Portal:Current events/2014 January 17

• 2013–14 Thai political crisis:
  • An explosion rocks the protests in Bangkok resulting in dozens of injuries. (CNN) (AP)
• At least three people are killed and fifteen are injured after an explosion in a passenger train travelling from Peshawar to Karachi. (PTI via Business Standard)
• Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon:
  • A rocket fired into the Lebanese border town of Arsal kills seven people and wounds 15. (Reuters)
• Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan:
  • Twenty-one people are killed in a suicide bombing attack on a Kabul restaurant. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Post-coup unrest in Egypt:
  • Two people were shot dead as clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police flared up across Egypt. (Reuters)

• One of the last Japanese soldiers to surrender from World War II, Hiroo Onoda, who surrendered in the Philippines in 1974, dies at the age of 91. (CNN)
• Zara Phillips, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, gives birth to a daughter (later named Mia Tindall). (BBC News)
• President Yoweri Museveni refuses to sign a Ugandan bill that would criminalize homosexuality saying that they should instead be rehabilitated. (HuffPost)
• A fragment of pelvis bone unearthed in Winchester in 1999 may belong to King Alfred the Great or his son Edward the Elder. (BBC News)

• Bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria claim at least one life with towns in the Grampians National Park region evacuated. (The Australian)
• Police in Glendora, California arrest three men suspected of starting the Colby Fire burning in the San Gabriel Mountains. (Los Angeles Times)
• California Governor Jerry Brown declares a drought emergency and asks residents of the state to voluntarily conserve water. (Los Angeles Times)
• A stampede at the home of Muslim religious leader Mohammed Burhanuddin in the Indian city of Mumbai results in 18 deaths. (SBS World News)

• President Barack Obama announces a sprawling reform that would begin the process of change in the National Security Agency. (The Chicago Tribune)
• Australia apologizes to Indonesia for breaching its territorial waters while conducting operations against people smugglers in Operation Sovereign Borders. (Sydney Morning Herald)

• A controversy regarding capital punishment in the United States erupts after the execution of Ohio killer Denis McGuire took 25 minutes. (BBC News)
• Two students, a male and a female in stable condition, are each shot in the arm by an at-large gunman, who may be a student, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley Charter School high school. (MSN)^{[permanent dead link]}

• 2014 Winter Olympics
  • Vladimir Putin cautions gay people should not "spread gay propaganda" when visiting the host city of Sochi. (BBC News)