Portal:Current events/June 2010

• At least 5 people are killed in an attack on the Lahore hospital in Pakistan where many of the injured in Friday's attack on members of the Ahmadis sect, as well as one of the captured militants, are undergoing treatment. (Geotv) (The Hindu) (USA Today) (CNN)
• Al-Qaeda's top leader in Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden's third in command, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, is reported killed. (The Australian) (CNN)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • The Israeli Defense Forces kill two Palestinians terrorists in Gaza who were attempting to cross the border fence, after an exchange of gunfire. Israel closes four settlements, Route 323 and schools as a result of the incident. (The Jerusalem Post)
  • The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli soldiers have engaged and killed what they describe as three "terrorists" who had fired Kassam Rockets into Israeli lands. No injuries were reported from the rocket attacks.(The Jerusalem Post)
  • The head of Gaza emergency services confirms that these three Palestinian bodies were retrieved and brought to a morgue in Gaza City. (Aljazeera)

• The Nanjing Metro opens its Line 2, extending its route length from 22km to 85km, and the number of stations from 16 to 57. (Railway Gazette)
• Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore and his wife Tipper announce their separation. (USA Today)

• Poland publishes the transcript of flight data recorders from the fatal 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash which killed 96 officials and intellectuals on 10 April. (BBC) (China Daily) (Aljazeera)
• Tropical Storm Agatha
  • 132 people are killed across Central America in the aftermath of the first named storm of the 2010 Pacific hurricane season. (Reuters) (USA Today)
  • Torrential rains open a large sinkhole which swallows an intersection and part of a city block in Guatemala City. (BBC)
• America's Obama administration warns that BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could continue until August. (The Australian)

• The Iranian ambassador in Baghdad says the recent release of two Iranians from Iraqi custody is not an indication of any impeding deal to free three Americans held in Tehran on spying charges since their capture in July 2009 while hiking in northern Iraq's mountainous Kurdish region. (USA Today)
• The United States insists any Afghan peace deal must ensure women's rights as Afghanistan prepares to open a peace conference aimed at persuading Taliban leaders to put down their weapons. (USA Today)
• Aftermath of the Gaza flotilla raid
  • Survivors of the Israeli assault on the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla return to Greece and Turkey, providing the first eyewitness accounts of the attack. (The Guardian) (BBC)
  • Israel announces it has imprisoned an official figure of 487 of the people it captured in its commando raid on the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla, while 48 others will be officially expelled after being brought into Israel by Israeli authorities yesterday. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (AFP)
  • Israel's ambassador to Denmark, Arthur Avnon, announces that the Israeli military had received rumours of a report which asserted a link between the flotilla and Al-Qaida. (FOX News) (News24)
  • Hundreds of Israelis gather outside the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv in protest against Turkey's involvement in the Gaza flotilla. (Ynetnews)
  • Turks protest for a second day, marching in front of Istanbul's Israeli consulate, and several are arrested in Ankara after encountering police in front of the Israeli Embassy there. (ABC News)
  • Coalition parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly clash over the Israeli commando attack on the aid convoy. (The Belfast Telegraph)
  • Reports are released regarding the nationalities of those captured after the flotilla raid. (Asia One News) (The Age)
  • Reports are also released expressing concern for captured international journalists, including those from Aljazeera and Astro Awani, while media organisations are asked to act for the release of all journalists in Israeli custody and to request their freedom to practice their profession without pressure and harassment. (ArabNews) (NDTV)
  • Egypt announces that it will temporarily open its border with Gaza for aid. (AP via Fox News)
  • Turkey calls for sanctions against Israel. The United States, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, acts to mitigate the language of the Security Council's draft statement which condemned Israel's action "in the strongest terms", opting instead for one that requests an "impartial" investigation of the deaths and condemns the "acts" that led to it. (The Times)
  • Twenty Israeli trucks deliver cargo from the captured ships to the Gaza Strip via Kerem Shalom crossing. (YnetNews) (YouTube)

• Judith Osburn, a Binghamton attorney, discussed same-sex marriage in New York and its complexity. (The Ithaca Journal)
• Lee Murray, the mastermind of the Securitas depot robbery in Kent, England, is jailed for 10 years in Morocco BBC
• The trial of London-based multi-national oil trading firm Trafigura for illegally exporting hazardous waste to Ivory Coast in 2006 begins in Amsterdam. (BBC) (The Guardian)
• Three judges are shot dead at a court in Hunan, China; the gunman later kills himself. (China Daily) (BBC)
• Three Namibian women sue the state after they are sterilised without their informed consent after being diagnosed as HIV positive. (BBC) (UPI)

• Five opposition candidates, including Burundi's ex-rebel leader Agathon Rwasa, withdraw from forthcoming presidential polls. (BBC)
• Another UK minister, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, who was appointed after the resignation of fellow Liberal Democrat David Laws, is embroiled in the ongoing expenses scandal after admitting to having avoided paying capital gains tax when he sold his taxpayer-funded second home at a profit. (The Australian)

• Flying in an orbit 100 kilometers above the moon, the CE-2 is tasked to collect data for a soft-landing designed for its successor, the Chang'e-3. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), said at the Global Lunar Conference held in Beijing. (Global Times)
• As climate talks get under way in Bonn, Thomas Hale and Scott Moore call for a radical new approach to cutting emissions that sidesteps intergovernmental deadlock and unites eager players, from Wal-Mart to city halls. (China Dialogue)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• The crew of the Libyan M/V Rim takes back the ship from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Another ship, the Panamanian M/V QSM Dubai, is captured. (BBC) (Daily Nation) (CNN)
• Gaza flotilla raid:
  • The Israel Defense Forces claims that the 10 tonnes of aid delivered in the Free Gaza flotilla was turned back by Hamas when delivered to the border at Rafah, with Hamas stating that it will only accept the aid if all flotilla activists imprisoned in Israel are freed, and that the aid be delivered by the flotilla organizers. (CNN)
  • Turkey announces its intention to cut all ties with Israel unless the dead and captured flotilla activists are returned by the end of the day, and sends doctors to Israel to supervise the treatment of wounded Turkish activists in Israeli hospitals. (Aljazeera)
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the "hypocrisy" of critics of Israel's raid against the Gaza-bound international aid shipment during a nationally televised address in Jerusalem. (BusinessWeek) (Reuters) (Xinhua)
  • Israeli-Arab MP Haneen Zoubi, who accompanied the flotilla and was arrested but released before the other activists due to parliamentary immunity, tells a press conference in Nazareth that Israel intended to kill peace activists as a way to deter future aid convoys and says she witnessed two passengers slowly bleed to death, while Hebrew messages requesting medical assistance for them were ignored. (The National)
  • Arab League foreign ministers meet in Cairo and reach an agreement to ask the United Nations Security Council to force Israel to end the blockade of Gaza. (Reuters)
  • UK Prime Minister David Cameron calls the Israeli raid on an unarmed aid convoy "completely unacceptable". (BBC)
  • Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen asks that the Israeli government exercise "absolute restraint" in relation to its dealings with Irish citizens captured in the raid. (RTÉ)
  • Israel releases all activists captured during the Gaza flotilla raid and sends them for deportation as the Attorney General states "keeping them here would do more damage to the country's vital interests than good". (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The Guardian)
• Cumbria shootings:
  • At least 12 people are killed and 25 injured during shootings carried out by a taxi driver in the Whitehaven, Egremont and Seascale areas of west Cumbria, England. He is found dead, an apparent suicide, in Boot. (Cumbria Police) (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Times) (Los Angeles Times)
  • It is confirmed as the worst incident of this kind in the UK since the 1996 Dunblane massacre. (TIME) (Aljazeera) (Xinhua)
  • ITV's scheduled broadcast of the television series Coronation Street, which was to mirror events in Cumbria, is cancelled and replaced with TV Burp. (STV) (Digital Spy) (Daily Mail)

Art, culture and entertainment

• Stage and screen actor Sir Patrick Stewart, known for his role in Star Trek, is knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in England. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Boston Globe)
• The BBC announces that Last of the Summer Wine, the world's longest-running sitcom, is to be axed after 37 years. (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Scotsman) (The Press Association)

Disasters

• The Government of Kenya announces that 2.3 million bags of maize are unfit for human consumption due to contamination with high levels of aflatoxins, which have killed at least one child. (BBC)
• 15 people die after a minibus drives off a cliff in the Philippines. (Hindustan Times)
• 14 people are killed and injuries are caused when a four-storey building collapses in Tejgaon, Dhaka. (BBC)
• 3 people are killed and 6 wounded when a leftover bomb from World War II explodes while being defused in Göttingen, Lower Saxony. (AFP) (Aljazeera) (BBC) (The Times of India)
• A heatwave strikes India and South Asia, reaching 53C (127F) and killing many hundreds of people. (Guardian)

International relations

• President of South Africa Jacob Zuma goes to India on his first state visit to Asia, launching a bilateral trade forum in Mumbai. (BBC)

Law and crime

• Amnesty International condemns Sunday's execution, in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, of 18 people, some of whom were from Chad, Egypt and Nigeria. (AFP) (BBC)
• Archbishop of Freiburg (Germany) Robert Zollitsch is charged with "aiding and abetting child sex abuse", though the archdiocese rejects the charges and coverage of them as "absolutely weak" and "sensationalist". (Deutsche Welle) (BBC) (France24) (Houston Chronicle)
• Police in Saudi Arabia investigate three young Saudis, two men and one woman, who spoke critically of the country's laws on the MTV documentary, Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia. (BBC) (National Post) (The New Yotik Times) (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigns after breaking his campaign promise to remove a United States military base from Okinawa. (Aljazeera) (AP via Yahoo News) (Wall Street Journal)
• The right's Civic Democratic Party (ODS), TOP 09 and Public Affairs sign a coalition agreement in the wake of last Saturday's general election in the Czech Republic, even though the left Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) won more votes. (Aljazeera)
• New Caledonia President Philippe Gomès is indicted over alleged misuse of business contracts. (RNZI)
• President of Lombardy, Roberto Formigoni, offers pregnant women €4,500 if they do not have abortions: anti-abortion campaigners welcome the move and critics call it "propaganda". (BBC) (The Times)
• Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, opens a national peace conference to discuss negotiating with the Taliban. A rocket lands near the venue of the conference in Kabul and a suicide bomber sets off explosives outside the conference. (Aljazeera) (AP via Palm Beach Post), (AP via Google News)

Science

• The South Korean government says that it will spend 11.3 billion won (US$9.3 million) until 2013 to support research on key three-dimensional 3D TV technologies. (Yonhap News)

Sports

• Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had his perfect game bid broken up by an incorrect call made by the first base umpire Jim Joyce that would have been his final out. (MLB News)
• Brazil and Zimbabwe play a football game in front of a sell-out crowd in Harare ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the first time since independence that a non-African team has performed in the country. President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai both attend and civil servants are given time off work. (BBC) (Times Live) (CBC) (Fox News) (The Guardian)

General News

• British Airways issues an apology for a photograph in a staff magazine which implied Osama Bin Laden had a frequent flyer boarding pass for first class. (BBC)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza flotilla raid:
  • United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling for an independent fact-finding mission into Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
  • Turkey buries its citizens killed in the raid. Israel states there is "no need" for an international inquiry because it expects its own inquiry to meet the "highest international standards." President of Turkey Abdullah Gül states relations between the two countries would "never be the same". (BBC) (Aljazeera)
  • A United States Department of State official says a 19-year-old with dual American-Turkish citizenship was among those shot dead, four times in the head at close range and five times overall, during the raid. (The Associated Press)
  • South Africa recalls its ambassador to Israel to show what it describes as its "strongest condemnation of the attack". (Aljazeera)
  • An Irish citizen captured and taken to Beersheba detention camp by Israel during their raid on the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla is hospitalised after becoming ill in Tel Aviv. (The Press Association) (Lynnnews)
  • The Israeli Foreign Ministry says 527 of the captured activists, as well as the bodies of those killed, have been placed on flights bound for Turkey and Greece: seven more are still in hospital: three other captured activists — one man and two women from Australia, Ireland and Italy — remain in Israel "for technical reasons". (New Straits Times)
  • The Sydney Morning Herald's chief correspondent Paul McGeough and photographer Kate Geraghty are among the captives to have been released. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  • 37 British nationals captured by Israel during the raid begin returning home. (Channel 4 News)
  • Israeli protesters wave Armenian and Kurdish flags in front of the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv, during a violent demonstration in which Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan is called "a fascist".(YnetNews)(VideoPedia)
• Somalia:
  • At least 20 people are killed and 60 injured in heavy fighting between government forces and Islamist militants in the capital Mogadishu. (CNN) (BBC) (Sify)
  • Somali forces from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland storm a hijacked Panamanian-flagged cargo ship, capturing the pirates and freeing the crew. (AfricaNews) (BBC) (Xinhua)

Art, culture and entertainment

• The Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily publishes a cartoon referring to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; the image is later removed. (BBC) (Ottawa Citizen)
• ITV postpones a second night of its soap opera Coronation Street due to a storyline which had similar themes to the Cumbria shootings. (BBC) (The Guardian)

Business and economy

• The Financial Services Authority (FSA) fines JPMorgan Securities a record sum of £33.32 million ($48.2 million) for failure to protect the money of its clients. (BBC)

Disasters

• The death toll from a fire in Dhaka rises to at least 87 people, injures more than 100 more and leaves others trapped and in danger. (Philippine Daily Inquirer) (BBC) (The Mercury)
• The death toll from rain-triggered landslides and flooding in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region rose to 44. (Xinhuanet)
• A lion fatally wounds a South African woman working at the Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage in Bulawayo, the sanctuary's first human fatality since its establishment three decades ago. (BBC) (Mail & Guardian) (ABC News)

International relations

• President of Haiti René Préval, speaking in the Dominican Republic, calls on donors to deliver on their promises to give aid at a meeting in the United States in March following the 2010 Haiti earthquake as only Brazil has delivered its entire pledge of $55 million. (Aljazeera)

Law and crime

• 3 people are arrested after a man wrongly jailed for 11 years in central China Shangqiu City. (Sina) (CRI)
• A judge and court clerk are shot dead at the Law Courts of Brussels, the main courts in the Belgian capital. (BBC) (B92) (AFP) (Xinhua)
• Leading Congolese rights activist Floribert Chebeya is found dead in his car after having been summoned to a meeting with the police chief. (BBC) (IOL) (news24.com) (Reuters) (The Washington Post)
• Bishop Luigi Padovese of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia is attacked at his home in İskenderun, Hatay Province and dies later in hospital. Mr Padovese's driver is arrested. (BBC)
• A report by the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Historical Enquiries Team concludes that a British soldier who fatally shot a 41-year-old civilian in Derry in 1971 acted "unlawfully", as the civilian "was not carrying a firearm and he posed no threat to the soldiers". (BBC) (Londonderry Sentinel)

Politics and elections

• Christian Wulff is nominated for President of Germany by Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Bloomberg)
• Dawn Purvis resigns as leader of the Progressive Unionist Party over the fatal shooting of Bobby Moffett. (BBC)

Science

• The MARS-500 project begins, with six men - three Russians, two Europeans and a Chinese man - entering the sealed facility in Moscow where they will spend 18 months in isolation from the outside world. (BBC) (RIA Novosti)
• The earliest surviving complete census of Ireland is made available online for the first time and reveals details on the early life of James Joyce as well as other famous writers and politicians. (The Irish Times) (RTÉ)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza flotilla raid:
  • Anti-Israel protests take place outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin, Ireland, and outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (The Irish Times) (Malaysia Star)
  • Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gives a televised speech in which he states that he does not view Hamas as a terrorist organization, but as "resistance fighters who are struggling to defend their land". Thousands of people rally at a memorial service in Istanbul for one of those killed in the raid. (BBC)
  • Another Irish ship, the 1,200-ton MV Rachel Corrie, is headed to Gaza, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will not allow it to dock in Gaza. (AP)
• The pro-government militia group of Ahlu Sunnah Waljama (ASW) in Somalia claims to have killed at least 91 Islamist fighters and wounded 170 others in Thursday's fierce clashes. (China.org)
• Cumbria shootings:
  • Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron visits Cumbria. (Sky News) (CBC)
  • The BBC issues an apology after receiving dozens of complaints over the content of its Radio 4 play Six Impossible Things, which featured the antics of a gunman. (BBC) (Digital Spy)
  • ITV postpones a third consecutive episode of its ongoing Coronation Street storyline, "Siege Week", due to the Cumbria shootings, while Sunday's omnibus is replaced by the film Pollyanna. (RTÉ) (Digital Spy)

Business and economy

• McDonald's recalls 12 million promotional glasses for the movie Shrek Forever After due to the presence of cadmium in the painted design. (AP via Washington Post)

Disasters

• 163 people die from lead poisoning in Zamfara State, Nigeria: confirmed cases being treated number 355. (BBC) (IOL) (News24.com) (Reuters)
• The death toll rises to 109 following a fire in the centre of Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 50 injured victims struggle for life at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital. (China Daily) (Rediff) (The Times of India)
• Seven Italian officials are investigated for manslaughter relating to the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. (The Independent)

Law and crime

• Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon requests an independent investigation in into the death of human rights activist Floribert Chebeya in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and promises to help in any way he can. (BBC) (IOL) (People's Daily Online)
• BMJ finds scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit. (Aljazeera) (BBC)
• Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, is extradited from Chile to Peru to face charges in the killing of a Peruvian woman. (America Online)
• A Joint Base Lewis–McChord United States Army soldier is charged with three counts of premeditated murder in connection with the deaths of three Afghan civilians. (KIRO TV)
• French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux is convicted of racism. (France24) (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (Financial Times)
• Belgian police arrest a man suspected of yesterday's fatal shooting of a magistrate and a clerk at a Brussels court. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Pope Benedict XVI says he is "deeply saddened" by yesterday's fatal stabbing of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia, Luigi Padovese, who was to meet him on the first ever visit to Cyprus by any Pope today. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• Iranian President Ahmadinejad warns Iran opposition ahead of election anniversary. (fcnn)
• An investigation by an anti-government Myanmar broadcaster finds evidence that it says shows the country's military regime has begun a programme to develop nuclear weapons. (AJE)
• Naoto Kan is elected as the new leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and subsequently as the new Prime Minister of Japan, where he currently awaits confirmation from Emperor Akihito. (The Australian)
• The Government of the United Kingdom releases hitherto undisclosed public spending details from the past two years (BBC)

Science

• North Korea unveils a "super drink" to multiply brain cells and stop skin ageing which it says attracted attention from China and Germany at a trade fair in Pyongyang. (BBC) (Reuters) (The Daily Telegraph)
• SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is successfully launched on its maiden test flight. (BBC)

Disasters

• A cap is placed on the leaking pipe of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, allowing the spill to slow but not stop. (New York Times)

International relations

• Israeli troops take control of the MV Rachel Corrie delivering aid to the Gaza Strip. (The Telegraph)
• Actor Don Cheadle is appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations environment agency during a ceremony in Rwanda to mark World Environment Day. (UN)
• Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum met today Queen Elizabeth II of Britain on the sideline of the English Derby at Epsom Racecourse. (uaepm.ae)

Religion

• The 11th Panchen Lama, the 20-year-old living Buddha visited Jokhang Temple, the most renowned monastery in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. (tibet.cn) (Xinhua) (People Daily)

Sports

• Francesca Schiavone of Italy wins the 2010 French Open defeating Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-4 7-6. (Reuters)
• Horse racing:
  • Workforce wins the Epsom Derby. Jockey Ryan L. Moore also won the Epsom Oaks on Friday. (BBC)
  • Drosselmeyer wins the 142nd Belmont Stakes, giving trainer Bill Mott his first Triple Crown race victory. (AFP via Google News)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• 41 people have been killed in fighting over the past three days in Sudan's western region of Darfur according to a Sudan tribal leader. (AFP)
• An attack of rockets kills six US soldiers and wounds about a dozen others in Baghdad, Iraq. Two more bombs go off elsewhere but no deaths are reported. (Aljazeera) (CNN)

Disasters

• A passenger train, with about 60 passengers, travelling between Glasgow and Oban derails leaving the carriages perched over an embankment. (BBC)
• 16 people are injured during a crush outside Makhulong Stadium in Tembisa, Johannesburg ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup warm-up match between Nigeria and North Korea, to which entry was free. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (AP)
• United States Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the US government's response manager to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster says that BP is making progress stopping the oil flow, but that it is too early to call the effort a success and the spill may continue for several months. (CNN) (The New York Times)

Ecology

• The United Nations airlifts baby gorillas from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where militias log and mine their habitat and it is feared gorillas may become extinct by the mid-2020s. (CNN)

International relations

• Israel rejects United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's proposal to create an international committee of inquiry into the raid on Gaza flotilla raid; committee members would include representatives from the United States, Turkey and Israel. (Haaretz) (BBC)
• Pope Benedict XVI calls for an urgent international effort to resolve tensions in the Middle East, at the end of a three-day trip to Cyprus. (BBC)

Law and crime

• The head of police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is suspended following the death of human rights activist Floribert Chebeya. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (RTÉ)
• French fishermen off the coast of Malta repel an attempt by Greenpeace to obstruct their operations, sinking several Greenpeace Zodiac boats and injuring a Greenpeace activist. (The Malta Independent)
• Two men bound for Somalia to join an Islamic extremist group with links to Al-Qaeda are arrested at Kennedy International Airport, New York City, United States. (The New York Times)

Religion

• The 11th Panchen Lama hosted a religious prayer ceremony at the Razheng Monastery, 240 kilometers away from Lhasa. (tibet.cn)

Science

• NASA scientists discover that Titan, one of Saturn's moons, has the necessary atmosphere to support life. (USA Today)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• The Israeli Navy kills four Palestinians wearing diving gear; Israel says they were carrying weapons and planning an attack, off the coast of Gaza. (Ynetnews) (Haaretz) (BBC) (RTÉ) (Aljazeera)

Art, culture and entertainment

• Canadian poet Anne Michaels's novel Fugitive Pieces has been judged, by a panel of teenagers, the best Orange Prize for Fiction winner in its 15-year history. Fugitive Pieces won the Prize in 1997. (BBC)

Business and economy

• Chinese stock markets closed down Monday on weaker global recovery prospects. (Sina)

Disasters

• A total of 172 people are killed in the floods caused by Tropical Storm Agatha that struck Guatemala. (Xinhua)
• At least 5 people are confirmed dead as tornados and storms batter the Midwest U.S. state of Ohio. (Xinhua) (Sydney Morning Herald) (trend.az)
• At least three people die and 10 go missing during an explosion in a natural gas pipeline in Cleburne, Texas. (MSNBC)
• Two people die and 14 others are injured when a car ploughs into a crowd of spectators at a rally for World Environment Day in Gatsibo, Rwanda. (BBC) (Times Live)
• Police say 55 bodies have been recovered so far from an abandoned mine in Guerrero, Mexico. (BBC)
• Polish officials say 6,000 Polish zloty were withdrawn using credit cards stolen from a passenger killed in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk. Poland says four soldiers have been arrested, while Russia denies this. (BBC)
• 9 passengers are injured and a train carriage left dangling over an embankment after a derailment in Scotland. (Sky News)
• The number of migrant workers who died or were injured at South Korea's workplaces has risen over the last three years to reach nearly 14,500. (Yonhap)

International relations

• The Cyprus-based Free Gaza Movement packs up and leaves Cyprus for London after the Cypriot government's decision to interfere with and disrupt last week's international aid flotilla. (Xinhua)
• Veteran American journalist Helen Thomas announces she is retiring, after apologizing for making remarks saying Jews should leave Israel and return to Europe are widely condemned in the United States. (Ynetnews) (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Law and crime

• 13 executed in Iran's Qezel Hessar Prison. (fcnn)
• The main suspect in the murder of Stephany Flores Ramírez, Joran van der Sloot, confesses to her murder in Peru. (CNN)
• The Magistrate court in Bhopal, India convicts eight people, one posthumously, for their role in the Bhopal disaster industrial castastrophe 25 years ago in 1984. (Times of India) (AFP) (BBC) (Aljazeera)
• A Chubb Security security guard is shot dead in a gunfight after being ambushed by gunmen whilst delivering cash to a Bank in the Sydney CBD, Australia. (Daily Telegraph) (Sydney Morning Herald)
• 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst, SPC Bradley Manning, is named as the alleged source of the leak of the Collateral murder video, along with the Granai massacre video and other documents, said to be in the possession of Wikileaks. (Wired) (BBC)

Politics and elections

• Chancellor Angela Merkel agrees €80 billion of savings spread across four years with her coalition cabinet. (BBC)
• North Korea holds a rare second session of its parliament, with Choe Yong-rim appointed to replace Kim Yong-il as Premier. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (Xinhua)

Science

• The genetically modified variety of maize known as NK603, outlawed across the European Union, is sown and contaminates fields in seven German states. (Deutsche Welle) (BBC)
• A nearly 25-year study published today in Paediatrics concludes that children raised in lesbian households are "psychologically well-adjusted" and have "fewer behavioral problems than their peers". (CNN)

Sports

• International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge inspects the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. (BBC)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• At least 11 people die and injuries are caused in various fatal incidents across Iraq, including several civilians, a Sunni Imam and a Christian. (BBC)

Art, culture and entertainment

• American popstar Chris Brown postpones a tour of the United Kingdom after being denied a visa following his physical assault on Rihanna. (BBC)

Disasters

• At least 12 people drown and 9 others disappear after a boat sinks in Sunamganj District, Bangladesh. (Aljazeera) (Bangkok Post) (BBC) (TIME) (Xinhua)

International relations

• The EU proposes that Romani issues should be integrated into housing, education and culture polices at EU and national level. (europa.eu)
• 21 nations, including the Presidents of Afghanistan, Russia and Syria, attending the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia summit in Istanbul condemn Israel's deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, while Israel, the 22nd participant with a lower-level diplomat, disagrees. (Aljazeera) (Voice of America) (Xinhua)
• The United States threatens Iran with its toughest nuclear sanctions yet, despite the nuclear fuel-swap arrangement Iran made with Brazil and Turkey in May. (BBC)
• Libya orders the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, to leave the country for unknown reasons. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters Africa) (BBC)
• The Red Crescent Society, for the first time since December 2008 and in a joint venture between Iran and Turkey, prepares to send two aid boats of donations and relief workers to Gaza. (The Times)
• China lodges a formal protest to North Korea after a North Korean soldier fatally shot three Chinese citizens at their mutual border. (AP) (Global Times) (Chosun Ilbo) (Radio Television Hong Kong)
• Uganda undoes remarks suggesting President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir would not be welcome at July's African Union conference in Kampala. (Aljazeera) (BBC)

Law and crime

• Television host Elena Skordelli goes on trial for the murder of Cypriot media mogul Andis Hadjicostis. (BBC News)
• The trial of alleged "rogue trader" Jérôme Kerviel of Société Générale begins in Paris. (Aljazeera) (The Guardian) (The Irish Times)
• The trial of former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges begins today in the United States. (AP via Google News)
• Refugee agencies criticise the UK Border Agency's decision to deport Afghan children. (Aljazeera)
• Poland legalises chemical castration. (BBC)
• Kenneth O'Keefe, an Irish-American living in London who was captured and injured by Israel Defense Forces following last week's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, threatens legal action after being included on a list of alleged "active terror operatives". (The Irish Times)
• At least 2 tonnes of cocaine worth around US$1 billion bound for Europe is seized in The Gambia. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• Philippine presidential election, 2010
  • Noynoy Aquino is elected as President of the Philippines in the Philippines presidential election, taking 42% of the vote, about 16 percentage points more than second-place Joseph Estrada. (ABS-CBN News)
  • Mar Roxas prepares a challenge of the election for Vice President of the Philippines after the final tally shows him 727,000 votes behind Jejomar Binay. (ABS-CBN News)
• Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is due to name his cabinet and be formally sworn in by Emperor Akihito. (BBC)
• Public sector workers in Spain hold a major strike in protest against a 5% pay cut due to come into effect this month as part of a government austerity package. (CNN) (Financial Times)
• China defends its censorship of the internet in a document laying out the government's attitude towards the web. (BBC) (China Daily) (Al Jazeera)
• Egypt permits legislators from the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups to enter the blockaded Gaza Strip. (Reuters) (Arab News)

Religion

• The 11th Panchen Lama, the 20-year-old living Buddha on Monday visited south Tibet's Shannan Prefecture, held large prayer services and gave head-touch blessings to more than 5,000 local devotees. (tibet.cn) (Chinamil) (Tibet culture)

Science

• Scientists find evidence that large seas once existed on Mars. (BBC)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan:
  • The bodies of two Australian soldiers killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan begin their journey home. (People.cn) (Chinamil) (thisislondon) (Sky News)
  • A NATO helicopter crashes near Sangin in Afghanistan's Helmand Province under hostile fire with four troops being killed. (BNO News), (AP via MSNBC)
  • At least 39 people are killed and more than 70, including the groom, are wounded as an explosion rips through an evening wedding party in Arghandab, Kandahar. Television appeals are transmitted for blood donations. (BBC) (Washington Post)
• China announces that 3 residents of Dandong city in Liaoning province were shot dead and one injured in a China-North Korea border incident last week. (China Daily) (Chinese Tools) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) (People's Daily)
• At least 12 people are killed and at least 22 others are wounded during fighting and a roadside blast in Mogadishu. (Reuters)

Art, culture and entertainment

• Environmental themes will feature during this week's Shanghai Television Festival and the upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival, officials said at a press conference to mark World Ocean Day. (Shanghai Daily)
• Michael Jackson's estate makes $1 billion since his death. (Xinhua) (china.org) (Sina)
• Barbara Kingsolver wins the Orange Prize for Fiction for her sixth novel, The Lacuna. (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Hindu) (The Sydney Morning Herald)

International relations

• Around 60 unsuccessful Iraqi asylum applicants are forcibly and controversially deported to Baghdad from Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. Amnesty International condemns the move as the deportees face violence and mutilation in that city. (Aljazeera)
• The United Nations Security Council imposes a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. (UN News Centre) (BBC) (Press TV) (Al Jazeera)
• Middle East:
  • President of the United States Barack Obama meets President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas at the White House in Washington, D.C., United States and promises Palestinians $400 million in US assistance for the West Bank and Gaza. (The Washington Post) (The Times of India)
  • There is controversy in Egyptian media after an Egyptian member of parliament who was on the Gaza-bound flotilla says that the flotilla participants overpowered three Israeli commandos and took their weapons from them. (Ynetnews)
  • Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu proposes setting up a panel of jurists to investigate non-political aspects of the fatal Gaza flotilla raid with at least one American to assist if the Obama administration approves. (news.com.au)
  • Egypt lifts its closure on the Gaza Strip, allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza via Rafah and Israel eases its blockade of the Gaza Strip for food items. (Haaretz)
• President Nicolas Sarkozy defends his plans to sell up to four French warships to Russia, despite concerns raised by his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili during talks taking place a few days before a visit to Paris of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (EU Observer) (eu-russiacentre)
• France closes its military bases in Senegal and removes 900 of its 1,200 troops based there. (BBC)

Law and crime

• The U.S. state of Georgia executes its 24th death row inmate Melbert Ford by lethal injection. (11Alive Atlanta Georgia)
• Three men are arrested, two protesters are kicked and pushed downstairs and eggs are thrown during demonstrations as Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki hides under an umbrella while leaving the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. (RTÉ) (The Washington Post) (FCNN)
• Kikaya Bin Karubi, the Congolese ambassador to the UK, says Les Resistants Combattants have said Saturday's arson attack on his London home, which destroyed several vehicles and damaged his house, was an act of retaliation for last week's death of leading human rights activist Floribert Chebeya. (BBC)
• The UK government brings forward new rules which make it compulsory for immigrants from outside the European Union, particularly South Asia, to understand the English language. (BBC)
• The wife of Ratko Mladić is arrested in Belgrade. (Aljazeera)
• An Oxfam aid worker is kidnapped in Abéché, Chad. (BBC)
• The same-sex couple, who recently came to international attention when they were convicted of homosexuality under a British colonial law, tell Malawi's The Nation that they have separated and that one of them now lives with a woman. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• Dutch general election of 2010:
  • Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende resigns as leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) after a disappointing election result. (Dutchnews) (Aljazeera)
  • Mark Rutte, leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), obtains the most votes, with exits polls showing the party with 31 seats. (NOS)(CNN)
• The results of the Philippine presidential election are certified and Noynoy Aquino and Jejomar Binay are proclaimed as President-elect and Vice President-elect at the Batasang Pambansa in a joint session of the Congress of the Philippines. (Philippine Daily Inquirer) (ABS-CBN News)
• Dozens of workers in China are hurt during labour strikes, with at least 2,000 workers clashing with police in the city of Kunshan. (AFP) (Press TV) (China Daily)
• Somalia:
  • Somali Defense Minister and warlord Yusuf Mohammed Siad, who was leading a fight against Islamic insurgents in the country, resigns from government. (news24.com) (BBC)
  • Two other ministers also resign. (IOL) (ABC News)

Science

• The 2010 Millennium Technology Prize is awarded to Swiss solar innovator Michael Grätzel. (BBC)
• A new in-depth genetic study on Jewish history is published in Nature: researchers analysed genetic samples from 14 international Jewish communities and 69 international non-Jewish communities. (BBC)
• Researchers find that many species of snakes are in decline. The causes are unknown.(BBC) (Biol. Lett.)
• The world's oldest leather shoe was found in Vayots Dzor, Armenia by a team of international archeologists. (National Post)

Sports

• Nelson Mandela's grandson says his grandfather plans to attend the 2010 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in South Africa this week. (CNTV)
• The Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in overtime to win the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals in six games. Blackhawks' captain Jonathan Toews is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Most Valuable Player. (TSN)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan:
  • Taliban militants execute a 7-year-old boy for "spying for the government" in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, in an increasing wave of killings. (CNN) (The New York Times)
  • David Cameron, on his first visit to Afghanistan, and Hamid Karzai issue a joint condemnation of a recent suicide attack on a wedding, labelling it "a crime of massive inhuman proportions". (Aljazeera)

Art, culture and entertainment

• Soweto hosts an opening concert ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, attended by tens of thousands of people and featuring appearances from international figures such as Desmond Tutu, Hugh Masekela, Amadou & Mariam, Shakira, Juanes, Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys. (AFP) (The Hindu) (USA Today)
• 15 large storage boxes containing manuscripts, notebooks and letters belonging to J. G. Ballard are acquired by the British Library. (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Independent)

Disasters

• Gulf of Mexico oil spill:
  • The Obama administration announces that BP will speed up claims payments stemming from the massive Gulf oil spill, to fishermen, property owners and businesspeople who have filed damage claims and are complaining of delays, excessive paperwork and inadequate compensation. (USA Today) (AP)
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron offers to help the US deal with the oil as clean-up costs mount and BP shares slide to their lowest levels in 13 years. (Reuters) (BBC)
  • A new government calculation suggests that an amount of oil equivalent to approximately 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil could have been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico before BP capped some of the flow on June 3, an amount that is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. (The New York Times)

International relations

• A group of German Jews prepare to send a ship with humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. (AFP)
• Russia announces plans to sell Iran S-300 ground-to-air missiles, stating that the new United Nations sanctions do not cover stationary air defense weaponry. (Ynetnews)

Law and crime

• Seven former British soldiers join 98 American soldiers to sue American defence firm KBR, who they say exposed them to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in Iraq. (BBC)
• Former president of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian's life sentence is cut to twenty years in prison. (AP via Houston Chronicle)
• Vujadin Popović and Ljubiša Beara, former high-ranking officers of the Bosnian Serb army, are found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the harshest judgment ever delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. (AP) (Al Jazeera)
• Miloš Simović is arrested in a forest near Belgrade while attempting to cross into Croatia. He was convicted in absentia of the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003. (BBC) (Reuters) (Miami Herald)
• Max Goeldi, the Swiss businessman at the centre of a long-running diplomatic row between Libya and Switzerland, is released from prison in Tripoli. (BBC) (France24)
• Two Norwegians, including one with British citizenship, Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland, are sentenced to death by a military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on charges of murder and espionage. (BBC)
• Kenyan police hunt for an alleged cult leader who instructed a serial killer to take up a killing spree. (Capital FM) (BBC) (IOL)

Politics and elections

• The Palestinian Authority (PA) indefinitely postpones local elections scheduled for July 17: no reason is provided. (Aljazeera)
• Ireland's Labour Party tops an opinion poll, the first time in the country's history that this has occurred and an event which would "radically alter" Irish politics in a general election. (Reuters Africa) (The Irish Times) (RTÉ) (The Wall Street Journal)

Science

• The first solar sail is unfurled by Japanese space organization JAXA. (inhabitat)
• South Korea's space agency, KARI, loses contact with a Naro-1 rocket carrying the STSAT-2B satellite, 132 seconds after launch. Officials believe the rocket exploded. (BBC) (Yonhap)

Sports

• In the first move of a possible major realignment of U.S. college sports, the Pacific-10 Conference announces that the University of Colorado, a current member of the Big 12 Conference, has accepted the Pac-10's invitation to join that conference. (ESPN)

• Shanghai International Film Festival:
  • From Oscar-winning blockbusters to low-budget art-house and documentary films, the 13th Shanghai International Film Festival screens films for everyone. It will feature a retrospective of films by Woody Allen and John Woo, classic movies from Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy and Ireland, as well as new Chinese cinema. (Shanghai Daily) (SIFF)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis:
  • Riots erupt in the southern city of Osh killing at least 45, and injuring over a hundred others. The violence comes just over two months after violent riots in Bishkek toppled Kurmanbek Bakiyev's government, and only days ahead of a critical constitutional referendum. (News Daily) (CNN) (BBC) (The Wall Street Journal)
  • A curfew is imposed and a state of emergency declared in Osh by the interim government. (RIA Novosti) (Aljazeera)
• Mexico – United States relations:
  • Univision airs video footage of the U.S. agent who fatally shot a Mexican boy on Monday. (Sky News) (Press TV)
  • Mexico asks that the American agent who shot the boy be extradited. (Daily Mail)
• Politics of Japan:
  • Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan warns that the nation's economy is on "brink of collapse". (BBC) (The Guardian)
  • Shizuka Kamei, minister in charge of postal reform and financial services, quits after three days in protest over Kan's decision to delay a bill related to the proposed postal service privatisation. (The Australian)
• François Bazaramba is sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in Porvoo, Finland's first genocide trial. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (news24.com) (Reuters)
• Israeli police fatally shoot a Palestinian driver who was attempting to run them down; the two policeman and three civilians are injured in the incident. (Jerusalem Post) (The New York Times)
• 40 people are killed and at least four others are wounded in an attack by at least 30 gunmen in Chihuahua, Mexico. (Xinhua) (The AP) (BBC) (Aljazeera) (Toronto Sun)
• At least 20 people die during flash floods of the Little Missouri River through a campground in the Ouachita Mountains near Caddo Gap, Arkansas, west of Little Rock, Arkansas in the United States. (China Daily) (Reuters)
• At least 11 civilians and two US soldiers are killed in southern Afghanistan: 9 of the civilian deaths are in a roadside bomb on a minibus in Kandahar. (Aljazeera)
• Pope Benedict XVI begs for forgiveness from God and from those who have been abused as children by priests. (The Daily Telegraph) (The New York Times) (RTÉ) (Aljazeera)
• A small plane crashes into Round Valley High School in Eagar, Arizona with at least two casualties. (Fox TV Phoenix)
• Researchers use X-ray techniques to discover that Rose of Viterbo died from thrombus in her heart, not tuberculosis as originally thought. (BBC) (The Star) (Fox News)
• New Zealand has a parliamentary expenses scandal, with one MP claiming for pornography. (BBC) (The Scotsman)
• Two motorcyclists, from Austria and New Zealand, are killed in the same Isle of Man TT race. (BBC)
• King George Tupou V proposes the use of nuclear energy in Tonga. (Canadian Business)
• An Israeli parliamentary lobby group submits a bill, supported by 25 politicians, proposing that boycotts of Israel be outlawed. (The Independent)
• Taipei pulls its films from the Shanghai International Film Festival over fears that China would claim them. (AP) (Asiaone)
• Jane Fonda is awarded the Great Medal of Paris by mayor Bertrand Delanoë for her contribution to the city's art and culture during the Paris Cinema Festival. (BBC) (AFP) (NPR) (The Canadian Press)
• 2010 FIFA World Cup:
  • The first African edition of the association football tournament begins in South Africa. (Aljazeera)
  • Nelson Mandela cancels his much anticipated public appearance at the opening ceremony due to the death of his great-granddaughter on her way home from the opening concert last night. (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The New York Times)
  • Technical issues disrupt Al Jazeera Sports's broadcast in the United Arab Emirates and much of the Arab World. (Gulf News) (The National)
• NCAA (U.S. college) conference realignment:
  • Boise State University will leave the Western Athletic Conference to join the Mountain West Conference. (ESPN)
  • The University of Nebraska will leave the Big 12 Conference and join the Big Ten Conference. (ESPN)
• Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile track the motion of gas giant Beta Pictoris b, the first time an extra-solar planet is tracked in orbit around a young star. (BBC)

• The death toll from the Arkansas floods reaches 18. (AP via Google News)
• The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) says the government of Ethiopia killed 71 civilians in a military operation last month. (Aljazeera) (AFP) (Reuters Africa)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis:
  • Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan's interim president, asks Russia to send troops to quell ethnic violence in the southern city of Osh. (AP via Lethbridge Herald) (The Guardian) (Sky News)
  • Russia declines to send troops. (AP) (Xinhua)
  • Kyrgyzstan's interim government gives shoot-to-kill powers to security forces. (BBC) (Arab News)
• Iran:
  • The first anniversary since the disputed presidential election, which retained Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, passes relatively quietly after the opposition cancels rallies in the face of arrests and threats by the authorities. (Jerusalem Post) (AP) (Aljazeera)
  • Iranian opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, calls off plans to take to the streets on anniversary of 2009 elections, citing fears of violence, but vows to continue the struggle. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Clashes erupt in Tehran as some protesters come out to demonstrate and dozens are detained as security forces disperse them. (Ynetnews) (Los Angeles Times)
  • Iranian Nobel Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi approves of the United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, as Iran marks the first anniversary of its disputed presidential poll. (AFP)
  • President Ahmadinejad says that Iran will itself produce the 20% enriched uranium to power the Tehran research reactor. (Tehran Times)
• Thousands of Palestinians cross the Rafah Border Crossing into the Gaza Strip following its opening by Egypt, but Egypt prevents hundreds of activists from entering and Hamas continues to refuse Red Cross visits for captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. (Ynetnews) (Sify News)
• Poland detains a wanted man it says is the Israeli Mossad spy who used a German passport in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, while Germany seeks his extradition. (Jerusalem Post) (Aljazeera) (BBC) (Press TV) (Reuters Canada)
• Al Jazeera Sports, which has exclusive broadcasting rights for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in the Middle East and North Africa, says its Nilesat and Arabsat signals are being sabotaged in an "act of piracy", as criticism mounts across the affected regions and on the internet. (Aljazeera) (Gulf News) (IOL) (The National)
• The Government of Cuba releases imprisoned paraplegic dissident Ariel Sigler on humanitarian grounds and transfers six others to more convenient jails. (BBC)
• New Zealand's police find at least thirteen girls aged 12-16 who work as "active prostitutes" in the "young red light area" in Auckland's CBD. (The New Zealand Herald)
• A school teacher who stabbed 16 young pupils and a teacher in a knife rampage in south China in April is sentenced to death. (Shanghai Daily)
• The European Union promises €500 million towards the 2010/11 budget of Kenya, the largest economy in East Africa. (Reuters Africa)
• Chinese Buddhist monks and archaeologists revealed what they believe to be a part of the skull of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, in east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua)
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama discuss America's oil spill problem over a telephone call. (Aljazeera) (Reuters Africa)
• A French fishing boat rescues US teenage sailor Abby Sunderland in the Southern Ocean. (AAP via Yahoo News Australia)
• Pilots for the American low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines go on strike. (AP via Google News)

• Egyptian security forces beat protesters at a demonstration against human rights abuses in Egypt and an incident of police brutality that resulted in the death of a young man a week ago. (AP) (Los Angeles Times)
• 10 police were killed in an attack on Sunday on an outpost in Dai Kundi province in central Afghanistan. (TVNZ)
• An investigation by The Sunday Times alleges that Japan has bribed smaller nations in exchange for their vote to resume whaling at the International Whaling Commission. (The Sunday Times)
• A plane carrying 16 Al Jazeera Sports broadcast staff to the 2010 FIFA World Cup game between Algeria and Slovenia in Polokwane made an emergency landing at Lanseria International Airport following the jamming of the aircraft's landing gear. Lanseria International Airport is shut down. (Reuters Africa) (AFP) (Herald Sun) (IOL)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis:
  • Tensions remain high in Kyrgyzstan, with police patrolling the streets and special forces standing guard in the city of Osh and Jalal-Abad, after ethnic clashes left more than 100 people dead and about 1,400 others injured since fighting broke out Thursday night. (TVNZ) (CNN) (Aljazeera)
  • 150 paratroopers from Russia arrived to Kant, Kyrgyzstan on Sunday. (Xinhua) (swissinfo) (trtenglish) (presstv.ir)
  • Tens of thousands of people flee across the border into Uzbekistan. (BBC)
  • 3 Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft land at Kant Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, after departing from Ramenskoye Airport, located near Moscow. (24)
• 5 people have died and dozens been injured in a stampede at a rally in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. (BBC) (aajmedia)
• At least two people are killed and 20 injured in a stampede at a peace concert in Côte d'Ivoire. (BBC) (Philippine Inquirer)
• South African police shoot a lachrymatory agent at hundreds of 2010 FIFA World Cup stewards at pay cut protests in Durban. (BBC)
• Hezbollah warns Israel on gas fields being claimed by both Israel and Lebanon. (presstv.ir)(Ynet)(VJ)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • Arriving in the Gaza Strip for the first time since Israel blockaded it in 2006, Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, calls for the blockade to be ended. (Aljazeera) (Xinhua) (Voice of America)
  • United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice tells Fox News that Israel is capable of conducting a credible investigation into the fatal Gaza flotilla raid on its own terms. (Ynetnews)
  • Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak cancels an official two-day trip to France at short notice, while several French members of the flotilla and three MPs plan to file a lawsuit against him in France and at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. (Ynetnews) (AP) (The Jerusalem Post)
  • Israel sets up its own internal "independent public commission" into its recent deadly raid on the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla. Yaakov Turkel is chair, while two foreign observers are Ken Watkin and David Trimble, Baron Trimble. (BBC) (The News International) (Aljazeera)
• Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is appointed by President Ivan Gašparovič to form a new government. (Xinhua)
• Belgian general election, 2010:
  • The Belgian elections take place amid a possibility of partition. (Xinhua)
  • The N-VA wins. (Aljazeera)
• Venezuelan authorities issue an arrest warrant for the head of Globovisión, the country's only remaining independent television station which criticises President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez. (Aljazeera)
• An explosion injures 24 people at a rally opposed to a new draft constitution in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. (BBC) (Capital FM)
• Fighting between government troops and police in Somalia leaves at least 13 people dead and 14 injured in the capital Mogadishu. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters Africa)
• Two people are killed and six others are wounded during four explosions close to the entrance of the Iraqi central bank building in downtown Baghdad. (Xinhua)
• A 7.5-magnitude earthquake west of India's Nicobar Islands causes tremors felt along India's eastern seaboard and triggers a tsunami watch, which is later cancelled. (AFP) (NDTV)
• FIFA says it will assist Al Jazeera Sports in its investigation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup signal sabotage. (Business Week) (Hindustan Times) (The Zimbabwean)
• Wen Jiabao, the Premier of the People's Republic of China and Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan agree to establish a Prime Ministerial hotline between the two heads of government. (Xinhua)
• Joran Van der Sloot said he'll reveal the location of U.S teen Natalee Holloway's body to the investigators if authorities transfer him to an Aruban jail from his current jail in Peru. (Fox News)
• A London School of Economics report finds that Pakistan's largest intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, is secretly funding and training the Afghan Taliban. (BBC)
• South Korea's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lee Sang-eui offers to retire over the recent warship sinking. (Xinhua)
• Britain's most senior military officer, Sir Jock Stirrup, agrees to leave before the end of his term in April 2011, according to the country's Defence Secretary Liam Fox. (BBC) (The Irish Times) (Xinhua)
• Freed Swiss businessman Max Göldi is due to leave Libya. (Xinhua)
• The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa spacecraft returns to earth near Woomera in northwest South Australia. (ABC Australia)
• Official documents say the United Kingdom's government considered denying the Korea DPR national football team visas to attend the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England for fear of "diplomatic shockwaves" brought on by Communism. (BBC) (AFP) (The Belfast Telegraph) (RTHK)

• The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is awarded to no one for a second consecutive year. (Aljazeera)
• Fighting between Somali government troops and local police has killed at least 13 people in Mogadishu and gunmen killed a judiciary official of the semi-autonomous Puntland region in the Hamarjajab district. (Arab News)
• At least 28 prisoners are killed in a clash between rival gangs in Sinaloa, Mexico. (Asiaone) (BBC) (newser)
• The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland rules that Romanian footballer Adrian Mutu has lost his final appeal in a five-year legal battle meaning he has to pay a record €17 million in damages for breaching his contract. (The Guardian) (BBC) (AsiaOne) (The Hindu) (CNN)
• Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson receives a copy of the Saville Inquiry, the longest and most expensive public inquiry in British history, ahead of its official launch by David Cameron tomorrow. (The Irish Times) (RTÉ)
• Amidst growing labour unrest in China, Premier Wen Jiabao visits migrant workers at a Beijing construction site and calls for better treatment for the country's migrant workers. (Straits Times) (Xinhua)
• Egypt and Al Jazeera Sports clash over claims of interference in the transmission of 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer matches. (Reuters Africa)
• A California judge refuses to suspend the medical licence of Conrad Murray, the doctor charged in connection with Michael Jackson's death. (AP via LA.com) (newser)
• At least 35 people are feared drowned and 50 people disappear after a boat capsizes on the Ganges River in northern India. (AP via CT Now) (Xinhua)
• At least 14 people are killed and at least 30 are injured when a tourist bus disappears over the edge of a ravine in the Philippines. (Xinhua)
• 10 police are killed and several others are wounded in an ambush by drug hitmen in Zitácuaro Michoacán. (The Star) (AP) (The Australian) (Los Angeles Times)
• Colombian security forces rescue two senior police officers and a soldier held hostage since 1 November 1998, among the longest-held captives; a fourth hostage is later rescued. (BBC) (France24) (Los Angeles Times) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Aljazeera) (BBC)
• Ireland's Fine Gael Deputy Leader and Finance Spokesperson Richard Bruton, brother of former Taoiseach John Bruton, is sacked after publicly declaring his lack of confidence in Fine Gael's leader Enda Kenny. (BBC) (RTÉ) (The Irish Times) (Press Association)
• Churches in Kenya accuse the government of being behind a grenade attack at a rally opposed to a draft constitution which killed six people. (BBC) (AP) (Daily Nation)
• A team of American geologists and Pentagon officials say they have discovered vast mineral wealth, including iron, gold and lithium, estimated to be worth nearly US$1 trillion, in Afghanistan, though other senior officials say this has been known since at least the 1970s. (CBS News) (Politico) (The Guardian) (AP)
• The arrest of several army officers in Guinea is not linked to elections, according to the country's army chief. (BBC)
• The Iraqi Council of Representatives convenes in Baghdad three months after inconclusive elections. (AFP via Google News)
• Polish authorities arrest a suspected Israeli agent in connection with the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai in January. (BBC)
• Lanseria International Airport reopens after the removal of the wreckage of yesterday's emergency landing involving mainly Al Jazeera Sports broadcast staff on their way to cover the 2010 FIFA World Cup game between Algeria and Slovenia in Polokwane. (IOL)
• New files on American politician Ted Kennedy, which were previously secret, are released. (BBC)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis and 2010 South Kyrgyzstan riots:
  • Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon expresses "alarm" at events in Kyrgyzstan. (BBC)
  • Camps are quickly set up along the Kyrgyzstan border for the tens of thousands of people fleeing the riots in Kyrgyzstan. (Aljazeera)
  • Zhalalidin Salakhuddinov, the leader of the Uzbek National Center, claims that 200 Uzbeks have died in the fighting. (AP via Google News)
  • Minority Uzbeks accuse the majority Kyrgyz of carrying out genocide in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad. (Reuters)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issues a report criticizing Israel and calling on it to lift the blockade. (CNN) (BBC)
  • Israel acknowledges that Uri Brodsky, a citizen arrested in Poland and charged with involvement in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, is a "businessman" but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to comment on suggestions the country is trying to stop his extradition to Germany amid calls by ministers for him to be extradited to Israel. (The Daily Telegraph)
  • An Israeli Police officer is killed and two others wounded in a shooting near Hebron. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claims responsibility, and claims it is retaliation for the Gaza flotilla raid. (The Jerusalem Post)
  • The European Union presses Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza, as EU members meet in Luxembourg to discuss ways that Europe could renew its role in helping supervise Gaza's border crossings. (Yahoo! News)
  • Two Iranian aid ships begin departing for Gaza, one from Khorramshahr and one from Istanbul. Egypt grants permission for 70 Iranian MPs to visit Gaza. (Ynetnews) (The Jerusalem Post)
• US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announces the 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report. (US Department of State)
• NCAA (U.S. college) conference realignment:
  • The University of Texas at Austin, seen as the key to the survival of a 10-team Big 12 Conference in the wake of the loss of Colorado to the Pacific-10 Conference and Nebraska to the Big Ten Conference, announces it will turn down an invitation from the Pac-10 and remain in the Big 12. Shortly after Texas' announcement, four other Texas and Oklahoma schools targeted by the Pac-10 pledge themselves to the Big 12. (ESPN)

• Human rights in Iran:
  • A leader of the Iranian opposition, Mir Hussein Moussavi, demands the prosecution of those he accuses of fraud in the disputed presidential election of 2009 and of human rights abuses against opposition demonstrators over the past year in Iran. (The New York Times)
  • 56 nations rebuke Iran for its human rights record, expressing concern over the violent suppression of dissent, detention and executions without due process of law, severe discrimination against women and minorities including people of Baháʼí faith, and restrictions of expression and religion. (AP)
• A US marine convicted in the Hamdania incident, one of the worst war crimes from the Iraq War, and sentenced to eleven years in prison in 2006 is released from prison after a military appeals court in Washington decides he did not receive a fair trial. The Navy is appealing that court's decision.(PA) (AP) (Aljazeera) (Gulf News) (The Washington Post)
• Militants kill 12 police officers in a string of attacks and six civilians die in bombings in Afghanistan, and a U.S. soldier is killed in a gun battle in eastern Afghanistan in the latest fighting in the war in Afghanistan. (USA Today)
• Heavy rain triggers landslides that leave at least 24 people dead in Sichuan province's Kangding county. In one incident, part of a mountain fell on a construction site in Sichuan province, crushing workers who were sleeping in tents. (news.com.pk) (China Dialy)
• The trial begins of 33 alleged members of Ergenekon over alleged plans to topple the Turkish government, while groups hold small protests outside the courthouse in their favour. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (euronews)
• Two trains collide in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa resulting in the death of at least 13 people. (AP via USA Today)
• Saville Inquiry:
  • The Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday (1972) in Northern Ireland is published, as a result of the longest-running public inquiry in British legal history. (Sky News) (The Independent)
  • The report concludes that British paratroopers "lost control", fired the first shot without warning, shot fleeing civilians, and concocted lies to cover up their acts, while the civilians did not throw stones or petrol bombs as a previous inquiry had claimed. (BBC) (The Irish Times) (CNN) (The Wall Street Journal)
  • Relatives of those shot by the British Army gather to hear the results and applaud the findings. (euronews)
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron calls the events "unjustified and unjustifiable" in a statement in the House of Commons and issues an apology on behalf of the British government. (RTÉ) (Aljazeera) (The New York Times) (euronews)
• North Korea threatens a military response if the United Nations Security Council questions or condemns it for the ROKS Cheonan sinking. North Korean UN Permanent Representative Sin Son Ho demands that a North Korean investigation team be allowed to travel to the site of the sinking. (Yahoo! News)
• Islamist gunmen in Somalia shoot two people dead and detain 10 others who were watching a televised FIFA World Cup match; a member of one group later said watching the World Cup is anti-Islamic. (CNN)
• The leaders of Ireland's two main political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, come under fire. Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen faces a motion of no confidence in Dáil Éireann, his second in just over a year. Leader of the Opposition, Enda Kenny, who sacked his deputy leader yesterday to prevent a potential coup, faces further revolt from his party as nine more members of his frontbench call on him to resign. (Reuters Africa) (RTÉ)
• An American claiming to be hunting Osama bin Laden is arrested with a sword, a pistol and night-vision goggles in northwestern Pakistan.(Wall St. Journal) (Aljazeera)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis and 2010 South Kyrgyzstan riots:
  • Death toll rises to 180 near Osh, Jalalabad city and the Suzak region. (TRT) (Xinhua)
  • 100,000 Uzbek refugees seek safety at border. (Arabnews)
  • Kyrgyzstan calls up army reservists. (Aljazeera)
  • Whole neighbourhoods in Osh are destroyed and the army is accused of murder. (Aljazeera)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
  • More than 23,000 people sign a Jewish Council for Public Affairs petition urging the US State Department to investigate passengers on the Mavi Marmara who are expected to visit New York on a speaking tour citing a 2006 report by the Danish Institute for International Studies, which documents a link between IHH and al-Qaida and “global jihad networks”. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Israel's plans to hold an inquiry into its Gaza flotilla raid have been dismissed by Turkey and the Palestinians. (BBC)
  • The Israeli Navy prepares to confront Iranian ships heading for Gaza, and says that it will act under the assumption that there are groups of provocateurs aboard any future ships trying to break the Israeli blockade. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Ireland expels an Israeli diplomat as "a victim of the actions of the state they represent" after an investigation states that 8 forged Irish passports were used in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. (RTÉ) (The Globe and Mail) (Aljazeera) (BBC) (euronews)

• The Jamaican Government orders civilians to keep off the streets for two days in several slums in Kingston because authorities are still hunting for Christopher Coke, alleged by the United States to be a drug lord. (AP)
• American police in Seattle say they will "review training procedured" following the surfacing of a video which attrated international attention. The video shows a white officer from the Seattle department punching a black teenaged girl in the face when she tried intervene while the officer was confronting another girl about crossing the road at a legally forbidden area. Seattle police deny any wrongdoing. (CNN) (BBC) (IOL) (Sky News)
• The United Nations Human Rights Council says Britain is arranging its third enforced removal of Iraqi asylum applicants to Baghdad despite appeals for it to stop amid safety fears for the individuals concerned. (Aljazeera) (The Guardian) (BBC)
• Iranian nuclear program sanctions:
  • Iran's atomic energy chief says Iran will begin building a new nuclear reactor, and Iran will keep enriching uranium, despite UN nuclear sanctions. (CNN)
  • The United States announces new sanctions against Iran’s financial sector, shipping industry and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, aimed at implementing the recent United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929 and targeted at the country's nuclear and missile programs. (CNN) (BBC) (Ynet)
• Gulf of Mexico oil disaster:
  • U.S. President Barack Obama announces that BP will finance a $20 billion fund to compensate people whose livelihoods have been damaged by the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the company's chairman apologized for the worst spill in U.S. history. (USA Today) (The New York Times) (Chicago Tribune)
  • BP begins collecting crude oil from a second containment system that the company hopes will help stem the thousands of barrels escaping from their damaged well, an amount that scientists said could be as high as 60,000 barrels a day. (The New York Times)
• Middle East:
  • Israel adjourns deciding on whether to ease its three year blockade of the Gaza Strip. (Aljazeera) (The Irish Times)
  • After a heated debate the Parliament of Lebanon proposes to offer basic rights to hundreds of thousands of refugees it has accepted from Palestine during recent decades. (Aljazeera) (The Daily Star)
  • The French broadcasting monitoring agency orders that the official Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV not be broadcast through French-based satellite provider Eutelsat because it has violated a prohibition on incitement to hatred or violence based on race, religion or nationality; Hamas protests the decision. (CNN) (The Jerusalem Post)
  • Israel Defense Forces soldiers stop three armed men entering Israel from Egypt, 40 kilometers north of the Israeli city of Eilat. One of them is killed, and the other two flee, leaving behind an explosive device. (The Jerusalem Post)
  • An Israeli soldier suspected of killing two women during the Gaza War will face a judicial hearing headed by Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit, and may be prosecuted for manslaughter. (The Jerusalem Post)
  • Hundreds of Haredi Jews rioting in Jaffa clash with the Israel Police and Israel Border Police over the alleged desecration of Jewish graves. Five policemen are injured. Ten rioters are injured, and fifteen are arrested. (Haaretz)
  • The Turkish organization IHH assembles a new six-ship aid flotilla, set to sail in July. (The Jerusalem Post) (Haaretz) (Ynet)
• At least 49 people are killed during landslides in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, with many swept to their deaths as they slept. (Aljazeera)
• At least 25 people die during flooding in the Var department of Côte d'Azur, Southern France. (Le Monde) (France24) (BBC) (Sky News) (The Daily Telegraph)
• A shootout in the Mexican tourist town of Taxco leaves 15 dead. (CNN)
• Two separate blasts in eastern Baghdad kill 1 person and wound another 8. (asharq-e)
• 4 Russian policemen are killed in the North Caucasus. (Xinhua)
• A shallow strong quake with magnitude of 7.1 jolts Papua province in easternmost Indonesia, killing 3 people and causing damage in Serui and Biak, in Yapen district. (Xinhua) (SINA) (ABC) (CNN)
• Two Sudanese, Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus, surrender to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be charged on Thursday with "murder", "intentionally directing attacks against peacekeeping personnel" and "stealing property" in relation to a 2007 attack on African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, which killed 12. (BBC) (IOL) (CNN) (Reuters)
• More than £200 million in health funding to the Zambian government is suspended by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, though some aid is given to non-government groups and the fund's director of communications says life-saving treatments remain unaffected. (BBC)
• George Osborne scraps Britain's financial regulator and grants new powers to the Bank of England. (Sky News)
• The National Army of Colombia says an unknown number of informants who aided the rescue of three police officers and a soldier from FARC on Sunday will receive a $1.2 million reward between them. (BBC)
• Shanghai International Film Festival:
  • Chinese video-sharing websites, like LeTV Entertainment, Sohu.com, and Voole.com, reveals more film investment in SH.(SIFF)
  • 3-D films: China is going to digitize 2,000 cinema screens 2010, double the number of 2009. (SIFF)
  • China celebrates Irish Film at Shanghai and Beijing Film Festivals. (Film Ireland)
• Two Dutch women appear in a South African court over an alleged "ambush marketing" stunt after more than 30 people were ejected from the Johannesburg stadium on Monday during the match between Denmark and the Netherlands in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. (BBC) (Sky News) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• The annual Dragon Boat Festival starts in Lhasa. (tibet.cn)
• A six-storey statue of Jesus Christ is struck by lightning and razed to the ground in a city in the US state of Ohio. (The Guardian) (The Money Times) (ITN) (TVNZ)
• Researchers from four Italian universities identify human remains discovered in a church in Tuscany as "almost certainly" being those of Renaissance artist Caravaggio. (BBC)
• NCAA (U.S. college) conference realignment:
  • The Pacific-10 Conference, after being turned down by several Texas and Oklahoma schools in its effort to expand to 12 or more members, invites the University of Utah to become its 12th member. (ESPN)

• The United States issues a travel warning for Toronto due to an upcoming G20 summit. (The Star)
• Heavy rains claim 46 lives in Maharashtra, India. (Hindustan Times)
• At least 46 people are killed, 50 others disappear and millions are affected following heavy five-day rains in China's southern regions. (The Hindu)
• 46 people die when heavy rains trigger landslides in western Myanmar, in Rakhine state in an area bordering Bangladesh. (CNN)
• Dutch novelist Gerbrand Bakker wins the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel The Twin. (The Guardian) (Irish Independent) (The Irish Times)
• 16 people are killed and around 70 others are trapped after a blast at the San Fernando mine in Amagá, Antioquia, in Colombia. (BBC) (Reuters) (France24) (China Dialy)
• 3 people died after supports collapsed on them at a coal mine in east China's Anhui Province, a spokesman with the Anhui Huainan Mining Group in Bagongshan District of Huainan City. (People Dialy)
• As many as 1,800 homes are estimated to have been destroyed on Biak Island, West Papua, Indonesia, as a result of the 7.0 magnitude 2010 Papua earthquake. (RNZI) (AsiaNews.it)
• Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster:
  • BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward testifies before the U.S. Congress, apologizing for the spill but avoiding answering most questions and stating that he was unaware of the risks at the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in April causing the oil spill. (The Australian) (CBS) (Miami Herald)
  • BP could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection in preparation for civil and criminal fines exceeding $US 40 billion. (The Australian)
• 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis and 2010 South Kyrgyzstan riots:
  • Around 2,000 people mass in Osh Airport.
  • China flies 960 nationals home from Kyrgyzstan; evacuation continues. (Kabar)
  • Kyrgyzstan unrest death toll rises to 192. 913 people were hospitalized. (24)(ITAR)
  • Kyrgyz Central Election Commission accredits Kazakh CEC Chair and his assistant to observe constitutional referendum.
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • Israel's decision to ease the Gaza blockade is welcomed by the United Nations and the United States; Gaza's Hamas rulers say this is propaganda by Israel. (Aljazeera) (The Jerusalem Post) (Ynet) (CNN) (The Hindu)
  • Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warns Lebanon of the responsibility it holds if Israel has to involve itself in a "violent and dangerous confrontation" with a Gaza-bound international aid flotilla said to include dozens of Lebanese and several Europeans. (AFP)
• FIFA World Cup:
  • A British television commentator is sacked after tickets used in the alleged 2010 FIFA World Cup "beer miniskirts stunt" are traced to him. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Greece scores their first goal in FIFA World Cup history against Nigeria and beats them 2 to 1. (Fifa World Cup) (ABC Online) (Reuters Africa)
• The Los Angeles Lakers win the 2010 NBA Finals defeating the Boston Celtics 83-79 in Game 7. (CBS News)
• Turkish warplanes carry out a series of airstrikes against suspected Kurdish targets in Iraq and Turkish soldiers withdraw from Iraqi territory after sending troops in pursuit of Kurdish rebels in the latest fighting between Turkey and Kurdish rebels. (CNN)
• The Times Square bombing attempt suspect is indicted on 10 terrorism and weapons charges in New York City. (AP via Dayton Daily News)
• A four-year Canadian inquiry concludes that a "cascading series of errors" led to the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean south of Ireland on 23 June 1985, killing all 329 people on board. (BBC) (Aljazeera)
• 3 additional U.S. soldiers based in Washington state are facing murder charges in the deaths of 3 Afghan civilians. (CNN)
• About 110,000 Haredi Jews protest in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak against an Israeli Supreme Court ruling to jail Slonimer parents in Immanuel, who follow their rebbe's order not to send their girls to school with girls of non-Ashkenazi descent. (JTA) (Haaretz) (YnetNews) (Aljazeera)(The Jerusalem Post)
• African leaders meet in Chad to discuss the Great Green Wall tree belt from Senegal to Djibouti in the battle against the Sahara. (BBC)
• European Union leaders approve sanctions in Brussels, including bans on investments and oil/gas technology transfers, against Iran, harsher than recent sanctions imposed by the United Nations. Russia calls these and sanctions by the United States "unacceptable". (BBC) (Reuters) (Aljazeera) (The News International)
• Powerful Austrian publisher and household name Hans Dichand, who greatly influenced Austrian politics, dies aged 89. (The Hindu) (Business Week) (Austrian Independent)
• Kenyan Assistant Roads Minister Wilfred Machage is suspended by President Mwai Kibaki after being charged, alongside two other MPs, with inciting hatred yesterday. (BBC) (Reuters Africa)
• Rwanda releases from custody an American lawyer for health reasons. The lawyer is charged with genocide denial and threatening state security, the first outsider tried under the country's 2003 anti-genocide legislation. (Reuters Africa)
• Hundreds of surveillance cameras, alleged to be part of a counter-terrorism operation in highly Muslim areas, are put into temporary disuse in parts of Birmingham, England, after protest by the local population. (The Guardian) (BBC)
• European researchers conclude that the male menopause exists in 2% of middle-aged men who experience poor morning erection, low levels of sexual desire and erectile dysfunction. (BBC)
• The historical chronology of ancient Egypt is verified using radiocarbon dating. (BBC)

• A young man slashed 12 passers-by with a knife on the street in the township of Jinli in Zhaoqing City Guangdong Province on Wednesday, leaving one dead. (Global Times)
• Hope for the dozens of Colombian coal miners trapped underground yesterday begins to fade. At least 50 miners are estimated to still be trapped 2 kilometers underground, all of whom are thought to be dead. Rescue workers have so far recovered 18 bodies, and have advanced 700 meters underground. (BBC) (The Washington Post)
• Interim Kyrgyzstan leader Roza Otunbayeva visits Osh and says the death toll from her country's worst ethnic clashes in two decades could be 2,000. (Aljazeera)
• Indian Muslim television preacher Zakir Naik is banned from entry into the United Kingdom for what is described as "unacceptable behaviour". He was due to lecture in Sheffield and London. (BBC) (The Hindu) (The Times of India) (Reuters)
• American Envoy to the Middle East and former Senator George J. Mitchell arrives in Ramallah and holds an immediate meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Xinhua) (Aljazeera) (balita.ph)
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn meets with Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Madrid. (Aljazeera)
• President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa responds in a speech at a commemorative military pageant to critics of the army who say human rights abuses were committed against civilians during the 2009 defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels. (BBC)
• Two former military chiefs in The Gambia are charged over an alleged plot to remove President Yahya Jammeh from office in 2006; critics say the government is manipulating coup allegations for its own gain. (BBC)
• The Polish presidential election is being held earlier, following the death of Polish President Lech Kaczyński in a plane crash on 10 April 2010 near Smolensk. The two front-runners are Bronisław Komorowski from the ruling center-right Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) party and Jarosław Kaczyński from the right-wing Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) party. (Warsawvoice.pl)
• Indian government ministers meet for the first time as they re-examine the 1984 Bhopal disaster. (BBC)
• A landslide triggered by torrential rain kills 8 people in Indonesia's eastern province of Maluku; bodies are found in Batugantung Dalam. (TIME)
• 8 people are killed and 8 others wounded in two attacks in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad. (People Daily) (nation.com.pk)
• 1998 Nobel Laureate José Saramago from Portugal dies at the age of 87. (The Guardian) (BBC News) (Deutsche Welle) (CNN)
• The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) starts designing a newer and a more powerful nuclear research reactor than the current Tehran reactor, according to AEOI director Ali Akbar Salehi. (Tehran Times)
• The United States welcomes alleged genocide denial lawyer Peter Erlinder's release on health grounds by Rwanda. (BBC News)
• Two people die during a series of tornadoes in Wadena and Otter Tail County, Minnesota, United States. (The New Zealand Herald) (ABC) (Serbia News Channel)
• FIFA receives a complaint about its security after a football fan breaks into the dressing room of the England national football team during a 2010 FIFA World Cup game in which the team were booed in South Africa. (BBC News)
• John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to "A Day in the Life" sell for $1.2 million at Sotheby's. (BBC News)
• 20 boys die after botched circumcisions in South Africa over the past 12 days, nine of the deaths occurring within the last 24 hours. (BBC News)

• Burmese Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi turns 65, as international and domestic pressure for her release from house arrest intensify. Guards surrounding her home allow her to receive a birthday cake and a bouquet of flowers from political supporters. (Yahoo! News)
• A gunman shoots 4 people then turns the gun on himself in San Bernardino, California. (AP via Atlanta Journal Constitution)
• A former Rwandan army chief in exile, Faustin Nyamwasa, is shot in South Africa. (BBC) (News24) (Al Jazeera)
• At least 48 people are killed in rival clashes between nomadic groups in the Darfur region of Sudan. (BBC) (AFP)
• Gunfire at a combat post in Afghanistan killed a French soldier and wounded an Afghan translator. (CNN)
• A drone attack on a militant hideout in North Waziristan in Pakistan, killed at least 13 people and injured six others. (CNN)
• 5 policemen are killed and 14 others injured in four separate attacks against the police forces in Pakistan. (Xinhua)
• Four suspected al-Qaida gunmen blast their way into the intelligence headquarters. The attack on the heavily protected security complex kills 18 in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen. (China Daily) (Washington Post)
• Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria marries Daniel Westling; Westling becomes Duke of Västergötland. (BusinessWeek)
• 10 Turkish soldiers are killed during clashes with Kurdish rebels on the border of Turkey and Iraq, in Şemdinli township of Hakkâri province and in the Gediktepe-Tekeli region. (TRT) (CNN)
• Roadside bomb blast kills 4, wounds 12 in bus carrying soldiers in Istanbul. (AA)
• 8 Turkish troops are killed in an attack by Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey. In response, Kurdish positions are targeted by Turkish airstrikes in Northern Iraq. Twelve Kurdish rebels are killed. (BBC) (IOL)
• Nauruan parliamentary election:
  • Parliamentary elections take place, with 18 seats at stake in the Parliament of Nauru. The President is elected to serve a 3-year term. (Election Guide)
• Flooding in South China kills at least 88 people, and forces nearly 750,000 people to leave their homes. (BBC News) (Le Monde) (nzherald) (ABC)

• At least 40 people were shot over the weekend across Chicago, with seven of them slain, Chicago Tribune reported. (CNTV)
• Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland wins the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California. (Reuters via UK Yahoo) (RTÉ) (The Guardian)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • Israel says it will move to loosen its land blockade against the Gaza Strip, while indicating the continuation of its naval blockade against the region. (Xinhua)
  • Israel denies Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Dirk Niebel entry to the Gaza Strip to visit a humanitarian project co-funded by Germany during his four-day visit to the region. (Reuters) (AFP) (Ynetnews)
• In Poland, presidential elections take place after the death of President Lech Kaczyński on April 10, 2010 in a plane crash. (AP) The two main candidates are Acting President Bronisław Komorowski (Civic Platform) and former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński (Law and Justice) receive 45.7% and 33.2% of the votes respectively, requiring a runoff between them. (AP)
• Colombian presidential election, 2010:
  • In the runoff of the presidential elections in Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos from the Party of the U defeats his Green Party adversary Antanas Mockus, getting around 70% of the votes. (AP via CBS), (Reuters)
  • At least seven police officers are killed and eight others disappear in an explosive attack on a police patrol. (Aljazeera)
• Jundallah's leader Abdolmalek Rigi is executed in Tehran. (BBC) (South China Morning Post) (The Sysney Morning Herald) (Bangkok Post) (Reuters)
• Archbishop of Naples Crescenzio Sepe and former Italy transport minister Pietro Lunardi face allegations of corruption over a property deal. (BBC) (RTÉ)
• At least one person is killed and tens of others are wounded during clashes between Indian paramilitary authorities and demonstrators in Kashmir. The demonstrators were protesting against a 25-year-old who is said to have been beaten to death by soldiers during a 12 June demonstration. (Aljazeera)
• At least 26 people are killed and 53 other are injured during two car bombings in central Baghdad, Iraq. (BBC)
• A Bell 412 Mexican military helicopter crashes in Durango state in northern Mexico Saturday, killing all 11 people on board. (People)
• A plane carrying several Australian mining executives including Ken Talbot disappears in either Cameroon or the Republic of the Congo. (Philippine Daily Inquirer) (BBC) (Reuters), (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Celia becomes the first hurricane of the 2010 Pacific hurricane season. (AP via Breitbart)
• 2010 FIFA World Cup
  • The managing director of the French Football Federation, Jean-Louis Valentin, quits after the France national football team participates in a public row with him and then a boycott during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. (BBC) (AP) (Xinhua) (TIME) (The Guardian)
  • Nigeria football player Sani Kaita receives at least 1,000 death threats after being sent off during his team's losing game with Greece at the 2010 FIFA World Cup; the Nigerian government and FIFA are involved. (BBC) (The Budapest Report) (Forbes) (The Daily Telegraph)
• South Sudan's 7ft 7in basketball legend and humanitarian, Manute Bol, dies. (BBC) (The New York Times) (The Independent) (The Washington Post)
• Michael Jackson's memorial plaque will be unveiled at a West End theatre in London on June 24. In mid-February Los Angeles coroners have released a report of his autopsy, which said his death was a homicide. (rian.ru) (mjjboard) (BBC) (SKY)

• Mara gang members in El Salvador attack a bus on the outskirts of San Salvador, shooting at it before dousing it with gasoline and lighting it on fire, killing 14 and injuring 16. Gang members open fire on another bus shortly afterward, killing another 2 people. (Yahoo! News) (Aljazeera)
• Iraq's electricity minister Karim Waheed offers his resignation on live television as "Iraqis are not capable of being patient in their suffering". Two people are shot dead by armed forces while protesting over lack of electricity generation blamed by Waheed on lack of funding. (BBC)
• The death toll in Colombia's mine blast reaches 70, as 4 more charred corpses are retrieved. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• At least 46 people are killed and dozens more trapped after a mine blast in Henan, central China. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (China Daily)
• Major aid agencies Oxfam and Save the Children both launch $10 million (£6.7 million) appeals for Niger where drought is common at the moment and half the country has no food. (BBC) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, cuts 15% of Belarus' gas supplies over alleged debt, and threatens to gradually cut up to 85% of Belarus' gas supplies if the debt remains unpaid. (Aljazeera) (BBC)
• Juan Manuel Santos wins convincingly in the final round of the Colombian presidential election. (BBC)
• Bronisław Komorowski and Jarosław Kaczyński face each other on 4 July after Sunday's inconclusive vote in Polish presidential election, 2010. (Aljazeera)
• An American man pleads guilty to charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt. (AP via Google News)
• Search teams find the wreckage of a CASA C-212 Aviocar private plane carrying senior Australian mining executives including Ken Talbot in the jungle of the Republic of the Congo. (Reuters via News Daily)
• Iran bans two International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors from entering the country claiming they had leaked false information about Iran's nuclear program. (Sky News)
• Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping meets with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on an official trip to Canberra. The two countries sign agreements valued at over A$10 billion. (The Australian)
• 8 people die and 10 people are wounded in a suicide attack in the northern city of Shirqat of Iraq. (TRT)
• The Washington Post reports that Gizab villagers in Afghanistan overturned their local Taliban movement during April, with some members putting down their weapons and being welcomed back into their local community. The United States did not hear of this before now as it happened in a remote part of the country ignored by the military. (The Washington Post)
• Three Australian soldiers and a United States army soldier are killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan with nine NATO casualties overall. (The Australian) (AFP via Google News)
• The northernmost radiation detection station of the South Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety claims to have detected an eightfold increase in the radioactive substance xenon. (AP) (Chosun Ilbo)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat calls for the demolition of 22 Palestinian homes in the Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. Barkat wants to build a tourist centre, while Palestinians say it is "forced displacement". Members of Israel's Meretz say they will resign their city council seats in protest. (Aljazeera) (AP) (Reuters Africa) (AFP) (The Belfast Telegraph) (Ynetnews)
  • United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) calls for Israel's blockade on Gaza to be fully lifted. (Reuters)
  • Israel's naval forces are put on alert as a shipful of females prepares to set sail for Gaza aboard the Mariam. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• The Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy Magazine releases its 2010 index of so-called "failed states", ranking 177 countries by what it sees as those most at risk of failure; Foreign Policy claims state failure "is a chronic condition". (Aljazeera)
• Six people are arrested in South Africa over the shooting of Rwandan dissident Lt Gen Nyamwasa. (BBC)
• Bangladesh authorities indefinitely shut down Dhaka's University of Engineering and Technology due to a student rampage which injures four people because of 2010 FIFA World Cup fever. (BBC)
• The World Health Organisation creates a data base on the use of child medicines. (AP via The Guardian)
• The Communications Commission of Kenya embarks on a compulsory mobile phone registration initiative as part of the country's crime reduction policy; numbers remaining unregistered by the end of July are to be disconnected. (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation) (Daily Nation) (BBC) (TMC Net)
• A carved brick sculpture intended as a Bloody Sunday (1972) memorial is vandalised prior to completion in Derry's Bogside area. (BBC) (RTÉ) (The Belfast Telegraph)
• A tour of North America by Simon & Garfunkel is "postponed indefinitely" as Art Garfunkel develops vocal cord paresis; he is expected to recover. (BBC)
• Hyksos capital Avaris is believed to have been located via radar imaging by a group of Austrian archaeologists in Tel al-Dabaa. (BBC) (IOL) (News24.com)

• At least 60 people are killed and hundreds disappear after a derailed train plunges into a ravine in the Republic of the Congo. The accident happened after the train left the coastal town of Pointe-Noire on the Chemin de Fer Congo Ocean (CFCO) line to the capital Brazzaville. (TVNZ) (DNA) (Dawn) (Sky News)
• The death toll from floods and mudslides reaches at least 31 people in Alagoas and Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil. (CBS)
• Red Sea oil spill disaster:
  • Environmentalists said that an oil spill near Hurghada Egypt in the Red Sea is continuing even after the government said it had been contained, leaving turtles and sea birds covered in oil. (The Associated Press)
• The death toll from unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan riots reaches 251. (itar-tass)
• War crimes charges are formally requested against 12 Belgian government officials and military officers in connection with the assassination of Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, as historians agree on a high-level Belgian conspiracy, with Western-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko succeeding Lumumba until he was overthrown in 1997. (AP) (AFP) (Reuters) (Taiwan News)
• The United States investigates itself to see if it is accidentally financing the Taliban in Afghanistan with $4 million per week in U.S. taxpayers' money. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (CNN)
• Israel asks the United Nations to suspend attempts to organise an international inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid, with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak saying "some organisation, probably backed by a terror organisation, (is) once again trying to send a vessel into Gaza." (BBC)
• General Stanley A. McChrystal, the top United States commander in Afghanistan, apologises for an article in Rolling Stone magazine in which he criticised senior members of the Obama administration. McChrystal is later summoned to Washington, D.C. for talks with Obama. (The Los Angeles Times) (BBC)
• Christopher Coke walks into a police station on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica and is detained, following search efforts which killed more than 70 people last month. The United States accuses him of being the Shower Posse leader, which it alleges operates an international drugs and guns network. (BBC)
• An expert panel is appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate whether war crimes were committed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. (Reuters) (CNN) (BBC)
• During a two-day visit to Ghana, President of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos visits Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra among other engagements. (Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) (Angola Press)
• Five people are killed and 12 injured in a bus bomb in Istanbul, Turkey. Kurdish rebels later claim responsibility for the attack. (Anatolia News Agency) (Reuters) (Xinhua)
• Two rival Nigerian lawmakers in the National Assembly are injured, with one sustaining a broken arm. (BBC)
• The American Samoa Constitutional Convention, the first to be held since 1986, opens in Pago Pago. (Radio New Zealand International)
• United States federal judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman issues a preliminary injunction blocking a six month moratorium on deep water offshore drilling. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• In the United Kingdom, Chancellor George Osborne presents the coalition government's emergency budget statement to the House of Commons. (BBC)
• Nikki Haley wins the Republican Party primary to be the Republican candidate in the South Carolina gubernatorial election in the United States. (Washington Post)
• One person is killed and 10 injured after a former worker at a Mazda factory in Japan drives his car at colleagues. (Kyodo) (BBC) (AFP)

• The death toll in yesterday's train crash in the Republic of the Congo rises to 76. (TVNZ) (Aljazeera)
• Anthrax kills 30 hippopotamuses in Uganda. (The Straits Times)
• 9 Iraqis are killed in bombings, including two leaders of U.S. government-backed Sunni militants. (TIME)
• An Indian colonel dies in Kashmir for the first time in three years. (The Times of India) (The News International) (BBC) (Press TV)
• 25th anniversary of Air India Flight 182:
  • Relatives of those killed in Air India Flight 182 gather with diplomats and politicians from Canada, India and Ireland in Cork to mark the 25th anniversary with a memorial service. (RTÉ) (BBC) (AFP)
  • Stephen Harper of Canada apologises for his country's treatment of the dead. (AFP) (Toronto Star) (Taiwan News)
• Southeast European Cooperation Process summit:
  • Slovenia is approved as a new member of the organization in the opening session of the summit. (People's Daily)
  • The 12 other European nations meeting at the summit issue a joint statement saying they "deplore the loss of life and injuries during the incident in international waters" during the Gaza flotilla raid and "call "an impartial, independent and internationally credible investigation on this matter". (Today's Zaman) (The Jerusalem Post) (Haaretz) (The Straits Times)
• General Stanley A. McChrystal magazine remarks controversy:
  • General Stanley A. McChrystal, America's top military commander in Afghanistan, submits his resignation after being summoned home by an "angry" Barack Obama due to his expression of critical opinions about senior American politicians and diplomats in a Rolling Stone magazine profile. Afghan President Hamid Karzai supports McChrystal, while the Taliban say the incident is "another sign of the start of the political defeat" for America's Afghan policies. (BBC) (Dawn) (Aljazeera) (The National)
  • Obama relieves McChrystal of command in Afghanistan, and names General Petraeus as his replacement. (The New York Times)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • The Association for Civil Rights writes to Israel's Attorney General after being alerted to the secrecy surrounding the jailing of a "Mister X" in a maximum security jail in Ayalon. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Dockworkers launch a week-long boycott of cargo to and from Israel at all Swedish ports - handling 95% of foreign trade - in protest at Israel's raid on the Gaza-bound international flotilla which led to nine people being killed. (Aljazeera) (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) (Ynetnews)
  • A lawyer for 33 Greek citizens on board during the Gaza flotilla raid announces legal action against several Israeli politicians, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and army leader Gabi Ashkenazi. (Haaretz)
  • King Abdullah II meets with Mahmoud Abbas to discuss Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. (Xinhua)
  • The United States Department of State expresses concern about an Israeli plan for the demolition of 22 Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem to make way for a tourist park. (BBC)
• Kenya permits prisoners to vote in a referendum on a new constitution in a landmark court ruling. (BBC) (Daily Nation) (KBC)
• Strikes in China which began on 21st of June have shut down Toyota and Honda plants there. "The BBC's China editor Shirong Chen says the government has tolerated strikes at foreign-owned plants, which are obliged to respect workers' rights, but maintains strict control at Chinese-owned factories for fear of widespread social unrest." (BBC)
• 27 people are questioned about a bomb attack which killed five people in Istanbul. (The Straits Times) (Reuters)
• 1 person is killed when a crane crashes at Chennai International Airport, Chennai, India. (India Times)
• The International Whaling Commission does not reach agreement on curbing whaling by Japan, Norway and Iceland in a meeting in Agadir, Morocco. (AP via San Jose Mercury News)
• The Palace of Monaco announces the engagement of Albert II, Prince of Monaco to South African native and Olympian swimmer Charlene Wittstock. (AP)
• BP chief executive Tony Hayward hands over responsibility for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to senior executive Bob Dudley "effective immediately". (AFP via the Sydney Morning Herald)
• 2 American service members die following bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan. (CBS)
• 2 Australians are injured after shooting each other in the buttocks and legs. (The Straits Times)
• A Toronto man is charged with possessing explosives alleged to be part of a plot to bomb the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit in Canada. (AFP via Google News)
• An earthquake occurs 56 kilometres north-northeast of Ottawa, registering a 5.0 on the Richter scale. Slight damage was reported near the epicenter, and the tremor was felt in Sudbury, Windsor, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Toronto, Milwaukee, Northern Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York State. (CBC) (Ottawa Sun) (Ottawa Citizen)
• Hours after the earthquake struck Central Canada, severe thunderstorms rolled through Central Ontario, Canada, which has spawned at least 2 tornadoes in cottage country, including one confirmed F-2 tornado touch down in Midland, Ontario, north of Toronto, The most significant damage was reported at Smith's Camp, a trailer park at the south end of the town, where several mobile homes were completely destroyed. (CTV)
• Golfer Graeme McDowell returns home to celebrations after becoming the first European to win the U.S. Open since 1970. (The Irish Times) (The Belfast Telegraph) (BBC)
• Isner–Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships becomes the longest match in Association of Tennis Professionals history, and is adjourned after 9 hours. (The Guardian)

• One person dies and another two are injured when a shell left over from the Vietnam War explodes in the central province of Quang Ngai. (Thanhnien News)
• The death toll in Brazilian storms rises to 46 in Brazil's Alagoas and Pernambuco states. (Xinhua)
• A parcel bomb delivered to the public order ministry in Athens, addressed to counter-terrorism minister Michalis Chrysohoidis, is opened by an aide, instantly killing him; Chrysohoidis is unhurt. Prime Minister George Papandreou labels it a terrorist attack. (BBC) (Aljazeera) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Guardian)
• Belgian authorities raid their country's Catholic Church HQ during an investigation into child sexual abuse as rumours circulate about a cover-up. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Aljazeera) (The New York Times) (RTÉ) (The Age)
• Rescue workers continue the search for hundreds of people who have disappeared during floods in Brazil. (Aljazeera)
• At least twelve people are killed, and 17 more people are injured, in a train accident in Castelldefels, near Barcelona. (El País) (BBC News)
• A Knesset parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe, led by Yohanan Plesner, seeks to block a key vote intent on establishing an international probe into the Gaza flotilla raid. (The Jerusalem Post)
• Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd steps down after his leadership is contested following considerable drops in popularity in polls in recent months. Julia Gillard becomes Australia's first female Prime Minister. (SMH)
• Several people are killed during suicide attacks and bombings across Iraq. (Aljazeera)
• Public sector workers strike in their millions across France. (The Age) (Aljazeera) (BBC) (The Independent) (RTÉ)
• President Hu Jintao of China arrives in Ottawa on a three-day state visit to Canada. The two countries sign a tourism agreement. (Global Times)
• Five American men are jailed for 10 years in Pakistan after being arrested in possession of maps of sensitive locations. The men deny they have links to militants and say they are charity workers. The verdict is announced inside a prison in the presence of American diplomats. (BBC) (Xinhua) (Aljazeera) (The Guardian)
• Organisers of a fresh aid flotilla to Gaza cancel the event due to what they describe as "Israeli threats", while the United States Department of State issues a statement calling aid flotillas to Gaza "irresponsible". (Haaretz) (Ynetnews)
• U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon states as "illegal and unhelpful" the plan to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem to make way for a tourist park. (BBC)
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East commissioner-general Filippo Grandi questions the fine print of Israel's promise to ease its blockade on Gaza, citing parts which are unclear and saying it is "urgent, because the conditions are very bad on the ground". (Daily Times)
• Hooded gunmen kill 4 commuters in Philippines. (CBS)
• Burundi's defence minister Germain Niyoyankana says he hopes opposition leader Agathon Rwasa has not gone into hiding as this is banned. Rwasa, an ex-rebel chief, signed a peace deal in 2009. A spokesman says he has only gone on holiday for 15 days. (BBC)
• During a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann calls on him to lift the Gaza Strip embargo. (Austrian Independent)
• Somaliland is set to go to the polls with its president facing a challenge to be reelected. (Aljazeera)
• Russia's natural gas export monopoly Gazprom announces that it will restart gas supply to Belarus in full following payment of the debt. (Reuters)
• Bridgeport, Connecticut in the United States is put under a state of emergency when hurricane-force winds from a strong storm went through, causing injuries and severe damage including the collapse of a multi-story building. (CNN)(CTPost)
• Sri Lanka announces that a United Nations panel investigating human rights abuses will not be allowed to enter the country. (BBC) (Times of India)
• China announces it has broken up what it describes as a terrorist ring in Xinjiang in the west of the country. (China Daily) (AP) (Al Jazeera)
• Slovakia defeat defending champion Italy by a 3-2 score; following France's elimination on Tuesday, this marks the first time in World Cup history that both previous finalists fail to progress beyond the first round of play. (BBC News)
• American John Isner defeats Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7), 6-7 (3), 70-68, in the longest match in tennis history, finally advancing from the first round of the 2010 Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles tournament. The match took over 11 hours, spanning three days. (ESPN)
• Writer Neil Gaiman wins the Cilip Carnegie Medal for The Graveyard Book. (BBC)
• Four specimens of Anogramma ascensionis, a plant native to Ascension Island and presumed extinct for 60 years, are discovered alive and well in Kew. (BBC)

• At least 24 people are killed and 50 people injured after an overcrowded bus crashes into a truck in the Patna district of Bihar state in India. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• 13 people have died of dengue fever in Honduras in 2010 as 10,200 others were hit by the disease, the Honduran Health Ministry said. (Xinhua)
• Millions of protesters take to the streets in Rome, Naples, Milan and other Italian cities to protest their government's austerity measures which cut funds and affects public sector salaries and to test Silvio Berlusconi. (Aljazeera)
• Christopher Coke:
  • Christopher Coke, sent to United States territory by Jamaica, pleads not guilty to United States charges of drug smuggling at a federal court in New York and, in his first public comments since August, says he took the decision to be extradited "in the best interest of my family, the community of western Kingston and in particular the people of Tivoli Gardens and above all Jamaica". (Aljazeera)
  • Evangelical preacher Merrick "Al" Miller is charged with "harbouring a fugitive" and "perverting the course of justice", though he says Coke was on the verge of turning himself into authorities. (Jamaica Gleaner)
• The Constitutional Court of Romania rules that government budget plans are "unconstitutional"; this decision cannot be appealed. Dozens of people trying to request an audience with President Traian Băsescu at his palace are beaten back by riot police. (France24) (BBC) (Deutsche Welle) (Reuters)
• Commemorations are held in South Korea to mark the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. (Yonhap) (BBC) (The Guardian)
• Rwandan journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage, acting editor of Umuvugizi, is shot dead by two men in front of his house in Kigali. Rugambage's death shocks journalists in the country; the paper's exiled chief editor says the government is responsible. (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Independent) (Reuters Africa)
• The Vatican expresses its "astonishment" and "indignation" at the "violation of the graves of the Cardinals Jozef-Ernest Van Roey and Leon-Joseph Suenens" by Belgian police making holes in the crypt at Mechelen Cathedral during a child sex abuse search. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit:
  • The fourth anniversary of the capture of Gilad Shalit, and held incommunicado by Hamas in Gaza, is marked in Israel, the United States and a number of European cities. (The Jerusalem Post) (VOA)
  • Human Rights Watch criticizes Hamas for human rights violations by prohibiting the captive Israeli soldier from having contact with his family and the Red Cross, characterizing this as torture. (AP) (The Jerusalem Post)
  • The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously calls for the release of Gilad Shalit on the anniversary of his capture. (JTA) (Ynet)
  • French President Nicolas Sarkozy sends a letter to Shalit's father saying ""no circumstances can justify" his continued captivity, while also saying that the Gaza blockade won't help free him. (The Jerusalem Post)
• Security forces in Yemen clash with suspected Al-Qaeda members in Aden during investigations into a bombing of a government compound last week. (Al Jazeera)
• Iris Robinson is interviewed in London as part of a police investigation. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph)
• In response to the mortars fired into Israel that hit a government building, Israeli warplanes bomb smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, with one person being wounded in an air attack in Rafah. (CNN) (AFP via Google) (Press TV)
• President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron meet and agree to work to renew ties stained by the refusal of both men to hand over men the other man wants. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Five people are killed and one is seriously wounded after an attack at a wedding party in Ghrab hamlet in Algeria's Tébessa Province. (Hindustan Times) (IOL) (Reuters Africa)
• Three Indonesian celebrities - pop star Nazril "Ariel" Irham, TV presenter Luna Maya and soapstar Cut Tari - are allegedly involved in a celebrity sex tape; Nazril "Ariel" Irham is charged, prompting anger and calls for punishment from some conservative groups in the country. (BBC)
• China jails Tibetan environmentalist Karma Samdrup on charges of stealing from tombs. (BBC) (Reuters Africa) (The Guardian)
• Statues of 4 Chinese leaders, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, are unveiled in Sichuan. (Global Times)
• A statue of Joseph Stalin is discreetly removed overnight from the central square of his hometown of Gori in Georgia. (Xinhua) (BBC) (The Guardian)
• The 36th G8 summit opens in Huntsville, Ontario and the 4th G20 summit is held in Toronto, Canada.
• British–Irish Council:
  • The British–Irish Council meets in Guernsey, with those attending including Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the Chief Ministers of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. (RTÉ) (BBC) (STV)
  • The politicians agree to continue to work together on marine renewable energy improvements. (BBC)
  • Edinburgh is agreed as the location of the group's new headquarters. (The Belfast Telegraph)
  • Chief Minister of Guernsey Lyndon Trott defends the cost of hosting this summit. (BBC)
• Germany's TanDEM-X satellite, whose aim it is to create the most precise 3D map of Earth's surface, obtains its first images. (BBC)

• Shreya Ghoshal was honored from the U.S. state of Ohio, wherein governor Ted Strickland declared June 26 as "Shreya Ghoshal Day". (IMDb News)
• Gunmen raided a jewelry shop Saturday morning in western Iraq, killing four people before fleeing with a large amount of gold in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. (Arab News)
• The Death toll in unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan rises to 275. (Central Asian News)
• 17 people are killed and 25 others injured when an overcrowded bus collided head-on with a speeding truck near Chenaki More, abount 30 km from Patna, India. (Thaindian)
• 2010 G-20 Toronto summit
  • The leaders of the world's twenty largest economies meet in Canada at the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit. (BBC)
  • Over one hundred people are arrested for planning to "commit mischief". (CBC)
  • Mostly peaceful protesters march through Toronto while a small amount of radicals smash shopfronts and burn police cars. (Reuters via ABC Australia)
  • President of China Hu Jintao accepts an invitation for a state visit from President of the United States Barack Obama. (BBC)
  • The G8 releases a statement agreeing that Israel's blockade on Gaza is "not sustainable and must be changed" and calling for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1860, which was approved by the United Nations Security Council in January 2009, to be implemented. (AFP) (Ynetnews) (Al Jazeera)
  • A Toronto veterinarian, who has no involvement in activism, alleges "overreach of police power" after being awoken at night by police in his bedroom at gunpoint; they did not produce a search warrant, questioned his wife and disturbed their baby son before dragging him downstairs in handcuffs onto his own front lawn. He was later released and filed a complaint. (CBC) (National Post)
  • France is announced as the host of the G8 in 2011. (Xinhua)
• President of Zambia Rupiah Banda says his country did not ask for health and road aid which has now been frozen by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the European Union before an upcoming election and says "We must not allow donors to feel they can interfere in the internal affairs of this country because it is a sovereign and independent state". (Reuters Africa)
• Voters in Somaliland take part in a presidential election. (Arab News) (AP) (The New York Times) (Al Jazeera)
• Israel allegedly confiscates seven oxygen machines en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza as they "came under the category of possible use for non-medical purposes". The Palestinian Ministry of Health asks for the Norwegian Development Agency that donated them to assist in calling for their return. (Haaretz)
• Israel's pledge to ease its blockade on Gaza has little effect on factories. (The Independent)
• Iranian lawmakers protesting at Israel's blockade of Gaza say they will travel to the area on an aid ship from Lebanon. (Reuters Africa)
• The Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone criticizes Belgian police participating in raids against child sex abuse. (BBC)
• Tens of thousands of people demonstrate in Taiwan against a trade agreement with China to be signed on Tuesday. (BBC) (Focus Taiwan News Channel) (Radio Television Hong Kong)
• Several thousand Egyptians, joined by opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, protest systematic use of torture by authorities in the largest demonstration yet resulting from the alleged fatal beating to death of Khaled Said by police. (Arab News)
• Two Palestinians are killed in an Israeli strike on two underground tunnels from the Gaza Strip to Israel. The IDF claims the attack was a response to Thursday's firing of a dozen mortar rounds towards Israel. (Arab News) (The Washington Post)
• Thousands of Iranians in Paris ask the UN to tighten its sanctions on Iran. (YnetNews) (Euronews)
• Four people are killed and five wounded in violence in Indian-administered Kashmir's Sopore area. (CNN)
• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva cancels his trip to Canada due to the widespread floods. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• The ruling Workers' Party of Korea in North Korea announces that it will convene a meeting in September to elect new leaders. (Arirang News) (Al Jazeera) (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Alleged Agrigento mafia boss Giuseppe Falsone is arrested in Marseille in the south of France after spending 10 years on the run. (BBC)
• Four American service personnel are killed in Afghanistan. (CNN)
• Former Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, who has a long history of heart problems, is hospitalized. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Fedor Emelianenko records only the second loss of his career as he is tapped out by Fabrício Werdum at the Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum mixed martial arts match in San Jose, California, US. (Sherdog)

• The first President of an independent Lithuania, Algirdas Brazauskas, dies in Vilnius. (Tehran Times)
• Guinea holds the first democratic election in the nation's history. (Aljazeera) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• A constitutional referendum in Kyrgyzstan is criticized for fears the country would destabilize. (Aljazeera) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• A road accident in Bolivia kills at least 25, injures 44, between Cochabama and Potosí. (China Daily)
• At least 11 people die while watching a 2010 FIFA World Cup match in Matam, Senegal. (BBC)
• Italy awaits the outcome of a trial which could imprison Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi's senior adviser, Marcello Dell'Utri, for 11 years. (The Independent)
• A coal mine explosion kills 5 in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (China Dialy)
• Two Canadian medics are killed in Afghanistan, 20 kilometres west of Kandahar City in Panjwaii District. (Vancouver Sun)
• Fighter jets pounded Taliban hideouts in the upper Orakzai Agency of Pakistan on Saturday, killing 14 Taliban, and injuring eight others. (Dialy Times PK)
• Six NATO-led service members are killed Saturday in bombing attacks in Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. (CNN)
• In the Netherlands a helicopter carrying 5 people crashes and 4 people are dead.French language article

• Captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit:
  • Hamas leader Khaled Mashal says Hamas plans to kidnap more IDF soldiers and increase the price for captive soldier Gilad Shalit if Israel does not meet its demands for a prisoner swap. (The Jerusalem Post) (Ha’aretz)
  • About 5,000 people attend a rally in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Motzkin in support of the captured soldier on the second day of cross-country march (Ynet)
• Five Muslim American students sentenced to serve 10 years in a Pakistani prison for conspiracy to commit attacks and raising funds for terrorism, appeal their conviction. (Reuters) (CNN) (Voice of America)
• The European Union and United States sign a five-year agreement on sharing financial data in anti-terrorist investigations for accounts suspected of being used for terrorist financing, after agreeing on limits to protect customer privacy. (NPR) (Star Tribune)
• Gulf of Mexico oil disaster:
  • Tropical Storm Alex is expected to become a hurricane, with heavy winds, rain and rough seas in the Gulf of Mexico, driving the oil deeper inland and bringing much of the cleanup to a standstill. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) (Statesman) (CBS) (Reuters)
  • The state of Louisiana reports 162 cases of oil-spill related illnesses to date, 128 of those among workers in the Gulf of Mexico, as concern over petroleum-related air pollution also grows. (Los Angeles Times) (CNN)
• Assassination of Rodolfo Torre Cantu:
  • Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a leading candidate in a Mexican, state election is assassinated near Ciudad Victoria. (Times Live South Africa) (CNN)
  • President of Mexico Felipe Calderón blames drug cartels for the assassination. (Aljazeera)
• Death of oldest, longest serving United States Senator, Robert Byrd:
  • Democratic Robert Byrd of West Virginia, President pro tempore of the United States Senate and the longest serving member its history, dies at age 92 in Washington, D.C. (CNN) (BBC News)
  • Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii succeeds Byrd as President Pro Tempore, making Inouye the highest ranking Asian American politician in American history. (Politico)
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad postpones nuclear talks so as to “punish the West” for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929 aimed at curbing the alleged development of Iranian nuclear weapons. (Aljazeera) (Voice of America) (AFP)
• World leaders at the G20 summit agree to cut their budget deficits in half by 2013, while US President Obama urges continued spending to support economic growth. (Voice of America) (The Washington Post) (Forbes)
• Toronto police arrest over 600 people outside the G20 summit, with police using rubber bullets and tear gas on protestors. (Democracy Now!)
• Rwandan authorities arrest two people in connection with the killing of a journalist critical of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and deny complicity in the murder. (AFP) (Sky News) (AP)
• Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse and other prominent Sri Lankans protest international calls and the appointment of a United Nations panel to investigate war crimes allegedly committed during the country's civil war with the Tamil Tiger separatists. (AFP) (Canadian Press) (Colombo Page)
• At least 100 people are feared trapped or buried in a landslide in Guizhou Province in south-west China following continued heavy rain. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
• Former Panamaian leader Manuel Noriega goes on trial in Paris. (Arab News) (Aljazeera) (The Guardian)
• Kyrgyzstan approves a new constitution with 90.6 percent of voters backing a constitution that would pave the way for a parliamentary election in October, following the violence of the recent uprising and riots. (The New York Times)
• Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's top diplomat on European affairs warns Turkey that it must demonstrate its commitment to NATO, Europe and the United States after its opposition to sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and rhetoric against Israel after the Gaza flotilla raid. (The Jerusalem Post)
• A presidential election takes place in Burundi with incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only candidate. A series of grenade attacks also take place. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian)
• A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is killed and two others are wounded by Israeli forces east of Gaza City while firing rockets into Israel (JTA) (Ynet) (AFP) (Press TV)
• Thousands of Sudanese Lou Nuer are forced from their homes in Upper Nile towards Jonglei, an area where food is short. (BBC)
• Singer Sergio "El Shaka" Vega is shot dead while on tour in Sinaloa, hours after denying his own murder. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (UPI)
• The military government in Fiji issues new media restrictions targeting foreign ownership of media organisations in the country. (Hindustan Times) (BBC) (The Australian)
• The Red Crescent delays an aid shipment bound for Gaza after being told that Egypt would prevent it from using the internationally neutral Suez Canal. (BBC)
• A group of armed men vandalises a United Nations summer camp in the Gaza Strip, in a second attack since May. Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemn the attack. (Aljazeera)
• Turkey closes its airspace to some Israeli military flights in apparent retaliation for Israeli raid on the Gaza-flotilla; civilian commercial flights are not affected. (The Jerusalem Post) (BBC) (Christian Science Monitor)
• Somali pirates hijack a Singaporean chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden, carrying a cargo of ethylene glycol. (Yahoo! News)
• A second statue of Joseph Stalin is removed by authorities in Georgia. (The Independent) (Straits Times)
• Britain's Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt incorrectly links hooliganism to the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, and is called "an absolute disgrace" by families of those who were killed. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Reuters)
• The United States Department of Justice announces that ten people have been arrested for allegedly spying for Russia. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (The Guardian) (USA Today)
  • The United States Department of Justice rounds up ten suspects alleged to have participated in the Illegals Program, a multi-year effort by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to infiltrate the U.S. (New York Times), (MSNBC)
• In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that Chicago's handgun ban is unconstitutional. (BBC News)
• America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) remains unaware of Australia's new prime minister. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Le Monde is sold to Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Pierre Bergé. (The Guardian) (BBC)
• One person is killed and eleven are injured in a derailment at Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic. České Noviny Idnes
• Turkish soldiers mistakenly kill two villagers in Hatay. (Hurriyet Daily)

Current events

• Aftermath of the Gaza flotilla clash
  • Turkey says it will return an ambassador to Israel if the Israeli government formally apologizes for the killing of nine Turkish citizens during the Gaza flotilla raid, compensates their families and when an independent commission is established into the matter. (The New York Times)
• Israel
  • Egyptian border guards fatally shoot an Eritrean woman in the stomach and leg as she tries to cross the border illegally into Israel. (BBC)
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman promises no Palestinian state before 2012 after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (Reuters)
  • United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, Richard A. Falk, issues a statement calling Israel's plan to demolish 20 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem illegal and states the forceful transfer of four Palestinians in another incident could be a "war crime". (Reuters) (The Vancouver Sun)
  • Lebanese authorities arrest a man accused of spying for Israel for more than 15 years. (BBC)
  • An international youth charity finds that children in the West Bank live in significantly worse conditions than children in Gaza. (Aljazeera)
• United States
  • The Supreme Court rules that Nigerian families can sue drug company Pfizer for using a deadly antibiotic on their children. (BBC)
  • General Stanley A. McChrystal, who led the United States in its war on Afghanistan until last week, announces his retirement. (CNN) (Aljazeera) (BBC)
  • One of the ten people arrested in the United States for involvement in an alleged Russian spy ring is said to have used a false Irish passport, the second time this has happened recently and following the expulsion of an Israeli Dublin embassy official in protest over a similar misuse. (The Irish Times) (The Guardian) (RTÉ)
  • King Abdullah and Barack Obama meet in the United States to discuss Palestine, U.S. objections to Iran's nuclear program and the U.S. war on Afghanistan. (Aljazeera) (Arab News) (Reuters)
• Africa
  • Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga undergoes brain surgery in Nairobi. (Reuters) (Daily Nation) (AllAfrica.com) (Times LIVE)
  • Rescuers in Ghana's Central Region end an operation to search for survivors from a gold mine collapse in which 70 people were thought to be dead. (My Joy Online) (BBC)
• China
  • China and Taiwan sign a trade deal in the southern mainland city of Chongqing. (AP via Google News) (Focus Taiwan News Channel)
  • China states it can have Tibet "forever" but indicates a heavy security presence will be necessary to maintain public control. (Reuters)
  • Google ends a redirect to its Hong Kong site in China and provides a new method of reaching unfiltered results after the Chinese government threatened to end its Internet Content Provider license. (BBC) (The New York Times) (AFP)
  • One body is recovered after 107 people were buried by a landslide triggered by flooding in the southwestern province of Guizhou. (Xinhua)
• A report by Human Rights Watch calls on Britain, France and Germany to stop using intelligence obtained through illegal torture in third-party countries, saying that it contradicts the European Union's anti-torture guidelines and is self-defeating in the "fight against terrorism". (Aljazeera)
• At least 26 policemen are killed in a Maoist attack in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
• At least 20 people are killed and more than 50 others are injured during a huge explosion in Hyderabad, Sindh. (The News International)
• Six people are killed in a train derailment in East Java, Indonesia. (Jakarta Globe) (CNN)
• The United Kingdom's Iraq Inquiry resumes after a break for the general election, with Douglas Brand as the first witness. (BBC)
• Thousands of workers take part in a 24 hour strike in Greece in protest against government austerity measures. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters Africa) (Xinhua)
• Sudan announces it will close its border with Libya due to the operations of Darfur rebels in the area. (BBC) (AfricaNews)
• Indonesian publisher and blogger, the "Prince of Jihad", is imprisoned for five years after being convicted of concealing information about suicide attacks on two hotels in Jakarta. (Aljazeera)
• Dr. Jayant Patel is convicted at the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia of three charges of manslaughter committed while working at the Bundaberg Base Hospital. (AAP via The Australian)

Science

• Australian Winter
  • Sydney experiences its coldest June day in 27 years. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Ballarat experiences its coldest day of the decade. (Ballarat Courier)
  • Melbourne experiences its coldest day in 2 years. (The Age) (Herald Sun)
• At least 21 people die and hundreds are evacuated after major floods in the northeast of Romania. (Yahoo News) (Hindustan Times) (Reuters)
• Hurricane Alex becomes the first hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season with warnings posted from Baffin Bay, Texas south to Mexico. (Canadian Press via Amherst Daily News)
• 21 suspected cases of swine flu A (H1N1), with one death, have been reported in Thanjavur in India. (EB) (The Times of India) (The Hindu)

Politics and elections

• Presidential transition of Noynoy Aquino:
  • Aquino names the incoming cabinet and becomes the Secretary of Interior and Local Government in acting capacity. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
  • Aquino names former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as head of a truth commission that will put "closure on so many issues". (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
• The entire Maldives cabinet resigns en masse. (Aljazeera)
• Same-sex marriage is legalized in Iceland making it the 9th country to do so

News

• United States
  • The United States government is sued by 10 plaintiffs, including an American citizen, challenging the country's no-fly list. (ABC News) (BBC) (The Wall Street Journal)
  • On the night streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, United States, five people are shot in two separate incidents. (ABC)
    • The Obama administration allows General Stanley A. McChrystal, until recently commander of the United States in its war in Afghanistan, to retire at a four star rank. Army rules state that he would have to serve for several more years to earn its additional retirement benefits, but the administration used its right to exempt him from these rules. (The New Zealand Herald) (Hindustan Times)
• Protests are held all across India and occupied Kashmir amid curfew restrictions for the past ten days. Ten adolescents are killed by the forces. (G.K) (Kashmir)
• Africa
  • The Democratic Republic of the Congo marks 50 years of independence with celebrations attended by Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, the Belgian king and other world leaders, days after the funeral of Floribert Chebeya. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Al Jazeera)
  • Guinea-Bissau's President Malam Bacai Sanhá takes a "sovereign decision" to inaugurate mutineering General Antonio Indjai as army chief, causing upset to the United States which decides not to support this. (news24.com) (BBC)
  • 11 Algerian paramilitary police are killed by militants in an ambush in the Sahara. (BBC)
• Iran:
  • A man claiming to be an Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, says he has escaped from United States agents whom he alleges were holding him illegally and calls for help from the Iranian government and human rights agencies. (France24) (BBC) (The Australian)
  • Iranian woman Sakineh Mohamamadi e Ashtiani is convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz. (The Jerusalem Post)
  • Iran sentences two officials to death and nine others to fines and floggings for the deaths in custody of three protesters during the 2009-2010 Iranian election protests. (AP) (BBC) (Tehran Times) (Ynetnews) (Voice of America)
  • Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for a boycott of Israeli goods or companies that do business with Israel, including a blacklist of international companies that are Jewish-owned or have branches in Israel; among the companies targeted are Nestlé, Coca Cola, Intel, and IBM. (Ynetnews) (Press TV) (JTA)
• A man whom the United States considers to be the 11th member of a Russian spy ring goes missing in Cyprus. (Aljazeera)
• South Korean actor (Winter Sonata) and singer Park Yong-ha's mother finds him hanging by an electrical cord at his home in Seoul. (BBC) (AsiaOne) (TODAYonline) (The Vancouver Sun)

Politics and Elections

• The Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Kumar Nepal, announces his resignation by a live television address. (BBC) (Aljazeera) (Kantipur) (Times of India)
• Burundi's opposition leader Agathon Rwasa goes into hiding after being threatened by the country's government. (Aljazeera)
• Finland becomes the first country in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right. (MSNBC)
• Sudan releases its opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi after a month and a half. (BBC)
• Inauguration of Noynoy Aquino:
  • Benigno Aquino III is sworn in as the 15th President of the Philippines and Jejomar Binay is sworn the 15th Vice President of the Philippines.(Philippine Daily Inquirer)
  • Outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will become the representative of the 2nd district of Pampanga. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
• Two people are killed overnight in Burundi and two others wounded in violence that follows a controversial presidential election in which incumbent Pierre Nkurunziza was the only candidate. (Daily Nation)
• Prime Minister Julia Gillard confirms she does not support the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia, (Ninemsn) and that she does not believe in God. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• At least 30 people are injured by police while protesting the arrest of opposition party leaders in Bangladesh. (Aljazeera)

Science

• A 6.2-magnitude earthquake occurs in southern Mexico near the city of Pinotepa Nacional, shaking buildings as far away as Mexico City but not causing serious damage or casualties. (National Post)
• An unfinished secret tomb is found in Egypt. (The Straits Times)
• The discovery of fossilized remains of Leviathan melvillei, an extinct species of physeteroid whale, is announced in Nature. (AP) (BBC)

• Ireland officially exits recession. (The Wall Street Journal) (RTÉ) (The Independent) (The Daily Telegraph) (BBC)
• Rescuers have recovered eight bodies from the ruins of a southwest China village, two days after a devastating rain-triggered landslide destroyed 37 houses and buried 99 villagers under mud. 91 residents of Dazhai Village, Guanling County, Guizhou Province, remained missing. (Xinhua)
• 13 people are killed during attacks in Iraq: 4 people die in the town of Beiji. (TRT)

• 8 militants are killed in fighting at eastern Afghanistan's Jalalabad Airport. (Belfast Telegraph) (The Globe and Mail) (Press Association) (BBC)
• Israeli police arrest Hamas MP Mohammed Abu Teir for breaking a law by staying within the borders of the state of Israel after being ordered to leave Jerusalem. (Aljazeera) (Press TV) (Reuters) (The Jerusalem Post)
• Several people are injured in an explosion in Grozny, Chechnya. (CBC) (Al Jazeera) (RIA Novosti)
• Tony Blair is to receive a prestigious medal and $100,000 from the United States, presented by Bill Clinton, for his "steadfast" efforts in "the resolution of conflicts rooted in religion around the world". (BBC) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (The Straits Times)
• Lord Jay, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, tells the Iraq Inquiry he felt "very uncomfortable" about Tony Blair declaring war on Iraq without another "necessary" United Nations resolution. (BBC)
• The Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting in The Hague, rules that model Naomi Campbell can be called to testify against former President of Liberia Charles Taylor in relation to her blood diamond. (BBC) (Sky News) (The Guardian)
• The Italian government appeals to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn a ban on classroom crucifixes. (BBC)

Sports

• Goodluck Jonathan suspends the Nigeria national football team from international competition for two years due to poor performances in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Reuters)
• Roger Federer is defeated by Tomáš Berdych of the Czech Republic at Wimbledon, so Federer will not contest the final for the first time since 2002, also his second Wimbledon loss during that time. (Daily Mail) (The Guardian) (BBC) (South Africa Post)