June 18, 2010
(Friday)
- A young man slashed 12 passers-by with a knife on the street in the township of Jinli in Zhaoqing City Guangdong Province on Wednesday, leaving one dead. (Global Times)
- Hope for the dozens of Colombian coal miners trapped underground yesterday begins to fade. At least 50 miners are estimated to still be trapped 2 kilometers underground, all of whom are thought to be dead. Rescue workers have so far recovered 18 bodies, and have advanced 700 meters underground. (BBC) (The Washington Post)
- Interim Kyrgyzstan leader Roza Otunbayeva visits Osh and says the death toll from her country's worst ethnic clashes in two decades could be 2,000. (Aljazeera)
- Indian Muslim television preacher Zakir Naik is banned from entry into the United Kingdom for what is described as "unacceptable behaviour". He was due to lecture in Sheffield and London. (BBC) (The Hindu) (The Times of India) (Reuters)
- American Envoy to the Middle East and former Senator George J. Mitchell arrives in Ramallah and holds an immediate meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Xinhua) (Aljazeera) (balita.ph)
- International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn meets with Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Madrid. (Aljazeera)
- President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa responds in a speech at a commemorative military pageant to critics of the army who say human rights abuses were committed against civilians during the 2009 defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels. (BBC)
- Two former military chiefs in The Gambia are charged over an alleged plot to remove President Yahya Jammeh from office in 2006; critics say the government is manipulating coup allegations for its own gain. (BBC)
- The Polish presidential election is being held earlier, following the death of Polish President Lech Kaczyński in a plane crash on 10 April 2010 near Smolensk. The two front-runners are Bronisław Komorowski from the ruling center-right Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) party and Jarosław Kaczyński from the right-wing Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) party. (Warsawvoice.pl)
- Indian government ministers meet for the first time as they re-examine the 1984 Bhopal disaster. (BBC)
- A landslide triggered by torrential rain kills 8 people in Indonesia's eastern province of Maluku; bodies are found in Batugantung Dalam. (TIME)
- 8 people are killed and 8 others wounded in two attacks in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad. (People Daily) (nation.com.pk)
- 1998 Nobel Laureate José Saramago from Portugal dies at the age of 87. (The Guardian) (BBC News) (Deutsche Welle) (CNN)
- The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) starts designing a newer and a more powerful nuclear research reactor than the current Tehran reactor, according to AEOI director Ali Akbar Salehi. (Tehran Times)
- The United States welcomes alleged genocide denial lawyer Peter Erlinder's release on health grounds by Rwanda. (BBC News)
- Two people die during a series of tornadoes in Wadena and Otter Tail County, Minnesota, United States. (The New Zealand Herald)[permanent dead link] (ABC) (Serbia News Channel)
- FIFA receives a complaint about its security after a football fan breaks into the dressing room of the England national football team during a 2010 FIFA World Cup game in which the team were booed in South Africa. (BBC News)
- John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to "A Day in the Life" sell for $1.2 million at Sotheby's. (BBC News)
- 20 boys die after botched circumcisions in South Africa over the past 12 days, nine of the deaths occurring within the last 24 hours. (BBC News)