Portal:Current events/2010 July 16

July 16, 2010 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Federal Defence Minister John Faulkner rules out withdrawing Australian troops from Afghanistan, alleging it would undo nine years of hard work. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Six people are killed and 15 others are wounded during a bomb at a weekly market selling second-hand cars in Khyber. (BBC) (News24.com)
South Africa warned Ugandan intelligence services last October that it might be attacked like it was on Sunday evening. (The Guardian)
The United States places U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on its "terror blacklist". (BBC) (Reuters)
July 2010 Zahedan bombings
- The death toll from the suicide bombings in Zahedan, Iran, rises to 27. (AP via Google News)
- The United Nations Security Council condemns the bombings in the "strongest terms". (Xinhua)

Arts, culture and entertainment

The Bangladeshi government outlaws the works of Abul Ala Maududi. (BBC)
Orlando Figes agrees to pay damages to Rachel Polonsky and Robert Service for fake book reviews he posted on Amazon.com. (The Guardian) (BBC)
President of Tajikistan Emomalii Rahmon's daughter Zarina Rahmonova presents the news on Channel One. (BBC)
Singer P!nk is hospitalised without serious injury after falling out of a harness and colliding with a barricade during a concert in Nuremberg. (BBC) (CBC News) (USA Today)

Business and economics

American company Goldman Sachs pays a record $550 million (US) fine to settle civil fraud charges. (Aljazeera)
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen pledges the majority of his estimated $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy after his death. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph)

Disasters

A hotel fire in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya kills at least 29 people and injures another 21. (Xinhua) (Aljazeera) (Arab News)

Law and crime

Rwandan police arrest a business partner of opposition politician Andre Kagwa Rwisereka in connection with his recent murder. (BBC)
An American judge sentences a former State Department worker to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and his wife to 6¾ years for spying for Cuba for three decades. (BBC) (Reuters) (Houston Chronicle) (Sky News)
Philip Alston expresses concern at the rise in murders in Ecuador and the declining number of murderers being caught. (BBC)
Three Chechens are charged by France in connection with a conspiracy to attack Russia; another man is released. (BBC)
Maria Jepsen, the world's first female Lutheran bishop, resigns due to her handling of an alleged case of sexual abuse. She is the third German bishop to resign in recent months. (BBC)
800 gambling dens are raided in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and China, (including Hong Kong and Macau) and 5,000 people arrested for illegal betting on the 2010 FIFA World Cup. (Aljazeera) (BBC News)

Politics

The United Kingdom and United States decide last year's release from a Scottish prison of Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was "a mistake". (Aljazeera) (BBC)
Pakistan's foreign minister criticises the behaviour of the Indian foreign minister during their first talks in two years. (BBC)
Ousmane Conté, the eldest son of Guinea's dead leader Lansana Conté, is released from prison after 16 months. (BBC) (News24.com)
Human Rights Watch expresses its dissatisfaction with President of Syria Bashar al-Assad's human rights record on the tenth anniversary of his rise to the top, calling it "a wasted decade". (Aljazeera)

Science and weather

Photos taken on Mount Everest from the same spot where similar pictures were taken by George Mallory in 1921 reveal what is described as an "alarming" loss of ice. (BBC)
President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez announces the exhumation of 19th-century revolutionary Simón Bolívar to investigate suspected foul play in Bolívar's death. (AP)

Sport

Police in Nigeria seize the passports of four top football officials who were sacked after the national football team's poor performance at the 2010 FIFA World Cup leads to fraud allegations. (BBC News)
Pakistan's cricket captain, Shahid Afridi, quits in controversy after losing his team's first Test to Australia. (The Guardian)