Portal:Current events/2010 May 7

May 7, 2010 (Friday)

United Kingdom general election, 2010:
- Caroline Lucas becomes the first ever Green Party MP, having won the Brighton Pavilion constituency with a majority of 1,252. (BBC)
- Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg describes the election as a "disappointing night" for his party, in his speech at the count for his Sheffield Hallam constituency.
- Two former Labour Home Secretaries, Charles Clarke (2004–2006) and Jacqui Smith (2007–2009, first woman in the post), lose their seats. (BBC) (BBC)
- Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Northern Ireland First Minister, loses the seat he has held for 31 years in Belfast East to Naomi Long of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. (BBC) (The Irish Times) (RTÉ)
- Gloria De Piero, the former GMTV newsreader, wins the Ashfield constituency for the Labour party with a majority of just 192. (BBC)
4 policemen are killed and another seriously injured when militants open fire in Pakistan's Mansehra district of North-West Frontier Province. (PTI)
Dubai police name five new suspects in connection with the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January, involving passports from Australia, Britain and France. An Israeli citizen, Zev Barkan, wanted by New Zealand since 2004 for passport fraud, may have used a New Zealand passport. (Al Jazeera) (The Guardian) (Xinhua)
Dozens of people are reported dead or disappeared after a boat carrying 125 people capsizes in a river in Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Al Jazeera) (TVNZ) (AP)
Thousands rally in Kathmandu and other cities against the six-day shut down of public transport, businesses and schools across Nepal by millions of the country's poor. (Al Jazeera) (The Hindu) (The New York Times)
The death toll from Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in South Africa has risen to 17. (Xinhua)
An appeals court in Lithuania overturns a ruling which had earlier, due to fears over homophobic violence, prevented the country's first gay pride parade going ahead in Vilnius tomorrow. (BBC)
Lobbying for the role of Nigeria's new vice-president begins after Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration and Umaru Yar'Adua's death. (BBC)
5 insurgents and 2 soldiers die in a gunbattle between Islamic rebels and Indian security forces in Kashmir. (Arab News)
2 die and 2 are wounded in an attack on an aid vehicle near the village of Dembia in the Central African Republic. (IOL)
2 Egyptian peacekeepers are killed and 3 are injured by gunmen near Edd al-Fursan, South Darfur. (BBC) (IOL)^{[permanent dead link‍]} (The Warpington Post) (UN)
Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Issa Hayatou asks his executive committee to lift sanctions imposed on the Togo national football team following an attack on their team bus ahead of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola. (BBC)
A faction of the National League for Democracy in Burma forms its own political party to compete in elections, one day after the party disbanded. (Arab News)
The head of Sierra Leone's Anti-Corruption Commission, Abdul Tejan-Cole, resigns. (BBC)
Flights take to the skies again in Ireland following recent Icelandic volcanic disruption. (Al Jazeera) (RTÉ)
The Supreme Court of the Philippines rejects several petitions calling for a presidential election to be postponed and asking for manual counting of votes to be maintained. (Arab News)
Starlin Castro makes his MLB-debut, hitting a home run in his first career at-bat, and later adding a three-run triple to set the MLB record for RBI's in an MLB Debut.