 » Norway suffered its worst peacetime atrocity. Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right extremist, shot dead at least 68 people at a political youth camp run by the ruling Labour Party and set off a car bomb in central Oslo that killed at least eight others. He was arrested and admitted to the killings. A long document that he posted on the internet hours before the massacre suggested he had been motivated by anti-Muslim hatred and the establishment's liberal stance on immigration.
See article » Police from Kosovo attempted to seize two border crossings with Serbia to try to enforce a ban on Serbian imports. Ethnic Serbs responded with gunfire, killing one Kosovar policeman, and later set fire to a border checkpoint. Boris Tadic, Serbia's president, called for calm and said the protesting Serbs were "hooligans". » The Vatican recalled its envoy to Ireland, saying it was taking seriously Irish claims that it had downplayed alleged incidents of child abuse in the country. This followed a stinging attack on the Catholic church by Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister. See article » The American government announced a visa ban on dozens of Russian officials linked to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in suspicious circumstances in 2009. The move was designed in part to stop American senators legislating on the matter, which the White House fears could jeopardise its "reset" with Russia.
Safety first  » Two of China's new bullet trains collided, killing at least 39 people and injuring nearly 200. Blaming signal failure, the railways ministry offered a rare apology and high-profile sackings, but did little to disperse outrage and scepticism about its account of the incident. China's high-speed railways have been expanding at a frantic pace and at great cost, but have recently been beset by technical problems. See article » Chinese fighter jets chased an American spy plane in late June into airspace claimed by Taiwan, according to Taiwanese media. When Taiwan sent fighters of its own to intercept them, the Chinese aircraft withdrew. This week China's defence ministry demanded that America respect Chinese sovereignty by ceasing surveillance flights along its coast. » The mayor of Kandahar was killed by a Taliban insurgent who concealed a bomb in his turban. Three high-ranking officials have now been murdered in the principal city of southern Afghanistan in a month, all of them close associates of the president, Hamid Karzai. » The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan met in Delhi in a significant gesture of co-operation, two weeks after bombs in Mumbai killed 23 people. See article  » An alliance of parties associated with the Tamil Tigers won 80% of the seats they contested in the first council elections to be held in Sri Lanka's ravaged north and east since the end of civil war two years ago. Sri Lanka's ruling party, representing the Sinhalese majority, won nearly everywhere else. » Australia signed a deal designed to lessen its appeal as a first port of call for refugees. It will transfer 800 asylum-seekers who land by boat on its shores to Malaysia, where their applications will be processed. In return, Malaysia will send 4,000 registered refugees to Australia—and collect $300m to cover its costs. » In a further attempt to reverse the appreciation of the real, which reached a 12-year high against the dollar this week, Brazil's finance ministry decreed a 1% tax on futures contracts that bet on yet more strengthening of the currency. The real weakened on the news. » In Mexico 17 prisoners were killed when members of a criminal gang attacked a wing of a jail in Ciudad Juárez occupied by rival inmates. » Jack Layton stepped down temporarily as the leader of Canada's official opposition, the left-of-centre New Democratic Party, while he receives treatment for cancer. Under his leadership the party has quadrupled its support, winning 31% of the vote in May's general election. » Canada deported Lai Changxing, China's most-wanted fugitive. Arriving in Beijing, he was arrested on charges of running a multi-billion-dollar smuggling ring in the 1990s. See article
The bad old days » Vigilantes loyal to Egypt's military leaders, who have been overseeing a transitional government since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak six months ago, attacked pro-democracy marchers in Cairo, injuring several hundred. The protesters had called for the trials of senior figures and for democratic reforms to be hurried up. A cabinet committee said that both demands would be met. See article » After a bomb wounded several soldiers in the north-east Nigerian city of Maiduguri, Amnesty International accused security forces of going "on the rampage", killing 23 people at random. Boko Haram, a Muslim sect which has carried out recent bombings, denied responsibility for the explosion.  » The UN's World Food Programme sent food to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in an effort to save the lives of people hit by drought in the Horn of Africa. Aid agencies estimate that 3.7m people in Somalia and millions of others in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya are close to starvation. At a meeting in Rome officials said the UN had received about $1 billion for emergency relief since November but needed $1 billion more by the end of the year. See article » The cost of buying insurance against a default by America rose to a record, as negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling became ever more fraught. The Treasury-imposed deadline of August 2nd crept into view. » Barack Obama signed an order that will formally end America's ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces on September 20th. Democrats repealed "don't ask don't tell" in the waning days of the previous Congress and instructed the Pentagon to consult troops on the matter. The Defence Department now thinks America's soldiers and sailors "are ready" for the ban to be lifted. » Atlantis returned safely from its final mission on July 21st, bringing an end to 30 years of NASA's space-shuttle voyages, and thus to American manned flights in space. For now at least. | 
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