Portal:Current events/September 2010

• The People's Liberation Army Navy commences artillery exercises in the Yellow Sea in response to those being conducted by South Korea and the United States against North Korea. (BBC)
• At least 30 people are killed and 250 injured in three suicide bombing attacks on Shia procession in Lahore, Pakistan. (BBC) (Arab News) (DAWN) (The Guardian) (The Times of India) (Xinhua)
• At least 6 people die as Mozambique police fire rubber bullets as a protest in Maputo over rising food prices turns into a riot. (RFI) (BBC) (Reuters Africa) (Aljazeera)
• A border clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan occurs, leaving several soldiers dead and both sides blaming the other for the violence. (BBC) (Aysor)
• 2 Israelis are wounded in a shooting near Kochav HaShachar in the West Bank. (Haaretz) (Aljazeera)
• The Palestinian Authority arrests 250 members of Hamas following the shooting of four Israeli settlers at Beit Hagai. (Los Angeles Times)

• Actor Michael Douglas speaks for the first time in public of his recent disgnosis with throat cancer during an interview on American television. (BBC) (The Guardian)
• Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is rehospitalised in the United States after becoming unconscious. (BBC)
• Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's autobiography A Journey goes on sale in the United Kingdom and becomes a bestseller. (The Guardian)
• United States rapper T.I. and his wife singer Tameka Cottle are arrested on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles for illegal drug possession. (CNN)
• Archaeologists discover 200 year old bottles of beer in a shipwreck south of the autonomous Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea believed to be the world's oldest. (CNN)

• Apple Inc. launches Ping. (BBC)
• A trade agreement between Australia and the European Union comes into effect stopping Australian wine being marketed using terms such as champagne and port. (ABC Online) (BBC) (People's Daily)
• The U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, upheld an injunction issued by a federal district court in Indiana in 2009, enjoining Teva Pharmaceuticals from the marketing of its drug for the treatment of osteoporosis. The district court found, and the appellate court agrees, that Teva's drug is in violation of a valid patent held by Eli Lilly and Company. (Fierce Pharma)

• 57,000 people are made homeless by heavy floods near Aweil, Northern Bahr el Ghazal in southern Sudan. (BBC)
• 2010 Pakistan floods:
  • The World Bank pledges to loan an additional $100 million to Pakistan. (Hindustan Times) (Reuters)
  • Flood taxes are imposed in principle. (People's Daily)
  • UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg visits a relief camp in Sukkur to witness the devastation caused by the ongoing floods. (BBC) (The Times of India) (PA via The Independent) (Sky News)
• 2010 Copiapó mining accident:
  • The 33 miners involved in the 2010 Copiapó mining accident in Chile receive their first hot meal in 26 days: it consists of meatballs, chicken and rice through a tube. (BBC)
  • As the isolation of the miners is similar to a space mission, NASA sends a team of doctors, who recommend the miners abstain from cigarettes and alcohol while trapped. (The Daily Telegraph) (Reuters)
• The U.S. state of North Carolina orders the evacuation of Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke Island ahead of Hurricane Earl. [http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0901/Hurricane-Earl-path-evacuation-of-Ocracoke-Island-watch-in-Virginia

• 10 civilians are killed and 2 others are wounded after being struck by NATO during an election campaign in Rostaq, Afghanistan. Originally, a spokesman had said a "precision air strike" had hit a militant vehicle. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Palestinians stone an Israeli car travelling through the West Bank resulting in a 12-year-old being injured. (YNet News)
• The Mexican Army claims to have killed 25 drug cartel gunmen in a clash in Tamaulipas state near the United States border. (BBC)

• Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations Hussain Haroon calls for an inquiry after allegations emerge of Pakistani floodwaters being diverted into vulnerable villages in a bid to preserve crops. (BBC)
• 2010 Pacific typhoon season
  • Severe Tropical Storm Lionrock lands in China's Fujian province with warnings of strong winds and torrential rains. (Straits Times)
  • Typhoon Kompasu (Glenda) hits South Korea resulting in three deaths and leading to cancellation of flights and school classes. (Straits Times) (AP via Sign On San Diego)
• Hurricane Earl
  • A tropical storm warning is issued for the coast of Long Island in New York as Hurricane Earl approaches the east coast of the United States. (AP via Washington Post) (Reuters)
  • A state of emergency is declared in the states of North Carolina and Virginia. (Bloomberg)
• An oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in April, killing no people. (AP)

• Lebanon requests an Interpol arrest warrant for Ghassan al-Jidd, a former General in the Lebanese Army who allegedly spied for the Mossad. (Jerusalem Post)

• At least 17 migrants are kidnapped by suspected human traffickers in Tijuana, Baja California, in northwestern Mexico. (Al Jazeera) (RFI)
• Price riots continue in Mozambique, leaving a further four people dead. (AP) (Reuters Africa)
• Police in Brazil arrest almost the entire council in the city of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, on suspicion of fraud and corruption, leaving the city without a government. (BBC) (Latin American Herald Tribune)
• Figures show that at least 2,000 British police officers had 3 or more complaints made against them in 2009-10. (BBC)

• Independent Member of the Australian House of Representatives Andrew Wilkie announces that he will support the Gillard Labor Government on supply and confidence. (SBS)
• BP warns the United States Congress that it might not be able to pay compensation for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill if it is barred from getting new offshore drilling permits. (New York Times)
• Sebastian Vlădescu is replaced as Romanian Minister of Finance by Gheorghe Ialomitianu as part of a Cabinet reshuffle. (AFP via Google News)

• Pakistani cricket team in England in 2010
  • Pakistan's high commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan says 3 of his country's cricketers connected to allegations of betting corruption by the News of the World tabloid could have been set up. (BBC Sport) (Sky News)
  • The International Cricket Council charges Pakistan captain Salman Butt and fast bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif with corruption offences and provisionally suspends them from international cricket pending hearings. (AFP via ABC Online)

• Rebels in Darfur say armed men have attacked villages in the region leaving dozens dead in the last two days. (IOL) (AFP)
• A suicide bomber injures at least 25 Tajikistan police officers with several missing following an attack on a regional headquarters at Khujand. (AFP) (RIA Novosti)
• A Taliban bomb attack on a Shiite solidarity rally with the Palestinian people kills at least 53 people in Quetta, Pakistan. (MSNBC) (Reuters via Yahoo! Canada) (Xinhua) (The Times of India)

• Unemployment in the United States rises to 9.6% for August. (Market Watch)

• UPS Airlines Flight 6 crashes in Dubai near the International Airport killing both crew members. (Emirates 24/7) (Gulf News) (BBC), (Al Jazeera)
• Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra, Indonesia, erupts again. (AP via MSNBC) (Bernama)
• States in the New England region of the United States prepare for a possible impact from Hurricane Earl which has weakened to a tropical storm. (The Boston Globe), (AP via Yahoo! News)
• Forest fires flare up in the southern Russian regions of Volgograd and Saratov, killing two people and burning down 500 buildings. (AFP via The Courier Mail) (The Moscow News) (BBC)
• Landslides in the village of Wama near Baoshan in China kill at least 12 people with 36 missing. (Sky News Australia)
• A magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurs near Christchurch, New Zealand, causing widespread damage and power cuts but no deaths. (The New Zealand Herald) (Herald Sun)

• South Africa criticises a life sentence passed against former Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana, as it would "not help" the country's political situation. (BBC) (Business Day) (AllAfrica.com)
• Japan approves additional sanctions against Iran due to concerns over Iran's nuclear program. (AP via ABC News America)
• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization calls a special meeting for 24 September to discuss rising food prices. (BBC)

• Miami International Airport in the US state of Florida is evacuated after a suspicious package is found. A passenger is taken into custody. (CNN) (CNN)
• The President of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III, takes responsibility for the handling of the Manila hostage crisis in August. (Hindustan Times)
• Seven defendants are found guilty of abusing children in the Casa Pia child sex abuse trial in Lisbon, Portugal. (BBC)

• Pro-government crowds in Iran attack the home of opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi ahead of Al-Quds day protests. (Jakarta Post) (Al Jazeera)
• Militant Australian Islamic preacher Feiz Mohammad calls for Dutch politician Geert Wilders to be "beheaded" for denigrating Islam. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)

• The Royal Mail in the United Kingdom launches the first intelligent postage stamp, the first to work with image recognition technology. (BBC)
• A study published in the journal Cell reports the discovery that the cerebral cortex of mammals shares a common evolutionary origin with mushroom bodies, brain structures involved in learning and memory in insects and other invertebrates. (Science Daily)

• The International Cricket Council charges three Pakistan cricketers who are then formally interviewed by police into a betting scam alleged by the News of the World. (The Guardian)
• UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying:
  • Qualification starts for UEFA Euro 2012 in European football, with wins for Germany and 2010 FIFA World Cup finalists Spain and the Netherlands. (Toronto Sun) (The Guardian)
  • France is booed by their fans after an embarrassing 1-0 home defeat against Belarus. (The Guardian)
  • Two hundred and eighty German and Belgian fans are arrested in Brussels for football hooliganism. (New Kerala)

• Thousands attend a funeral for the Shia Muslim suicide attack victims in Quetta as the death toll rises to 65. (Aljazeera)
• 2 attacks kill at least 10 people and wound at least 28 others in Afghanistan. (Aljazeera)
• 2 Azeri soldiers are killed in fighting near Nagorno-Karabakh, the second incident of clashes within a week. (Reuters) (ITAR-TASS)

• Tony Blair is met with a three-hundred person antiwar demonstration and has a small number of individuals throw objects (shoes, bottles and eggs), and encounters an attempted citizen's arrest for war crimes at Eason's in Dublin, Ireland, at his first public book signing for A Journey; four are arrested. Clashes between protesters and police lead to the closure of businesses and the Luas tram system. (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Irish Times) (AFP via Daily Nation) (Aljazeera)

• A state of emergency and curfew are declared in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the 2010 Canterbury earthquake. (The Guardian) (Waikato Times)
• Australian floods:
  • Heavy rain in the Australian state of Victoria causes flooding in the towns of Ballarat, Maryborough and Bendigo with landslides blocking roads in the Victorian Alps. (ABC News Online) (ABC News Online)
  • Floodwaters isolate the town of Birdsville in Queensland. (AAP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• A plane crash near Fox Glacier in the South Island of New Zealand is believed to have killed 9 people. (ABC News Online) (BBC)
• NASA scientists advise the 33 miners trapped in Chile to regulate sleeping patterns, boost intake of Vitamin D and take exercise. (BBC)
• The President of Guatemala Alvaro Colom declares a state of emergency after weeks of heavy rain results in landslides with at least 21 people dead. (AFP via ABC Online) (Al Jazeera)
• Two light aircraft collide in midair during an air race near Ryde on the Isle of Wight off the coast of England resulting in the deaths of the pilots. (UPI)
• Former Hurricane Earl loses its tropical storm status after making landfall in Nova Scotia, Canada but left one person dead and a million people without power in Canada. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Hundreds of people are believed to have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in river boat accidents. (Al Jazeera)

• A prominent opposition journalist in Belarus, Oleg Bebenin, is found hanged; officials say he committed suicide. (BBC) (IOL) (Kyiv Post)
• A court in Argentina reopens an investigation into crimes against humanity under Francisco Franco in Spain. (BBC)
• Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted of adultery and sentenced to death in Iran, reportedly faces the whip after The Times publishes an unveiled image of political activist Susan Hejrat in the mistaken belief it is her. (The Guardian)

• Thousands of people protest across France against the government's policy of deporting of Romani people. (Aljazeera) (France 24) (BBC)
• Yu Myung-hwan resigns as South Korea's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade amid accusations of nepotism after his daughter is hired to a midlevel position in his Ministry. (Yonhap) (AP via ABC News America)
• Cabinet formation in the Netherlands; Informateur Ivo Opstelten informs Queen Beatrix that the coalition formation between the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) with support from the Party for Freedom (PVV) failed, after PVV leader Geert Wilders lost his confidence in the internal stability of the CDA parliamentary group after a letter of criticism was sent by CDA negotiator Ab Klink (CDA). (NOS)

• The News of the World alleges that a 4th cricketer from Pakistan is being probed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) into the corruption allegations it broke last week. (BBC)

• Israel
  • Israeli F-16 warplanes launch airstrikes on Gaza smuggling tunnels, with one Palestinian dead and several injured, in retaliation for recent Palestinian attacks. (The Jerusalem Post) (Al Jazeera) (Xinhua) (BBC)
  • Yoav Gallant is chosen as the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. (Jerusalem Post)
• At least five people are killed and 35 injured as a suicide bomber attacks a Russian Army firing range at Buynaksk, Dagestan. (Reuters) (RIA Novosti)
• More than 40 people are killed and dozens of others are injured in a clash in Darfur. (Al Jazeera)
• Iraq
  • A large explosion hits an Iraqi Ministry of Defence complex in Baghdad. (AFP via the Melbourne Age)
  • At least 12 people are killed and dozens injured as insurgents attack one of the main military command centres in Baghdad. (New York Times), (AP via Google News)
• The Basque nationalist group ETA announces a ceasefire in its struggle for Basque independence from France and Spain. (BBC)

• The winners of the 2010 Hugo Awards are announced at Worldcon in Melbourne, Australia. (Hugo Awards)
• British academic Peter Gumbel causes controversy in France by alleging in his book that their education system lowers the self-esteem of pupils. (The Observer)

• A state of emergency is declared in Guatemala after heavy rains and landslides kill at least 18 people. (BBC) (RTÉ)
• The Australian Army is called in to assist with flood relief in the state of Victoria. (ABC News Australia)

• A Palestinian Authority spokesman says that Iran has no standing to criticize them for relaunching direct talks with Israel while Iran "represses their people," after the Iranian foreign minister says those negotiating with Israel are "betraying their nations." (Jerusalem Post)

• Police in El Salvador discover barrels containing US$9 million in suspected drug money. (BBC) (AP)

• Voters in Moldova go to the polls in a referendum on whether the country's President should be directly elected. (Reuters) (RIA Novosti)
• The five contenders to be leader of the United Kingdom Labour Party hold a debate in Norwich, England. (Sky News)

• A group of Danish rocketeers postpone launch when a valve on their rocket jammed. (BBC)

• At least seventeen people are killed and forty others injured after a suicide bomber attacks a Pakistan police station in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (Al Arabiya)
• The number of deaths for members of the International Security Assistance Force in the War in Afghanistan reaches 500 for the first 9 months of 2010 as opposed to 521 for all of 2009. (Reuters)
• Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Spain's Interior Minister, dismisses ETA's ceasefire offer as insufficient for a peace process. (CNN)

• New Zealand Army soldiers begin providing security at the centre of Christchurch following the 2010 Canterbury earthquake as a state of emergency is extended until Wednesday. (AP via Yahoo! News) (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Over fifty-thousand Australians have been placed on evacuation alert in the Australian state of Victoria in eleven towns since Saturday due to the 2010 Victorian floods. (AFP via The West Australian)
• Emergency teams in Guatemala resume rescue efforts after mudslides bury dozens of people. (BBC)
• 2010 Atlantic hurricane season: Tropical Storm Hermine slams into northern Mexico near the border with Texas. (Reuters via Swiss Info)
• A wind-driven wildfire in the United States state of Colorado leads to the evacuation of 1,000 houses. (AP via Yahoo! News)

• North Korea announces it will release seven detained Chinese and South Korean fishermen. (Yonhap) (Xinhua) (Al Jazeera)
• Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Vatican offer to assist Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in Iran. (BBC)
• Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister and leader of the Yisrael Beitenu Party says that it will block any proposal to extend a freeze on settlements on the West Bank. (Voice of America)

• China investigates the qualifications of all its commercial pilots after 200 of them had falsified their résumés. (BBC) (AFP) (China Daily)
• Two Greenpeace activists are given suspended sentences in Japan for stealing whale meat. (The Japan Times) (Reuters) (AP)
• Bahrain charges 23 Shia Muslim activists with terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government. (Al Jazeera) (Bloomberg) (Bahrain News Agency)

• Vlad Filat, the Prime Minister of Moldova, concedes defeat on a referendum proposal for direct election of the President of Moldova. (BBC)
• France prepares for a general strike over reform to pensions with two million people expected to participate. (The Telegraph)
• Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair cancels a London book signing for his memoir, A Journey, because of protests by the British National Party and anti-Iraq War demonstrators. (The Guardian)

• PBS Kids Preschool Block with Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, Super Why! and Dinosaur Train

• Israel begins military preparations in order to intercept a 20-ship flotilla due to set sail towards the Gaza Strip and break the Israeli blockade. A wide range of plans are being considered, including the possibility of stopping the flotilla far out at sea due to its sheer size. (Hurriyet)
• A car bomb attack on a Pakistan police headquarters in the city of Kohat kills at least 20 people and injures 50. (AFP via Google News)

• The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize is released with Peter Carey, Emma Donoghue, Andrea Levy, Howard Jacobson and Tom McCarthy in the running. (The Guardian)

• Mozambique announces it will reverse a rise in the price of bread that led to riots last week. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
• Current Barclays Capital chief Robert Diamond, one of the world's highest paid bankers, is to become chief executive of Barclays Bank plc succeeding the present incumbent John Varley next year. (BBC)

• Some 3,500 people are evacuated in Boulder County, Colorado due to wildfires concerns. (AFP via Google News)
• Japan experiences its record-hottest summer. (Mercury News) (Washington Post)
• Around 85 fires break out in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan, with at least 20 homes destroyed. Winds of 40 to 50 mph cause 113,000 customers to lose electricity. (ABC News America) (WISN)

• Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, is denied parole by the New York State Division of Parole in the U.S.. (CNN)
• A curfew is imposed in parts of Srinagar following clashes. (samaylive)

• At least 50 people are arrested during pro-democracy protests in Swaziland. (Bloomberg) (BBC)
• United States Army General David Petraeus, the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, condemns plans by a small Florida church to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks as inflammatory. (New York Times)
• 2010 Australian federal election
  • Independent members of parliament Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott agree to support a Julia Gillard Australian Labor Party Government ensuring that Labor will be able to form a Government. (Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Bob Katter, an independent member of the Australian House of Representatives for Division of Kennedy, indicates that he will support the Liberal/National coalition in Parliament. (ABC News)
• Trade unions in India declare a bandh or general strike to protest a hike in fuel prices. India is crippled. (samaylive), (NDTV)
• Public transport workers in France and London go on strike over French and UK government austerity measures. The French actions are part of a general strike. (AP via ABC News America), (BBC)
• Richard M. Daley announces that he will not seek reelection as Mayor of Chicago, Illinois in 2011. (Chicago Tribune)

• Mexican marines arrest seven gunmen suspected in participating in the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. (AP via Fox News)

• A Charities Aid Foundation survey finds that Australia, New Zealand and Canada are the most generous contributors to charity. (Canadian Press via Google News)

• Two workers are missing and more than thirty workers are trapped in an oil rig in the Shengli oil field off Dongying in China's Shandong province. (AFP via Google News)
• The state of emergency in Christchurch, New Zealand, is extended for another week following an aftershock to Saturday's earthquake in Lyttelton. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Eight people are missing and at least fifty-four houses are destroyed in a wildfire burning west of Boulder, Colorado, in the United States. (CNN)
• The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine causes widespread flooding in the US states of Texas and Oklahoma with at least two people dead. (AP via Yahoo! News)

• South Korea unveils sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program. (Xinhua via Sina)
• Japan detains a Chinese fishing boat found near the disputed Pinnacle Islands in the East China Sea. (Xinhua)

• The New South Wales parliament votes to legalise adoption by same sex couples in Australia's most populous state. (AAP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Police in Europe shut down 49 servers and detain ten people in a raid across thirteen countries in a crackdown on film piracy. (AFP via the Melbourne Age)
• The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismisses a lawsuit associated with the Central Intelligence Agency's practice of "extraordinary rendition". (New York Times)

• The Parliament of Sri Lanka passes the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka which removes the two-term limit on the presidency and allows him to choose the judges and commissioners monitoring elections, human rights, and other affairs. (BBC) (New York Times) (The Australian)

• Islamist militant group Boko Haram raid a prison in Bauchi, northern Nigeria, freeing 721 inmates. (Al Jazeera) (Times of India) (AllAfrica.com)
• At least 16 people are killed and 98 injured in an apparent suicide bombing in the Russian Caucasus city of Vladikavkaz. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald), (RIA Novosti), (RIA Novosti)
• Battle of Mogadishu (2010)
  • A bomb explodes at Mogadishu Airport in Somalia. (Reuters)
• United States Marines board and seize control of a German-owned vessel, Magellan Star, previously captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia. (CNN)

• Archaeologists date the mound of Moot Hill in Scone Palace where medieval Kings of Scotland including Robert the Bruce were crowned back to at least 1,000 years ago. (The Scotsman)

• The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rejects a $A13 billion bid by the National Australia Bank for AXA Asia Pacific. (Sydney Morning Herald)

• Tropical Storm Meranti is forecast to bring heavy rains to Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan provinces in the People's Republic of China, as well as in Taiwan. (Xinhua)
• The 2010 San Bruno, California fire begins with a massive explosion in a natural gas line destroying dozens of houses, killing at least 6 people, and continues burning in San Bruno, California near the US city of San Francisco. (Marketwatch), (San Francisco Chronicle), (Silicon Valley Mercury News)

• Iran
  • An Iranian diplomat at the United Nations states that United States citizen Sarah Shourd will be released "very soon". (AFP via Google News)
  • The National Council of Resistance of Iran claims that Iran is building a secret uranium enrichment facility in Abyek. (Haaretz)
• "Ground zero" mosque and cultural centre controversy
  • Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the President of Indonesia, and Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan, call on President of the United States, Barack Obama, to stop International Burn a Koran Day being organised by the Dove World Outreach Center. (The Telegraph)
  • Barack Obama describes the event as "a clear recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida" and warns that it will endanger US soldiers. (MSNBC)
  • US businessman Donald Trump offers to buy out one of the major investors in the Park51 site in New York City where a Muslim group wanted to build a 13-story Islamic centre and mosque. (AP via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
  • Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center agrees to call off the Koran burning in return for the Park51 community center being relocated, though those associated with Park51 have stated no such agreement exists. (BBC), (MSNBC)
    • Pastor Terry Jones later reassesses his position after he claimed that he received incorrect information that the Park51 community center would be relocated. (CNN), (The Wall Street Journal)

• Wang Huayuan, a top anti-corruption official in China's Shandong province, is sentenced to death for accepting $1 million in bribes. (AP via Google News)
• Investigators in the Philippines admit that Manila Police District officers may have shot dead some of the tourists killed in the Manila hostage crisis in August. (AFP via Google News)
• US District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips rules that the United States military's don't ask, don't tell policy violates the First Amendment rights of gay men and lesbians. (Los Angeles Times)
• A woman kills two people and injures another at a shooting incident at a Kraft baking plant in the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (MSNBC)

• Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, pays tribute to freedom of speech at a ceremony to honour Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist at the centre of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. (Reuters)
• The President of the United States Barack Obama selects Austan Goolsbee to replace Christina Romer as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. (Reuters)

• 5 Palestinians are wounded during 4 separate Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip in response to the fourth rocket attack on southern Israel from Gaza in the last two days. (The Jerusalem Post) (BBC)
• Details of 300 cases of sexual abuse, mainly on minors, allegedly perpetrated by Belgium's Roman Catholic clergy are released by Church investigator Peter Adriaenssens. 13 are found to have committed suicide. (BBC)
• An alleged suicide bomber is detained after "suicide" blast at hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark. (BBC)
• A Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations plane loaded with victims of the 2010 Vladikavkaz bombing lands at Moscow's Ramenskoye Airport as the death toll reaches 17. (RIA Novosti) (RIA Novosti)
• A British Army soldier from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment dies of injuries he received in the war in Afghanistan. (BBC)

• Mining in 3 eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo provinces is banned by President Joseph Kabila. (BBC) (AFP)

• More than 50 people are injured in an oil pipeline blast in northeastern Iran. (Press TV)
• Thousands of people are evacuated in Delhi over flooding fears. (BBC) (The Hindu) (The Times of India)
• The death toll from the fire in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno in the U.S. state of California, reaches 4, with 50 other people injured. (ABC News America)
• A large fish kill, consisting of several different fish species and other marine life, including crabs, stingrays, shrimp, starfish and a whale wash ashore in Venice, Louisiana, near Plaquemines Parish, near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and involving more species than usual with localized dead zone and low oxygen events. (NOLA.com) (WAFB) (Digital Journal)

• The last episode of Big Brother (UK) aired on Channel 4.

• Yang Jiechi, the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, calls for Japan to immediately release a fishing boat captain captured in disputed waters in the East China Sea. (Reuters)
• Iran delays the release of United States detainee Sarah Shourd because the legal processes have not been completed. (BBC) (Reuters via Fox News)
• President of the United States Barack Obama urges Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a partial construction freeze on the West Bank. (Los Angeles Times)

• Mexico:
  • At least 71 prisoners escape from jail in the Mexican city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, across the U.S. border from McAllen, Texas. (BNO via Wire Update)
  • The city of Ciudad Juárez had as many as 25 murders recorded in the past day mostly due to the Mexican Drug War. (Xinhua)

• Mário Viegas Carrascalão resigns as the Deputy Prime Minister of East Timor leaving the Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão without a majority in the Parliament. (Canadian Press via Google News)

• A man is arrested after a minor explosion at a hotel in Copenhagen, amid heightened security fears in Denmark. (BBC) (Deutsche Welle) (Reuters)
• U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta is awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the ongoing War in Afghanistan, the first living recipient to be so honored since the Vietnam War. (The Guardian)

• Eid al-Fitr:
  • Muslims around the world celebrate the feast of Eid al-Fitr marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. (AP via Google News)
  • Tens of thousands of people protest against Indian rule in Kashmir during a rare Eid al-Fitr event. (BBC)
• U.S. film director Sofia Coppola wins the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for her film Somewhere. (BBC)
• US actor Kevin McCarthy best known for his roles in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Death of a Salesman dies. (Playbill)

• Greek protests against austerity:
  • Police tear gas people in Thessaloniki as tens of thousands of people protest against Prime Minister George Papandreou's austerity plans. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Al Jazeera)
  • A doctor throws a shoe at the prime minister and is promptly arrested and locked up with two bystanders. They are later released unharmed. (The Times of India) (CNN)
• Air Zimbabwe fires pilots on strike for better pay. (BBC)
• Mining in 3 eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo provinces is suspended by President Joseph Kabila to allow for a clean-up of operations. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)

• At least 10 people are killed and 20 others are injured during a gas explosion near Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi. A fire burns for 3 hours. (Al Jazeera) (Xinhua) (Press TV) (Tehran Times)
• Officials in 3 Egyptian governorates declare a state of emergency after a barge leaked some 100 tons of gasoline into the Nile River north of Aswan. (AP)
• Mexico experiences its record worst ever rainy season. (The China Post) (The Age)
• A moderate earthquake strikes Indonesia's North Maluku province. (ABC Online)
• The death toll rises to 6 from the pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California near the U.S. city of San Francisco. (AP via Silicon Valley Mercury News)
• Four people are dead and twenty-five people are hospitalised after a Coach USA Megabus crashes into a railroad overpass in Salina, New York. (CNN)
• More than 300 flights from Shanghai, China are delayed due to torrential rain caused by Tropical Storm Meranti. (Xinhua)
• Hurricane Igor reaches Category 1 in the Atlantic Ocean. (UPI)

• France condemns as "unacceptable" remarks made by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro expressing sympathy with the Romani migrants it is trying to rid itself of. (BBC) (AFP via France24)
• North Korea proposes the resumption of family reunions with South Korea. (BBC) (Yonhap)
• Jordan signs a nuclear co-operation treaty with Japan to build a nuclear power plant within 10 years. (Press TV)

• Sex abuse campaigners meet at a conference in Islington, North London, to call for "action not words" from Pope Benedict XVI ahead of his visit to the UK. (BBC)
• 9 Serb paramilitaries are indicted over the deaths of 43 ethnic Albanians in May 1999. (Al Jazeera)
• At least 8 police officers are killed and several others are wounded in San Miguel, Putumayo, Colombia, near its border with Ecuador. 2 of the perpetrators are then killed in the jungle. (BBC)
• Police in Somalia say they have foiled an attack by Islamist militants against the seaport in the capital Mogadishu. (Reuters) (Sify)

• Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard announces her new Cabinet, with former PM Kevin Rudd named as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. (ABC Online)
• The United States commemorates the anniversary of the September 11 attacks with events in New York City, the Pentagon Memorial in Washington D.C. and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, near where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed. (AFP via ABC News)
• 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy:
  • Thousands of Afghans protest in Badakhshan province over U.S. plans to hold an "International Burn-a-Koran Day", despite its cancellation. (Reuters)
  • Hundreds of Americans engage in heated competing demonstrations in New York City, blocking streets and being overseen by mounted police and dog units. (BBC)
  • Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in America says the group will not burn the Koran "not now, not ever". (BBC)

• The 3 Pakistan national cricket team members alleged to have spot fixed by the UK's News of the World tabloid arrive back in Pakistan; they deny any involvement. (DAWN) (BBC Sport) (Reuters via Gulf News)
• Kim Clijsters of Belgium wins her second successive US Open championship, defeating Russia's Vera Zvonareva 6-2 6-1. (CNN)

• At least 3 people are killed by a United States missile attack on a home where associates of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hafiz Gul Bahadur were believed to be staying in northwest Pakistan. (AP via Fox News)
• Israeli soldiers identify a group of armed men approaching Israel from Gaza near Kibbutz Erez, killing three; Palestinian sources claim that two were farmers. (The Jerusalem Post) (BBC) (Reuters)
• Danish police state that there is no evidence that a small explosives blast in a Copenhagen hotel ties into a larger terror plot. (Al Jazeera)
• A curfew is imposed on Srinagar and other large towns in Kashmir after police clashes with people protesting against Indian rule yesterday. (BBC)
• At least 24 people are injured in clashes between supporters of rival political parties in several parts of Conakry ahead of a presidential run-off election in Guinea. (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (Japan Today)

• French film director Claude Chabrol, a founding member of the French New Wave, dies. (The Guardian) (France 24) (The New York Times) (The Daily Telegraph) (Press TV)
• Lady Gaga wins eight MTV Video Music Awards at the 2010 ceremony including Video of the Year for "Bad Romance". (MTV)

• The 33 miners involved in the 2010 Copiapó mining accident are permitted to smoke cigarettes after one month of underground entrapment. (BBC) (AFP via The Sydney Morning Herald)
• 95 farm workers are rescued from difficult living conditions in two south-eastern states (Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro (state)) of Brazil. (BBC)
• 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion:
  • The death toll rises to 7 from a pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, near the U.S. city of San Francisco. (Bay City News via San Francisco Chronicle)
  • The California Public Utilities Commission orders Pacific Gas and Electric to perform a survey of all natural gas lines in California following the explosion. (AP via The Houston Chronicle)
• 2010 Atlantic hurricane season:
  • Hurricane Igor strengthens to Category 4 in the Atlantic Ocean. (AFP via Google News)
  • Tropical Storm Julia forms in the Atlantic with a tropical storm warning issued for parts of the Cape Verde Islands. (AP via Houston Chronicle)

• Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu states that 10-month restrictions on the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank will no longer apply after they expire later this month. (Al Jazeera)
• The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), an important trade pact, comes into force between China and Taiwan. Hundreds of thousands of people protested against it in Taiwan but it was unanimously approved by the island's parliament. (BBC)
• 2 French judges and 17 other legal experts land in Rwanda ahead of a week-long inquiry into the killing of President Juvénal Habyarimana, whose plane with French crew on board was shot down in 1994. (BBC)
• 2009 detention of American hikers by Iran: Iran announces its willingness to release Sarah Shourd, a U.S. hiker arrested in 2009, on bail and says that she will be permitted to leave the country. (BBC) (The Guardian) (AP via The Independent) (Al Jazeera)
• Mexican marines capture alleged Beltrán Leyva Cartel leader Sergio Villarreal Barragán in the state of Puebla. (The Guardian)

• President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev approves a plan to overhaul Russia's police system. (IANS via Sulekha)
• Malaysia's police force is debated following the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy. (Al Jazeera)
• Australia sends an official to the Indonesian province of Maluku to investigate claims that Detachment 88, part of the Indonesian National Police, tortured a group of separatists. (AAP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Airplane cleaners in the Philippines locate a newborn male baby human which had been discarded in a toilet bin. (AFP via The Sydney Morning Herald)

• Turkish constitutional referendum, 2010:
  • Voters in Turkey go to the polls for a referendum to amend the constitution. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (Xinhua)
  • The constitutional changes are reported to have been "approved" by the people. (BBC)
• Néstor Kirchner, former President of Argentina and current Secretary-General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), has surgery on a blocked coronary artery. (BBC)
• Taxpayer March on Washington (also known as the 9/12 Tea Party) takes place in Washington, D. C. According to various estimates ranging from 60,000 to more than 1 million people march from Freedom Plaza to the United States Capitol. The event coincided with other similar protests organized in various cities across the nation.The protesters rallied against what they consider big government, the dismantling of free market capitalism, abortion, and President Barack Obama's proposals on health care reform, taxation, and federal spending, among other issues. (BBC) (Los Angeles Times)

• Albanians jeer Serbs following a Serbian defeat in an international basketball game leading to clashes in Mitrovica. (BBC News) (Al Jazeera)
• In basketball, the United States defeats Turkey 81-64 in the 2010 FIBA World Championship Final to win the 2010 FIBA World Championship. (Toronto Sun)
• The men's singles final and women's doubles finals for the 2010 US Open tennis final are postponed until Monday due to rain. (Xinhua)

• At least 18 people are dead after protests in Jammu and Kashmir following reported burning of a Koran in the United States. (BBC) (IBN Live) (Times of India), (Voice of America)
• Peter Hain reveals Nelson Mandela was "breathing fire" down a phone about Tony Blair's role in invading Iraq. (BBC News)
• A civilian is killed and six people injured in fighting in Iraq's Diyala Governorate. (Xinhua)

• Cuba announces plans to cut up to half a million public sector jobs to revive the island's economy, in the biggest private sector shift since the 1959 revolution. (BBC),(Al Jazeera), (CNN)
• The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision based in Basel, Switzerland, increases capital requirements for banks around the world to be introduced on 1 January 2015. (The Australian)
• Harley-Davidson workers in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin approve a new contract freezing pay and cutting jobs following a threat to move production from the state cutting 1,350 jobs. (AP via Google News)
• A study of Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture employees shows that the food industry has been successfully withholding information from inspectors and pressuring the government agencies to withdraw or alter policies which promote food safety. (Reuters)

• At least 17 people die after a Conviasa ATR 42 crashes near Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela's Bolívar State. (Xinhua) (Sina) (Voice of America)
• Monsoon flooding on the Yamuna River threatens the Taj Mahal in Agra, India after more than 800,000 cu ft/s (23,000 m³/s) of water had to be released from a barrage in Haryana, while hundreds of nearby villages flooded and flooding continues in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. (MSN India) (The Weather Network)

• Russian diplomat Yuri Fedotov takes office as the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (AP)

• The ruling National Resistance Movement in Uganda endorses incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to run for a fourth term in presidential elections in early 2011. (AFP) (Xinhua)
• A rare congress of the Korean Workers' Party in North Korea is postponed amid speculation about the health of Kim Jong-il. (Radio Television Hong Kong) (Voice of Russia) (Arirang)
• André-Joseph Léonard, the Archbishopric of Mechelen-Brussels and head of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church, announces how the church will deal with widespread cases of sexual abuse within its ranks. (BBC), (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• US defense officials claim they are preparing to notify Congress of plans to sell $60 billion of military equipment to Saudi Arabia. (CNN) (Reuters)

• Rafael Nadal of Spain wins the Men's Singles at the 2010 US Open defeating Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-4 5-7 6-4 6-2 becoming the seventh man in history to win all four Grand Slam titles, and the youngest man to ever achieve the Career Golden Slam. (BBC)

• Three Colombian police officers were killed Monday during a suspected guerrilla attack near the Venezuelan border. (PLA)
• Indian police open fire on stone-throwing protesters in Indian-administered Kashmir, injuring 10 people. (AFP)
• One Palestinian gunman is killed and four more are wounded in a Gaza firefight after launching RPGs and missiles at Israeli soldiers. (Ynetnews)
• French police evacuate the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding Champ de Mars park in Paris following a bomb threat. (AFP via Google News)

• Kia Motors suspends exports to Iran partly in response to South Korea's sanctions against Iran's nuclear program. (AFP via Google)
• Virgin Blue fights for approval of its transtasman alliance with Air New Zealand. (Nzherald)
• Cisco Systems, the provider of computer networking products and services headquartered in San Jose, California, announced that it will break with a long-standing policy and issue a stock dividend during the current fiscal year. (Cisco Blogs)
• A study funded by Pfizer, makers of the smoking cessation drug Varenicline, claims it would be financially wise for governments to fund smoking cessation treatments. (Reuters)

• British singer George Michael is given a sentence of eight weeks for driving under the influence of cannabis at the Highbury Corner Magistrates Court in London. (BBC)

• 2010 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Hurricane Julia becomes the fifth hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. (Reuters)
  • Mexico and Belize issue warnings about Tropical Storm Karl which is threatening the Yucatán Peninsula. (CNN)

• A third Iranian diplomat defects and applies for asylum in Europe over the disputed presidential election last year. (Al Jazeera)
• China cancels a visit of a senior official to Japan amid a row over the arrest of a Chinese skipper near the disputed islands of Senkaku. (BBC)
• Iran releases United States hiker Sarah Shourd from Evin Prison following payment of bail. (CNN) (Al Jazeera)
• Viviane Reding, a Luxembourg politician and currently the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, describes France's deportation of Romani migrants as a "disgrace". (Voice of America)
• A second round of Middle East peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority concludes in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Jerusalem Post)

• Ukrainian prosecutors say that former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko ordered the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000. (UNIAN) (Bloomberg) (BBC)

• Peruvian President Alan García names José Chang as Prime Minister, replacing Javier Velásquez as part of a cabinet reshuffle. (Andina) (BBC)
• The head of Guinea's electoral commission who was convicted for electoral fraud, Ben Sekou Sylla, dies, ahead of a presidential run-off on Sunday. (Reuters) (BBC)
• France passes a resolution banning full face veils after a 246-1 vote in the Senate. The law must still be reviewed by the Constitutional Council before coming into effect. (Ynetnews)
• The Governor-General of Australia swears in Julia Gillard as Prime Minister of Australia and her Ministry. (AAP via Sydney Morning Herald) (ABC Online)
• Naoto Kan is reelected as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and therefore as Prime Minister of Japan, defeating powerbroker Ichirō Ozawa. (Xinhua) (Reuters)
• Robert Gates, the United States Secretary of Defense, outlines a $100 billion savings plan for his Department. (UPI)
• Cecilia Romero resigns as the head of the Mexican National Institute of Migration in the wake of massacre of 72 migrants at the hands of a drug cartel. (AP via San Francisco Chronicle)
• United States primary elections
  • Christine O'Donnell is elected the Republican Party candidate in the Delaware US Senate race. (The Guardian)
  • Representative Charles Rangel wins the Democratic primary election for New York's 15th congressional district despite facing 13 ethics allegations in the House. (CNN)

• FIFA investigates allegations that a fake Togo national football team played against Bahrain last week. (BBC) (AP)
• Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints gives up his Heisman Trophy won while playing for the USC Trojans due to receiving improper payments. (ESPN)

• Ethiopian forces, supported by Somaliland, kill 123 members of the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front in the east of the country and surround a further 90 rebels. (BBC)
• At least 12 people die in Pakistan's North Waziristan province as United States drone attacks continue for a second day. (Xinhua)
• Hamas militants fire two Qassam rockets and mortar rounds into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft then bombed a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt.(Haaretz)
• The Real Irish Republican Army threatens to resume attacks on Mainland Britain including banks. (Al Jazeera)
• US and Iraqi forces raid a neighbourhood in Fallujah resulting in at least six casualties. (AP via Miami Herald)

• Pieces of an ancient necropolis taken from Egypt in 1999 are discovered in an antiques shop in Spain. (BBC)
• United States cartoonist Molly Norris of Seattle, Washington, who developed Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, goes into hiding following a death threat from an Islamist radical. (MSNBC)

• A Chinese survey shows that 91 percent of the population oppose raising retirement age. The retirement age in China is generally set at 60 for men and 50-55 for women. (People Daily) (China Daily)
• Japan intervenes in the foreign exchange market for the first time in six years to reduce the exchange rate for the yen in order to stimulate the Japanese economy. (Reuters)
• News Corporation sells the Fiji Times to Fijian company Motibhai two weeks before a deadline set by the government of interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama. (Radio New Zealand)

• Malaysia considers suing Israel in the International Court of Justice over the blockade of the Gaza Strip. (Haaretz)
• A Chinese fishing boat returns to Quanzhou after being captured by the Japan Coast Guard off the disputed Senkaku Islands. (Xinhua)
• The United States and Russia establish a working group to improve relations between the United States military and Russian military. (RIA Novosti)

• Northern Territory Police call for reinforcements as violence breaks out amongst Australian aborigines in the town of Yuendumu following the death of an indigenous man. (ABC News Australia)

• A presidential run-off election in Guinea is postponed due to lack of preparation. (Reuters) (BBC)
• Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan announces he will contest the presidential election in January 2011. (African Press Agency) (AP)
• An anti-American protest in Kabul, sparked in part by the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy, turns violent with five members of the Afghan National Police being injured and two demonstrators being shot. (CNN)
• North Korea's ruling Workers' Party of Korea cancels its largest political convention in thirty years officially due to floods caused by Typhoon Kompasu but sparking speculation about the health of Kim Jong-il. (ABC News)

• 9 people are reported killed after the 2010 Hakkâri bus attack where a civilian passenger van hit a land mine on a road near Durankaya in the southeastern province of Hakkâri, in Turkey. (Hürriyet) (Al Jazeera)
• Somalia:
  • The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia, Augustine Mahinga, says the situation in the country remains "dire" and the AMISOM mission is "underfunded". (Al Jazeera) (AFP)
  • 15 people are killed after mortar rounds are fired into the Somali government complex by Islamist fighters, triggering a counterattack. (AP) (CNN) (Manilla Bulletin)
• The Taliban kidnaps 18 election officials and campaign workers for the Afghan parliamentary election in Badghis Province, Afghanistan. (AFP via Google)

• American banks set a new record for the home repossession rate, with 1.2 million homes this year. Another 3.2 million American homes remain in foreclosure proceedings currently.(Reuters)
• The World Trade Organization demands that the more than US$20bn in US government subsidies be withdrawn from Boeing. The EU is also appealing a decision that it was guilty of illegal subsidies. (BBC)
• US poverty rates hit 14.3% (43.6 million people), a 15 year high. (Reuters)
• Transocean, the company that leased the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, accuses BP of covering up data about the explosion and subsequent oil spill. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• BP's first relief well intersects with its Gulf of Mexico Macondo well prior to pumping heavy mud and cement to seal permanently the oil reservoir adjacent to the well. (Yahoo News)

• The state of emergency in Christchurch, New Zealand, following the 2010 Canterbury earthquake is lifted. (The Press)
• A storm in New York City kills one person and leaves 25,000 people without power. This includes a Tornado which touched down in Flushing and a Macroburst.(CNN)
• Hurricane Karl becomes a Category 2 hurricane as it heads across Mexico's offshore oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. (Reuters)

• Iranian state television allegedly airs an interview with Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani claiming that she has not been tortured. (BBC) (CNN)
• The United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia indict four Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in the regime in the late 1970s, including Pol Pot's deputy Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, Social Affairs minister Ieng Thirith and head of state Khieu Samphan. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald) (AFP via Google News)
• Dr Imran Farooq, an exiled leader of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is murdered in the North London suburb of Edgware, England leading to schools and shops being closed in Farooq's home city of Karachi. (The Telegraph), (BBC)

• Burma bars several areas of the country from taking part in the upcoming general election where the vote would "not be free and fair". (BBC) (Radio Television Hong Kong) (Mizzima)
• Mexico celebrates 200 years of independence from Spain. (Daily Telegraph)
• Voters in Tuvalu go to the polls for the general election. (Radio New Zealand)

• Pope Benedict XVI starts a papal visit to the United Kingdom at Edinburgh, Scotland, with groups expected to protest. (BBC)

• Cocoa tree genome (DNA) raw sequence to be made public from Mars, Incorporated and combined Pennsylvania State University, French laboratories, and The Hershey Company research.(NYT)

• The Seattle Storm win the WNBA Finals for the second time defeating the Atlanta Dream in Game 3 87-84 with Lauren Jackson of the Storm winning the WNBA Finals MVP Award. (NWCN)

• Three protesters die in anti-India protests in Jammu and Kashmir with the death toll from protests rising to one hundred. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Demonstrations occur against Japan in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Chongqing on the anniversary of the Mukden Incident. (BBC) (Reuters)
• A dozen people are reported dead during clashes between Mauritanian troops and al-Qaeda militants in Mali's Sahara. (BBC) (IOL)

• British pop star George Michael is transferred from Pentonville Prison to Highpoint Prison in Suffolk, England, to serve out the remaining weeks of his sentence for driving under the influence of cannabis. (UKPA via Google News)
• Chileans celebrate the 200th anniversary of Chilean Independence Day as do the 33 miners trapped underground in the 2010 Copiapó mining accident. (CNN)

• China slightly increased its holdings of United States treasury debt to US$846.7 billion, this July. (China Daily)

• A large storm in New Zealand leaves 100,000 people without power and takes the roof off Stadium Southland in Invercargill on the South Island. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Taiwan prepares for the impact of Typhoon Fanapi. (Xinhua)
• At least 30 people are dead and 80 injured in a passenger truck crash in Zagyuri in northern Ghana. (Xinhua)
• Two airplanes crash at a retro air show near the city of Warngau in southern Germany. (RIA Novosti)

• The President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets with the President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algiers to discuss trade agreements. (AFP via Google)

• Iranian human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari is convicted of gathering and plotting to commit crimes against the Iranian state, propaganda against the establishment and waging war against God. (Al Jazeera)

• Afghan parliamentary election, 2010
  • Voters in Afghanistan go to the polls braving threats from the Taliban with voter turnout calculated at 40 per cent. (AP via Business Week), (ABC News Online)
  • Polls in the eastern province of Nuristan fail to open on time due to security concerns. (Al Jazeera)
  • At least fourteen people die in violence after the polling places open. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald), (ABC News Online)
  • A rocket attack is launched at NATO headquarters in Kabul. Two Britons were killed. (AFP via Google News) (BBC)
  • Attacks by Taliban militants, including rocket firing, have wounded 16 people, including children, in Kunduz province in Afghanistan on election day. Nine civilians sustained injuries in Taliban-linked activities in east Afghanistan's Nangarhar province. (Xinhua) (Xinhua)
• Voters in Slovakia go to the polls to vote on a referendum to reduce the size of the National Council of the Slovak Republic and cut political perks amongst other things. (AFP via Google News)
• Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom
  • Pope Benedict XVI apologizes to the victims of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church during his visit to Britain. (Voice of America)
  • Thousands of people demonstrate in protest at the Pope's views on condom use, homosexuality, education, the ordination of women and the child abuse case. (BBC)
• A United Nations envoy arrives in Guinea to discuss the suspension of the presidential election. (AFP via Google News)
• Tens of thousands of Germans protest in Berlin against the plans of the German government to extend the life of the country's nuclear power plants by another ten years. (AFP via Google News)
• Bulgarian Romani protest outside the French embassy in Sofia about expulsions of Romani from France. (Xinhua)

• Frenchman Philippe Croizon becomes the first limbless man to swim the English Channel. (Press Association), (Radio Television Hong Kong), (AAP via Sydney Daily Telegraph)

• A new convoy of vehicles departs the UK with humanitarian aid for Gaza, more than three months after 9 people were killed in the Gaza flotilla raid. (Al Jazeera)
• The United States Army charges 5 US soldiers with murdering 3 Afghan civilians earlier this year. (Reuters)
• 2 car bombs explode in Baghdad, Iraq, killing at least 31 people and injuring 111. (AFP via Google News) (Xinhua) (CNN) (AP)
• 3 more people die in protests against the Government of India in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. (AP via Google News)
• At least 40 Tajik soldiers are killed in an attack in the Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan. (RIA Novosti) (CNN)
• Islamist al-Shabaab insurgents in Somalia seize control of 2 independent radio stations in the capital Mogadishu. (Times Live South Africa) (Xinhua) (BBC) (Sify India)
• 2 Taiwanese tourists are shot while in a bus outside the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi, India. (BBC) (Times of India)
• 5 people are killed in an armed fight in Otlubayır in eastern Ağrı. (Today's Zaman)

• The King's Speech is premiered at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival. (The Guardian)
• Original handwritten Harry Potter manuscripts are to be displayed at Scotland's Wigtown festival. (BBC)

• Rain-triggered floods killed four people and left two others missing Sunday in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region's in Atush city. (Global Times via Xinhua)
• Heavy monsoon rains and landslides swept the hilly areas of northern India over the weekend, killing at least 47 people. 24 people died in Almorah district in Uttrakhand state, 23 people were either swept away in Pitthoragarh, Champawat and Uttarkashi regions. (CBS) (AP via KansasCity)
• Typhoon Fanapi (Inday) hits Taiwan with at least three people killed and dozens of people injured. The Peoples Republic of China steps up its emergency response in preparation for an impact on Monday. (Bloomberg), (UPI)
• Hurricane Igor weakens to a Category 1 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda but cuts power to half the country. (AP via Google News), (Reuters)

• China suspends high level diplomatic exchanges with Japan after the latter extended the detention of a Chinese fishing captain. (BBC) (Nikkei) (The Guardian)
• A humanitarian aid convoy for the Viva Palestina charity starts in London, England, headed for the Gaza Strip. (Al Jazeera)

• A British man of Somali origin, destined for Uganda, is arrested in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on suspicion of being a terrorist. (BBC)
• Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted of the bombings of Air India Flight 182 and Narita International Airport in 1985, is found guilty of perjury. (CBC) (The Hindu) (AFP)
• At least four people are killed and a police officer seriously wounded in a shooting incident at a hospital in Lörrach, Germany. (Deutsche Welle) (BBC) (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• The Metropolitan Police release six men arrested on suspicion of being terrorists during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom without charge. (CNN)
• Eight Mexican police officers from the state of Guerrero are found dead. (CNN)

• Supporters of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe stone delegates meeting in the capital Harare to create a new constitution, injuring five people. (Times Live) (NewsDay.zw)
• Swedish general election
  • Voters in Sweden go to the polls for a general election with the centre-right Alliance government led by Prime Minister of Sweden Fredrik Reinfeldt winning the most seats but falling short of a majority (EuroNews) (AP via Google News), (CNN)
  • The far-right Sweden Democrats wins seats in the Swedish parliament for the first time. (BBC)
• The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or Red Shirts, hold protests on the fourth anniversary of the downfall of Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra. (Bangkok Post) (Bloomberg)
• Raul Castro, the President of Cuba, sacks Yadira García Vera as Minister for Basic Industry for "weak control over resources set aside for investment and production.". (AFP via Google News)

• Pope Benedict XVI beatifies Cardinal John Henry Newman in an outdoor mass in Birmingham, England, on the final day of his visit to the UK. (AFP via Yahoo! News), (BBC)
• Concerns are held about a cult-like group of Salvadoran migrants to the United States in Palmdale, California, who have gone missing after leaving a note that they were going to meet Jesus. They are later found alive in a park. (CNN) (AP via AdelaideNow)
• Approximately 2,000 Armenians worship at the 10th century Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island in Turkey for the first time since 1915. (Al Jazeera)

• In Gaelic football, Cork defeat Down in the 2010 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final at Croke Park to win their seventh All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and their first since 1990. (RTÉ Sport) (BBC Sport) (The Irish Times)

• A U.S. missile strike kills six alleged militants in northwestern Pakistan in Shawa near Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area. (AP)
• MPs meet Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Kashmir in a bid to resolve the crisis, the first visit there by an all-party Indian team in two decades. (BBC)
• France sends dozens of soldiers equipped with Breguet Atlantique and Mirage aircraft to Niamey, Niger, in its search for 7 kidnapped hostages. (BBC)
• GBC, the Somali radio station seized yesterday, is to now broadcast only Islamic messages. (BBC)
• Colombia claims it has killed a senior Farc rebel leader and 25 others. (BBC) (Colombia Reports)

• The director of Glastonbury Abbey issues an apology after giving Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage access to the grave of King Arthur during a live TV broadcast. (The Guardian)
• More than 600 antiquities lost in mysterious circumstances due to "inappropriate handover procedures" after being repatriated by the United States in 2009 are found and returned to the National Museum of Iraq. (BBC)
• Jailed U.S. entertainer Lindsay Lohan has her probation revoked by Judge Elden Fox following a failed drug test. (CNN)

• 110 people are wounded as a stadium collapses during a car race in Paraná, Brazil. (BBC)
• At least 21 people are killed and dozens are injured after two trains collide in the Shivpuri district of India's Madhya Pradesh state. (The Hindu) (AFP via Yahoo! News) (Xinhua)
• Typhoon Fanapi arrives in China's Fujian province after causing widespread damage in Taiwan. (Hindustan Times)
• A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashes in the Russian Far East; both pilots are rescued alive. (RIA Novosti)
• Admiral Thad Allen of the United States Coast Guard, the man responsible for leading the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, declares that BP's Macondo well is sealed. (Wall Street Journal via The Australian)

• The 54th International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference opens in Vienna with attendance by 151 countries. (Xinhua)
• The United States and Australia issue travel warnings for India following the shooting of two Taiwanese tourists outside the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi. (Reuters)
• World leaders arrive in New York City for a United Nations summit to discuss progress in implementing Millennium Development Goals. (CNN)
• A Syrian ship transporting food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip docks in El-Arish. (Haaretz)
• The father of one of those killed in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing travels to Libya to meet Abdelbaset al-Megrahi; he considers Megrahi to be innocent and calls for an inquiry. (BBC)

• Results in the Swedish general election show the centre-right Alliance government led by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt winning a plurality, with the Sweden Democrats holding the balance of power. (Reuters Canada)
• Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen comes under pressure to resign from former ministers and backbenchers in his own party after last week's controversial live radio interview with Cathal Mac Coille on Morning Ireland. (The Guardian) (BBC)
• Israel allows the delivery of twenty new cars to Gaza after a three-year wait. (AFP via Google News) (BBC) (JTA)
• The German government meets to discuss Google's Street View mapping service. (BBC)
• A date is set for a North Korea Workers Party conference. (BBC)
• The death of a Fijian detainee at the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney, Australia, sparks a rooftop protest by Tamil detainees. (The Herald-Sun)

• Jupiter becomes the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon as it makes its closest approach to Earth since 1963. (UPI)

• Kenny McKinley, a wide receiver for the Denver Broncos in the US National Football League, is found dead. (USA Today)

• CBS Premiere of Hawaii Five-0
• CBS Season Premiere of How I Met Your Mother

• Eight people have been confirmed dead in the southern state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Sudan. (Sudan Tribune) (africannewslive)
• At least 15,000 people flee their homes in Yemen after a government offensive against rebels in the south in the country. (BBC)
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • Nine International Security Assistance Force soldiers are killed in a NATO helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan. (AFP via National Post) (China Daily) (CNN)
  • NATO fatalities rise to 529 making 2010 the most deadly year of the war since 2001. (New York Times)
• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claims responsibility for kidnapping five French workers in Niger. (Reuters)

• Lawrence Summers announces that he will leave as head of the United States National Economic Council, responsible for advising President Barack Obama on economic policy. (New York Times)
• In the Mark Cuban insider trading case, an appeals court overturns a district court decision last fall that had dismissed the civil charges brought against Cuban by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (MarketWatch).

• 2010 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Tropical Storm Lisa forms in the Atlantic Ocean off the Cape Verde Islands. (AP via Canadian Business)
  • Hurricane Igor heads for Newfoundland. (News 13)

• China rules out a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan at the United Nations to resolve an ongoing diplomatic row, saying the timing is "not proper". (Reuters) (AFP) (Radio Television Hong Kong)

• Italian authorities seize 23 million euro (approximately US$30 million) from a Vatican bank account in a money laundering probe. (AP)
• U.S. entertainers Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton are stopped by immigrations at a Japanese airport and forbidden to enter the country due to Paris's drug conviction the day prior. (Fox News)

• A gay rights protest against the views of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov is broken up with eight people arrested. (BBC) (Sify India) (AP)
• President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo sacks heads of the country's army, navy and air force plus five more senior officers in a decision aimed at "institutionalizing the structure of the armed forces". (BBC)
• Asylum seekers at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney, Australia, continue their protest with some inmates cutting themselves until a meeting occurs with officials from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. (ABC News), (AFP via Yahoo! News), (ABC News Online)
• The governing Workers Party of North Korea reschedules its first party conference for thirty years for September 28 in Pyongyang amongst speculation that Leader Kim Jong-il will name his youngest son Kim Jong-un as his successor. (The Guardian), (AP)
• Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke resigns as Prime Minister of Somalia following an impasse developing with President Sharif Ahmed over a new constitution. (AP via Google) (Al Jazeera)

• 2010 Commonwealth Games
  • The Commonwealth Games Federation demands that India improve conditions at the athletes' village in Delhi. (BBC)
  • At least 23 people are injured after a footbridge collapses near the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. (Reuters) (OneIndia), (Times of India)
• The Minnesota Twins win the American League Central in Major League Baseball and become the first team to qualify for postseason play in 2010. (SBNation)

• CBS Season Premieres of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles

• Three troops were killed when a roadside blast struck a military vehicle in Bara area of Khyber, one of the seven tribal agencies in Pakistan's restive northwest bordering Afghanistan. (Xinhua)
• At least one person is killed and 10 injured in a shootout in Quetta, Pakistan. (Xinhua)
• Three French crewman are kidnapped off the coast of Nigeria. (Reuters) (Xinhua) (The Himalayan Times)
• A Palestinian man is shot dead by an Israeli security guard in the East Jerusalem area of Silwan, during a clash between Israeli settlers and Palestinians. (BBC)
• At least a dozen Iranians are killed and 81 are wounded in a bomb attack on a military parade in the Kurdish town of Mahabad according to reports from Iranian Arabic language television Al-Alam. (DNA India) (Reuters) (RFERL) (cnbc), (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• A militant is killed in an ongoing operation by security forces in militancy-hit Sopore township of north Kashmir in the Baramulla district. (PTI)

• At least 18 people are dead and 44 missing after heavy rains from Typhoon Fanapi flood parts of southern China. (CNN) (AP)
• Two workers are killed and another is injured after a mine in Balıkesir collapses. 22 workers have been killed there in the past six months. (Today's Zaman)

• American celebrity Paris Hilton is barred from entering Japan after pleading guilty to cocaine possession in Las Vegas, Nevada, earlier in the week. (Times of India)
• American singer Eddie Fisher dies in Berkeley, California. (AP via Yahoo! News)

• Russia bans arms sales to Iran, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929. (RIA Novosti) (Xinhua)
• China threatens Japan with "further action" if the latter does not release a Chinese fishing captain detained near the disputed Senkaku Islands. (Al Jazeera) (AFP)
• An international summit titled "The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue" begins in Moscow, Russia, on territorial claims and co-operation in the Arctic. (BBC) (Voice of Russia)
• Radio Free Asia reports that North Korea's National Defense Commission held an emergency meeting presided over by Kim Jong-un to compromise the upcoming G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea. (Korea Times) (Arirang News)
• A panel of human rights experts convened by the United Nations Human Rights Council says Israel's seizure of the MV Mavi Marmara in the Gaza flotilla raid was "clearly unlawful". (The Guardian), (BBC)

• 14 mutilated bodies are discovered in the Ruzizi River in Burundi, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (BBC) (News24)
• Iranian human rights campaigner Emadeddin Baghi is sentenced to six years in jail after recording an interview for the BBC with reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri. (BBC)

• Another group of asylum seekers starts a new protest at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney, Australia, while other detainees continue a hunger strike. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Simonetta Sommaruga and Johann Schneider-Ammann are elected as new members of the Swiss Federal Council by the Swiss parliament. Swiss parliament dossier (german)

• The discovery of the ceratopsids species Kosmoceratops richardsoni and Utahceratops gettyi in Utah is announced. (National Geographic) (PLoS) 

• War in Somalia:
  • Somali journalists walk out of the GBC radio station seized by Islamist rebels after refusing to take orders. (BBC) (AP)
  • At least 21 people are killed and 70 injured in street battles in the capital Mogadishu. (Al Jazeera)
• Víctor Julio Suárez Rojas, the leader of the FARC guerrilla whose nom de guerre was "Mono Jojoy", is killed in a military operation by Colombian Armed Forces. (BBC News)

• 2010 strikes in France: French trade unions launch a new round of strikes over plans by the President Nicolas Sarkozy to lift the pension age to 62, with transport services and schools to be badly affected. (Al Jazeera) (AP via Google) (France 24)

• At least six people die in a mine collapse in Kayanza Province, northern Burundi. (RTT News) (BBC)
• The death toll in China from Typhoon Fanapi reaches 54 with dozens more people missing. (AP via SignOn SanDiego) (China Daily)
• 2010 Atlantic hurricane season: Tropical Storm Matthew forms in the western Caribbean Sea with predictions that it could hit Central America on Friday or Saturday. (Reuters)
• Approximately 16,000 people have died in the United States between 2001 and 2007 due to people using cell phones while driving, according to a new report. (Reuters)
• Speeding train kills 7 elephants in Eastern India. (CBS)

• French authorities seek to make contact with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb over the kidnapping of five French nationals and two others in Niger, now believed to have been taken to northern Mali. (BBC) (Voice of America)
• Iran withdraws its bid for a seat on the International Atomic Energy Agency board due to lack of support for its candidacy. (AFP)
• The United States and other western nations including Britain, Sweden, Australia, Belgium, Uruguay and Spain walk out of the United Nations General Assembly following claims by the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the "majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world" say that the 9/11 attacks were the work of the Government of the United States trying to protect Israel. (Voice of America), (CNN)
• The President of the United States Barack Obama meets with the Premier of China Wen Jiabao, with the value of the renminbi the top issue for discussion. (Reuters)

• Chinese authorities investigate four Japanese employees of Fujita Corp., suspected of entering a military zone and illegally videotaping military targets in northern Hebei Province. (AP) (BBC)
• The U.S. state of Virginia executes its first woman since 1912; Teresa Lewis will also be the first woman in the U.S. to be executed since 2005. (Sky News)
• Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui is sentenced to 86 years in jail in a New York federal court for trying to kill United States soldiers in Afghanistan. (Al Jazeera)

• North Korea reshuffles senior officials days ahead of a meeting of the Korean Workers' Party expected to lead to a transition of power from Kim Jong-il to his son Kim Jong-un. (AFP) (Korea Herald)
• The election commission in Guinea proposes 10 October as a revised date for the presidential run-off election. (Reuters) (CNN)
• Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy is sentenced in absentia to 10 years' imprisonment for altering maps to show that Vietnam was encroaching on Cambodian territory. (The Phnom Penh Post) (BBC)
• The final count for the Swedish general election shows that The Alliance finished two seats short of an absolute majority. (The Telegraph)

• 2010 Commonwealth Games:
  • Countries including New Zealand, Canada and Scotland delay their departure for the host city of Delhi, India, due to concerns about unsafe and unhygienic accommodation in the athletes' village. (AFP via Yahoo! News Australia)
  • The Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh convenes an emergency meeting of Ministers to discuss problems with the facilities. (Livemint)

• CBS Season Premiere of The Big Bang Theory

• Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA object to the use of the song "Mamma Mia" at rallies held by a right-wing Danish political party and threaten to sue. (BBC)
• The Beano is to feature a President of the United States for the first time in its history. (BBC)
• American satirist Stephen Colbert attracts media attention in his country by appearing before a United States Congress committee. (BBC)

• Gold prices reach a record US$1,300/oz in a prolonged rally. (MarketWatch)
• Striking pilots from the state-owned Air Zimbabwe end their two week strike that grounded flights and left passengers stranded after a pay deal with the government in Zimbabwe. (Times Live) (Reuters)
• In the world's largest share offer, Brazilian semi-public energy company Petrobras raises US$67 billion. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Thanet Wind Farm, the world's largest offshore wind farm, opens off the southeast coast of Thanet district in Kent, England. (AP via yahoo) (3news) (Sky) (Seattle Times) (CBS) (AP)
• China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group invests RMB 30 billion offshore in a wind farm project in Liaoning province of northern China. (Business China)
• Facebook launches a new feature for iPhone in Canada, allowing users to automatically update their location. (CBC) (Tehran Times)
• Chile freezes the assets of San Esteban Mining to fund the cost of the rescue effort from the 2010 Copiapó mining accident. (AFP via Adelaide Advertiser)

• The government of Nigeria opens two swollen dams in Jigawa State, displacing two million people. (AP via MSNBC) (BBC)
• Hurricane Lisa becomes the seventh hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. (UPI)
• At least five people die in a freak storm in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Sky News Australia)
• One person is killed and 57 are injured in a train collision in Tunis. (Xinhua)

• The African Union appeals for funds to increase its force in Somalia from 8,000 to 20,000. (BBC) (AP)
• Japanese prosecutors release the Chinese fishing boat captain recently captured in disputed waters in the East China Sea after pressure from the Chinese government. (Reuters via Yahoo! News UK) (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
• The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with the President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas to discuss an extension of the Middle East peace process. (AFP via Google News)

• A senior Nicaraguan diplomat is found dead in an apartment in New York City. (Latin American Herald Tribune) (CNN)
• Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington rules on remand that the discharge of flight nurse Maj. Margaret Witt under the Don't ask, don't tell policy violated her constitutional rights. (AP via MSNBC)

• Gennady Yanayev, who briefly declared himself to be the President of the Soviet Union in the August Coup of 1991 that deposed Mikhail Gorbachev, dies in Russia. (AP via Google News) (BBC) (Reuters via Gulf News)

• Gun battle between security forces and Taliban fighters leave four militants including their commander dead in Wardak province 40 km west of Afghanistan capital Kabul. (Xinhua)
• Two Russian police and seven militants are killed in firefights in the southern republic of Dagestan while thirty people are injured in a suicide bombing. (RIA Novosti via RT)
• The Israeli Navy kills a Palestinian fisherman off Gaza. (Sky News)
• One of three Palestinians wounded by Israeli tank fire on 14 September dies in the Gaza Strip. (AFP via Google News)
• Those sexually abused as children by Catholic priests in Italy gather in public for the first time in Verona to campaign for the act to be made a crime against humanity and to organise an international demonstration outside the Vatican next month. (BBC) (Al Jazeera) (AP via The Age) (The Irish Times) (The Jakarta Post)

• 1986 Nobel Laureate for Literature Wole Soyinka, the first African to receive the award, launches a political party ahead of Nigeria's upcoming presidential election. (BBC) (Daily Nation)

• The United Nations estimates on a preliminary basis that at least 2,000 tents were damaged or destroyed in the storm that struck Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. (Al Jazeera)
• At least two people are killed and seventeen injured in a domestic gas explosion in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, Belgium. (RIA Novosti)

• Mahmoud Abbas addresses the United Nations General Assembly, where he states that Palestinians desire "a comprehensive and just" peace agreement and requests that Israel cease its policy of building settlements in the West Bank. (Xinhua) (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
• The People's Republic of China demands an apology from Japan after a recently detained fishing boat captain returns. Japan's Foreign Ministry rejects the call. (Reuters) (AP via SignOnSanDiego)

• A U.S. federal court judge denies convicted murderer and rapist Albert Green's request for a stay of execution, clearing the way for California's first execution in five years. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Pakistan International Airlines Flight 782 departing from Toronto, Canada, for Karachi, Pakistan, carrying 273 passengers lands at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, Sweden, due to a bomb threat. A man is taken into custody by the Swedish National Task Force and then released. (AP via Yahoo! News) (CNN)(Sky News) (Big Pond News)

• The U.S. government urges a judge to dismiss a lawsuit which challenges an American targeted killing program which is currently hunting an American citizen who has no charges brought against him. (Reuters)
• Campaigning begins in Myanmar ahead of November elections. (AP via The Jakarta Post)
• In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party elects Ed Miliband over his older brother David in the tightest leadership election in history, with Ed coming out on top in only the 4th round of voting. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Al Jazeera)

• The Soyuz TMA-18 capsule carrying three members of the International Space Station lands safely in Kazakhstan. (Xinhua)
• The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) states that the population of some animals in the country's national parks and game reserves has doubled since 1999. (BBC) (AFP via France24) (News24)

• The Australian Football League Grand Final between Collingwood and St Kilda ends in a draw, resulting in a rematch to be played next weekend. (ABC Online) (Herald-Sun)
• Michael Fennell, the President of the Commonwealth Games Federation, says that the Games will go ahead but that there "was extensive work to be done" for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, ahead of its opening on 3 October. (Reuters) (Al Jazeera)
• The Texas Rangers clinch the American League West division in Major League Baseball. (Silicon Valley Mercury News)

• 2010 Philippine Bar exam bombing
  • At least 24 people are injured after a grenade is thrown at the De La Salle University in Manila, where bar examinations were being held. (ABS-CBN News)
• A clash between ethnic Bugis and Tidung (Tarakan indigenous people) claimed one life in Juwata sub-district, Tarakan, East Kalimantan. (Jakarta Post)
• 6 civilians are wounded in an explosion apparently targeting the Shiite politician Mowaffak al-Rubaie near a fuel station in Sa'doun Street, Baghdad. (Xinhua)
• Intelligence services report 7 as the death toll resulting from 2 U.S. drone aircraft missile strikes in North Waziristan. (BBC)
• The Stuxnet computer worm fails to harm the operating system of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Bushehr after infecting the personal computers of staff. (BBC) (AFP via France24)
• The American bishop Eddie Long, who has opposed same-sex marriage, vows to tackle allegations of luring young men into sexual intercourse. (BBC)
• The Spanish government is reported to have rejected an ETA statement calling for a permanent ceasefire between the two sides. (BBC) (AFP via The Sydney Morning Herald) (Al Jazeera)
• The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution cross the border into Iraq and kill 30 Kurds. (BBC)
• 2 NATO service members are killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan. (AP)
• Yemen issues a list of eight alleged Al Qaeda operatives wanted for possible involvement in an attack on a Yemen police bus on Saturday in Sana'a. (Xinhua via Global Times)

• America's Department of Defense (The Pentagon) admits purchasing nearly 10,000 copies of a memoir by U.S. Army Reserve officer Anthony Shaffer, destroying all of them in an effort to suppress secret information and ordering heavy redactions of the book's second printing. (The Daily Telegraph) (Toronto Sun) (CNN)
• Georgia replaces the Russian language with the English language as its second language. (Al Jazeera)
• The Peter Mullan film Neds wins two major honours at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. (BBC)

• Australian climate change activists close down the world's largest coal port in Newcastle, New South Wales. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

• Brandenburg bus crash:
  • A tourist bus from Poland hits a bridge pillar on a highway at Schoenefelder Kreuz in Brandenburg, killing at least 12 people and injuring 40. (The Daily Telegraph) (Xinhua)
  • Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk visits the crash site and meets survivors. (Deutsche Welle)
• The People's Republic of China reports an outbreak of the plague in Tibet, with 5 people infected and 1 fatality. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• A specially built cage is delivered to the scene of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident. (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (AP via The Guardian)
• Towns in the U.S. state of Wisconsin evacuate residents due to flooding of the Wisconsin River. (CNN)

• Irene:
  • The boat Irene, carrying a group of Jewish activists from Germany, Israel, the U.S. and UK, sets sail from northern Cyprus aiming to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. (Al-Bawaba) (BBC) (CNN) (euronews)
  • Israel calls the ship a "provocation". (Deutsche Welle)
• UNHRC report into the Gaza flotilla raid:
  • The 57-member United Nations Human Rights Council is to investigate the facts found by a report into the Gaza flotilla raid carried out by Israel earlier this year. (The Jordan Times)
  • Israeli officials and groups such as the American Jewish Committee "slam" the United Nations Human Rights Council report. (JTA)
• Philip Alston, the international law scholar who recently stepped down as the United Nations's senior official on extrajudicial killings, calls for the UN to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan and to convict those responsible. (The Observer)
• The Israeli settlement freeze ends at 22.00 (GMT), should Israel restart construction of buildings on the West Bank the peace talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are expected to end. (BBC) (CNN)

• Video footage emerges casting doubt on the integrity of the recent Afghan parliamentary election and showing fake votes being filled in as fraud police watch on. (Al Jazeera)
• Pakistan's minister for defence production Abdul Qayum Jatoi resigns after criticising the military for allegedly carrying out political assassinations. (BBC)
• Voters in Venezuela go to the polls for a parliamentary election. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
• Ed Miliband declares the death of Tony Blair's centrist New Labour in his first interview since being elected leader of the British Labour Party yesterday. (The Daily Telegraph)

• 2010 Commonwealth Games:
  • Thousands of slum dwellers are handed eviction notices in the Indian capital Delhi, a week before the 2010 Commonwealth Games is due to open. (TV New Zealand)
  • Akhil Kumar escapes injury after his bed collapses beneath him. (The Indian Express) (The Deccan Chronicle)
• Fernando Alonso wins the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix. (The Guardian)
• The corpse of 31-year-old former Great Britain rugby league hooker Terry Newton is located hanging dead at a house in England. (The Guardian) (BBC News) (The Independent) (The Daily Telegraph)

• A suspected U.S. drone fired missiles at a house in northwestern Pakistan in Khushali, a village near Mir Ali, killing four people. (Jakarta Post)
• Rwanda withdraws a threat to remove its peacekeepers from Darfur after a United Nations report accused the Rwandan army of genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AFP) (BBC) (The East African)
• Around 70 insurgents are killed when two NATO helicopters strike inside Pakistan in its northwest Khost tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Pakistan strongly condemned the attack, calling it a violation of its airspace. (Yahoo! News) (Xinhua) (Reuters) (BBC)
• President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos describes the killing of Mono Jojoy as the "beginning of the end" for the Farc organization. (BBC) (AFP via The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Afghanistan:
  • Three former Australian soldiers are charged with offences including manslaughter following an action in the Afghanistan War in which six civilians died. (Courier Mail)
  • The Taliban claim that they are holding a British foreign aid worker and offer to exchange her for Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistan scientist recently jailed in the United States. (The Telegraph)
• Three Palestinians said to be members of the Islamic Jihad group are killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern part of the Gaza Strip. (Al Jazeera)

• Gloria Stuart, the oldest-ever nominee for an Academy Award, specifically the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the elder Rose in the 1997 film Titanic, dies in Los Angeles, aged 100. (Variety)

• Unilever plc, an Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant, has entered into an agreement to buy Alberto-Culver, a manufacturer of hair and skin care products, for $3.7 billion. (TheStreet)

• At least thirteen people die in the Gulf of Aden after a small boat capsizes with a rescue effort by the USS Winston S. Churchill saving another 61 passengers. (News Limited)
• A 6.1 magnitude earthquake southwest of the Iranian city of Shiraz kills at least one person and injures three. (Reuters)
• A landslide in the town of Giraldo in Colombia's Antioquia Department buries 30 people with authorities believing there is little chance of them being rescued. (AFP via Google News)

• The US state department expresses disappointment at Israel's decision not to extend its ban on settlement building in the West Bank. (BBC)
• Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku calls for the People's Republic of China to compensate for Japanese patrol boats damaged in a confrontation with a Chinese fishing boat in the East China Sea. (AP via Houston Chronicle) (Al Jazeera)

• 95 people, including two former mayors and planning chief of Marbella, appear in court in Malaga in one of Spain's biggest corruption trials. (The Telegraph) (BBC)
• Chinese police investigate claims that a security firm colluded with officials to detain protesters in secret prisons. (BBC) (China Economic Observer) (AP)
• The trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić resumes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. (CNN)
• Brandon Joseph Rhode is executed at a prison in Jackson, Georgia in the southern United States. (AJC)

• North Korea
  • Delegates arrive in the North Korean capital Pyongyang ahead of the largest Korean Workers' Party conference in decades. (Al Jazeera)
    • Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is named as a General, the clearest sign that he will be named the successor to his father. (The Guardian)
• The President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela wins a majority of seats in the parliamentary election held yesterday but lost a two-thirds majority needed to pass major legislation unaided. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
• President of the United States Barack Obama signs a small business lending bill into law. (Reuters)

• The Philadelphia Phillies wins the National League East in Major League Baseball. (New York Times)

• Los Angeles experiences all-time record high temperature day at 45°C or 113F. (Los Angeles Times)(USA Today)

• A recent drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region killed Sheikh Mohammad Fateh al Masri, one of al Qaeda's top commanders. (CNN)
• Three al-Quds Brigades militants are killed by an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli army claims they were preparing to fire into Israel. (Ynetnews)
• A U.S. service member is in custody in connection with the shooting deaths of two other service members and the injury of a third in Iraq. They were assigned to 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia. (CNN)

• US movie director Arthur Penn best known as the director of Bonnie and Clyde dies of congestive heart failure in New York City. (Los Angeles Times)

• The business-software giant Oracle files a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleging that Micron Technology, a manufacturer of memory chips, colluded with other manufacturers to fix prices. (Reuters)

• A 4.5 earthquake shakes offshore of Oléron, France, with no reported casualties. (Le Télégramme) (Sud Ouest)
• 300 homes are buried by a landslide in Santa María Tlahuitoltepec in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca which is feared to have killed hundreds while they slept. The landslide was caused by Tropical Storm Matthew. (BBC), (ABC Online)

• The Israeli Navy intercepts the ship Irene carrying Israeli and Jewish activists bringing foreign aid to the Gaza Strip. (Jerusalem Post) (BBC) (Haaretz.com)

• A Sikh man is given a life sentence in Vienna, Austria, for murdering Rama Nand, a leader of the Dera Sach Khand sect in 2009; five other Indian-born defendants are given sentences of various lengths. (Times of India)
• Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, the founder of one of the first Farsi-language blogs, is sentenced to 19 years imprisonment in an Iranian court for "anti-state activity". (AP) (BBC)
• The Eiffel Tower and the surrounding Champ de Mars park are evacuated due to a bomb threat but nothing is found. (ABC Online)
• A gunman opens fire with an AK47 in the library at the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, United States, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. No other injuries are reported. (The Austin American Statesman)
• Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian millionaire who had been sentenced to death in 2009 for inciting the murder of pop star Suzanne Tamim, is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in a retrial. (AP)
• The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit permanently lifts an injunction thereby allowing the United States Government to fund embryonic stem cell research. (CNN)
• Four people are killed, including a toddler, and one seriously injured in a shooting spree in the Mattapan neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts. (Xinhua), (CNN)

• 43rd Australian Parliament:
  • The 43rd Parliament of Australia meets at Parliament House, Canberra, for the first time since the recent election. (ABC Australia)
  • Harry Jenkins of the Australian Labor Party is reelected unopposed as Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives. (ABC News Online)
• The Workers' Party of Korea conference begins in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Time) (BBC)
• The President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev fires the Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov with first Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin appointed as acting Mayor. (Reuters via Straits Times) (RIA Novosti) (DW) (Xinhua) (Daily Mail) (RT) (Euronews)
• Ed Miliband, the new leader of the UK's Labour Party, makes his first major speech at the party's Annual Conference in Manchester telling delegates that his "new generation" will return the party to power. (BBC)
• Iceland's parliament, the Althing, refers charges of misconduct in office related to the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis against former Prime Minister of Iceland Geir Haarde to the Landsdómur, a special court for such cases. (AP via Yahoo! News)

• The Cincinnati Reds win the National League Central in Major League Baseball. (AP via Houston Chronicle)

• CBS Season Premiere of The Good Wife

• 14 Islamist militants are killed in an operation by Russian forces in Dagestan. (Voice of Russia) (BBC) (Reuters)

• Comedian Greg Giraldo dies at the age of 44 in a New Brunswick, New Jersey, hospital after an accidental drug overdose four days ago. (E Online)

• Protests and strikes across Europe:
  • Tens of thousands of workers across Europe protest against austerity measures being taken by their governments. (BBC) (Al Jazeera), (The Guardian)
  • Rallies take place in Portugal, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Serbia, Romania, Poland, Ireland and France. (CNN)
  • A concrete mixer is crashed into the gates of Ireland's national parliament by a man protesting against the cost of bailing out Anglo Irish Bank. (The Irish Times) (AFP) (The Guardian)
  • Spanish workers stage the country's first general strike since 2002. Transport operates at below normal levels, TV and newspapers are reduced and picketers deliver pamphlets to offices in Madrid explaining their position. (The News Tribune)
  • Thousands of people converge outside government headquarters in Warsaw under the slogan "No to cuts, yes to development". (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  • An estimated 100,000 people march on Brussels as part of a Europe-wide strike call given by the European Trade Union Confederation. (The Hindu) (Xinhua)
  • A strike by air traffic controllers in Brussels and the general strike in Spain impacts flights by airlines such as Etihad Airways, easyJet and Ryanair. (Gulf News)
• The United States House of Representatives approves legislation that would lead to trade sanctions against China, which is accused of undervaluing the yuan. (BBC) (CNN)

• The 2010 Oaxaca landslide in the Mexican state of Oaxaca is less deadly than initially feared, with eleven people missing. (The Guardian)
• Another landslide in the Mexican state of Chipas kills 16 people and leaves four missing. (Agence Presse-France)
• A magnitude 5,9 aftershock of March 11, 2010 Pichilemu, Chile earthquake hits the Lolol, O'Higgins Region area. Power outages were reported in Lolol. (BBC)

• Germany makes the final payment of its World War I reparations. (ABC News)
• South Korea says that it has reached an agreement with North Korea to hold working-level military talks for the first time in two years. (CBS)
• The European Commission issues a statement saying it will take legal action against France unless it complies with European Union rules on freedom of movement in relation to recent expulsion of Romani within the next two weeks. (National Post)
• Turkey's ambassador refuses visas to Australian and New Zealand archaeologists to conduct a survey of Gallipoli Campaign battlesites over concerns about a statue built by Sydney's Assyrian community commemorating the Assyrian Genocide in World War I. (ABC Online)

• Ten prisoners die in a fight between rival gangs at a prison in Aragua, Venezuela. (BBC)
• Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan is sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison on charges of "collaboration" and "propaganda". (Al Jazeera)
• United States District Court for the Northern District of California judge Jeremy D. Fogel stays the execution of sex killer Albert Greenwood Brown who was due to be executed on Thursday. (AFP via Google)

• India launches a national identity scheme aimed at reducing fraud and improving access to state benefits. (Times of India) (BBC)
• Kim Jong-un, the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, is appointed to two party posts in a move seen as a gradual transfer of power. (BBC) (Chosun Ilbo)
• Maatia Toafa is elected Prime Minister of Tuvalu following the 2010 general election. He succeeds former Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia. (Australia Network)
• Cabinet formation in the Netherlands: The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and Party for Freedom (PVV) complete the coalition formation after 111 days. (NOS)

• Astronomers discover the first Earth analog extrasolar planet that may be capable of supporting life, Gliese 581 g, located within the habitable zone and orbiting Gliese 581, a red dwarf star twenty light years from the Solar System. (Washington Post)

• Three paramilitary soldiers of the Pakistani Armed Forces are killed and three wounded when NATO helicopters strike a border checkpoint in the Kurram Agency tribal area. Pakistan responds by closing an important supply route that runs through its territory. Interior Minister Rehman Malik announces a high-level meeting to discuss NATO violations of Pakistani sovereignty. (Bernama via Malaysian Digest)
• An explosion rocks Taliban birthplace Kandahar in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, wounding eight people. (Xinhua)
• Two policemen and a civilian are killed and four others wounded in a failed bank robbery in southern Baghdad. (Xinhua)
• 2010 Ecuador crisis
  • A state of emergency is declared in Ecuador after troops storm the international airport and police storm the Congress, in which the government declared was an attempted coup d'état. (The Telegraph)
  • President Rafael Correa is injured and Peru and Colombia close their border with the country. (AFP) (BBC) (The Telegraph)(Euronews)
  • The Ecuadorian Army rescues President Correa from hospital where he was being held by rebel troops. (CNN)
• A convoy of at least 27 fuel tankers headed for NATO forces in Afghanistan is attacked in Pakistan's Sindh province. (AP via Silicon Valley Mercury News)

• US actor Tony Curtis, who appeared in more than 100 films including Some Like It Hot and The Defiant Ones, dies in Henderson, Nevada. (People)

• The International Monetary Fund calls for tighter regulation of credit rating agencies. (BBC)

• Two earthquakes occur off the coast of West Papua in Indonesia of 6.2 and 7.2 in magnitude. (AFP via Google)
• Three Japanese mountain climbers and a guide go missing in Nepal after attempting to climb the Himalayan mountain Dhaulagiri. (AFP via Google News)
• Heavy rain from former Tropical Storm Nicole causes flooding the US states of North Carolina and Virginia and delays in airline flights on the east coast. (CNN)

• The United States imposes sanctions on a Swiss-based Iranian oil company, the Naftiran Inter-trade Company. (VOA)
• The first inter-Korean military talks between North and South Korea in two years end without progress. (Yonhap) (Hürriyet) (Xinhua)
• China and the United States officially resume military ties after a 10-month break following US arms sales to Taiwan, with the two countries emphasizing the importance of a close military dialogue. The two countries will also confer on maritime issues next month.(Business Week) (BBC)
• Three Japanese employees of Fujita Corporation detained by China for allegedly intruding in a restricted area in Hebei Province are released while a fourth remains in custody. (Reuters)
• Argentina grants asylum to the Chilean former leftist guerrilla Galvarino Apablaza, who has been charged in Chile with assassinating a senator, despite the Chilean government's request to extradite him. (AP) (Buenos Aires Herald)

• 58 people, including 34 former government officials, are given sentences in China over a deadly landslide at an illegal iron ore mine that killed 277 people in 2008. (China Radio International) (Sify India)
• Somali pirates seize a Panamanian-flagged ship with 15 Indian crewmen on board, off the coast of Tanzania. (The Citizen) (Emirates 24/7)
• Hundreds of soldiers are deployed to Aba in southern Nigeria after the kidnapping of 15 school children by an armed gang. (Reuters) (AFP) (NEXT Nigeria)
• Allahabad High Court in India gives its verdict on the Ayodhya title suits, amid fears that the ruling could spark unrest. They decide to split the site into three portions between Hindus and Muslims. (CNN) (BBC) (The Times of India)
• The Argentine Senate passes a controversial law protecting glaciers in the Andes Mountains and prohibiting drilling for oil and other resources, hindering Barrick Gold from drilling for gold in the Pascua Lama mine. (Reuters Africa)

• Filipino social activist Carlos Celdran is arrested after staging a protest action which disrupted a mass in Manila Cathedral attended by Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and Papal Nuncio Edward Joseph Adams, in order to demonstrate against the Catholic Church’s opposition to the Reproductive Health Bill (Philippines). Philippine Daily Inquirer GMA News Philippine Star
• North Korea releases the first official image of Kim Jong-il's son, Kim Jong-un. (BBC) (Yonhap) (AFP)
• The new right wing coalition in the Netherlands have agreed to ban full Islamic veils, such as the Burqa and Niqab (BBC)

• China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reports that the computer worm Stuxnet has affected 6 million computers and almost 1,000 enterprises in the country. (Wall Street Journal) (Economic Times)

• The International Cycling Union provisionally suspends Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador, the current Tour de France champion, after he was found to have tested positive for a small amount of clenbuterol, a banned substance, on July 21. He blames food contamination for the positive sample.(Sydney Morning Herald) (AAP via The Australian) (New York Times), (Reuters)