Portal:Current events/2010 June 21

June 21, 2010 (Monday)

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)^{[permanent dead link‍]} (News24.com)