Portal:Current events/2010 October 21

October 21, 2010 (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

A bomb attack on a bus on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao kills at least seven people. (BBC)
Suspected Taliban militants kill an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier and five Afghan policeman in attacks in Afghanistan. (RTT News) (AFP)

Arts and culture

Biochemist Nick Lane wins the Royal Society Science Book Prize for Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. (BBC)

Business and economy

French protests
- France faces another day of strikes with a quarter of petrol stations not having any fuel. (Reuters)
- Activists block access to the Marseille Provence Airport, the fifth biggest airport in France. (BBC)
Toyota orders a recall of 1.5 million vehicles, including various Lexus models and Toyota Avalon models, due to brake fluid and fuel pump problems. (AP via MSNBC)

Disasters

A powerful 6.9 magnitude occurs off the coast of Baja California Sur in Mexico. (Economic Times)
At least 50 people die as an outbreak of an as-of-yet unidentified disease occurs in Haiti. (BBC)

International relations

The African Union calls on the United Nations Security Council to impose an air and naval blockade of Somalia to counter an Islamist Al-Shabaab militant insurgency and piracy. (BBC) (AFP)
Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas, who has staged more than 20 hunger strikes, is awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. (BBC) (Reuters Canada) (The Telegraph)
China condemns a United Nations report that says Chinese bullets were used in attacks on international peacekeeping forces in the Darfur region of Sudan. (Reuters Africa) (BBC)
President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez finishes a two-day visit to Iran, signing agreements on oil, energy and commerce. (CNN)
Jewish settlers have started building more than 600 homes in the West Bank since a building freeze expired last month. (BBC) (The Jerusalem Post)

Law and crime

Belgian woman Els Clottemans is sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for murdering her love rival Els Van Doren by sabotaging her parachute so neither it nor a safety chute would open during a November 18, 2006 parachute jump. (Fox News)
Russell Williams escalated to sexual assaults and culminated in the brutal sex killings of Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, and Jessica Lloyd, 27. Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for two murders, several sexual assaults and dozens of fetish burglaries. (CNN) (Chronicle Herald)

Politics

Tibetan students protest Chinese government education policies that limit the teaching of Tibetan language. (CNN)
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir retracts an earlier remark and says there will be no return to civil war with the south if the referendum on South Sudanese self-determination results in a vote for independence.(AFP) (Africa News)
Myanmar changes its name from Union of Myanmar to Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and also changes the design of the national flag. (Reuters)
Thousands of people protest in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, after a left-wing activist is killed in a dispute between two labor unions. (BBC)

Science

The Brazil hydroelectric plant in Foz do Iguacu is second largest hydroelectric plant in world after the Three Gorges in China. (Xinhua)
Microsoft Research and Wikipedia have joined forces to launch a beta version of a new multilingual content creation tool for Wikipedia named WikiBhasha. (The Independent) (Softpedia)
Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway makes trial operation. (China)
An analysis of data detected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the LCROSS impact last October finds the presence of carbon monoxide in Cabeus Crater in higher concentrations than the approximately 155 kg of water ice and water vapour, more than initially estimated, in addition to two hydroxyl flavours and smaller quantities of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane, formaldehyde, mercury, magnesium, calcium, sodium, hydrogen gas, and possibly ammonia, ethylene and silver. (Universe Today) (New York Times) (The Register)