Portal:Current events/2011 May 15

May 15, 2011 (2011-05-15) (Sunday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• 2011 Bahraini uprising:
  • Saudi armored vehicles roll into the city of Sitra as fresh video footage of atrocities committed by Saudi-backed Bahraini forces surface. (Press TV)
• 2011 Egyptian revolution:
  • Muslim mobs attack Christian protesters calling for the Egyptian government to take action to reduce religious tensions in Cairo; 65 people are injured. (AP via MSNBC) (BBC)
  • Suzanne Mubarak, wife of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, is expected to undergo open-heart surgery following a heart attack after being questioned in a corruption investigation. (CNN)
  • An explosion occurs near the tomb of a prominent Muslim Sheikh. (Reuters)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict:
  • A truck plows through traffic and pedestrians in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring 16 in what is believed to be a terrorist attack, as Palestinians mark Nakba Day.(The Jerusalem Post) (CNN) (Haaretz) (San Francisco Chronicle)
  • 10 people are reported shot dead around the Israel-Lebanon border (near Maroun al-Ras in Lebanon), as a crowd try to enter Israel through a border fence. Protesters also pelt Lebanese security forces and Israeli soldiers with stones. Over a hundred enter the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, with 4 shot dead, after Palestinians and Syrians crossed the de facto Israel-Syria border. Over 45 are injured in total.(Christian Science Monitor) (Voice of America) (The Jerusalem Post) (Nowlebanon) (Haaretz)
  • More than 1,000 Palestinians march on the Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel; at least 60 Palestinians are injured after troops open fire to stop them from crossing. (Bloomberg) (The Australian)
  • Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responds to the events of Nakba Day, saying that the protesters were denying Israel's right to exist, and that Israel is determined to defend its border against infiltration attempts from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. (The Jerusalem Post) (CNN)
  • Egyptian police fire teargas at protesters trying to storm the Israeli embassy. (Al Jazeera)
  • At least 15 people are reportedly killed in the Nakba demonstrations. (CBS News)
• 2011 Libyan civil war:
  • The United Nations envoy to Libya, Abdul Ilah Khatib, arrives in Tripoli to try to negotiate a cease-fire between Muammar Gaddafi's forces and rebel fighters.(CNN)
• 2011 Moroccan protests:
  • Police use truncheons to break up an opposition protest in the capital Rabat, injuring several people. (Reuters) (AFP via Google News)
• Syrian uprising:
  • Syrian forces shell villages near the Lebanese border, and heavy gunfire is heard in Talkalakh, with reports of 8 people having died, in the latest phase of a crackdown by Syrian forces on protesters demonstrating against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Lebanon tries to seal the border after hundreds flee from Syrian troops and a wounded Syrian woman dies of her injuries after entering Lebanon. (The Jerusalem Post) (CNN)
  • Women protesters are targeted as thousands of protesters take to the streets in cities across the country for a "Friday of Free Women" protest, in solidarity with those killed or imprisoned in the eight-week uprising. (The Australian)
• 2011 Yemeni protests:
  • Gunmen open fire on two soldiers in southern Yemen, killing one. (AP via Google News)
  • The opposition movement says a deal to end the crisis must not extend President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule. (Reuters)
• Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye says the government may fall amid ongoing protests, unless President Yoweri Museveni offers concessions. (Reuters)
• Tunisian security forces arrest two suspected members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb carrying bombs and explosives near the city of Ramada. (Reuters)
• 29 people are decapitated in a massacre in Caserio La Bomba, Petén, Guatemala, in an atrocity possibly linked to the Los Zetas Cartel. (NPR) (Radio-Canada)

Arts and culture

• Singer Bob Dylan denies censoring his shows while performing in China. (The Independent)

Business and economy

• Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex, rape and imprisonment charges:
  • New York City police question International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrested yesterday, over allegations that he sexually attacked a hotel maid near Times Square. Strauss-Kahn's schedule is threatened with interruption, with a meeting over the bailouts of Portugal and Greece with European Union finance ministers due in Brussels tomorrow. (BBC)
  • Police announce that Strauss-Kahn is expected to be formally arrested and charged. (Al Jazeera)
  • Strauss-Kahn is charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment. (Sky News)
  • The leadership of the IMF, and plans for banking bailouts of European countries, are thrown into disarray. (The Wall Street Journal)
  • Former United States Treasury official John Lipsky is named as the acting Managing Director. (New York Times)
• Sony starts restoring its PlayStation Network following the recent PlayStation Network outage on a country-by-country basis, with all services to be restored by the end of May. (Reuters via MSNBC) (The Australian)

Disasters

• Three de-miners are killed in an explosion during landmine detection and removal operations in Kampong Speu Province, western Cambodia. (Straits Times)
• Floods in North America:
  • The Morganza Spillway on the Mississippi River has been opened for the first time in 37 years, deliberately flooding 3,000 square miles of rural Louisiana to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. (WWL-TV)
  • Thousands of residents are ordered to evacuate their homes in Louisiana as the Mississippi River spillway opens (CNN)
  • Amidst ongoing floods, a controlled breach of the Assiniboine River is carried out southeast of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, releasing floodwaters over farmland to prevent increased flooding elsewhere. (CTV) (Canoe.ca)
  • Severe flooding has continued for weeks along the James River from Canada to South Dakota, as well as in Burlington, Vermont and North Platte, Nebraska. (National Weather Service)
• Six people are killed in an apartment fire in the city of Aurora in the US state of Illinois. (Breaking News)
• More than a thousand people are evacuated from the Canadian town of Slave Lake, Alberta, due to a wildfire. (CTV Edmonton)

International relations

• A United Nations report alleges that Iran and North Korea have been secretly exchanging ballistic missile technology. (Al-Masry Al-Youm)
• The New York Times reports that private military company Xe Services LLC (previously Blackwater Worldwide) is putting together an army of mercenaries in the United Arab Emirates. (The New York Times)
• Nabil el-Araby is elected as Secretary General of the Arab League, succeeding Amr Moussa, who will run as a candidate in the Egyptian presidential election in September. (Press TV)
• Fiji declares Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara a fugitive after he flees the country with the help of the Royal Tongan Navy. He had been charged a week earlier with mutiny and attempting to overthrow the Fijian government. (The New Zealand Herald)

Law and crime

• Northern Ireland Police have charged Marian Price with encouraging support for an illegal organisation following a recent dissident republican rally in Derry. Price, who is secretary of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, was jailed for her part in the bombing of the Old Bailey in the 1970s. (BBC)
• A man who plunged to his death from a seventh-floor balcony in Brisbane, Australia was participating in the internet craze of "planking", Australian police have said. (BBC)
• It is reported that Jennifer Mills-Westley, a British woman recently decapitated in a random attack in Tenerife, complained of harassment moments before being attacked in a supermarket. (BBC) (The Guardian) (CNN)
• US rapper M-Bone, of the hip hop group Cali Swag District, is killed in a drive-by shooting in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood. (Los Angeles Times)

Politics and elections

• The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly accuses President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being "under a spell", amid a deepening political crisis in the country. (The Telegraph)
• Haitian general election, 2010–2011:
  • Michel Martelly is sworn in as the democratically-elected President of Haiti. (CNN)
  • Jean-Max Bellerive resigns as the Prime Minister of Haiti, allowing Martelly to choose his own Prime Minister. (Miami Herald)
• In Switzerland, the people of Zurich vote to reject a ban on assisted suicide in the country, and also reject the restricting of assisted suicide to Zurich residents only. British pro-euthanasia group Dignity in Dying hails the result as a "brave decision". (BBC)
• Italy tests the popularity of its controversial prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is embroiled in several criminal trials and sex scandals; Berlusconi alleges the opposition does not "wash much". (BBC)
• British Prime Minister David Cameron confirms that his government will write into law the principles of the Military Covenant. (BBC)

Sport

• Sepahan FC wins the 2010-11 Iran Pro League, marking its third league victory and becoming the most successful team in Iranian football league history. (football3)
• Finland wins the 2011 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships, defeating Sweden 6-1 (0-0, 1-1, 5-0).
• Rangers F.C. win their 3rd consecutive Scottish Premier League title, beating 2nd-placed rivals Celtic by a single point.

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