Portal:Current events/2012 June 11

June 11, 2012 (Monday)

Armed conflict and attacks

Arab Spring:
- Bahraini uprising: An 11-year-old child is released after weeks in detention, but still faces being put on trial for "joining an illegal gathering". (Al Jazeera)
- Syrian uprising: Heavy fighting is reported overnight in the Damascus suburb of al-Abbaseen between Syrian government forces and the Free Syrian Army. (Al-Arabiya)
Afghanistan:
- Five people are killed after an ambulance hits a roadside bomb in Sar-e-Pul Province. (AP via Google News)
- Four civilians are killed in a Taliban attack in Ghazni province. (AP via Google News)
Mexican Drug War:
- Margarito Genchi Casiano, a politician of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, is gunned down in the southern state of Guerrero. (Fox News)
Researchers uncover direct links between the Flame and Stuxnet cyber-attacks on Iran, saying the attackers worked together on both at early stages of each threat's development. (BBC)
Twenty three people are killed in an attack on two villages in northern Nigeria. (BBC)

Arts and culture

The size of the Nobel Prize is being reduced by 20% in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective. (Nobel Foundation) (BBC)
After six years, Google reaches a deal with a publishing group that opposed its scanning and publishing of books online. (BBC)
Madonna exposes her right breast on stage in Istanbul. (Hindustan Times) (Irish Independent)
Lady Gaga suffers a concussion after smacking her head with a pole during a show in New Zealand. (MTV)
A pan-Arab satellite television channel, Al Mayadeen ("The Squares" in Arabic), is launched in Lebanon that is speculated to be a mouthpiece for Iran and Hezbollah. (AP via AJC)
The 50th International Eucharistic Congress opens in Dublin with an address by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and a Mass in a sports stadium, the RDS Arena. (Catholic News Agency)

Business

Dangote Cement opens a new line of production at its Obajana facility in the Kogi State, making the plant the largest in Sub-Sahara Africa and one of the largest in the world. (AFP)

Disasters

Burma declares a state of emergency after several people are killed in sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims (The Guardian)
More than 80 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried. (BBC)
More than 170,000 houses are left without power in south-western Western Australia after winds up to 140 km/h batter the region. (WA Today)
Flooding hits large parts of England and Wales. (The Guardian)

International relations

Somalia–United States relations:
- Al-Shabaab offers a reward of 10 camels for information about the whereabouts of Barack Obama and chickens for information on Hillary Clinton in response to the U.S. announcement of rewards of $3-7 million for various militant commanders. (BBC)
- The U.S. threatens to impose sanctions on individual Somalis oppose peace plan. (BBC)
The U.S. withdraws a team of negotiators from Pakistan, with The Pentagon announcing: "The decision was reached to bring the team home for a short period of time". (BBC)
The U.S. grants permission to seven countries on three continents to continue importing oil from Iran in contravention of the declared U.S. policy of isolating Iran. (BBC)

Law and crime

John Bryson crashes:
- Police in the San Gabriel Valley in southern California cite United States Secretary of Commerce John Bryson for felony hit and run for alleged involvement in a series of accidents on the weekend. (Los Angeles Times) (AP via Newsday)
- Bryson takes medical leave while he undergoes test related to a seizure that occurred during the crashes. (Los Angeles Times)
Leveson Inquiry
- Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tells the Leveson Inquiry into press standards that he did not declare war on Rupert Murdoch after the Labour Party lost the support of The Sun newspaper in 2009. (The Telegraph)
- NHS Fife apologises to Brown after finding it was "highly likely" one of its staff members leaked details of his son's cystic fibrosis to The Sun, which ran a story about his medical condition. (BBC)
- Chancellor George Osborne tells the Inquiry that suggestions of a deal between the Conservative Party and Rupert Murdoch are "complete nonsense". (The Guardian)

Politics and elections

Martin McGuinness resigns from the House of Commons. (The Guardian)
The Parliament of Albania elects Bujar Nishani President of the Republic of Albania. (ABC)^{[permanent dead link]}
Russian police with assault rifles in an early morning raid swoop on the homes of opposition political activists, including Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov, intent on attending a mass opposition rally in Moscow tomorrow; they are summoned to appear in court instead. (Al Jazeera) (Associated Press)(Reuters) (Deutsche Welle)
Ali Larijani is sworn in as Chairman of the Parliament of Iran for another term. (Press TV)

Science

Sports