Portal:Current events/2006 October 21
October 21, 2006 (Saturday)
- President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda meets rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army for the first time in an attempt to revive the Juba talks. (BBC)
- Dariga Nazarbayeva, daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, says it is time for Kazakhstan to "stop behaving like an obedient colony that bows to a foreign gentleman," referring to Lakshmi Mittal of Arcelor Mittal, "whose name appears on the Forbes magazine list." (RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty)
- An earthquake of magnitude 5.2 hits the central Philippines. The quake struck at 10:30 p.m. with its epicenter some 35 kilometers south of Boac, Marinduque. The temblor was felt at intensity 4 in the capital Manila. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
- Tropical Storm Paul forms off Mexico's west coast and forecasters predict it could strengthen into a hurricane and reach land within days. The storm is over the Pacific Ocean about 315 miles (500 km) south of Cabo Corrientes on the Jalisco coast. (AP via ABC Chicago)
- Iraqi insurgency:
- President of the United States George W. Bush confers with his top Iraq commanders. The meeting is met with a surge in sectarian violence. (Bloomberg)
- Mortar fire on a crowded outdoor market in Mahmoudiyah south of Baghdad kills at least 18 people and injures dozens, police say. (Boston Herald)
- Three U.S. Marines are killed in combat in Anbar province, making October the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq in 2006. (Boston Herald)
- Senior U.S. Department of State diplomat Alberto Fernandez says on Al-Jazeera that the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation. (AP via Southern Illinoisan)
- Fighting has broken out between Somalian troops and a local militia in alliance with the country's new Islamic movement. (Reuters)