Portal:Current events/2019 October 20
Armed conflicts and attacks
- American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–2021)
- U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says American troops withdrawing from Syria will go to western Iraq, where the U.S. military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State to prevent its resurgence. (Yahoo! News)
Arts and culture
- Second inauguration of Joko Widodo
- Joko Widodo is officially inaugurated as president of Indonesia for the second time, while Ma'ruf Amin is inaugurated as the new vice president. They will serve their terms from 2019 to 2024. (Tempo) (Al Jazeera)
Disasters and accidents
- Three American soldiers with the 3rd Infantry Division are killed and three others are injured in a training accident at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. (CNN)
- Tornadoes strike North Texas as part of an outbreak (CNN)
Politics and elections
- 2019 Bolivian general election
- People in Bolivia head to the polls for the latest general election. (France 24)
- Authorities abruptly stop updating the results, causing concern among opposition politicians and the Organization of American States, which has election observers in Bolivia. Before the results were halted, incumbent President Evo Morales held 45 percent of the vote and former President Carlos Mesa held 38 percent. (BBC News)
- 2019 Chilean protests
- Curfew is extended to Concepción and Valparaíso Region. Including Santiago, nine million people are under a state of emergency, equal to 52 percent of the country's population. (La Tercera) (Sputnik)
- Three people are found dead in a supermarket that had been set on fire in San Bernardo. (BioBioChile) (The Raw Story)
- 2019 Swiss federal election
- Voters in Switzerland elect the members of the country's Federal Assembly and Council. Provisional results show the Swiss People's Party retaining their plurality, and that the Green Party has become the fourth-largest party. (DW) (Le News) (The Local)
- Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
- The government of Bangladesh announces it will begin moving thousands of Rohingya refugees from crowded camps to the flood-prone island of Thengar Char, starting early November. The government hopes to relocate 100,000 refugees by the end of the operation, which has been criticised by rights groups as an "inevitable" humanitarian crisis. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)