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) (Aljazeera)
• 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)
• Turkey says six of its soldiers were killed and fifteen wounded in an attack by Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border. Turkey also says that one rebel was killed during the attack, and that others were being pursued by the military. (BBC)

Arts and entertainment

• Author Alan Shadrake is released on bail after being arrested while promoting his book on the death penalty in Singapore; a trial is forthcoming on 30 July. (Aljazeera)
• The shortlist for the Forward Poetry Prize is announced. (The Guardian)
• 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)
• The shortlist for the 2010 Mercury Prize is announced. (BBC) (France24) (The Irish Times) (The Independent)

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)
• 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)

Disasters

• Preliminary investigations indicate driver error as the cause of yesterday's deadly train crash in West Bengal. (BBC) (San Jose Mercury News)

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)
• Cuba's Ricardo Alarcón says the island is prepared to release further political prisoners after the 52 it announced earlier this month; he says they are free to remain in Cuba if they so wish. (BBC) (France24)
• The United States announces it is to deploy troops along the US-Mexico border in August in what it sees as an effort to improve its security. (BBC)
• 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 Sydney Morning Herald)
• Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashal meet for talks in Syria. (BBC) (CNN) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• 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 gives evidence in public before the Iraq Inquiry into Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, admitting that the 2003 invasion of Iraq served to "substantially" increase the security threat to the UK. (BBC) (Aljazeera)
• 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 as part of an advertising stunt in a film that has shocked Russians nationwide. (BBC) (IOL) (iAfrica) (Sky News) (Daily Mail)
• Former Indian junior diplomat Madhuri Gupta is charged under the Official Secrets Act with spying for Pakistan. (BBC) (The Times of India) (Asian Age)
• French prosecutors request that they be allowed to question Labour Minister Éric Wœrth as part of an investigation into the country's political scandal. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Two prisoners flee a jail guarded by a dummy. (BBC)
• Bailiffs and police officers swoop in and evict peace protesters from Democracy Village in Parliament Square, Central London, England (BBC)
• 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)
• 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)

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) (Aljazeera)
• 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) (Aljazeera)
• 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)
• Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin announces the country is to invest $800 million into a new spaceport near Uglegorsk in the Far East. (BBC)

Sport

• French footballers Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema are placed under formal judicial investigation for soliciting sex with an underage prostitute. (BBC News) (Aljazeera) (Reuters) (iAfrica) (Montreal Gazette)
• Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie selects Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjørn and Paul McGinley as his vice-captains. (The Guardian)
• Alberto Contador apologises after he took advantage of Andy Schleck to obtain the yellow jersey in the 2010 Tour de France. (The Guardian)