Timeline 2010 April - June
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2010 Apr 1, US
President Barack Obama called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to join
forces on the Iranian nuclear standoff as he stepped up efforts to
block Tehran's atomic program.
(AFP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, The US national
board for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for
Reform Now, closed its California state affiliate field offices. The
group, formed in 1970, was under pressure due to videotapes in 2009
of ACORN assisting a proposed prostitution ring.
(http://tinyurl.com/54o77a)(SFC, 4/2/10, p.c2)
2010 Apr 1, In Fremont, Ca.,
the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant (NUMMI) produced its
last Toyota Corolla after 25 years of operations building cars the
Toyota Way.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 1, Massachusetts
regulators issued their first batch of health care price controls,
rejecting the vast majority of small business health premium
increases sought this year by the state's major insurers. Insurers
said caps on their charges are justified only if there are similar
caps on the costs that health care providers, such as doctors and
hospital networks, charge them. That is the subject of pending
legislation.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, A US federal judge
struck down a Wisconsin law that prohibits transgender inmates from
receiving taxpayer funded hormone therapy to alter their appearance.
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A7)
2010 Apr 1, John Forsythe
(b.1918), TV and movie actor, died at his home in Santa Ynez, Ca.
His films included “The Trouble with Harry” (1955) and “Topaz”
(1969). His TV roles included “Bachelor Father” (1957-1962),
“Charlie’s Angels (1976-1981), and “Dynasty” (1981-1989).
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.C2)
2010 Apr 1, Dr. Henry Edward
Roberts (b.1941), American engineer and medical doctor, died in
Georgia. In 1975 he developed and introduced the MITS Altair 8800.
His Micro Instrumentation & Telemetry Systems of Albuquerque,
N.M., sold the build-it-yourself kit by mail-order and Bill Gates
and Paul Allen developed the first software program for it.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_%28computers%29)(SFC,
4/2/10, p.C7)
2010 Apr 1, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai accused foreign powers of orchestrating enormous fraud
in elections that returned him to power last year. Kosuke Tsuneoka,
a Japanese freelance journalist and veteran of war zones, went
missing after traveling to a Taliban controlled area in the north.
Tsuneoka was released on Sep 4 in good health and was at the
Japanese Embassy in Kabul.
(AFP, 4/2/10)(AP, 9/5/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Brazil Pedro
Alcantara de Souza, who headed a union of landless farmers in Para,
was shot in the head five times by two men on motorcycles on the
outskirts of Redencao.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, Britain said it
will create the world's largest marine reserve by banning fishing
around the Chagos Islands, a U.K.-owned archipelago in the Indian
Ocean. The cluster of 55 islands is spread across about a quarter of
a million square miles of ocean.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, Colombia's largest
rebel group, FARC, turned over the remains of police Maj. Julian
Guevara, who died while being held captive. This was the guerrillas'
latest gesture aimed at prodding the government into negotiating a
prisoner exchange. Guevara was captured by the FARC in November 1998
and he died in January 2006 while still a prisoner.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Cuba some small
state-run barber shops and beauty salons were turned over to
employees on a trial basis, a significant step toward loosening
strict controls on the state-run retail sector.
(SFC, 4/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 1, An explosion near
Dagestan's border with Chechnya killed two suspected militants.
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 1, Former Greek PM
Tzannis Tzannetakis (b.1927) died. He led a short-lived coalition
government in 1989 while the country was rocked by corruption
scandals and political turmoil. His former career in the Greek navy
ended abruptly when he resigned from the military in opposition to a
1967-74 dictatorship led by a group of ultra-right army colonels. He
was jailed and sent into exile. Tzannetakis began a 30-year career
in politics after the military regime collapsed.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Guinea-Bissau
renegade soldiers seized the head of the armed forces and briefly
detained PM Carlos Gomes Jr. in an apparent coup attempt in the
tiny, coup-plagued African nation where the president was
assassinated last year. Hours later, the mutinous soldiers released
the prime minister, but the head of the armed forces Zamora Induta
remained under guard at a military base while Antonio Ndjai, his No.
2, appeared to be in control.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, India began a
yearlong census of its billion-plus population in which it plans to
photograph and fingerprint every citizen over the age of 15 to
create a national database and then issue its first national
identity cards.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, An Israeli military
judge ordered the release of 10 Palestinians, including a senior
Fatah official, detained at a March 27 protest march through a West
Bank checkpoint.
(AFP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, Kenya's parliament
unanimously passed a draft constitution that is one of several key
reforms experts say are needed to avoid a repeat of political
violence that shook the country after the disputed 2007 election.
This set the stage for Kenya to go to a referendum on the draft
charter within 90 days, marking the final steps in a decades-long
process to rewrite the constitution.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, The International
Criminal Court announced that it will investigate members of Kenya's
two ruling parties on charges that they instigated violence that
killed more than 1,000 people after the disputed 2007 presidential
election.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, Nigerian
authorities charged 20 people over their roles in sectarian clashes
that killed hundreds in central Plateau state last month, and some
could face the death penalty.
(Reuters, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, A North Korea a
senior economist said private markets closed temporarily due to a
delay in setting prices after a currency redenomination, but the
economy has stabilized and markets reopened.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, Pakistani troops
stormed militant positions and helicopters destroyed vehicles
carrying insurgents near the Afghan border, killing 28 suspected
militants and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, In northeastern
Peru a mudslide killed five people in the town of Cancejos.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 1, Suspected Somali
pirates fired on a US Navy warship off East Africa in what appeared
to be a ransom-seeking attack on an American guided missile frigate.
The USS Nicholas returned fire on the pirate skiff, sinking it and
confiscating a nearby mothership. The Navy took five pirates into
custody.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Thailand 6
people were shot dead by suspected militants and 10 police officers
were wounded by a roadside bomb in the latest attacks in Thailand's
restive south.
(AFP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Uganda a
presidential adviser said more than 5,000 people whose lips and ears
were cut off by rebels waging a more than 20-year insurgency in
northern Uganda will receive compensation from the government.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 1, In Yemen about 40
southern separatists reportedly escaped from a prison after a guard
lobbed a hand grenade to disperse an inmates' protest at the
facility in Daleh. Yemen's interior ministry denied the police
report. Police shot dead one protester and wounded five others in
Radfan as they opened fire to disperse a demonstration led by
southern separatists.
(AP, 4/1/10)(AFP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 2, The US economy
posted its largest job gain in three years in March, while the
unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent for the third straight
month.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, A federal grand
jury in San Francisco indicted Michael Anthony Nelson (38) of
Orlando, Florida, on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, computer
fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly hijacking a New
York attorney’s good name. In 1999 Nelson had stolen over $700,000
in loans by creating a fake bank and served 5 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 2, In Minnesota a fire
swept through a 2-story building that housed several apartments and
an Irish pub killing 6 people including 3 children in Minneapolis.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 2, In Washington state
an explosion at a Tesoro Corp. refinery killed 4 people in
Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 2, In northern
Afghanistan 3 German soldiers were killed in heavy fighting and five
were severely wounded southwest of Kunduz city. German soldiers
traveling to the scene of the deadly firefight with Taliban
insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 2, Cambodia bristled
at a US decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the
December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if
they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In northeastern
Central African Republic troops killed 10 rebels in a clash in the
region of Ndele. Teachers there were protesting the murder of a
pregnant teacher killed on March 30 by members of the Convention of
Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), which was behind the attack
on the march. The Association of Residents of Upper Mbomou
(Assoredehmbo), grouping people in three eastern CAR districts, said
that the number of local people kidnapped by the LRA was more than
400, while the number killed in rebel attacks was more than 200
since February 2008. In an open letter to PM Faustin-Archange
Touadera the group recommended the forming of self-defense militias
and urged the government to set up an army base.
(AFP, 4/2/10)(AFP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Egypt former UN
nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei issued a public call for
change in defiance of an emergency law banning gatherings critical
of the authorities.
(Reuters, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, Iran's top nuclear
envoy called for negotiations without threat of sanctions, following
meetings in Beijing in the wake of US reports saying China had
dropped its opposition to possible new UN measures against Iran.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Iraq Ammar
al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, offered
support for Ayad Allawi, a secular candidate for prime minister in
Iraq, a major blow to the incumbent Nouri al-Maliki. Gunmen trying
to pass themselves off as US and Iraqi soldiers raided a Sunni
village outside Baghdad and killed at least 24 people in an
execution-style attack.
(AP, 4/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/yb6qm8d)
2010 Apr 2, It was reported
that researchers, at Israeli weapons maker Rafael, were putting the
final touches on a tank-mounted miniature anti-missile system,
Trophy, that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down
before they reach tanks equipped with the system.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In southern
Kazakhstan a Russian rocket carrying 2 Russian and one American
astronauts blasted off, kicking off a tightly packed schedule at the
International Space Station in the coming days.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Mexico 5 gunmen
died in a shootout with soldiers in the northern border city of
Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. A shootout between rival gangs at a
nightclub in Tampico left seven people dead. At least 15 people were
killed throughout Tamaulipas. In the border city of Tijuana police
found the bodies of 3 men who had been shot to death in a
residential area. 13 inmates escaped when armed men stormed a prison
in the northern border city of Reynosa. A shootout in Nuevo Laredo
between soldiers and suspected drug cartel gunmen killed two
children and wounded five of their relatives who were caught in the
crossfire. Two suspected gunmen were also killed.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/3/10)(AP, 4/4/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 2, Pakistan submitted
to parliament a sweeping package of landmark constitutional reforms,
stripping Pres. Asif Ali Zardari of key powers in a move to bolster
parliamentary democracy. Pakistan's attorney general resigned,
accusing the government of preventing him from carrying out Supreme
Court orders to reopen old graft investigations into Pres. Zardari.
(AFP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In northeastern
Peru landslides caused by heavy rains hit Porvenir, killing at least
23 people and leaving 25 others missing. At least 54 people were
injured.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In the Philippines
at least 23 devotees were nailed to crosses in San Fernando city to
mark Good Friday.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 2, The Russian
Kommersant newspaper reported that Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova (17) of
Dagestan, a widow of a slain Islamist rebel, was one of the two
female suicide bombers who attacked Moscow's subway on March 31. Her
husband, Umalat Magomedov, was described as an Islamist militant
leader killed by government forces in December. The paper said the
2nd subway bomber has been has been tentatively identified as Markha
Ustarkhanova (20) from Chechnya, the widow of a militant
leader killed last October while he was preparing to assassinate
Chechen Pres. Ramzan Kadyrov. The 2nd female was later identified as
Maryam Sharipova (28), a teacher from Dagestan.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 2, Russia’s PM
Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Venezuela. Pres. Chavez,
ahead of the visit, said Russia has offered to help Venezuela set up
its own space industry, including a satellite launch site. Officials
planned to sign new agreements for energy projects in Venezuela, as
well as industrial, commercial and agriculture projects. Putin also
planned to hold talks with Bolivian President Evo Morales.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed Turkmenistan to improve its
human rights record, opening a trip through ex-Soviet Central Asia
where complaints of violations are extensive.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Yemen Elham Assi
(13) bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days
after she was married to a 23-year-old man, in the deeply poor
village of Shueba. She was tied down and forced to have sex by her
husband, according to later interviews with the child's mother,
police and medical reports. A February 2009 law set the minimum age
for marriage at 17, but it was repealed and sent back to
parliament's constitutional committee for review after some
lawmakers called it un-Islamic. The committee is expected to make a
final decision on the legislation this month.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Portland, Maine,
about two dozen women drew a crowd of onlookers when they shed their
shirts and marched downtown to promote what they call
equal-opportunity public toplessness.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 3, Apple Inc. began
selling its much-anticipated iPad, drawing eager customers intent on
being among the first owners of a tablet-style device that the
company is hoping to convince more people they actually need. Some
300,000 iPads were sold the first day.
(AP, 4/3/10)(SFC, 4/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Apr 3, In Los Angeles
Nerse Arthur Galstyan (28), an Armenian national killed, 4 people in
a restaurant following a dispute and escaped the scene.
(SFC, 4/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 3, The upper house of
Afghanistan's parliament backed a decree by President Hamid Karzai
that limits foreigners' role in elections, giving him a victory in a
dispute that has led to a quarrel with the White House.
(Reuters, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, Australia’s PM
Kevin Rudd announced the country’s first population minister, citing
concerns about sustainability as the number of people is tipped to
balloon within decades.
(AFP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, The 230-meter
(754-ft) Shen Neng I, a bulk coal carrier, was on its way to China
when it ran aground on a shoal off offshore from the Australian city
of Rockhampton. Australian government officials said the stranded
ship was leaking oil into the sea and is in danger of breaking up
and damaging the Great Barrier Reef. The ship was refloated on April
12.
(Reuters, 4/4/10)(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Dagestan 3
militants there opened fire on police in a drive-by shooting,
killing one and injuring another.
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Egypt police
arrested Ahmed Mahanna, owner of Dawin publishing, and confiscated
copies of "ElBaradei and the Dream of a Green Revolution," a book
calling for political change and lauding the former head of the UN
nuclear agency, Mohammed ElBaradei.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 3, Gunmen in Iraqi
military uniforms raided a village outside Baghdad and killed at
least 24 people in an execution-style attack, apparently targeting a
Sunni group that revolted against al-Qaida and helped turn the tide
of the Iraq war.
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly criticized Kyrgyzstan for
human rights problems, a strong rebuke to the country once regarded
as former Soviet Central Asia's "island of democracy."
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Mexico 13
members of a family were traveling in a vehicle in an area where the
Defense Department said soldiers were pursing a convoy of gunmen in
the northern state of Tamaulipas. 2 boys were killed by soldiers.
The army later said the family got caught in crossfire during the
confrontation, in which five other members of the family were
wounded. In June Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said
soldiers apparently altered the crime scene to try to blame the
deaths on drug cartel gunmen.
(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 Apr 3, It was reported
that some 4.5 million animals in Mongolia had perished over the last
3 months. A dry summer in 2009 followed by low temperatures and a
heavy snow cover, a phenomenon called the zud, afflicted 19 of the
countries 21 provinces.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.44)
2010 Apr 3, In Nigeria at least
two people were killed when police fired live rounds to disperse a
group of protesting youths in a suburb of Lagos.
(AFP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 3, Pakistani troops
fought gunbattles and bombed militant hide-outs in a Taliban
stronghold near the Afghan border, leaving six soldiers and 30
militants dead.
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Somalia at least
13 people were killed in overnight fighting in Mogadishu. Hizbul
Islam's Moalim Hashi Mohamed Farah ordered radio stations to stop
broadcasting music and said he has invited foreign fighters to the
Horn of Africa nation.
(AP, 4/3/10)(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 3, In South Africa
Eugene Terreblanche (69), the leader of a white supremacist group,
was attacked and killed by a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy
who worked for him on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 110 km (68
miles) northwest of Johannesburg, following a dispute over pay. The
alleged attackers were arrested and charged with murder.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Thailand tens of
thousands of protesters swarmed Bangkok's tourist heartland, defying
a warning to leave or face arrest.
(AFP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 4, In Bolivia allies
of leftist President Evo Morales made modest advances in state and
local elections, according to independent exit polls.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 4, In northern Congo
some 100-150 Enyele rebels attacked Mbandaka, capital of Congo's
northern Equateur province. A UN peacekeeper from Ghana was fatally
shot while in a car. A UN civilian and a South African pilot died
during the fighting. At least 36 people, including policemen, an
army officer and militiamen, died in the clashes between the Enyele
and Munzale tribesmen reportedly over farming and fishing rights.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.51)
2010 Apr 4, In Dagestan 2
powerful explosions derailed a cargo train but no one was injured.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 4, A Dubai appeals
court upheld a one-month prison sentence for a British couple
convicted of kissing in a restaurant. They were arrested in November
and convicted of inappropriate behavior and illegal drinking. Ayman
Najafi and Charlotte Adams, both in their 20s, were arrested after
an Emirati woman claimed they exchanged a passionate kiss in a
restaurant where she and her daughter were having dinner.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 4, In France masked
men brandishing assault rifles burst into a crowded casino in Lyon,
fired shots at the ceiling and made off with about euro28,000
($37,800).
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 4, In Iraq suicide
attackers detonated three car bombs near embassies in Baghdad,
killing over 40 people and wounding more than 200 in back-to-back
attacks. Security forces shot and killed a man wearing a suicide
belt before he could detonate a fourth bomb-rigged car near the
former Germany Embassy, which is now a bank. An earlier blast,
believed to be caused by a bomb underneath a parked car killed one
civilian and injured nine others.
(AP, 4/4/10)(AFP, 4/7/10)(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 4, Israel allowed the
first commercial shipment of clothes and shoes into the Gaza Strip
since 2008 but said its policy towards the territory's Hamas rulers
had not changed.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 4, A 7.3 magnitude
earthquake centered just south of the US border near Mexicali killed
two people in Mexico and injured at least 100.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 4, Pakistani security
forces killed 38 militants in two separate operations in the Orakzai
tribal area near the Afghan border where the army recently launched
an offensive targeting the Pakistani Taliban.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 4, In the Philippines
Carl Rieth (72), a Filipino businessman of Swiss descent, was
kidnapped from his beach-front home on the southern Zamboanga
peninsula. On June 16 Philippine troops rescued Reith.
(AFP, 4/6/10)(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 Apr 4, The South Korean
Samho Dream oil supertanker was bound for the US with 24 crew
members when was hijacked off the coast of Somalia by Somali
pirates. On Nov 6 South a Korean news agency said the ship was freed
following a ransom payment.
(AFP, 4/4/10)(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Apr 4, A US-Russian space
team sent their Easter greetings down to Earth after their Soyuz
spacecraft docked flawlessly at the International Space Station. The
rotating calendars of the Christian West and the Christian East
agreed on the same date for Easter.
(AP, 4/4/10)(Econ, 4/3/10, p.85)
2010 Apr 4, In Uzbekistan UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the drying up of the Aral Sea
one of the planet's most shocking disasters and urged Central Asian
leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.
(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Apr 5, The Discovery space
shuttle launched with 7 astronauts, including 3 women, for a
rendezvous with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 5, In NYC 4 people
were shot and dozens of people were arrested in a mile-long stretch
of Manhattan near Times Square in mayhem following the city's annual
auto show.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In West Virginia a
huge underground explosion blamed on methane gas killed 25 coal
miners at Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine, about
30 miles south of Charleston. It was the worst US mining disaster
since 1984. Four missing miners were found dead on April 10. In 2009
the US Mine Safety and health Administration (MHSA) had cited the
mine 515 times, often for problems with its ventilation and escape
route plans.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/10/10)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.32)
2010 Apr 5, In Afghanistan NATO
forces killed 10 militants in a raid on a compound in Nangarhar
province's Khogyani district. Gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan
provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in Pul-e Khumri,
capital of northern Baghlan province. In Helmand province 4
insurgents and 4 civilians died in a NATO airstrike.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northern Congo
UN-backed government forces retook the Mbandaka provincial airport
from rebels. In eastern Congo 2 soldiers shot and killed national
radio journalist Patient Chebeya Bakome. Bakome's brother said the
soldiers shot Bakome in front of his wife and took his phone and
money. Beni police arrested the 2 soldiers.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Ethiopia a
British geologist (39) working on behalf of the state-run Malaysian
energy company Petronas was shot dead near Danot town.
(Reuters, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Iraq a Shiite
couple and four of their children were gunned down in their home
outside Baghdad.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mexico five men
were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car outside a shopping
mall in Mazatlan, in the northeastern state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mongolia over
5,000 protesters surged through the center of Ulan Bator demanding
that the government of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
and the Mongolian Democratic Party fulfill promises from the 2008
elections to crack down on graft and better distribute the country's
mining wealth.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Nigeria fresh
clashes erupted between groups of Christian and Muslim youths in the
central city of Jos, leaving one dead as security forces restored
order.
(AFP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Peru a 2nd day
of clashes between police and protesting miners left 6 miners dead
as the government tried to put restrictions on unregulated gold
mining in the southern jingle region of Madre de Dios.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 5, PM Vladimir Putin
said Russia may sell $5 billion worth of weapons to Venezuela
following his visit to the South American nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In northwest
Pakistan Islamist militants attacked a US consulate in Peshawar with
car bombs and grenades, killing 8 people. 4 militants were killed
during the attack. Hours earlier 45 people died in a suicide attack
on a political rally in the town of Timergarah in Lower Dir.
(AP, 4/5/10)(AFP, 4/5/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Russia’s
Ingushetia region a suicide bomber killed two policemen.
(Reuters, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Thailand
thousands of defiant anti-government demonstrators fanned out to
other parts of Thailand's capital and threatened businesses with
ties to the government after ignoring police orders to leave
Bangkok's paralyzed commercial district.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, Turkish police
detained 19 officers, including four generals, as part of an
investigation into an alleged plot by elements of the fiercely
secular military seeking to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Uzbekistan to fulfill its
international human rights commitments and take further steps toward
improving the repressive political climate in the Central Asian
nation.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 6, Louisiana
authorities said a pipeline has spilled some 18,000 gallons of crude
oil into a canal in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge about 60
miles southeast of New Orleans.
(SFC, 4/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 6, Virginia Gov. Bob
McDonnell proclaimed April to be Confederate History Month with no
mention of slavery. The next day he conceded that this was a major
omission and amended the document to acknowledge the state’s
complicated past.
(SFC, 4/8/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 6, Wilma Mankiller
(64), the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation, died.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.84)
2010 Apr 6, In western
Afghanistan 27 insurgents were killed in ground fighting and
airstrikes in Badghis province, in what appeared to be a major blow
to Taliban influence in the region.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Australia announced
its fifth rate hike since October and said borrowing costs would
continue to rise as growth and inflation return to normal after the
global crisis.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, In Brazil 14
straight hours of rain swamped Rio de Janeiro and killed at least
eight people in the city. 3 more died in Rio de Janeiro state. 5
were also are missing in a mudslide. The death toll eventually
reached 246.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/9/10)(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 6, PM Gordon Brown
announced that Britain will hold a national election on May 6. The
bitterly contested race will be dominated by a recession-wracked
economy and a sense that 13 years of Labour rule may be coming to an
end.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, The Canadian dollar
rose to one-for-one footing with the US currency, hitting its
strongest level since July 2008, boosted by rising commodity prices
and expectations for higher domestic interest rates.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, A group of Canadian
researchers released a report saying a cyber-espionage group based
in southwest China stole documents from the Indian Defense Ministry
and emails from the Dalai Lama's office.
(Reuters, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, China said it had
executed a Japanese man for drug smuggling, the first execution of a
Japanese citizen since the countries established relations in 1972.
Mitsunobu Akano (65) was convicted in 2008 of attempting to smuggle
2.5 kg (4.8 pounds) of drugs from China to Japan in 2006. He was
executed in Liaoning province.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, In central Colombia
Hector Jose Buitrago (71), a veteran paramilitary leader and reputed
founder of a bloody right-wing militia faction, was arrested after
more than a decade on the lam.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 6, In Ecuador 20
columnists and contributors to the state newspaper El Telegrafo said
they will no longer write for the paper because of alleged
censorship.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Egyptian police
beat and dragged off protesters to disperse a gathering of a few
dozen in downtown Cairo calling for constitutional reforms and
fairer presidential elections. The next day Egypt's prosecutor
general ordered the release of all the protesters arrested during
the demonstration.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 6, An African Union
conference on maritime security opened in Ethiopia. Somali Deputy PM
Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim Ibbi called for outside help to clear toxic
waste dumped illegally on his country's vast coastline, arguing that
the fight against dumping goes hand in hand with the fight against
piracy.
(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 6, Moody's Investor
Service downgraded Iceland's debt ratings outlook to negative from
stable over concerns about the tiny island nation's ability to tap
the foreign credit it needs to stay afloat.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, In eastern India
Maoist rebels launched a series of devastating attacks on government
forces patrolling the forests of Chattisgarh state, killing 76 armed
policemen in the deadliest strike against the state in the 43-year
insurgency.
(AP, 4/6/10)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.45)
2010 Apr 6, In Iraq at least
five bombs ripped through apartment buildings across Baghdad and
another struck a market, killing some 50 people and wounding more
than 160. Officials blamed al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents for the
violence.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AFP, 4/7/10)(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 6, Israel began
distributing millions of protection kits against biochemical
warfare, Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced, stressing
the campaign was not linked to any imminent threat.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, In Kyrgyzstan
hundreds of protesters angry over rising heat and power prices
seized a government building in Talas, took a governor hostage and
clashed with troops after trying to seize a regional governor.
(AP, 4/6/10)(Econ, 4/10/10, p.43)
2010 Apr 6, In Mexico suspected
cartel gunmen wounded two soldiers in an unprecedented grenade
attack on army housing in the Gulf coast city of Tampico. 7 prison
guards were reported arrested for alleged complicity in the April 2
jailbreak in Reynosa. In Guerrero state police found the bodies of
two men who were shot to death and had their hands and feet bound
with tape. The bodies of 12 murder victims, 8 of them partially
burned, were found outside the town of Xalisco, Nayarit state. In
Nuevo Leon state gunmen kidnapped Oliver Garcia, police chief of the
town of Los Aldamas, from his home and the two officers from police
headquarters.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 6, Nigeria's Acting
President Goodluck Jonathan installed his new cabinet, appointing
senior Goldman Sachs executive Olusegun Aganga as his new finance
minister. Jonathan also named former mines minister Deziani
Allison-Madueke and Godsday Orubebe as the new oil and Niger Delta
ministers. Police said that religious massacres have stopped, but
"secret" killings of Christians and Muslims continue on a smaller
scale across central Nigeria, claiming more than 30 lives this year.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Pakistani police
killed two suspected suicide bombers during a raid in the Mittani
area on the outskirts of Peshawar.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Russia's foreign
minister, Sergey Lavrov, said the new US-Russian arms control treaty
is a much better deal for Russia than its predecessor, but Moscow
reserves the right to withdraw from it if a planned US missile
defense system grows into a threat.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Somali pirates
aboard the Faize Osamani tried to attack the MV Rising Sun. A
hostage onboard the hijacked Indian cargo dhow drowned after the
ship was used to attack another vessel and navies intervened. A
warship from Oman arrived and 9 hostages jumped overboard to try to
swim away from the pirates. One drowned and the other 8 were
rescued. The US destroyer USS McFaul arrived on the scene after the
Omani forces and helped persuade the ten pirates to surrender, which
they did after throwing their weapons overboard.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 6, In Thailand tens of
thousands of red-shirted protesters took over sections of Bangkok,
pelting police with eggs and dancing in the streets as they pushed
through barricades to press the prime minister to call new
elections.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized as "unacceptable"
Uzbekistan's placing of land mines along parts of its border with
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that have not been delineated.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez said that eight Colombians have been arrested
as suspected spies and charged that several carried identification
indicating they are members of neighboring Colombia's military. He
said the suspects, who were detained more than a week ago, had
computers and satellite telephones and were using cameras to take
photographs of Venezuela's power plants.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, An Emeryville, Ca.,
drug analysis laboratory was raided as part of 3-year DEA
investigation dubbed “Operation Lude Behavior.” 3 men at the lab
were among 22 charged in a nationwide Quaalude trafficking ring.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.C5)
2010 Apr 7, Afghan and foreign
troops killed several insurgents during an operation to capture a
senior Taliban commander suspected of providing materials used in
making roadside bombs. 2 insurgents were captured during the
operation in Helmand province's Kajaki Sofla.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 7, Bangladesh deployed
the army to guard water pumps in the capital Dhaka after acute
shortages triggered widespread protests.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Brazil rains
kept pummeling Rio de Janeiro as officials scrambled to restore
transit after at least 96 people were killed by landslides and
floods.
(Reuters, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, China and India
signed an agreement to set up a hot line linking their top leaders.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, Innovation for the
Development and Protection of the Environment (IDPE) said that from
March 3-28 Congo government troops killed 7 hippos and 5 elephants
as well as five antelopes, four baboons, three chimpanzees and two
buffalo in Virunga national Park, a UNESCO world heritage. The
soldiers "use their wives and cousins to sell the meat" in villages
near the park, the IDPE said in a report that included photos of
decomposing elephant carcasses.
(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 7, Auto giants
Renault, Nissan and Daimler launched a partnership to save billions
of euros and accelerate sales of low-pollution electric cars.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Indonesia a
magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Indonesia's northwest island of
Sumatra, triggering a small tsunami, snapping power lines and
sending panicked residents rushing for higher ground.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Iraq spokesman
Salah al-Obeidi announced that a survey of supporters of
anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr voted 24% for him to support
Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was interim prime minister
from 2005 to 2006. Iraq's incumbent PM Nouri al-Maliki and his chief
rival Ayad Allawi received only 10% and 9% of votes respectively. In
northern Iraq 2 American soldiers died in combat while conducting a
patrol.
(AP, 4/7/10)(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 7, Israel’s police
said 6 Israelis have been detained on suspicion of running an
international organ trafficking ring and breaking promises to donors
to pay for their removed kidneys.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Kyrgyzstan
anti-government unrest rocked Bishkek as thousands of protesters
stormed the main government building, set fire to the prosecutor's
office and looted state TV headquarters. At least 83 people were
killed and some 1500 injured in clashes nationwide.
(AP, 4/7/10)(AP, 4/8/10)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.46)
2010 Apr 7, In Mexico police in
the border state of Nuevo Leon found the bodies of a police chief
and two police officers who had been kidnapped a day earlier. In the
central state of Morelos, gunmen attacked the offices of federal
prosecutors in the city of Cuernavaca, killing a guard. A bystander
was killed during a shootout between gunmen and federal police in
the town of Frontera Comalapa, Chiapas state, on the Guatemalan
border.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 7, In northwestern
Pakistan militants attached a bomb to a tanker carrying fuel to NATO
forces in Afghanistan, destroying the vehicle and killing a boy who
was riding in a van behind it.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, Somali pirates off
the coast of Kenya hijacked the MV Yasin C, a Turkish vessel with 25
crew onboard, the day after a hostage drowned during a separate
encounter between naval forces and a pirated vessel. The crew locked
themselves in the engine room and realized that the pirates had left
the ship on April 9.
(AP, 4/7/10)(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 7, South Africa's
governing party said it has asked all its wings to stop singing
controversial songs including one with lyrics that encourage people
to shoot white farmers which some blame for the slaying of a white
supremacist leader.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Spain Baltasar
Garzon (54), the judge who became an international hero by going
after Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden, was indicted for having
dared to investigate what is arguably Spain's own biggest unresolved
case: atrocities committed during and after its ruinous Civil War.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Switzerland the
Solar Impulse aircraft, a pioneering Swiss bid to fly around the
world on solar energy, successfully completed its first test flight.
(AFP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 7, Thai PM Abhisit
Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, handing the army
broad powers to restore order after anti-government protesters broke
into Parliament, forcing some lawmakers to flee by helicopter.
(AP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 8, The US EPA sent a
notice of violation to the Chemical Waste Management, the largest
hazardous waste facility in the West, involving federal laws on the
disposal of PCBs. Neighbors blamed the landfill near Kettleman City,
Ca., for at least 11 birth defects since 2007.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.C10)
2010 Apr 8, A federal judge in
New Orleans awarded seven Virginia families $2.6 million in damages
to pay for the removal of sulfur-emitting drywall made in China that
has been linked to corrosion and possible health effects. The
decision could affect thousands of other US homeowners whose homes
were made with the defective wallboard.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, The North Dakota
Supreme Court ruled that the Board of Higher Education had the
authority to dump the Univ. of North Dakota “Fighting Sioux”
nickname.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 8, An asteroid, called
2010 GA6, flew within the orbit of the moon as it passed Earth at
7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT). The relatively small space rock, about 71
feet (22m) wide was discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky
Survey in Tucson, Az.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd4dy5z)
2010 Apr 8, Afghan police
thwarted a major attack in Kabul, arresting five would-be suicide
bombers, the largest such group apprehended in the capital. In
Helmand province a local Taliban commander killed a Marjah tribal
leader, his nephew and three others. In eastern Afghanistan one
international service member died in combat with insurgents. A US
Air Force Osprey aircraft crashed in southeastern Zabul province,
killing 3 service members and one government contractor. It was the
first combat crash of the tilt-rotor aircraft, each valued at nearly
$70 million.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AP, 4/9/10)(SFC, 4/10/10, p.A3)
2010 Apr 8, The inaugural 3-day
conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) opened
at King’s College, Cambridge, England. The institute was sponsored
by renowned investor George Soros.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.86)
2010 Apr 8, In Brazil
authorities said at least 200 people were buried and feared dead
under the latest landslide in the Morro Bumba slum in Niteroi,
neighboring Rio de Janeiro. 205 people were already known to have
died this week in slides triggered by the record rains.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 8, Canada’s annual
seal hunt began with this year’s quota raised by 50,000 to 330,000
due to a rising seal herd population estimated at 6.9 million.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 8, In Prague President
Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the
biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation and envisioned a day when
they can compromise on the divisive issue of missile defense. Obama
and Medvedev warned Iran of possible sanctions over its nuclear
program shortly after signing the disarmament deal.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Denmark scores
of Carlsberg brewery workers walked off the job after the company
tightened rules on workplace drinking. A new policy only allowed
them to drink beer during lunch in the canteen.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 8, The European Space
Agency launched CryoSat 2 on a Russian rocket from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The satellite was designed to measure the
effects of climate change on the Earth’s polar ice caps.
(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 8, Greece's borrowing
costs spiked higher for a third day, intensifying the country's debt
crisis and suggesting a eurozone rescue plan is providing little
support for Athens' struggle to avoid default.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Greece and Turkey
agreed to strengthen contacts between their militaries to reduce the
chance of conflict between two countries that almost went to war in
the mid-1990s.
(Reuters, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Israel lifted
months of censorship on a military espionage case, confirming the
house arrest of Anat Kamm (23), a former female soldier, charged
with leaking more than 2,000 military documents to a newspaper. She
had been arrested in Dec 2009. PM Netanyahu abruptly called off a
trip to Washington just days before he was slated to attend a
conference there on the spread of nuclear weapons, fearing Israel
would be singled out over its own nuclear program. On Oct 30, 2011,
Kamm was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AP, 4/9/10)(AP, 10/30/11)
2010 Apr 8, Kyrgyzstan
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev told a Russian radio station he is not
admitting defeat despite a bloody uprising and the formation of an
interim government. Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva, a former
foreign minister, said earlier parliament was dissolved and she
would head an interim government that would rule for six months
until elections were held. Otunbayeva replaced PM Daniyar Usenov
following his resignation. The country's new defense chief said that
the nation's 5 million people now have nothing to fear from the
security forces.
(AP, 4/8/10)(SFC, 4/9/10, p.A2)(Econ, 4/10/10,
p.43)
2010 Apr 8, In Lebanon heavy
clashes erupted in a Palestinian military camp in a remote eastern
part of the country as a result of infighting among Palestinian
factions. The camp is run by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Mexico police
detained Bruce Beresford-Redman (38), the producer of "Pimp My Ride"
and formerly of "Survivor," as a suspect after finding the body of
Monica Beresford-Redman in a sewer at Cancun's Moon Palace resort,
where the family was on vacation. Authorities determined she died
the night of April 5. At least 80 gunmen terrorized the town of
Maycoba in Sonora state for several hours and killed four people.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 8, North Korea said it
had scrapped a tourism deal with South Korea and would "freeze" some
assets owned by Seoul at a mountain resort in the communist state.
(AFP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Pakistan's National
Assembly unanimously passed a set of constitutional reforms, curbing
the powers of President Asif Ali Zardari and transferring them to
the prime minister and parliament.
(Reuters, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, The Philippine
Supreme Court overturned a decision barring a gay rights group from
contesting national elections in May and recognized it as a
legitimate political party for the first time.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, The World Bank
approved a $3.75 billion loan to help South Africa build a
coal-fired power plant over opposition from the United States and
environmental groups. The USD 3.75 billion loan to Eskom Holdings
Limited, which has proved highly controversial, will help Eskom
bring online new power generation capabilities designed to help
South Africa meet growing power demand and avoid power blackouts
similar to those that occurred in 2008.
(AP, 4/9/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ceah45)(Econ,
4/17/10, p.53)
2010 Apr 8, Sri Lankans voted
in parliamentary elections. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling
coalition won the first postwar parliamentary elections further
consolidating his political dominance after the battlefield defeat
of the Tamil Tigers last year.
(AP, 4/8/10)(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 8, Thailand's
beleaguered government shut down a satellite television station and
Web sites of anti-government demonstrators after declaring a state
of emergency, while the activists vowed to retaliate by escalating
their nearly monthlong protests.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, Uruguay's La
Republica newspaper reported that a Catholic priest who fled home to
Uruguay and was defrocked after a nun accused him of raping three
children in Bolivia has been living with his family for more than a
year, with the full knowledge of Uruguayan church officials, despite
an Interpol warrant for his arrest. Juan Jose Santana has been a
fugitive from justice since being charged in May 2008 with raping
three children ages 12 to 17.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Zimbabwe retired
bishop Abel Muzorewa (85) died. He was the first black leader of the
former Rhodesia and later became an opponent of Zimbabwe's Pres.
Mugabe.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 9, US Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens said he will step down when the court
finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, Meinhardt Raabe
(94), who played the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz" (1938)
and proclaimed in the movie that the Wicked Witch of the East was
"really most sincerely dead," died in Florida. He was about 3 1/2
feet tall when the movie was made but eventually grew to about 4 1/2
feet. He toured the country for 30 years in the Oscar Mayer
Weinermobile, promoting hot dogs as "Little Oscar, the World's
Smallest Chef."
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb struck a small bus in the Kushki Kuhna district of the
western province of Herat, killing three civilians and wounding
five. An international patrol discovered 2,500 pounds (1,130 kg) of
marijuana seeds in a vacant residential compound in Helmand's Reg
district. NATO said the seeds would be destroyed as part of efforts
to cut funding for insurgents from the drug trade.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, Australia suspended
refugee applications from Afghans for 6 months and 3 months for Sri
Lankans, citing improved conditions in those countries. Human rights
advocates expressed concern about the move and an immigrant group
condemned it.
(AP, 4/9/10)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.47)
2010 Apr 9, Antanas Mockus,
Colombian presidential candidate and popular former mayor of Bogota,
revealed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Mockus
said he is in the earlier stages of the degenerative disease and it
would not affect his ability to be president.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Congo 7
Congolese and one Swiss national, staff members of the Red Cross,
were seized near the town of Fizi in South Kivu province by the Mai
Mai Yakutumba rebels. The workers were released on april 16.
(AP, 4/13/10)(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Ethiopia
Communications Minister Bereket Simon announced that leaders of the
United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF), a rebel group in the
southeastern Somali region, has agreed to lay down arms after
decades of guerrilla war.
(AFP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Germany
delegates from 175 countries began a 3-day meeting in Bonn on a new
global warming agreement.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, France and Italy
agreed to cooperate more closely to increase nuclear power
generation and vowed to come to the aid of debt-laden Greece in
order to defend the euro.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Ingushetia a
female suicide bomber killed herself after shooting dead a
policeman in Ekazhevo. 3 other militants were killed in
Ekazhevo in gunfights with police.
(Reuters, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, Iran unveiled a
third generation of domestically built centrifuges as the country
pushes ahead with plans to accelerate a uranium enrichment program
that has alarmed world powers fearful of the nuclear program's aims.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, In central Mexico
police found the bodies of two men hanging from a bridge in the city
of Cuernavaca, Morelos state, along with a message claiming that
federal authorities are protecting an alleged drug kingpin. A late
night attacker threw an explosive device over the wall around the US
consulate in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, breaking windows and
startling employees inside but causing no injuries.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 9, In the Netherlands
the Political Reformed Party, known by its Dutch acronym SGP, a
fundamentalist Christian political party led entirely by men, was
told by the Netherlands' Supreme Court that it must accept women in
leadership roles.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, Nigerian gunmen
kidnapped three Syrian expatriates and one Lebanese worker near the
oil hub Port Harcourt. A police officer attached to the construction
firm was killed when gunmen launched the attack. The 4 kidnapped men
were released on April 12.
(AP, 4/9/10)(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 9, Pakistani security
forces killed 29 militants in two troubled tribal regions near
Afghanistan, as troops pressed on with operations aimed at flushing
out insurgents who have threatened the state.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, In Somalia
witnesses said Islamists were seizing radio transmitters that let
the local population hear news programs from the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Al-Shabab said the BBC broadcasts
anti-Islamic propaganda.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, Thai
anti-government protesters stormed into a telecom company compound
where authorities had shut down their vital TV channel, as soldiers
and riot police failed to hold them back with tear gas and water
cannons.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 10, A US warship
captured six suspected pirates after a battle off the Horn of
Africa, the Navy's third direct encounter with seafaring bandits in
less than two weeks. On Aug 17 a federal judge in Richmond, Va.,
threw out piracy charges against the 6 Somali men, saying the
government had not shown that the men violated US piracy law. On Nov
29 Jama Idle Ibrahim, a Somali citizen, was sentenced to 30 years in
prison for his role in the attack.
(AP, 4/10/10)(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)(SFC, 11/30/10,
p.A9)
2010 Apr 10, Dixie Carter
(b.1939), "Designing Women" (1986-1993) star, died. Her Southern
charm and natural beauty had won her a host of television roles. She
appeared in TV soap operas in the 1970s, but did not become a
national star until her recurring roles on "Diff'rent Strokes" and
another series, "Filthy Rich," in the 1980s. She married actor Hal
Holbrook in 1984. The two had met four years earlier while making
the TV movie "The Killing of Randy Webster," and although attracted
to one another, each had suffered two failed marriages and were wary
at first.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 10, Afghan officials
said 2 Italian doctors are among nine people detained in an alleged
plot to kill Helmand's provincial governor. On April 18 Afghan
authorities released three Italian medical workers who had been
detained for a week, clearing them of allegations they were part of
a Taliban plot to kill a provincial governor.
(AP, 4/10/10)(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 10, Bolivian delegate
Pablo Solon confirmed that the US reduced aid after Bolivia opposed
the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord brokered at the UN climate
summit last December in the Danish capital. The Washington Post
reported on April 9 that the US is cutting $3 million to Bolivia and
$2.5 million to Ecuador from its Global Climate Change initiative.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 10, The border between
Chad and Sudan reopened seven years after the Darfur conflict forced
its closure, in another sign of improved relations between the
former foes.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 10, French explorer
Jean-Louis Etienne (63) made the first Arctic crossing by balloon,
landing in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off
in Norway.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 10, Greek police
arrested six people suspected of being members of Revolutionary
Struggle, a terrorist group accused of a rocket strike against the
US Embassy and the shooting of a riot policeman.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 10, In western Iran
assailants blasted open a prison wall with rocket propelled
grenades, allowing 2 convicted murderers to escape from the central
prison in the city of Ilam. 5 people convicted of drug trafficking
were hanged at a prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(Reuters, 4/10/10)(AFP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 10, In Iraq five
people including a child were killed in a pair of attacks near the
northern city of Mosul. A second roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi
army patrol south of Mosul went off around noon, killing a soldier
and a child.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 10, Kuwait deported
back to Egypt at least 21 supporters of leading pro-reform Egyptian
activist and former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, a
day after arresting them. Some 20 more Egyptians were still being
detained in Kuwait.
(AFP, 4/10/10)(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 10, In Mexico the body
of Enrique Villicana Palomares, a columnist for the daily newspaper
The Voice of Michoacan, was found in Morelia with his throat slit.
He had been reported missing last week after he didn't make it to a
university where he taught writing.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 10, Pakistani
airstrikes killed nearly 100 suspected militants in two northwest
tribal regions, an apparent intensification of efforts by the army
to mop up Taliban fighters fleeing a military operation farther
south. Up to 71 civilians were killed in the strike by Pakistani
jets near the Afghan border. Military officials initially said 42
militants were killed in a gunfight and two air strikes in the Tirah
valley, but tribesmen later said up to 61 civilians were killed. A
security official estimated that 15 civilians died.
(AP, 4/10/10)(AP, 4/13/10)(AP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 10, Polish President
Lech Kaczynski (60) and some of the country's highest military and
civilian leaders died when the presidential plane crashed as it came
in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 96. The
26-year-old Tupolev was taking the president, his wife and staff to
events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Katyn forest
of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police. On board
were the army chief of staff, the navy chief commander, and heads of
the air and land forces. Also killed were the national bank
president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the
National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic
Committee head, civil rights commissioner and at least two
presidential aides and three lawmakers.
(AP, 4/10/10)(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 10, Thai soldiers and
police fought pitched battles with anti-government demonstrators in
streets enveloped in tear gas, but troops later retreated and asked
protesters to do the same. At least 23 people were killed, including
a Japanese journalist, and more than 500 wounded, according to
hospital officials. Hiro Muramoto (43), a Japanese TV cameraman who
worked for Reuters for more than 15 years, was among those killed in
the bloody clash.
(AP, 4/10/10)(AP, 4/11/10)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.16)
2010 Apr 10, In Togo more than
6,000 opposition demonstrators took to the streets in the West
African nation to protest the March presidential election results.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Texas more than
20,000 people gathered at tailgate parties and other spots to watch
fireworks go off one last time over Texas Stadium before a ton of
dynamite lit up the Dallas Cowboys' longtime home and brought it to
the ground. The Cowboys played 38 seasons in Texas Stadium, winning
five Super Bowls during that time.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai urged Taliban insurgents to lay down their arms and air
their grievances while visiting a violent northern province, adding
that foreign forces would not leave the country as long as fighting
continued.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Honduras a
shootout between rival street gangs battling for control of the drug
trade killed nine people overnight on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 11, Hungarians voted
in a general election that looked likely to bring the right-wing
Fidesz party back to power, while giving the far-right Jobbik its
first ticket into parliament. The National Election Office said the
party led by former PM Viktor Orban got 52.8 percent of the votes in
the first round, followed by the governing Socialist Party
with 19.3 percent. Jobbik, a far-right party with anti-Gypsy and
extreme nationalist agenda got 16.7 percent, over three times as
much as any other far-right party since the country's return to
democracy from communism in 1990.
(AFP, 4/11/10)(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, In India’s Manipur
state Naga tribes people began a blockade to the rest of India to
protest Manipur’s announcement of local elections in Naga-inhabited
areas in June.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.46)
2010 Apr 11, In Indonesia
police arrested 6 terror suspects including Abu Musa (35), a suspect
in the 2004 attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and Yusuf
Arifin (25), who is said to have received militant training in the
southern Philippines. The other four were wanted in connection with
a failed plot to assassinate Indonesia's president last year.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Iran Sharq, a
prominent pro-reform daily, reappeared on newsstands after a
three-year ban. Sharq was closed by the Press Supervisory Board, run
by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, in 2007 for publishing
an interview with a "counter-revolutionary" poet abroad.
(Reuters, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, Iraqi PM Nouri
al-Maliki's political party said its investigation into the March 7
parliamentary election has thrown into question some 750,000 votes,
enough to change the results of the nationwide poll.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, Israel's military
issued new orders that human rights groups warned could lead to the
expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank.
The orders have been posted on the Web site of the military
prosecutor and are to go into effect April 13.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Nigeria
suspected Muslim ethnic Fulani attackers burned homes in a Christian
village near the city of Jos, which has been at the centre of
tit-for-tat attacks this year which have left hundreds dead.
(AFP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 11, North Korea
informed South Korea that it will begin quitting a joint tourism
project in the communist country this week, in another setback to
relations between the countries.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Pakistan
fighter jets pounded militant hide-outs in the northwest, killing 10
suspected insurgents as part of a military operation that has
eliminated more than 300 fighters in the last three weeks.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 11, Somali pirates
hijacked the St. Vincent and Grenadines-flagged Rak Afrikana cargo
ship west of the island nation of the Seychelles. The ship and 25
crew members were released on March 9, 2011.
(AP, 4/11/10)(AP, 3/10/11)
2010 Apr 11, The Sudanese
people began voting in a 3-day election that will decide whether
President Omar al-Bashir wins another term despite his indictment on
charges he committed international war crimes in Darfur. Voters were
left with few alternatives after al-Bashir's main challengers
boycotted the race, claiming it was not fair. In addition to the
president, the country was also electing a national parliament,
local governors and parliaments and president of the semiautonomous
government of South Sudan. 4 peacekeepers with the joint UN-African
Union force (UNAMID) in the western Sudanese region of Darfur went
missing. The 4 peacekeepers were released on April 26.
(AP, 4/11/10)(AFP, 4/12/10)(AFP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 11, In Thailand
anti-government protesters dug into their encampments around Bangkok
and rejected talk of negotiations after a monthlong standoff
escalated into clashes that have left 21 people dead in the
country’s worst political violence in nearly two decades.
(AP, 4/11/10)
2010 Apr 12, President Barack
Obama and presidents, prime ministers and other top officials from
47 countries started work on a battle plan to keep nuclear weapons
out of terrorist hands. Egypt called for world powers to press both
Iran and Israel on nuclear weapons, saying that the Middle East
should be a zone free of the ultra-destructive arms. China said
sanctions were not the answer to the Iranian atomic standoff. Iran's
envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog spurned the US nuclear summit,
saying any decision taken at the conference is not binding on
nations absent from the event.
(AP, 4/12/10)(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, The United States
and Brazil signed an agreement meant to bolster military ties, but
Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim did not offer any hint about
a key defense contract sought by U.S.-based Boeing Co.
(Reuters, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, Winners of the
Pulitzer Prize were announced. Liaquat Ahamed won the history
category for his book “Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the
World” (2009).
(SFC, 4/13/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 12, In Afghanistan
international troops opened fire on a bus carrying Afghan civilians
in Kandahar province, killing four people, setting off anti-American
protests in a key southern city where coalition forces hoped to
rally the public for a coming offensive against the Taliban. In
Kandahar city, 3 suicide bombers attacked an Afghan intelligence
services compound, but security forces repelled them. Roadside bombs
killed four policemen and two Afghan soldiers in Faryab province's
Ghormach district. 3 women died when mortars fired by suspected
insurgents hit their homes in Kapisa province. 2 people were wounded
when their tractor ran over a mine in the far southwestern province
of Nimroz.
(AP, 4/12/10)(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Argentina Luis
Caicedo Velandia was arrested as he walked near a Buenos Aires
shopping mall and placed under extremely high security. the
suspected Colombian drug trafficker, who operated under the radar
for years in Argentina, was later described as a ringleader capable
of giving direct orders to Colombia's most-wanted cocaine kingpins
and with close ties to Mexico's feared Sinaloa cartel.
(AP, 6/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Brazil rancher
Vitalmiro Moura, accused of ordering the 2005 murder of US nun and
Amazon defender Dorothy Stang, was found guilty and sentenced to 30
years in prison. Moura was previously convicted of Stang's murder
and then acquitted in an automatic retrial. That decision was
overturned last year on a technicality.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Brazil the
threat of new mudslides forced officials to begin evicting 2,600
families from at-risk areas as they embarked on a slum demolition
program on Rio de Janeiro's hills.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, A British
scientific expedition said it has discovered the world's deepest
known underwater volcanic vent off the Cayman Islands.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, Canadian PM
Stephen Harper said Canada will return spent nuclear fuel to its
supplier, the United States, as part of a global drive to secure
fissile materials.
(Reuters, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, China eased
requirements for companies to qualify for government purchasing of
technology after a plan to favor domestic technology was met with
heavy criticism from other countries and business groups.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, A mentally ill
Chinese man rampaged with a meat cleaver near an elementary school,
hacking to death a second grader and an elderly woman. Five others
were wounded in the second random attack on schoolchildren in China
in three weeks. Yang Jiaqin (40) chased his victims through Xizhen
village of the southern Guangxi region not long after classes ended.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, An Egyptian
activist said Mohammed ElBaradei, emerging opposition leader and
former head of the UN's nuclear watchdog agency, has called for a
boycott of the upcoming elections. ElBaradei has turned his focus to
promoting electoral reforms and constitutional amendments that would
allow a credible rival candidate to run in next year's presidential
election.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, Neofonie, the
German maker of a new tablet PC, the WePad, was reportedly setting
out to rival Apple's iPad with the promise of even more technology
such as a bigger screen, a webcam and USB ports. When it hits stores
starting late July, it will also boast a complete open source office
package.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Guatemala Noe
Vasquez, the chief of the anti-drug office in the Peten region, was
arrested along with 2 other police agents for allegedly passing
information to Mexico's Zetas drug gang.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, Indonesian police
raided a home used by suspected terrorists in the far western
province of Aceh, fatally shooting Enal Tao (38), allegedly involved
in the beheadings of 3 Christian girls. Two other suspects were
arrested at the house in Cot Irie village on the outskirts of Banda
Aceh.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Iraq a suicide
bomber blew up a car in Mosul killing a policeman and a civilian, as
two soldiers were killed near Baghdad.
(AFP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, In northern Italy
a landslide threw a passenger train from its tracks near the border
with Austria, killing nine people and injuring 28. A large
irrigation pipe burst at a higher elevation as the 2-car train
passed below.
(AFP, 4/12/10)(SFC, 4/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 12, Mexican and US
officials said 3 Mexican cartels have joined forces to destroy the
Zetas gang of hit men that has grown into a feared drug trafficking
outfit with reach into Central America. Police found the body of a
man whose face had been skinned in Cuernavaca. In nearby Temixco, a
man and his pregnant wife were killed by gunmen who left a
threatening message.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, Northern Ireland's
Catholic and Protestant lawmakers appointed David Ford their first
justice minister, a power-sharing landmark that IRA dissidents
protested by bombing the local base of Britain's spy agency MI5.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Pakistan dozens
of militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked two
security checkpoints in the villages of Shireen Dara and Sangrana.
Security forces successfully repelled the attack, but two soldiers
were killed and three others wounded. After the battles subsided,
authorities found the bodies of 15 dead militants around the two
checkpoints. Intelligence officials said insurgents removed the
bodies of at least 26 others who were killed. 13 civilians were
reportedly killed in a US missile strike elsewhere in North
Waziristan. Pakistan intelligence officials said the missile attack
close to the town of Miran Shah killed four suspected
militants.
(AP, 4/12/10)(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Russia Eduard
Chuvashov, a judge of Moscow's City Court, was found shot to death
in the stairwell of his apartment building. He was the judge in
several high-profile cases, including the February sentencing of 9
skinhead gang members who killed 6 non-Slavs.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, Observers urged
Sudan to extend voting in its first open elections in 24 years after
thousands of ballots were cast incorrectly and polling faced serious
delays in many areas of Africa's largest country.
(Reuters, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, A Swiss court
rejected Hannibal Gadhafi's demand for 100,000 Swiss francs
($94,500) in reparations for the publication of a police mug shot
from his 2008 arrest in Geneva. Gadhafi was arrested in 2008 for
allegedly beating up his servants in a luxury hotel. He was later
released and charges were dropped.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, Thailand's
Election Commission ruled that the ruling party be dissolved for
alleged misuse of poll donations, in a potential victory for
anti-government protesters who paraded slain comrades through
Bangkok to press the prime minister to resign.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, The Vatican
responded to allegations it long concealed clerical sex abuse by
making it clear for the first time that bishops and clerics
worldwide should report such crimes to police if they are required
to by law.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 12, In Venezuela
knife-wielding prison inmates killed seven other prisoners and
wounded 10 guards during an outbreak of violence at the Santa Ana
Prison.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 13, US officials said
President Barack Obama is reviving the NASA crew capsule concept
that he had canceled with the rest of the moon program earlier this
year, in a move that will mean more jobs and less reliance on the
Russians. The space capsule, called Orion, will go unmanned to the
International Space Station to stand by as an emergency vehicle to
return astronauts home.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 13, In Washington, DC,
the leaders of 47 nations agreed to a voluntary program to prevent
weapons-grade nuclear materials from falling into the hands of
terrorists.
(SFC, 4/14/10, p.A2)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.67)
2010 Apr 13, Chilean Roman
Catholic priest Ricardo Munoz Quinteros (55) was charged with 8
cases of sexually abusing minors, including his own daughter.
(SFC, 4/15/10, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/y552yje)
2010 Apr 13, A top Chilean
executive, Roberto Baudrand (59), was found dead in his Havana
apartment after being detained by Cuban authorities investigating
his company, which is owned by a revolutionary-turned-businessman
and friend of Fidel Castro. Baudrand was general manager of
Alimentos Rio Zaza SA and served as point man in Cuba for business
leader Max Marambio.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 13, Ethiopian
authorities and the European Union signed accords allowing EU
observers to monitor May's general elections in the Horn of Africa
country.
(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, First lady
Michelle Obama made a surprise visit to the ruins of the Haitian
capital, a high-profile reminder that hundreds of thousands remain
in desperate straits three months after the earthquake.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Indian Sikhs
celebrated World Turban Day to demonstrate the importance of
retaining the headgear rather than adopting Western-style haircuts.
(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In Indian Kashmir
one person was killed and 24 hurt during a strike to protest the
conviction of six Muslims, including a Kashmiri separatist, for a
1996 bombing in New Delhi.
(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In India a cyclone
demolished ten of thousands of mud huts, killing 137 villagers in
the northeastern parts of West Bengal and Bihar states. Officials
later said more than 200,000 houses were fully or severely damaged
by the storm, which packed wind speeds of 120 kph (75 mph).
(AP, 4/14/10)(AP, 4/15/10)(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 13, In Iraq a bomb
planted inside a Baghdad liquor store killed three people and
wounded seven.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Israel's Supreme
Court permitted an Israeli-Arab author to travel to Lebanon to
receive a literary award. Ala Hlehel (35) was invited to the
Beirut39 Festival this week, but laws in enemy nations prevented him
from going. Hlehel is acclaimed for a collection of short stories
called "The Circus" and a play.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Gaza's Hamas
rulers ordered residents to shut smuggling tunnels along the border
with Egypt indefinitely, cutting off the economic lifeline for 1.5
million Palestinians in the impoverished territory. An Israeli
spokesman said at least 2 Palestinian militants were killed and 2
wounded when Israeli troops shot at them as they tried to plant
explosives near the border.
(AP, 4/14/10)(SFC, 4/14/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 13, Kyrgyzstan's
deposed president said he will resign if the interim authorities
guarantee his security, and the head of the security services said
he was ready to make such a promise. Kyrgyzstan's interim leader
said her government will extend the lease of a US air base key to
the war in Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In northern Mexico
two soldiers and two gunmen died in a shootout. Soldiers patrolling
in the border state of Nuevo Leon gave chase to six suspicious cars
that crossed into neighboring Tamaulipas state, where a gunbattle
ensued in the town of Comales.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 13, Nicaragua removed
and destroyed its last anti-personnel mine. On June 22 the Geneva
International Center for Humanitarian Demining, or GICHD, said
Nicaragua has become the last country in Central America to clear
its territory of the banned weapon.
(AP, 6/22/10)
2010 Apr 13, Nigeria's
anti-corruption agency sought the arrest of Chief James Ibori, a
former governor of the oil-rich Delta State (1999-2007), suspected
of siphoning off millions of dollars of state assets. Hundreds of
Nigerian youths rallied in the commercial capital Lagos demanding
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan implement much needed electoral
reforms to ensure credible national polls next year.
(AFP, 4/13/10)(Reuters, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Norway’s Nokia
Corp. launched three less-expensive smart phones, including its
first model expected to sell for under euro100 ($135), in a strong
move to grab new customers in emerging markets.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In the Philippines
Muslim militants disguised as policemen and soldiers detonated bombs
and opened fire in a series of coordinated attacks in southern in
Isabela city, triggering clashes that killed at least 13 people. The
death toll included three marines, a police officer and three
militants, including Bensar Indama, the brother of militant leader
Puruji Indama, whose body was found in a police uniform.
(AP, 4/13/10)(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 13, Somali radio
stations stopped playing music after hardline militants called it
un-Islamic and ordered stations to take songs off the air. Somalis
in Mogadishu could still listen to music on two stations: one that
the government controls and another funded by the UN.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Sudanese trickled
into polling stations following a two-day extension of the vote
aimed at making up for a chaotic start to the country's first
competitive election in over two decades.
(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, Zimbabwe's
government withdrew a controversial law that would have seen foreign
firms forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to locals.
(AFP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In Zimbabwe at
least 25 people were burned to death and two dozen others injured
when a bus collided with a truck laden with fertilizer on a highway
in the northwest.
(Reuters, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, Pres. Obama signed
an executive order freezing the assets of Somali militias. The order
could make it illegal for US ship owners to pay ransoms to Somali
pirates.
(SFC, 4/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 14, The US and South
Africa signed a deal in Washington, DC, to boost diplomatic
exchanges, a new sign of the importance the US administration
accords Pretoria's role in the region.
(AFP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, Six major powers
wrapped up what they said was a "very constructive" meeting on fresh
UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but diplomats
cautioned against expecting early adoption.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, Federal agents in
northern California arrested 18 people on charges of defrauding
banks and lenders with bogus mortgage loan applications. Losses
totaled at least $10 million from 2005 to 2009.
(SFC, 4/15/10, p.C3)
2010 Apr 14, In Los Angeles Dr.
Daniel Healy (45) was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for
dispensing over a million hydrocodone tablets for cash. He made
nearly $700,000 in 2008 from selling the powerful painkiller.
(SFC, 4/15/10, p.A7)
2010 Apr 14, In Chicago James
Larry (32) shot and killed his pregnant wife, infant son and 2
nieces in their home.
(SFC, 4/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 14, In Argentina
Dmitry Medvedev used the first-ever visit by a Russian president to
Argentina to urge the countries to boost economic ties and cooperate
more on nuclear energy.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, Australian police
arrested a Chinese ship captain and senior officer and charged them
with damaging the Great Barrier Reef, more than a week after their
coal carrier ran aground and tore a two-mile (three km) gash in the
protected area.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, An Australia
officials said swarms of locusts have infested a huge area of
eastern Australia, roughly the size of Spain, ravaging farmland
following recent floods.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Brazil a
federal judge in Para state delayed the April 20 auction for
construction of what would be the world's third-largest
hydroelectric project. The $11 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric dam
was cleared for construction Feb. 1 by Brazil's Environment Ministry
and bidding was set for next week.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, Chinese President
Hu Jintao and Indian PM Manmohan Singh arrived in Brazil to
participate in bilateral meetings with the leaders of other emerging
economies and a BRIC summit on April 16.
(AFP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, In China Wen Qiang
(55), a former police chief in the southwestern city of Chongqing,
was sentenced to death, in a sprawling gangland corruption case that
has riveted the country. Wen was also found guilty of raping a
university student in 2007 and 2008. Wen was detained in August and
accused of protecting the gang operations masterminded by his
sister-in-law, Xie Caiping (46), known as the "godmother" of the
Chongqing underworld. Wen's wife was sentenced to 8 years in prison
for taking bribes in exchange for protecting gang members.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In western China a
series of strong earthquakes struck a mountainous area of Tibet,
killing some 2,064 people and injuring more than 10,000, as houses
made of mud and wood collapsed. 5 days later 3 people were pulled
alive from the rubble. On May 31 the toll was raised to 2,698 with
270 still missing.
(AP, 4/14/10)(AP, 4/15/10)(AP, 4/16/10)(AP,
4/19/10)(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Apr 14, El Salvador
President Mauricio Funes said Mexico's Zeta drug gang has entered El
Salvador and has made contact with local gangs in what appears to be
an exploration of opportunities.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, Egypt's state news
agency reported that 10 African nations have failed to conclude a
long delayed new agreement for sharing water from the Nile and will
call for closer cooperation instead.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Iceland a
volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted for the second
time in less than a month, melting ice, shooting smoke and steam
into the air, closing a major road and forcing hundreds of people to
flee rising floodwaters.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Indonesia
protesters wielding machetes, sticks and petrol bombs clashed with
riot police near the main seaport of Tanjung Priok in northern
Jakarta in a series of running battles over a Muslim cleric's tomb,
wounding 90 people. The bloody clashes left three dead and 156
wounded.
(AP, 4/14/10)(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Iraq gunmen
killed Sheik Ghazi Jabouri (48), a Sunni cleric, outside a Baghdad
mosque where he had just finished leading morning prayers in the
latest wave of attacks in the Iraqi capital that left five people
dead. Iraqi police arrested members of a militant network allegedly
behind the April 4 suicide car bombings against three embassies in
Baghdad, which killed 46 people. The arrests were based on evidence
given by a failed bomber caught on the day of the attacks. On May 4
videotaped confessions were shown of a man identified as the failed
suicide bomber, Haitham Ahmed Khalaf, and the network's alleged
ringleader, Mubarak Mohammed Abbas.
(AP, 4/14/10)(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 Apr 14, Israeli police
arrested Uri Lupolianski, a former mayor of Jerusalem (2003-2008),
in connection with a multimillion-dollar bribery scandal that has
been linked to a key confidant of former PM Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 4/14/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.47)
2010 Apr 14, In Mexico a cargo
plane crashed while trying to land overnight in the northern city of
Monterrey, killing at least four crew members. A fifth crew member
was missing and presumed dead.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Nicaragua the
opposition Liberal Constitutionalist party accused President Daniel
Ortega of usurping power by issuing a decree extending the terms of
two Supreme Court justices whose terms have ended.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, The 3-island
territory of Tokelau declared itself a whale sanctuary, adding a
huge patch of sea to the total protected area of more than 7 million
square miles that is off limits to hunting in the Pacific Ocean.
About 1,500 people live in Tokelau, a UN protectorate that remains a
colony of New Zealand and lies about 300 miles (500 km) north of
Samoa.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, Sudan's ruling
party said it would invite opposition groups to join the government
if it won elections, in an apparent bid to heal rifts over fraud
accusations and faltering peace deals.
(Reuters, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, Thailand's "Red
Shirt" protesters poured into Bangkok's commercial heart, saying
they were ready for the "final round" in their fight to overthrow
the embattled government.
(AFP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 15, The White House
released a statement by Obama instructing his Health and Human
Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive
Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant all patients the right to
designate people, including gay and lesbian partners, who can visit
and consult with them at crucial moments.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 15, President Barack
Obama set a goal to visit an asteroid by 2025. Obama outlined NASA's
new path during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 15, A US Senate panel
report was released saying some of the largest US health insurers
are changing their accounting practices to book administration costs
as medical costs in an attempt to circumvent new industry reforms.
(Reuters, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Washington, DC,
several thousand Tea Party protesters marked tax day with a rally in
Freedom Plaza capping a national protest tour that began in Nevada.
(SFC, 4/16/10, p.A12)
2010 Apr 15, US federal agents,
some in black hoods, swarmed over five Arizona shuttle businesses in
a major crackdown on human trafficking, arresting dozens of van
operators and smugglers accused of transporting illegal immigrants
from the Mexican border to Phoenix.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 15, In the San
Francisco Bay Area BART officials stripped officers of Tasers days
after a sergeant fired his stun gun at a boy (13) on his bicycle
fleeing from an altercation with police in Richmond. Bay Area Rapid
Transit police had begun using Tasers in December, 2008.
(SFC, 4/16/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 15, It was reported
that researchers were warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl
of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square
miles (kilometers) in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In southern
Afghanistan a car bomb outside hotel in Kandahar city, injuring at
least 6 people. A few hours later an Afghan civilian and two
security guards were killed when the car slammed into a compound in
Kandahar used by foreign security firms. A scrap metal dealer and
four children helping him were killed by a suspected homemade bomb
as they loaded materials collected door-to-door in rural Kandahar.
Fighting in the north of the country left four German troops dead.
One civilian was killed and one injured when a bomb blew up beneath
the tractor they were riding near Gardez in the eastern province of
Paktika. 5 Afghan UN employees were missing after their vehicles
were hijacked in northern Baghlan province. The UN employees were
freed in a military operation on May 17.
(AP, 4/15/10)(AFP, 4/16/10)(AP, 4/16/10)(AP,
5/17/10)
2010 Apr 15, British TV
broadcast the country’s first live debate between leaders of its 3
main political parties.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.60)
2010 Apr 15, British airport
operator BAA Ltd. said all flights at London's Heathrow Airport have
been suspended for the rest of the day, causing travel chaos as ash
clouds from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across
Europe.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Canada the city
of Vancouver released documents indicating it spent more than C$554
million ($554 million) as host of this year's Winter Olympics, much
of it related to building the athletes village. The federal
government and the province of British Columbia also paid the C$585
million cost to build and refurbish competition venues in Vancouver,
and at the nearby mountain resort of Whistler.
(Reuters, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 15, A new study by
Oxfam said the number of rapes carried out by civilians in eastern
Congo has increased by 17-fold in the last few years. It said sexual
assaults long perpetrated by armed groups are spreading across the
population.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Cuba historian
Esteban Morales posted an article on a state Web site saying
corruption at the highest levels of government posed the greatest
threat to Cuba’s communist government.
(SFC, 4/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 15, German authorities
said they have targeted nine suspects, including former staff of
Hewlett-Packard, in a probe into whether the world's top PC maker
paid bribes to win business in Russia.
(Reuters, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, Police in
Guatemala said a 13-year-old boy has confessed to shooting a woman
to death for a payment of about $12.50. The boy could face 6 years
in a juvenile custody facility if convicted.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, Israel customs
officials said they already have confiscated about 10 iPads since
Israel announced new regulations this week. The iPad banned anyone
from bringing an iPad into the country until officials certify that
they are in compliance with local transmitter standards. Israel
lifted a ban on April 25.
(AP, 4/15/10)(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 15, Deposed Kyrgyzstan
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev' left the country for neighboring
Kazakhstan, just hours after gunfire erupted at a rally where he was
speaking to supporters.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Myanmar 3 bombs
exploded at a water festival in the former capital Yangon, killing 8
people and wounding 94. State TV blamed "destructive elements" for
the attacks.
(Reuters, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Nigeria the
burnt bodies of a Pentecostal pastor, Ishaya Kadah, and his wife,
Selina, were discovered by the police in Boto village, two days
after they were kidnapped.
(AFP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 15, The Hamas
government executed two men accused of collaborating with Israel.
Mohammed Ismail (36) was convicted of planting devices in the cars
of militants, presumably to help track them. Nasser Abu Freh (33), a
former Palestinian police captain before the Hamas takeover,
allegedly started receiving money to work with Israel in 1998. The
bullet-riddled bodies of the men, convicted by military tribunals in
2008 and 2009, were dumped by armed men at Gaza City's main hospital
before dawn. It was the first time the death penalty has been
carried out in Gaza since Hamas violently seized power in the
coastal area in 2007.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, Russia’s Foreign
Ministry said Russia has suspended all adoptions to US families
until the two countries can agree on procedures, a week after an
American woman sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia on a
plane by himself.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, Human Rights
Watch, a leading international rights group, called on Senegal's
government to clamp down on Islamic schools whose leaders are
subjecting tens of thousands of children to forced begging and daily
beatings in conditions it says are "akin to slavery."
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 15, Sudanese voters
cast ballots on the last day of landmark elections. Sudan's ruling
party said that the southern army had killed 9 people, including at
least 5 of its officials, stoking tensions during voting in the
first open elections in 24 years. Commission official Abel Alier
said on April 26 that al-Bashir had garnered 68% of over 10 million
valid ballots.
(Reuters, 4/15/10)(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 15, In Switzerland 3
people, members of the Italian terrorist group Il Silvestre, were
arrested with explosives in traffic two miles from an IBM nanotech
center near Zurich. The alleged eco-terrorists went on trial in
July, 2011.
(http://tinyurl.com/3hsk53d)(SFC, 7/20/11, p.A2)
2010 Apr 15, Venezuelan
authorities were reported to be investigating the deaths of six
Yanomami Indians, including two children, in a remote community in
the Amazon. Prosecutors believed that four adults, a man and three
women, died after drinking water contaminated by illegal miners, and
that the two children were apparently killed.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 16, The US government
accused Wall Street's most powerful firm of fraud, saying Goldman
Sachs & Co. sold mortgage investments without telling the buyers
that the securities were crafted with input from a client who was
betting on them to fail. Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of Goldman Sachs
& Co., called this day: “One of the worst of my professional
life.” Fabrice Tourre, a charged employee, denied misleading
investors.
(AP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.77)
2010 Apr 16, US federal
prosecutors in North Carolina charged Gary Jackson, the former
president of Blackwater Worldwide, and 4 other senior company
officials with weapons violations and making false statements. A 15
count indictment charged that they tried to hide purchases of
weapons and trying to hide gifts of expensive weapons to Jordanian
officials as the company tried to win contracts.
(SFC, 4/17/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 16, US banking
regulators shut down 8 banks, including 2 in northern California, 3
in Florida, one in Washington state, one in Massachusetts, and one
in Michigan, bringing the total this year to 50. In 2009 140 banks
failed in the US compared to 25 in 2008 and 3 in 2007.
(SFC, 4/19/10, p.D3)
2010 Apr 16, Arizona Gov. Jan
Brewer signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state
allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a
permit.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, In Oakland, Ca.,
Tian Sheng Yu (59) was beaten to death on the 1800 block of
Telegraph Ave., after he confronted 2 teenagers for punching his son
(27). Suspect Lavonte Drummer (18) turned himself in on April 19 and
suspect Dominic Davis (18) was arrested the same afternoon. Yu died
from his injuries on April 20.
(SFC, 4/21/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 16, Daryl Gates (83),
the blunt former Los Angeles police chief best known for his
handling of the Rodney King beating and 1992 race riots, died.
(Reuters, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, Renowned
management thinker Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad (b.1941), aka
C.K., died in San Diego. His books included “Competing for the
Future” (1996),which was co-written with his former pupil, Gary
Hamel and “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating
Poverty Through Profits” (2004).
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.69)
2010 Apr 16, Argentina offered
to swap defaulted bonds at a third of their nominal value in a bid
to regain access to financial markets after defaulting on them in
2001. The proposed restructuring involves 20 billion dollars in debt
and nine billion dollars in interest accumulated since 2005 and
should be completed within 40 days.
(AFP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, Brazil arrested
Nestor Caro Chapparro, said to be one of Colombia's top four drug
traffickers. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has
accused Chapparro of smuggling more than 5,000 kg of cocaine from
Brazil to the US in the late 1990s.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, A judge in the
capital of Brasilia reversed a decision to suspend contract bidding
scheduled for next week and also overturned the suspension of the
environmental license for the 11,000-megawatt Belo Monte dam.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, Officials in the
Central African Republic said armed attackers have shot dead a
soldier escorting electoral commission staff.
(AFP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 16, A Chinese court
jailed three people who posted material on the Internet to help an
illiterate woman pressure authorities to reinvestigate her
daughter's death, in a trial that attracted scores of supporters.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, Volcanic ash
blanketed parts of rural Iceland and left a widening arc of grounded
aircraft across Europe, as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac
to avoid the hazardous cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European
cities and the UN warned of possible health risks from falling ash.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, A German court
convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson of
incitement for denying the Holocaust in a television interview. The
court ordered the Roman Catholic bishop to pay a fine of
euro10,000 ($13,544).
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, In eastern Haiti 4
soldiers died in the fiery crash of a Spanish military helicopter in
the rugged mountains of the Fond Verrettes area.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, India banned some
phone users in insurgency-hit Kashmir from sending SMS text
messages, causing anger on the streets and provoking the wrath of
the volatile region's chief minister. Kashmir chief minister Omar
Abdullah termed the ban "harassment."
(AFP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, Renault announced
that it has pulled out of a joint venture with Indian car
manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra, which produced its first car for
the growing South Asian market, the Logan.
(AFP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, In Iran cleric
Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, the acting prayer leader of Tehran, said
women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to
blame for earthquakes.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 16, Israeli troops
killed a Palestinian militant along the border fence between Israel
and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as he planted a bomb along the
fence. Palestinian residents and the Israeli military said Jewish
settlers vandalized property overnight in the Palestinian village of
Jen Safout in the West Bank. Raed Hamad (27), a Palestinian
prisoner, died in an Israeli prison. he had been in solitary
confinement for the last 18 months. Lawyer Tareq Barghouth said his
client required psychological help but none was provided during his
five years in detention.
(AP, 4/16/10)(AP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 16, Lebanese residents
dismantled a barbed wire fence set up by Israeli troops in a
disputed border area, leading to a call for restraint by UN
peacekeepers in the tense region. Army clashes with a powerful clan
in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek wounded 10 people, including
five soldiers.
(AFP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 16, In Pakistan a
suicide bomber attacked a hospital emergency room where Shiite
Muslims were mourning a slain bank manager, killing 10 people
including a journalist and two policemen in Quetta. A suspected US
missile strike killed four alleged militants in the Toorkhel area in
North Waziristan.
(AP, 4/16/10)(AP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 16, In South Africa 7
suspects waived their right to bail in a case in which they are
accused of recruiting women and at least one 16-year-old from across
South Africa and bringing them to Ermelo, where they were treated
like slaves and forced into prostitution.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 17, In southern
Afghanistan a NATO solider was killed by a roadside bomb. 2 Dutch
marines were killed in southern Uruzgan province.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 17, Cuban tobacco
grower Alejandro Robaina (b.1919), an international symbol of the
island's cigar-making prowess, died.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 17, Ecuador’s
President Rafael Correa said Ecuador will move to take over the
operations of foreign oil companies in the country unless they sign
new contracts agreeing to increased state control over the sector.
(Reuters, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 17, A lingering
volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of
Europe, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had
increased and showed no sign of abating, a portent of more travel
chaos to come. Nearly 17,000 flights to and from Europe were
cancelled out of about 22,000 on a normal day.
(AP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.63)
2010 Apr 17, In northern Iraq
an American soldier was killed and 3 others were wounded in a
helicopter crash near Tikrit.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 17, In northern
Myanmar a series of bombs exploded at a controversial hydropower
project site being jointly built by a Chinese company.
(Reuters, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 17, In Nigeria at
least five people were killed and several wounded when two oil
tankers collided and burst into flames in southwest Ogun state.
(AFP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 17, In northwest
Pakistan 2 suicide bombers dressed in burqas struck a crowd of
displaced people collecting aid handouts, killing 42 people and
wounding more than 60 at the Kacha Pukha camp on the outskirts of
the garrison city of Kohat.
(AFP, 4/17/10)(AFP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 17, Hamas and Fatah
closed ranks to mark Palestinian Prisoners' Day to protest against
Israel for continuing to keep some 6,600 Palestinian militants in
jail. This was the first joint initiative by the bitter rivals since
Fatah was routed from Gaza in 2007.
(AFP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.48)
2010 Apr 17, International
monitors said that Sudan's first multiparty elections in more than
two decades failed to meet international standards, an assessment
that diminishes hopes the voting would set the nation on the road to
peace and democracy. Preliminary results from the presidential race
showed incumbent Omar al-Bashir had won between 88% and 94% of votes
counted after his most credible challengers dropped out of the race
in protest.
(AP, 4/17/10)
2010 Apr 17, Yemeni authorities
arrested three alleged Al-Qaeda members accused of killing two
policemen and blowing up an official's vehicle in the southern
province of Abyan.
(AFP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 18, The Int’l.
Cannabis and Hemp Expo closed at the Cow Palace, Daly City, Ca. it
was the first trade show in the US to allow on-site pot smoking and
attracted some 15,000 enthusiasts over the weekend.
(SFC, 4/19/10, p.C1)
2010 Apr 18, The Afghan
Interior Ministry said at least 29 militants, including two
commanders, have been killed over four days of intense fighting
aimed at protecting supply routes through northern Afghanistan. One
person was killed and 14 wounded when a remote-controlled bomb
exploded in the town of Dawlatabad in northern Faryab province.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, Chinese President
Hu Jintao called on rescuers to keep searching for survivors as he
visited victims of a powerful quake in Tibet that left some 2,064
dead.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AP, 4/19/10)(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 18, Turkish Cypriots
voted for a new leader, aware that their choice could lead to a
deadlock in peace talks and possibly jeopardize Turkey's bid for EU
membership. Nationalist Dervis Eroglu narrowly defeated leftist
incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat in the election with 50.38 percent of the
vote, promising to continue reunification talks with rival Greek
Cypriots. Talat drew 42.85 percent. With a clear mandate, there is
little incentive for Eroglu to abandon his support for two separate
states on the island.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 18, Iran’s pro-reform
Sharq daily said that filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad was convicted on
charges of spreading propaganda against the clerical establishment
and insulting the country's leaders. Nourizad was arrested in
November after writing a protest letter to the country's supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging him to apologize to the nation
for the bloody crackdown on the opposition movement after the
disputed June presidential elections. In May it was later reported
that Nourizad was beaten in prison and had gone on a hunger strike.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 Apr 18, In Iraq Abu Omar
al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq,
were killed in a nighttime raid on their safehouse near Tikrit. 4
dead men were identified as al-Masri, his assistant, al-Baghdadi and
al-Baghdadi's son. An American soldier died of non-combat related
injuries.
(AP, 4/19/10)(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 18, In Nigeria gunmen
abducted two Germans who sought respite along a beach in the
oil-rich and violent southern region.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 18, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber rammed a truck loaded with explosives into
a police station in the Kohat area, killing a child and six other
civilians. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, In the Philippines
Justice Secretary Alberto Agra said he has ordered prosecutors to
remove the names of Zaldy Ampatuan, a former governor of a Muslim
autonomous region, and his brother-in-law Akhmad from the charge
sheets for lack of strong evidence linking them to the planning and
staging of the Nov 23, 2009, carnage in Maguindanao's Ampatuan
township.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, In Somalia at
least 10 people died, including five government soldiers, when a
land mine exploded near a police station in south Mogadishu
overnight.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, Somali pirates
hijacked three Thai fishing vessels, the MV Prantalay 11, 12, and
14, with 77 crew aboard more than 1,200 miles (1,930 km) off the
Somali coast, the farthest-off-shore attack to date.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 18, Thailand's
military declared Bangkok's main shopping boulevard unsafe because
of large crowds of anti-government protesters and sent soldiers to
nearby high-rise buildings to watch for any violence. The
elite-backed "Yellow Shirts" vowed to take action if the government
fails to deal with red-clad protesters within a week, raising fears
of clashes between the rival groups.
(AP, 4/18/10)(AFP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, Turkey's navy
commandos aboard the TCG Gelibolu frigate captured 13 Somali-based
pirates in the Indian Ocean. They destroyed two skiffs and
confiscated other pirate material.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, Pope Benedict XVI
met in Malta with a group of clerical sex-abuse victims and promised
them with tears in his eyes that the Catholic Church would seek
justice for pedophile priests and implement "effective measures" to
protect young people from abuse. 10 Maltese men came forward earlier
this month saying they wanted to meet with the pope to tell him
their stories and to request an apology. They said they were abused
by 4 priests at a Catholic orphanage.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, In Yemen soldiers
killed 2 suspected members of al-Qaida wanted by police and arrested
a third in an exchange of fire at a checkpoint near the country's
Red Sea coast.
(AP, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 18, Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe pledged to move ahead with plans to hand over 51
percent control of businesses to blacks under a controversial
program. Addressing a rally to mark 30 years of independence from
Britain, Mugabe urged Zimbabweans to end political violence and
focus on rebuilding a devastated economy.
(Reuters, 4/18/10)
2010 Apr 19, Arizona lawmakers
passed a controversial immigration bill requiring police in the
state that borders Mexico to determine if people are in the United
States illegally, a measure critics say is open to racial profiling.
(Reuters, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 19, San Diego, Ca.,
Sheriff Bill Gore said that 24 documented gang members and eight
gang associates have been booked on suspicion of various offenses
following the two-day multi-agency operation called "Allied Shield."
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Los Angeles
Brian Alexik (34) slipped out the back window of his apartment as
detectives interviewed local tenants regarding a gas odor.
Detectives found a cache of loaded weapons, including an AK-47, next
to a mosaic depicting the CIA seal. They found equipment for
counterfeiting money. High-powered binoculars were trained on the US
Federal Reserve building next door. Alexik had been paying about
$4,000 cash for his rent but had recently stopped paying and was on
the verge of getting evicted. He allegedly had been bleaching
low-denomination bills then using a printer to change the value to
$100 or $50. In all, police recovered about $15,000 in bogus bills.
Alexik was caught on June 3.
(AP, 6/27/10)
2010 Apr 19, Winners of the
2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes, known as the "green Nobels," were
honored in San Francisco. Sereivathana Tuy of Cambodia won for his
efforts in stopping farmers from killing elephants. Randall Arauz of
Costa Rica won for his campaign to halt the maiming and killing of
sharks for their fins. Humberto Rios Labrada (47) of Cuba won for
his campaign to shift farming practices toward increasing diversity
and reducing chemical use. Malgorzata Gorska of Poland won for her
fight to stop a highway through the Rospuda Valley, one of Poland’s
last vestiges of untouched wilderness. Thuli Makama of Swaziland won
for her efforts in getting citizen participation on the Swaziland
board in charge of the environment. She helped prompt investigations
into allegations of private park rangers killing suspected poachers
in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy. Lynn Henning of the
USA won for exposing polluting practices of livestock ranches in
Michigan.
(AP, 4/19/10)(SFC, 4/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 19, In Oregon Jorge
Ortiz-Oliva (40), the kingpin of one of the biggest drug
organizations in Oregon history, was sentenced to 30 years in
prison.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Tennessee a man
opened fire outside the Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville killing
a woman and injuring 2 others before committing suicide.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 19, The Afghan
intelligence service said security forces have arrested nine members
of a terrorist cell and seized nearly a quarter-ton of explosives,
foiling a plot to stage suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul.
In southern Kandahar province, a remote-controlled bomb planted on a
donkey exploded near a police checkpoint, killing three children
aged 11, 12 and 15. An American soldier was killed and several
wounded in an explosion at an Afghan National Army facility just
outside Kabul. 3 students and a police officer were killed in
crossfire between foreign soldiers and insurgents in eastern Khost
province. Insurgents killed Azizullah Yarmal, the vice mayor of the
southern city of Kandahar, as he prayed at a mosque.
(AP, 4/19/10)(AFP, 4/20/10)(AP, 4/20/10)(AP,
4/21/10)
2010 Apr 19, Algeria's Energy
Minister Chakib Khelil said 11 major natural gas exporting countries
have decided to work towards a long term plan to index prices with
oil.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Australia Carl
Williams, known as the baby-faced killer, was killed in Victoria
state's highest security prison by a fellow inmate who attacked him
with part of an exercise bike.
(www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/19/2876669.htm)(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 19, The chief of
British Airways said test flights have proven that the blanket
restrictions EU governments have imposed on flights because of
volcanic ash are unnecessary. The airline industry said it has lost
at least $1 billion due to five days of closed airports. A senior
Western diplomat says several NATO F-16 fighters suffered engine
damage after flying through the volcanic ash cloud covering large
parts of Europe.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, China’s government
passed amendments revising the Border Quarantine Law as well as
China's Law on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens. The changes
were effective immediately. This lifted a two-decade-old ban on
people with HIV and AIDS from entering the country, just as it is
about to welcome the world to the Shanghai Expo on May 1.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 19, In western India
police found 12 fetuses dumped near a garbage bin in Ahmadabad, the
main city of Gujarat state.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, Indonesia’s
Constitutional Court ruled 8-1 that a 45-year-old law banning
religious blasphemy was constitutional. The law limited officially
recognized religions to six: Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism,
Hinduism, Islam and Protestantism. Up to 5 years in prison could be
imposed for anyone found guilty of heresy.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran a senior
adviser said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the location
for a new uranium enrichment facility Iran plans to begin building
over the next year.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran the
semi-official Fars news agency reported that the Press Supervisory
Board ordered the pro-reform Bahar daily closed for "spreading
doubts on fundamental issues such as elections. The official IRNA
news agency reported that Iran has sentenced prominent political
activists Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mostafa Tajzadeh and Davood Soleimani to
six years in prison each for involvement in the country's
post-election turmoil. They were convicted of spreading propaganda
against Iran.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, An Iraqi panel
investigating election complaints ordered a recount of more than 2.5
million votes cast in Baghdad during the March 7 election, agreeing
to a demand by PM Nouri al-Maliki that could swing the outcome in
his favor.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, Israeli Defense
minister Ehud Barak said Israel must recognize that the world will
not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian
people.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, The Nigerian army
averted an attack by suspected Muslim extremists on a mainly
Christian village in the flashpoint central Plateau State, killing
two gunmen. 2 Christian farmers were killed and two others went
missing in fresh attacks by suspected Muslim-Fulani nomads in
central Plateau State.
(AFP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, The Chosun Sinbo,
a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Tokyo, said mobile phone
subscriptions are spreading fast in North Korea and could number
600,000 by the end of this year. In December 2008, North Korea
introduced a 3G mobile phone network in a joint venture with
Cairo-based Orascom Telecom.
(AFP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Pakistan at
least 23 people including police officials were killed in a suicide
bombing in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar. Hours earlier a boy
(8) was killed and at least ten people were injured in a bombing
outside a high school in Peshawar. A later explosion Boharh Bazaar
slightly damaged a parked car and two shops.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Puerto Rico the
naked body of Ashley Santiago Ocasio (31), born as Juan Antonio),
was found at his home in the town of Corozal. Rico Ashley Santiago
Ocasio (31), a transgender beauty salon owner with high cheekbones
and a flair for fashion, had been shot in the head. Her car was
missing and there were no signs of a break-in.
(www.dosmanzanas.com/tag/ashley-santiago)(AP,
4/25/10)
2010 Apr 19, The Slovenian
parliament ratified a border arbitration deal with Croatia vital for
Zagreb's EU membership bid, but the deal still faces a much tougher
test at a June referendum in Slovenia.
(Reuters, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 19, In Venezuela
former boxing champ Edwin Valero committed suicide in his jail cell
just hours after he was arrested in his wife's killing.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, The US Supreme
Court struck down a federal law aimed at banning videos that show
graphic violence against animals, saying it violates the right to
free speech.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, America’s
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved the second of 2
exchanges that would allow trading of contracts based on films’
box-office takings.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.74)
2010 Apr 20, The space shuttle
Discovery landed in Florida ending its 15-day voyage to the int’l.
space station.
(SFC, 4/21/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 20, An explosion and
fire damaged an oil rig and critically injured 7 people off the
coast of Louisiana leaving 11 workers missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Deepwater Horizon rig sank 2 days later. Officials feared as
much as 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day could be rising from the
sea floor nearly 5,000 feet below. On April 23 no oil appeared to be
leaking from the well head at the ocean floor, nor was any leaking
at the water's surface. On April 25 it was reported that some 1000
barrels per day were leaking from 2 conduit sources related to the
sunken oil rig. An internal investigation later said the deadly
blowout was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from
the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst
through several seals and barriers before exploding. In June it was
reported that BP had been trying to seal cracks in the Macondo well
more than 2 months before the explosion.
(AFP, 4/21/10)(AFP, 4/23/10)(AP, 4/25/10)(AP,
5/8/10)(SFC, 6/18/10, p.A13)
2010 Apr 20, Dorothy Height
(98), a longtime leader of the US civil rights movement and the
chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women, died in
Washington, DC.
(Reuters, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Argentina's last
dictator, Reynaldo Bignone (82), was convicted and sentenced to 25
years in prison for kidnappings and torture during the nation's
1976-1983 military regime.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, A UN court
delivered a long-awaited ruling rejecting Argentina's claim that an
Uruguayan pulp mill pollutes their shared river. Both sides said the
decision by the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands
gave them what they need to resolve their differences, with
Argentina taking heart from a part of the ruling that said Uruguay
did not properly inform it about the project. Argentine activists
were still blocking the main bridge across the river and refused to
give up their fight. Activists in June voted to lift their four-year
bridge blockade.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Apr 20, Australia’s PM
Kevin Rudd said he had reached agreement with all but one of
Australia's states on major health reforms which he hopes will
spearhead his 2010 re-election campaign.
(Reuters, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Bolivia’s Pres.
Evo Morales said that men should stay away from eating chicken if
they want to maintain their hair and virility. He said chicken
producers inject the birds with female hormones. Producers in the
US, EU and other countries abandoned the use of hormones in poultry
several decades ago.
(SFC, 4/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 20, Brazil speedily
awarded the tender for the controversial Belo Monte hydro-electric
dam projected to be the world's third-largest, despite fierce
opposition from environmentalists. The tender was awarded to Norte
Energia, a consortium led by Chesf, a subsidiary of the state
electricity company Electrobras, after a series of court injunctions
that had blocked and unblocked the auction process. The reservoir of
the dammed Xingu river will cover 516 square km. and leave scores of
villages awash.
(AFP, 4/20/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.34)
2010 Apr 20, Airplanes
gradually took to the skies after five days of being grounded by a
volcanic ash cloud that has devastated European travel. Only limited
flights were allowed to resume at some European airports and UK
authorities said London airports would remained closed for at least
another day due to new danger from the invisible ash cloud.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Colombian Gen.
Fernando Joya and five other members of the military died in a
helicopter collision at a base in the nation's southwest.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Dagestan
assailants gunned down two traffic policemen who pulled over their
car in the provincial capital, Makhachkala.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Ethiopia said that
it would go ahead with a new deal with six other countries on
sharing the waters of the Nile and accused Egypt of "dragging its
feet" on a more equitable treaty.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Honduras a
gunman fatally shot journalist Georgino Orellana (48) in the head as
he was leaving a television studio in the city of San Pedro Sula.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 20, India’s trade
ministry said it will launch a formal dispute against the EU at the
World Trade Organization (WTO) over EU seizures of Indian generic
drugs.
(Reuters, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Iran an
explosion in a car killed 2 people and wounded 8 in the western city
of Ilam. The car was not a gas-powered vehicle of the sort that has
seen a number of accidental explosions in recent years.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Iraqi and US
troops killed Ahmed al-Obeidi (Ahmad Ali Abbas Dahir al-Ubayd), a
regional leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, in an early morning raid in the
northern province of Ninevah. Five family members of a local chief
of an anti-Qaeda militia were gunned down in their homes in
Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, with the children also beheaded. A
police colonel and his driver were killed by a roadside bomb in the
western city of Hit, while 7 other policemen and 4 civilians were
injured in bombings in Ramadi and Baghdad.
(AP, 4/20/10)(AFP, 4/20/10)(SFC, 4/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 20, Kyrgyzstan's
ousted president was in exile in Belarus, as the interim authorities
controlling the Kyrgyz capital warned he would be imprisoned if he
tried to return to the Central Asian country.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Malaysia ruling
party lawmaker Bung Mokhtar Radin (50) and actress Zizie Ezette A.
Samad, his second wife, pleaded guilty to entering into a polygamous
marriage without official consent amid a debate over Islamic
morality among politicians.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Mexican state
police reported that three men were found shot to death in a taxi in
Acapulco.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 20, The Dutch Supreme
Court overturned the acquittal of Guus Kouwenhoven, a businessman
accused of supplying arms to former Liberian strongman Charles
Taylor, and ordered a new appeals hearing in the case. He had been
convicted in 2006 of breaching a UN arms embargo by trading weapons
for timber in Liberia and sentenced to eight years imprisonment, but
the conviction was overturned in 2008.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Pakistani
officials said several senior Pakistani police and intelligence
officials have been removed from their posts after a damning April
15 UN report into the killing of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Gaza's Hamas
rulers burned nearly 2 million pills of Tramadol, a painkiller many
Gazans take recreationally because they say it relaxes them and
provides temporary relief from the territory's hardships.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Rwanda’s army
announced that 2 senior generals have been arrested over accusations
of corruption and misconduct.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Saudi Arabia a
police official said that the head of the powerful religious police
has fired the chief of the Mecca branch for advocating the mixing of
the sexes. Ahmed bin Qassim al-Ghamidi's suggestion in a newspaper
interview this week that men and women should be left to mingle
freely directly clashed with a central preoccupation of the force.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 20, In Serbia Biljana
Kovacevic Vuco (58), one of Serbia's most prominent human rights
activists, died. She played an important role in Serbia's fledgling
human rights and anti-war movement during the 1990s rule of late
strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, Two Somali radio
stations said the government has ordered them to close for obeying a
week-old order by an Islamic militant group to stop playing music.
Officials at Somaliweyn and Tusmo radio stations said they won't
obey the government order to resume playing music and shut down. The
government order was rescinded minutes after it was issued.
(AP, 4/20/10)(SFC, 4/21/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 20, In South Korea two
North Korean army majors were arrested on suspicion of plotting to
kill Hwang Jang-yop (87), a high-profile defector. Jang-yop was one
of North Korea's most powerful officials when he fled the
impoverished nation 13 years ago in a defection that reportedly
enraged Kim Jong Il.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 20, South Africa’s
biggest agricultural union, Agri SA, said 2 farmers are attacked
every day in South Africa and two killed per week.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 21, US Treasury
officials unveiled a new $100 bill at a news conference.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100421/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1718)
2010 Apr 21, In Arizona the
Havasupai Indian tribe ended a 7-year legal fight with Arizona State
Univ. over blood samples members gave to university researchers for
diabetes research that were also used to study schizophrenia,
inbreeding and ancient population migration. Tribal members called
it a case of genetic piracy.
(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 21, In Florida Nevin
Shapiro (41), a leading Univ. of Miami athletics patron, was put
under federal custody on charges of running a $900 million Ponzi
scheme in which he duped investors into thinking they were paying
into a successful grocery brokerage business.
(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 21, In Mississippi
Richard Barrett (67), a white supremacist lawyer, was fatally
stabbed and beaten at his home in Pearl. The next morning the house
was set on fire and Vincent McGee (22), a black neighbor, was
charged with murder. On April 23 three others were charged with
accessories after the fact and arson. In 1966 Barrett had founded a
supremacist group called the Nationalist Movement, but it never
amounted to much.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A7)
2010 Apr 21, Afghan and NATO
officials announced that authorities captured a local Taliban
commander, Mullah Faqir, earlier this month after a gunbattle in
Uruzgan province.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, The Algerian
Defense Ministry said Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger are
opening a joint military headquarters in the Algerian city
Tamanrasset, in a united effort to combat terrorism and kidnapping
in northwestern Africa. The Committee of Joint Chiefs (CEMOC) was
based in Tamanrasset.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 12/20/11)
2010 Apr 21, In Bosnia war
veterans protested proposed cuts in state benefits and set fire to a
regional government building before being dispersed by riot police.
(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 21, Egypt charged five
leading members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, including a Saudi,
Awadh al-Qarani, with money laundering and raising funds abroad, in
the latest government effort targeting the country's largest
opposition movement.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 21, Germany recognized
14 US soldiers serving in Afghanistan for risking their lives to
help German soldiers in a firefight on April 2, Good Friday,
awarding them the country's Gold Cross medal.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Iraq US
diplomats visited a Baghdad prison that PM al-Maliki has ordered
closed. The prison on the grounds of the Old Muthanna military
airfield had been undisclosed and held hundreds of detainees from
northern Iraq.
(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 21, In Mexico police
found the bound bodies of two men in Cuernavaca, alongside a banner
that threatened to kill 25 more drug cartel members. The message
said 25 of Beltran Leyva's henchmen are being held and interrogated
in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco and would be executed soon.
Dozens of gunmen burst into a Holiday Inn and another hotel in the
northern city of Monterrey, searching from room-to-room and
abducting at least six people. Troops battled a suspected drug gang
in a wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City and
captured Jose Gerardo Alvarez Vazquez, an alleged major trafficker
with a $2 million US bounty on his head. 14 other suspected drug
traffickers were arrested in the shootout that left 3 people dead
and two alleged traffickers wounded.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Paraguay an
attack by suspected leftist guerrillas killed a police officer and
three laborers at a farm. Deputy Interior Minister Carmelo Caballero
blamed the attack on the Paraguayan People's Army, a leftist group
that has been linked to bank robberies and kidnappings in the past
decade. He said guerrillas apparently were trying to steal animals.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, In the Philippines
an electrical fire forced a cargo plane's pilots to attempt an
emergency landing in a Philippine rice field when the Russian-made
Antonov-12 aircraft burst into flames, killing three of its six
crew. The dead included two Russian ground engineers and a
Bulgarian.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 21, Rwandan opposition
leader and presidential hopeful Victoire Ingabire was arrested on
charges of denying the 1994 genocide and "collaborating with a
terrorist organization." Ingabire was handed conditional freedom the
next day, but was barred from travelling out of the capital city,
Kigali.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AFP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Somalia
residents said 5 headless bodies have been found in a rebel-held
area of Mogadishu. They suspected the Islamist militant group
al-Shabab killed the men because they had helped construct the
parliament building. The men had been missing for the last five
days. Residents said clashes in central Somalia killed 12 people,
mostly combatants.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, Four suspected
Somali pirates carrying AK-47s and a rocket-propelled grenade seized
the Panamanian-flagged, Liberian-owned Voc Daisy, a bulk carrier
with 21 crew on board, the fourth ship pirates have seized in less
than a week.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, A South African
luxury train carrying foreign tourists, most of them Americans, sped
out of control downhill and derailed near Pretoria, killing two
Rovos Rail crew members as coaches flipped and crumpled against one
another. A 3rd crew member soon died from injuries in a
hospital.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Sri Lanka
veteran politician Dissanayake Mudiyansalage Jayaratne took the oath
of office as the country’s 20th prime minister.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Syria a smoking
ban that few are expected to abide by went into effect. The law,
which also forbids the sale of cigarettes to minors, was approved
six months ago by President Bashar Assad, a British-trained eye
doctor. A 1996 decree issued by Assad's late father, President Hafez
Assad, had banned smoking in government offices, hospitals and the
airport. A 2004 law banned smoking in internet cafes and another law
in 2006 made buses, railway stations, movie theaters, parks and
cultural centers smoke-free, with violators facing a fine of about
$10 and three months in jail. But the bans were often flouted and
not strictly enforced.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, The presidents of
Ukraine and Russia agreed to extend the stay of Russia's Black Sea
Fleet in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol to 2042 after the existing
lease expires in 2017. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that
Kiev will receive large discounts on gas shipments in return for
certainty over the base's future, $100 for every 1,000 cubic meters
of gas or 30 percent if the benchmark price falls below $330.
(AP, 4/21/10)(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 22, The US National
Research Council released a study that found the level of acid in
oceans increasing by 30% since the start of the Industrial
Revolution, some 200 years ago. This came on the 40th observance of
Earth Day.
(SFC, 4/23/10, p.A16)
2010 Apr 22, In Jefferson City,
Missouri, Chris Shaw (29), a tattooed father of three, came forward
as the $258 million winner of the 10th-largest Powerball jackpot
ever.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, CenturyTel Inc.,
the fifth-largest US local-phone company, said that it will buy
Qwest Communications International Inc., the third-largest, in a
stock swap worth $10.6 billion to gain the benefits of scale in a
shrinking business.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Codexis, a Redwood
City, Calif.-based developer of biocatalysts for drug and biofuel
production, launched its initial public offering at $13 per share.
Codexis was founded in 2002 as a spin-out from drug developer
Maxygen, which now owns about 21.3%.
(Econ, 10/30/10,
p.85)(http://tinyurl.com/2ea3fxy)
2010 Apr 22, In San Francisco
Alicia Parlette (28), former copy editor, died at UCSF of cancer.
Her diagnosis of incurable cancer at age 23 led to “Alicia’s Story,”
a 17-part series in the SF Chronicle.
(SFC, 4/23/10, p.C5)
2010 Apr 22, The Int’l. Whaling
Commission (IWC), under Chilean chairman Crishan Maquieira, unveiled
a peace plan whereby the current moratorium would be lifted for a
decade if whalers would agree to sharp reductions in their catch.
The plan will be considered at the June meeting of the IWC in
Morocco.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.62)
2010 Apr 22, Afghan and NATO
forces came under heavy fire while searching a compound in eastern
Logar province, sparking a gunbattle that killed two US soldiers and
five insurgents.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, Armenia suspended
ratification of peace accords with Turkey, setting back to square
one US-backed efforts to bury a century of hostility between the
neighbors.
(Reuters, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Belgian Premier
Yves Leterme's government collapsed after negotiations broke down to
resolve a long-simmering dispute between Dutch and French-speaking
politicians over a bilingual voting district.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, In Burkina Faso
Health Minister Seydou Bouda said a strain of meningitis, called X,
has killed 718 people out of 5,118 cases in the West African country
since January.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, European airports
sent thousands of planes into the sky after a week of unprecedented
disruptions, with airlines piling on more flights and bigger planes
to try to get as many people home as possible.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Markets hammered
Greece after the EU revised the debt-ridden country's deficit and
debt figures upwards, sending the country's borrowing costs to
unsustainably high levels and pushing Athens closer to calling for
an expensive rescue.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, In Iraq an
American soldier died of injuries that were not a result of combat.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, Israel unveiled an
indictment against five of its citizens, including a retired army
general, charging them with operating a nationwide organ trafficking
ring that ensnared dozens of potential victims.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Al-Qaida in North
Africa kidnapped Frenchman Michel Germaneau (78) in northern Niger.
On May 14 a militant Web site said it wanted to trade him for the
group's prisoners in France and other nations. A day before the
kidnapping, four Sahara Desert nations opened a joint military
headquarters in the Algerian city of Tamanrasset to combat terrorism
and trafficking. On July 25 al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb said it
had killed the 78-year-old French hostage in retaliation for the
killing of six al-Qaida members in a recent raid by Mauritanian
forces aided by the French military.
(AP, 5/14/10)(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Apr 22, Nigeria’s Acting
President Goodluck Jonathan approved a 4.6 trillion naira
(31-billion-dollar) budget that increased spending by about 50%. He
also signed a bill that gives preferential treatment to Nigerian
companies wanting to take part in the country's oil industry.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, Pakistan security
forces, backed by tanks and artillery, killed at least 20 Taliban
militants in a clash in the northwestern region of Orakzai. One
soldier was killed in the fighting. Militants ambushed a Pakistani
army convoy traveling in North Waziristan that is mostly home to
insurgent groups focused on the war in neighboring Afghanistan,
killing eight soldiers. Intelligence officials said tribesmen joined
local Taliban fighters to stage the ambush after a 15-year-old boy
in the area was allegedly shot to death by an earlier group of
traveling soldiers.
(Reuters, 4/22/10)(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 22, A South Korean
news report said the South Korea's military believes a torpedo fired
from a North Korean submarine sank its navy ship last month, based
on intelligence gathered jointly with the United States.
(Reuters, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Sri Lanka's
detained former army chief, Sarath Fonseka, briefly emerged from
custody for the opening of parliament and accused the government of
planning to silence his "fight for democracy." He was briefly
allowed out of custody to attend parliament, in which he won a seat
in parliamentary elections two weeks ago.
(AFP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, In Thailand a
series of blasts were detonated near a massive encampment of
anti-government protesters in Bangkok, wounding as many as 28
people. At least one person was reported killed.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, The UN World
Health Organization and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) asked for funds
for vaccinations saying almost 200 children have died of measles in
16 African countries in the first three months of this year.
(AFP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Pope Benedict XVI
accepted the resignation of Irish Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare,
who acknowledged failing to report abuse to police, while a German
bishop also offered to step down.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Venezuelan
authorities raided eight drug laboratories near the Colombian
border, seizing 4.5 tons of cocaine in one of the largest hauls in
recent times.
(Reuters, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 22, Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, a meeting of two leaders united in fierce opposition to
the West.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 23, Arizona’s Gov. Jan
Brewer signed into law SB1070, a bill that supporters said would
take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration.
Arizona, with an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants, was the
nation's busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
(AP, 4/24/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.25)
2010 Apr 23, Belgium's longest
serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe (73) the Bishop of Bruges,
resigned, saying he was "enormously sorry" for having sexually
abused a young boy about 25 years ago. It later was established that
the victim was his nephew. In 2011 the Vatican clarified the
punishment against Vangheluwe after Belgian bishops reported that he
had merely been sent outside Belgium for spiritual and psychological
counseling.
(AP, 4/23/10)(AP, 4/12/11)
2010 Apr 23, Bolivia’s
President Evo Morales said he is creating a "Mother Earth Ministry"
to promote the planet's rights and says that he would like to
establish an international court with the power to punish nations
that fail to obey emissions-reduction agreements. Morales revealed
the plans as he launched a campaign to plant 10 million trees, equal
to Bolivia's population, by April 22, 2011.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 23, Chinese police in
Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, detained Tagyal, a
prominent Tibetan intellectual. Tagyal had recently authored “The
Line Between Earth and Sky,” in which he praised the activism of
monks during the Tibetan unrest of 2008.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.42)
2010 Apr 23, In El Salvador
gunmen shot and seriously wounded First Secretary Guillermo Medina
Alfaro, a Mexican diplomat who worked with the international police
agency Interpol. Police said the diplomat's wife was killed.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, Greece asked for
the activation of a financial rescue plan by the eurozone and
International Monetary Fund, in the hope it will help the heavily
indebted country out of a major crisis and give it the breathing
space to put its finances in order.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, Diplomats said
Iran has agreed to give the UN nuclear monitoring agency greater
inspection and monitoring rights to a sensitive site where it is
enriching uranium to higher levels.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, In Iraq a series
of bomb attacks mainly targeting Shiite worshippers killed 72
people, including 25 near the main Baghdad office of an anti-US
Shiite cleric. An Iraqi soldier was killed as he stormed a house
west of Baghdad where insurgents had stockpiled explosives.
(AP, 4/23/10)(AFP, 4/23/10)(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 23, NATO ministers
meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, agreed to begin handing over control of
Afghanistan to the Afghan government this year, a process that if
successful would enable President Barack Obama to meet his target
date of July 2011 for starting to bring US troops home.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed two police vehicles at a busy intersection in Ciudad
Juarez, killing 7 officers and a 17-year-old boy who was passing by.
Police in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero said they found the
bodies of five men who had been shot to death lying on a dirt road
near the state capital, Chilpancingo. Three of the men were
brothers, all in their 20s. In central Morelos state, federal police
and the Mexican army raided two ranch homes and arrested 15 men near
the town of Amacuzac. The men were suspected of working for alleged
drug trafficker Jose Gerardo Alvarez Vazquez, who was arrested April
21 in Mexico City.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 23, North Korea said
it will confiscate five South Korean-owned properties at a jointly
operated mountain resort in the isolated communist country, a
development likely to worsen already-soured relations.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the establishment of a Palestinian
state within temporary borders, an idea he said was recently
proposed for restarting peace talks.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 23, In Russia two-time
Olympic rhythmic gymnastics champion Natalia Lavrova (25) was killed
with her sister in a car accident. Lavrova was Russia's only
rhythmic gymnast to win two Olympic gold medals, in team
competitions at the Sydney and Athens Olympics in 2000 and 2004.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 23, In Sudan an
announcement that Unity state incumbent Taban Deng had retained his
post in this month's election was followed by protests in the state
capital Bentiu that left two people shot dead by police and a third
wounded. Supporters of Deng's main rival Angelina Teny, wife of
south Sudan's vice president Riek Machar, were accused of trying to
wreck a local radio station. The National Election Commission also
announced that Beshir's ruling National Congress Party had won the
posts of governor in North Darfur and West Darfur, with results for
South Darfur yet to be released.
(AFP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Mississippi a
devastating tornado sliced through the state killing 10 people
including 3 children. Tornadoes also were reported in Louisiana,
Arkansas and Alabama with 2 deaths in Alabama.
(AP, 4/25/10)(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 24, The Texas Rangers
filed for bankruptcy. Hicks Sports Group, the holding company that
owns the Rangers, stopped paying interest on its $525 million of
debts last year.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.64)
2010 Apr 24 British
chiffrephile (a lover of figures) Angus Maddison (83) died. His life
work included 20 books and 130 article plus 19 volumes that he
edited or co-authored.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.80)
2010 Apr 24, In Chile Paul
Schaefer (89), a former Nazi soldier, died in a prison. He had
founded Colonia Dignidad, a secretive, commune-like colony of German
immigrants and was serving time for child molestation and human
rights abuses dating to the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, China replaced
Wang Lequan (65), the unpopular Communist Party boss for western
Xinjiang province, months after ethnic riots there killed nearly
200. The Xinhua News Agency said Wang had been appointed as deputy
secretary of a political committee of the Central Committee. It is
not known if he is still a member of the party's Politburo, the
25-member body near the pinnacle of power in China. He was replaced
by Zhang Chunxian (56), party boss of southern Hunan province since
November 2006. The Dalian city government ordered the mayor of
Zhuanghe city to resign for his "mismanagement" of an April 13
incident in which he ignored scores of villagers who knelt in front
of government offices to appeal for an investigation into official
corruption.
(AP, 4/24/10)(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 24, Iran’s official
IRNA news agency reported that Iran has amnestied 110 "terrorists"
since it captured the leader of a Sunni insurgency in southeastern
Sistan-Baluchestan province in February. Provincial governor Ali
Mohammad Azad said 300 militants had "expressed regret" for their
actions since Abdolmalek Rigi's arrest.
(AFP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Mexico gunmen
armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a convoy carrying
the top security official of the western state of Michoacan, killing
four and wounding 10. In the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, the
dismembered bodies of three men were found in plastic bags inside a
home outside the resort of Acapulco. A hand-lettered sign blamed the
three dead men for the April 14 shooting that killed six people on
Acapulco's main boulevard. Prosecutors in Chihuahua state, where
Ciudad Juarez is located, announced the arrest of a man suspected of
participating in last year's killing of an anti-crime activist and a
neighbor, both of whom lived in rural Chihuahua but held dual US
citizenship. Ubaldo Rohan was charged with acting as a lookout in
the kidnapping of activist Benjamin LeBaron's brother, Eric. After
LeBaron protested the kidnapped, he and a neighbor were killed [see
July 7, 2009].
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 24, In New Zealand 3
airmen were killed and a fourth seriously hurt after a military
helicopter en route to a military memorial flyover crashed on
farmland north of Wellington.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 24, Nigeria and the
United States agreed to work together to counter the spread of
nuclear weapons. The agreement was announced following a meeting
between US undersecretary of state for political affairs William
Burns with acting Pres. Goodluck Jonathan.
(AFP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Nigeria Edo
Ugbagwu (42), a justice reporter for the daily newspaper The Nation,
died in a shooting after some sort of confrontation at his home in
Lagos. Two journalists working for a Christian magazine were stabbed
to death by a mob in a predominantly Muslim suburb in the flashpoint
Nigerian city of Jos. Kidnappers seized the commissioner of the
environment in southern oil-rich Bayelsa State, along with her
mother-in-law, during a private visit to Abia state. Mrs. Victoria
Denenu and her mother-in-law were released on April 29.
(AP, 4/26/10)(AFP, 4/26/10)(AFP, 4/27/10)(AFP,
5/1/10)
2010 Apr 24, In northwest
Pakistan a suicide attack on a prison van wounded at least 10
policemen in Timergarah. Troops waging an offensive in the Orakzai
tribal region killed 20 suspected Taliban insurgents. Gunmen torched
6 NATO oil tankers killing 4 police officers in the Chakwal district
of Punjab province.
(AP, 4/24/10)(SSFC, 4/25/10, p.A7)
2010 Apr 24, Palestinian
president Mahmud Abbas called for an "open political dialogue"
between Palestinian groups and both Israeli and Jewish organizations
around the world.
(AFP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, Paraguay lawmakers
gave Pres. Fernando Lugo and the army emergency powers resembling
martial law to pursue a guerrilla group known for its kidnappings in
the north of the country.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Peru police
Gen. Luis Muguruza, who commanded a police operation against an
Indian road blockade last June that resulted in 33 deaths, was named
a member of the Interior Ministry's human rights commission,
according to a decree published in the government's official
gazette.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 24, A Russian Proton
rocket carrying a US AMC 49 telecommunications satellite was
launched into orbit from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Spain tens of
thousands of people marched through Madrid and other Spanish cities
in a boisterous show of support for Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has
been indicted on charges of abusing his authority by investigating
atrocities committed during the civil war and the early years of
Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva rejected scaled-back demands that he dissolve
Parliament in 30 days, prompting anti-government protesters to pull
out of negotiations and dashing hopes for an imminent resolution to
the country's political crisis.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 24, Ukraine's
political opposition sought to rally people against a decision by
President Viktor Yanukovich to allow the Russian navy to stay in
Ukraine's Crimea until 2042.
(Reuters, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 25, In California
Fresno police began a crackdown on gangs after 3 people were killed
in separate shootings. By May 10 police made some 648 arrests
including 216 for felony offenses.
(SFC, 5/10/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 25, Dorothy Provine
(75), film and TV actress, died at her home in Washington state. Her
films included “Live Fast, Die Young” (1958) and “The Great Race”
(1965).
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.C4)
2010 Apr 25, Phuong Le (24) of
Suisun city, Ca., was last seen at a bookstore in Fairfield, Ca. Her
body was found on May 7 in rural Napa County.
(SFC, 5/8/10, p.C3)
2010 Apr 25, In Afghanistan 13
girls became sick in northern Kunduz province. Another 47 had
complained of dizziness and nausea the day before, and 23 fell ill
on April 21. A strange odor in their classrooms, prompted an
investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who
oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria. Hundreds of
people blocked a main road in Logar province, and burned several
trucks to protest what they said were civilian deaths in NATO
operations. In southern Zabul province a suicide bomber attacked
private security guards while they were at a bazaar, killing four
Afghans and wounding 12. One Afghan police officer was killed and
another was wounded during an attack on a militant compound in the
Wordoch district of Badakshkhan province northeast of Kabul. 2
militants were killed in the operation. Government forces on a
mission to eradicate poppies in eastern Nangrahar province came
under fire. During the gunbattle three Afghans were killed. Six
Taliban militants were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 4/25/10)(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 25, Austria's
president easily secured a second term, deflecting a challenge by a
far-right politician who had criticized the country's anti-Nazi law.
Incumbent Heinz Fischer, a Social Democrat, won 78.9 percent of the
vote, trouncing his main rival, Barbara Rosenkranz of the
anti-foreigner and anti-European Union Freedom Party, who netted
15.6 percent.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, Kifah Hassan,
chief executive of Iraqi Airways, had his passport seized and the
plane he arrived on was impounded at Gatwick Airport in a
long-running legal dispute with Kuwait Airways. The dispute dated
back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when,
according to the oil-rich emirate, 10 of its planes and aircraft
parts were plundered after its airport was seized.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 25, Colombian police
said they have captured Danit Doria Castillo, a leading figure in a
drug trafficking, right-wing militia group.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, Cuba held
elections to fill municipal assemblies across the island in a vote
the communist government says belies criticism in Washington and
Europe that Fidel Castro's half-century old revolution is not
democratic.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, Police in Hong
Kong seized 820 pounds (372 kg) of cocaine from a suburban house
that was reportedly part of a botched drug shipment sent to the
southern Chinese territory by mistake. Police later said they have
arrested eight people, four men and four women aged 22 to 84, in
connection to the case, their largest seizure to date.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 25, Hungarians went to
the polls for the second round of general elections. The
center-right Fidesz party, led by Viktor Orban, a former prime
minister who promised to restore "law and order" and pull Hungary
out of recession, won a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
(AFP, 4/25/10)(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, In Iraq troops
raided the town of al-Safra and arrested Burhan Mahmoud Mohammed, a
local leader of the Islamic State of Iraq. An explosion inside an
iron factory in Irbil killed five workers, including two Indians,
two Arabs, a Kurd, and wounded 15.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, In Japan nearly
100,000 protesters attended a rally on Okinawa to demonstrate
against a US air base in a row that is dominating Japan's national
politics and souring its ties with Washington.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, Malaysia's
government scored a narrow win in a tense by-election billed as a
referendum on PM Najib Razak's planned economic reforms and his
first year in office.
(Reuters, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, In the Philippines
a huge fire sweeping through a shantytown outside Manila destroyed
about 600 houses leaving one person dead and some 10,000 people
homeless.
(AP, 4/25/10)(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 25, In Sudan clashes
continued for a 4th day in Darfur between Arab nomads and south
Sudan's army along the country's volatile north-south border. Local
tribal officials reported more than 50 Arab nomads were killed in
the fighting with soldiers from the southern Sudan's People
Liberation Army.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 25, A hot air balloon
carrying 14 people crashed in the desert south of Dubai, killing at
least two.
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 26, Former Panamanian
dictator Manuel Noriega extradited was from the US to France to face
money laundering charges in a French courtroom, opening up a whole
new legal battle for the strongman who spent two decades behind bars
in Florida for drug trafficking.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 26,
Massachusetts-based Charles River Laboratories International Inc., a
medical research equipment and services company, announced plans to
buy WuXi PharmaTech, a Chinese pharmaceutical outsourcing company,
for $1.6 billion.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, The oil spill off
the coast of Louisiana, due to April 20 sinking of the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig, extended over some 1,800 square miles. Robot
submarines were in use to close valves atop the well. Officials said
engineers have begun constructing a giant dome to place over the
leaking oil well.
(SFC, 4/27/10, p.A6)(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Afghanistan two
explosions killed two civilians and injured one police officer and
one civilian in Kandahar. Another policeman was injured in the blast
in the city's north. The wave of violence in Kandahar has forced the
UN to tell more than 200 of its Afghan employees there to stay home.
Several foreign UN employees have been temporarily moved to Kabul.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Belgium King
Albert II accepted the government's resignation after negotiations
failed to resolve a long-simmering dispute between Dutch- and
French-speaking politicians over a bilingual voting district in and
around Brussels.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Fred Halliday
(64), English professor of int’l. politics, died. He authored over
20 books and was significant for his work on the Middle East.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.86)
2010 Apr 26, Canada signaled a
split with allies, ahead of a G8 aid ministers' meeting, by saying
it would not help groups that fund abortions as part of a push to
boost maternal health in the world's poorest nations.
(Reuters, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Chile's Roman
Catholic Church was shaken by a series of dramatic televised
interviews of men alleging they were abused by a respected former
priest. Early the next morning a bombing that damaged a church's
facade.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Ethiopia gunmen
shot dead an opposition party activist, days after the government
accused the party of killing a policeman in the same region.
(AFP, 5/10/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Guatemala the
Santiaguito volcano showered sand and ash over a large western area
in an "unusual" and "violent" eruption.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 26, A Haitian judge
said he has dismissed kidnapping and criminal association charges
against 10 American missionaries detained for trying to take a
busload of children out of the country after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Hungary's central
bank cut its main interest rate by a quarter point to a new all-time
low of 5.25 percent, continuing its run of monetary easing as
inflation appears under control and financial investors more
confident in the country's stability.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Iran’s state
television reported that Iran is cutting red tape and easing
ownership rules to encourage foreign investment in stocks and bonds,
as the major oil producer faces further UN sanctions over its
nuclear work.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, An Iraqi court
disqualified 52 candidates from the country's parliamentary
elections, including two who won seats, and threw out their votes in
a decision that could potentially change the outcome of the March 7
vote.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Municipal
officials said the Israeli government has imposed a de facto freeze
on new Jewish construction in Jerusalem's disputed eastern sector.
The decision was made despite PM Benjamin Netanyahu's public
insistence that building would not be stopped in the face of US
pressure. Israeli troops killed Hamas activist Ali Sweiti, a wanted
Palestinian militant in a raid on a West Bank house. Sweiti was
wanted in five shooting attacks, one of which killed a paramilitary
policeman in 2004.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Italian police
arrested Giovanni Tegano (70), a veteran mobster who was on the run
for 17 years, in a house in Reggio Calabria. He was among the most
wanted men of the 'ndrangheta organized crime group.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Malaysia a
policeman fired a shot that killed Aminulrasyid Amzah (14). On May
10 prosecutors charged officer Jenain Subi with fatally shooting the
teenager, an incident that triggered a national outcry over claims
of police brutality. Activists say Malaysia's police have fatally
shot more than 180 suspects, half of them Indonesians, since 2007.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 Apr 26, Mexico’s Interior
Secretary Fernandez Gomez-Mont said drug cartels have changed
tactics and are turning more attacks on authorities, rather than
focusing their fire on rivals gangs. Troops killed three suspected
kidnappers and freed seven of their captives during a raid on a
ranch in the northern state of Nuevo Leon. Two rotting bodies were
found in a truck near the ranch.
(AP, 4/26/10)(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 26, Morocco’s
government said security forces have broken up a militant cell with
links to al Qaeda that was planning assassinations and acts of
sabotage targeting the security services and foreign interests.
(Reuters, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Nepal Pushpa
Kamal Dahal, the leader of the opposition Maoists, urged the public
to support a nationwide street protest aimed at toppling the current
government.
(AFP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, A Nigerian court
charged the country's ruling party chairman over a series of
corruption allegations, creating a criminal case against the most
powerful man blocking the acting president from running in next
year's election. Vincent Ogbulafor faced 16 counts accusing him of
funneling money toward fictitious projects during his service as
minister of special duties.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Pakistan US
missiles killed four alleged Taliban insurgents in the northwest,
while three other militant suspects were slain in a shootout with
local security forces elsewhere in the region. The body of an
anti-Taliban tribal elder was found in the Bajur tribal region. The
killers left a note on the body of Maulana Abdul Haleem stating "any
one found involved in helping the government against the Taliban
will meet the same fate."
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas signed a law banning Palestinians from
working in Israeli settlements and selling settlement goods, with
violators facing up to five years in prison and stiff fines.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, Thailand's
elite-backed "Yellow Shirts" called for a state of martial law to
end anti-government protests as the rival "Red Shirts" blocked
police convoys heading to the strife-torn capital.
(AFP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 26, In Yemen the
British ambassador narrowly escaped a suicide attack, when a young
man (20) in a school uniform detonated his explosives belt near his
armored car at a poor neighborhood of San'a. 3 bystanders were
wounded.
(AP, 4/26/10)
2010 Apr 27, It was reported
that Fritz Maytag, owner of the SF-based Anchor Brewing Co., has
sold the company to the Griffon Group, run by Keith Greggor and Tony
Foglio.
(SFC, 4/27/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 27, The Oklahoma
Senate voted to override Gov. Brad. Henry’s veto of two abortion
bills, one that an abortion-rights group has said would be among the
nation’s strictest measures against the procedure. On July 19
Oklahoma County District Judge Noma Gurich granted an injunction
blocking enforcement of the abortion law.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A6)(SFC, 7/20/10, p.A4)
2010 Apr 27, A Texas inmate,
Samuel Bustamante (40), was executed evening for fatally stabbing an
illegal immigrant during an attempted robbery a dozen years ago.
Bustamante was convicted of the 1998 slaying of Rafael Alvarado
(27), a Mexican national in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston,
who became a target of what Bustamante and some of his friends
called "shopping trips" where they would hunt illegal immigrants,
then beat and rob them.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, In eastern
Afghanistan a NATO soldier was killed following a gun attack.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Brazil, a UN
Security Council member, demanded that Iran guarantee its nuclear
program has no military aims, saying the crisis has become the
single most important security issue in the world.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, British
researchers reported that a single sigmoidoscopy between ages 55 and
64 can reduce deaths by at least 43%.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 27, Czech Republic
vice premier Martin Bartak said the government has approved an
agreement with the United States on scientific cooperation in
defense research.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Germany officially
opened its first offshore wind farm in the North Sea after years of
delays and technical problems. The $340 million test field, Alpha
Ventus, consisted of 12 windmills.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, India’s foreign
ministry said a female diplomat, Mrs. Gupta (53), working in the
Indian embassy in Islamabad has been arrested on charges of spying
for Pakistan. Strikes to protest rising food and fuel prices shut
down air, rail and road traffic in several parts of India.
(AFP, 4/27/10)(SSFC, 5/2/10, p.M3)
2010 Apr 27, Two Iraqi soldiers
were killed in an overnight mortar attack on a security station in a
Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, In Kyrgyzstan the
leader of the interim authorities said ousted president Kurmanbek
Bakiyev has been charged with organizing mass killings in the deadly
uprising that forced him from office in this Central Asian country
earlier this month.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, The Mexican Senate
passed a measure to make soldiers accountable to civilian courts for
abuses involving civilians, and ensure the use of troops in actions
like the offensive against drug cartels is temporary. Gunmen
attacked a caravan of rights observers and leftists near the restive
town of San Juan Copala in southern Oaxaca state, killing Finnish
human rights worker Jyri Jaakkola and Mexican political activist
Beatriz Carino Trujillo. An Italian man and a Belgian man were still
unaccounted for more than 24 hours after the ambush. The National
Network of Human Rights Civic Organizations said another Finn, three
Mexicans and two journalists from the Mexican magazine Contralinea
were also missing. The army reported that it freed 16 hostages at a
house in Sabinas Hidalgo, a town near the northern city of
Monterrey. One of the hostages was a 1-year-old child. 4 inmates
were killed when an armed gang stormed a prison in the northern town
of Altamira. 29 officers in four patrol vehicles were detained in
the resort city of Acapulco after being stopped and searched by navy
personnel. Searchers found a 33-pound (15-kg) bag of marijuana in
one of the vehicles and 36 non-regulation firearms overall, mostly
machine pistols and assault rifles.
(AP, 4/27/10)(AP, 4/29/10)(AP, 4/28/10)(AP,
4/29/10)
2010 Apr 27, In Nepal Oh
Eun-sun (44), a South Korean mountaineer, became the first woman to
scale the world's 14 highest mountains, crawling on all fours as she
reached the last summit. She reached the summit of Annapurna
13 years after she scaled her first Himalayan mountain, Gasherbrum
II, in 1997. She scaled Everest in 2004.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Pakistani troops
killed 13 suspected insurgents in the Orakzai tribal region near
Afghanistan. 8 militants died after a battle over a checkpoint in
the Bezod area of Orakzai. Airstrikes killed five more in the Kasha
area.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Sierra Leone
launched a program to provide free health care to mothers and
children in the West African nation, which suffers from high rates
of maternal and child mortality. UNICEF says it will distribute $6
million in medicines.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Singapore
previewed the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) casino, owned and operated by
the Las Vegas Sands Corp.
(http://tinyurl.com/4lqzq5g)(Econ, 2/26/11, p.72)
2010 Apr 27, In Somalia a truck
full of explosives pulled up to a new AU base in Mogadishu. Two
soldiers opened fire on the truck and were wounded along with 2
civilians when the explosion went off. The suicide attacker was the
only one to die in the attack. Later at least 14 civilians were
killed during a prolonged battle between government soldiers and
Islamic insurgents.
(AP, 4/27/10)(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 27, In Thailand
anti-government protesters forced a rush hour shutdown of Bangkok's
busy elevated train system and promised to expand protests that have
plunged the Thai capital into chaos by sending teams of
demonstrators throughout the city.
(AP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 27, Ukraine's
parliament erupted into chaos as deputies scuffled and hurled smoke
bombs during a tumultuous session that ratified a bitterly contested
deal with Russia extending a naval base lease.
(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 28, Coast Guard Rear
Adm. Mary Landry was emphatic at a hastily called news conference
that a new leak was discharging 5,000 barrels a day of sweet crude,
not the 1,000 barrels officials had estimated for days since the
Deepwater Horizons drilling rig exploded and sank 50 miles off the
Louisiana Coast. Shrimpers in Louisiana filed a class-action lawsuit
against oil giant BP Plc and owners of the drilling platform that
exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, as claims for economic losses
anticipated from the disaster began to mount.
(AP, 4/29/10)(Reuters, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 28, The US Supreme
Court refused to order the removal of a cross from the Mohave
National Preserve in southern California. Veterans of Foreign
Wars had placed a cross there in 1934 to honor soldiers killed in
WWI. The first wooden cross was later replaced by a metal cross,
which was around May 9-10, 2010.
(www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69916)
2010 Apr 28, Sempra Energy, the
parent company of San Diego Gas and Electric Co., agreed to pay $410
million to settle claims that it played Enron-style games with
California’s electricity market during the 2000-2001 energy crises.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.D1)
2010 Apr 28, The International
Olympic Committee, acting on evidence that Dong Fangxiao was only 14
at the 2000 Games in Sidney, stripped China of the women's team
bronze medal. China was ordered to give the medal back, allowing the
United States to claim it instead.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, Palm Inc. a
pioneer in the smart phone business that couldn't quite make the
comeback it needed, agreed to be bought out by Hewlett-Packard Co.
for about $1.4 billion in cash. Palm was founded in 1992 by Donna
Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins and helped originate the handheld
computing market with its Palm Pilot "personal digital assistants"
in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 28, Scientists
reported that infrared analysis of asteroid 24 Themis indicated that
it contained evidence of water ice as well as organic compounds.
Themis, a 120-mile wide asteroid, stood as one of the largest in the
solar system.
(SFC, 4/28/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 28, In Beijing France
and China said they would work together to consider an overhaul of
the global monetary system, at the start of a state visit by French
President Nicolas Sarkozy.
(AFP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, In southern China
Chen Kangbing (33) wielding a knife broke into a primary school and
stabbed 15 students and a teacher in Leizhou city, the same day
another school attacker was executed for killing eight children last
month. Xu Yuyuan (47) was found guilty of attempted homicide in
mid-May by the Taizhou Intermediate Court in Jiangsu province. He
was executed on May 30. Kangbing was sentenced to death on June 11.
(AP, 4/28/10)(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 Apr 28, An Egyptian court
convicted 26 men of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah
and plotting attacks in Egypt, and gave them prison sentences
ranging from six months to life. A Hamas security official in charge
of the tunnel area along the border said Egyptians had filled a
passage with some type of crowd dispersal gas killing four
Palestinians. The next day Egypt denied the charges saying fires
sparked by such explosions could use up all the oxygen in the tunnel
and people caught inside could suffocate.
(AP, 4/28/10)(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 28, Bangladesh Labor
and Manpower Minister Mosharraf Hossain said Bangladesh will raise
the minimum wage for millions of garment workers, as workers staged
another mass protest that blocked the country's main highway.
(AFP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, EU Pres. Herman
Van Rompuy said he is fully confident that debt-laden Greece will
receive the financial assistance it needs in time to address its
debt problems and to preserve eurozone stability. Greece faced a May
19 deadline, when around euro 10 billion of debt comes due.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, In Iraq former PM
Ayad Allawi, the front-runner in the recent parliamentary elections,
called for the formation of an impartial, internationally supervised
caretaker government to prevent the country from sliding into
violence and counter what he says are efforts to change the vote
results. The US military said an American soldier has been killed by
a roadside blast in the Diyala province in northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, In Mexico gunmen
stormed into a bar, dragged out eight people and killed them in the
parking lot, the first of several shootings in Ciudad Juarez that
left 16 dead, including a man in a wheelchair. In the Pacific coast
state of Guerrero, gunmen killed, Jose Santiago Agustino, the mayor
of the small town of Zapotitlan Tablas, while he was in the state
capital of Chilpancingo. In 2009 he had complained that a government
hospital built in his region more than a decade earlier had never
opened.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, Nigeria's senate
ordered a probe into Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima (49) for his alleged
marriage to a 13-year-old Egyptian girl, after the national rights
watchdog and other 10 groups accused him of shaming the country.
Gunmen seized four officers of an agency responsible for combating
counterfeit pharmaceuticals in the southern state of Abia.
(AFP, 4/28/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 28, In Pakistan
security forces have killed seven suspected insurgents in the
Orakzai tribal region near Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, Dunkin' Donuts
said it is returning to Russia, following an 11-year absence, with
plans to tap growing appetite for coffee and sweets by opening up to
20 outlets in Moscow this year.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 28, In Sudan around
2,000 people gathered in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, after
discovering that the scheme had collapsed. Police used tear gas to
break up a protest by hundreds of investors who lost money in a
Ponzi scheme that stretched across Sudan's strife-ridden Darfur
region and beyond.
(Reuters, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 28, Thai security
forces fired into a crowd of anti-government protesters during a
clash just outside Bangkok as they tried to keep the Red Shirts from
expanding their demonstrations from a base in the capital. One
soldier was killed, and at least 18 protesters were hurt.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 29, The US Navy said
the first US women allowed to serve aboard submarines will be
reporting for duty by 2012.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, Alabama shrimpers
filed a class-action lawsuit against oil giant BP Plc and owners of
the drilling platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, as claims
for economic losses anticipated from the disaster began to mount.
(Reuters, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 29, In Oakland, Ca.,
Parking director Noel Pinto issued a memo curtailing nighttime
parking enforcement, effecting as of May 13. The recently begun
practice had enraged local residents.
(SFC, 5/11/10, p.C3)
2010 Apr 29, Australia said it
will force tobacco companies to strip all logos and color from their
packaging, in a move aimed at driving people away from smoking.
(SFC, 4/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 29, A giant NASA
science balloon crashed during take-off in Australia, destroying its
multi-million-dollar payload, toppling a large car and narrowly
missing frightened observers.
(AFP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, NATO troops in
Nangarhar province raided the home of a prominent Afghan lawmaker
overnight, killing one of her relatives. In Laghman province a
suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near an Afghan
army training facility, killing a soldier.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, Belgium's lower
house of parliament banned burqa-type Islamic dress in public, but
the measure faced a challenge in the Senate which will delay early
enactment of the law. There were two abstentions. No one voted
against.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 29, The president of
the Central African Republic scrapped plans to hold polls May 16
after the elections commission told him it would be unable to
organize them in time.
(AFP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, In eastern China a
knife-wielding jobless man, Xu Yuyuan (47), attacked a kindergarten
class of 4-year-olds, slashing 29 children and 3 teachers in what an
expert said was a copycat rampage of two other episodes at Chinese
schools in the past month. On May 15 Xu Yuyuan was sentenced to
death. He appealed the death sentence, saying the punishment was too
severe considering no one was killed.
(AP, 4/29/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 Apr 29, Colombian
authorities detained Congressman Luis Carlos Restrepo Orozco on
allegations of receiving drug money.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, Avigdor Arikha
(b.1929), Holocaust surviving artist, died in Paris. He was perhaps
the best painter from life in the last decades of the 20th century.
(Econ, 5/15/10,
p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Arikha)
2010 Apr 29, The prime
ministers of India and Pakistan agreed to resume peace talks between
their top diplomats and work toward rebuilding trust shattered by
the deadly 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that New Delhi blamed on
Pakistani militants.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, Iraq's election
commission said recounting all the ballots from the key Baghdad
province will take around 2 to 3 weeks, further delaying the
formation of a long awaited new government. 8 people were killed and
20 injured in car bomb outside a Baghdad liquor store. Iraq's banned
Baath party, booted out of power in the 2003 US-led invasion, held
its first public meeting in the Syrian capital.
(AP, 4/29/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 29, Mexican police
said that a crowd of villagers in Guerrero state chased down a group
of alleged kidnappers, freed their victims and shot 3 men to death.
The men had apparently entered the hamlet of La Union, near the
coastal resort of Zihuatanejo, and abducted a man and two boys. They
allegedly also shot another man to death.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, In Myanmar
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi filed a lawsuit with the
country’s Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent the dissolution of
her party under a controversial new election law.
(AFP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, Thailand's "Red
Shirt" protesters called on the European Union to send observers to
prevent a crackdown by the army, but the government warned others
not to meddle in its internal affairs. Theo-establishment activists
demanded military action against anti-government protesters and an
end to "anarchy" in the capital.
(AFP, 4/29/10)(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, In Venezuela
Father Esteban Woods (68), an American priest, was slain inside his
apartment in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 29, In Vietnam a Javan
rhino, one of the world's rarest large mammals, was found shot dead
with its horn chopped off in a southern national park, a suspected
victim of poachers. There were only three to five Javan rhinos
believed left in Vietnam. The animal was first caught on camera at
the park in 1999.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 Apr 30, Oil from a leaking
well in the Gulf of Mexico began washing ashore in the southern US
state of Louisiana, threatening an ecological disaster.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In NYC an
indictment was unsealed against Wesam El-Hanafi and Sabirhan
Hasanoff for scheming to provide computer systems expertise and
other goods and services to Al-Qaida.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 30, In Arkansas
several tornadoes ripped through the state, killing a woman and
injuring two dozen others. Leveled homes, overturned vehicles and
uprooted trees were scattered across central Arkansas.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Peter Lopez (60),
a successful entertainment attorney who was married to actress
Catherine Bach, was found dead at his home in the Encino Hills, Ca.,
in an apparent suicide.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Mar 30, Jadin Wong
(b.1913), Chinese-American dancer and actress, died. She appeared in
dozens of films including “Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation” (1939).
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.C5)
2010 Apr 30, In southern
Afghanistan foreign troops killed two women and a girl as they
traveled by car.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Albania tens of
thousands of people thronged the main square of Tirana and demanded
a partial recount of the election that the opposition claims
involved vote-rigging.
(SFC, 5/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, In Argentina over
2,000 adolescents in schools across the province of Mendoza skipped
classes and met in a plaza in a mass truancy organized on Facebook.
A judge in Mendoza soon ordered Facebook to shut groups created by
minors to organize the truancy.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 30, Shanghai kicked
off the six-month World Expo with a star-studded gala ceremony set
to end in a lavish blaze of fireworks and light along the city's
river-front. The World Expo officially opened on May 1. Closing date
was set for Oct 31.
(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 5/1/10)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.42)
2010 Apr 30, A Chinese farmer
attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, injuring five, before
burning himself to death in China's third such assault in as many
days and prompting the government to demand stricter school security
nationwide.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, The EU's foreign
affairs chief Catherine Ashton said that China is willing to discuss
sanctions on Iran as long as they are carefully targeted and bolster
efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Ireland mourned
the shock loss of one of the nation's best-known broadcasters, Gerry
Ryan (53), who was found dead in his Dublin apartment after failing
to broadcast his morning radio show, an Irish institution.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Jordanian doctor
Humam Khalili Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA employees in
a suicide attack in Afghanistan late last year, called on Muslims to
wage jihad and become martyrs in a posthumous message posted on
extremist websites.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Kurdish rebels
killed four Turkish soldiers and wounded seven others in eastern
Turkey in the largest attack on troops in several months.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, Hezbollah's leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in published remarks that Hezbollah can
strike infrastructure deep inside Israel if a new war breaks out,
but refused to confirm whether or not the Lebanon-based militants
have long-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Mexican
authorities rescued two journalists who had been stranded for nearly
three days among feuding militants after a caravan of rights
activists was caught in a deadly ambush in southern Oaxaca state.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, A Nigerian court
sentenced six Ghanaians and a Nigerian to 8 years in prison each
after they were found guilty of stealing 4,000 tons of oil products.
Rebels in the restive Niger Delta claimed to have blown up a Shell
pipeline in the creeks of the southern oil producing region and
threatened further attacks.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Pakistan Khalid
Khawaja, a former intelligence officer, was found shot dead in a
northwest tribal region. Khawaja went missing in late March with
another ex-intelligence official, Sultan Amir Tarar, and journalist
Asad Qureshi. There was no word on the fate of the two others.
Pakistani troops pressing an anti-Taliban offensive into a second
month in a lawless tribal district near the Afghan border killed at
least eight militants. Taliban militants blew up a state-run girls'
school in Sadiqabad village in Bajaur, another of Pakistan's seven
tribal districts where militants have destroyed 89 schools.
(AP, 4/30/10)(AFP, 4/30/10)(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Apr 30, Panama police
found an arsenal of assault rifles, grenades and almost a half
million rounds of ammunition at the home of Professor Vinicio
Jimenez, a Guatemalan-born sociology professor. Their raid netted 47
assault rifles, 24 machine pistols, 487,900 rounds of ammunition and
almost 4,000 grenades and grenade-style munitions.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Puerto Rico
regulators shut down three banks that had struggled to stay afloat
during Puerto Rico's grinding, four-year recession. A judge in
Puerto Rico sentenced two former police officers to prison for the
beating death of a suspect who was detained in 2003 for allegedly
stealing a patrol car.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, In Russia Vera
Trifonova (53), who was reported to have diabetes and chronic kidney
failure, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina jail. Trifonova, the head
of a real estate company, had been jailed since December on fraud
charges. The next day Pres. Medvedev ordered investigators to
determine why another person has died in the same Moscow jail where
lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died last year of an untreated illness.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr 30, In south Sudan at
least seven people were killed after men said to be affiliated with
a defeated candidate in regional elections attacked an army base.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, Taiwan carried out
a death sentence for the first time since 2005, executing 4 inmates
as a heated debate rages on the island over whether capital
punishment should be abolished.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 Apr, British treasure
hunter Dave Crisp, using a metal detector, located some 52,500 Roman
coins in a field in southwestern England. The find included more
than 760 coins from the reign of Carausius, the Roman naval officer
who seized power in 286 and ruled until he was assassinated in 293.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Apr, In Bulgaria former
defense minister Nicolay Tsonev was arrested in a hospital as part
of a broad crackdown against organized crime.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.54)
2010 Apr, In Canada some 100
dogs appeared to have been "slaughtered" inhumanely, shortly after
the end of the Winter Games. The incident became public after an
employee of Outdoor Adventures Whistler filed a compensation claim
with the province, saying he was suffering from stress after being
forced to shoot the animals and bury them.
(Reuters, 1/31/11)
2010 Apr, China’s policymakers
imposed new curbs on housing speculation, raising down-payment
requirements and mortgage rates.
(Econ, 5/29/10, p.73)
2010 Apr, Israel’s Defense
Minister Ehud Barak announced that Gen. Ashkenazi's four-year term
would not be extended by a year, as is customary. In 2011 it was
reported that the action was a result of Ashkenazi’s objection to a
proposal to attack Iranian nuclear sites.
(Reuters, 1/12/11)
2010 Apr, In Senegal a new $27
million, 50-meter statue of a nuclear family, titled the “Monument
of African Resistance,” was officially opened in Dakar. It was
financed by public funds and designed by North Koreans. Pres.
Abdoulaye Wade demanded that 35% of proceeds from visitors should go
in perpetuity to his own foundation, to be run by his daughter.
(Econ, 2/27/10, p.54)
2010 Apr, In Switzerland a
police probe began after muddy, encrusted urns filled with human
ashes were discovered accidentally by divers near Zurich's
extravagantly wealthy "Gold Coast" only 5 miles (8 km) from the city
center. Speculation connected the urns to Dignitas, a Swiss group
that has helped hundreds of people, including Americans, Britons,
Germans and Frenchmen, take their lives in recent years. A probe
against Dignitas founder Ludwig A. Minelli in connection with the
urns was dropped July 28.
(AP, 4/28/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Apr, Uighur journalist
Memetjan Abdulla (33), who worked for an official Chinese radio
service, was sentenced to life imprisonment for transmitting
information about the 2009 ethnic riots in western China.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Apr, The World Bank
formally set up the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program
with G20 donors pledging $900 million. Leaders at the G20 summit in
Pittsburgh in September 2009 had called on the World Bank to “work
with interested donors and organizations to develop a multilateral
trust fund to scale up agricultural assistance to low income
countries.”
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.57)(http://tinyurl.com/4qwtyaz)
2010 Apr - 2010 Sep, In Mexico
at least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped over this 6-month period.
(AP, 2/22/11)(http://tinyurl.com/6jkl5zb)
2010 May 1, The worst US oil
spill in decades reached into precious shoreline habitat along the
Gulf Coast as documents emerged showing British Petroleum downplayed
the possibility of a catastrophic accident at the offshore rig that
exploded.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, In Minnesota a
suburban St. Paul police officer was killed during an ambush,
setting off a massive manhunt that ended with one suspect dead and
another in custody.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 1, NYC police found an
"amateurish" but potentially powerful bomb that apparently began to
detonate but did not explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in
Times Square. The Pakistani Taliban quickly claimed responsibility
for the failed car bomb attack.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 1, In South Carolina
Lee County Sheriff E. J. Melvin was arrested after the FBI caught
him calling drug dealers to tip them off or extort them after
receiving a list of possible dealers in his county.
(SFC, 5/4/10, p.A4)
2010 May 1, Elisabeth Mandala
(18), a Texas high school student, and two Mexican men were found
dead in a crashed pickup truck near Mina, in the northeastern state
of Nuevo Leon. Autopsies revealed that all three died from severe
blows to the head and body. Mandala, a senior at Kempner High School
in Sugar Land, Texas, was last seen April 27 leaving her mother's
home. The two men killed were taxi driver Luis Angel Estrella
Mondragon (44) and merchant Dante Ruiz Siller (38).
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 1, American actress
Helen Wagner (b.1918) died. She played mild-mannered Nancy Hughes on
the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns" for more than a
half-century. Wagner opened "As the World Turns" when it premiered
on April 2, 1956, with the words: "Good morning, dear."
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 1, Tens of thousands
of workers marched in cities from Hong Kong to Istanbul to mark
international worker's day, demanding more jobs, better work
conditions and higher wages.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, In Albania 22
opposition Socialist lawmakers and 180 supporters launched a hunger
strike to press the government to allow a partial recount of an
election they claim was tainted by vote-rigging. The government of
PM Sali Berisha, who narrowly won the June 28 general election
controlling 75 of parliament's 140 seats, called their demands
illegal.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Arab nations
endorsed indirect peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis,
a move that likely paves the way for the start of long-stalled
US-brokered negotiations.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Bolivia’s President
Evo Morales nationalized 4 electricity generators, 2 of which had
European owners or partners. He skipped the May Day parade as some
marchers carried signs denouncing his purchase of a new French
Dassault jet.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.40)
2010 May 1, In Brazil a jury
convicted a rancher of orchestrating the murder of US nun and Amazon
defender Dorothy Stang. Regivaldo Galvao, the last of five
defendants to stand trial in the case, was sentenced to 30 years in
prison. The verdict came two weeks after another rancher, Vitalmiro
Moura, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty
of collaborating with Galvao. Galvao was soon released on bail
pending an appeal.
(AP, 5/1/10)(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 1, In China World Expo
2010 officially opened in Shanghai. Two-wheeled Electric Networked
Vehicles (EN-Vs) were unveiled at Expo 2010. They used a balancing
system developed by Segway.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.42)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.87)
2010 May 1, Cuba quietly began
requiring foreign tourists and Cubans who live overseas to hold
travel insurance approved by island authorities, while making those
who don't have coverage buy a local policy that can cost over $3 a
day.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 1, Tens of thousands
of protesters gathered in central Athens and other Greek cities for
May Day rallies fueled by anger at expected harsh austerity measures
needed to secure rescue loans for near-bankrupt Greece.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, In Iraq gunmen
robbed a jewelry store in northern Baghdad and killed its owner. As
they were making their escape, a car bomb exploded nearby, killing
three policemen who were responding to the robbery.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Kuwaiti media
reported that seven people were arrested in a sweep of a suspected
spy cell.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 1, In Mexico 5 people
were killed in a gunbattle between gang members and soldiers in
Camargo, a small town in Tamaulipas state, which borders Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 1, The leader of
Nepal's Maoists called a nationwide general strike, stepping up
pressure on the government to quit as tens of thousands of his
supporters demonstrated in Kathmandu.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Nigeria's navy
seized a Greek-flagged vessel carrying more than 80 tons of stolen
crude oil and arrested its crew in a crackdown on a multi-million
dollar smuggling racket.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 1, In Pakistan a
suicide bomber killed five people in the Swat Valley, fuelling fears
of a Taliban comeback in the area a year after a major army
offensive routed the group.
(Reuters, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Hundreds of Russian
opposition activists rallied in Moscow, shouting slogans comparing
PM Vladimir Putin to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a rare protest
approved by the authorities.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, In Somalia two
bombs exploded inside a small mosque in the Bakara market district
of Mogadishu killing at least 32 people.
(AP, 5/1/10)(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 1, In Sudan the
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Darfur’s main rebel group,
warned that the government has brought the Darfur peace process to
an end by launching a military offensive.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 1, The Vatican
announced that Pope Benedict XVI would name a papal delegate to
govern the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ and that a special
commission would study its founding constitutions to reform it. The
decisions were made after five Vatican investigators reported to the
pope about their eight-month global inquiry into the order after its
late founder was so thoroughly discredited by revelations of his
double life.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Louisiana's
2.4-billion-dollar a year commercial and recreational fishing
industry was dealt its first major blow from the April 20 oil spill,
as the US government banned activities for 10 days due to health
concerns.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, In Tennessee more
rain and storms loomed as emergency officials coped with evacuations
and closed roads from heavy flooding that claimed five lives.
Weekend thunderstorms killed at least 31 people with 19 dead in
Tennessee, 6 in Mississippi and 6 in Kentucky. More than 13 inches
of rain fell in Nashville over two days, nearly doubling the
previous record of 6.68 inches that fell in the wake of Hurricane
Fredrick in 1979.
(AP, 5/2/10)(AP, 5/3/10)(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/8/10,
p.A5)(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A8)
2010 May 2, United Airlines
said it has agreed to buy Continental in a $3 billion-plus deal that
would create the world's largest carrier with a commanding position
in several top US cities.
(AP, 5/3/10)(SFC, 5/3/10, p.D1)
2010 May 2, Lynn Redgrave
(b.1943), British-born actress, died at her home in Kent, Conn. She
achieved acclaim for her role in “Georgy Girl” (1966).
(SFC, 5/4/10, p.C5)
2010 May 2, In southern
Afghanistan a British soldier died in an explosion while protecting
fellow troops as they returned from a patrol.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Australia said it
would impose taxes worth billions of dollars on mining companies to
tap the profits of an Asia-driven commodities surge, prompting
warnings it could "kill" the boom.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, China raised the
proportion of deposits that lenders must keep in reserve at the
central bank, another step in its months-old campaign to mop up
excess cash in the economy at a time when inflation is on the rise.
(Reuters, 5/3/10)
2010 May 2, Cuba allowed a
small group of dissidents to hold a protest march after the
country's top Roman Catholic clergyman negotiated with authorities,
ending three straight weeks of ugly confrontations.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Egyptian police
shot dead two African migrants in separate incidents near the border
with Israel.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Ethiopia’s
information minister said police have arrested 10 suspected Islamic
militants they believe were sent by Eritrea to carry out attacks to
upset May 23 general elections.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Greece reached
agreement with the EU and the International Monetary Fund on rescue
loans to keep Athens from defaulting on its debts, a deal that will
impose harsh cuts on the county's 11 million people for years.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, In Iran the Fars
news agency reported that 9 bronze statues, some of famous Iranians
and costing thousands of dollars, have been stolen in Tehran in what
is said to be serial thievery.
(AFP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, In Iraq 2 bombs
exploded minutes apart near buses carrying Christian students in the
northern city of Mosul, killing at least one bystander and injuring
around 100 others.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Moshe Hirsch (86),
an American-born anti-Zionist rabbi and close associate of the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, died in Jerusalem. Hirsch was a
leading figure in Neturei Karta, a tiny ultra-Orthodox sect that
opposes Israel's existence as a Jewish state and has embraced its
enemies. Neturei Karta, which is Aramaic for "Guardians of the
City," was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who
opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 2, In Jamaica a
sleeping 5-year-old boy died after his throat was slashed. Police
soon charged Jermaine Gushman (34) with the murder saying he may
have done it to get back at the boy's father.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 2, In Mexico 5 people
were trampled to death when a gunshot fired at a cattle fair sent a
panic-stricken crowd rushing for the exits in Guadalupe, outside the
industrial city of Monterrey, already on edge from rampant drug
violence.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, In Nepal Maoist
opposition supporters armed with bamboo sticks enforced a general
strike that closed transportation, schools and markets across the
country to demand the prime minister's resignation.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Norsk Hydro
announced that it was acquiring the aluminium assets of Vale,
a Brazilian mining giant, in a deal valued at $4.9 billion.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.65)
2010 May 2, Pakistani army
helicopter gunships pounded insurgent hideouts in the northwest,
killing at least 22 militants.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, Hamas Deputy
Finance Minister Ismail Mahfouz denied that the Islamic militants
are caught in a cash crunch, but said Hamas is having trouble
getting money into blockaded Gaza.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 2, In Somalia dozens
of fighters from one of Somalia's most powerful rebel groups moved
into Haradhere, a northern town where pirates operate, sending the
pirates fleeing in a development that could upend the piracy trade.
(AP, 5/2/10)(SFC, 5/3/10, p.A2)
2010 May 2, In Sudan gunfire
broke out and ambulance sirens wailed as hundreds of angry victims
of a failed pyramid scheme protested in the Darfur region. Police
opened fire as the protesters tried to march on the house of the
state governor. At least 3 people died in the clashes.
(AFP, 5/2/10)(Reuters, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, Faisal Shahzad
(30), a US citizen who had recently returned from a five-month trip
to his native Pakistan, was arrested at a New York airport on
charges that on May 1 he drove a bomb-laden SUV meant to cause a
fireball in Times Square.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 6/22/10, p.A6)
2010 May 3, The US renewed
sanctions against Damascus, saying Syria has made some progress
containing terror networks that use the country to infiltrate Iraq
but that Damascus continues to support terrorists and pursue weapons
of mass destruction.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, Some 20 students at
UC Berkeley began a hunger strike demanding that the school denounce
Arizona’s new immigration law, drop charges against protesters from
anti-fee hike occupation, rehire laid-off janitors and declare
Berkeley a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.C2)
2010 May 3, Karl Kasten
(b.1916), painter, printmaker and UC Berkeley professor, died.
(SFC, 6/3/10,
p.C5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kasten)
2010 May 3, Nick Rogers (30),
former NFL player and Georgia Tech star, died in a one-car accident.
He was killed about 1:30 a.m. when his car hit a utility pole in
College Park, near Atlanta, Georgia.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Rabbi David Forman,
founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, a prominent group defending
Palestinians, died in Dallas, Texas. Forman founded Rabbis for Human
Rights in 1988 and led it until 1992. He served as its chairman
again from 2002-2003.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Prosecutors said
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle
allegations that it improperly handled and dumped hazardous waste at
stores across California in a case that led to changes in the
retailer's practices nationwide.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, George Huguely
(22), a men's lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, was
arrested hours after the body of Yeardley Love (22), a female
lacrosse player, was found in her apartment. He has been charged
with murder.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/4/10, p.A4)
2010 May 3, In southern
Afghanistan two NATO service members died, one from a roadside bomb,
the other in a vehicle accident. A joint operation between Afghan
and NATO forces killed five militants in central Afghanistan.
Several militants also were arrested in the operation in Gezeb
district of Daykundi province. In eastern Afghanistan a suicide
bomber killed one civilian outside the Camp Chapman CIA base.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/4/10, p.A2)
2010 May 3, In Argentina a
judge widened the case against former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla
(1976-1981) to include an additional 49 cases of kidnapping, torture
and murder. These include victims whose bodies have been identified
by forensic experts.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Energy giant BP
vowed to pay "all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs" from the
US oil pollution disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil has been
spewing into the Gulf of Mexico since a deepwater oil rig operated
by BP exploded and sank on April 20 killing 11 men.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In Burundi
attackers chopped off the limbs of a 5-year-old albino boy and
pulled out his mother's eye, killing them over the belief that their
body parts would bring wealth and success. Ten assailants armed with
guns and grenades killed Desire Vyegura (5) and his mother, Susann
Vyegura. Thoma Vyegura, who was not albino, was also killed while
trying to protect his daughter and grandson.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 3, In Egypt police
used batons and splintered wooden sticks to beat several protesters
from a crowd of about 400 people, mostly from opposition groups and
social movements, that turned out near the government headquarters
in downtown Cairo.
(Reuters, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Egypt's oil
ministry said it has signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing
with two Chinese companies to build a $2 billion refinery that would
be its largest such plant.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, The leaders of
Israel and Egypt met to discuss the renewal of the Middle East peace
process ahead of US-backed indirect negotiations between the
Palestinians and the Jewish state.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel said her country will provide euro22.4 billion ($29.6
billion) to help bailout Greece over a three-year period, part of a
wider plan aimed at keeping Greece afloat and protecting their
shared euro currency.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In Grenada Steve
Gorrie (36) walked into a precinct station with two severed human
heads in a bucket and presented his haul to horrified police. Police
later found two hacked-up, headless bodies in a rural field,
including the owner of a local tavern.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 3, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seized center stage at the opening of a
monthlong debate at the United Nations on how to stop the spread of
nuclear weapons. But behind the scenes, UN Security Council powers
were discussing ways to punish Iran for defying their demands that
it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make bombs.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Kuwait said that
several suspects are being questioned in connection with a busted
spy cell which a local newspaper said had been working for Iran.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Kyrgyzstan's
interim government offered cash rewards for information leading to
the arrest of fugitive relatives and colleagues of deposed President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Rewards from $20,000 to $100,000 were offered to
those who can help find them, colossal bounties in a country where
the average salary is $130 per month. Bakiyev’s brother Zhanybek was
wanted for ordering police to open fire on protestors.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il arrived on a luxury 17-car train in China, in what would
be his first journey abroad in years as his regime faces a worsening
economy and speculation it may have torpedoed a South Korean
warship.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In India Mohammed
Ajmal Amir Kasab (22), a Pakistani national, was found guilty for
his role in the 60-hour siege (Nov 26-28, 2008) that left 166 people
dead. He was convicted on most of the 86 charges against him and
faced the death penalty. The next day Judge M.L. Tahaliyani imposed
the death penalty against Kasab on four counts of murder, waging war
against India, conspiracy and terrorism offences.
(AFP, 5/3/10)(AFP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 3, In Iraq two
American soldiers died from injuries sustained in separate incidents
unrelated to combat. Sardasht Othman (23), a Kurdish journalist, was
kidnapped in front of the campus of University of Salahuddin in the
regional capital of Irbil. His handcuffed and bullet-riddled body
was found four days later outside the Kurdish region in Mosul.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, A team of Israeli,
Jordanian and Palestinian environmental scientists said large
stretches of the biblical Jordan River could dry up by 2011. In
1847, a US Naval officer visiting the area reported on the
"deafening roar of the tumultuous waters."
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Mexico gunmen
drove up to a soccer field and shot five men to death as they played
early Monday near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Mohamed Abed
Al-Jabri (b.1935), Moroccan Islamic philosopher, critic and
political ideologue for a socialist opposition party, died in
Casablanca.
(AFP, 5/5/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ahph72)
2010 May 3, Nigeria's private
pay TV station NN24 began a 24-hour news coverage service in a first
for the west African country. Nigerian police freed a Ghanaian woman
after a shootout with her kidnappers in the restive oil city of Port
Harcourt. The kidnappers seized another woman, Rita Oparaocha, an
employee of the state ministry of works and housing after snatching
her car.
(AFP, 5/3/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Pakistan
suspected US missiles killed four alleged militants in a tribal
region near the Afghan border, while a top US general arrived to
discuss the countries' efforts in the war against Islamist
extremists.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Paraguay’s Pres.
Fernando Lugo and Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva met
under a heavy police presence in a rough outpost called Pedro Juan
Caballero on the Paraguayan side and Ponta Pora in Brazil in a joint
effort to fight to drug-trafficking. Lugo's ministers were
frustrated by the Paraguayan Senate's vote last week to delay until
2013 a personal income tax that would generate nearly $37 million a
year that Lugo desperately needs to fund troops and provisions of
martial law he has declared across five states in pursuit of the
guerrillas.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Saudi Arabia 2
people died in the flooding caused by violent thunderstorms which
paralyzed Riyadh this week.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, In Senegal
lawmakers from 27 African countries gathered in Dakar for a two-day
conference to push for a UN ban on female genital mutilation as a
breach of human rights. Senegal hoped to eradicate the practice
completely by 2015.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In South Africa
police officers found Emmanuel "Lolly" Jackson's body, a flamboyant
strip club owner, shot several times in a house near Johannesburg
after receiving a call from a man who said he wanted to surrender.
The caller, known as George Smith or George Louca, fled to his
native Cyprus. In Sep, 2011, the charred body of Jackson's lawyer
was found in the burned remains of his car near Johannesburg. Days
later, Jackson's former business partner, Mark Andrews, was found
dead on an isolated stretch of highway near Johannesburg. Local
media have linked other deaths since 2009 to Jackson.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AP, 10/2/11)
2010 May 3, Sri Lanka's court
of appeal suspended a court martial probing ex-army chief and
defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka who is charged with
engaging in politics while in uniform.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Darfur's most
powerful rebel group said it was suspending peace talks with Sudan's
government, accusing Khartoum of attacking villages and military
positions in breach of a ceasefire. In South Sudan a renegade army
general said he had taken command of a body of soldiers and demanded
the removal of the man who beat him in recent elections. South
Sudan's army accused George Athor of masterminding an attack on one
of its bases on April 30 and plotting further assaults after he lost
in the race to become governor of the oil-producing south's Jonglei
state last week.
(AP, 5/3/10)(Reuters, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva promised to produce a political roadmap that would
end a stand-off with "Red Shirt" protesters after the country's
deadliest civil violence in almost two decades.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, Ohio voters passed
ballot proposal Issue 1. It allowed the state to issue $700 million
of bonds to finance research and development for the so-called
“Third Frontier” program, which was launched in 2002
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.34)(http://tinyurl.com/25tu3te)
2010 May 4, In Afghanistan
Hayat Khan, a tribal elder, was gunned down while he was shopping in
the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the latest targeted killing
ahead of a NATO-led operation there that will be a critical test of
the Afghan war. A former member of southern Zabul province's women's
affairs department was fatally shot. In northern Kunduz province
Taliban militants killed two civilians they accused of spying for
the government.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The leaders of
South America named former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner as
their secretary-general, setting aside their differences in hopes
that the 12-nation Unasur group can consolidate into a regional
force for unity, development and democracy-building.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Alfredo Martinez de
Hoz (84), the powerful economy minister who ran Argentina's finances
during most of the dictatorship (1976-1983), was arrested and his
bank accounts were frozen. The arrest followed a Supreme Court
ruling last week deeming unconstitutional a 1990 presidential pardon
granted to Martinez de Hoz and former dictator Jorge Videla.
(AFP, 5/4/10)(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 4, British Petroleum
said efforts to contain a giant oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are
costing nearly four million pounds a day. Winds pushed a giant slick
towards fragile wetlands on the US coast as efforts intensified to
bottle up a ruptured oil well causing the growing environmental
disaster.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The Croatian
government and the UN said Justice Minister Ivan Simonovic has been
chosen to be assistant UN secretary-general for human rights.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, French lawmakers
decided to return 16 tattooed and mummified Maori heads to New
Zealand, ending years of debate on what to do with the human remains
acquired long ago by French museums seeking exotic curiosities.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Greek protesters
unfurled banners over the defensive walls of the ancient Acropolis,
the country's most famous monument, to protest harsh new austerity
measures as strikes began across the country.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Iceland's volcanic
ash renewed its threat to European air space, forcing Ireland to
shut services temporarily for the first time in 12 days. Ireland and
Britain lifted flight restrictions after temporarily closing
airspace due to the return of ash.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Iran called for
independent verification of US claims it has pared its stockpile of
nuclear warheads back to 5,113 and queried whether Washington was
justified in holding such a lethal load.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Iran 5 Kurdish
rebels, including two women, were killed after they battled Iran's
elite Revolutionary Guards in the western province of Kermanshah.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 4, Iraq's two main
Shiite blocs seeking to govern the country signed an agreement that
gives the final decision on all their political disputes to top
Shiite clerics. The provision would likely further alienate Iraq's
Sunni minority, which already feels excluded by Shiite dominance and
had been hoping that March's election would boost their say in
power. Sardasht Osman (22) was kidnapped in the regional capital
Arbil. He had written articles critical of the rule of Kurdish
regional president Massud Barzani. His corpse was found a day later
in Mosul with a single bullet to the head. On Sep 15 an
investigative committee formed by Barzani said that Osman was killed
because of his ties to an extremist group.
(AP, 5/5/10)(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 May 4, In Mexico two
Colombians were arrested at Mexico City's international airport as
they allegedly prepared to board a flight to Panama trying to
smuggle out more than $350,000 in cash in various currencies.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 4, Tin Tun Aung,
secretary of the Myanmar Travel Entrepreneurs Association, said
tourist visas, which are normally arranged days in advance at an
embassy abroad, will be now be available at international airports
in Mandalay and the biggest city, Yangon.
(Reuters, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Nepal armed
police escorted fuel and food trucks into Katmandu on the third day
of a crippling general strike called by former Maoist rebels
demanding the PM's resignation.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Royal Dutch Shell
said it spilled nearly 14,000 tons of oil into the creeks of the
Niger Delta in 2009 and blamed thieves and militants for the
environmental damage.
(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 4, Fires ripped
through a mosque and an olive grove in two West Bank villages, and
local Palestinians accused Jewish settlers of deliberately setting
the blazes.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, The Philippine
election commission ordered the recall of 76,000 memory cards to be
used in the country's first automated elections next week after some
were found to be defective, heightening jitters over a possible
failure of the new system.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Spain’s Interior
Ministry said Spain has taken in a second former inmate from the
Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects. Another Guantanamo
detainee was sent to Bulgaria. This left about 181 prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay prison.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 4, Taiwan opened a
tourism office in Beijing that represents the island's first
official presence in China's capital since the two sides split amid
civil war in 1949.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Thai
anti-government protesters welcomed a proposed compromise to end the
violent political crisis that has paralyzed central Bangkok for
nearly two months, but asked for more details on the plan before
wrapping up their demonstrations.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, In Venezuela a riot
at the Santa Ana Prison in the western state of Tachira, one of the
country’s most violent prisons, left eight inmates dead and three
injured.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, The US Coast Guard
said BP PLC has managed to cap one of three leaks at a deepwater oil
well, but the work is not expected to reduce the overall flow of oil
into the Gulf of Mexico. The well has been spewing at least 210,000
gallons per day since an April 20 explosion at a rig 50 miles off
Louisiana.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, The US federal
government said it will allow people from Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Honduras to stay another 18 months in the US with temporary legal
status. A new expiration date was set for Jan 5, 2012. The temporary
legal status has been extended repeatedly since Hurricane Mitch
devastated the region in 1998.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, US mediator George
Mitchell launched Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations after a
break of more than a year, starting a shuttle mission between a
hard-line Israeli government and a Palestinian administration in
control of only part of its territory.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, In southwestern
Afghanistan Taliban suicide bombers disguised as police attacked a
government compound in Nimroz province. 8 attackers blew themselves
up and police shot the ninth. Two police officers and a provincial
council member died. 3 explosions targeted the vehicles of private
development companies in the southern provinces of Kandahar and
Zabul. One person was killed and 11 were wounded in the blasts.
Floodwaters coursed through several villages while residents slept
in western Herat province. At least 20 people were killed and 30
injured.
(AP, 5/5/10)(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 May 5, Brazilian local
media reported that Brazil is to build a 483-million-dollar nuclear
reactor to produce radioactive material for medical use as well as
industrial-grade enriched uranium.
(AFP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 5, Britain and Ireland
grounded flights again after a fresh cloud of ash swept in from the
Icelandic volcano which sparked unprecedented air travel chaos in
Europe last month.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, CBC News reported
that the Bank of Montreal is suing lawyers, brokers and some of its
own employees for an alleged C$140 million ($136 million) mortgage
scam that may have involved hundreds of people.
(Reuters, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, In the east of the
Central African Republic 2 people were killed and two wounded in an
attack on an aid vehicle blamed on Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA).
(AFP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 5, China said it would
punish officials who failed to fulfill emissions reduction targets,
warning the nation's current environmental situation was extremely
serious.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, Congo’s government
information minister said civilians who were being recruited to a
new rebel movement in Congo's northwest captured the group's leader
and he now will stand trial for war crimes. Odjani was captured by
youths he was trying to recruit in the village of Dongo. In eastern
Congo 80 people were missing and feared dead after an overloaded
canoe capsized on a river. 45 people were rescued from the Congo
River near the city of Kindu, the capital of Congo's eastern Maniema
province.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 5, Cuba reported its
worst sugar harvest since 1905.
(SFC, 5/6/10, p.A2)
2010 May 5, In Greece 3 people
died when an Athens bank went up in flames as over 50,000 Greeks
took to the streets to protest harsh spending cuts aimed at saving
the country from bankruptcy.
(AP, 5/5/10)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.50)
2010 May 5, Kuwaiti and Saudi
officials said an Iranian espionage group has been dismantled in
Kuwait. The cell was reportedly acting on behalf of Iran's
Revolutionary Guard.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 5, Nepal's Maoist
opposition blocked streets leading to key government offices on the
fourth day of their crippling general strike to demand the prime
minister's resignation, while the government vowed not to bow to
protesters' pressure.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, A Pakistani
anti-terror court acquitted four men put on trial over the 2008
bombing of the five-star Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed at
least 60 people. Suspects Rana Ilyas, Dr Mohammad Usman Safi, Hameed
Afzal and Tehseenullah Jan, were arrested in Islamabad and the
neighboring garrison city of Rawalpindi in October, one month after
the devastating bomb.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, Somali pirates
hijacked the China-bound oil tanker MV Moscow University 350 miles
off the coast of Yemen with 23 Russian crew and crude oil worth $52
million on board.
(Reuters, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, In South Africa 23
people died and 15 were badly injured when a bus overturned. The
privately-registered bus accident was on the road despite being
suspended for poor roadworthiness. The owner of the bus was soon
charged with murder.
(AFP, 5/5/10)(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 5, Sri Lanka's
parliament voted to scale back tough state of emergency laws that
were first introduced 27 years ago to deal with separatist Tamil
rebels.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, Sudan’s justice
minister said police investigating an investment scam in the Darfur
region have collected bounced checks and receipts for up to $27
million and arrested 58 people. The south Sudan armed forces said
clashes over livestock between members of two large tribes killed 26
people in the south Sudan state of Warrap.
(Reuters, 5/6/10)(AFP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 5, Ukraine Communists
unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in front of the
party's office in the city of Zaporizhya., sparking the anger of
Ukrainian nationalists.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 5, Yukiya Amano, the
head of the UN atomic watchdog, asked for international input on an
Arab-led push to have Israel join the Nonproliferation Treaty, in a
move that adds to pressure on the Jewish state to disclose its
unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 5, Yemen slapped a
last-minute ban on a meeting of Arab parliamentarians to discuss the
crisis in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 6, The US FCC
announced a plan to classify the last mile of internet access as a
telecommunications service.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.86)
2010 May 6, The Dow Jones fell
nearly 1000 points in intraday trading, but recovered to close at
10,520.32, down 347.8. Unrest in Greece and a trading glitch were
cited as causes. After 5 months regulators said the “flash crash”
was sparked by a sloppily executed sell order of one mutual fund
group when the market was already jittery over economic turmoil in
Europe.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.A1)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.107)
2010 May 6, In Ramapo, NY, Pro
Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor (51) was charged with raping
a 16-year-old runaway who police said was forced into prostitution
by a man who had beaten her up. Third-degree rape is a charge levied
when the victim is under the age of consent, which is 17 in New
York.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, SFJazz unveiled
plans for the new 3-story, $60 million SF Jazz Center to rise at the
corner of Fell and Franklin streets.
(SFC, 5/6/10, p.A1)
2010 May 6, An E.coli outbreak,
possibly linked to tainted lettuce, sickened at least 19 people in
Ohio, New York and Michigan prompting a recall throughout much of
the US. Freshway Food in Sidney, Ohio, said it was recalling lettuce
sold in 23 states and Washington DC.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.A4)
2010 May 6, In California
Joseph Mercado (27) shot and killed Serena Tarin, his ex-girlfriend,
as well as her father and brother. 6 other family members escaped
the rampage in Hawaiian Gardens, LA County. Mercado was arrested by
police after a bullet grazed his head.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.C6)
2010 May 6, Afghan officials
said the Taliban have ordered mobile phone operators to shut down
their networks during the night in a northern Afghan province, a
sign of the militants' increasing influence in a once peaceful area.
A NATO service member was killed in a roadside bomb in southern
Afghanistan. Another died from a mortar or rocket attack in the
east.
(Reuters, 5/6/10)(AP, 5/6/10)(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, Julio Alberto Poch
(57), a pilot who allegedly flew death flights for Argentina's
military dictatorship, was extradited from Spain. Spain acted on
Argentina's request, arresting him in front of his passengers and
family during a stop in Valencia on what was supposed to be his
final flight back to the Netherlands before retiring from Transavia.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, Britain held
national elections expected to deny all three major parties an
outright majority, meaning the first so-called hung Parliament since
1974 is likely. David Cameron claimed the mantle of power after the
Conservatives won the most seats in the election, though not enough
to form a majority. Labour came in second, which for the first time
since the 1970s produced no outright winner. Labour could still
govern with the help of the Liberal Democrats.
(AP, 5/6/10)(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, In China a tornado
and strong winds swept through the southwest early in the day,
killing at least 58 people and injuring nearly 200. The southwestern
municipality of Chongqing was the worst hit after a tornado and
gale-force winds killed 29 people. 10 were left dead in Hunan
province and 6 dead in Guangdong province. Torrential rain in the
eastern province of Jiangxi killed seven people. 6 people died in
rain-triggered landslides in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
(AP, 5/6/10)(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, A Chinese media
report said North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il told President Hu Jintao
during his secretive trip to Beijing that he is ready to return to
stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations.
(AFP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, Wan Yanhai, a
prominent Chinese AIDS activist, fled China for the United States
with his wife and 4-year-old daughter to escape increasing
government harassment of him and his organization. Wan, a former
Health Ministry official, founded the Aizhixing Institute in 1994 to
raise awareness and fight discrimination.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 6, In southern
Ethiopia attackers hurled a bomb at a political meeting in Adaba,
killing two people and wounding 14 others just over two weeks before
national elections. On May 20 Tadesse Haile was sentenced to death
for throwing hand grenades into the packed stadium. He was also
convicted on planting bombs close to a construction site on May 5.
(AFP, 5/7/10)(AFP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 6, Israel declined to
address the international pressure that's been mounting for it to
join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, saying only that its
refusal to acknowledge or deny it possesses atomic weapons is a
pillar of its military deterrence.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, In Kashmir a fierce
gunbattle between Muslim rebels and Indian security forces in the
Indian-controlled portion killed six insurgents and two soldiers.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, Myanmar leaders of
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party said they would
continue working as a social movement after a new election law
forced its dissolution as a political party at midnight.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, Northern Ireland's
First Minister Peter Robinson crashed to a shock defeat in the
general election after a sex and cash scandal involving his wife
battered his reputation.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, Nigeria's Goodluck
Jonathan (52) was sworn as president of the oil-rich African nation
riven by religious and political divisions, hours after the death of
the incumbent Umaru Yar'Adua (58). Jonathan vowed that electoral
reform and fighting graft would be top priorities.
(Reuters, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, Palestinian Pres.
Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of smuggling large amounts of weapons
into the West Bank as part of the militant group's efforts to
undermine his administration.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, In Paraguay Jesus
Ortiz, alleged EPP logistics coordinator, was captured.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.42)
2010 May 6, Russian forces
freed a hijacked Russian oil tanker and rescued its crew in a
helicopter-backed operation that killed a Somali pirate.
Investigators said the 10 captured pirates, who seized the
China-bound MV Moscow University in the Gulf of Aden, will be
brought to Moscow for prosecution.
(Reuters, 5/6/10)
2010 May 6, In southern Sudan
government troops clashed with soldiers loyal to renegade General
George Athor, leaving 53 dead and ending hopes of a negotiated end
to his mini revolt.
(Reuters, 5/7/10)
2010 May 6, A Taiwanese fishing
boat, the Tai Yuan 227, was hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast
who demanded a ransom for the crew.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 6, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva said he would dissolve Parliament in September,
paving the way for new elections demanded by anti-government
protesters if they end their crippling occupation of Bangkok's
commercial district.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 7, In California
former Burbank middle school teacher Amy Victoria Beck (33) was
sentenced to 2 years in prison for unlawful sexual intercourse and
committing a lewd act on a child. Back had pleaded no contest to
having sex with a former student (14).
(SFC, 5/8/10, p.A5)
2010 May 7, In southern
California CHP officer Danny Benavides (39) was killed when his
patrol plane went down near Highway 78 in Imperial County.
(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A8)
2010 May 7, It was reported
that JetBlue has formed a partnership with South African Airways
that will allow travelers to fly on both airlines with a single
ticket. Starting May 12 JetBlue customers will be able to travel to
40 international cities served by South African Airways.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, It was reported
that bisphenol-A (BPA), contained in the lining of most US canned
foods, has been found in the urine of 93% of tested adults and
children. The hormone mimicker leaches from cans into foods,
especially acidic content like tomatoes.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.A14)
2010 May 7, Int’l. scientists
reported that Eurasians today carry 1-4% of Neanderthal DNA.
Analysis of the Neanderthal genome indicated that it was 99.5%
identical to modern humans.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.A1)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.79)
2010 May 7, Dave Fisher
(b.1940), lead singer for the Highwaymen folk group, died at his
home in Rye, NY. In 1958 Fisher connected with Bob Burnett, Steve
Butts, Chan Daniels and Steve Trott, at Wesleyan Univ. in
Connecticut to form the Clansmen, a name they picked for the Irish
and Scottish folk music influences they drew upon. As soon as their
music started to build a following in the Northeast, their manager
came up with the name the Highwaymen, a nod to the early 20th
century poem by Alfred Noyes. Their hit songs included “Michael”
(1961), “Cotton Fields” (1962), written by blues musician Huddie
Ledbetter, and its reverse side “The Gypsy Rover.” The group
disbanded in 1964.
(www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/arts/music/13fisher.html)
2010 May 7, Walter Hickel
(b.1919), former governor of Alaska and US Interior chief
(1969-1970) under Pres. Nixon, died in Anchorage.
(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.C8)
2010 May 7, Bernard Schoenbaum
(89), cartoonist, died at his home in Queens, NY. His work included
over 300 cartoons for the New Yorker magazine.
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.C5)
2010 May 7, Afghan civilians
traveling south of the capital of Kabul died when their vehicle hit
a large roadside bomb. A NATO service member died following an
insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/7/10)(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 7, In China lawyers
Tang Jitian and Liu Wei were informed by Beijing judicial
authorities that they had lost their credentials. They had
represented a member of an outlawed spiritual movement. The next day
Jitian and Wei said the penalty was designed to scare other lawyers
away from taking on sensitive human rights cases.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 7, A Dubai newspaper
reported that local police have identified five new suspects in the
January slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas operative in the Gulf
city-state.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, India's Supreme
Court ruled in favor of the country's richest man Mukesh Ambani in
his long-running feud with his brother Anil over a family deal to
share the nation's largest gas find.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, In Iraq gunmen late
at night attacked a car in downtown Kirkuk carrying two members of
the Peshmerga, the military force of the nearby Kurdish autonomous
region, killing one and injuring the other.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 7, Japanese
researchers said they had found high mercury levels in residents of
the dolphin-hunting town of Taiji, but no cases of related illness.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, A Lithuanian
appeals court said a gay pride parade in Vilnius can go ahead as
planned this weekend, overturning a ban imposed by a lower court
that cited security concerns.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, In Mexico a groom
and two members of his wedding party snatched at gunpoint as they
left the church in Ciudad Juarez. Their bodies, along with a fourth
body of someone who had not been identified and might not have been
at the wedding, were found May 10.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 7, In Myanmar a
faction of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition declared it will form its
own political party to contest Myanmar's first elections in two
decades, a day after the democracy icon's party disbanded to boycott
the vote it says will be flawed.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, In Nepal protesters
pleading for the end of a crippling strike called by former Maoist
rebels clashed with the communists across Nepal. Shots were fired
amid the chaos in one western town, wounding five people.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, Anglo-Dutch oil
giant Shell said it had deferred crude shipments from its Bonny
Light terminal in the Niger Delta for two months due to a fire that
has hampered production.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked a police checkpoint in the northwest Mansehra district
killing four officers.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, Russia’s Defense
Ministry said the pirates seized by a Russian warship off the coast
of Somalia have been released because of "imperfections" in
international law, a claim that sparked skepticism, and even
suspicion the pirates might have been killed.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, Russia's parliament
defeated a motion that would have prevented Americans from adopting
Russian children.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, Spain’s central
bank said the country has scraped out of recession after six
quarters of economic shrinkage, becoming the last major world
economy to return to growth after the global financial crisis.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, In Sudan gunmen
killed two Egyptian peacekeepers and wounded three more in an ambush
on their convoy in south Darfur. Police soon arrested two men in the
South Darfur area of Edd al Fursan and were hunting down the rest of
a seven-man bandit gang blamed for the attack.
(AP, 5/7/10)(Reuters, 5/10/10)
2010 May 7, In Tajikistan a
mudslide in a remote southern region killed seven people, including
four children after the banks of the Tebalai river ruptured. The
death toll from the mudslides and floods soon rose to 24 and
increases were considered possible.
(AP, 5/7/10)(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 7, The Turkish
parliament narrowly approved a series of constitutional amendments
that opposition parties say are designed to give the Islamic-rooted
government leverage over the largely secular judiciary.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 7, The Turkish air
force struck Kurdish rebel hideouts in neighboring northern Iraq
after an attack inside Turkey left two soldiers dead.
(AFP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 7, In Venezuela
Retired Gen. Raul Baduel, former defense minister and critic of
President Hugo Chavez, was sentenced to more than seven years in
prison after being convicted of embezzlement and abuse of power. In
the same case, Col. Hernan Medina Marval was sentenced to 8 years,
11 months in prison.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In Utah GOP
delegates voted to bar Sen. Bob Bennett (76) from seeking a fourth
term, making him the first congressional incumbent to be ousted this
year and demonstrates the challenges candidates face from the right
in 2010.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 8, BP’s first attempt
to divert a major crude spill was foiled and it could be at least a
day before another attempt at putting a lid on the well could be
made. Meanwhile, thick blobs of tar washed up on Alabama's white
sand beaches, yet another sign the spill was worsening.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 8, In eastern
Afghanistan private security guards opened fire and killed a
30-year-old civilian after the guards' vehicle hit a roadside bomb
in Wardak province.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Hundreds of flights
between Europe and North America were either delayed or canceled due
to the spreading cloud of volcanic ash stretching across much of the
northern Atlantic. Spain shut 19 northern airports including
Barcelona because of the cloud of ash.
(AP, 5/8/10)(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In southeastern
China Zhou Yezhong (36) stabbed to death 8 people including his
wife, elderly mother and young daughter in Chengyuan village in
Jiangxi province. Another two people were killed and three wounded
in a stabbing spree by a man (42) in Hong Kong.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 8, Costa Rica
inaugurated Laura Chinchilla as its first woman leader, replacing
Nobel laureate Oscar Arias with his former vice president and
protege.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, It was reported
that Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed has sold luxury London
department store Harrods to Qatar Holding, the Gulf royal family's
investment arm.
(AFP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that
Europe will set up an intervention mechanism to calm markets rattled
by the Greek debt crisis.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Bishop Walter Mixa,
a leading German bishop who has acknowledged slapping children and
is being investigated for sexual abuse of minors and financial
misconduct, lost his job as Pope Benedict XVI continued cleaning
house.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In Hungary Andor
Lilienthal (99), the last surviving member of 27 original
grandmaster chess players, died in Budapest.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In northern India
at least 52 people were killed and scores injured by heavy rains
over the past two days. The worst hit areas were the central and
eastern regions of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, where
35 people died and some 50 were injured. The other 17 casualties
were reported from neighboring Bihar state. Maoist rebels in central
India blew up an army truck killing 8 paramilitary soldiers and
wounding 2 others in a densely forested area in Bijapur district of
Chattisgarh state.
(AFP, 5/8/10)(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Iran voiced
optimism about Turkish and Brazilian mediation efforts in its
nuclear dispute with the West, welcoming in principle ideas aimed at
reviving a stalled fuel deal with major powers.
(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In northern Iraq
bombs planted inside the home of a policeman exploded, killing him,
his mother and one other resident. The bombing was one of several
attacks around Iraq's north that killed a total of nine people since
the previous evening. The kidnapped teenage son of a wealthy Sufi
sheik was found dead. Mohammed Tahir Said (16) was kidnapped on
April 27 and a $250,000 ransom was demanded. Hundreds of students
and other activists rallied to protest the kidnap and murder of
Sardasht Othman, a Kurdish journalist in northern Iraq, with many
blaming the regional government for his death.
(AP, 5/8/10)(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 8, Opponents of
Lithuania's first gay pride parade threw smoke bombs and tried to
break through a barrier but were stopped by police firing tear gas.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In Mexico Mario
Villanueva, former governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo
(1993-1999), was turned over to US authorities at the international
airport in Toluca. He faced charges of helping a cartel smuggling
cocaine through the resort of Cancun en route to the US market.
Villanueva spent two years in hiding before he was arrested in
Cancun in 2001. 3 headless bodies were found just outside of
Acapulco. The bodies of 5 other men were found with multiple gunshot
wounds in a car north of Acapulco.
(AP, 5/9/10)(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A5)
2010 May 8, In Mexico Joaquin
Capilla (b.1928), the country’s top Olympic-medal recipient, died.
Capilla brought home medals in 1948, 1952 and 1956.
(AP,
5/9/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Capilla)
2010 May 8, In northern Mexico
the body of Ronald C. Ryan (67), a US citizen from Phoenix, Az., was
found the partially buried near a creek on the outskirts of Santa
Ana, Sonora state. He had been reported missing May 3. State police
had reported detaining three men the following day who had left
Ryan's pickup truck at a carwash in Santa Ana.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 8, In Nepal markets
reopened for business, vehicles returned to the streets and some
banks allowed customers to withdraw cash after the former communist
rebels ended their debilitating general strike after six days. The
top leaders of the Maoist party decided late the previous evening to
end the strike since it was making life difficult.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Pakistan
successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles capable of carrying
nuclear warheads, as the Islamic nation's leader urged the world to
recognize it as a legitimate nuclear power.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Palestinian leaders
gave their backing for indirect peace talks with Israel, clearing
the way for the Obama administration's first sustained on-the-ground
Mideast peace effort. Mideast envoy George Mitchell will now shuttle
between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders for up to four months to
try to narrow the vast gaps on the terms of Palestinian statehood.
Four Palestinians were injured and four others went missing when a
smuggling tunnel on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt
collapsed.
(AP, 5/8/10)(AFP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev turned over scores of volumes from an investigation
into the Katyn massacre to his Polish counterpart, a move
underlining Moscow's new willingness to repair long-troubled
relations with Warsaw.
(AP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 8, In western Siberia
2 explosions tore through the Raspadskaya mine just before midnight,
killing at least 66 workers and injuring 41 others. A further 24
people remained trapped in the mine, Russia's largest underground
coal mine, including rescue workers.
(AP, 5/9/10)(AP, 5/10/10)(AP, 5/11/10)(AP,
5/12/10)(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 8, Somali pirates off
East Africa, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic
guns, hijacked the Marida Marguerite, a chemical tanker, with 22
crew members on board. The ship was reported released on Dec 28.
(AP, 5/8/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 May 8, Thailand's
government and "Red Shirt" protesters committed themselves to a
faltering peace process despite twin attacks that left two police
officers dead.
(AFP, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, US Attorney General
Eric Holder said Washington had evidence that Pakistani Taliban were
behind a failed car bomb attack in the heart of New York City.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, Lena Horne
(b.1917), jazz singer and actress, died in NYC at age 92. She was
known for her plaintive signature song "Stormy Weather" and for her
triumph over the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white
audiences but not socialize with them. In 1942's "Panama Hattie,"
her first movie with MGM, she sang Cole Porter's "Just One of Those
Things," winning critical acclaim.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 9, In Afghanistan an
insurgent rocket, apparently fired at a NATO convoy, missed its
target and hit a civilian vehicle in southern Helmand province
killing four civilians. A NATO service members died in an insurgent
attack in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 9, Australia's
government said 5 people are feared dead and 59 people were rescued
from a disabled boat carrying suspected asylum-seekers in the Indian
Ocean.
(Reuters, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, European Union
leaders agreed to provide $572 billion in new loans and $78 billion
under an existing lending program to contain its spreading
government debt crisis and keep it from tearing the euro currency
apart and derailing the global economic recovery. An IMF
contribution of $325 million would raise the amount to over $975
million. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) fund was
conjured up as a backstop for Eurozone countries should they shut
out of bond markets. On Sep 20 it was given a AAA grade by the three
major ratings agencies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Financial_Stability_Facility)(AP,
5/10/10)(SFC, 5/10/10, p.A2)(SFC, 5/11/10, p.D2)(Econ, 9/25/10,
p.83)
2010 May 9, A plume of volcanic
ash snaked its way through southern France, Switzerland, Italy and
Germany, shutting down airports and disrupting flights across
Europe.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Germany Angela
Merkel's center-right coalition lost control of Germany's most
populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, in an election that also
erased its majority in the upper house of parliament, making the
country harder to run. The defeat followed a stumbling start for
Merkel's new national coalition government, which took power in
October.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 9, In Indonesia an
earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.4 rattled the North
Sumatra province, prompting a brief local tsunami watch, knocking
out power and damaging some homes.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, Iran’s President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened what is being dubbed as the Middle East's
biggest car plant set up by Iranian state-run automobile company
Saipa.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, Iran hanged five
Kurdish activists, including one woman, convicted of membership of
armed opposition groups and involvement in bombings.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Iran Newsweek
reporter Maziar Bahari was sentenced in absentia to more than 13
years in prison and 74 lashes, raising concerns about a new
government crackdown ahead of the anniversary of disputed
presidential elections.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 9, The second round of
Lebanon's municipal elections kicked off in Beirut and the Bekaa
region, respectively dominated by PM Saad Hariri and the Shiite
party Hezbollah.
(AFP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Nepal riot
police clashed with thousands of communists demonstrating outside
the government's main offices in Katmandu, injuring several
protesters and police officers.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 9, In Pakistan 10
people were killed in a US drone attack in North Waziristan. 9 of
the 10 were said to be militants.
(AP, 5/9/10)(SFC, 5/10/10, p.A2)
2010 May 9, The Palestinians
announced the official start of indirect peace talks with Israel
after a 17-month breakdown, while Israel's leader urged a quick
transition to face-to-face negotiations to tackle the hardest
issues. Israeli-Arab leaders launched a boycott of 1000 companies
that produce Jewish settlement-made products, following Palestinian
Authority Pres. Abbas’ call for a similar ban by West Bank Arabs.
(AP, 5/9/10)(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A4)
2010 May 10, President Barack
Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan (50) to the Supreme
Court, pushing the former law school dean toward the pinnacle of her
profession and positioning the United States to have three women
justices for the first time in its history.
(AP, 5/10/10)(SFC, 5/10/10, p.A5)
2010 May 10, Several tornadoes
were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas. 5 people were killed and
dozens more injured. Flattened homes, toppled semitrailers and
downed power lines were left behind.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 10, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai arrived in Washington, seeking to show a united front
with the United States during a pivotal time in the nine-year war.
In northeast Afghanistan heavy rain sent floodwaters tearing through
villages, killing at least 10 people and destroying hundreds of
homes. A roadside bomb struck a car in southeastern Zabul province,
killing two civilians. Afghan and NATO forces killed 18 militants
and arrested six in the Sangin district of southern Helmand
province. The NATO alliance killed "several insurgents" in Khost.
(AP, 5/10/10)(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 10, The Central
African Republic's parliament voted to extend President Francois
Bozize’s mandate until presidential and legislative elections can be
held.
(AFP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, In Chile Mauhannas
Saif ur Rehnab (28) of Pakistan was detained under terms of Chile's
anti-terror law after officials detected traces of TNT on him when
he visited the US embassy in Santiago. On May 15 he was set free
pending an investigation, but could not leave Chile and must check
in with a judge every two weeks.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 10, EU finance
ministers agree to a €500 billion “stabilization fund” for euro-zone
countries.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.83)
2010 May 10, In Haiti police
fired tear gas outside the ruins of the national palace to control
2,000 demonstrators calling for President Rene Preval's resignation
in the largest political protest since the Jan. 12 earthquake. The
driver for the Pan-American Development Foundation was kidnapped
along with a British contractor. The contractor was released after
four days. The body of the driver was found dead on May 15.
(AP, 5/10/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 10, In Iraq a suicide
bomber blew himself up outside a Hillah textile factory in a crowd
that gathered after two car bombings at the same spot. At least 50
people were killed and 140 wounded. Attacks killed 119 people across
the country, the deadliest day this year. After Hillah, Basra was
the hardest hit, with the morgue reporting a total of 30 people
dying in three bombings.
(AP, 5/10/10)(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 10, Israel said it
will press forward with construction of new housing for Jews in east
Jerusalem, drawing Palestinian accusations that the plans could
undermine newly relaunched peace talks. Israeli police said two
Israeli Arabs were under arrest on suspicions they spied for the
Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. Police detained Amir Makhoul, the
brother of a former member of Israel's parliament, on April 26 and
the other suspect on May 6.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, The Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accepted Israel into
its ranks, capping a lengthy effort by the Jewish state to join the
exclusive club in the face of stiff opposition from the
Palestinians.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, Italian anti-mafia
police said they have broken up an unusual alliance of Italy's three
main crime syndicates controlling wholesale produce markets,
including price fixing.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, In Kuwait a
criminal court acquitted eight Kuwaitis allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda
of plotting to attack a key US military base in the emirate.
(AFP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, In Pakistan army
troops rooting out extremist militants in the country's northwest
clashed with Taliban fighters, leaving 9 troops and 37 militants
dead.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, In the Philippines
the military reported 37 incidents of election day violence, with at
least nine dead and 12 wounded. That tally was low by the standards
of past Philippine elections. Frontrunner Senator Benigno "Noynoy"
Aquino was poised for a decisive victory despite technical problems
which caused long delays but did not derail the polls as feared.
Aquino grabbed over 40% of the estimated 37.5 million votes cast in
the country's first automated polls.
(Reuters, 5/10/10)(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 10, In Puerto Rico a
group of people including nine American Airlines employees pleaded
guilty to a drug-smuggling scheme that spanned a decade and targeted
cities across the United States. They were arrested in September as
part of a joint investigation called "Operation Heavy Cargo."
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, In Rwanda Bernard
Hategekimana (aka Mukingo), the former managing editor of a Rwandan
newspaper was sentenced by a gacaca court to life in prison after
being convicted for his role in inciting the country's 1994
genocide.
(AFP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 10, Serbian war crimes
prosecutors said a mass grave has been discovered in Serbia believed
to contain the bodies of 250 ethnic Albanians who were killed in
Kosovo during the 1998-99 Serbian crackdown on separatists.
(AP, 5/10/10)(SFC, 5/11/10, p.A2)
2010 May 10, In Zimbabwe a
judge acquitted top prime minister's aide Roy Bennett of all charges
in a terrorism case that had strained Zimbabwe's struggling
coalition government since it was forged more than a year ago.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 11, The Obama
administration announced a shift in national drug policy that would
treat illegal drug use more as a public health issue.
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.A4)
2010 May 11, The Obama
administration announced plans to reorganize the Mineral Management
Services, the federal Interior Dept. agency that regulates offshore
drilling.
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.A4)
2010 May 11, Arizona Gov. Jan
Brewer signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies
program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts
condemned the measure. The measure prohibits classes that advocate
ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a
particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic
group. State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for
years, said he believes the Tucson school district's
Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they
are oppressed by white people.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, In Richmond, Ca.,
city officials signed an agreement with Chevron Corp., which
operates the Richmond refinery, to provide the city $114 million
over the next 15 years.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.C1)
2010 May 11, Afghanistan's
government, facing international pressure to wipe out corruption,
said it had dissolved 152 Afghan and 20 international aid
organizations, some for misconduct. A bomb attack killed two US
service members in southern Afghanistan. In northern Kunduz province
about 50 students at a girls' school were hospitalized after losing
consciousness or vomiting in what the top local health official
called a suspected poison gas attack. 4 teachers and 9 students were
hospitalized after a bomb went off underneath a stairwell at a boys'
school in the Smalhail district of eastern Khost province. In the
Mizan district of southern Zabul province, a rocket fired in clashes
between allied and Taliban fighters hit a civilian home, killing two
girls and injuring a mother and son.
(AFP, 5/11/10)(AP, 5/11/10)(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, In Albania Endrit
Llambaj (19) stormed into a classroom in the southern town of
Elbasan with a handgun and ordered all the students out except
20-year-old Gerta Baja. 3 shots were fired and Baja was found dead
at her desk. Llambaj ran away from the school but fatally shot
himself a few hundred yards away as police chased him.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, The government of
Belize said it will stop sending appeals cases to the colonial-era
British Privy Council starting June 1. The Trinidad-based Caribbean
Court of Justice will hear all Belize court appeals filed after May
31.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Britain’s PM
Gordon Brown resigned ending 5 days of uncertainty after last week's
general election left the country with no clear winner. Queen
Elizabeth II named David Cameron (43) as the new prime minister.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AFP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, Egypt's government
called for a two-year extension of the country's controversial
emergency law but claimed its use would now be limited. Human rights
activists dismissed the changes and warned the law would continue to
be used to suppress dissent.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Mohamed Ibrahim,
an Egyptian-American university botany professor teaching in the
United States, was arrested at Cairo airport after arriving on a
direct flight from New York carrying two pistols, 250 bullets, two
swords and 11 knives in his luggage.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, French lawmakers
unanimously passed a resolution, 434-0, asserting that face-covering
Muslim veils are contrary to the principles of liberty, equality and
fraternity.
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.A2)
2010 May 11, Indonesia's former
chief detective, Gen. Susno Duadji, who has recently exposed
corruption among government and police officials, was arrested on
allegations that he accepted a bribe in 2008.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran said that
Brazil and Turkey have offered a promising new proposal for a
nuclear fuel deal as Tehran steps up a diplomatic push to stave off
new UN sanctions over its disputed nuclear program. Iran’s foreign
ministry spokesman said Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili,
could hold talks with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton in
Turkey. The Fars news agency reported that Iranian border guards
have arrested 9 Iraqi fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt
al-Arab waterway in recent days.
(AP, 5/11/10)(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Iran’s Fars news
agency reported that Iranian border guards have arrested 9 Iraqi
fishermen in Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in recent
days.
(AFP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, The Irish
government passed a law outlawing the sale of many “head shop”
products. Anyone caught selling cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy
substitutes would face up to life in prison and any caught in
possession would face up to 7 years in jail.
(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.A4)
2010 May 11, Israeli Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused nuclear power North Korea of
supplying Syria with weapons of mass destruction.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, In Jamaica the
gunbattle began when unknown assailants shot at a patrol car in
Waterford, near the capital of Kingston. Bystander Josephine Brown
(45), the mother of 5 children, was hit and killed when police
returned fire.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 11, In Jordan John
Zinn (33), president and chief executive officer of South
Carolina-based Defense Venture Group, died. A top security official
said an investigation showed that Zinn was "highly intoxicated." He
was in Amman for a military exhibition. Security officials said he
fell to his death from the second floor of a deserted building in
Amman. Preliminary reports show no indication of foul play or
attempted suicide.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 11, Volcanic ash from
Iceland wound its way down to North Africa and curled over to
Turkey, forcing authorities to shut down Casablanca airport in
Morocco as well as airports in Spain and airspace over Turkey.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, In Kuwait writer
Mohammad Abdulqader al-Jassem (54) was detained on charges of
instigating to overthrow the regime. The next day he began a hunger
strike to protest the accusations. On Dec 15 Kuwait's appeals court
reduced to three months a one-year jail term given to a al-Jassem
for allegedly slandering the prime minister.
(AP, 5/19/10)(http://tinyurl.com/26zlwm3)(AP,
12/15/10)
2010 May 11, Nigerian Senator
Ahmed Sani Yerima (49), under fire over marrying a 13-year-old
Egyptian girl, justified his actions by saying he was following in
the footsteps of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, who had married a
nine-year-old girl, Aishatu.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, In Pakistan US
drone aircraft killed at least 24 suspected militants in two attacks
in North Waziristan, a major al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary.
(Reuters, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, In Puerto Rico
hundreds of police and federal agents raided a public housing
complex and arrested more than three dozen people allegedly involved
in selling an estimated $65 million worth of drugs.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, Russia's Pres.
Medvedev said that Israeli-Arab tensions threaten to draw the Middle
East into a new catastrophe, as he added Moscow's weight to a
diplomatic push to ease antagonism between Israel and Syria. While
in Syria, Medvedev unnerved Israel by paying a visit to Khaled
Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
(AP, 5/11/10)(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 11, In Sweden a
maritime museum said a "giant herring" measuring 3.5 meters (11.4
feet) had been discovered off Sweden's western coast -- the first
such fish found in the Scandinavian country in more than 130 years.
(AFP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 11, Thai
anti-government demonstrators insisted that they would continue
their two-month protest until the country's top leaders face
criminal charges for a violent crackdown on their rallies, rejecting
a government gesture of concession.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 12, President Barack
Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met at the White House in a
show of unity aimed at patching over differences at a pivotal time
in the nearly nine-year-old war.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, In San Francisco
Mayor Newsom presided over the official dedication of a 3-story,
15-ton Buddha sculpture, “Three heads Six Arms” by artist Zhang
Huan, to mark the city’s 30th anniversary sister city relationship
with Shanghai. The one year lease expired and the work was
dismantled on Feb 15, 2011, for return to Zhang Huan.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.C1)(SFC, 2/14/11, p.C1)
2010 May 12, In southern
Afghanistan violence erupted where an American and a Romanian
soldier were killed. Attackers on motorcycles shot and killed the
No. 2 prisons official in the southern province of Kandahar. The
Taliban claimed responsibility for assassinating the prison official
and an explosion injured at least three people. A bomb exploded near
a police training center in Kandahar city, injuring at least three
people. Allied forces killed five insurgents after a joint patrol
came under fire in the Sangin district of Helmand province while
searching for a Pakistan-based Taliban commander.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 12, In the Bahamas
Clive Tomlinson, a Jamaican, was killed. On May 14 authorities
charged Daniel Andres Ayo (27) and Luis Mendez (39), two tourists
from Florida, with the killing during what police say was a drug
deal gone bad.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 12, Britain's first
coalition government since 1945 unveiled its ministerial team on and
said it would speed up efforts to cut the country's budget deficit
as it emerges from a deep recession. A deal was struck between
Cameron’s Conservative party and the third-placed Liberal Democrats
with Nick Clegg (43) to serve as deputy premier. The Conservatives
became parliament's largest party after last week's election, but
fell 20 seats short of an outright majority. With the LibDems, they
will have a majority of 76 seats.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, In northwest China
7 children and the owners of a kindergarten were hacked to death in
Nanzheng county, a rural corner of Shaanxi province. Wu Huanming
(48) used a kitchen cleaver to kill five boys and two girls as well
as the mother-son team who owned and ran the private kindergarten.
He then returned home and committed suicide. This latest in a string
of assaults on schools, prompted officials to vow to "strike hard"
to calm public alarm.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, In Dubai James
Ibori, former governor of Nigeria's oil-rich Delta state
(1999-2007), was arrested on a UK warrant. Nigerian anti-graft
agency chief Farida Waziri said Ibori was wanted on charges of
stealing 44 billion naira ($292 million) in state funds while he was
in office. In July Ibori was scheduled for extradition to Britain.
(AP, 5/14/10)(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 May 12, German software
titan SAP agreed to buy database company Sybase, based in Dublin,
Ca., for $5.8 billion.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.D1)
2010 May 12, The European Union
set out plans to vet member state budgets before national
parliaments do in a power-grab that could trigger a divisive
referendum in Britain and provoked Swedish anger. Spain announced
big public sector wage cuts and market sentiment buoyed by positive
growth figures as several states shook off recession.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, In Indonesia 5
suspected terrorists were killed in two raids, the latest in a
series of anti-terror operations nationwide. 3 were killed in
Cawang, East Jakarta, and 2 others in the West Java city of
Cikampek. One of the suspects killed in the second raid was Saptono,
who was involved in a suicide car bomb attack which killed 10 people
outside the Australian embassy in 2004. Two days of raids around
Java also detained 20 people.
(AFP, 5/12/10)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.45)
2010 May 12, In Iraq more than
a thousand Kurds poured into the streets of the northern Iraqi city
of Sulaimaniyah in a growing wave of outrage, blaming authorities
for the kidnapping and murder of a young Kurdish journalist. A late
night car bomb tore through a cafe in Baghdad's Sadr City
neighborhood killing nine people. It appeared to have detonated
prematurely, also blowing up three suspected militants in the
vehicle. The dead included young people who had gathered to drink
tea and play dominoes. A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol
in Baghdad's central al-Nahda square, killing a bystander and
wounding 8 others, including five policemen. An Iraqi army
lieutenant was shot dead by a sniper in the afternoon while manning
a checkpoint in New Baghdad.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AP, 5/13/10)(SFC, 5/13/10,
p.A2)(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 12, Kazakh lawmakers
approved amendments to the constitution that will give President
Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts
committed during his rule and the right to approve important
national and foreign policies after he retires.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 12, A Libyan Afriqiyah
Airways Airbus A330-200 carrying 104 people crashed on approach to
Tripoli's airport. Ruben van Assouw, a Dutch boy (9), was the only
known survivor. The Royal Dutch Tourism Board said 61 of the dead
came from the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 12, Macedonian police
said a shootout between police and an armed group near the country's
border with Kosovo has left four people dead. Police had intercepted
them attempting to smuggle weapons across the border from Kosovo.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, Mexico’s army
overran a Zeta camp in Nuevo Leone state seizing 55,000 rounds of
ammunition, 109 grenades and 124 heavy weapons among other booty.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.46)
2010 May 12, Former Nigerian
minister Nasir el-Rufai appeared in court on charges of doling out
government lands to associates and family members during his four
years in office. The minister of the federal capital territory (FCT)
Abuja from 2003 to 2007 faced charges of criminal conspiracy and
abuse of office following an investigation by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
(AFP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 12, Pakistani Taliban
shot and killed two men whom they accused of spying for the United
States, while a bomb ripped through a NATO oil tanker near the
Afghan border and killed a passer-by.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, Peru’s Health
Ministry reported that an estimated 1.5 million or 5% of its
citizens were alcoholics, and that it was now the 2nd leading cause
of illness and death.
(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.A4)
2010 May 12, In South Korea
there were two separate cases of suspected group suicide. 4 women
and one man — all in their 20s and 30s — were found dead inside a
parked car in Hwaseong. 2 of the five left suicide notes. 3 men were
found dead hours later in Chuncheon, about 85 km (50 miles) east of
Seoul.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, Spain’s PM
Zapatero announced sweeping spending cuts totaling $19 billion that
included 5% pay cuts for civil servants and 15% cuts for government
ministers.
(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A3)
2010 May 12, Turkey and Russia
signed agreements for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear
power plant and the development of a pipeline project to carry
Russian oil from the Black Sea, through Turkey to the Mediterranean.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 12, The UN
peacekeeping mission in Sudan said Clashes between rival Arab tribes
have claimed 107 lives since March in Darfur, warning of a buildup
of government and rebel troops in the region.
(AFP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 13, US Attorney
General Eric Holder said 3 Pakistani men had been taken into custody
in a series of raids related to the May 1 failed Time Square car
bombing.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, The Los Angeles
City Council voted to boycott Arizona businesses, making it the
largest city to take such action to protest the state's tough new
law targeting illegal immigration.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Richmond, Ca.,
3 men were killed in a drive-by shooting.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.C1)
2010 May 13, Tribune Media
Service in Chicago said that it will cease syndication of the Little
Orphan Annie comic strip on June 13.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A6)
2010 May 13, Ruth Chew (90),
author of children’s fantasy books, died in Castro Valley, Ca. She
published 29 children’s books including “Trapped in Time.”
(SSFC, 6/6/10, p.C8)
2010 May 23, Ohio executed
Michael Beuke, a hitchhiker who killed a motorist in 1983. Beuke
recited prayers for 17 minutes before he was executed. On Nov 18 new
state prison rules were announced under which the final words of
condemned prisoners could be edited or shortened.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A7)
2010 May 13, In Afghanistan
officials said at least three dozen suspected insurgents were killed
in two days of joint NATO and Afghan operations across the country.
A NATO service member died following in a roadside bombing in the
restive south.
(AP, 5/13/10)(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, In China a man who
spent 11 years in jail after being tortured into confessing to the
murder of a man who wasn't even dead was been given $96,000 in
government compensation. Zhao Zuohai (57) was recently released from
prison after the man he was convicted of killing more than a decade
ago reappeared in their home village last month. Henan province
Chief Justice Hu Ye was soon suspended over the case.
(AP, 5/13/10)(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 13, In Dagestan 5
repairmen on their way to fix a cell phone tower in the southern
province of Russia were killed in an explosion and subsequent gun
attack.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Greece a
powerful bomb blast outside the country’s largest prison left one
woman injured and nearby homes damaged.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Iraq a roadside
bomb exploded near a police patrol in Baghdad's central al-Nahda
square, killing a bystander and wounding eight others, including
five policemen. 2 Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven wounded when
a bomb they were trying to defuse exploded along the road connecting
Baghdad with Mahmudiyah.
(AP, 5/13/10)(AFP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, The Israeli
government asked the fishermen to stop fishing in the Sea of
Galilee. Officials said a decade of overfishing has left the aquatic
population of the biblical body of water in danger. The fishing ban
was approved by PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet last month and
will be in effect for two years.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, In Kyrgyzstan
opponents of the interim rulers stormed two regional government
headquarters, threatening the delicate peace that has reigned since
the violent overthrow of the president last month.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Mexico gunmen
burst into the farm supplies business of Jose Guajardo Varela and
killed him and his son, after he ignored warnings to drop his bid
for mayor of Valle Hermosa, Tamaulipas state. The leader of the
conservative National Action Party said the victim and other
candidates had received threats. 4 policemen in Chiapas state were
killed and two others seriously wounded when gunmen attacked a
convoy carrying payments for a government anti-poverty program.
(AP, 5/14/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 13, In Nigeria Vincent
Ogbulafor, chairman of the ruling People's Democratic Party, wrote
that he would be resigning his post following accusations of
embezzling government money. The move pushed aside the most powerful
man blocking the nation's new president from running in next year's
election.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, In Abuja, Nigeria,
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and China State
Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC) sealed a $23
billion deal to build three refineries and a petrochemical complex.
(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, A Palestinian
teenager (16) was found dead from a gunshot wound near his village
in the West Bank. Palestinians said he was likely shot by an Israeli
settler while throwing stones at cars.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, South African and
Chinese companies announced plans to build a $217 million cement
plant in South Africa, in one of China's biggest investments in the
country.
(AFP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Thailand Maj.
Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a renegade army officer accused of
marshaling a paramilitary force among the Red Shirt protesters, was
shot in the head, apparently by a sniper, and taken to a hospital.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, The UN General
Assembly approved all 14 candidates for the 14 seats on the
47-member Human Rights Council. Human rights groups criticized the
poor human rights records 7 of the candidates: Angola, Libya,
Malaysia, Mauritania, Qatar, Thailand and Uganda.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.A2)
2010 May 13, The Venezuelan
government said the Aban Pearl offshore natural gas platform has
sunk into the sea, and 95 workers have been safely rescued.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 13, In Zimbabwe
thousands of mine workers went on strike for better pay after
negotiations with employers collapsed.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 14, In New Jersey 34
alleged members and associates of the Lucchese crime family were
indicted in connection with an illegal gambling operation.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A4)
2010 May 14, In Tennessee truck
driver Bruce Mendenhall (59) was convicted in the June 2007 death of
a woman at a Nashville truck stop. Authorities said he preyed on
prostitutes at truck stops. Mendenhall has also been charged with
killing women in Lebanon, Ten., Indianapolis and Birmingham, Ala.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A4)
2010 May 14, The space shuttle
Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral for its final voyage with a
crew of 6 heading to the Int’l. space station.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A5)
2010 May 14, In eastern
Afghanistan hundreds of protesters brandished sticks, threw stones
and burned an American flag as they accused NATO forces of killing
civilians in an overnight raid, but the alliance said eight
insurgents were killed in the attack. NATO said at least nine
insurgents were killed the previous night during a pursuit of
suspected militants in the Tarnak Wa Jaldak district of eastern
Zabul province. An American service member died in an insurgent
attack in the east. A suicide bomber in Gardez jumped in front of a
vehicle in a convoy of the governor of eastern Paktiya province, who
narrowly escaped the attack. A civilian was killed and four other
people injured. Afghan and coalition forces conducted sweeps across
Afghanistan that left at least 30 militants dead, while insurgents
in the east killed five security guards in an ambush on a convoy. 8
militants were killed and two others wounded in a joint raid by
Afghan and coalition forces in Nangahar province.
(AP, 5/14/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In Algeria a
moderate earthquake killed two people and injured 43 others.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, The Algerian army
killed three armed Islamic militants in the east of the country.
Several weapons, including two semi-automatic rifles, were seized in
the operation.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In Australia the
body of Nona Belomesoff (18) was found in an isolated bushland area.
Christopher James Dannevig (20) was charged with her murder. He had
allegedly set up a fake identity on Facebook and enticed Belomesoff
to a nature reserve in Sydney's southwest on May 12.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 14, British lawmaker
Stephen Timms (54), a member of Parliament for the constituency of
East Ham and the former financial secretary to the Treasury, was
stabbed by Roshonara Choudhry (21) during an advice session with his
constituents. His injuries were not life-threatening and the women
was arrested. Choudhry was convicted on Nov 2 of trying to murder
Timms in retaliation for his support for the Iraq conflict. The next
day she was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AP, 11/2/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 May 14, In eastern Central
African Republic villagers at Guerekindo killed two Ugandan rebels
of the Lord's Resistance Army in a self-defense initiative.
(AFP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 14, China’s state-run
Xinhua News Agency said four robbers were sentenced to death as part
of a 27-member gang who robbed a dozen tombs near the capital of the
central province of Hunan in 2008 and 2009. The other robbers got
prison terms.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In China Internet
service was restored to Xinjiang province, 10 months after it was
blocked following deadly rioting in Urumqi, the regional capital.
(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A2)
2010 May 14, Four African
countries (Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) signed a new treaty
on the equitable sharing of the Nile waters despite strong
opposition from Egypt and Sudan, who have the lion's share of the
river waters. The new agreement, the Nile Basin Cooperative
Framework, is to replace a 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan that
gives them control of more than 90 percent of the water flow.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit warned at the weekend
that Cairo's water rights were a "red line" and threatened legal
action if a partial deal is reached.
(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Hungary Gabor
Vona, the leader of Hungary's nationalist Jobbik party, wore a
banned black vest while taking his oath of office. The Hungarian
Guard was disbanded last year and its black outfits banned, although
the group has continued its activities.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In central India a
bus carrying wedding guests hit a high-tension electricity line,
killing 28 people on board, mostly women and children, who were on
their way back from the ceremony in the Mandla district of Madhya
Pradesh state.
(Reuters, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, Iraq’s election
commission said a full recount of votes for Baghdad province from
the parliamentary elections showed no fraud or major irregularities
and is unlikely to change the vote's final results. Al-Qaida in
Iraq's new leader warned Shiites that "dark days soaked with blood"
lie ahead and that a new campaign of attacks was under way. The
Iraqi insurgent umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq, named
al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Suleiman as its new minister of war,
replacing the Egyptian Abu Ayyub al-Masri, killed in a US-Iraqi
military strike on a safe house in April. Within hours of the
warning, a car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque south of
Baghdad just after Friday prayers, wounding 20 worshippers.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Indian Kashmir
4 policemen and 2 civilians were injured in a grenade attack by
suspected Muslim militants, minutes after protesters and police
clashed.
(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, An Indonesian
official said police have foiled a plot to assassinate the president
and other top officials, massacre foreigners in Mumbai-style
terrorist attacks and declare an Islamic state.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Kyrgyzstan
gunfire erupted as hundreds of interim government backers fought
supporters of deposed Pres. Kurmanbek Bakiyev for control over
regional government buildings. At least one person was killed and
more than 60 injured in the worst violence since last month's
forceful government change.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, Greece and Turkey
held a joint cabinet meeting in Athens in a new effort to overcome
old grudges and economic cooperation amidst the Greek debt crises. A
powerful bomb exploded inside a courthouse in the northern city of
Thessaloniki, sending smoke billowing in the building and wounding
one person.
(AP, 5/14/10)(SFC, 5/15/10, p.A2)
2010 May 14, In Mexico gunmen
killed six men and wounded two more in a drive-by shooting near a
kindergarten in Loma Blanca, a small town outside the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In southern
Nigeria gunmen sporting military uniforms kidnapped four Lebanese
road construction workers in an attack that left a soldier and a
gang member dead in Abia state. The 4 workers were freed on May 22.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AFP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 14, Russia’s Itar-Tass
news agency quoted a senior Russian arms trader as saying Russia has
signed deals with Syria under which it will sell it warplanes,
anti-tank weapons and air defense systems. Federal Service for
Military-Technical Cooperation chief Mikhail Dmitriyev said Russia
will sell MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsyr short-range air defense
systems and armored vehicles. He didn't give any numbers or provide
any further details.
(Reuters, 5/14/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In central Somalia
3 gunmen killed a World Food Program contracted driver in what is
believed to be clan-related violence.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In South Africa
Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert (70), anti-apartheid activist, died. The
former South African legislator helped chart a way out of apartheid
by leading fellow whites into talks with exiled black leaders.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Spain Judge
Baltasar Garzon (54), the crusading judge who indicted Augusto
Pinochet and Osama bin Laden, was suspended for allegedly
overstepping his jurisdiction in a probe of one of Spain's biggest
cases, atrocities committed during and after the nation's ruinous
civil war. Human rights groups called Garzon's suspension a sad day
for the Spanish justice system.
(AP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Sudan
government troops killed 108 fighters from the rebel Justice and
Equality Movement in the Jebel Moon area of western Darfur.
Government forces also battled JEM rebels near Nyala in south Darfur
where 27 police and 33 rebels were killed. Forces loyal to a
renegade south Sudanese general clashed with government troops for
the fourth time in two weeks, leaving at least five soldiers dead.
(AP, 5/15/10)(Reuters, 5/14/10)
2010 May 14, In Sweden the home
of cartoonist Lars Vilks, who once drew a cartoon of the Prophet
Muhammad as a dog, was hit by a suspected arson attack.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, Thai troops fired
bullets at anti-government protesters and explosions thundered in
the heart of Bangkok. An army push to clear the streets and end a
two-month political standoff sparked clashes that left 5 people dead
and dozens wounded. Demonstrators the next day accused the
government snipers of picking people off with head shots.
(AFP, 5/14/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, Oil leaking from
the ruptured well pipe in the Gulf of Mexico washed ashore in two
new locations, as BP’s latest attempt to contain the spill faltered.
Experts warned that the spill may be growing more than ten times
faster than previous Coast Guard estimates of 5,000 barrels (210,000
gallons) a day.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In Fresno, Ca.,
police arrested 60 people and impounded 37 vehicles as part of
crackdown on gangs that began last month.
(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A4)
2010 May 15, In Maryland jockey
Martin Garcia rode “Lookin At Lucky” to victory in the Preakness
Stakes.
(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A1)
2010 May 15, Afghan police
officers came under attack from insurgents while working to defuse a
roadside bomb in eastern Paktia province. One militant was killed
and two others arrested after a gunbattle. Zabiullah Mujahid, a
Taliban spokesman, boasted that the group had kidnapped and killed 4
Afghan interpreters in Khost province. Insurgents attacked a convoy
in Andar district of Ghazni province, killing one private security
guard and injuring two others.
(AP, 5/16/10)(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.A7)(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 15, In Australia
Jessica Watson (16) became the youngest person to sail around the
globe solo, nonstop and unassisted when she cruised into Sydney
Harbor in her pink, 34-foot (10m) yacht to a rock star welcome of
thousands. Her feat will not be considered an official world record,
because the World Speed Sailing Record Council discontinued its
"youngest" category.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In Brazil a fire
destroyed what may be the world's largest scientific collection of
dead snakes, spiders and scorpions. The Instituto Butantan’s
collection of nearly 80,000 specimens was the main source for
research on thousands of species.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 15, British PM David
Cameron and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to strengthen ties
between London and Kabul in the first meeting between the new
British PM and a foreign leader.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In Cuba hundreds
of gay and lesbian activists, some dressed in drag and others
sporting multicolored flags representing sexual diversity, marched
and danced through the streets of Havana along with the daughter of
Cuban President Raul Castro as part of a celebration aimed at
eliminating homophobia around the world.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In central India
Maoist rebels kidnapped and killed six villagers in a thickly
forested area of Chattisgarh state, alleging that the men were
police informants. Their bodies were found the next day. The rebels
were currently present in 20 of the country's 28 states with an
estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 15, In Iran prosecutor
Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed the death sentence for six
opposition activists arrested in protests after last year's disputed
presidential election. They included Ahmad Daneshpour Moghadam,
Mohsen Daneshpour Moghadam and Alireza Ghanbari, who were arrested
after opposition protests during the Shiite mourning holiday of
Ashura last December. Mohammad Ali Saremi, Jafar Kazemi and
Mohammad-Ali Haj-Aghai were arrested in September.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, The Israeli army
gunfire killed farmer Fuad Abu Matar (75) and wounded another
Palestinian near northern Gaza's border with the Jewish state.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, Moshe Greenberg
(81), an influential Bible scholar, died in Jerusalem. His work won
the first-ever Israel Prize for biblical studies (1994). His
definitive two-volume commentary on the Book of Ezekiel described,
among other things, how the prohibition of murder became an
unbreakable taboo with the Abrahamic religions because of the rise
of a belief in man's connection to God.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 15, Former Mexican
presidential candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos (69) disappeared.
His abandoned car was found near his ranch in the central state of
Queretaro. Four young men were found decapitated in northern Durango
state. A message on the windshield of a pickup, allegedly signed by
the Zetas gang, said the victims were involved in an attack at a bar
in the neighboring city of Torreon that killed eight people earlier
in the day. Cevallos was released on Nov 26 after the family paid a
ransom of around $20 million.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AP, 5/16/10)(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 May 15, Niger government
spokesman Mahamane Laouali Dan Dah said that more than 21,000 tons
of food would be given to 1.5 million people in need.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In Pakistan a
suspected US missile strike killed at least five people in the
northwest Khyber tribal region. Militants armed with assault rifles
kidnapped about 60 people in a troubled tribal region in the
northwest in the Kurram region after ambushing their vehicles.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, Bitter Palestinian
rivals marched together in a rare show of unity as they marked 62
years of displacement in the war surrounding Israel's creation. The
Egyptian border post at Rafah in southern Gaza was opened for the
first time in 10 weeks. Some 300 Palestinians crossed the border and
that 8,000 others were expected to follow during the opening due to
last three days.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, In Rwanda 2 people
were killed and 27 others wounded during two separate grenade
attacks in the capital Kigali.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 15, Sudanese
authorities arrested Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and
closed his newspaper, sparking a furious reaction from the country's
opposition. A coalition of 17 opposition parties, including the
heavyweight Umma party, signed a statement condemning Turabi's
arrest as a "violation against freedoms and democratic
transformation and the constitution."
(AFP, 5/16/10)(Econ, 6/5/10, p.54)
2010 May 15, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva defended the deadly army crackdown on the Red
Shirt protesters besieging the capital, saying there was no turning
back as clashes raged in the center of Bangkok. Violence Bangkok
claimed 8 more lives as the embattled premier vowed no turning back
and the army threatened a crackdown on thousands of protesters.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 16, Oil from a
blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 10 miles
long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said
as BP wrestled for a third day with its latest contraption for
slowing the nearly month-old gusher.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Rima Fakih
(b.1986), a Lebanese-born immigrant and crowned as Miss Michigan,
became the first Arab-American woman to win the Miss USA pageant at
the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rima_Fakih)
2010 May 16, In Detroit,
Michigan, Aiyana Jones (7) was killed by a Detroit police officer
during a raid at the girl's home. State police were brought in to
investigate the shooting. Detroit police were searching for a
homicide suspect when they burst in and an officer's gun went off,
fatally striking the girl in the neck. The police were being
shadowed by a reality television crew. In Oct 2011 officer Joseph
Weekley was indicted for involuntary manslaughter.
(AP, 5/17/10)(SFC, 10/5/11, p.A7)
2010 May 16, In NYC 2 off-duty
police officers were killed and 4 women injured when their car hit a
guardrail in the Bronx.
(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A4)
2010 May 16, An Afghan official
said a mystery disease infecting opium poppies in Afghanistan could
cut this year's illicit crop in some areas by up to 70 percent. A US
service member was killed following an insurgent attack in southern
Afghanistan. 2 militants on a motorbike opened fire on a car
belonging to a National Security Directorate official who was on his
way to work. The intelligence official's driver was killed. The
appellate court of the Afghan Criminal Justice Task Force reported
that drug-traffickers from the provinces of Nangarhar, Herat,
Kapisa, Helmand, Panjshir, Kunar, Kandahar and Wardak were fined and
sentenced to prison last week. Militants shot and killed Rahman Gul,
a prominent Muslim cleric who had called for peace, along with two
members of his family in Kunar province. 2 US service members died
in southern Afghanistan. One was killed in an insurgent attack, and
the other died of injuries sustained a day earlier.
(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 16, In eastern
Bangladesh a speeding bus plunged off a bridge after slamming into
another bus, killing 11 people and injuring 32 others.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Brazil Marina
Silva, former rubber tapper turned environmentalist, joined the
presidential race as candidate for the small Green Party on Sunday,
pledging clean government and sustainable development.
(Reuters, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Aviation officials
closed airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland
due to a drifting, dense cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, About 20 armed
pirates boarded the MV North Spirit, a cargo ship carrying
fertilizer and soya beans, as it docked off Cameroon's commercial
capital of Douala. Pirates kidnapped two Russian sailors during the
attack.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 16, In China Xie Yulin
(20), a cleaver-wielding man, attacked and wounded 6 women before
jumping to his death in the southern city of Foshan. One of the
women died the next day.
(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 16, In Cuba the
government said private farmers will purchase supplies directly in
future instead of having them allocated by the state, in the latest
concession to their demands for more autonomy.
(Reuters, 5/17/10)
2010 May 16, Dominicans were
expected to expand the ruling party's strong congressional majority
elections that could strengthen President Leonel Fernandez's grip
over the legislature.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Egyptian police
shot and killed a Sudanese migrant as he attempted to cross the
border illegally into neighboring Israel.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Clotilde Reiss
(24), a young French academic who battled spying charges in Iran for
more than 10 months, returned to France and thanked President
Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials for insisting on her innocence
and pressing for her release.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Hong Kong held
by-elections triggered by pro-democracy lawmakers seeking to
pressure Beijing into speeding up the pace of electoral reform in
the territory. Most Hong Kongers stayed away from special elections
that five opposition lawmakers had triggered. A low turnout returned
five opposition legislators who had resigned. Beijing loyalists
called the engineered election a failure.
(AFP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 16, In India at least
two people died in a stampede at a railway station in New Delhi as
thousands of passengers waited to board trains.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran Brazil's
Pres. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva met with Iranian leaders to try to
broker a compromise in the international standoff over Tehran's
nuclear program, even as the US says new sanctions are the only way
to force Iran's cooperation.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Iran acclaimed
filmmaker and opposition supporter Jafar Panahi went on a hunger
strike to protest his imprisonment. He was this month freed on a
bail of around 200,000 US dollars. Panahi is known for his gritty,
socially critical movies such as the "Circle," which bagged the 2000
Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold," and "Offside," winner of
the 2006 Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival.
(AP, 5/19/10)(AP, 1/19/11)
2010 May 16, Iran arrested
Mohsen Armin, a senior member of the banned reformist party, the
Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution. He was
released from Tehran's Evin prison in July after posting a bail of
$200,000.
(AFP, 7/25/10)
2010 May 16, Honduran strongman
Oswaldo Lopez Arellano (89) died. He led two military coups and
served as president from 1963-1971 and 1972-1975.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 16, Israel inaugurated
a huge new desalination facility on its Mediterranean seashore, with
a network of pipes beneath the beach reaching far into the ocean.
The $425 million Hadera plant is the world's largest using reverse
osmosis technology.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Thousands of
Japanese linked hands and encircled a Marine Corps base in Okinawa
to protest its presence on the island, putting more pressure on
Tokyo to resolve an impasse over the base's future.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Pakistan’s
military killed 58 suspected militants in the northwestern Orakzai
tribal region with a mix of airstrikes and ground combat, the latest
violence in a months-long campaign to rout Taliban fighters from a
mountainous area near the Afghan border. Militants who kidnapped 60
people at gunpoint the day before released 40 of their hostages.
Another 10 people told the local government they managed to escape
the militants. The kidnappers kept the wealthier men so they could
demand ransom from their families.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Hamas police
wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in
the southern Gaza town of Rafah before knocking the buildings down
with bulldozers. Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were
built illegally on government land. Residents said between 30 and 40
homes were torn down.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In the Philippines
Muslim guerrillas said that they were ready to enter into peace
talks with Philippine president-apparent Benigno Aquino III after
years of little progress under his predecessor.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Prominent Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi resigned from the helm of Al-Watan daily
in a move believed linked to official displeasure with articles
critical of the state's harsh Islamic rules.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, In Singapore
Oliver Fricker (32), a Swiss citizen, broke into a train depot with
an accomplice and painted graffiti on two subway carriages. On June
25 a court sentenced Fricker to five months' jail and three strokes
of a cane. On Aug 18 he asked a judge to reduce his five-month jail
term for graffiti, but instead got two months added to his sentence,
showing the lengths the city-state will go to maintain its
reputation as a safe and clean place.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 May 16, In Somalia
Islamist rebels shelled the newly rebuilt parliament in Mogadishu,
sparking clashes with government forces and African Union
peacekeepers that left 11 civilians dead.
(AFP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Thailand's main
emergency medical center said 30 people have been killed in four
days of street fighting between Red Shirt protesters and troops in
central Bangkok. The latest deaths raise to 59 the number of people
killed in related violence since April 10. Most of the dead are
civilians.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 16, Yemeni tribesmen
kidnapped two Chinese engineers and their government escorts in the
country's volatile south. Kidnappers released the engineers after
several days of mediation.
(AP, 5/16/10)(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 16, Zimbabwe's PM
Morgan Tsvangirai called for an immediate Southern African
Development Community (SADC) summit to resolve major disagreements
stalling a power-sharing government with his long-time rival
President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 17, The US Supreme
Court ruled 5-4 that teenagers may not be locked up for life without
chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, The US Treasury
Dept.; received a $1.9 billion loan repayment from Chrysler Holding.
The Treasury had made a $4 billion loan to the carmaker in January
2009. The loan was reduced by $500 million when assets of Old
Chrysler were sold to the new company in June. The latest payment
cleared Chrysler of obligations incurred as part of the Troubled
Asset Relief Program (TARP).
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.D2)
2010 May 17, A new analysis of
US health data linked children's attention-deficit disorder with
exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, US researchers
said eating bacon, sausage, hot dogs and other processed meats can
raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes, in a study that
identifies the real bad boys of the meat counter.
(Reuters, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, Insurance giant
Prudential said it will raise £14.5 billion from the sale of
new shares to help fund a record takeover of Asian insurer AIA.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, BP said it was
siphoning more than one-fifth of the oil that has been spewing into
the Gulf for almost a month, as worries escalated that the ooze may
reach a major ocean current that could carry it through the Florida
Keys and up the East Coast. The US Coast Guard said 20 tar balls
have been found off Key West, Fla., but the agency stopped short of
saying whether they came from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico.
(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, In northern
Afghanistan a Pamir Airways passenger plane crashed with 44 people
on board. The British Embassy in Kabul confirmed that three British
nationals were among 6 foreigners on the plane. Poor weather
hampered search efforts. No survivors were found. 5 Afghan UN
staffers kidnapped in northern Afghanistan a month ago were freed in
a military operation. 2 Italian soldiers in the NATO mission were
killed by a roadside bomb while riding in a convoy near the western
city of Herat. Two other soldiers were wounded. Two other NATO
service members died in separate bomb attacks.
(AFP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 17, France decided to
send home an Iranian agent it had jailed for murdering the Shah's
last prime minister, two days after Tehran freed a young French
academic accused of spying. Ali Vakili Rad was serving a life
sentence for stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death at his home outside
Paris in August 1991.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, A group of French
technology firms know as the association for digital Economy in
France called on local governments to partner with private companies
to build a network of data centers and shared cloud platforms
catering to French needs.
(SFC, 5/31/10, p.D5)
2010 May 17, Haitian protesters
marched to the collapsed national palace for a second straight
Monday to criticize President Rene Preval, saying he failed the
nation in the aftermath of its catastrophic earthquake. The last of
10 Americans detained while trying to take 33 children out of Haiti
after the Jan. 12 earthquake was freed when a judge convicted her
but sentenced her to time already served in jail.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, In central India a
Maoist land mine blew up a bus filled with police and civilians as
it drove through Chhattisgarh state, killing at least 35 people.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, Iran agreed to
ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in a surprise
nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff
over the country's disputed atomic program and deflate a US-led push
for tougher sanctions. The deal was reached in talks between
Brazils’ Pres. Silva, Turkey’s PM Erdogan and Iran’s Pres.
Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/17/10)(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A2)
2010 May 17, An Iraqi official
said security forces have detained Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani,
an al-Qaida militant suspected of planning an attack targeting the
World Cup in South Africa next month. Al-Qahtani entered Iraq in
2004 and was suspected in several attacks in the capital and
elsewhere in the country. Assailants disguised in Iraqi military
uniforms beheaded a Sunni cleric and stuck his head on an
electricity pole in Sadiyah, where he had preached against al-Qaida.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, Jamaica's PM Bruce
Golding said he will allow Christopher "Dudus" Coke, a reputed drug
kingpin, to be extradited to the US, ending a nine-month fight with
Washington but raising fears of a violent backlash from the
suspect's supporters.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, The Mexican army
said it has detained Crispin Borunda, an alleged lieutenant of the
Ciudad Juarez-based Carrillo Fuentes cartel, who escaped from a US
prison two decades ago. A statement said Borunda tried to flee on
foot and fired at soldiers before being caught last week in the
capital of the border state of Chihuahua. Soldiers seized another
suspect and five weapons. 6 of the 11 municipal officers in La
Union, Guerrero state, resigned after armed men ambushed and wounded
two of their officers. Several other Mexican towns have seen mass
police resignations because of cartel violence or threats. In Mexico
State, on the outskirts of Mexico City, residents of a town beat a
man death on suspicion of robbing a young couple of 200 pesos (about
$16) and a cell phone. Juan Padilla Juarez (28), an alleged member
of the La Linea gang, was arrested in the border city of Ciudad
Juarez. He had allegedly participated in the killing of 10 people.
Police in northern Mexico arrested 8 men who allegedly kidnapped
migrants trying to reach the US. An investigation led to the arrest
of 3 more suspects a day later.
(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 17, Nicaragua’s navy
chief, Capt. Roger Gonzalez Diaz, said Mexico's La Familia cartel is
moving heavily into Central America and dominates much of the drug
trade through the region. He said officials would take tough
measures to prevent the trade.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, A report by civil
liberties group Open Society Justice Initiative alleged that
Nigeria's federal police force kills with impunity, extorts those
it's charged to protect and rapes arrested prostitutes as a "fringe
benefit" of the job.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, Outgoing
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo swore in a new chief
justice whose appointment has been questioned by her apparent
successor, sparking fears of a constitutional crisis. Communist
guerrillas freed town Mayor Roberto Luna and his four bodyguards
after 12 days of jungle captivity in which the rebels interrogated
him.
(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, In the Philippines
a helicopter carrying Quezon Gov. Rafael Nantes, two security
personnel and the pilot, crashed into houses south of Manila,
killing all four people aboard and a girl on the ground.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, Portugal’s Pres.
Anibal Cavaco Silva said he would not veto a new law allowing
same-sex marriages because majority liberal lawmakers would only
override his decision.
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.A3)
2010 May 17, Russian Pres.
Medvedev visited Kiev, Ukraine, and oversaw the signing of several
cooperation deals with the new Moscow-friendly leadership of Pres.
Viktor Yanukovych.
(SFC, 5/18/10, p.A2)
2010 May 17, Somalia’s Pres.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed dissolved the Cabinet to overcome divisions
that have paralyzed his administration in the face of an al-Qaida
linked Islamist insurgency. The UN-backed government currently only
controls a few city blocks in the capital of Mogadishu and has
failed to deliver either security or services to its people.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 17, In South Africa a
strike by rail workers left two million commuters stranded just 24
days from the kick-off of the World Cup.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, The Thai
government said it would accept a cease-fire offer from a Red Shirt
protest leader if their fighters return to their camp in central
Bangkok, as street battles that have killed 37 people raged for a
fifth day.
(AP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 17, In northern Turkey
rescue teams strived to reach workers trapped hundreds of meters
underground after a powerful methane gas explosion in the Karadon
state-run coal mine near the northern Black Sea port of Zonguldak.
On May 20 rescuers found the bodies of 28 miners. 2 miners remained
missing.
(AFP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 18, Indiana Republican
Rep. Mark Souder announced he would resign from Congress, effective
May 21, because he had an affair with a staffer.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, A discovery of tar
balls on Florida's Key West fanned fears that a massive Gulf of
Mexico oil spill was spreading through ocean currents, as energy
giant BP Plc worked to capture more of the crude leaking from its
gushing deep-water well.
(Reuters, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, A Taliban suicide
car bomber struck a NATO convoy in Kabul, killing six troops 5
American and one Canadian. Twelve Afghan civilians also died, many
of them on a public bus in rush-hour traffic.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Britain’s new
chancellor George Osborne called for a freeze to the EU's 2011
budget, saying it was "unacceptable" for Brussels to demand a huge
increase.
(AFP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Britain rebuffed a
new appeal by Argentina to resume talks with London over the
long-disputed Falklands Islands in the south Atlantic.
(AFP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Martin Smith (45)
was flown back from Spain to Britain, the same day as the bodies of
his children were found dead in the coastal resort of Lloret de Mar,
Spain. His wife, Lianne Smith (43), was arrested on suspicion of the
murder of his two children Rebecca (5) and Daniel (11 months).
Lianne Smith was charged with murder on May 21.
(AFP, 5/19/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 18, Most of Canada's
largest forestry companies announced a groundbreaking deal with
environmental groups that will restrict logging in the country's
vast northern forests.
(Reuters, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In China Huang
Guangyu, a school drop-out who became China's richest man by
building an electronics and home appliance empire, was jailed for 14
years for bribery and insider trading. He had admitted to paying
bribes totaling 4.56m yuan to five government officials between 2006
and 2008. A Beijing court ordered Huang, in his 40s, to pay a fine
of 600 million yuan ($88 million). Authorities seized another 200
million yuan in assets as part of his conviction.
(AFP, 5/18/10)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.69)
2010 May 18, In Colombia
Rogelio Martinez (51) gunmen intercepted a mototaxi and shot
him at least three times near his residence in San Onofre, Sucre
province. Martinez lived with 52 displaced families locked in a
dispute with a paramilitary group over a 556-hectare (1,374-acre)
farm called "La Alemania."
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 18, Ethiopia's main
rebel group claimed to have captured an army garrison town and
killed 94 government soldiers in a major operation. The Ethiopian
government denied the town had been captured and said the attack had
been successfully repelled.
(AFP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Greece received a
14.5 billion euro ($18 billion) loan from the EU and can now repay
its immediate debt, but still faces a mammoth task to claw its way
out of recession.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Haitian President
Rene Preval pledged to step down as scheduled next year, rebuking
critics who say he is using the post-earthquake emergency to hold
onto power.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, India’s home
minister said the government is willing to begin peace talks with
Maoist rebels, but only if the insurgents halt all attacks for 72
hours.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In Iraq Abdullah
Azam Saleh al-Qahtani, an alleged al-Qaida militant said he had
talked to friends about attacking Danish and Dutch teams at the
World Cup in South Africa next month to avenge insults against the
Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 18, An Israeli Defense
Ministry spokesman said Israel has fined Global CST, a local
security consulting firm, for negotiating a deal last year to
provide arms and military training to Guinea's military junta
without the state's prior approval. Global CST said it was not
fined, but was instead ordered to spend the money to tighten its
oversight procedures to avoid similar "errors" in the future.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In Kyrgyzstan
several thousand people tried to storm a university in a burst of
ethnic violence that left at least 2 people dead and 50 wounded,
prompting the interim government to call a local state of emergency.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 18, In Malawi a gay
couple, arrested after throwing a party to celebrate their
engagement in this conservative southern African country, were
convicted of unnatural acts and gross indecency. On May 20 a judge
sentenced the couple to the maximum 14 years in prison with hard
labor under Malawi's anti-gay legislation. On May 29 President Bingu
wa Mutharika announced a pardon and ordered their release.
(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/20/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 18, Mexico’s Attorney
General's Office announced that a judge handed down a prison
sentence of almost 22 years against Jaime Gonzalez Duran, also known
as "The Hummer," for money laundering and weapons possession.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In Mexico City
Javier Covarrubias (20) left his house and took his 2 children to a
park. There he allegedly asphyxiated 1 1/2-year-old Isis Liliana,
and a half hour later he asphyxiated 2 1/2-year-old Darien Isai. He
soon reported his two children kidnapped but then changed his story
and said he really gave them to a woman to settle a debt of 25,000
pesos, or about $1,925. The bodies of the children were found on
June 8.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 May 18, In Nigeria both
houses of parliament voted to approve Namadi Sambo, a northern
Muslim, as new vice president of the country, maintaining a delicate
religious and geographical balance in power.
(AFP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 11 people when he
attacked a police patrol in an area where many citizens fled last
year to escape a large army offensive against the Taliban.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Gaza's Hamas
rulers executed 3 convicted killers and dropped off their
bullet-riddled bodies at a hospital. One allegedly participated in
the 2003 slaying of a young woman whose body was later tossed in a
garbage bin. The other two men were accused of murdering money
changers in two separate incidents. Hamas began carrying out formal
executions in April, and today's killings brought the total number
of prisoners put to death to five.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In southern Poland
2 days of flooding killed at least 9 people. Officials closed the
Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site to protect its Holocaust archives
and artifacts. Heavy rains that began in central Europe last weekend
also caused flooding in areas of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech
Republic, with rivers bursting their banks and inundating low-lying
homes and roads, and cutting off villages.
(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 18, The boss of
Russia's Raspadskaya mine quit after PM Vladimir Putin assailed him
over explosions that killed 66 people and could be prosecuted
following a safety probe into the tragedy.
(Reuters, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In northern
Somalia security forces in the semiautonomous region of Puntland
arrested 12 pirates, including a prominent gang member whose
assets were frozen by the US Treasury Department last month. Abshir
Abdillahi, who is also known as Abshir Boyah, was captured as he
tried to flee the town of Garowe.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 18, A female American
aid worker, Flavia Wagner (35), and two Sudanese colleagues were
ambushed and abducted by gunmen in Abu Ajura, South Darfur state. On
Aug 30 the foreign ministry said police had freed Wagner in the Abu
Agora area south of Nyala.
(AFP, 5/18/10)(AFP, 8/30/10)
2010 May 18, The Thai
government rejected a proposal for peace talks with leaders of the
Red Shirt protesters to end the deadly mayhem gripping Bangkok,
saying negotiations cannot start until the demonstrators disperse.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, A Yemeni security
court convicted six Somalis for piracy and sentenced them to death
for seizing an oil tanker. Six other convicted pirates received 10
year prison sentences and the pirates must together pay $2 million
compensation to an Aden refinery company, which owned a tanker that
was seized in April, 2009.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Amnesty
International accused Zimbabwe's unity government of failing to
provide for victims of a mass eviction blitz five years ago that
left 700,000 people destitute.
(AFP, 5/17/10)
2010 May 19, Khalid Ouazzani
(32) of Kansas City, Mo., admitted that he sent $23,500 to Al-Qaeda
between 2007-2008. The Morocco-born auto parts dealer became a US
citizen in 2006.
(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A6)
2010 May 19, In Afghanistan
insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault against the giant
US-run Bagram Air Field, killing an American contractor and wounding
nine troops in the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and
around the capital in as many days. 10 guerrillas were killed
including 4 with suicide vests.
(AP, 5/19/10)(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A3)
2010 May 19, The Bahrain-based
USS McFaul discovered the Panamanian-flagged M/V Iceberg I with as
many as 50 pirates and more than 20 crew members on board. It says
the location of the hijacked ship was previously unknown. The McFaul
followed the ship for more than a day and a half before the pirates
turned back toward the Somali coast.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 19, Nick Clegg,
Britain's new deputy leader, says he'll scrap an unpopular national
identity card program, limit the retention of DNA samples and
tightly regulate the use of closed circuit TV cameras in a sweeping
civil liberties drive.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, The Burundian
government said in a statement that it had given Neela Ghoshal, a
Human Rights Watch researcher, until June 5 to leave the country.
Burundi is due to hold its first round of elections after nearly 16
years of civil war May 23. Presidential polls are scheduled for June
28.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 19, Chadian
authorities at Ndjamena airport refused entry to Khalil Ibrahim and
a number of other JEM members who had arrived from the Libyan
capital Tripoli. Chadian authorities confiscated their passports and
refused to let them into Chadian territory and ordered them to go
back to Libya. Khalil and his delegation had planned to head to
Darfur through Chad.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, In China at least
five men armed with knives burst into the dormitory of a vocational
college in Haikou, the capital of the southern island province of
Hainan, and slashed nine students, one of them seriously.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, The French
government decided to impose a $185 fine on women who wear a
full-face Islamic veil in public. The legislation was forwarded to
Parliament.
(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A2)
2010 May 19, India's auction of
3G bandwidth for mobile telephone services ended, with final bids
earning the government close to 15 billion dollars -- double its own
estimate.
(AFP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, Iran dismissed as
"illegitimate" a draft UN Security Council resolution seeking to
impose harsher sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to halt
uranium enrichment.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, Kenya signed a new
treaty for the equitable sharing of waters of the Nile after four
other upstream countries inked the deal last week.
(AFP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, In southern
Kyrgyzstan ethnic violence broke out in Jalalabad. Ethnic Kyrgyz
supporters of ousted Pres. Bakiyev clashed with the Uzbek minority,
supporters of the interim government.
(AP, 5/20/10)(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A2)
2010 May 19, Mexican police
found the mummified bodies of two women and three men stuffed in
plastic bags in a pickup truck left near a highway in the northern
Mexico state of Chihuahua. University authorities in Ciudad Juarez
also reported that a freshman had been found dead, wrapped in a
blanket at a local fairground. Authorities said about 88 tons (80
metric tons) of a precursor chemical used to make methamphetamines
had been seized at the Pacific Coast seaport of Manzanillo.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 19, NATO and Russia
said they will boost efforts to develop a joint system to protect
their troops from attack by short-range missiles.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, Royal Dutch Shell
PLC announced it will spend more than $2 billion to sharply reduce
the burning off of natural gas at its oil wells in Nigeria, gases
that when burned contribute to global warming and sicken people
living nearby.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, Pakistan's
government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook amid
anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's
Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, Tens of thousands
of Romanians rallied in Bucharest to protest planned wage cuts as a
budget crises impacted the ailing economy.
(SFC, 5/20/10, p.A2)
2010 May 19, John
Shepherd-Barron (84), the Scotsman credited with inventing the
world's first automatic cash machine, died after a short illness.
The first automatic teller machine, now known as ATMs, was installed
at a branch of Barclays Plc in a north London suburb on June 27,
1967.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 19, In Thailand
downtown Bangkok became a flaming battleground as an army assault
forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender, enraging
followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings,
cloaking the skyline in black smoke. The Central World mall was in
charred ruins. Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi (48)
was killed by gunfire in clashes between the military and
demonstrators in Bangkok.
(AP, 5/19/10)(Econ, 5/29/10, p.46)(AP, 2/28/11)
2010 May 19, Zimbabwe's Chamber
of Mines proposed a compromise in the government's drive to force
foreign firms to give 51 percent stakes to locals, saying 15 percent
local shareholding for mines was enough.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 20, US researchers
announced that they have produced a living cell powered by manmade
DNA. They said the world's first synthetic cell, JCV1-syn1.0, is
more a re-creation of existing life, changing one simple type of
bacterium into another, than a built-from-scratch kind.
Genome-mapping pioneer J. Craig Venter said his team's project paves
the way for designing organisms that work differently from the way
nature intended for a wide range of uses.
(AP, 5/21/10)(Econ, 6/19/10, SR p.11)
2010 May 20, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon also took his opposition to a new Arizona
immigration law to Congress, saying it "ignores a reality that
cannot be erased by decree." Calderon also urged the US Congress to
reinstate a ban on assault weapons to help cut cross-border gun
smuggling and reduce drug gang violence for its southern neighbor.
(AP, 5/20/10)(Reuters, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, In Arkansas 2
police officers were shot dead after pulling over a van with Ohio
plates on I-40. A short time later 2 suspects were killed in a
separate shootout in a Wal-Mart parking lot in West Memphis.
(SFC, 5/21/10, p.A4)
2010 May 20, In Oakland, Ca.,
police arrested at least 26 people as part of a crackdown targeting
members of the Ghost Town street gang. The arrests capped a 5-month
operation dubbed Ghostbusters.
(SFC, 5/21/10, p.C5)
2010 May 20, In Florida a jury
in Broward County handed down a $29.1 million verdict against R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co. to Connie Buonomo (77), a widow who said her
husband started smoking as a teenager. Matthew Buonomo (80) died in
2008 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
(SFC, 5/22/10, p.A4)
2010 May 20, Tesla Motors
announced that it will use a $50 million investment from Toyota
Corp. to help it buy the recently closed Nummi auto plant in
Fremont, Ca.
(SFC, 5/21/10, p.A1)
2010 May 20, Australian police
raided 12 properties associated with Agape Ministries, led by Rocco
Leo, and netted 15 guns, slow-burning fuses, detonators, extendable
batons and 35,000 rounds of ammunition.
(www.apologeticsindex.org/1666-agape-ministries)(AFP, 6/27/11)
2010 May 20, In Brazil a court
ordered the arrest of a Polish priest suspected of sexually abusing
a teenager in a Rio de Janeiro suburb and turning his parish home
into what the judge described as an "erotic dungeon" for sex with
adolescents. State prosecutors have accused Marcin Michael
Strachanowski (44) of handcuffing a former altar boy (16) to a bed 3
years ago in the parish house where the priest lived and threatening
to kill the youth if he spoke of the abuse.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, BP conceded that
more oil than it estimated is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as
heavy crude washed into Louisiana's wetlands for the first time,
feeding worries and uncertainty about the massive monthlong spill.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, Supermarket chain
Asda said that it is to sell cancer drugs at cost-price and called
on its peers who make massive profits on the treatments to follow
suit. The group, owned by US supermarket giant Wal-Mart, said its
initiative follows the success of a similar scheme by Asda for
in-vitro fertility (IVF) treatments.
(AFP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, Britain's
coalition government outlined a joint legislative program, promising
support for the Afghanistan war, a new drive toward Middle East
peace and a "close and frank" relationship with the United States.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, Chinese officials
said Ma Yaohai (53), a college professor accused of organizing a
swingers club and holding private orgies, has been sentenced to 3
1/2 years in prison, in a case that touched off national debate
about sexual freedom. Ma, along with 21 other people, was arrested
and charged last year under a 1997 law.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In France a lone
thief stole five paintings valued at $123 million, including major
works by Picasso and Matisse, in an overnight heist from the Paris
Museum of Modern Art.
(AP, 5/20/10)(SFC, 5/21/10, p.A2)
2010 May 20, French police
arrested the leader of Basque separatist group ETA and his second in
command, calling it an important blow but not a death knell for the
violent organization.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In Greece more
than 20,000 protesters marched to parliament, as unions challenged
harsh austerity measures by staging their fourth general strike this
year.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In India Cyclone
Laila slammed into the southeast, toppling power lines and plunging
a large swath of coastal Andhra Pradesh state into darkness. Heavy
rains and strong winds claimed at least 23 lives.
(AP, 5/20/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, In Iran 3
Americans, jailed for 10 months, hugged and kissed their mothers in
an emotional reunion after the women arrived on a mission to secure
the release of their children. One of the prisoners said they all
hoped to go home together in the trio's first public comments since
their arrest.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In Iraq a US
Division-North soldier died of injuries sustained in a non-combat
related incident. The circumstances surrounding that incident were
under investigation.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 20, Israel released
Mohammed Abu Teir, a Hamas lawmaker. He was arrested nearly four
years ago following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Gaza
militants in a deadly cross-border raid.
(AFP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In southern
Kyrgyzstan more than 2,000 supporters of the deposed president
rallied near Jalal Abad, a town wracked by ethnic violence.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In Madagascar
soldiers and police clashed in what a police colonel described as a
failed mutiny, leaving one police officer dead and five wounded. Lt.
Col. Raymond Andrianjafy and several others were soon arrested
pending investigations.
(AP, 5/20/10)(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 20, In the Maldives 15
representatives of the Afghan government met with 7 Taliban members
for talks, which would continue over the weekend. A Taliban
statement the next day said those at the talks claiming to be from
the Taliban are no longer active members and have "surrendered" to
President Hamid Karzai's government.
(SFC, 5/21/10, p.A2)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, In Mexico
gunbattles between security forces and armed attackers killed nine
people in two states along the US border. Federal police announced
the capture of Jose Manuel Garcia, the Sinaloa cartel's alleged
chief operator in Mexico state. In the state of Coahuila, 2 police
officers and 3 gunmen died in a shootout in Torreon. In Ciudad
Juarez federal police detained Luis Humberto Hernandez, an alleged
gang member accused of participating in 11 killings. Timoteo
Alejandro Ramirez and his wife Cleriberta Castro were killed by
gunmen from a rival faction of San Juan Copala in southern Oaxaca
state. Ramirez was the leader of the town's autonomy movement.
(AP, 5/20/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, A multinational
team blamed North Korea for sinking the South Korean corvette with a
torpedo in March, claiming 46 lives, prompting an angry denial from
Pyongyang and a threat of war if it is punished.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, The Pakistani
government blocked access to YouTube because of "sacrilegious"
content on the video-sharing website, signaling a growing Internet
crackdown against sites deemed offensive to the country's majority
Muslim population.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, In Pakistan a
British couple and their daughter were shot dead at a cemetery near
Gujarat as part of a family feud while visiting for a wedding.
Reports named them as Mohammad Yousaf, his wife Pervaiz and their
daughter Tanya (22), from Nelson in Lancashire.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, In Sudan Darfur's
most militarized rebel group (JEM), said it had killed 200 Sudanese
government troops in the western region over the previous 2 days,
but the army denied the toll in the latest fighting to cloud
troubled peace talks.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, The Thai
government declared it had mostly quelled 10 weeks of violent
protests in the capital as buildings still smoldered, troops rooted
out small pockets of resistance and residents attempted to return to
normal life.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 21, In San Francisco
the city planning commission approved a plan to open a medical
marijuana facility in the Sunset District, despite objections by
area residents.
(SFC, 5/22/10, p.C1)
2010 May 21, The Texas State
Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum
that amended or watered down the teaching of civil rights, slavery,
America’s relationship with the UN and hundreds of other items.
(SFC, 5/22/10, p.A6)
2010 May 21, European Union
finance ministers started laying out new, tougher rules for their
public finances in the hopes of winning back market confidence and
preventing a repeat of the debt crisis that is threatening the euro.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, In Bolivia retired
Gen. Gary Prado, famous for capturing Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was
ordered held under house arrest in connection with an alleged plot
against President Evo Morales. Prosecutors alleged that Prado had
exchanged "ultrasecret" encrypted e-mail with Eduardo Rozsa, a
Bolivian-born Hungarian who was slain in an April 2009 raid by an
elite police unit.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 21, In China some 1900
workers at a Honda auto parts factory in Guangdong province went on
strike demanding higher pay. Monthly pay at the facility in Foshan
city was about $117 per month. Similar companies paid between $292
and $365 a month. Honda announced a settlement on June 4.
(www.china.org.cn/business/2010-05/28/content_20133668.htm)(SSFC,
5/30/10, p.A4)(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 May 21, Three Americans
jailed in Iran for 10 months met with their mothers a second time as
Iranian authorities used their visit to underline their complaints
about their own citizens detained by the United States.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, In Iraq a car
bombing at an open-air market in Khalis, a Shiite town northeast of
Baghdad, left 30 people dead. A US Division-North soldier was killed
near Mosul in an incident that was put under investigation.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 21, In Indian Kashmir
thousands of people turned out to pay tribute to two slain
separatist leaders as a one-day strike called to mark the occasion
closed shops and businesses.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Mexican officials
said Jose Manuel Garcia, a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel, one
of Mexico's largest criminal gangs, has been arrested along with a
cache of weapons, money and drugs.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Nigerian officials
and residents said hundreds of Niger nationals, mostly women and
children, have flooded into the country in search of food.
(AFP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 21, Norwegian browser
developer Opera Software said it is moving its data processing
capacity to a newly-built center in Iceland, one of the first
foreign investment deals for the crisis-hit island as it tries to
rebuild its economy.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Pakistani
protesters shouted "Death to Facebook", "Death to America" and burnt
US flags, venting growing anger over "sacrilegious" caricatures of
the Prophet Mohammed on the Internet.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Two Palestinian
militants, Nader Abu Dakkar (17) and Hamdi Abu Hammad (17)
infiltrated Israel from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip but were killed
in a firefight with Israeli troops. The Israeli military launched
aerial raids overnight in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, following a
rocket attack the previous evening. No one was injured or killed in
the sorties.
(AP, 5/21/10)(AFP, 5/21/10)(AFP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 21, Spain convicted 3
members of Basque separatist group ETA of detonating a car bomb at
Madrid airport in 2006 that killed two Ecuadorians.
(Reuters, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, In southern Sudan
President Salva Kiir was sworn in eight months ahead of a scheduled
referendum on whether the south will secede from the north. The
south and the northern government, led by Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir, must still negotiate how the two regions will share oil
revenues and divide access to the Nile River waters before the
referendum.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Yemen’s Pres.
Saleh extended an olive branch to the opposition, offering to form a
national unity government and announcing an amnesty for imprisoned
southern separatists and Shiite rebels.
(AFP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, Jordan Romero
(13), an eighth-grader from California, became the youngest climber
to reach the top of Mount Everest, surpassing the previous record
set by Temba Tsheri (16) of Nepal.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, Martin Gardner
(b.1914), American writer on mathematics, died. His books included
“The Annotated Alice” (1960).
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.94)
2010 May 22, In southern
Afghanistan 3 foreign soldiers and one civilian working with NATO's
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed in two
separate incidents. At least a dozen people were killed south of
Kabul after US troops spotted two insurgents trying to plant bombs.
The Taliban staged a nighttime assault on Kandahar Air Base that
wounded a number of coalition soldiers and civilian employees.
(AFP, 5/22/10)(AP, 5/22/10)(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 22, A Chilean appeals
court ordered Mohammad Saif Ur Rehman Khan, a Pakistani, man back
into a high-security prison, saying the chemicals allegedly found on
his possessions at the US Embassy and inside his apartment could
only have come from direct contact with explosives.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, At the
Cannes film festival “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,"
a surreal tale of the afterlife with giant monkeys and an erotic
catfish scored gold for Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 22, An Air India
Express plane trying to land at a tricky hilltop airport in southern
India overshot the runway, crashed over a cliff and burst into
flames at dawn, killing 158 people. There were 8 survivors. An
investigative panel later said Serb flight commander had slept
through more than half the flight and was disoriented during
landing.
(AP, 5/22/10)(SFC, 11/20/10, p.A2)
2010 May 22, Nigerian youths in
Jos hacked to death 3 Muslim herders and burned their bodies.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, In Pakistan an
overnight US missile strike killed two foreign militant suspects and
eight Pakistanis near the Afghan border.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, In Poland Nicolaus
Copernicus (1473-1543), the 16th-century astronomer whose findings
were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was
reburied by Polish priests as a hero, nearly 500 years after he was
laid to rest in an unmarked grave.
(AP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, In Slovakia
authorities in Bratislava called off the country’s first-ever gay
pride parade following attacks by neo-Nazis.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A6)
2010 May 22, Spanish railway
workers called for a one-day stoppage on May 28 in protest at
proposed changes in working conditions.
(Reuters, 5/22/10)
2010 May 22, Thailand's
government displayed to foreign diplomats a huge cache of weapons it
said had been confiscated from anti-government protesters, to quash
criticism of a deadly crackdown. The recent clashes and blasts left
91 dead and 1,900 injured.
(AFP, 5/22/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.39)(Econ,
9/18/10, p.58)
2010 May 22, Dozens of nations,
meeting in Istanbul at a UN-sponsored conference for Somalia,
pledged to help Somalia build a strong police and military, achieve
peace and stability and eradicate piracy that has plagued
international maritime trade.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 22, Yemen's President
Ali Abdullah Saleh announced an amnesty for journalists being tried
or convicted of press offences to mark the 20th anniversary of the
unification of north and South Yemen.
(AFP, 5/22/10)
2010 May 23, The US government
threatened to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in
the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though
it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the
needed know-how. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the state is not
waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to
protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In New Jersey a
crowd of some 30-35 thousand gathered at the Statehouse in Trenton
to protest Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget cuts. Christie has
called for workers to accept wage freezes and contribute to their
health benefits.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A9)
2010 May 23, Jose Lima
(1972-2010), a right-hand Dominican pitcher who was a 20-game winner
and an All-Star during a 13-year major league career, died in
Pasadena, Ca., of an apparent heart attack.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, British
screenwriter Simon Monjack (39), the husband of Brittany Murphy, was
found dead at his Los Angeles home, five months after the Hollywood
actress died. Murphy, best known for her major roles in "Clueless,"
"Girl Interrupted," and "8 Mile" in 2002, died Dec. 20, at age 32
after collapsing in her home.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, Britain's Duchess
of York Sarah Ferguson said she was "very sorry" for her lapse of
judgment after she was recorded apparently offering to sell access
to her ex-husband Prince Andrew in return for 500,000 pounds
($724,000).
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In southern China
a fuel rod at the Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station
experienced a "very small leakage" that increased radioactivity
levels slightly in the nuclear reactor's cooling water. The plant
supplies power to Hong Kong.
(AP, 6/15/10)
2010 May 23, In Colombia
leftist rebels killed nine marines and wounded two in a firefight.
The marines were attacked when they entered a rebel camp in Solano,
a municipality in the southern state of Caqueta.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, Ethiopia held
Parliamentary elections. PM Meles Zenawi rejected opposition
complaints of fraud elections and said he expected to win on the
strength of his economic record. The ruling Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and allied parties won 534
seats out of 536 declared, giving PM Meles Zenawi most seats in the
547-member parliament. The EU observation mission released its final
report on Nov 8. It said the electoral process was short of
international standards concerning transparency, and that state
resources were used in the ruling party's campaign.
(Reuters, 5/23/10)(Reuters, 5/26/10)(AP, 11/8/10)
2010 May 23, Iran said it will
abandon an offer to ship some of its uranium stockpile abroad if the
United States imposes new sanctions. Iran's intelligence minister
said he had no doubt three US citizens arrested last July near the
Iraq border were spies and called on Washington to propose a
prisoner swap to secure their release.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, The Iraqi cabinet
said in a statement that a court has sentenced to death a man
accused of the kidnapping and killing of five Russian embassy civil
servants.
(Reuters, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Jamaica masked
men defending a reputed drug lord sought by the United States
torched a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in
a patchwork of barricaded slums in Kingston.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Nigeria fresh
violence between Muslims and Christians in Jos left one person dead
and another seriously wounded, a day after three others were killed.
15 suspects were arrested for the previous day’s killings. Gunmen in
the delta seized 3 Chinese technicians. The men were freed on May
29.
(AP, 5/23/10)(AFP, 5/23/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 23, Pakistani Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that his country plans to boost
trade with Egypt, during a visit to Cairo where he met with
President Hosni Mubarak.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, In Gaza masked
gunmen stormed a UN-run Gaza summer camp early on Sunday and set it
on fire, threatening "harsh measures" against the Gaza director of
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
(AFP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, Dozens of American
soldiers and a battery of Patriot missiles arrived in Poland, where
they will spend the next two years teaching the Polish military to
operate the advanced guided missile system at a base just a few
miles from the Russian border.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 23, In Somalia
Islamist militants attacked the presidential compound and other
government positions in Mogadishu. At least 15 people were killed
and 30 others wounded.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 23, The Swedish 1885
“Treskilling Yellow” postage stamp retained its title as the world’s
most expensive stamp following an auction in Geneva. In 1996 it had
sold for a record $2.3 million. The price this year was not
revealed.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A6)
2010 May 23, Anwar Al-Awlaki, a
US-born radical preacher who has encouraged Muslims to kill American
soldiers, called for the killing of US civilians in his first video
released by a Yemeni offshoot of al-Qaida.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, Pres. Obama signed
into law the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda
Recovery Act.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.58)(www.enoughproject.org/LRA)
2010 May 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a group of African Americans may sue the city of
Chicago for discriminatory use of an application test that kept them
from being hired as firefighters.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A4)
2010 May 24, Brian Thomas
Mettenbrink of Nebraska was sentenced to one year in federal prison
for his role in a cyber attack on the Church of Scientology.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A4)
2010 May 24, Afghan authorities
announced the arrest of seven people in last week's car suicide car
bombing that killed six NATO soldiers, including three American
colonels and a Canadian colonel.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Australia demanded
that Israel withdraw an embassy official from the country, saying
the Jewish state was behind fake Australian passports linked to the
killing of a Hamas operative.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched TV Brasil, a new
Portuguese-language network based in Mozambique's capital Maputo and
tasked with "saying good things" about Brazil. From Maputo, the new
channel will be broadcast to more than 40 countries, mostly in
Africa and Latin America.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Britain's new
coalition government outlined more than 6 billion pounds ($8.7
billion) in spending cuts, including scaling back computer
purchases, official cars for ministers and first-class air travel,
but warned that these are only first steps toward slashing the
nation's record budget deficit.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, British Airways
cabin crew started a five-day strike, throwing travel plans for
thousands of passengers into disarray after last-ditch efforts to
avert the action collapsed.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Burundians turned
out in droves to vote in local polls marking the first phase of an
electoral marathon, the first of a series of polls in which the tiny
African nation will also vote for representatives to parliament and
its next president.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In southern China
a head-on collision between two buses killed 10 people and injured
an additional 43 early Monday in the second major bus accident in
two days.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Colombia a
retired police major said that President Alvaro Uribe's younger
brother, Santiago Uribe, commanded a right-wing death squad in the
early 1990s from the family's cattle ranch. He estimated the militia
killed at least 50 people.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, The UN said an
Indian UN peacekeeper and two Congolese nationals were killed in an
ambush in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Costa Rica's
unicameral congress voted itself a 60 percent pay raise less than a
month after legislators took office. The next day President Laura
Chinchilla said she will veto the pay bill unless congress finds
days to offset the cost in other areas. Costa Rica's congress
shelved a final vote on the pay raise after Pres. Chinchilla
promised to veto the measure.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 24, An international
human rights group said that Ethiopia's national election was marred
by repression and intimidation, while the government said the vote
was free and fair.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Germany Daryush
Shokof (55), a Berlin resident and Iranian dissident, disappeared in
Cologne, the day he planned to board a train to Paris to promote his
new film "Iran Zendan," or "Iran Prison." The small independent
movie is highly critical of the Iranian regime and shows scenes of
torture and rape in an Iranian prison. It was shown once last month
to a closed audience of friends at a Berlin theater and then posted
on YouTube, but has since been removed. On June 5, almost two weeks
after he went missing, Shokof was found by a group of teenagers,
drenched, exhausted and confused, near the Rhine river in Cologne,
and taken to a hospital.
(AP, 6/11/10)
2010 May 24, Guatemalan
authorities said they will require DNA tests for all babies offered
for adoption following allegations of child theft that led the
government to impose a two-year freeze on international adoptions.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran hanged the
brother of captured Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi for
"terrorism" in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province in
the southeast.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran’s state IRNA
news agency reported that police launched a crackdown on irreverent
social behavior, seizing some 60 cars over the weekend whose drivers
were deemed to be harassing women.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, Iran, seeking to
evade new UN sanctions, formally submitted its plan to swap some of
its enriched uranium for reactor fuel and said the onus was on world
powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Iraq gunmen in
Mosul killed newly elected lawmaker Bashar Mohammed Hamid Ahmed,
part of a Sunni-backed list that narrowly won the March elections.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A2)
2010 May 24, Israel's military
announced it plans to further ease restrictions on Palestinian
travel in the West Bank, delivering what appeared to be a first in a
series of gestures requested by the US as part of renewed peace
talks.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Jamaica more
than 1,000 police and soldiers assaulted a public housing complex
occupied by heavily armed gangsters defending Christopher "Dudus"
Coke, an alleged drug lord wanted by the US. 2 police officers were
killed and at least six wounded since the previous night, and at
least one Jamaican soldier was shot dead during today's fighting at
Tivoli Gardens.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, Lebanon's PM Saad
Hariri made his first official visit to Washington as premier and
planned to discuss Mideast security issues and peace efforts with
Pres. Barack Obama.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 24, It was reported
that Malagasy timer barons were robbing Madagascar of its sylvan
heritage, illegally cutting down scarce species of rosewood trees in
poorly protected national parks, and exporting most of the valuable
logs to China.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A2)
2010 May 24, South Korea's
Pres. Lee Myung-bak cut trade to North Korea vowing the country
would "pay a price" for a torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors, and
promised to haul its impoverished neighbor before the UN Security
Council. Lee Myung-bak said that the country will take Pyongyang to
the UN Security Council, suspend inter-Korean exchanges and ban
North Korean ships from passing through its waters.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Thailand
opposition leaders moved to impeach PM Abhisit Vejjajiva for his
handling of rioting and violence in Bangkok, and an army official
said the capital would remain under curfew for another week as a
precaution against further unrest.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 24, In Trinidad and
Tobago attorney Kamla Persad-Bissessar (59) was elected as the first
female prime minister. Preliminary elections results indicated that
Persad-Bissessar and her five-party People's Partnership coalition
won 29 of 41 seats in parliament.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 24, In Yemen tribal
gunmen kidnapped two American tourists and demanded the release of a
jailed tribesman for the pair. The tourists were released the next
day after Pres. Saleh agreed to free a prisoner held by the state.
(AP, 5/24/10)(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A2)
2010 May 25, US and Chinese
officials signed accords on trade finance, China’s gas reserves and
credit arrangements, but gave no indication of any progress on
issues involving the value of China’s currency.
(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A3)
2010 May 25, The Dow Jones
industrials plunged below 10,000 as investors worried about a global
economic slowdown and tensions between North and South Korea turned
away from stocks.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, The US EPA barred
Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery on Corpus
Christi and said it would do the same to dozens in other cases in
which it believes the state is violating the Clean Air Act.
(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A4)
2010 May 25, Former Detroit
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to up to 5 years in prison for
violating the terms of his probation relating his 2008 conviction
for lying under oath about an affair.
(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A4)
2010 May 25, In Alaska several
thousand barrels of crude spilled from the trans-Alaska pipeline and
overflowed a storage tank. The spill was in a containment area with
an impermeable liner.
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.A8)
2010 May 25, In Algeria Atmane
Touati, alias Abu El Abbas, became one of four members of al-Qaida
in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQMI, to turn himself in after his wife
"convinced her husband to abandon the criminal horde and come home."
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 25, In Argentina some
2 million people and eight heads of state from across South America
took to the streets of Buenos Aires in celebration of 200 years
since its revolution.
(AFP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 25, Chad's government
succeeded in forcing a 3,300-strong UN peacekeeping force operating
in Chad and the Central African Republic to pull out by the end of
this year. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned
that a dramatic shortfall in donations for Chad's agriculture relief
puts 2 million people at risk of hunger.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, Ethiopian police
shot dead two opposition members in the sensitive Oromia region
following the elections. One man was shot May 24 after trying to
storm an office where ballots were being counted. The other was shot
today by a policeman whom he had beaten during the same incident.
(Reuters, 5/26/10)
2010 May 25, In Germany a
private security firm's plan to deploy more than 100 ex-soldiers to
Somalia to work for a warlord triggered intense media coverage and
was harshly criticized by lawmakers, some of them calling it a
possible violation of UN sanctions against the war-ridden East
African country. Thomas Kaeltegaertner, the head of Asgaard German
Security Group, said the company would be in charge of providing
security and protection for persons, buildings and convoys in
Somalia as well as educating Somali security personnel.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, In Iraq some 17
masked gunmen shot up a gold jewelry market in Baghdad, killing 15
people before they fled with a large quantity of gold in their arms.
(AP, 5/25/10)(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A2)
2010 May 25, More than 500
Israeli academics have denounced the government decision banning
famed Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky from entering the West
Bank last week. Chomsky (81), an outspoken critic of Israel, was to
speak at a West Bank university last week when Israeli authorities
barred him from entering from neighboring Jordan. The Interior
Ministry later said the border agent had made a mistake and Chomsky
was welcome to return.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, Mexican federal
police arrested Gregorio Sanchez, the mayor of the resort city of
Cancun, on drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime
charges, the latest blow to 2010 state and local elections already
marred by violence and allegations of drug cartel involvement. On
June 1 Sanchez was charged with drug trafficking ties, forcing him
to end his campaign for governor in a scandal that has shaken
Mexico's upcoming state elections.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 25, North Korea
declared that it would sever all communication and relations with
Seoul as punishment for blaming it for the sinking of a South Korean
warship.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, Eight ships
carrying 10,000 tons of donated supplies and hundreds of
pro-Palestinian activists were making their way toward blockaded
Gaza, and a likely weekend showdown with the Israeli navy.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, In Peru a judge
granted parole to Lori Berenson (40), the New York activist who has
spent 15 years in Peruvian prisons on a conviction of aiding leftist
rebels. However, the judge said that Berenson cannot leave Peru
until her sentence for terrorist collaboration ends in November
2015.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, In the Singapore
Strait emergency teams scrambled to contain thousands of tons of
crude oil that spilled into waters near one of the world's busiest
ports after two ships collided. Singapore's Maritime and Port
Authority (MPA) said in its latest update that 5,000 tons of crude
had leaked from the Malaysian-registered tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3.
(AFP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, Suriname held
elections. The political party of former dictator Desi Bouterse (64)
was the biggest winner, as the convicted drug trafficker mounted a
political comeback despite facing trial for the execution of 15
opponents in the 1980s. Bouterse's party captured 40 percent of the
popular vote and 23 seats in parliament with a populist campaign
that featured pledges to build more houses and increase social
security spending.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AP, 8/12/10)
2010 May 25, A Thai court
issued an arrest warrant for ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra on
terrorism charges, accusing the fugitive former leader of fomenting
two months of unrest in Bangkok that left 88 people dead.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, In southern Turkey
a bus carrying Russian tourists skidded off a highway and fell off a
bridge, killing 16 people and injuring 25 others.
(AP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 25, Venezuela's top
anti-corruption official barred two opponents of President Hugo
Chavez from holding public office, preventing them from running in
September legislative elections. The decision blocked candidacies by
former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales and former Sucre state
Gov. Ramon Martinez.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 25, In Yemen an
overnight airstrike on what was believed to be an al-Qaida hide-out
in a remote province accidentally killed a provincial deputy
governor and his two bodyguards. The strike was later identified as
a secret mission by the US military. Angry tribesmen attacked an oil
pipeline, petrol stations and government installations to avenge the
accidental death.
(AP, 5/25/10)(AFP, 5/25/10)(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A8)
2010 May 26, In Afghanistan a
car bomb exploded outside a small NATO military base in Kandahar
City, wounding two Afghans and destroying several cars. A British
soldier was shot dead while on foot patrol in southern Helmand
province. In eastern Nuristan province, police have been battling
hundreds of insurgents for four days. Militants made a push to
capture all of Barg-e-Matal district on the Pakistan border,
sparking heavy fighting throughout the area. A senior border police
official said he had credible reports that Taliban commander Maulana
Fazlullah was killed. At least seven militants and one police
officer have died so far in the fighting in Nuristan's Barg-e-Matal
district.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AFP, 5/26/10)(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, In Argentina Angie
Sanclemente Valencia (30), a Colombian model accused of leading a
drug-trafficking gang that persuaded pretty young women to smuggle
cocaine to Mexico, was arrested after evading Argentine police for
five months.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, Vampire saga
"Twilight" took home three prizes from the ITV1 awards at London's
Royal Festival Hall. The "Twilight Saga: New Moon", the second in
the series, was named best fantasy film, while its British star
Robert Pattinson took the award for best performance.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, Canada announced
that it will spend nearly $1 billion on security for next months G8
and G20 summits.
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.A2)
2010 May 26, Ethiopian
opposition groups rejected results of parliamentary elections which
gave long-time ruler Meles Zenawi a landslide win, and demanded
fresh polls.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In France Eugene
Rwamucyo, a Rwandan doctor accused of participation in the 1994
Tutsi genocide, was arrested. He was dismissed from his hospital
post in northern France last month, and was wanted by Kigali for
allegedly planning and carrying out atrocities in the Butare region
of southern Rwanda.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, In Greece a horde
of frogs caused a two-hour closure on a major highway near the city
of Thessaloniki. The city's traffic police chief said that the
"millions" of frogs were probably looking for food.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In Hong Kong a
10th employee of iPhone-maker Foxconn jumped to his death, just
hours after the company's chairman promised to make life better for
employees at the sprawling production site in southern China.
(Reuters, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, Hungary‘s new
government gave ethnic Magyars abroad the right to Hungarian
passports.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.60)(http://tinyurl.com/2amef5g)
2010 May 26, Iraq's government
dissolved state-owned Iraqi Airways over a decades-old financial
dispute dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich
neighbor Kuwait. A lawyer for Kuwait Airways called the Iraqi
government's strategy a "cynical tactic" and said it will not end
the dispute because Kuwait will still hold the government
accountable for the debt.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, Italian PM Silvio
Berlusconi bowed to market concerns about his country's high debt
load and bloated public sector, springing euro24 billion in spending
cuts on an unsuspecting public just weeks after ruling out painful
measures.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, Jamaican security
forces claimed a tenuous hold over the slum stronghold of a gang
leader sought by the US, but only after battles that killed at least
44 civilians.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, Mexican marines
arrested Manzanillo port Captain Jorge Arturo Castaneda, accusing
him of drug trafficking ties. The port had become a hot spot for the
smuggling of methamphetamine precursor chemicals. In the northern
city of Piedras Negras, a soldier was killed and another wounded
when gunmen ambushed army troops inspecting flood-risk zones. Sergio
Adrian Martinez, a former state police officer and member of the
Arturo Beltran Leyva carte, was killed in a gunbattle with soldiers
in the northern city of Monterrey.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, In Morocco
Islamists were outraged by the visit of gay pop star Elton John,
while the royal palace, government and his many fans backed his
appearance in Rabat.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, Palestinian
hospital officials say 15 people were wounded in overnight Israeli
airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The strikes came after the Israeli
military reported that Palestinian militants had blown up a donkey
cart filled with dynamite near the concrete wall that separates Gaza
from Israel and fired several mortar rounds into Israel. No Israelis
were injured.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In Peru Indian
leader Alberto Pizango was detained upon arrival in Peru's capital
from Nicaragua, where he fled 11 months ago to avoid charges over
violent protests against proposed oil and gas exploration in the
Amazon.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In southern Russia
an explosion tore through the center of Stavropol killing 5 people
and wounding at least 20 as locals gathered for a Chechen dance
concert.
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.A2)
2010 May 26, The International
Criminal Court reported Sudan to the UN Security Council for
refusing to arrest a government minister and a militia leader
suspected of war crimes in Darfur. Judges at the court say that
Khartoum has refused to hand over Humanitarian Affairs Minister
Ahmed Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb. The court
ordered the men arrested in 2007 on 51 charges of crimes against
humanity and war crimes.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, In Turkey four
rebels were killed in a clash in eastern Tunceli province, bringing
the overall rebel death toll to 23 since last week's air assault on
rebel camps in northern Iraq's Hakurk, Zap and Qandil Mountain
regions.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 26, A UN official said
some 3,200 Ghanaians fleeing ethnic strife have crossed into Togo in
recent days.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 26, Zimbabwe licensed
four private daily newspapers, including the banned Daily News, a
sign the new unity government is following through on promises to
open up the media to non-state run publications.
(Reuters, 5/26/10)
2010 May 27, BP Plc wrestled to
plug its gushing deepwater Gulf of Mexico well in the latest attempt
to control the source of a catastrophic five-week-old oil spill.
Pres. Obama extended a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling and
ordered floating rigs to stop work on 33 exploratory wells. The
government gave the go-ahead for an ambitious plan to construct
several barrier islands to reduce the amount of oil from the giant
Gulf of Mexico spill from coming ashore. Officials raised estimates
of the spill from 210,000 to at least half a million gallons a day.
(Reuters, 5/27/10)(AFP, 5/28/10)(SFC, 5/28/10,
p.A8)
2010 May 27, In Utica, NY,
Jerome Feldman, a former psychiatrist, was sentenced to over 15
years in jail for duping people out of $400,000 with false promises
of organ transplants in the Philippines.
(SFC, 5/28/10, p.A8)
2010 May 27, In Florida a Delta
4 rocket at Cape Canaveral carried a new generation GPS satellite
into space. A dozen such Boeing-built satellites will be launched
over the next several years to replace the 20-year-old systems now
in service.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May 27, UN experts said
rebel groups in eastern Congo are illegally imposing taxes on trucks
and pedestrians and receiving local, regional and international
support in violation of UN sanctions.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Danish container
shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S said it has sold its
British supermarket chain Netto to Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda Stores
Ltd. for 778 million pounds ($1.1 billion).
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In France
thousands of workers staged strikes across the country to protest
government plans to raise the retirement age past 60, one of the
lowest in Europe.
(SFC, 5/28/10, p.A2)
2010 May 27, Authorities closed
Guatemala's international airport after the nearby Pacaya volcano
showered as much as 3 inches (8 centimeters) of ash over parts of
the city. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning
rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles (25 km)
south of Guatemala City.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 27, Indian President
Pratibha Patil sought to soothe trade disputes and recent border
tensions in meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In India
temperatures close to 50 degrees Celsius gripped large swathes of
the country, killing dozens of people as the country waited for the
annual monsoon rains.
(Reuters, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In Indonesia
authorities in a devoutly Islamic district of Aceh province have
distributed 20,000 long skirts and prohibited shops from selling
tight dresses as a regulation banning Muslim women from wearing
revealing clothing took effect.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Israel indicted
two prominent activists from its Arab minority for allegedly spying
for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, deepening a case that has
raised tensions with the country's Arab minority.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Israel said a
flotilla of activist aid boats bound for Gaza was a "cheap political
stunt" as it unveiled a port facility where it intends to divert the
boats and detain those on board.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Israel officially
joined the OECD club of rich economies. PM Benjamin Netanyahu
attended a ceremony at the Paris headquarters of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development as it welcomed Israel along
with Estonia, Slovenia and Chile to the 31-nation grouping.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Jamaican security
forces kicked down doors and arrested dozens of people in a
bullet-pocked slum, and said the death toll from four days of
fighting sparked by the search for a reputed drug lord has risen to
73.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Mexico's Supreme
Court upheld a law requiring hospitals to offer rape victims a
morning-after birth control pill, rejecting an appeal that argued
the pill's effect constitutes the equivalent of an abortion.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In northwest
Pakistan insurgents shot and killed a pro-government tribal elder,
his wife and a son, while a clash elsewhere in the volatile region
left a police officer and two militants dead.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Pakistan restored
access to popular video website YouTube, but Facebook and 1,200 web
pages remained blocked as a row about "blasphemous" content on the
Internet rumbled into a second week.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In Peru Lori
Berenson (40), a New Yorker convicted of terrorist collaboration,
walked out of prison with a smile on her face, then pushed through
mobs of reporters before settling into a neighborhood that met her
with hostility.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, South Africa's
state-owned logistics group Transnet said it had signed a wage deal
with a transport union, ending a three-week rail and ports strike.
(Reuters, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, South Korean
warships fired guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs in a
large-scale military exercise, a week after Seoul accused North
Korea of shooting a torpedo that sank a navy frigate in March. North
Korean declared it would scrap an accord with the South designed to
prevent armed clashes at their maritime border, and warned of
"immediate physical strikes" if any South Korean ships enter its
waters.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In Spain emergency
measures to cut a bloated deficit passed by one vote in parliament,
saving the Socialist government from an embarrassing defeat and
suggesting the depth of resistance to the spreading austerity
measures aimed at halting Europe's government debt crisis.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Sudan's president
was sworn in on for another five-year term after an election marred
by boycotts and fraud allegations, the only head of state to be
re-elected while facing an international arrest warrant for war
crimes.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, In Turkey one
soldier was killed and four others were wounded in a clash near the
town of Uludere, close to the Iraqi border.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, A Yemeni soldier
was killed and four other people wounded in an attack on a military
vehicle in the southern province of Daleh. Provincial officials
blamed separatist militants.
(AFP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 28, US Regulators shut
down three banks in Florida and one each in Nevada and California,
bringing the number of US bank failures this year to 78.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, In Alaska a
backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Denali
National Park. A man and woman reported that they were hiking when
the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 28, Hawaii became the
first US state to ban the sale or possession of shark fins, used in
the creation of some Chinese delicacies, in an effort to help
prevent their overfishing.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May 28, A US federal judge
in Albany, NY, issued an injunction barring Gov. Paterson from
imposing furloughs on about 100,000 state workers and withholding
their raises. Unions had argued that the provisions violate the US
Constitution.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 May 28, BP made progress
toward plugging its Gulf of Mexico oil spill with mud but said it
won't know for two more days if the fix will really work.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Jonathan Trappe
(36) of Raleigh, North Carolina, crossed the English Channel carried
by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by
touching down in a French cabbage patch.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Gary Coleman
(b.1968), the child star from television show "Diff'rent Strokes"
(1978-1986), died in Provo, Utah.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, In a breakthrough
after a decade of deadlock, the Non-Proliferation Treaty's 189
nations proposed new steps towards nuclear disarmament and making
the Middle East free of atomic weapons. The next day Israel
condemned the NPT plan.
(AFP, 5/29/10)(SSFC, 5/30/10, p.A5)
2010 May 28, Afghan forces
battled militants in a remote region near the Pakistan border for a
sixth day, as officials tried to confirm reports that a key
Pakistani Taliban leader was killed in the fighting. The US military
suffered its 1,000th death in the nearly 9-year-old Afghan war. In
eastern Afghanistan militants ambushed an Afghan police convoy in
Paktia province, killing five officers with a roadside bomb and
opening fire before fleeing when NATO aircraft started a
bombardment. A senior Taliban leader in Baghlan province was killed
in a NATO airstrike. The man, who was not named, was said to be the
Taliban's "shadow governor" of the region and was responsible for
organizing and directing attacks on coalition forces.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, US Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, and other dignitaries officially launched the
construction of a rail link between northern Afghanistan and
neighboring Uzbekistan.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Mexican migrant
Anastasio Hernandez (42) was shocked by a Customs and Border
Protection agent at the San Ysidro border crossing between Tijuana
and San Diego. A US coroner later ruled his death a homicide. On
March 16, 2011, his family filed wrongful death lawsuit against the
federal government charging that Hernandez was beaten by immigration
agents before one of them fired a stun gun several times as he lie
on the ground.
(AP, 6/4/10)(AP, 6/8/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 May 28, Australia said it
will challenge Japan's whale hunting in the Antarctic at the
International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its
campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo's insistence on the right
to so-called scientific whaling.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Stephen Griffiths
(40), a British criminology student, described himself as "the
crossbow cannibal" when he appeared in court to face charges that he
murdered three prostitutes in northern England.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, The UN, bowing to
pressure from Congo's President Joseph Kabila, agreed to withdraw up
to 2,000 peacekeeping troops and redefine the remaining force as a
"stabilization" mission in his nation to coincide with its 50th
anniversary of independence on June 30.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In Ecuador strong
explosions rocked the Tungurahua volcano, prompting evacuations of
hundreds of people from nearby villages.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, In eastern India
suspected Maoist rebels derailed an overnight passenger train,
triggering a crash with an oncoming cargo train that killed 145
people near the small town of Sardiha, about 90 miles (150km) west
of Calcutta in West Bengal state.
(AP, 5/28/10)(Reuters, 5/29/10)(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 28, Indonesia said it
will impose a 2-year moratorium on large-scale clearance of
rainforests, effective as off January 2011, in return for $1 billion
grant from Norway to fund projects as part of the REDD plan (Reduced
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).
(http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0527-hance_moratorium.html)(Econ,
10/30/10, p.44)
2010 May 28, In Iraq robbers
stole $5.5 million from a bank near the Iraqi city of Najaf after a
policeman drugged fellow bank guards by slipping sleeping medication
into their tea.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, The Israeli army
reopened a key highway to Palestinian traffic after the supreme
court ordered the lifting of a 10-year-old ban which had turned
Route 443 into an Israelis-only road.
(AFP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In Kingston,
Jamaica, the Coronation Market was gutted in an early morning blaze.
It stood next to the bullet-pocked complex of Tivoli Gardens, where
security forces have conducted a slum raid that left scores of
people dead in gun battles since May 24.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Japan and
Washington agreed to keep a contentious US Marine base in Okinawa,
with PM Yukio Hatoyama highlighting the importance of the
Japanese-American security alliance amid rising tension on the
nearby Korean peninsula.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Konstantin
Yaroshenko (41) was arrested in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, by US
agents for alleged drug smuggling, and then extradited to New York.
On July 21 the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the US of
"kidnapping" the Russian pilot.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 May 28, In southern Mexico
people in the Indian village of Zaragoza disarmed and seized about
20 police officers and demanded the cancellation of arrest warrants
that arose from a local land dispute in Guerrero state.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, Nepal's PM Madhav
Kumar agreed to resign after the former communist rebels supported
his proposal to extend the term of parliament so it can draft a new
constitution to end years of civil war and strife.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, In Northern
Ireland a man was shot dead on the Shankill Road in Belfast, a
staunchly Protestant area of Northern Ireland's capital. Gunman
walked up behind Bobby Moffett on a busy street, shot him once in
the torso, then twice more as he lay on the sidewalk. On Sep 15 a
panel of terrorism experts ruled that a Protestant militant group in
Northern Ireland, the Ulster Volunteer Force, killed Moffett and
broke its promise to renounce violence.
(AFP, 5/28/10)(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 May 28, In eastern
Pakistan suspected Islamist militants attacked two mosques packed
with hundreds of worshippers from a minority sect, holding hostages
and battling police. 93 people died, and dozens were wounded in the
worst attack ever against the Ahmadi sect.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, Rwandan
authorities arrested Minnesota lawyer Peter Erlinder (62) over
allegations of denying the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people
were slaughtered. Under a 2003 law, persons condemned for denying or
grossly minimizing genocide, attempting to justify genocide or
destroy evidence related to it are liable to a minimum of 10 years
and a maximum of 20 in prison. In April Erlinder filed a lawsuit in
the US alleging that current Rwandan President Paul Kagame ordered
the shooting down of a plane carrying then-leader Juvenal
Habyarimana, an event that triggered the bloodshed 16 years ago.
Erlinder was released on medical grounds on June 19 and returned
home on June 22. Erlinder said he has never denied there was a
genocide in Rwanda, but did dispute the conventional story line of
what happened.
(Reuters, 5/28/10)(AP, 6/2/10)(AP, 6/20/10)(AP,
6/22/10)
2010 May 28, In South Africa an
expert with the country's national parks said poachers killed a
record number of rhinos in South Africa last year and are already on
track to surpass that number again in 2010.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, A South Korean
couple were convicted of abandoning their newborn daughter, who
starved to death while they addictively played an online game
raising a virtual child.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, The Spanish city
of Lleida, population of 135,000, barred women from wearing
face-covering Islamic veils inside its municipal buildings.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, Sudan's autonomous
southern government announced, during a visit by UN relief chief
John Holmes, that it had earmarked $35 million (€28 million) to
fight food shortage.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 28, A Swiss man fined
for nude hiking won an appeal of the 100-franc ($87) penalty because
a court decided that the charge of "indecent behavior" did not
apply.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 29, The worst oil
spill in US history hit its 40th day with Gulf residents clinging to
the tenuous hope that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will
plug the gushing well.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Daly City, Ca.,
a rave at the Cow Palace left 2 people dead due to drug use. The
event drew some 16,500 attendees who paid about $85 each at the
door.
(SFC, 6/16/10, p.A10)
2010 May 29, Dennis Hopper
(b.1936), film star, died in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles.
He brought the counterculture to Hollywood with "Easy Rider" (1969)
and led a career marked by successes, failures and comebacks. He
also had parts in such favorites as "Rebel Without a Cause,"
"Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet" and "Hoosiers."
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, Taliban insurgents
claimed a victory when they captured an Afghan government outpost in
a remote mountainous region near the Pakistan border. Officials said
up to a dozen Taliban-linked militants, including their commander,
were killed when NATO and Afghan troops backed by air support struck
their sanctuaries in the northern Baghlan mountains.
(AP, 5/29/10)(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, The premier of
China, North Korea's main ally, offered condolences to South Korea
for the sinking of a warship blamed on Pyongyang after promising
that Beijing, under pressure to punish the North, would not defend
any country guilty of the attack.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In China 17 miners
were killed by a dynamite explosion at the Shuguang Coal Mine in
Chenzhou city, Hunan province.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, The 55th annual
Eurovision song competition was expected to be watched by more than
120 million viewers in 39 European countries as well as in Burma,
Australia and New Zealand. Norway's public broadcaster NRK spent 200
million kroner (25 million euros, 30 million dollars) to host the
show.
(AFP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Tropical Storm
Agatha made landfall near the border of Guatemala and Mexico
with wind speeds of up to 45 mph (75 kph), then weakened into a
tropical depression. The torrential rains in the first
tropical storm of the 2010 season triggered deadly landslides. The
death toll reached 15 but authorities said the number could rise. In
El Salvador rains delivered by Agatha triggered at least 140
landslides throughout the country killing two adults and a
10-year-old child.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, In Guatemala a
cavernous and almost perfectly round sinkhole swallowed an entire
intersection in Guatemala City during a tropical storm, spooking
people in the neighborhood but exciting geologists. The hole was 66
feet (20m) across and plunged nearly 100 feet (30m) deep.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 May 29, Hong Kong police
confiscated a statue mourning victims of China's 1989 crackdown on
protesters in Tiananmen Square and arrested 13 activists, in what
critics called an escalation in political censorship in the
semiautonomous Chinese territory.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Indian railway
authorities canceled all night trains in West Bengal state one day
after a passenger express train derailed and was hit by a cargo
train. The government accused Maoist rebels of sabotaging the
tracks.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Police in Indian
Kashmir fired teargas to disperse thousands of villagers protesting
against what they said was the staged killing of three Muslims by
the security forces.
(AFP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, A fire at an
Iranian oil well at the Naft Shahr border region near the Iraq
border killed three people and injured 10 more.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, A Kurdish
newspaper said imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan has
accused Turkey of ignoring his calls to establish dialogue with his
rebels and that he would withdraw from the process, leaving his
rebel command in charge.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Mexico the body
of a prison warden kidnapped by gunmen earlier in the day was found
dismembered and scattered in several locations in a Morelos state
adjacent to the Mexican capital. Police found an abandoned silver
mine scattered with bodies outside Taxco, Guerrero state. At least
64 bodies were eventually recovered in what appeared to be a dumping
ground for victims of organized crime.
(Reuters, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 6/4/10)(AP,
6/7/10)(SFC, 6/25/10, p.A3)
2010 May 29, Palestinian
security officials and witnesses said Israeli warplanes launched six
overnight raids on the Islamist-run Gaza Strip, adding that nobody
was wounded in the attacks. An Israeli military spokesman said only
that two air raids had taken place, and that they targeted a tunnel
in the south linking Gaza to Israel and a weapons workshop in the
north.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Russia 2 Gay
Pride parades were held without arrests in Moscow, the first time
the notoriously intolerant Russian authorities have not intervened
since the inaugural attempt to hold the event in the capital in
2006.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Russia DDT rock
star Yuri Shevchuk engaged PM Putin during a televised meeting to
promote a charity concert for children. Shevchuk called for anti
government protests to be allowed and accused police of serving
“their bosses and their pockets, not the people.” Putin said
“People’s rights to express their disapproval should be protected.”
(SFC, 6/1/10, p.A6)
2010 May 29, Turkey’s military
said 3 security forces members were killed and two soldiers were
wounded in clashes with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 30, With BP declaring
failure in its latest attempt to plug the uncontrolled gusher
feeding the worst oil spill in US history, the company is turning to
yet another mix of risky undersea robot maneuvers and long shot odds
to keep crude from flowing into the Gulf. White House energy czar
Carol Browner said oil might keep leaking into the Gulf of Mexico
for months until relief wells are completed.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Indianapolis
Marco Andretti earned his first podium finish of the season at the
Indy 500 following an extensive video review that showed three cars
illegally passed the 23-year-old under caution in the race's final
yards.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, Peter Orlovsky
(76), poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, died in Vermont.
(SFC, 6/3/10, p.C5)
2010 May 30, In Afghanistan a
roadside bomb struck a police patrol in remote northeastern
Badakhshan province, killing 7 officers. NATO helicopters raided a
militant hideout in Panjwayi district, killing up to 8 insurgents. A
local farmer at the Kandahar city hospital said that the strike had
injured 4 civilians, including his father. Elsewhere in Kandahar,
Afghan men evacuating wounded relatives said NATO helicopters struck
their mudbrick homes, killing one and injuring 4 others. Gen.
Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO and US forces, stressed that
progress toward real stability in Afghanistan will be slow as
international troops painstakingly try to win over a population that
includes its enemies and has little trust in the government. In
Khost province men using rocket-propelled grenades and bombs blew up
a barely completed school built with int’l. aid at a cost of
$220,000.
(AFP, 5/30/10)(SFC, 5/31/10, p.A3)
2010 May 30, Algeria's
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, amid a growing corruption scandal,
fired the CEO and all top managers at Sonatrach, the state-owned oil
firm that dominates the North African country's economy.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 30, Bangladesh said it
has blocked the popular social networking website Facebook over a
page that urges people to draw images of Islam's prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, British Airways
cabin crew started a fresh five-day strike with little sign of a
breakthrough in the long-running dispute between their union and the
airline.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Cameroon at
least 45 people died after a bus overturned in the West African
nation during an overnight journey.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 30, Authorities in
Central America struggled to clear roads of debris and reach cut-off
communities due to landslides and flooding triggered by Tropical
Storm Agatha. The death toll rose to include 165 people in
Guatemala; in Honduras at least 18 deaths were linked to the storm;
El Salvador President Mauricio Funes warned that the danger had not
yet passed and reported 10 deaths.
(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/31/10)(AP, 6/1/10)(AP,
6/2/10)(AP, 6/6/10)(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 May 30, China's security
and judicial authorities, embarrassed by a murder victim who turned
up a decade after his "killer" was convicted, issued rules to make
it harder to convict suspects based on confessions secured under
duress. Authorities said such evidence would be thrown out in death
penalty cases that are under appeal.
(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 30, Colombia held
presidential elections. Juan Manuel Santos (58), who helped craft
the wildly popular security policies of outgoing President Alvaro
Uribe, won 47 percent of the vote to top a field of nine candidates.
Antanas Mockus (58), the son of Lithuanian immigrants who stressed
clean government and promised a tax increase, got 22 percent. A
former two-time mayor of the Colombian capital, he catapulted into
contention in pre-election polls only to falter at the ballot box. A
run-off was set for June 20. Insurgents killed 10 policemen and
soldiers on election day.
(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/31/10)(Econ, 6/5/10,
p.43)(Econ, 6/26/10, p.39)
2010 May 30, Voters in Georgia
chose local leaders in the first ballot since President Mikhail
Saakashvili led the country into a disastrous war with neighboring
Russia nearly two years ago. Candidates from President Saakashvili's
party dominated local elections, according to preliminary results.
(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 30, In India at least
30 people, including 10 children, were burnt alive when a bus bound
for the southern city of Bangalore ploughed into a roadblock and
caught fire.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Japan a small
party decided to leave PM Yukio Hatoyama's ruling coalition over his
broken campaign promise to move a US Marine base off Okinawa island,
as he faced calls Sunday to resign and dim prospects in upcoming
elections.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Kosovo riot
police used tear gas and pepper spray to separate hundreds of ethnic
Albanian protesters and Serbs voting in local Serbian elections in
the tensely divided town of Mitrovica.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Montenegro Ivan
Vracar allegedly pulled a pistol on him and killed Dragan Dudic, the
owner of the Maximus disco and other enterprises. Dudic was being
investigated in connection with money laundering and was a close
associate of Darko Saric, a man on the run and who is accused of
being the kingpin of a major drug smuggling gang.
(www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/05/montenegrin_murder)(Econ,
9/11/10, p.63)
2010 May 30, In northern
Nigeria a chlorine gas leak led 300 people to fall ill after a
welder cut into a tank of the noxious gas in Kaduna.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Pakistan
fighter jets pounded militant hide-outs in the northwest, killing 18
suspected fighters. Militants in the neighboring Kurram tribal area
opened fire on a passenger vehicle, killing two women and wounding
four other people.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, Hundreds of
pro-Palestinian activists set sail for the Gaza Strip from
international waters off the coast of Cyprus, edging closer to an
expected naval showdown with Israeli gunships determined to stop
them.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, In Peru Stephany
Flores (21) was killed in a room at a Lima hotel where Joran van der
Sloot (22), long suspected in the 2005 disappearance in Aruba of US
teen Natalee Holloway, had been staying. Her body was found on June
2. Chilean police captured van der Sloot on June 3 as he was heading
to the country's Pacific coast. On June 4 Van der Sloot was
handcuffed and placed aboard a police Cessna 310 in the Chilean
capital of Santiago for extradition to Peru. After 3 days in custody
van der Sloot admitted to killing Flores.
(AP, 6/3/10)(AP, 6/4/10)(AP, 6/8/10)
2010 May 30, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir dissolved the government four days after he was sworn
in for a new term, ahead of the formation of a fresh cabinet
line-up.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 31, The US Congress
allowed emergency health care assistance for unemployed workers to
expire, and seemed unwilling to renew it despite pleas from Pres.
Barack Obama.
(AP, 6/12/10)
2010 May 31, It was reported
that Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s
ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns.
(www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html)
2010 May 31, Louise Bourgeois
(1911), Paris-born artist, died in NYC. The figures in her 1984
“Nature Study” lacked heads but had multiple breasts, phalluses and
claws. Her “Crouching Spider” sculpture was installed at Pier 14 in
San Francisco and stayed their from 2003 to 2009.
(SFC, 6/2/10, p.C4)(Econ, 6/12/10, p.97)
2010 May 31, Chris Haney
(b.1950), co-creator of the Trivial Pursuit (1979) game, died in
Toronto.
(SFC, 6/2/10, p.C4)
2010 May 31, Afghan authorities
suspended two Christian foreign aid groups on suspicion of
proselytizing in the strictly Islamic nation and said a follow-up
investigation would include whether other groups were trying to
convert Muslims. US-based Church World Service and Norwegian Church
Aid will not be allowed to operate while the allegations are
investigated. About 180 Taliban attacked a police post in the
Purchaman district in southwestern Farah province, triggering hours
of fighting that killed 15 insurgents. A NATO service member was
killed by a makeshift bomb in southern Afghanistan. In Khost
province on Pakistan's border, NATO and Afghan forces captured
several commanders of the Haqqani group.
(AP, 5/31/10)(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, Australia filed an
international lawsuit against Japan arguing that its whale cull does
not qualify for a scientific exemption to a 1986 ban. Japan said the
next day that it would staunchly defend its research hunt that kills
hundreds of whales per year.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy opened a France-Africa summit saying Africa will
fuel world economic growth for decades to come and must have a
stronger voice in global affairs. Guinea Bissau's Pres. Malam Bacai
Sanha, among the 38 African leaders attending the summit in Nice,
called for an international effort to help him fight drug
trafficking in his west African country.
(AP, 5/31/10)(AFP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, German President
Horst Koehler resigned in a surprise move after being criticized for
reportedly linking military deployments abroad with the country's
economic interests, creating a new headache for Chancellor Angela
Merkel.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, Business leaders
from Ghana and Zimbabwe met in Accra to forge closer economic and
trade cooperation between the two African countries.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, Hungary‘s new
government passed a bill submitted by the new center-right
government to introduce a National Unity Day on June 4.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.60)(http://tinyurl.com/2btntca)
2010 May 31, Indonesia's
failure to ban tobacco advertising or enforce laws against smoking
in bars and restaurants came under heavy fire as the UN marked world
anti-tobacco day.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, In Iraq 4 people
were killed and several others wounded in separate attacks. Among
the dead was Nael al-Azami, a prominent local leader of
anti-insurgent Sunni forces known as Awakening Councils, who was
shot by two gunmen armed with silenced pistols. A series of other
early morning blasts across Baghdad wounded 11 more people.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, Israeli naval
commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of
pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing 9
passengers in a predawn raid that set off worldwide condemnation and
a diplomatic crisis. At least 4 of the 9 dead were Turkish. A
massive protest broke out in Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally,
which unofficially supported the mission. Ankara announced it would
recall its ambassador and call off military exercises with the
Jewish state. The flotilla of three cargo ships and three passenger
ships carrying 10,000 tons of aid and 700 activists was carrying
items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other
building materials. Israeli police said 16 pro-Palestinian activists
from the flotilla were sent to jail following the deadly
confrontation. Turkey sent three planes to bring back some 20 Turks
wounded during clashes that broke out when Israeli commandos raided
the Turkish vessel.
(AP, 5/31/10)(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, Italy posted a
financial-stabilization decree aimed at tax cheats.
(Econ, 6/26/10, p.53)
2010 May 31, Kurdish rebels
launched a rocket attack on a military vehicle near naval base in
southern Turkey, killing six soldiers and wounding seven.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, A Malaysian
government official, Malacca Chief Minister Mohamad Ali Rustam,
defended an Indian company's plans to build an animal testing
medicine lab in his state, saying that God created monkeys and rats
for experiments to benefit humans.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, At least nine
people died and 40 were missing and feared dead after a boat sank
off the coast of northern Mozambique. All of those aboard the ship
were Somali.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 May 31, Pakistan lifted a
ban on Facebook after officials from the social networking site
apologized for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its
contents.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, Al-Qaida announced
that its No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, had been killed along
with members of his family, perhaps one of the most severe blows to
the terror movement since the US campaign against al-Qaida began. A
US official said al-Yazid was believed to have died in a US missile
strike about a week ago in Pakistan. Gunmen disguised in police
uniforms attacked a hospital in Lahore killing 6 people in a failed
attempt to free a captured militant being treated there. The
militant was part of a group that killed 93 people on May 28 in an
assault on the Ahmadi sect.
(AP, 5/31/10)(SFC, 6/1/10, p.A2)
2010 May 31, South Africa’s
African National Congress decided to discipline trade union boss
Zwelinzima Vavi, who last week said the Congress of South African
Trade Unions (COSATU), which he heads, was concerned that senior ANC
members were exploiting political connections to accumulate personal
wealth.
(Reuters, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, In southern Sudan
renegade general George Athor said 3 top officers who quit south
Sudan's army over alleged fraud in national elections are
coordinating attacks in the oil-producing region, but the army
played down the threat.
(Reuters, 6/1/10)
2010 May 31, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon called for African nations to cooperate with the
International Criminal Court by arresting fugitive Ugandan rebel
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, and some of his
commanders.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May 31, The UN atomic
agency said Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium
in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country
developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 May, In Suffolk County,
NY, Shannon Gilbert (24), a prostitute, was reported missing after
fleeing a client’s home in Oak Beach. In December 2011, New York
investigators found bones in the wetlands of Long Island and soon
identified them as belonging to Gilbert.
(SSFC, 12/18/11,
p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/8y52x8g)
2010 May, In Afghanistan Sayed
Mussa was arrested in late May after an Afghan television station
broadcast images of alleged Christian baptisms in Kabul. He was
released in Feb, 2011, after an intense campaign by international
diplomatic missions and Christian activists.
(AP, 2/25/11)
2010 May, In Iraq some 337
people were killed this month including 275 civilians, as compared
to 328 in April.
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.48)
2010 May, Malaysia's Islamic
Shariah courts appointed their first female judges. The news was not
made public until July.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 May, Serbia and Croatia
announced plans for a regional center to fight organized crime.
(Econ, 6/26/10, p.54)
2010 May, Clashes in west
Sudan's Darfur region cost almost 600 lives this month, the highest
monthly death toll since peacekeepers were deployed in 2008.
(AFP, 6/7/10)
2010 May, In Thailand state
troops ended the “red shirt” protests with the loss of 91 lives.
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.42)
2010 May, Venezuelan agents,
while investigating the theft of powdered milk, discovered that some
30,000 tons of food were rotting in Puerto Cabello. The find came
amidst growing shortages at PDVAL, the state-run grocery company.
(Econ, 6/12/10, p.43)
2010 Jun 1, The US Supreme
Court ruled that suspects must explicitly tell police they want to
be silent to invoke Miranda protections during criminal
interrogations, a decision one dissenting justice said turns
defendants' rights "upside down."
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Van Nuys, Ca., a
porn actor went on a rampage with a machete-style weapon killing a
fellow adult-film performer. Herbert Hin Wong (30) was killed in the
attack. Suspect Stephen Clancy Hills (34) died on June 5 of head
injuries after he fell from a hillside following an 8-hour standoff
with police.
(SFC, 6/3/10, p.A6)(SSFC, 6/6/10, p.A10)
2010 Jun 1, US helicopters flew
Afghan troops into a district of Nuristan province, overrun by the
Taliban, and recaptured Barg-e-Matal, the main town, without firing
a shot. 54 militants were killed or wounded in fighting and
airstrikes before this operation began. 2 police died.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Christie Ibori-Ibie
was found guilty by London's Southwark Crown Court on charges of
aiding her brother James Ibori, the former governor of Delta state,
who himself stands accused of siphoning nearly 300 million dollars
of public funds in Nigeria.
(AFP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Burundi 5
presidential candidates in upcoming elections said they're
withdrawing from the race because of rigged voting. The candidates
announced their withdrawal following a May 24 vote that opposition
parties said were rigged by the ruling party, which received 64
percent of votes. Four rounds of voting remain.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, The Bank of Canada
raised its key interest rate from emergency low levels, but said the
European debt crisis made its next move highly unpredictable. The
rate hike, to 0.5 percent from 0.25 percent, made Canada the first
of the G7 major industrialized countries to begin hiking interest
rates after the global financial crisis.
(Reuters, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, China called on
Iran to improve its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, after
the agency said in a report that Tehran was pressing ahead with its
controversial atomic program.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, In China bank guard
Zhu Jun (46), angry over a legal ruling in his divorce, opened fire
with a machine gun and two pistols in a court building in the city
of Yongzhou, shooting 3 judges dead and wounding 3 others before
killing himself.
(AFP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Egyptians elected
members of parliament's upper house, in a poll marked by widespread
voter apathy, charges of irregularities and a clash in which three
policemen were wounded. Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party
scored an overwhelming victory in upper house elections amid
accusations of irregularities and a low voter turnout.
(AFP, 6/1/10)(AFP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Germany 3
experts working to defuse a bomb from World War II were killed when
the device exploded, injuring six others. Construction workers in
Goettingen had found the 65-year-old explosive device about seven
yards (meters) below the ground on an empty where the city is
currently building a sport arena.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 1, Iraq's Supreme
Court took the first major step toward resolving the nation's
election crisis, ratifying the results and declaring a secular
alliance the biggest winner in the March 7 parliamentary vote. The
election results gave 91 seats to the Iraqiya political alliance led
by Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister and secular Shiite. The
alliance is heavily backed by Iraq's once-dominant Sunni Arab
minority. The US military withdrew from the last 9 checkpoints of
the Green Zone.
(AP, 6/1/10)(SFC, 6/2/10, p.A3)
2010 Jun 1, Iranian-backed
Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip said three of its members have been
killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza. The Israeli
military confirmed it carried out an airstrike, and Gaza's chief
medical examiner also says there were three deaths. The fighters
were killed shortly after firing rockets into southern Israel.
Israeli authorities said the rockets landed in open areas and caused
no injuries.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, PM Bruce Golding
said Jamaica will launch a sustained assault on gangs that control
poor communities across the island and fuel one of the world's
highest murder rates.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 1, A court in Morocco
sentenced Ibrahim Lee Murray (32), a cage fighter with British and
Moroccan nationality, to 10 years in jail for Britain's biggest cash
robbery carried out on Feb 22, 2006.
(AFP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 1, Pro-Palestinian
activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the
Gaza Strip. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the opening of
the Rafah border crossing to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza
Strip.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Philippine
officials said elementary and high schools will start teaching basic
sex education as a pilot program in the conservative Roman Catholic
nation, brushing aside concerns by church leaders that it may
encourage promiscuity among the youth.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva defended himself against a censure motion in
Parliament and said there would be an independent investigation into
whether the army used undue force to clear anti-government
protesters from Bangkok's streets.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Turkey's prime
minister declared that Israel had carried out a "bloody massacre" by
killing nine people on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship and said the
two countries had reached a turning point in their long-standing
alliance.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, Ukraine's new
president, accused by opponents of moving the country into Moscow's
orbit, outlined a foreign policy bill that ditches his predecessor's
aim to join NATO but keeps EU membership as a long-term goal.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Zimbabwe a taxi
van crashed head-on into a military bus, killing 16 people and
seriously injuring three others.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 2, President Barack
Obama expanded benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees,
a move likely to be welcomed by gay rights activists who have
questioned his commitment to their causes.
(Reuters, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 2, Georgia’s Gov.
Sonny Perdue signed a comprehensive transport bill. It divided the
state into 12 regions and gave each one the power to decide on its
own transport projects.
(Econ, 6/19/10, p.33)
2010 Jun 2, In San Francisco a
driver sent 4 bicyclists to hospital following a 6-minute rampage
over 3 neighborhoods in the Mission and Potrero Hill districts. The
car was found but the driver had escaped. On June 5 police
identified the suspect as David Mark Clark (39) of Albany, Ca. Clark
was charged on June 7 with trying to run down and kill bicyclists.
(SFC, 6/4/10, p.A1)(SSFC, 6/6/10, p.A14)(SFC,
6/8/10, p.C2)
2010 Jun 2, Taliban militants
launched a suicide attack on Afghanistan's national peace conference
as President Hamid Karzai interrupted his opening remarks to
reassure nervous delegates hearing the thump of rockets and rattle
of gunfire outside. At least two attackers were killed in fighting
with Afghan security forces near the giant tent erected for the
3-day gathering. Five militants were killed and eight others in
addition to district-level Taliban commander, Mullah Habibullah,
were arrested in the operation in Sayed Abad district of Wardak
province. In Zabul province an operation by NATO and Afghan forces
killed five Taliban insurgents. A clash between Afghan forces and
Taliban militants left four civilians dead in Helmand province. A
roadside bombing in the same province killed four other civilians.
(AP, 6/2/10)(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 2, In Bangladesh a
four-story apartment building constructed on a former canal
collapsed in Dhaka, burying nearby shanties and killing at least 20
people.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 2, BP Plc forged ahead
with its latest effort to curb the flow of oil spewing into the Gulf
of Mexico as the British energy giant's shares fell anew as the US
government launched criminal and civil probes into the disaster.
(Reuters, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 2, In northwestern
England Derrick Bird (52), a taxi driver described as quiet but
friendly, went on a shooting spree across a picturesque rural area,
killing 12 people, including his twin brother, and wounding 11
before apparently turnin