Two of three Sikhs kidnapped in Khyber Agency on the Afghan border in January are recovered by Pakistan's security forces. The decapitated corpse of the other was found last week. (Reuters India)
Residents in Concepción are critical of the government's response, with one saying: "I did not support General Augusto Pinochet, but right now we could use a Pinochet". (The Independent)
Spain says Venezuela has said it will assist an investigation into allegations of support for ETA. (BBC)
5 police officials in Chiniot, Punjab, are detained after footage of them whipping people in their custody are broadcast across national television channels. (BBC)(The News International)
A BBC investigation claims millions of dollars in Western aid donated to the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia was stolen by rebels who used it to purchase weapons. (BBC)
Baidu shares have risen 34% since rival Google said on Jan 12 it may shut down its business in China. Baidu has risen 34 percent and Google has lost 8.5 percent. (China Daily)
15 Israeli police are "lightly hurt" and several dozen Palestinians are injured and three are arrested after Friday prayers on the Temple Mount and a recent Israeli decision to include two West Bank shrines on a list of national heritage sites.(Ha'aretz)
At least 16 people are wounded in two grenade attacks in Kigali, one near the city's genocide memorial. A third explosion elsewhere kills at least one person. (BBC)(Reuters)
The French Navy, supported by European Union aircraft and vessels, seizes 35 suspected pirates in 4 mother ships and 6 little boats off the coast of Somalia in the EU's most successful mission. (BBC)
Israel announces the construction of 112 new Jewish homes for the occupied West Bank territory despite the freeze on new settlements initiated in November 2009. (RTÉ)
Chilean looters return £1.3 million ($2million) of stolen goods, according to the government. (The Daily Telegraph)
New research based on a previous study indicates climate may be responsible for Scotland having more and Africa having fewer people with red hair. (The Daily Telegraph)
Roman Catholic child sexual abuse investigation: The Dutch Catholic Church apologises and the country's religious leaders request an independent inquiry. A monastery head in Salzburg admits abuse of a boy more than four decades ago. The brother of Pope Benedict XVI admits physically disciplining students at a school in Germany before corporal punishment was banned in 1980. (BBC)
186 members of the 245-seat Rajya Sabha of the Sansad in India vote in favour of a bill giving one third of available seats in the national parliament and state legislatures to women. One member votes against, several parties boycott the vote and seven MPs are suspended after expressing their disagreement. (BBC)(Times of India)(CNN)
Dublin's Tallaght Hospital blames "systemic and process failures" for more than 57,000 X-rays taken between 2005 and 2009 not being reviewed by medical professionals and admits at least two patients received incorrect treatment, one of whom has since died and the other who is receiving cancer treatment. (RTÉ)(The Irish Times)(Ireland Online)[permanent dead link]
Nigerian soldiers open fire on a crowd after curfew in Jos, killing two people, days after Muslim-Christian riots in the area left more than 200 dead including dozens of children (The Hindu)
Nigeria charges with murder 49 of the 200 people it has arrested so far following the recent massacre of civilians near Jos. (BBC)
Britain, France and the EU support U.S.Vice PresidentJoe Biden's condemnation of Israeli expansion of settlements in occupied territory. (BBC)
A man wrongly accused of being child murderer Jon Venables goes into hiding after becoming the target of a hate campaign on the internet. (The Daily Telegraph)
The birth of a live elephant at Taronga Zoo is hailed as a "miracle" that will "completely rewrite the elephant birth textbooks" after he was thought to have died inside his mother's womb. (BBC)
Israel apologises for the timing of the announcement during a visit by the Vice President of the United States, calling it a "grave error", a "mistake" and a "failure" and promising it would not happen again. (Gulfnews)
British freelance journalist Paul Martin, the first Western journalist to be arrested by Hamas, is released but deported after no evidence is found to convict him of a crime in court. (The Times)(CBC)
More than 30,000 Greek workers stage their third general strike against the government. (BBC)(Al Jazeera)(RTÉ)
Afghanistan: Five civilians, including four children, die in an explosion, while two construction contractors, including one from South Africa, are shot dead. (Reuters)
Israel seals off the West Bank until midnight on Saturday, fearing repeats of riots which injured dozens of young Palestinians due to Israel preventing Palestinians under the age of 50 and without Israeli identity cards from attending their Jumu'ah (Friday prayers) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. (The Daily Telegraph)
Karl Rove appears on British television to promote waterboarding and speaks of his pride that "we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists", saying these techniques were "appropriate". (BBC)(The Hindu)(RTÉ)(The Guardian)
Irish authorities release three of the seven Muslims they detained over an alleged plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. Vilks says he has not been put off the idea of visiting Ireland by the threat. (BBC)(RTÉ)(Irish Independent)
Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor instructs residents to leave the war zones of Mogadishu after at least 50 of them are killed in three days of violence. (BBC)
Darfur peace talks are threatened by new violence as Sudanese army steps up military operations against a major Darfur rebel faction. (Voice of America)
Russia signs a nuclear reactor deal with India which will see it build 16 nuclear reactors in India. (BBC)
Margaret Thatcher, in a rare moment of publicity since her withdrawal from public life, puts her weight and "heavy heart" behind a campaign by Combat Stress for the mental health of ex-servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
At least 6 people, including three security personnel, die and more than 16 others are wounded after a suicide bomber tries to enter a government building, is stopped by police and detonates himself in Swat, Pakistan. (The Sydney Morning Herald)(Reuters)
NASA announces that "It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010", in a new draft paper based on GISS temperature analysis. (Climate Progress)
Dutch officials object to "ridiculous" and "out of the realm of fiction" claims by retired American general John J. Sheehan, a former NATO commander, that the use of gay soldiers in 1995 meant Dutch forces were "under-strength" and "poorly led" when attempting to protect Bosnian civilians in Srebrenica. (Al Jazeera)(CBC)(The Daily Telegraph)
China's State Commission of Disaster Relief says severe drought has affected 51 million Chinese and left more than 16 million people and 11 million livestock with drinking-water shortages. (Xinhua)
At least 12 people are wounded after Israel fires at least five missiles onto an airport near Rafah in Gaza in response to earlier rocket attacks. (Ha'aretz)
The government declares a national day of mourning for his funeral. (The Washington Post)
Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church:
The Pope's special pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on the issue of child sex abuse within the Church is published by the Vatican but fails to impress some survivors organisations. (RTÉ)(BBC)(CBC)(CNN)
The Swiss Catholic Church investigates its own sex allegations, including some said to have occurred since 2001. (Reuters)
Middle East:
A Palestinian teenager is killed, and another wounded by Israeli Security Forces. According to Israeli authorities, a mob of Palestinians were holding a "violent, illegal riot", and were approaching an Israeli settlement in a "threatening matter", and were dispersed by tear gas and rubber bullets. Israel promises an investigation into the incident. (Yahoo! News)
Four Palestinians, including two youths, are killed by Israeli forces in two separate incidents in Nablus; Israeli and Palestinian sources disagree on the circumstances of the shooting. (Reuters)(CNN)(Ha'aretz)
Mauritania formally severs diplomatic ties with Israel, saying the relationship has "completely and definitely" run its course over the Gaza situation. (Ha'aretz)
It is alleged that the Pope (then a German archbishop) ignored advice from a psychiatrist in 1979 stating Father Peter "Hulli" Hullermann was "untreatable" and "must never be allowed to work with children again". (The Sunday Times)
The Pope is asked why he hasn't apologised to those affected by sex abuse in Australia after yesterday's publication of his 13-page apology to Irish Catholics. (ABC News)
Polls in Germany, particularly Bavaria, indicate the church's credibility has decreased and government data indicates people are leaving the church. (The Wall Street Journal)
Israeli warplanes bomb a smuggling tunnel east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in an early morning raid close to the Egyptian border in response to a Palestinian rocket attack which landed in an open area south of the city of Ashkelon, causing no damage or casualties. (Xinhua)
A fire tears through a combined residential and office building in Calcutta, India, killing 24 people, including two who leapt to their deaths. (Sky)(LBS)
An Israeli soldier (tank crew member) dies due to "friendly fire" aimed at three people thought to be infiltrating a border fence, who turned out to be Palestinian civilians crossing the border in search of employment. (euronews)(BBC)(The New York Times)
Four German pensioners aged 61 to 80 are found guilty of kidnapping their own financial adviser from his home and driving him 450km (280 miles) to southern Bavaria, with the ringleader and his accomplice being jailed. (BBC)
More than 100 people with possible links to Al-Qaeda are arrested in Saudi Arabia for allegedly planning attacks on oil and security installations in the country. (Al Jazeera)(The Times)
Go Daddy, the largest domain name registration company in the world, announces it will cease registering websites in China after the Chinese government required customers to provide photographs and other identifying information before registering. (CNET)(Washington Post)(AP)
Hamas decides to execute Palestinians whom they have found guilty of “collaboration” with Israel despite protests by human rights and legal organizations, while criticizing those who have been firing rockets at Israel in the past few days. (The Jerusalem Post)
Munster Rugby fans in Ireland win a court case against the state allowing pubs to open for business on Good Friday, a day that normally sees all pubs in the country shut for religious reasons. (RTÉ)(BBC)(The Irish Times)
An explosion triggered a fire in a chemical plant in an east China city, leaving 3 dead, one seriously injured. The explosion occurred at 2:40 p.m. in Haiyi Specialty Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Qingdao, a coastal city in Shandong Province. (Sina)
Middle East:
Israel refuses renewed calls to stop building homes in East Jerusalem, with a representative of Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu stating in writing: "Israeli construction policy in Jerusalem has remained the same for 42 years and isn’t changing". (Arab News)
Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers leave Gaza after an incursion near Khan Younis: two Gazans are killed and 12 wounded, including at least one civilian. (Jerusalem Post)
Jerusalem is discussed at the two-day annual Arab summit in Sirte, with PNA officials calling for "a large Arab political support to the Palestinian people on all levels in order to be able to face the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu which insists to elude from the peace process and keeps its aggressive actions against our people". (Xinhua)
More than 100 people are injured and one death is reported as the Bugandan king visits royal tombs which were recently destroyed by fire. (Arab News)
Three deaf men who allege they were sodomised and abused by priests as children appear on RAI Television to confront the diocese of Verona. (Arab News)
The BBC reports it has found evidence of a massacre which occurred in Democratic Republic of Congo last December in which at least 321 people, including children, were killed. Human Rights Watch calls it "one of the worst massacres carried out by the LRA". (BBC)
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu states that his "policy of retaliation is forceful and decisive" and alleges that "Hamas and the other terror organizations need to know that they are the ones that are responsible for their own actions". (Ha'aretz)(Reuters Africa)
A Chinese dissident lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for over a year, says he is "free" and wanting to spend time away from media attention. (Al Jazeera)(AP)(BBC)
Nine members of the Hutareemilitia are arrested in the United States on allegations of a plot to kill policemen then to attack the funerals, in preparation for a war against all levels of American government. (CNN)
10 children, youths and young adults between the ages of 8 and 21 are gunned down, presumably by drug traffickers, in the northern Mexicanstate of Durango. (CNN)
Chinese police are hunting a man suspected of killing five members of a migrant family, including an 8-year-old girl, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (People's Daily)
Algerian authorities arrest an Israeli spy found with a false Spanish passport under the 35-year-old pseudonym Alberto Vagilo. This was initially reported by some sources as the abduction of a Spanish citizen by an al-Qaeda-linked group. (Press TV)
Google says thousands of internet users in Vietnam have been spied on with malicious software, appearing to target opponents of bauxite mining in the country. (BBC)(Reuters)
