THE WORLD THIS WEEK
A small group of terrorists stormed a heavily protected military base in Karachi and held a part of it during an 18-hour firefight. Perhaps as few as six attackers were able to penetrate the base, wreck two aircraft and kill at least ten personnel; two of them escaped. The PAKISTANI TALIBAN claimed they did it in retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that nuclear fuel in three of the reactors at its Fukushima power plant melted soon after the earthquake and tsunami that struck JAPAN on March 11th. The disclosure implies that the plant released much more radiation than TEPCO had first estimated.
CHINA acknowledged "urgent problems" afflicting the Three Gorges Dam. The State Council noted worrying damage to the surrounding region's water supply and geology as well as to the livelihoods of the 1.3m people its construction had displaced. An audit revealed dozens of financial irregularities. An additional 50 billion cubic metres of water will be released downstream by the dam this season, as the Yangzi basin suffers its worst drought in 50 years.
Kim Jong Il was spotted touring eastern China on his personal armoured train, in what may be his third such trip in a year (both North Korea and China keep mum about the details). NORTH KOREA has a number of reasons to shore up its relationship with China, not least the threat of food shortages this year and the eventual transition of power from Mr Kim to his son, Kim Jong Un.
At a trial in Chicago, David Headley, a Pakistani-American who pleaded guilty to conspiring in the terrorist assault on MUMBAI in November 2008, testified that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency had provided financial and logistical support to the group that carried out the attack.
The most deadly single TORNADO in America since 1947 hit Joplin, Missouri, killing at least 125 people. Around 900 were injured and more were missing.
NATO stepped up its air attacks on Tripoli, the LIBYAN capital, and deployed Apache attack helicopters. Russia called this a "gross violation" of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising force to protect civilians.
Prosecutors in EGYPT announced that the former president, Hosni Mubarak, and his two sons would be tried on a series of charges that might include murder.
Scores of YEMENIS were killed in clashes with security forces, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh continued to reject a deal, brokered by the Saudi-led Gulf Co-operation Council, which would require him to leave office within 30 days, with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution.
Five days of opposition protest in Tbilisi, the GEORGIAN capital, ended in violence when riot police closed in on 1,000 demonstrators who had occupied a viewing stand ahead of a military parade. A policeman and a protester were killed by a car fleeing the scene.
BARACK OBAMA visited Europe, sipping Guinness in the village of a distant ancestor in Ireland before crossing the Irish Sea to swap pleasantries with the queen and reassure Britain that its "special relationship" with America remained solid. A G8 summit in Deauville, France, was next on the agenda. The president was due to finish his tour in Poland.
CHRISTINE LAGARDE, France's finance minister, launched her official bid to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF. Ms Lagarde is the front-runner for the position. But there was growing disquiet in the developing world over the convention that only Europeans should be considered for the fund's top job, with the IMF representatives of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa issuing a joint statement on the matter. Ms Lagarde acknowledged their concerns, but said that being European should be neither a "handicap, nor an asset" when assessing her qualifications.
The American government reaped a small profit from the first sale of its shares in AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP since bailing out the insurer in 2008. The Treasury sold 200m shares and AIG a further 100m in the offering, which was priced at $29 a share, just above the Treasury's break-even point of $28.73. It hopes to sell the remainder of its stake, now reduced to around 77%, over the next two years.
Some followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement filed a lawsuit in San Jose that accuses CISCO of helping China to construct a network surveillance system that tracked its members and Chinese dissidents. The allegations have surfaced before, in a Senate hearing. Cisco insists that there is "no basis" for the legal action and that it does not customise its products to "facilitate censorship or repression".
The Spanish government signalled that it planned to go ahead with a plan to privatise the national LOTTERY, which would create the world's biggest listed gambling company. The sale of 30% of the company that runs the lottery could fetch up to EURO7.5 billion ($10.6 billion) and go towards reducing Spain's debt pile.
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