Portal:Current events/2010 June 22

June 22, 2010 (Tuesday)

At least 60 people are killed and hundreds disappear after a derailed train plunges into a ravine in the Republic of the Congo. The accident happened after the train left the coastal town of Pointe-Noire on the Chemin de Fer Congo Ocean (CFCO) line to the capital Brazzaville. (TVNZ) (DNA) (Dawn) (Sky News)
The death toll from floods and mudslides reaches at least 31 people in Alagoas and Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil. (CBS)
Red Sea oil spill disaster:
- Environmentalists said that an oil spill near Hurghada Egypt in the Red Sea is continuing even after the government said it had been contained, leaving turtles and sea birds covered in oil. (The Associated Press)
The death toll from unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan riots reaches 251. (itar-tass)
War crimes charges are formally requested against 12 Belgian government officials and military officers in connection with the assassination of Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, as historians agree on a high-level Belgian conspiracy, with Western-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko succeeding Lumumba until he was overthrown in 1997. (AP) (AFP) (Reuters) (Taiwan News)
The United States investigates itself to see if it is accidentally financing the Taliban in Afghanistan with $4 million per week in U.S. taxpayers' money. (Aljazeera) (BBC) (CNN)
Israel asks the United Nations to suspend attempts to organise an international inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid, with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak saying "some organisation, probably backed by a terror organisation, (is) once again trying to send a vessel into Gaza." (BBC)
General Stanley A. McChrystal, the top United States commander in Afghanistan, apologises for an article in Rolling Stone magazine in which he criticised senior members of the Obama administration. McChrystal is later summoned to Washington, D.C. for talks with Obama. (The Los Angeles Times) (BBC)
Christopher Coke walks into a police station on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica and is detained, following search efforts which killed more than 70 people last month. The United States accuses him of being the Shower Posse leader, which it alleges operates an international drugs and guns network. (BBC)
An expert panel is appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate whether war crimes were committed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. (Reuters) (CNN) (BBC)
During a two-day visit to Ghana, President of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos visits Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra among other engagements. (Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) (Angola Press)
Five people are killed and 12 injured in a bus bomb in Istanbul, Turkey. Kurdish rebels later claim responsibility for the attack. (Anatolia News Agency) (Reuters) (Xinhua)
Two rival Nigerian lawmakers in the National Assembly are injured, with one sustaining a broken arm. (BBC)
The American Samoa Constitutional Convention, the first to be held since 1986, opens in Pago Pago. (Radio New Zealand International)
United States federal judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman issues a preliminary injunction blocking a six month moratorium on deep water offshore drilling. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
In the United Kingdom, Chancellor George Osborne presents the coalition government's emergency budget statement to the House of Commons. (BBC)
Nikki Haley wins the Republican Party primary to be the Republican candidate in the South Carolina gubernatorial election in the United States. (Washington Post)
One person is killed and 10 injured after a former worker at a Mazda factory in Japan drives his car at colleagues. (Kyodo) (BBC) (AFP)