged with fraud and money laundering - the second criminal case against him. A tough new law has passed on public order offences and tight curbs have been placed on non-governmental organisations. Last winter saw the biggest anti-government demonstrations in Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union, with protesters accusing Mr Putin's allies of rigging the parliamentary elections in 2011.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Saturday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["rally against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Alexei Navalny"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"August_2012 Thirtyseven Chinese nationals, arrested in Angola due to their alleged involvement in criminal acts, are extradited and due to be tried in China. (BBC)","document":"Angola has extradited 37 Chinese nationals, accused of extortion, kidnappings, armed robberies and running prostitution rings.\nThey allegedly targeted other Chinese, kidnapping businessmen for ransom and sometimes burying victims alive.\nThey lured women to Angola, promising well-paid jobs, but then forced them into prostitution, Chinese police said. Tens of thousands of Chinese live in Angola, and Chinese state-run firms have large interests in the country.\nChina's Ministry of Public Security said a special police team was sent to Angola in July to help investigate criminal gangs.\nThe ministry said the officers had helped their Angolan counterparts break up 12 gangs and free 14 victims, most of whom were thought to be women forced to work as prostitutes.\nThe 37 suspects arrived at Beijing airport in handcuffs with balaclavas covering their faces. They are due to be tried in China.\nMineral-rich Angola is China's biggest trading partner in Africa, with some $24.8bn (15.7bn)  in 2010.\nCommercial opportunities have attracted private businesses and state-run firms.\nBut according to Chinese media, crime had begun to seriously affect operations in the country.\nChina Police, a website run by the ministry, published an article documenting 14 kidnappings during 2011 in which five victims were killed.\nThe article said Chinese business owners had moved away from the capital Luanda, while others had hired private security guards and bought bullet-proof cars.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2011"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["extortion, kidnappings, armed robberies and running prostitution rings"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["37 Chinese nationals"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"September_2012 Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina arrest 25 people on suspicion of multiple murders, drugtrafficking and robbery in the biggest crackdown on organised crime since the Bosnian War. (IOL)","document":"Sarajevo - Bosnian police arrested 25 people on Wednesday on suspicion of multiple murders, drug-trafficking and robbery in what it described as the largest crackdown on organised crime since the country's 1992-95 war.\nOrganised crime in the western Balkans grew out of the wars that tore apart socialist Yugoslavia in the 1990s, leaving the region awash with weapons and a key transit route for drugs and other illicit goods trafficked from Asia to western Europe.\nBosnian media reports said one of the locations raided on Wednesday was a hotel owned by Naser Kelmendi, an ethnic Albanian on a U.S. list of international drug kingpins in June, but police declined to name any of the suspected ringleaders.\nAt a news conference, the head of Bosnia's state security agency SIPA, Goran Zubac, said the operation was “the most complex and largest action in Bosnia-Herzegovina so far.”\n“This is the beginning of the end of organised crime in Bosnia,” he told reporters. Zubac said the operation, codenamed Lutka (Doll), was continuing with the cooperation of other security agencies in the Balkan region.\nWednesday's arrests are in part linked to the 2007 murder of Bosnian Muslim warlord Ramiz Delalic, who was involved in organised crime after the war. Reports say police at the time investigated Kelmendi's possible involvement in the murder but he was never arrested. Zubac said police had now solved the case.\nKelmendi, 55, is a Kosovo-born Albanian with Bosnian citizenship suspected by the United States of trafficking heroin and cocaine to Europe through the Balkans.\nWith his sons and brother, Kelmendi owns a number of businesses in Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, including hotels and a trucking company. He has been investigated in Bosnia on 13 criminal charges but never brought to trial.\nIn June, U.S. President Barack Obama added Kelmendi to a list of now 97 drug lords who face U.S. sanctions under the U.S. Kingpin Act.\nThe response of Balkan governments to organised crime has been patchy at best. Croatia has made the most progress as it nears membership of the European Union next year, but weak overnance and ingrained corruption has stymied the fight elsewhere. - Reuters","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2007"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder of Bosnian Muslim warlord Ramiz Delalic, who was involved in organised crime after the war"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["25 people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2020 A man kills his wife, brother and seven others in Baakline, Lebanon, in the country's worst mass shooting in years, before being arrested. It is suspected they were honor killings. (Reuters)","document":"BEIRUT (Reuters) - A man slaughtered his wife and shot dead eight other people, including his brother, in a Lebanese town on Tuesday in the country’s worst mass shooting in years, a security source said.\nThe source said authorities caught the man, who had been on the loose after killing his wife with a knife and then going on a shooting rampage in Baakline, 45 km (30 miles) south of the capital Beirut.\nThe shooter had used a pump-action rifle, the source and state news agency NNA said. NNA said the motive remained unclear.\nThe security source said that it was a suspected “honour killing” and that five of those killed were Syrian, including two children aged 15 and 10, at the house under construction where the shooting took place.\nReporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Giles Elgood\nOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.\nAll quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.\nExclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["pump-action rifle"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Tuesday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["slaughtered his wife and shot dead eight other people"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["A man"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2020 Gregory and Travis McMichael are arrested for murder and aggravated assault in relation to the February shooting of an African American man in Brunswick, Georgia. (ABC News)","document":"Two men have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault for the February shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).\nGregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested on Thursday evening and were booked into the Glynn County Jail.\n\"Based on our involvement in this case...within 36 hours we secured warrants, that speaks volumes for itself to the probable cause in this case,\" said GBI's Director Vic Reynolds at a press conference on Friday morning.\nCellphone video showing the moment Arbery was killed has prompted national outrage since surfacing online on Tuesday afternoon, but his mother said she can't bring herself to watch it.\n\"I don't think I'll ever be in a mental state where I can actually watch the video. I had others that watched it that shared what they saw and that just was enough,\" Wanda Cooper-Jones told ABC News in an interview that aired Thursday morning on \"Good Morning America.\"\nIn the 28-second video, Arbery, who is black, can be seen jogging around a neighborhood just outside the port city of Brunswick on a sunny afternoon on February 23. The footage ends with three loud gunshots.\nGregory McMichael and Travis McMichael, who are both white, told police they grabbed their guns and hopped in their truck to pursue Arbery after seeing him running in their neighborhood, because they believed he was responsible for several recent burglaries. The father claimed his son got out of the truck holding a shotgun and was attacked by Arbery, according to a police report obtained by ABC News.\nThe two men tussled over the firearm before Arbery was shot, as seen in the cellphone video, which was allegedly taken by a bystander.\nTwo prosecutors recused themselves from investigating Arbery's murder citing conflicts of interest since Gregory McMichaels is a retired Glynn County police officer and investigator with Brunswick's district attorney's office.\nTom Durden, the district attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, was assigned the case in the middle of April by the state's attorney general. Durden brought in the GBI to investigate on Tuesday evening, Reynolds said.\nThe McMichaels were charged with felony murder and aggregated assault charges.\nReynolds said on Friday there will be no hate crime charges. \"There is no hate crime in Georgia,\" Reynolds said, adding, \"Georgia is one of I think four or five states left in the union that doesn't have any hate crime.\"\nThe GBI is also investigating who leaked the cellphone video onto social media and threats against the Glynn County Police Department.\nArbery, who lived in Brunswick, one town over from where the McMichaels reside, was pronounced dead at the scene by the Glynn County coroner. No weapons were found on him, according to the police report.\n\"I'm managing, it's really hard,\" Arbery's mother told ABC News Thursday. \"It's really been hard.\"\n\"It’s outrageous that it has taken more than two months for Ahmaud Arbery’s executioners to be arrested, but better late than never,\" Ben Crump, an attorney representing the family, said in a statement. \"This is the first step to justice. This murderous father and son duo took the law into their own hands.\"\nPrior to the pair's arrest, Cooper-Jones told ABC News she believed authorities hadn't taken them into custody because Gregory McMichael had a lengthy career as an investigator in the Brunswick district attorney’s office before recently retiring.\n\"I think that they don't feel like he was wrong because he was one of them,\" she said.\nAfter the video circulated on social media Tuesday, a large crowd of protesters marched through the neighborhood where Arbery was killed. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations announced Wednesday that it was opening its own probe into the Feb. 23 incident.\nS. Lee Merritt, one of the attorneys representing Arbery's family, demanded answers Thursday morning and had asked for the immediate arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael.\n\"Prosecutors will need a grand jury in order to formally indict these men, but that has nothing to do with actually going out and arresting the men seen on camera murdering a 25-year-old unarmed black man,\" Merritt told ABC News in an interview that aired Thursday on \"GMA.\"\n\"The prosecutors actually have the option, if they so chose to, to directly indictment and skip the entire grand jury process,\" he added. \"It's something that happens all the time in our legal system, and this would certainly be an appropriate moment.\"\nThe McMichaels' attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment Wednesday, and the McMichaels themselves did not return phone calls.\nArbery would have turned 26 years old on Friday. Cooper-Jones described her late son as humble, kind, well-mannered and beloved by his family and peers.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Tom Durden"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder and aggravated assault"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"May_2020 French police arrest Félicien Kabuga in Paris. He is suspected of funding militias that massacred around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Kabuga had been on the run for 26 years and was living under a false identity. (Reuters)","document":"PARIS/KAMPALA (Reuters) - Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga, who is accused of funding militias that massacred about 800,000 people, was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 26 years on the run, the French justice ministry said.\nThe 84-year-old, who is Rwanda’s most-wanted man and had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, according to the ministry.\nFrench gendarmes arrested him at 0530 GMT on Saturday, the ministry said.\nKabuga was indicted in 1997 on seven criminal counts including genocide, complicity in genocide and incitement to commit genocide, all in relation to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, according to the UN-established International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).\nRwanda’s two main ethnic groups are the Hutus and Tutsis, who have historically had an antagonistic relationship and fought a civil war in the early 1990s.\nA Hutu businessman, Kabuga is accused of funding the militias that massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and their moderate Hutu allies over a span of 100 days in 1994.\n“Since 1994, Felicien Kabuga, known to have been the financier of Rwanda genocide, had with impunity stayed in Germany, Belgium, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, or Switzerland,”\nRelated Coverage\nthe French ministry statement said.\nHis arrest paves the way for the fugitive to come before the Paris Appeal Court and later be transferred to the custody of the international court, which is based in the Hague, Netherlands and Arusha, Tanzania. He would then be brought before UN judges, an IRMCT spokesman said.\nTwo other Rwandan genocide suspects, Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya, are still being pursued by international justice.\n“The arrest of Félicien Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even twenty-six years after their crimes,” the IRMCT’s Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.\nHe added the arrest was the result of cooperation between law enforcement agencies in France and other countries including the United States, Rwanda, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and others.\nRwanda’s justice minister, Johnston Busingye, told Reuters that a statement on the arrest would be issued but did not specify when.\nKabuga, who controlled many of Rwanda’s tea and coffee plantations and factories, was part-owner of Radio Television Milles Collines which ran a radio station that fanned ethnic hatred against Rwanda’s Tutsis, told Hutus where Tutsis were to be found and offered advice on how to kill them.\nHe is accused of being a main financier of the genocide, paying for the militias that carried out the massacres.\nHis arrest “is an important step towards justice for hundreds of thousands of genocide victims...survivors can hope to see justice and suspects cannot expect to escape accountability,” Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.\nReporting by Dominique Vidalon; Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld and George Obulutsa in Nairobi and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Frances Kerry and Ros Russell\nOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.\nAll quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.\nExclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Serge Brammertz"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1994"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["genocide, complicity in genocide and incitement to commit genocide","funding militias that massacred about 800,000 people","Rwanda genocide"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Felicien Kabuga"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2015 United Kingdom police arrest a 21yearold man in Berkshire in the hacking of Hong Kongbased electronic toy maker VTech. Details of more than six million people from servers used to support VTech's learning products app store were compromised. (BBC) (Digital Trends)","document":"A 21-year-old man has been arrested in Berkshire by police investigating the hacking of electronic toy maker VTech.\nThe man has been held on suspicion of \"unauthorised access\" to a computer, said the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (Serocu) in a statement.\nVTech was hit in mid-November when servers holding its customer information were breached.\nIn total, details of more than six million people are believed to have gone astray.\n\"We are still at the early stages of the investigation and there is still much work to be done,\" said Craig Jones, head of the cyber crime unit at Serocu.\n\"Cybercrime is an issue which has no boundaries and affects people on a local, regional and global level.\"\nIn the attack, servers used to support VTech's Learning Lodge app were compromised. The software lets registered customers download extra content such as games and e-books to their handheld devices.\nVTech firm sells a wide range of electronic products ranging from toy cars and interactive garages to cameras, games, e-books and tablets.\nThe Learning Lodge database logged names, email addresses, encrypted passwords, IP (internet protocol) numbers and other personal data. Some of the information was about children including names, dates of birth and gender.\nNo credit card data was stored in the compromised database.\nDetails on customers from all over world, including the US, UK, France and China, were taken.\nSome of the data is believed to have been posted briefly online before being removed.\nWhen details about the extent of the data loss became known security expert Troy Hunt said he had \"run out of superlatives to even describe how bad\" it was.\nVTech is just one of a growing roster of firms that have suffered data breaches in recent months. Pub chain Wetherspoons and telecommunications firm TalkTalk both recently lost data in attacks.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["mid-November"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["hacking of electronic toy maker VTech"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["21-year-old man"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2015 Russia issues an international arrest warrant for former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of organizing the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, mayor of Nefteyugansk in 1998. (The Guardian)","document":"Former oil tycoon says order to have him arrested in absentia over alleged murders shows that Russian authorities have ‘gone mad’\nLast modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 05.18 GMT\nRussia has issued an international arrest warrant for Mikhail Khodorkovsky as Moscow ramped up the pressure on the leading critic of Vladimir Putin.\nEarlier this month the investigative committee, which reports directly to the Russian president, charged the former oil tycoon in absentia with organising the 1998 murder of a mayor in Siberia, a move supporters say is aimed at silencing the exiled Kremlin critic.\nKhodorkovsky, 52, was also charged with the attempted murders of two other people.\nInvestigative committee spokesman Vladimir Markin confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that an international arrest warrant had been issued for Khodorkovsky, who lives abroad and spends much of his time in London.\n“They’ve gone mad,” Khodorkovsky said in a statement released by his opposition group, Open Russia.\nHe said an order to have him arrested in absentia compared favourably with a new law that would allow Russian police to fire at women and children.\n“And what’s most important, it will be safe for the public,” he said.\nHis spokeswoman, Kulle Pispanen, dismissed the announcement as political pressure and said it would not affect the former head of bankrupt oil giant Yukos.\n“Mikhail Borisovich will by no means limit his movements because of the hysterical actions of the Kremlin ghouls,” Pispanen told AFP, referring to the former business magnate by his first name and patronymic.\nMarkin on Wednesday reiterated the charges against Khodorkovsky.\nKhodorkovsky’s lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, said it was up to other countries to decide whether to comply with the warrant.\nSpeaking on Echo of Moscow radio, he called the arrest announcement “another bout of fraudulent activities”.\nOn Tuesday, investigators raided the apartments of employees of Open Russia, a group set up to help nurture civil society in the country, as well as its offices.\nThe searches appeared to be connected to a 2003 case that led to the criminal prosecution of Khodorkovsky, one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, and the dismemberment of Yukos, which have become defining events in Putin’s presidency.\nThe investigative committee has said it is also checking the information provided in foreign courts by shareholders of now-bankrupt Yukos, who are seeking $50bn (34bn) in damages from Russia and have convinced a Paris appeals court to back the freezing of Russian assets in France.\nKhodorkovsky’s staff and supporters ridiculed the raids that took place on Tuesday.\n“In revenge for the arrest of Russian property in France, the investigative committee arrested Kulle Pispanen’s MacBook and iPhone, a letter to Father Christmas and a portrait of Khodorkovsky,” Maria Baronova, an Open Russia employee, said on Facebook.\nKhodorkovsky spent a decade in prison on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement, which he and his supporters say were trumped up in revenge for his political ambitions.\nHe was suddenly pardoned by Putin in 2013 and flown out of the country.\nPutin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted on Wednesday that there was no contradiction between the president’s move to pardon the ex-tycoon and the arrest warrant.\nWhen investigators announced earlier this month that they planned to press new charges against Khodorkovsky, he called a news conference in London, saying revolution in Russia was inevitable.\n“The investigation is looking into who stole Yukos shares,” Khodorkovsky said on Twitter on Tuesday.\n“Let me give you a tip,” he added in a posting with a picture of the Kremlin.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1998"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["organising the 1998 murder of a mayor in Siberia","attempted murders of two other people"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Khodorkovsky"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2015 A police officer storms the police headquarters in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, and shoots dead three fellow officers, including a commanding officer. Authorities say Guarionex Candelario, 50, was arrested for the killings shortly afterwards and taken to hospital for minor injuries. (NY Daily News)","document":" Three police officers, including a commanding officer, were shot and killed by a fellow cop Monday inside the police headquarters of the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, according to reports.\n \"There are no words to describe this tragedy where three colleagues have lost their lives,\" Puerto Rico Police Deputy Superintendent Col. Juan Rodriguez Davila wrote on twitter.\n\"No hay palabras para describir esta tragedia donde 3 compaeros han perdido la vida. Nuestras condolencias para las familias\", Súper Asoc.\n Guarionex Candelario, 50, was arrested for the killing of his supervisor Lt. Luz M. Soto Segarra, 49, Cmdr. Frank Román, 49, and policewoman Rosario Hernández de Hoyos, 42, authorities told the Daily News.\n Candelario had been previously stripped of his weapon but had it returned following a psychological evaluation almost two years ago, police said.\n Candelario allegedly held his coworkers hostage in an office following an argument, auhtorities said.\n Police were about to start negotiations with him when he started shooting, killing the three hostages.\n Candelario was injured when police stormed the room and was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries, according to police.\n An explosives division of the Ponce police department found a \"suspicious\" package in Candelario's car and evacuated police headquarters, according to authorities.\n \"Officers and civilians are crying and giving each other comfort,\" reporter Michelle Estrada tweeted from outside the Ponce police headquarters.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["found a \"suspicious\" package in Candelario's car"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Monday"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["killing of his supervisor Lt. Luz M. Soto Segarra, 49, Cmdr. Frank Román, 49, and policewoman Rosario Hernández de Hoyos, 42"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Guarionex Candelario"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"December_2015 Ethan Couch, the socalled \"affluenza\" teen who violated probation for killing four people when driving while intoxicated when he disappeared from Tarrant County, Texas, is taken into custody in Mexico.  Mexican officials will remand Couch and his mother, with whom he fled, to the U.S. Marshals Service. (Reuters)","document":"FORT WORTH, Texas/PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (Reuters) - A rich Texas teenager who fled with his mother to Mexico to avoid possible jail time for violating his probation in a drunken-driving crash that left four people dead planned the flight and even held a farewell party, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday.\nOfficials working to get ‘affluenza’ teen back on U.S. soil\n01:15\nEthan Couch, 18, became known as the “affluenza” teen during his trial in juvenile court over the 2013 crash. He and his mother were captured by Mexican authorities on Monday in the Pacific Coast beach city of Puerto Vallarta. They were likely to be returned to the United States on Wednesday.\nDuring Couch’s trial, a psychologist sparked outrage by saying in his defense that Couch was so wealthy and spoiled he could not tell the difference between right and wrong. He was sentenced to 10 years drug-and-alcohol-free probation for intoxication manslaughter, a punishment condemned by critics as privilege rewarded with leniency.\nCouch and his mother, Tonya Couch, fled the country after a video surfaced online apparently showing Couch at a party where beer was being consumed. Authorities had been investigating that video as a potential parole violation.\nCouch had missed a mandatory meeting with his probation officer, prompting officials in Tarrant County, Texas, to issue a warrant for his arrest earlier this month.\nCouch and his 48-year-old mother were tracked down and captured near Puerto Vallarta’s seafront promenade. Mexican authorities said they had been working with the U.S. Marshals Service since Dec. 24 to locate the pair.\nThe mother and son apparently entered Mexico by land, said Ricardo Vera, a local official for Mexico’s National Migration Institute. He said the two did not register when entering Mexico and it was not clear where they came in. Vera said owing to a shortage of seats on Tuesday flights to Houston, the two were now more likely to return to Texas on Wednesday from Jalisco’s state capital, Guadalajara.\n“They had planned to disappear,” Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson told a news conference in Fort Worth, Texas. “They even had something that was almost akin to a going-away party before they left town.”\nWhen they arrived back in the United States, Couch would appear in juvenile court and his mother would be arrested for hindering an apprehension, Anderson said.\nRelated Coverage\nEthan Couch’s attorney, Reagan Wynn, declined to comment, saying in a statement he had not had the chance yet to speak with his client.\nIn Puerto Vallarta, eyewitness Cristina Barraza said she saw Tonya Couch’s arrest. She was led with hands behind her head by a man in plainclothes to a white pickup truck in front of a modest four-story building where the pair were reportedly staying.\nAfterwards, the vehicle sped off, said Barraza, saying she did not see Ethan Couch during the arrest.\nShe also recalled an exchange with the mother last week as she sat outside her home on the sidewalk across the street. “She came along here and greeted me in Spanish. She was nice.”\nJalisco’s Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer told reporters the pair had first stayed in a bungalow close to the beach, then moved to a “more discreet” apartment further into town. They were detained while arriving back at the apartment on Monday evening and put up no resistance, he said.\nA police booking picture from Mexico showed the previously blond Ethan Couch with dark hair, which the sheriff said suggested Couch was trying to change his appearance.\nTarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said that she expected the judge to hold Couch after his juvenile hearing, and that she hoped it would be in an adult jail.\nAt a previously scheduled Jan. 19 court hearing, Wilson had planned to ask a judge to transfer Couch’s case into the adult court system from the juvenile system, putting Couch under stricter supervision and leaving him open to harsher punishment if he violated probation.\nIf he were in the adult system, Couch could face 120 days in jail for not meeting with his probation officer as required, and he could face up to 40 years in prison if he violated probation again after that, Wilson said.\nU.S. Marshal Rick Taylor and Anderson declined to say how authorities tracked Couch down, but CNN said the marshals used Couch’s mobile phone to locate him.\n‘HANDS-OFF’ PARENTING\nIn the fatal accident, Couch, then 16, was speeding and had a blood-alcohol level of nearly three times the legal limit when he lost control of his pickup truck and fatally struck a stranded motorist on the side of the road and three people who had stopped to help.\nSusan Cloud, a friend of Brian Jennings, one of those killed, said she felt conflicted about what should happen to Couch, but wished he had not thrown away his second chance under his probation.\n“I feel more negatively toward his mother than I do him,” Cloud said. “The parents seem to have a completely hands-off approach.”\nSheriff Anderson said last week that the passports for Couch and his mother had been reported missing by the teen’s father, who has cooperated with investigators. Fred Couch is divorced from the mother and owns a successful sheet metal business near Fort Worth.\nThe “affluenza” term was apparently used for the first time explicitly in defense during Couch’s trial, but has been a theory in sociological and psychological circles since the late 1990s to explain the impact of indulgent parenting, said Daniel Medwed, a criminal law professor at Northeastern University in Boston.\nThe notion of rich kids getting leniency based on their advantages sparked a public backlash against the theory, Medwed said, adding, “My hunch is this latest parole incident will mark the end of its use.”\nAdditional reporting by Anahi Rama and Veronica Gomez in Mexico City, Robert Iafolla in Washington, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida and Melissa Fares in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Frances Kerry and Tom Brown\nOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.\nMore From Reuters\nAll quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.\nExclusive: Fed’s Neel Kashkari opposes rate hikes at least through 2023 as the central bank becomes more hawkish","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Eduardo Almaguer"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":["Reagan Wynn"]},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["2013"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["violating his probation in a drunken-driving crash that left four people dead"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Ethan Couch"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2016 The Mexican Navy recaptures escaped drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, also known as \"El Chapo\", in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. (RT)","document":"\nGuzman was arrested on Friday in the town of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced in a news conference. He said the capture of the 58-year-old infamous drug lord should restore faith in the government and security forces.\n“Today Mexico confirms that their institutions have the capacity to overcome the threats. Mexico has the ability to deal with situations like these,” he said, adding that the arrest is “important” for state institutions as it shows that people “can rely on them.”\nEarlier on Friday the president took to Twitter to break the news.\nMisión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.\n“Mission completed: we've gothim. I’d like to inform the Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been detained,” Enrique Pena Nieto wrote.Niento also expressed his appreciation to the Secretariat of Public Security for the capture.\nFive people were killed and one marine was wounded in a shootout which occurred during an operation to capture the kingpin in the city of Los Mochis, in his home state of Sinaloa, an official told AP on condition of anonymity.\nBenjamin Bergman, a spokesman for the Mexican marines said that Guzman was in \"good condition.\"\n\nMexican marines raided El Chapo’s home, acting on a tipoff, before dawn, the navy said in a statement adding that five suspects had been killed and six arrested. Two armored vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher were seized in the operation.\nAmong the seized arms were .50-caliber sniper guns capable of penetrating most bullet-proof vests and cars, AP reported. The assault rifle had a .40 mm grenade launcher, and at least one grenade, and another grenade launcher was found loaded, with an extra round nearby.\n“This ends the impunity that seemed to exist when the second escape of this criminal took place…” said the president of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, as quoted by local media.\n\nEl Chapo (aka “Shorty”) is considered to be Mexico’s top drug lord and head of the Sinaloa cartel. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has called El Chapo the biggest drug lord of all time. In 2011 he reportedly surpassed the infamous “cocaine king” Pablo Escobar. He was wanted by Mexico, Interpol and the US, which had offered a $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture.\nWashington has called the capture of Guzman a victory and triumph for the rule of law.\nEl Chapo's arrest is \"a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States, and a vindication of the rule of law in our countries,\" Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.\nGuzman also faces charges in the US. She said he \"will now have to answer for his alleged crimes,\" but stopped short of asking Mexico for the drug lord to be extradited.\n\nHe was first arrested in 1993 and spent almost a decade in a maximum-security prison near Mexico City before escaping in 2001. After 13 years on the run he was recaptured in 2014.\nHowever, last July a new prison break made the headlines again. He escaped through a 1.5-kilometer long, 10-meter deep tunnel dug from within his cell, despite being incarcerated in the country’s highest-security federal prison.\nThe tunnel from the facility led to a half-constructed empty house in nearby fields. Chapo reportedly paid as much as $50 million in bribes to facilitate his escape.\nHis latest jail break sparked one of the largest manhunts in the country’s history and spurred major criticism about the government’s ability to safeguard the drug lord.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":["Loretta Lynch"]},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Mexico, Interpol and the US"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["infamous drug lord"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Joaquin Guzman Loera"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2016 Saudi Arabia arrests Samar Badawi, a human rights activist who received the International Women of Courage Award from the United States in 2012. Badawi is to appear in court on Wednesday, according to Amnesty International. Both her brother, Raif Badawi, publisher of the \"Free Saudi Liberals\" blog, and former husband, Waleed Sami Abulkhair, are currently imprisoned. (CNN) (Amnesty International) (The Guardian)","document":"The arrest of Samar Badawi, a prominent human rights defender, as well as the sister of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi and the former spouse of imprisoned human rights lawyerWaleed Abu al-Khair,is the latest example of Saudi Arabia’s utter contempt for its human rights obligations and provides further damning proof of the authorities’ intent to suppress all signs of peaceful dissent, said Amnesty International.\nAccording to local activists, Samar Badawi was arrested in the morning on January 12 in Jeddah and transferred along with her two-year-old daughter Joud to a police station. After four hours of questioning, she was transferred to Dhaban prison and is due to appear before a prosecutor tomorrow. She is believed to have been arrested at least partly in connection with her alleged role in managing a Twitter account campaigning for the release of her former husband.\n“Samar Badawi’s arrest today is yet another alarming setback for human rights in Saudi Arabia and demonstrates the extreme lengths to which the authorities are prepared to go in their relentless campaign to harass and intimidate human rights defenders into silent submission,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program.\n“Just weeks after Saudi Arabia shocked the world by executing 47 people in a single day, including the Shi’a Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, it has once again demonstrated its utter disregard for human rights. Samar Badawi has been arrested purely for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression, she must be immediately and unconditionally released.”\nIn December 2014 the Ministry of Interior issued a travel ban on Samar Badawi to prevent her from travelling to Brussels for a human rights event.\nSamar Badawi’s former husband, Waleed Abu al-Khair, is serving a 15-year prison sentence also in connection with his work protecting and defending human rights in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of thousands of Amnesty International’s supporters campaigned for his release during its December 2015 Write for Rights Campaign.\nHer brother Raif was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for setting up a website for public debate. He received the first 50 lashes just over a year ago. They are both prisoners of conscience who must be immediately and unconditionally released. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["alleged role in managing a Twitter account campaigning for the release of her former husband"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Samar Badawi","Waleed Abu al-Khair","Raif Badawi"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2016 U.S. federal authorities arrest militia leader Ammon Bundy and several of his followers following an exchange of gunfire at a traffic stop on U.S. Route 395 in Harney County, Oregon. One person, LaVoy Finicum, a rancher from Arizona and spokesman for the militia, was killed in the shootout. (CNN), (Oregon Live)","document":"BURNS - Oregon standoff spokesman Robert \"LaVoy\" Finicum was killed and other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation were arrested Tuesday after the FBI and state police stopped vehicles about 20 miles north of Burns.\nAuthorities did not release the name of the person who died at the highway stop, but Finicum's daughter confirmed it was Finicum, 54, of Cane Beds, Arizona, one of the cowboy-hat wearing faces of the takeover.\n\"My dad was such a good good man, through and through,\" said Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, one of Finicum's 11 children. \"He would never ever want to hurt somebody, buthe does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.\"\nRyan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., suffered a minor gunshot wound in the confrontation about 4:30 p.m. along U.S. 395. He was treated and released from a local hospital and was in FBI custody, authorities said.\nAlso arrested during the stop were his brother, Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho, Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada, and Shawna J. Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah. They were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony.\nNevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said that Ammon Bundy called his wife, Lisa Bundy, from the back of a police car on Tuesday night.\nGov. Kate Brown called for calm late Tuesday night.  \"The situation in Harney County continues to be the subject of a federal investigation that is in progress,\" she said in a statement. \"My highest priority is the safety of all Oregonians and their communities. I ask for patience as officials continue pursuit of a swift and peaceful resolution.\"\nLittle detail was available about the dramatic finish to the free-roaming ways of the militant leaders. State police said troopers were involved in the shooting and that one person died, another suffered non-life-threatening injuries and no police were hurt.\nThe militants seized the wildlife refuge on Jan. 2, insisting they wouldn't leave untiltheir demands weremet, including the freeing of two Harney County ranchers jailed on federal arson charges.\nOne militant on Tuesday afternoon posted a video of Ammon Bundy talking earlier in the day with an FBI negotiator identified only as \"Chris.\" The two have been negotiating since last week, with Bundy dictating the circumstances under which he would talk and what the group wanted.\nThe leaders were on the highway bound for John Day, where they were scheduled to participate in an evening community meeting set up by local residents. A crowd of several hundred had gathered at the John Day Senior Center and were subsequently told the the \"guest speakers\" would not be appearing.\nThe highway was blocked for a 40-mile stretch between Burns and John Day. Police were stationed near Seneca, a small city of 200 south of John Day, with long guns. They said they didn't know how long the roadblock would be place. Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer was there.\nPalmer two weeks ago had met with Payne and Ritzheimer. He later publicly declared that Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven, should be freed from federal prison to help end the standoff. Palmer also has recommended that the FBI leave the Harney County scene and turn thematter to local police.\nThe armed militants took over the vacant headquarters compound at the refuge. They have been using refuge buildings for meetings and lodging, posting armed security guards.\nThe occupiers have been moving without police interference between the refuge and Burns, even attending a county-sponsored community meeting at the Burns High School a week ago. Police estimated at least 50 militants scattered through the crowd of about 400 people.\nThe dramatic event came days after local and state officialshad publicly complained about the apparent inaction by federal law enforcement. The governor had complained directly to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey as well as the White House. On Monday, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, who chairs the county commission, also publicly urged police to resolve the occupation.\nPayne and Bundy have been in and out of Harney County since November, aroused by the sentencing of the Hammonds. In October, they were ordered back to federal prison to finish five-year terms for deliberating starting fires that burned federal land in 2001 and 2006. Bundy and his followers had demanded that Harney County Sheriff David Ward protect the ranchers from having to surrender, a demand Ward rejected.\nGallery: Oregon standoff in Harney County overview\nPayne and other militia met local residents in an informal meeting on New Year's Day in Burns, vowing they had peaceful intentions. The next day, about 300 people - a mix of militia and local residents - paraded in protest through downtown Burns, stopping at the sheriff's office and then stopping at the home of Dwight Hammond and his wife Susan.\nThat afternoon, a splinter group of militants drove out to the refuge, left vacant after federal authorities warned employees to stay away over safety concerns. Later, Payne confirmed in interviews with The Oregonian/OregonLive that the group had long planned to seize the refuge.\nBesides demanding freedom for the Hammonds, the Bundy group wanted the refuge turned overto prior private owners and to the county. They insist that the federal government has no constitutional authority to control land in Harney County, a county that measures 10,000 square miles. The federal government controls 76 percent. The Bundy group also has encouraged ranchers to renounced their federal grazing permits, showcasing a New Mexico rancher Saturday at the refuge who did just that.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Authorities"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Ammon Bundy","Ryan W. Payne","Brian Cavalier","Shawna J. Cox"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"January_2016 The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, man who is alleged to have been planning a machine gun mass shooting at a  local Masonic Temple. (The Washington Post) (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) (FBI)","document":"Acting United States Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad and Special Agent in Charge Robert J. Shields of the FBI’s Milwaukee Division announced today that Milwaukee resident Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 23, has been charged with possessing machineguns and a silencer.\nAccording to the criminal complaint, Hamzeh had been under investigation since September 2015. The investigation revealed that, in October 2015, Hamzeh planned to travel to Jordan, enter the West Bank, and conduct an attack on Israeli soldiers and citizens living in the West Bank. Hamzeh later abandoned those plans and began to focus on conducting an attack in the United States.\nAccording to the criminal complaint, Hamzeh has engaged in extensive conversations with two confidential sources (referred to here as CS-1 and CS-2). Those conversations, which were in Arabic, were monitored, recorded, and translated by the FBI beginning in October 2015.\nDuring those recorded conversations, Hamzeh explained that he wanted to commit a domestic act of violence and, earlier this month, he settled on a Masonic temple in Milwaukee as his target.\nOn January 19, 2016, Hamzeh, CS-1 and CS-2 took a guided tour of the Masonic temple, during which they learned meeting schedules and where people would be located during meetings. In a recorded conversation after they left the temple, Hamzeh, discussed his plans with CS-1 and CS-2. In that conversation, Hamzeh reaffirmed his intention to commit an armed attack on the temple and discussed in further detail how they would carry out the attack.\nHamzeh said that they would need two machineguns so that they each would have one (Hamzeh indicated that one CS already had a machinegun), and also said that they would need three silencers:\n“We want two machineguns, you now have one, so we want two more, and we need three silencers, that’s it.Find out how much all together these will cost, and then we will march.”\n“We want two, like the machinegun you have. . . . And we need silencers. . . . Three, yes three silencers, and that’s it.”\n“. . . each one has a weapon, each one has a silencer gun, the operation will be one hundred percent successful.I am telling you, to go without silencer gun, you will be exposed from the beginning.”\nHamzeh also explained to CS1 and CS2 that, when they executed the attack at the temple, one of the three of them would have to stay at the main door while the others went upstairs to kill the people who would be meeting there:\n“one of us will stay at the door at the entrance and lock the door down, he will be at the main door down, two will get to the lift up, they will enter the room, and spray everyone in the room.The one who is standing downstairs will spray anyone he finds.We will shoot them, kill them and get out.We will walk and walk, after a while, we will be covered as if it is cold, and we’ll take the covers off and dump them in a corner and keep on walking, as if nothing happened, as if everything is normal.But one has to stand on the door, because if no one stood at the door, people will be going in and out, if people came in from outside and found out what is going on, everything is busted.”\n“As long as the one on the door understands he has bigger responsibility than the others.For your information, he has to take care of everyone around him, the comers and the one that wants to go, he has to annihilate everyone, there is no one left, I mean when we go into a room, we will be killing everyone, that’s it, this is our duty, as for the one at the door, he must have 20/20 eye vision and always alert for all the traffic around him.”\n“I am telling you, as I was saying, all three of us get in together, one will go, to the one that is staying at the reception . . . . If she was alone, it is okay, if there were two of them, shoot both of them, do not let the blood show, shoot her from the bottom, two or three shots in her stomach and let her sit on the chair and push her to the front, as if she is sleeping, did you understand?Then stay downstairs, the other two will take the lift to the third floor, go directly to the room, open the door, shoot everyone, move fast even avoiding the lift and take the stairs running down. . . . Using the stairs, the third one on the door will notice us coming down, we will go out together.No one sees anything and no one knows anything.We leave, as if there is nothing, no running, no panic, just regular walking.We’ll get three head covers with three holes in them. . . . we’ll get in all three of us together, the minute we get in, we shoot whoever is in front of us, and all have to be eliminated.One stays down and two will go up quickly.\n“And we will eliminate everyone.”\nHamzeh also explained what his objectives were in committing the attack:\n“I am telling you, if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world. . . . Sure, all over the world, all the Mujahedeen will be talking and they will be proud of us. . . such operations will increase in America, when they hear about it.The people will be scared and the operations will increase, and there will be problems all over, because more than one problem took place, and this will be the third problem, this will lead to people clashing with each other.This way we will be igniting it.I mean we are marching at the front of the war.”\n“They are all Masonic; they are playing with the world like a game, man, and we are like asses, we don’t know what is going on, these are the ones who are fighting, these are the ones that needs to be killed, not the Shi’iat, because these are the ones who are against us, these are the ones who are making living for us like hell.”\n\n“Thirty is excellent.If I got out, after killing thirty people, I will be happy 100%. . . . 100% happy, because these 30 will terrify the world.”\nHamzeh made plans to purchase machineguns and silencers from two individuals who, unbeknownst to Hamzeh, were undercover FBI agents. He met with them, along with CS-1 and CS-2, on January 25, 2016. The undercover agents displayed the weapons and a silencer to Hamzeh, told him that the weapons were capable of automatic fire, and explained to him the functioning of the selector switch that allowed the weapons to fire automatically. Hamzeh agreed to a price and paid it to the undercover agents, who then handed Hamzeh a bag containing two automatic weapons and a silencer. Hamzeh carried the bag to the vehicle in which he had traveled to the meeting, and he placed the bag in the trunk of the vehicle. He then was arrested and has been charged with illegally possessing machineguns.\nActing United States Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad said, “Samy Mohamed Hamzeh devised a detailed plan to commit a mass shooting intended to kill dozens of people. He also said that he wanted this mass shooting to be ‘known the world over’ and to ‘ignite’ broader clashes. It is difficult to calculate the injury and loss of life that was prevented by concerned citizens coming forward and by the tireless efforts of the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”\nSpecial Agent in Charge of the FBI Robert J. Shields said “The arrest of Samy Mohamed Hamzeh is the result of a well-coordinated undercover law enforcement action, at no time was the public’s safety placed in jeopardy. I would like to commend the efforts of the Joint Terrorism Task Force which includes our local and state law enforcement partners in thwarting an attack that could have resulted in significant injury and /or loss of life.”\nThis case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Paul L. Kanter.\nThe charges contained in the criminal complaint are only allegations; the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["recorded conversation"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["January 19, 2016"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Gregory J. Haanstad","Robert J. Shields"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["possessing machineguns and a silencer"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Samy Mohamed Hamzeh"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2016 Chinese authorities arrest 21 people involved in the Ezubao online finance scheme accused of allegedly defrauding 900,000 people of 50bn yuan ($7.6bn; 5.3bn) in a Ponzi scheme. (BBC)","document":"Chinese authorities have arrested 21 people involved in an online finance scheme which is suspected of defrauding 900,000 investors of about 50bn yuan ($7.6bn; 5.3bn).\nThe 21 people worked for Ezubao, a peer-to-peer lender widely described in Chinese state media as a Ponzi scheme. Ezubao is believed to be China's largest such online financing business. State media said investigations had found more than 95% of the investment offerings on the site were fake. Chinese television broadcast apparent confessions by two former employees of the company, that was based in Anhui province.  Ezubao was launched in 2014 by Ding Ning, the chairman of holding firm Yucheng Group. He was among those arrested, reports said. China's growing middle class has increasingly been attracted to online investment schemes as people seek to quickly increase their wealth. But authorities have been struggling to regulate the wealth management industry, estimated to be worth more than $2.5tn.\nA Ponzi scheme is much like a pyramid scheme and is viewed as a fraudulent investment operation that offers unusually high returns on short term investments. Some of that money pays fake returns to other investors.\nThey are named after Boston fraudster Charles Ponzi who set up schemes in the US in the 1920s.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["confessions by two former employees of the company"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Chinese authorities"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["suspected of defrauding 900,000 investors of about 50bn yuan ($7.6bn; 5.3bn)"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["21 people"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2016 German police arrest two Algerian men suspected of having links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and planning terror attacks in the country. One of the men detained, reported to be aged 35, had been living in a refugee shelter in the town of Attendorn, east of Cologne. Police say \"investigations show that he has been trained militarily in Syria\". (BBC)","document":"German police have arrested two Algerians suspected of planning an attack and having links to the militant group, Islamic State (IS). One of the men was arrested in the capital Berlin and the other in a town close to Cologne, in west Germany. Police seized computers, mobile phones and sketches in the raids but did not find a \"smoking gun\", prosecutors' spokesman Martin Steltner said.\nAbout 450 officers were involved in the raids.\nOne of the men detained, reported to be aged 35, had been living in a refugee shelter in the town of Attendorn, east of Cologne, and is wanted by the Algerian authorities for alleged links to IS. Police said \"investigations show that he has been trained militarily in Syria\". The man's wife, also wanted by Algeria, was detained at the same time but prosecutors said she was not a suspect in the German case. The suspect held in Berlin was arrested on suspicion of falsifying identity documents, police said.\nTwo other Algerians in Germany, said by police to be \"from the jihadist scene\", were tracked down but not arrested.\n\"Our understanding is that the four men accused could have planned to carry out an attack together,\" Mr Steltner said.\nGerman media said the possible targets included central Berlin tourist sites Checkpoint Charlie and Alexanderplatz.\nSince January, the suspects had changed their mobile phones multiple times and communicated using instant messaging services, reports said.\nGermany's security concerns have risen since the Paris attacks last year. Officials declined to comment on a report in the Tagesspiegel newspaper, citing security sources, which said senior IS figures had ordered an attack on Germany.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":["computers, mobile phones and sketches"]},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Since January"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["German police"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["planning an attack and having links to the militant group, Islamic State (IS)"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["two Algerians"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"February_2016 Kalamazoo County, Michigan, authorities say last evening's shooting spree resulted in six deaths with two others seriously wounded. Each victim was shot multiple times. Police acknowledge that an earlier report that a 14-year-old girl died is incorrect; she is alive, but \"severely, gravely\" injured. The suspect, a 45-year-old man who is an Uber driver without a prior criminal record, was taken into custody without a struggle. (USA Today) (CNN)","document":"KALAMAZOO, Mich.A married, father of two who moonlighted as an Uber driver is being blamed for a shooting rampage Saturday night that left six people dead and two others wounded. The big question remains why?\nPolice say 45-year-old Jason Dalton, described by his neighbors as a good family man, apparently randomly picked his victims, who were killed or wounded over a four-hour period at three separate locations in Kalamazoo and the surrounding area.The victims ranged in age from 14 to 74.\nDalton continued to pick up riders, according to reports by WOOD-TV, and drop them off in between the shootings, which started about 6 p.m. That seemed to be confirmed by a Kalamazoo man, using the Twitter handle @IamKeithBlack, who tweeted that he got a ride from Dalton at 8 p.m.\n“Lucky to be alive,” he said in a later tweet.\nDalton, who is expected to be arraigned Monday on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, was arrested about 12:45 a.m. Sunday when a Kalamazoo County sheriff’s deputy spotted a car matching the description of the shooter’s vehicle exiting a parking lot at a downtown Kalamazoo bar. The deputy stopped the car and the man was arrested peacefully. A semi-automatic handgun was found in the car.\n\nIt’s unclear what precipitated the rampage, although Dalton was acting irrationally and driving erratically before the first shooting, according to a Facebook post from a woman who said her fiancé had gotten a ride from Dalton late Saturday afternoon.\nThe woman posted at 5:33 p.m. that her boyfriend was picked up by an Uber driver named Jason who blew through a stop sign and sideswiped another car.She posted an Uber-supplied photo of the man, who matched the police mug shot of Dalton, and said he was driving a Chevrolet Equinox SUV. Kalamazoo Gazette photos later show police searching an Equinox.\nThe woman, who has since deleted the post, said 911 was called \"but surprisingly they didn't seem all that concerned.”\n\"Hoping this man will be arrested or hospitalized soon if he has a medical condition causing his behavior,\" she said. The Facebook post has since been deleted but the Detroit Free Press obtained a copy of it.\nWhat we know about Kalamazoo victims so far\nPolice believe Dalton began the attacks at a Richland Township apartment complex, shooting a woman four times in the parking lot. The woman wasin serious condition Sunday, police said.\nDalton next allegedly shot and killed a father and son who were sitting in their cars at a Kia car dealership in Kalamazoo about 10 p.m.About 15 minutes later he killed four people and critically wounded a 14-year-old girl at a Cracker Barrel parking lot in Texas Township, police said.\nPolice originally reported that the 14-year-old girl was killed, putting the death toll at seven. On Sunday morning, Kalamazoo Prosecutor Jeff Getting said the girl was \"severely, gravely\" injured, but still alive.\n“At this point the connection between these three incidents, between these three cases, is the defendant, is Mr. Dalton,” Getting said at a press conference. “There is no connection that we’re aware of between the three sets of victims to each other or any of the victims to Mr. Dalton. They appear to have been chosen at random, because they were available.”\n“He seemed pretty even-tempered,” Getting said of Dalton’s demeanor at the time of his arrest and in questioning. “He did not present in a combative way or an emotional way at all.”\nDalton has no criminal record, Getting said. He said authorities were still working to establish a motive in the shootings.\n“We are very confident we have the right person in custody,” Getting said. “There is signficant evidence to tie him to these activities.”\nUber released a statement late Sunday morning confirming that Dalton was an Uber driver and said he had passed a background check.\n“We are horrified and heartbroken at the senseless violence in Kalamazoo, Michigan,\" Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Uber, said in thestatement. \"Our hearts and prayers are with the families of the victims of this devastating crime and those recovering from injuries. We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can.”\nMichigan State Police identified four of the victims Sunday morning:\nMary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda\nMary Jo Nye, 60, of Battle Creek\nDorothy Brown, 74, of Battle Creek\nBarbara Hawthorne, 68, of Battle Creek\nTyler Smith, 17, and his father, Richard Smith, both of Kalamazoo, were identified in a separate news release by Mattawan Consolidated Schools Superintendent Robin Buchler.\nNeighbors described Dalton as a good family man who \"loved guns.\" They said he worked as an insurance salesman by day and a hobby mechanic on the side.\nGetting assured the community that there was no continuing threat. He said authorities have every reason to believe that Dalton acted alone.\nGetting said police had checked along the route between the auto dealership and the Cracker Barrel, searching for other victims, but found none. Authorities were continuing to piece together the movements of the shooter in the four hours between the first and second shootings and the more than two hours after the third attack.\nThe police chief of Battle Creek, where at least three of the victims lived, on Sunday called the shootings “an absolute tragedy” for the community and a very difficult case for law enforcement.\n“It was random and not ongoing or even continuous,” Chief Jim Blocker said. “You could not tell how they were tied together until they obtained some piece of information. It was random shootings in different jurisdictions with no common denominator.”\nBlocker said that the spree was unusual in that most mass shootings are at one time and one place.\n“We surge to stop the threat,” Blocker said. “This was more challenging.”\nTwo groups pushing for stronger gun laws issued statements Sunday.\n\n“Once again, another community has been shattered by gun violence. This is what the new normal looks like,\" former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, said in a statement from their group, Americans for Responsible Solutions.\nGiffords survived a 2011 assassination attempt that killed six people, including a 13-year-old girl who had shown up with her father to meet the congresswoman during an appearance at a supermarket in Tucson, Ariz. At least 12 other people were wounded in the shooting.\nThe Michigan chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, in a statement said Saturday's incident is one of at least 143 mass shootings that have occurred in America since 2009, and the second mass shooting in 2016.\n“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected by the mass shooting last night that killed six and injured two,\" the group said. \"We don’t expect this type of violence to happen here in Kalamazoo, but the truth is that gun violence is affecting communities across the country every day.\"\nContributing: Daniel Bethencourt, Detroit Free Press;Robert Warner and Trace Christenson of the Battle Creek (Mich.) Enquirer; Andrew Krietz,of WZZM-TV, Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, andThe Associated Press.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["Sunday morning"]},{"role":"Witness","values":["IamKeithBlack"]},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":null},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["murder and attempted murder"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Jason Dalton"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"April_2004 ABC reports that British government sources believe that suspects arrested last week in the UK may have been plotting to make an improvised chemical weapon using the toxic agent osmium tetroxide. (ABC/US) (BBC)","document":"Used primarily in laboratories for research, osmium tetroxide is known to attack soft human tissue and could blind or kill anyone who breathed its fumes. According to the New Jersey Department of Health, it is a colorless to pale yellow solid with a strong, unpleasant odor.  \"It's a nasty piece of work,\" said Dave Siegrist, a bioterrorism expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va. \"It irritates the eyes, lungs, nose and throat. It leads to an asthma-like death, what we call a 'dry-land drowning.' \" Scientists say if, for example, the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center attack had produced such fumes, they would have wiped out the first police and rescue workers on the scene.\n\"They become overwhelmed by fumes,\" said Jerry Hauer, an expert on biological and chemical terrorism and the former director of public health preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services, describing what could have happened. \"They can go blind. This is not a benign chemical. It is very nasty.\"\nEight British citizens of Pakistani descent were arrested and taken into custody when 700 police raided 24 locations in and around London on March 30. Investigators say British authorities moved in when they learned from electronic intercepts the dangerous chemical was involved in the plot. They had been the tracking group's activities for several months.\nAccording to sources, there was some indication the group in custody was targeting Gatwick airport, the British public transportation system and enclosed shopping areas. British authorities feared it had the potential to be one of the worst attacks ever against the United Kingdom.\nEven though the arrests were made in the United Kingdom, authorities say the operation was being run out of Pakistan by a suspected al Qaeda figure.\n\"They are creative in their planning,\" said Hauer. \"They continue to work around our systems.\"  \n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["700 police"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["the dangerous chemical was involved in the plot"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Eight British citizens of Pakistani descent"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2004 The Pentagon confirms a report in The New York Times that CIA chief George Tenet who steps down from the post next month was allowed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to have an Iraqi prisoner secretly detained in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention. (BBC) (NYT)","document":"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.\nThis prisoner and other ''ghost detainees'' were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.\n","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Donald H. Rumsfeld"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["George J. Tenet"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"June_2004 The United States Supreme Court rules sixtothree that \"illegal combatants\" such as those held in Guantánamo can challenge the basis of their detentions, yet can also be held without charges or trial. (BBC) (NYT)","document":"The six-to-three ruling is seen as a major blow to the Bush administration and could herald hundreds of appeals in US courts on behalf of the inmates.\nLower US courts had previously ruled that Guantanamo prisoners were beyond US legal jurisdiction.\nThe ruling did not pass judgement on the guilt or innocence of any detainee.\nOf the 600-odd terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay most were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the US-led operation against al-Qaeda and the Taleban.\n\nThe Supreme Court did not address the issues of human rights surrounding the men's capture and detention without trial.\nHuman rights groups have challenged the legal basis for their continued incarceration.\nThe detainees comprise nationals from more than 40 countries.\nMany were captured in 2001, during the early months of the US operation in Afghanistan.\nAbout 150 have been transferred from Guantanamo - many of them to be detained by their own governments. Two Britons who were freed from Guantanamo Bay in March and released without charge in the UK, Shasiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, urged the US government to inform all detainees of their right to take their case to US courts and to provide them with lawyers \"to make that access a reality\".\nIn a separate but related ruling, the Supreme Court decided that US citizens designated as \"enemy combatants\" could be detained without trial - but that those held also had the right to challenge their detention in US courts.\nIn that case - which centres on US-born detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi - Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that a state of war was \"not a blank cheque for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's\ncitizens\".\nUS President George W Bush has announced controversial plans to try the Guantanamo detainees in military tribunals, rather than civilian courts.","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":null},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["US courts"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["Guantanamo prisoners were beyond US legal jurisdiction"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["600-odd terror suspects"]}]}
{"event_trigger":"July_2004 It is reported that former Chess World Champion Bobby Fischer was detained in Japan on July 13, 2004, and may face deportation due to competing in Yugoslavia in 1992. (ABC NEWS) (CNN)","document":"Fischer, was stopped at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Tuesday as he tried to go to the Philippines, an airport official said on condition of anonymity.\n             The Kyodo News agency said he was detained for allegedly using an invalid U.S. passport. Kyodo and the Asahi newspaper reported officials were preparing to deport him to the United States.\nThe U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said it knew Fischer had been detained but refused to comment further, citing privacy concerns.\nFischer became a Cold War hero in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union to become the first American world chess champion. But the chess prodigy, long know for his eccentric ways, stunned the chess world by refusing to play again, and had slipped mysteriously in and out of public view in the years since.\nHe forfeited the title in 1975, and resurfaced for a dramatic rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992, beating him 10-5 to win $3.35 million.\nU.S. authorities accused him of violating U.N. sanctions imposed against Yugoslavia by playing the match. The sanctions were imposed on Yugoslavia for provoking warfare in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.\nFischer, indicted by a grand jury in 1992, managed to elude authorities and left a tantalizing trail that included radio broadcasts from the Philippines and sightings in Japan.\nIn radio interviews, he praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be \"wiped out,\" and described Jews as \"thieving, lying bastards.\" His mother was Jewish.\nFischer, now 61 years old, became grandmaster at age 15. He announced that he had abandoned chess in 1996 and launched a new version, \"Fischerandom,\" a computerized shuffler that randomly distributes chess pieces on the back row of the chess board at the start of each game.\nFischer claimed it would bring the fun back into the game and rid it of cheats.\nphoto credit and caption:\nFILE --- Japanese immigration authorities have detained former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, shown at right in this 1970 file photo,  an official said Friday July 16, 2004. Fischer, wanted in the United States for attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions, was stopped at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Tuesday, an airport spokesman said on condition of anonymity. Officials were preparing to deport him to the United States, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said Friday, citing unnamed sources. ","event_type":"CommitCrime - Accuse","arguments":[{"role":"Evidence","values":null},{"role":"Prosecution Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Defense Lawyer","values":null},{"role":"Time of the Case","values":["1992"]},{"role":"Witness","values":null},{"role":"Prosecutor","values":["Japanese immigration authorities"]},{"role":"Charged Crime","values":["attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions"]},{"role":"Accused People","values":["Bobby Fischer"]}]}