Portal:Current events/2010 October 18

October 18, 2010 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

next batch of classified documents by WikiLeaks, the U.S. military assembles a 120-member team to search its database for clues in preparation for the publication event. (The New Zealand Herald) (BBC)

Papuans, in a region where a small group of rebels has waged a war for independence from Indonesia for the last few decades. (BBC) (AFP) (AP)

The death toll from a robbery on jewelry stores in western Baghdad rises to nine, while 12 others are wounded. (People's Daily)
Thousands protest the murder of three civilians after soldiers loot homes in the Congo's South Kivu province. (AP)
The Latvian Defense Ministry said four NATO fighter jets from the Lithuanian Air Force Base near Šiauliai were deployed when two Russian bombers flying in the neutral airspace almost entered Latvian air space. (15 min).

Arts and culture

BP is to sell assets worth an estimated $1.8 billion as part of series of sales to help pay for damages caused by the explosion on its Deepwater Horizon rig in April, which killed 11 workers and spilled more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. (AOL News) (BBC) (Bloomberg)
BHP Billiton announce that they have scrapped a proposed $120 billion joint venture in the Pilbara region of Western Australia due to regulatory problems. (ABC Australia)

The
U.S. government has concluded that Chinese companies are bypassing UN sanctions on Iran and helping Iran to improve its missile technology and develop nuclear weapons, and has asked China to stop such activity. (The Washington Post)

UN Security Council to intervene on behalf of the opposition FDU party leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, arrested last week, and other political prisoners. (AFP) (VOA)

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visits Iran, where he is told to "get rid of America". (Telegraph) (CNN)
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a major United Nations gathering, meets in Japan to work out why governments have failed to stop the rapid rate of extinction and loss of habitats by 2010, as they vowed 8 years ago. (BBC) (The Guardian)
The
China, sparked by a recent territorial dispute. (AFP via Yahoo! News) (Japan Today)

The United Arab Emirates' highest court rules in a domestic violence case that a man can beat his wife and children as long as he leaves no physical marks. (MSNBC) (The National)
Five migrant Filipino workers are arrested in Saudi Arabia for filing a labor complaint against their employer according to a Philippine migrant workers' rights group. (The Philippine Star)^{[permanent dead link]}
More than 150 people, including 12 mayors and some politicians, go on trial for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey. (Al Jazeera) (Today's Zaman)
Islamist Al-Shabaab rebels in Somalia ban mobile phone money transfers, saying they are "unIslamic". (BBC) (AFP)

Three inmates are killed in a prison riot in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. (Al Jazeera) (IBN Live)
The appeal of
death sentence imposed by an Indian court for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks begins in Mumbai. (BBC News)

China releases the Tibetan writer, Kalsang Tsultrim, who was arrested in China earlier this year for what China termed a "political error". (MSN)^{[permanent dead link]}

Politics

Burma bans all foreign media and international observers from the upcoming
general election in November. (BBC) (CNN) (Sify)

The Sudanese government fires the special prosecutor for Darfur war crimes, in what the Sudan Tribune calls "an apparent bid to deflect the case of the International Criminal Court against President Omar al-Bashir". (Sudan Tribune)
The
detention of children and family groups. (BBC), (Sydney Morning Herald)

Mediterranean stretching for several kilometers, 30 to 40 kilometers off the coast of Tel Aviv, in an area once thought to be relatively barren of sea life. (INN)