August 21, 2015 (Friday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL
- The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant destroys the historic Mar Elian monastery near the town of Al-Qaryatayn in the Homs Governorate in Syria. (AP)
- Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- Saudi-led coalition air-strikes on the Yemeni city of Taiz leave at least 65 civilians killed. (BBC)
- Doctors Without Borders makes a dramatic appeal to Yemen's warring factions to halt civilian attacks, especially on hospitals, ambulances, and densely populated neighborhoods. (U.S. News & World Report)
- A gunman opens fire on an Amsterdam to Paris train leaving four people wounded. (The Guardian), (NBC news)
Arts and culture
- A bottle with a letter left inside by British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III is discovered by a woman vacationing in Germany. The bottle dating from 1906, if confirmed, would be the world's oldest message in a bottle found to date. (The International Business Times via MSN)
- Britain's Information Commissioner's Office orders Google, Inc. to remove, from its search engines, links to news stories about Google's implementation of a "right to be forgotten" request, that include identifying information about a decade-old shoplifting conviction, which the Information Commission's Office considers as being no longer relevant. The order applies only in the United Kingdom. (Irish Examiner)
Business and economy
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops and closes down 530.94 points, or 3.12 percent, with the NASDAQ and S&P 500 also down more than 3%. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
- 2015 Pacific typhoon season
- Typhoon Goni kills two people in the Philippines with thousands of people evacuated in the Philippines and Taiwan. (AFP via ABC Australia)
- 2015 Atlantic hurricane season
- The season's first hurricane, Hurricane Danny, is upgraded to Category 3, as its winds strengthened to 115 mph. On its current track, the hurricane will move across the Leeward Islands by Monday but may weaken when it reaches Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. (USA Today), (Weather Channel updated)
- 2015 Washington state wildfires
- President Barack Obama declares a state of emergency across northeastern and central Washington as the amount of burned land in the state reaches nearly a half-million acres. (FEMA), (The Seattle Times)
International relations
- Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un orders the Korean People's Army to be on a war footing following the exchange of artillery fire with South Korea yesterday. (BBC), (Al Jazeera)
- The United States halts, then resumes its annual military exercise with South Korea, Foal Eagle, amid rising tensions. (CNN), (The Washington Post)
Politics and elections
- Ranil Wickremesinghe is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka following a strong performance by his United National Front for Good Governance in last Monday's election. (AP via The Star Tribune)[permanent dead link]
- Greek legislative election, September 2015
- Twenty-five parliamentarians from the governing Syriza party announce plans to form a new party, the Popular Unity, led by former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. (BBC), (To Vima)
- Turkish general election, November 2015
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls for a snap election for November 1st after the previous election resulted in a hung parliament unable to form a coalition government. (BBC)
Sports
- South Korean teenagers participated in an under-15 international football tournament in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. In its first game, the South Korean team defeated a Chinese team at the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium. [citation needed]