Portal:Current events/2026 January 22

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Myanmar civil war
  • A Myanmar Air Force fighter jet strikes a village near Bhamo in Kachin State, Myanmar, killing 21 people and wounding 28 others. (AP)

Arts and culture

• 98th Academy Awards
  • Nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards are released, with Sinners receiving 16 overall nominations, surpassing the record for most nominations for a film that was previously held by All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). (DW) (Los Angeles Times)

Business and economy

• South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index surpasses 5,000 points for the first time, rising by more than two percent in early trading. (AFP via Gulf News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2026 Gul Plaza Shopping Mall fire
  • The death toll from a massive fire five days ago at a multi-story shopping mall in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, increases to 67 people. (AP via CTV News)
• January 2026 New Zealand storms
  • Two people are killed and several others are reported missing with no sign of life detected, including children, in landslides in Mount Maunganui and Welcome Bay, Tauranga, New Zealand. Further north, a man is swept away by a flood in Warkworth. (BBC News) (Sky News) (The Independent)
• January 2026 North American winter storm
  • A state of emergency is declared in several U.S. states in anticipation for a potentially severe winter storm affecting the South and Eastern United States, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Mexico. (CBC)
• Vanderbijlpark scholar transport crash
  • The death toll from the school bus collision with a truck near Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, South Africa, increases to 14 children killed, while the bus driver is charged with murder. (AP)
• Mozambique authorities report at least 13 deaths from flooding caused by heavy rains, which has affected more than 500,000 people. (Reuters)
• Ten people are killed and ten injured after a vehicle carrying army soldiers skids off a road and falls into a gorge in Jammu and Kashmir, India. (NDTV)
• At least seven people are killed and more than eight others are injured in a suspected gas explosion near Tumaco in Nariño Department, Colombia. (News.Az)
• Six people are lightly injured when a passenger train collides with a crane arm in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, in the fourth railway incident in the country within a week. (Reuters)
• One person is killed and 109 schoolchildren are injured in a head-on collision between a pick-up truck and a school bus on R510 in Thabazimbi, Limpopo, South Africa. (IOL)

Health and environment

• Guinea-Bissau suspends a U.S.-backed study of a hepatitis B vaccine on newborns pending an ethics review. (AP)

International relations

• 2021 Guinean coup d'état
  • The African Union lifts sanctions on Guinea and restores its membership, citing progress in the country's political transition which culminated in Mamady Doumbouya's election as president. (AFP via Vanguard)
• Colombia–Ecuador relations
  • Colombia suspends electricity exports to Ecuador and announces a 30% tariff on selected Ecuadorian goods to reciprocate Ecuador's imposition of the same surcharge on Colombian imports effective February 1, which Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa attributed to a trade deficit and a lack of cooperation ‌on combating drug trafficking. (Reuters)
• France–Russia relations
  • The French Navy boards and seizes a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker subject to international sanctions in the Mediterranean Sea. (Al Jazeera)
• Proposals for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations
  • The United States's withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) takes effect, becoming the first member state to leave the WHO. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• 2026 Lake Cargelligo shootings
  • Three people are killed and another is critically injured in shooting spree against two vehicles in Lake Cargelligo, New South Wales, Australia. The shooter is at large. (The Guardian) (BBC News)
• Ntabankulu Primary School shooting
  • Three people are killed, including the perpetrator, and another is critically injured in a school shooting at a primary school in Ntabankulu, Eastern Cape, South Africa. (Independent Online)
• Terrorism in the Philippines
  • A regional court in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines, sentences journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and her accomplice to up to 18 years in prison for financing terrorism following their arrest in 2020, but acquits them on a weapons possession charge. Press freedom and rights groups condemn the verdict. (AFP via The Guardian) (BBC News)
• Six people are injured, including two critically, in a mass stabbing during a Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. Two suspects are arrested. (The Guardian)
• Canadian drug trafficker and fugitive Ryan Wedding, who is on the FBI Most Wanted List, is arrested in Mexico. (PBS)

Science and technology

• AI boom, Regulation of artificial intelligence, Science and technology in South Korea
  • South Korea enacts a law that requires human oversight of high-impact artificial intelligence (AI) systems, mandates disclosure and labeling of certain AI uses, and institutes fines of up to ₩30 million (around US$20,400) for violations. (Reuters)