Portal:Current events/2011 May 12

May 12, 2011 (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

The Syrian military continues to crack down on protesters, with students in the city of Aleppo the latest target. (Al Jazeera)
Two anti-government protesters are killed by Yemeni security forces. (AP via Google News)
2011 Libyan civil war:
- Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state television for the first time in two weeks. (IOL)
- The North Korean embassy in Tripoli is reportedly damaged in a NATO air raid. (Xinhua)
- The Gaddafi compound is hit again in airstrikes. (BBC)
Nigerian soldiers raid suspected militant camps in the Niger Delta in a new offensive. (Reuters)
Police in Uganda open fire on a crowd as it attacks a car carrying Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in the capital Kampala, killing one person. (Reuters) (Vanguard Nigeria)

Arts and culture

ITV axes the Scottish police drama Taggart after 28 years, citing poor viewing figures in other parts of the UK. (BBC)
The BBC is to broadcast its political debate programme Question Time from inside a prison for the first time next Thursday. Ten members of staff and ten prisoners from London's Wormwood Scrubs prison are to join 100 other audience members, while panelists are to include Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke and former Home Secretary Jack Straw. (BBC)
Queen Elizabeth II becomes the second-longest-reigning British monarch. (BBC)

Business and economy

A US$600 million project to revamp the Democratic Republic of the Congo's colonial-era railway system is launched in the capital Kinshasa, primarily funded by the World Bank and China. (BBC)
The Brazilian Senate approves a plan to triple payments to Paraguay for the use of excess electricity generated at the jointly-run Itaipu Dam. (The Wall Street Journal)
The Australian airline Qantas is fined NZ$6.5 million for breaches of the Commerce Act in New Zealand, the biggest penalty for price fixing in the history of that country. (The New Zealand Herald)
News sources report that a long-planned offering of a portion of the U.S. Treasury's equity interest in giant insurance company American International Group may be indefinitely postponed because the price of AIG stock has fallen to near the Treasury's break-even point. (Reuters)
Plans are cancelled to install prismatic glass on the bottom base of One World Trade Center due to technical problems.

Disasters

International relations

The International Criminal Court asks the United Nations Security Council to take action over Djibouti's failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted by the court on charges of war crimes. (Reuters)
Thousands of asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Somalia are stranded in camps in northern Mozambique after measures adopted by the government to restrict their movements. (IRIN)

Law and crime

A former Cambodian prosecutor is jailed for 19 years on charges of corruption in the first case brought by the country's new anti-corruption unit. (Phnom Penh Post) (Taiwan News)
Indonesia deports an alleged people smuggler to Australia to face charges in connection to the death of 48 asylum seekers at Christmas Island last year. (AAP via NineMSN)
John Demjanjuk is convicted by a German court of killing over 28,000 Jews in Nazi Germany.(BBC) (Deutsche Welle)
The High Court of England and Wales grants the Attorney General permission to bring a case against The Sun and the Daily Mirror for the way they reported aspects of the hunt for the killer of Joanna Yeates. (BBC)
Police in South London launch a murder hunt after a 15-year-old schoolboy is stabbed to death in the street. (The Guardian)
A corpse is found in Bradford, the third since Tuesday. (The Guardian)

Politics and elections

Yoweri Museveni is sworn in for a fourth term as President of Uganda, amid protests. (The Guardian)
Belarus jails six election protesters for up to three and a half years. (AFP via Google News)
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt says it will expel any member that attempts to run for President. (AFP via Google News)
A petition is delivered to the Chinese parliament by underground Christian churches asking for their religious freedom to be respected. (AFP via Google News)
The ruling National Alliance Party in Papua New Guinea to elect an interim leader with concerns that Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare may not return to office after having heart surgery in Singapore. (AAP via The Australian)
The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has recommended that Liberal Democrat MP and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws be suspended from the House of Commons for 7 days over wrongly claimed expenses. (BBC)

Science and technology

Anti-retroviral drugs reduce the risk of people spreading HIV to uninfected partners by 96%, according to a new study. (BBC) (Mail & Guardian)