Portal:Current events/2013 September 17

Current events of September 17, 2013 (2013-09-17) (Tuesday)

Entertainment The videogame company Rockstar Games releases its fifth installment of the Grand Theft Auto series Grand Theft Auto V, which nets 800 million U.S. Dollars on its launch day. [1] Armed conflict and attacks Syrian civil war: The head of a United Nations war crimes tribunal states that it is investigating 14 alleged instances of chemical weapons attacks. (Al-Jazeera) Islamic insurgency in the Philippines: Philippine Army troops free dozens of prisoners held hostage by the Moro National Liberation Front in the Battle of Zamboanga City in the city of Zamboanga. (BBC) Disasters and accidents The Costa Concordia is pulled completely upright from the place where it sunk in early 2012 off the coast of Tuscany in Italy. (Courier-Mail) International relations Iranian President Hassan Rouhani confirmed he had contacted U.S. President Barack Obama via letters. Both countries cut all diplomatic relations after the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1980. (Reuters) Law and crime Abdul Kader Mullah, a leader of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, is sentenced to death for war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. (BBC) A standoff between Austrian police and a poacher suspected of killing three police officers and an ambulance driver in a shooting near Annaberg ends with the suspect likely to be dead. (ABC)