Portal:Current events/2007 April 18

April 18, 2007 (Wednesday)

Colombia's Nevado del Huila volcano erupts, provoking avalanches and floods that sweep away houses and bridges, which , in turn, prompt hundreds to evacuate. (The Hindu)
After the acquisition of Algoma Steel, India's Essar Group plans to buy U.S.-based Minnesota Steel for US$ 1.66 billion. (Reuters) (Bloomberg)
A diplomat claims that an International Atomic Energy Agency document claims that Iran has assembled some 1,300 centrifuges at a key underground nuclear plant in Natanz and has started to feed them with the uranium gas necessary for enriching uranium. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
The Supreme Court of the United States rules 5-4 in favor of upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart. (CNN)
Virginia Tech massacre:
- Virginia Tech police respond to what turned out to be an unfounded threat near Norris Hall, where 31 people died Monday in the United States's deadliest ever shooting spree. (CNN)
- Authorities announce that Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman who killed more than 30 people on Monday at Virginia Tech, has sent a package that contained disturbing images and video to NBC during the two-hour period between the shootings at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory and the shootings at Norris Hall. The new evidence is sent to the FBI for more analysis. (CNN)
- Liviu Librescu, the Jewish Romanian engineering professor who was shot five times while holding off the gunman at his classroom entrance so his students could escape, is posthumously awarded the Star of Romania by the Romanian government. (Romanian press release)
Iraqi insurgency:
- At least 198 people are confirmed dead after a series of bombings in Baghdad. (The Times) (BBC)
- United States Army soldiers raid buildings in a rural area northeast of Falluja, killing four suspected terrorists and capturing another 30. (CNN)
At least 16 secondary school students die in Egypt's Al Jizah governorate as the truck they were traveling to school on collides with another vehicle. (Reuters via CNN)
Three workers at a publishing house in Turkey that prints Bibles are murdered in ongoing sectarian violence. (BBC) (Reuters)
Australia and the United States agree to exchange hundreds of asylum seekers kept in offshore detention camps in Nauru and Guantanamo Bay. (AP via IHT)
Iccho Itoh, Mayor of Nagasaki, Japan, dies after being shot in a suspected gangland killing on Tuesday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounces the murder as unforgivable. (Reuters) (BBC)
The People's Republic of China begins a new service of high-speed trains capable of reaching speeds of 200km/h (124 mph). (BBC)
Thirty-two steel workers are killed and two more injured in China after a ladle full of liquid steel failed, engulfing an adjacent room full of workers. (News.com.au)
UEFA chooses Poland and Ukraine as joint hosts for the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship. (BBC)