Portal:Current events/2007 July 21
July 21, 2007 (Saturday)
- Alan Webb breaks the 25-year-old American Record in the mile run with a 3:46.91. (USA Track and Field(Flo)
- A radar failure disrupts international air travel to Brazil causing disruption to thousands of travellers. (CBS)
- Italian police arrest three Moroccans and accuse them of running a small "terror school" in a small mosque near Perugia. (CNN)
- In the UK, the Royal Air Force has one of its busiest weekends in peacetime rescuing hundreds of people from flooding after days of heavy rain lead to widespread flooding. (Observer)
- The death toll of recent floods in China rises to 40. (Reuters)
- NASA mission scientists raise concerns that ongoing prolonged Martian dust storms could disable the Mars Exploration Rovers. (AP via the Washington Post)
- Iraq War:
- United States forces attack an insurgent position in Hussainiya, a Shiite suburb north of Baghdad, inflicting casualties. (New York Times)
- US and Iraqi troops raid a Sunni mosque and detain 18 suspected militants. (AFP via Pakistan Daily Times)
- The United Nations suspends a Moroccan peacekeeping contingent in the Côte d'Ivoire following allegations of widespread sexual abuse. (Reuters via CNN)
- Somali pirates demand US$1.5 million in ransom for the release of a Danish freighter and its crew. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
- Pratibha Patil wins the 13th presidential election in India to become the first female President of India. (Washington Post)
- The Taliban threatens to kill 18 South Koreans taken hostage in Afghanistan, prompting the government in Seoul to confirm an earlier plan to withdraw its troops from the country by the end of the year. Separately, the Taliban claims that it has executed two German hostages. (AP via Fox News) (Reuters) (Reuters) However, the Afghan government disputes the claim, stating that one died of a heart attack and the other is still alive. (CNN)
- Two Rwandan men wanted for their role in the 1994 genocide are arrested in France. (BBC)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final volume of the Harry Potter series, is released worldwide. (Reuters via Malaysia Star) (China Daily) (New Delhi Television Limited) It is announced later that more than 11 million copies were sold during the first 24 hours. (Reuters)
- Press censorship: A Spanish judge orders the confiscation of an edition of the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves for its depiction of the heir apparent Crown Prince Felipe and his wife in a cartoon. (Guardian) (Times Online)