 » Barack Obama called for a reduction of $4 trillion over 12 years in the budget deficit, to be paid for by a mixture of spending cuts and tax rises on the rich. Although Mr Obama only unveiled his budget in February, he has been forced to lay out new proposals in response to an alternative document put forward by Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, that calls for a radical overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid, among other things. Mr Obama said that his blueprint offered a more "balanced" approach to reducing the deficit. » With just minutes remaining to a deadline that would have shut down the federal government, Republicans in Congress reached an agreement with the White House to fund services in return for more extensive spending cuts. See article » Many Democrats reacted furiously to the deal to avoid a shutdown. Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington, DC, was arrested along with 40 other people at a protest. Republicans included a measure in the deal that bans the city from using local revenues to fund abortions. See article » While the theatrics over the deficit played out in Washington, Mitt Romney quietly entered stage right to declare officially his intention to run for president by setting up an exploratory committee. He is the Republican Party's putative front-runner; he announced his entry to the race from New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in 2012. See article
Presidential prerogative  » In Côte d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo was detained by troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara. Mr Gbagbo lost to Mr Ouattara in a presidential election last year but had refused to leave office, plunging the country into strife. Mr Ouattara's troops were backed by France, the former colonial power, and the UN. See article » The British and French governments criticised NATO for failing to destroy enough heavy weaponry used by Muammar Qaddafi's forces in Libya to allow rebels to break an ongoing stalemate. See article » Demonstrations escalated in Syria as the government cracked down hard, arresting 100 people in a single day. See article » Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, was detained for up to 15 days for questioning about charges of corruption and abuse of office. See article
One man's terrorist… » A jury in Texas acquitted Luis Posada Carriles, an alleged anti-communist terrorist, of perjury and obstruction of justice. Cuba and Venezuela condemned the verdict and accused the United States of sheltering him. See article » Uruguay's Senate voted to annul a law that had given military officers immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during the country's 1973-85 military dictatorship (it must be approved by the lower house of Congress to take effect). The immunity law was upheld in two referendums, in 1989 and 2009. » Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's president, issued a decree moving three municipalities with large numbers of opposition voters from one electoral department to another. The unconstitutional gerrymandering should help Mr Ortega's party win more seats in an election this November. » Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori, two populist candidates, finished first and second in the first round of Peru's presidential election. A run-off will be held in June. See article » A Guatemalan court granted a divorce to the country's president and first lady, Álvaro Colom and Sandra Torres. The divorce will enable Ms Torres, who has already declared her candidacy for president, to circumvent a constitutional ban on close relatives of the incumbent from running to succeed him.
Disaster scenarios  » Japan raised the severity level at the Fukushima nuclear-power plant to seven, the highest on the accepted international scale. Only the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago ranked as high. The government said the new assessment reflected the accumulated radiation that has escaped the plant, not a sudden deterioration. Total radiation emissions have been a tenth of Chernobyl's so far, with no radiation-linked deaths. » Following Myanmar's first parliamentary elections in 20 years and the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi late last year, the European Union eased long-held travel and financial restrictions on four ministers in the repressive regime. » The government in Sri Lanka rejected out of hand a UN report on human-rights violations in the bloody ending of the long civil war in 2008-09. The army's crushing of the rebels at the time also killed, injured or displaced tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. See article » The Pentagon said it would investigate what apparently is the first case of American fatalities from missiles fired by a drone in Afghanistan. Two men were killed in the incident.
Mayhem in Minsk » A bomb exploded on the metro in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, killing 12 people and injuring more than 200. Two men were arrested on suspicion of planting the device. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka later said they had "confessed". See article » Italy's lower house passed a bill that would in effect end a bribery case against Silvio Berlusconi. Separately, Mr Berlusconi said he planned to step down as prime minister in 2013.  » For the second time, Icelanders voted against a deal to reimburse the British and Dutch governments for €4 billion ($5.8 billion) in the bankruptcy of Landsbanki. When the bank's online arm collapsed in 2008, savers in Britain and the Netherlands had their deposits guaranteed by their governments. See article » Poland marked the first anniversary of the plane crash in western Russia that killed its president and 95 others. The late president's brother, who is also leader of the opposition, boycotted the official commemoration, accusing the government of not standing up to Russian claims that the crash was solely the fault of the Polish crew. See article » A ban on wearing the Islamic face-covering veil in public came into force in France. There were several arrests following protests, and one woman was fined €150 for sporting the garment. See article | 
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