Portal:Current events/2025 November 18

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Insurgency in Cabo Delgado
  • 2021 Cabo Delgado offensive
    • The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) accuses French energy and petroleum company TotalEnergies of committing war crimes through a joint task force deployed to protect natural gas sites in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The ECCHR alleges that the joint task force illegally imprisoned, beat, tortured, and killed over 220 civilians. (DW)
• Palestinian political violence
  • 2025 Gush Etzion Junction attack
    • At least three people are killed, including both perpetrators, and three others are injured, including a woman mistakenly shot by soldiers, in a vehicle-ramming attack and stabbing attack in Gush Etzion Junction, West Bank. (The Times of Israel) (CNN)
• Russo-Ukrainian war
  • Kharkiv strikes
    • A 17-year-old girl is killed, and nine other people are injured in overnight Russian missile strikes on Berestyn, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. (RBC-Ukraine)
• Middle Eastern crisis
  • Gaza war
    • 2025 Sidon airstrike
      • Thirteen people are killed and several others are wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon District, Lebanon. (MENA via The New Arab)
  • Israel–Hezbollah conflict
    • Two people are killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on vehicles in Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun, Lebanon. (L'Orient Today)

Arts and culture

• Austrian painter Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sells for US$236.4 million (€203.2 million) at a Sotheby's auction in New York City, breaking the record for the most expensive modern art piece. (AP) (The Guardian)

Business and economy

• The United Kingdom announces it will ban above-face-value ticket resale for concerts, shows, and sports events, citing rampant price gouging on ticket sale sites. (DW) (CNBC)

International relations

• Saudi Arabia–United States relations
  • Saudi Arabia and the United States ratify a joint declaration on civil nuclear energy, and the U.S. approves a defense sale that includes future deliveries of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. (AFP via NDTV)
  • U.S. president Donald Trump announces the designation of Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally. (AFP via The Economic Times)

Law and crime

• Gaza Strip under Hamas, Blockade of the Gaza Strip
  • Hamas arrests a staff member of local water provider, Abdul Salam Yassin Company, supplying water to nearly half of the Gaza Strip, causing the company to suspend its operations. (Reuters)
• Trial for the 2022–2023 Brazilian coup plot
  • Brazil's Supreme Federal Court sentences three army officers and a federal police officer to 21–24 years in prison after finding them guilty of participating in a plot to kill then-president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials to prevent the 2023 transfer of power. The court rules that the group helped plan the broader coup attempt linked to former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was previously convicted in the same case. (AFP via Barron's)
• War on drugs, Spain–United States relations
  • The Spanish National Police Corps, in coordination with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, dismantle a Jalisco New Generation Cartel logistics office in Spain, arresting 20 people, including two members of the Italian Camorra organization. (El País)
• An Argentine court orders the seizure of 20 properties owned by former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her family in connection with her fraud conviction involving public works contracts. (Reuters)
• Poland annuls former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro's diplomatic passport at the request of prosecutors, who seek his arrest on charges that include leading an organized criminal group and misusing public funds. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Danish local elections
  • Denmark holds local elections, with the ruling Social Democrats suffering large losses, including the mayoralty of Copenhagen, which they had held since 1903. (Politico EU)
• 2025 Texas redistricting
  • A United States district court bars Texas from using a newly drawn congressional map in next year's midterm elections, ruling that it is likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. (CNN)
• Terrorism in the United States
  • Texas governor Greg Abbott declares the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as terrorist organizations and bans them from owning land in Texas, United States. (CBS News)
• The Polish Sejm elects Włodzimierz Czarzasty as Marshal, replacing Szymon Hołownia, who becomes Deputy Marshal. (Sejm in Polish)

Science and technology

• A major outage of Cloudflare causes global disruptions to numerous apps and websites. Cloudflare says the outage occurred after a configuration file designed to handle threat traffic malfunctioned and triggered a crash in its software handling traffic for its wider services. (BBC News)

Sports

• 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification
  • In association football, Curaçao qualifies for the 2026 FIFA World Cup after winning Group B of the third round of CONCACAF qualifiers for the World Cup. In its first World Cup appearance, Curaçao becomes the smallest nation by both population and area to qualify for the tournament. (Azerbaijan)