News Headlines - 23 August 2020

▽Female protest leader gunned down in Iraq's Basra - Reuters

A female activist was killed on Wednesday and three others wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, security and health sources told Reuters.
It was the third incident this week in which gunmen targeted an anti-government political activist, after one activist was killed and four others had their car fired upon in a separate incident... The recent wave of violence begun when activist Tahseen Osama was assassinated on Friday, prompting a return of street demonstrations for three days in which security forces opened live fire on protesters who lobbed the governor’s house with rocks and petrol bombs and blocked several main roads.

▽Iran nuclear: Fire at Natanz plant 'caused by sabotage' - BBC News

Iran's nuclear body has said that a fire last month at a major nuclear facility was caused by sabotage.
But the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) did not say who it believed was behind the incident at the Natanz uranium enrichment site.
Some Iranian officials have previously said the fire might have been the result of cyber sabotage.
There were several fires and explosions at power facilities and other sites in the weeks surrounding the incident.

▽Turkey Discovers Large Natural Gas Reserve In Black Sea. Here’s Why That Matters

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey had discovered its largest-ever deposit of natural gas in the Black Sea, a move that could help the country reduce its dependence on energy imports from other countries, including Russia.

▽'Shocking': Outrage in Israel over alleged gang rape of teenager | Al Jazeera

The alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl by some 30 men in the Red Sea resort of Eilat has sparked outrage in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the incident "shocking".
Reports that the alleged perpetrators, said to be in their 20s, queued outside the minor's hotel room awaiting their turn to take advantage of her inebriated state prompted protests in several Israeli cities on Thursday.
The girl had reported the alleged crime to police in Eilat last week but the case had previously gone largely unnoticed.

▽Protests Persist Against Belarus’s Leader Aleksandr Lukashenko - The New York Times

One day after President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus promised to crush with an iron fist the protests that have broken out since his re-election this month, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital, Minsk, on Sunday to show their determination to force him out of office.
After a week of rallies and publicity stunts in support of Mr. Lukashenko, who has led Belarus, a former Soviet republic, since 1994, many expected the protests against him to ebb. But by late Sunday afternoon, a sea of people had filled the main Independence Avenue in central Minsk, blocking all traffic there and on side streets.
Some estimates put the number of demonstrators at well over 100,000, in what appeared to be a repeat of a similar rally a week earlier.