 » Scores more people died in the Syrian government's crackdown on protesters. More than 450 people are reported to have been killed since demonstrations began six weeks ago. The European Union and the UN secretary-general condemned the violence, though the UN Security Council did not. There were calls for sanctions to be imposed on Bashar Assad's regime. See article » Hosni Mubarak, who has had heart trouble, was ordered by Egypt's chief prosecutor to be moved from a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, where he has been staying since his resignation as president in February, to a military medical facility, before being taken to a prison hospital in Cairo. Mr Mubarak and his two sons seem likely to be tried for corruption and ordering troops to fire on demonstrators shortly before his regime fell. » A deal brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council, led by Saudi Arabia, proposed that Ali Abdullah Saleh step down as Yemen's president. Though opposition parties have agreed to the deal, pro-democracy protesters are angry that Mr Saleh is to be granted immunity from prosecution. See article » After a bitter quarrel lasting five years, Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah party, which runs the West Bank, and Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs the Gaza Strip, agreed to be reconciled. Under the agreement, brokered by Egypt, the Palestinian factions say they will form a unity government and fix a date for delayed elections. See article » In Libya the battle continued for Misrata, the only remaining rebel enclave in the west. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's forces withdrew from the city but the rebels came under heavy fire from the Libyan leader's artillery outside. See article » The British high commissioner to Malawi was told to leave the country. This came after the leak of a diplomatic cable in which he said that Bingu wa Mutharika, the Malawian president, did not tolerate criticism.
National security shake-up » Barack Obama nominated Leon Panetta, the CIA's director and a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, as defence secretary, to take over from Robert Gates. Mr Panetta's replacement as CIA chief is to be General David Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. » Bowing to rumours that have been fanned recently by Donald Trump, the White House released the full version of Mr Obama's birth certificate in an effort to quash the claim of "birthers" that he was not born in the United States. Mr Obama said he decided to release the document as America does not "have time for this kind of silliness". Ardent birthers may disagree. See article » Tornadoes and storms killed scores of people across southern states; 61 deaths were in Alabama alone.
An unrelenting bloodbath  » The number of bodies found at mass graves in two states in northern Mexico continued to climb, to almost 300. The victims appeared to have been kidnapped by drug gangs. See article » In a surprising twist in the campaign for Canada's general election on May 2nd, the New Democrats, a small social-democratic party, overhauled the Liberals in the opinion polls to become the main challengers to the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper, the prime minister. See article » Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, increased a windfall tax on the output of PDVSA, the state oil company, and its foreign partners. Officials said this could bring in up to $16 billion a year. Mr Chávez, who will seek another term at an election next year, also wants to raise public-sector wages by up to 66%.
Nationalist claims » Thailand and Cambodia exchanged fire at disputed points along their border, killing at least 15 people, most of them soldiers, and displacing 60,000 civilians. The clashes are an escalation of skirmishes that began earlier this year. Both sides are expected to meet in Jakarta next week during a summit of South-East Asian leaders. See article  » A spectacular jail break at southern Afghanistan's largest prison saw nearly 500 prisoners, most of them Taliban, scurry to freedom. An officer in the Afghan air force turned his weapon on NATO troops, killing eight people. The government cancelled its annual military parade the next day, citing the lack of security. See article » A month-long confrontation at Kirti monastery, in a Tibetan part of China's Sichuan province, erupted in violence following the death of a young monk who had set fire to himself. More than 300 Buddhist monks were forcibly removed from the monastery, to undergo "patriotic re-education". Chinese authorities blamed the monks for starting the disturbance. » Tibetans abroad elected Lobsang Sangay, a legal scholar at Harvard, as prime minister of their government-in-exile, making him the first layman to serve as the community's political leader. » A panel advising the UN secretary-general issued a report on the final days of Sri Lanka's war against Tamil separatists. Without a mandate to investigate, the panel nonetheless found "credible evidence" that war crimes were committed by both sides in 2009, and that the Sri Lankan army killed tens of thousands of civilians. Sri Lanka's government said the report threatened its ability to build the peace. See article » Turkmenistan took another small step back from the idol worship of its late president, Saparmurat Niyazov. The stream-of-consciousness life story of the self-styled Turkmenbashi, or father of the Turkmens, was replaced in school graduation exams by courses on computer science.
The Sarko and Silvio show » Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Rome to meet Silvio Berlusconi in an attempt to defuse a row over north African migrants arriving in Italy and crossing the border into France. At the pair's press conference, Mr Sarkozy said he backed Mario Draghi, head of Italy's central bank, for the job of president of the European Central Bank. See article  » There were anti-nuclear protests in western Europe, and commemoration ceremonies in Ukraine and Belarus, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. » A young man and his fiancée were expected to get married in central London on April 29th. Millions of Britons took advantage of the opportunity to take a foreign holiday. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment