Portal:Current events/2015 February 26

Current events of February 26, 2015 (2015-02-26) (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • A Taliban suicide bomb attack on a Turkish government vehicle in Kabul kills at least one person. (BBC), (NBC News)
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • "Jihadi John", an ISIL terrorist featured in many beheading videos, is identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born man who lived in the United Kingdom and was on the terror watch list. (The Washington Post), (The New York Times), (CBS News)
  • ISIS posts a video showing the destruction of Mosul museum, the second largest in Iraq and rich in artifacts from thousands of years of Iraqi history. (National Post)

International relations

• French actress Marion Cotillard and Jewish actress Mélanie Laurent and French President François Hollande begin their two-day state visit to the Philippines, where they will discuss climate change. (GMA News)

Law and crime

• Norwegian police raid the offices of the Catholic Church’s diocese in Oslo, charging the church administration with serious fraud under the suspicion of wrongfully claiming as much as NOK 50 million in state support by presenting fraudulent membership statistics. (NewsInEnglish.no)
• The Guardian publishes articles alleging that the Chicago Police Department have been running a black site at Homan Square for detained Americans; former justice officials call for investigation. The CPD denies the allegations. (The Guardian) (The Guardian) (Chicago Sun-Times)
• A United Nations report claims that a North Korean shipping company has been renaming and reflagging its vessels to avoid an arms embargo. (BBC)
• Effective midnight, Washington, D.C. joins Alaska, Colorado, and Washington state as the only places in the United States that locally purport to override federal law and allow the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. (Huffington Post)