Canadian nun kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram gunmen have been released. (CBC)
Business and economics
Stocks in Egypt fall sharply with the EGX30 losing 4.2% and the EGX100 losing 5% after the government proposed a new 10% capital gains tax. (AP via ABC News)
A large skirmish occurs in eastern Ukraine when pro-Russian separatists launch a massive attack on a border control centre near the city of Luhansk; five militants are killed and another eight are wounded, and seven Ukrainian border guards are wounded in the clash. (BBC News)
276 girls kidnapped from northern Nigeria by Boko Haram. (CNN)
Politics and elections
Syrian presidential election, 2014
:
Voters in Syria go to the polls for a presidential election with incumbent PresidentBashar al-Assad all but certain to win amidst an opposition boycott. On Wednesday, the Syrian government claimed that he had won with 88.7% of the vote. (AFP via GlobalPost)(Reuters)
2014 Abkhazian political crisis
:
Former president
Aleksandr Ankvab announces his intentions to run in the upcoming elections. (ITAR-TASS)
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant gunmen storm the campus of the University of Anbar, killing three guards and holding dozens of students hostage before withdrawing. (Sky News)(AP)
The dead bodies of 21 policemen who were kidnapped a day before by militants are recovered in Mosul, Iraq. (IANS via Biharprabha)
Dennis Marx of the sovereign citizen movement opened fire with an assault rifle outside a Georgia courthouse Friday in an attempt to take hostages, wounded a deputy before he was killed in a shootout with officers.(Fox News)
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, calls for an independent inquiry into mass graves for women and children warning that more sites are likely to be found in Ireland. (The Telegraph)
Three people, including two police officers, are
Las Vegas, Nevada. The woman (Amanda Miller) kills her husband (Jerad Miller) and then herself. (Fox News)
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claims responsibility for the attack. (Wall Street Journal)
Iraqi insurgency (post-U.S. withdrawal)
:
A suicide truck bomber detonates his vehicle at the gate of a
Tuz Khormato, Iraq, a second truck bomb detonated as people were gathering around the first one. Over 15 are killed and at least 110 injured. (AP via ABC)
Nguyen Duc Kien is sentenced to 30 years in prison in Vietnam on charges of tax evasion, violating state economic regulations, fraud, and running an illegal business. (Xinhua)
Gunmen in Kenya's port city of Mombasa kill Mohamed Idris, chairman of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya, who opposed the radical preachings of Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab insurgents. (Yahoo! News)
Iraqi insurgency (post-U.S. withdrawal)
Militants stage an overnight attack in Mosul, Iraq, taking control of the city while police and military flee. (Washington Post)
Alaa Abdel-Fattah and 24 others are sentenced in absentia to 15 years in jail in relation to a protest last November. (Ahram)
The news aggregator app Feedly is struck by massive DDoS attacks, with the perpetrator attempting to extort money from the company to make the cyber-attacks stop. (BBC News)
Ontario general election, 2014: The Liberal Party of Ontario wins a majority government; Kathleen Wynne will remain the Premier of the province. (CBC News)
Voters in Afghanistan go to the polls for the second round of voting with the Taliban threatening polling booths. Dozens of people are killed across the country. (al-Jazeera), (USA Today)
June 16-18 Tornado Outbreak begins. Twin EF4 tornadoes devastate northeast Nebraska. A town particularly hit hard being Pilger, NE where a young girl is killed. At night several other tornadoes touch down and one of them, an EF3, tears through the southwest portions of Madison, Wisconsin. June 16-18 Tornado Outbreak (www.ustornadoes.com)
International relations
Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom says that Ukraine must pay up front for its gas after the country failed to settle its debt. (BBC News)
Russian lawmakers call for the dismissal of Ukraine's interim foreign minister,
The U.S. Supreme Court finds against the Republic of Argentina on a discovery issue in its litigation against hedge fund NML Capital, and refuses to hear appeals on the substantive issues in the same litigation: a victory for hold-out bond-holders against a defaulting sovereign. (Reuters)
FBI, captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, one of the suspected leaders of the Benghazi attack, on the weekend of June 14 to June 15, 2014, in a covert mission in Libya. (Washington Post)
suicide bomber detonates a tricycle taxi filled with explosives at an outdoor viewing venue for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Damaturu, Nigeria, resulting in several deaths and 15 people critically injured. (AP)
The OPCW releases a preliminary report indicating more chemical weapons have been used since the August 2013 attacks, confirming France's suspicions that the Syrian government has still been using chlorine gas attacks. (KUNA)(Daily Star)
The Ukraine Parliament confirms all government candidates, including that of foreign minister, appointed the previous day by President Petro Poroshenko. (Kyiv Post)
A 15-year-old Israeli boy is killed and three Israelis wounded when their truck is hit by an unknown weapon in the
Israeli Defense Forces fire at Syrian government targets in response. (BBC News)
Arts and culture
The
UNESCO World Heritage Site list, the first such site in Myanmar. (UNESCO)
Business and economy
The
French government votes to allow a US$17 billion deal buyout of much of Alstom's power production business by General Electric to move forward. (Reuters)
Law and crime
Three men who escaped from a jail near Quebec City via helicopter on 7 June are recaptured by the RCMP in Montreal. (CBC)
UNESCO World Heritage Sites, in addition to its three cultural sites, as Stevns Klint and the Danish parts of the Wadden Sea are inscribed on the UNESCO list. (UNESCO)
A painting in
Water Lilies series is sold at auction in London for £31.7 million or $54 million US, the second highest price for a Monet on record. (AFP via Bangkok Post)
At least five people have been killed in an attack on the Kenyan coast. (BBC News)
An Afghan man who saved the life of a Navy SEAL requests asylum in the United States after the Taliban has declared they will try to kill him. (Vocativ.com)
Nigerian police say that 21 people have been killed in an explosion at a crowded Banex Plaza shopping center in Abuja's Wuse 2 district. (Voice of America)
Uruguay's star striker Luis Suárez is expelled from the tournament, banned for nine international matches and suspended from all football-related activity for four months for biting Giorgio Chiellini of Italy in Tuesday's Group D match. The verdict, the most severe against any player in FIFA World Cup history, means Suárez will be unable to play or train for his club Liverpool until 27 October. (Press Association)(BBC Sport)
A Mexican military chopper flies into the United States and mistakenly shoots at border guards as part of a drug interdiction operation. Mexican authorities apologize for the incident. (RT)
Two British thirteen-year-olds are arrested for desecrating graves in a Jewish cemetery in Manchester, England, causing over £100,000 in damage. Nazi slogans and swastikas were drawn on some gravestones, and about forty were toppled over. (Jerusalem Post)
A police officer is killed and several others injured in a small explosion near the presidential palace in Cairo. A second officer is killed while defusing another bomb at the same site. (Reuters)(The Voice of Russia)
Australian entertainer Rolf Harris is convicted in London, England, of 12 counts of indecent assault against young girls between 1968 and 1986. The 84-year-old is to be sentenced on Friday 4 July. (ABC News Australia)
