Portal:Current events/2010 July 20

Current events of July 20, 2010 (2010-07-20) (Tuesday)

Armed conflicts and incidents

• Navi Pillay states that Kyrgyzstan is detaining hundreds of people and using torture on some of them during the ongoing crisis. (BBC) (Arab News) (France24) (Reuters)
• Thailand's government lifts a state of emergency in 3 provinces; it remains in 16 others, including Bangkok. (Arab News)
• William Hague, the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, says that British soldiers should be out of Afghanistan by 2014. (Xinhua)
• Uganda's government defends the forced repatriation of 1,700 Rwandan refugees, deemed "heavy-handed" by the United Nations; two people are killed in a group alleged to be a security risk following the July 2010 Kampala attacks. (Arab News)
• Ly Tong allegedly attacks Dam Vinh Hung with pepper spray during a concert in California, United States, accusing him of being a proponent of Communism. (BBC) (San Jose Mercury News)
• A worker at a Foxconn subsidiary undergoes a fatal fall from a dormitory building in Foshan, Guangdong. (BBC) (Philippine Daily Inquirer) (Reuters India) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• A police officer discharges a 50,000-volt Taser gun into the groin of a Guillain–Barré syndrome sufferer in Somerset, England, prompting a possible legal battle; he denies he was acting in an aggressive manner. (BBC) (The Independent) (Daily Mail)

Arts and entertainment

• Actress Lindsay Lohan starts a 90-day sentence for breaking her parole for a 2007 conviction for drunk driving in California, United States. (The Australian) (BBC) (Reuters) (Sky News)

Business and economics

• An American appeals court grants bail to newspaper publisher Conrad Black. (BBC) (The Guardian) (Samaylive Latest News)
• Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan signs legislation to create a so-called "bad bank". (BBC)

International relations

• Two men imprisoned for nearly eight years in Guantánamo Bay are sent to Algeria and Cape Verde, according to the United States Pentagon, against their will. (BBC) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• An international conference on the future of Afghanistan opens in Kabul co-chaired by the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon. The conference endorses a goal for Afghan forces to lead security operations across the country by 2014. Afghan President Hamid Karzai suggests raising the size of the Afghan National Army to 170,000 troops and the Afghan National Police to 134,000 officers by 2011. (BBC) (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Former North Korean spy Kim Hyon Hui is allowed into Japan via Haneda Airport on a government-chartered jet, after the country waives its own immigration rules. (BBC) (The Guardian) (iAfrica) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• North Korea executes by firing squad Kwon Ho Ung, a former cabinet official who led talks with South Korea from 2004 until 2007. (The Guardian)
• The leadership of Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon is attacked. (BBC)
• ASEAN formally invites Russia and the United States to attend the East Asia Summit and urges Myanmar to hold free and fair elections in a foreign ministers meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Agence France Presse), (AP via Google News)

Law and crime

• Former MI5 head Baroness Manningham-Buller is due to give evidence in public at the Iraq Inquiry into Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (BBC)
• Lesbian student Constance McMillen, banned by a high school in the United States from bringing her girlfriend to her leavers' dinner, is to receive a $35,000 settlement in response to a discrimination lawsuit. (BBC) (USA Today) (Miami Herald) (The Washington Post)
• Police in Krasnodar investigate allegations of animal cruelty after a terrified donkey is forced to parasail off a beach in an advertising stunt. (BBC) (IOL) (iAfrica) (Sky News) (Daily Mail)
• Bailiffs and police officers swoop in and evict peace protesters from Democracy Village in Parliament Square, Central London, England (BBC)

Politics

• ASEAN requests that Myanmar hold free elections. (Arab News) (The Age) (BBC) (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
• Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron meets with US President Barack Obama to discuss the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Afghanistan and the global economy. (BBC) (Samaylive News)
• The Supreme Court of Guinea confirms there will be a presidential run-off in the country's election. (BBC) (Miami Herald) (Xinhua)
• Campaigning begins ahead of the presidential election in Rwanda. (BBC) (News24.com) (The Irish Times)
• Spain rejects a proposal to ban the burqa in public places; 183 to 162, with two abstaining. (Arab News)
• Shirley Sherrod, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture, resigns after a video on the internet surfaced showing her apparently making racist remarks regarding the foreclosure of a farm owned by a white farmer. (CNN) (Fox News) Controversy ensues about the video having been heavily edited to convey false information. (mediamatters)
• Cabinet formation in the Netherlands: Coalition meetings between People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Labour Party (PvdA), Democrats 66 (D66) and GreenLeft (GL) fails to form a new Purple government. (NOS)

Science and weather

• The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River faces its biggest flood control test since its completion last year. (BBC) (Business Week)

Sport

• French footballers Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema are placed under formal judicial investigation for soliciting sex with a underage prostitute. (BBC News) (Reuters) (iAfrica) (Montreal Gazette)