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At least 14 protesters were shot when Palestinians sought to cross Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. The demonstrators were marking the day of the naqba, or catastrophe, the term Palestinians use for Israel’s birth in 1948. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said his country’s sovereignty had to be defended. See article

Libya’s oil minister, Shokri Ghanem, was reported to have defected, the highest-ranking official to abandon Colonel Muammar Qaddafi since Moussa Koussa, his foreign minister, fled in March. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said he was seeking an arrest warrant for the colonel, his son Saif, and his chief of intelligence. See article

Yemen’s government and an opposition coalition again came close to a deal to end the crisis that has gripped the country for three months. Under the plan, brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council, President Ali Abdullah Saleh would stand down within 30 days and a unity government be formed. But he was holding out for last-minute concessions.

Nabil el-Araby, Egypt’s 76-year-old foreign minister, was elected secretary-general of the 22-country Arab League, replacing Amr Moussa, another former foreign minister of Egypt, who held the post for ten years.

In local elections South Africa’s ruling African National Congress won most seats but faced its strongest opposition since it came to power in 1994. The share of the vote for the opposition Democratic Alliance, led by a white woman, Helen Zille, was expected to rise from its previous 15%. See article

At a special UN tribunal in Tanzania, the former head of Rwanda’s army, Augustin Bizimungu, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity. He had ordered Hutu militants to kill Tutsis during the genocide of 1994, when some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

Suspect sentence

Andrei Sannikov, who ran against Alyaksandr Lukashenka for the presidency of Belarus in December, was sentenced to five years in prison for what a court said was his role in organising post-election riots. Mr Sannikov called the charges “absurd”. Britain and the United States condemned the verdict.


Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling People of Freedom party took a drubbing in local elections in some of Italy’s cities. The biggest blow was the failure of Letizia Moratti, the mayor of Milan, Italy’s financial capital and Mr Berlusconi’s native city, to secure re-election. See article

Queen Elizabeth II began a four-day visit to Ireland, the first visit by a British monarch since Irish independence in 1921. Her trip, which saw the Irish authorities mount their biggest ever security operation, took in a number of historically sensitive sites—and the Guinness Storehouse. See article

Going ballistic

A UN report claims that North Korea is violating international sanctions by exporting ballistic-missile technology to Iran via a third country, identified as China by diplomats. China blocked publication of the report, which was leaked anyway. See article

The Chinese blogosphere was in uproar after officials running Beijing’s Forbidden City admitted that they were letting out part of it for high-paying events.

America’s Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan to try to smooth ruffled feathers following the killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this month. He said relations between the two countries were now “back on track”. As if to prove it, Pakistani authorities arrested an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi. India was embarrassed when it had to admit that a man on a most-wanted list of terrorist fugitives given to Pakistan was found living near Mumbai.

China’s most senior military commander, General Chen Bingde, visited the United States to meet his counterpart, Admiral Mike Mullen, in the first visit by a Chinese defence chief in seven years. But relations are still troubled. China resents American arms sales to Taiwan, while America wants more transparency over China’s rapid military build-up.

After four-and-a-half decades in Singapore’s cabinet, Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state’s 87-year-old founding father, announced he was bowing out. He may still sound off from the backbenches. See article

Debt dealings

The American government reached the federal-debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion. For the government to issue bonds beyond this point will require approval by Congress, where a request for a raising of the ceiling is bogged down in arguments about spending and taxes. But because of various funds that can be raided, there is no danger of the government defaulting on any of its obligations—at least not for a couple of months.

Strong tax payments, mainly from the rich, gave California $6.6 billion in revenues it had not expected. But most Californians were more interested in the scandal surrounding their former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted fathering a son 14 years ago with his family’s maid.

The field for the Republican nomination narrowed, as both Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee ruled themselves out of contention. Newt Gingrich got himself into a row with the fiscal conservative brigade by pouring cold water on the party’s plans for deep cuts to Medicare, the government health insurance scheme for the elderly, while Mitt Romney announced impressive fund-raising figures. Jon Huntsman, who has yet to declare formally, set off to tour New Hampshire. See article

Sweet Micky’s new powers


Michel Martelly, a singer-turned-politician, was inaugurated as Haiti’s new president. It was the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another from a different party in the country’s history. See article