Portal:Current events/2025 November 20

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Five Palestinians are killed in two Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. (Reuters)
  • Israeli forces and tanks move 300 m (980 ft) beyond the Yellow Line in Gaza City, violating the ceasefire. (Al Jazeera)
• Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Two police officers are killed and four more injured after a bomb explodes near their armoured personnel carrier in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (Pakistan Today)

Arts and culture

• Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) sells for US$54.66 million at Sotheby's in New York City, United States, setting a auction record for the most expensive painting by a woman, surpassing the previous high set by Georgia O'Keeffe's Jimson Weed. (AFP via France 24)

Business and economy

• American telecommunications company Verizon announces it will lay off over 13,000 employees, nearly 20% of its management workforce, in a restructuring. (AP)

Disasters and accidents

• Two trains collide near České Budějovice, Czech Republic, injuring at least 57 people, including five seriously. (Euronews) (AP)
• Sixteen people are killed and 24 are injured when a tourist bus plunges off a bridge into a river in Santuk district, Kampong Thom province, Cambodia. (Xinhua)
• The toll from the floods and landslides in Vietnam since the last four days increases to 41 people killed and nine missing. (Al Jazeera)
• The toll from the landslides in Cilacap Regency, Indonesia, seven days ago, increases to 18 people killed and 34 others missing. (AP)

Health and environment

• 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Brazil–Germany relations
  • At COP30, Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva announces that Germany has committed to donate €1 billion (US$1.15 billion) towards Brazil's rainforest blended-finance mechanism over the next decade. (DW)
  • The conference is temporarily suspended after a fire breaks out at the venue. (BBC News)
• At least 170 mountain climbers are evacuated when Mount Semeru on Java, Indonesia, suddenly erupts. (AP)

International relations

• Belarus–Lithuania relations, Belarus–European Union border crisis
  • Lithuania reopens its Medininkai and Šalčininkai border checkpoints with Belarus after closing them over security concerns involving weather balloons used for smuggling. (TVP World)

Law and crime

• 2025 Nepalese Gen Z protests
  • Clashes erupt across Nepal between supporters of ousted prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli and supporters of interim prime minister Sushila Karki. A curfew is imposed in various districts. (NDTV)
• Human trafficking in the Philippines
  • A Philippine regional trial court sentences former de facto Bamban mayor Alice Guo to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of human trafficking for a scam center in her town. (Bloomberg) (BBC News)
• Insurgency in Southeastern Nigeria
  • A Nigerian court sentences Biafran separatist Nnamdi Kanu to life imprisonment on seven terrorism charges over his leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra militant group. (AP)
• Bulgarian law enforcement arrests 35 people linked to a transnational network accused of trafficking cultural goods, with authorities reporting large seizures of artifacts, antique firearms, vehicles, and safes during coordinated raids with Europol and Eurojust. (Reuters)
• Spain's Supreme Court sentences Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz to two years of disqualification and a fine for revealing secrets about a tax fraud case involving Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. (RTVE)

Politics and elections

• 2025 Tongan general election
  • Tongans vote to elect 26 of the 30 members of the Legislative Assembly. Members of the country's nobility elect nine representatives, while the rest of the voting population elect 17 MPs. (RNZ)
• Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appoints Attorney General Jorge Messias to the Supreme Federal Court to fill the seat that retired justice Luís Roberto Barroso vacated, pending Senate confirmation. (Reuters)