Suicide attacks hit two of Pakistan’s largest cities — thirty people are killed in a blast in near  Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi, and two suicide bombers and a policeman are killed in a car bombing at a police checkpoint in Lahore.

French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye becomes the first black woman to win France’s top literary award, the Prix Goncourt, for her book Trois Femmes Puissantes (Three Powerful Women), about three women, each with one foot in France and the other in Africa.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic says he will appear at his war crimes trial in the Hague tomorrow after having boycotted last week.

Members of the Iranian opposition plan to use Wednesday’s 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran to renew their challenge to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.K.’s Telegraph reports that, in an act sure to anger the current regime, opposition leaders plan to apologise to the U.S. for the 1979 takeover.

In one of the biggest changes in the forty-year history of the Internet, web addresses written in non-Latin characters will soon be allowed.

Former French President Jacques Chirac is ordered to stand trial on corruption charges dating back to his time as the mayor of Paris in the 1980s and 90s.

Saudi Arabia prepares for the annual hajj in the midst of the swine flu pandemic. Vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and the elderly have been advised not to make the trip this year.

Haiti’s senate ousts Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis. Pierre Louis was the fifth prime minister the politically volatile country has seen in the past five years.

Radovan Karadzic continues to boycott his war crimes trial in the Hague, but the proceedings begin without him.

A French court convicts the Church of Scientology of fraud. Group leaders are fined and imprisioned, but the court stops short of banning the organization, registered as a religion in the U.S. but considered a sect in France.

Eight Afghan refugees, including five children and three women, drown off the Greek island of Lesbos. Ten others survive, all Afghans except for one Turkish national who is arrested on suspicion of human trafficking. Lesbos is a major point of entry for migrants hoping to make a new life in the European Union.

The U.N.’s human rights chief endorses the Gladstone Report, which accuses both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes during last winter’s conflict in Gaza.

Turkish police detain 50 suspected members of the Islamic Jihad League, a group linked to Al Qaeda, who were allegedly plotting attacks on NATO installation sin Turkey and Germany.

A 48-year-old France Telecom engineer hangs himself, becoming the 25 employee of the company to commit suicide in the past 20 months. Many of the employees have left notes blaming stress at work as the company undergoes major restructuring.

Nearly 50 people are killed and more than 100 injured when a car bomb rips through the main market in Peshawar, Pakistan. The attack is the sixth the city has suffered in the past four months.

France arrests a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for purported ties to al-Qaeda.

Burma’s military government allows pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi  to hold rare talks with Western diplomats in what could be a sign of thawing relations.

France’s Louvre Museum will return five relics stolen from Luxor’s Valley of the Kings to Egypt.

Addressing world leaders gathered for a U.N. summit on climate change, President Obama declares that the U.S. is “determined to act,” and encourages unity on the issue, saying the world “cannot allow the old divisions that have characterized the climate debate for so many years to block our progress.”

China bans foreign tourists from Tibet ahead of the 60th anniversary of Communist rule in the country, which will be celebrated on October 1 with a military parade, fireworks, and a speech by President Hu Jintao.

Honduran security forces use tear gas to break up demonstrations outside the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, where deposed President Manual Zalaya has been since his surprise return to the country yesterday.

Ireland agrees to accept two Guantanamo Bay detainees in order to help U.S. President Barack Obama in his effort to close the detention center by January. The prisoners, both of Uzbek descent, will be among the few to be resettled in Europe. Previously, France agreed to accept one prisoner, while Italy has agreed to take three.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that as many as 5,000 troops could return home from Iraq sooner than expected because violence has been down and Iraqi forces have been doing well since the U.S. withdrew from Iraqi cities last month.

A trial will begin Saturday for 20 demonstrators who participated in the post-election protests in Iran last month. The defendants are accused of having contact with the exiled opposition group The People’s Mujahedin, vandalizing public and state property, attacking security forces, and carrying firearms, among other charges.

At least seven bombs explode throughout Iraq as a rise in violence continues ahead of the planned withdrawal of 133,000 U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by June 30.

Air France says the bodies of two crew members have been recovered from the crash of the passenger jet that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil. Rescue teams have found about 50 bodies so far from the flight.

The Chinese Health Ministry implements sharp restrictions on Internet access to medical research papers on sexual subjects as part of an “anti-pornography campaign” that may lead to a broader crackdown on freedom of expression. Google access is also blocked overnight in China.

Russia’s Supreme Court overturns the acquittal of four men accused of involvement in the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and orders a new trial.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg visits South Korea and calls on North Korea to choose dialogue over further provocative action. He does not rule out the possibility of sanctions.

French and Brazilian ships search for debris – and possibly bodies – near the crash site of the doomed Air France flight that disappeared on Monday.

India’s parliament unanimously chooses its first women speaker – Meira Kumar.

Amid a global economic crisis and South Africa’s worst recession, newly elected President Jacob Zuma vows to create half a million jobs in six months. Oponents dismiss his plans as a “wish list.”

A private Chinese firm buys Hummer from General Motors, but says it has no plans to build a new manufacturing plant.

North Korea threatens to test nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistics missiles unless the United Nations lifts sanctions.

Fifty militants are killed as the Pakistani army takes control of Daggar, a key town in Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

Members of a French gang known as the “Barbarians” go on trial for the murder of a Jewish man from a Paris suburb that sparked a debate about anti-semitism after French police initially refused to call the murder a hate crime.

Kaing Guek Eav, a prominent member of the Khmer Rouge, apologizes for torturing and executing people during the reign of terror in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, says that France will walk away from the G20 summit if its demand for stricter regulation of financial markets is rejected.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, says that the Obama administration will drop the “war on terror” rhetoric coined by the Bush Administration.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/world-links-hundreds-drown-off-coast-of-libya-french-threaten-to-walk-out-of-g20-summit/4490/feed/ 1 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/world-links-car-bomb-in-baghdad-tourist-in-space/4464/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/world-links-car-bomb-in-baghdad-tourist-in-space/4464/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:41:28 +0000 lauren feeney http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4464 A car bomb in a crowded Baghdad market kills at least 16 and injures 35, a day after a U.S. military spokesman announced that attacks had dropped to the lowest levels since 2003.

A Pentagon report says that China’s military power is disrupting the military balance in Asia; Beijing reacts angrily, calling the report “Cold War thinking.”

The Russian Soyuz space capsule blasts off from Kazakhstan, carrying billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi on his second trip to the International Space Station.

The French government announces plans to ban stock options and bonuses for executives at companies that have been bailed out with taxpayer money.

Israeli troops say that Palestinian civilians were killed and their property intentionally destroyed under “permissive rules of engagement” during the recent offensive in Gaza.

El Salvador and Costa Rica announce plans to re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba.

Schools, hospitals, transportation and postal service are affected by nationwide strikes in France.

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who kept his daughter locked in the basement for 24 years and fathered her seven children, is sentenced to life in a psychiatric institution.

A Chinese man who claims to have been the anonymous highest bidder on two Qing Dynasty sculptures at a Paris auction now says that he will not pay the money. The Chinese government says that the bronze artifacts were stolen and should be repatriated, and it appears that Cai Mingchao, the supposed buyer, disrupted their sale in a crafty bit of auction sabotage.

Mingchao is affiliated with a government-supported organization that seeks to retrieve stolen Chinese artifacts, and he says that his anonymous and fake phone bid was a patriotic act. “I think any Chinese person would have stood up at that moment,” he said. “I was merely fulfilling my responsibilities.” The hijinx teaches a lesson that the French should be familiar with: beware of unknown phone callers.

The sculptures, of the heads of a rabbit and a rat, were part of the private collection of the late iconic fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé, and fetched 15.8 million euros ($20.3 million) each at the Christie’s auction. The pair were originally part of the Zodiac Fountain of the Emperor Quianlong’s Summer Palace outside Beijing. Dating from the 18th century, they disappeared around 1860, when British and French soldiers attacked and looted the palace. The fountain originally included twelve heads, seven of which have been found, and five of which have been returned to China.

The Chinese government tried to shut down the auction entirely, but a French court denied their claim.

Eminent cultural ambassador Jackie Chan rose to China’s defense, saying, “This behavior is shameful….It was looting yesterday. It is still looting today.” In a handy bit of cross-promotion, Chan also happens to be working on a film about the theft of cultural relics. If I were to pick someone to defend my national honor, Chan would be a good candidate.

In response to China’s criticism, Bergé retorted, “I’m absolutely ready to give the two heads to China. The only thing I ask is for China to give human rights, liberty to Tibet and to welcome the Dalai Lama.” Ouch. Kinda seems like apples and oranges to me, but at this point, who’s counting?