Portal:Current events/2011 May 20

May 20, 2011 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

2011 Syrian protests:
- Syrian security forces fire into crowds of demonstrators, as thousands protest across the country after Friday prayers. (euronews) (The Australian)
- At least 30 people are killed in the protests, according to human rights activists. (AFP via Canada.com), (New York Times), (Voice of America)
- Human Rights Watch calls on the Lebanese government to grant asylum to people fleeing from Syria. (Al-Jazeera)
2011 Libyan civil war:
- The family of Anton Hammerl, a South African journalist missing in Libya since 5 April 2011, claim that he was shot by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. (IOL News)
- The Government of France claims that four French nationals held in Libya since May 11 will be released. (Al Jazeera)
At least one person is killed and ten people injured following an explosion in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, with a United States consular convoy targeted by the Pakistani Taliban. (Dawn), (Pakistan Tribune), (BBC), (Reuters via Alert Net)

Arts and culture

Claude Choules, the last person alive to have fought in World War I, is buried in the West Australian port of Fremantle, having died aged 110 on 5 May. (Melbourne Age)
The New York City Opera announces plans to leave the Lincoln Center. (New York Times)

Business and economy

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announces its financial results, with a 1 trillion Japanese yen loss predicted due to the Fukushima I nuclear accidents and the resignation of Masataka Shimizu as president of the utility following Japan's highest-ever annual loss. (Reuters), (AP via Yahoo News)
The International Monetary Fund approves a 26 billion euro loan to Portugal as part of a joint bailout package with the European Union to try to resolve the European sovereign debt crisis. (Bloomberg), (AFP via Google News)
The TMX Group, parent corporation of the Toronto Stock Exchange, rejects an acquisition offer from a consortium of Canadian banks, opening the way to an expected deal with the London Stock Exchange. (Reuters)

Disasters

More than 850 people are injured after a train collision in Soweto, South Africa. (RTE)
A mini-tornado hits the suburb of Canning Vale in Perth, Western Australia. (WA Today)
A disaster alert is issued for Fiji, after giant waves triggered by a deep pressure system in the Southern Ocean hit the Coral Coast. (New Zealand Stuff), (Radio Australia)
Travel on the Mississippi River is closed for five miles near the US city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana due to flooding. (Associated Press)

International relations

Georgia becomes the first country to recognize the 19th-century Russian military campaign against the Circassians in the northwest Caucasus as a "genocide". (Civil Georgia), (Reuters)
Japan agrees to join an international child custody agreement under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. (Kyodo)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly visits China, the third such visit in a year. (Yonhap) (CNN) (Al Jazeera)
President Barack Obama meets with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, during which Netanyahu emphasizes that Israel would not make a full withdraw to the pre-1967 borders as Obama requested yesterday, because these borders are "not defensible".(ABC News), (CNN)

Law and crime

Military prosecutors in Taiwan indict a senior general on charges of spying for China. (BBC) (Radio Television Hong Kong)
Former United Kingdom Labour Party MP Elliot Morley is jailed for 16 months for dishonestly claiming more than £30,000 in parliamentary expenses. (BBC)
A report by senior judges in England and Wales has concluded that the media should have the chance to contest applications for injunctions and "superinjunctions" before they are granted, and that these should only be issued in exceptional circumstances. (BBC)
A footballer who took out a superinjunction to stop the publication of details of an extra-marital affair, obtains a disclosure order against Twitter to learn the identities of people who have published confidential information on the website. (BBC)
A parole decision on the former Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, is delayed because of the prospect that he could face federal government corruption charges. (ClickonDetroit)
Two prisoners are injured in a riot at California State Prison, Sacramento. (Sacramento Bee)
Former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is released from Rikers Island to electronically-monitored house arrest in the US state of New York, having been held on rape charges. (NBC New York), (Reuters via ABC News)

Politics

The 2011 Spanish protests continue in the Puerta del Sol in central Madrid, despite a ruling by Spain's electoral board that it should end by the weekend. (BBC)
Tens of thousands of people protest in Santiago, Chile about plans to build two dams on wild rivers in southern Patagonia with an minority of people turning violent. (AP via MSNBC)

Science

The Government of the People's Republic of China acknowledges that there are "urgent problems" associated with the country's Three Gorges Dam project, as it is linked to soil erosion, earthquakes, drought and social upheaval. (The Guardian)

Sport