Events in April 2010
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Apr. 2
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A report of the Committee on Constitutional Reforms is tabled in Pakistan National Assembly. It seeks to confer more powers on the provinces and strip the President’s powers. |
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Twenty four persons are killed in a village outside Iraqi capital Baghdad in an execution-style attack. |
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Apr. 3
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Thirty Taliban men are killed by Pakistani troops in a militant stronghold near the Afghan border. Two hundred and fifty militants killed in the past three weeks. |
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Apr. 4
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At least 30 persons are killed and 224 wounded in three car bombings in central Baghdad. The Egyptian and German embassies also affected. |
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An earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter Scale rocks large tracts of the Western coast of Mexico and the U.S. |
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Apr. 5
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Forty persons are killed in a bomb attack at an Awami National Party rally in the Lower Dir district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Suicide bombers strike at the U.S. Consulate-General in Peshawar. |
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The Discovery space shuttle blasts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida with seven astronauts, including three women mission specialists on a 13-day mission aboard the International Space Station. |
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At least 25 miners are killed after a “horrific blast” at the upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. |
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Apr. 6
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Blasts rip through Baghdad leaving 49 dead and more than 160 injured. |
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announces general elections for May 6. |
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Apr. 7
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Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees the nation after two days of violent mass protests leaves 75 killed and 400 injured. Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov quits. A “Cabinet of people’s trust” headed by Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva in place. |
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India and China sign an agreement to set up a hotline between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Wen Jiabao, after talks in Beijing. |
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Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva promulgates emergency following a brief gate crash by protesters at the Parliament premises. |
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Apr. 8
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Low turnout in Sri Lankan parliamentary polls. |
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Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev sign a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which will last for 10 years at a meeting in Prague. |
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Pakistan National Assembly passes the 18th Amendment Bill that seeks to bring back the 1973 Constitution. |
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The World Bank gives nod for a $3.75 billion loan to build one of the world’s large coal plants in South Africa. |
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Apr. 9
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President Rajapaksa-led ruling alliance in Sri Lanka records an emphatic win in parliamentary polls. |
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Russia launches the $12-billion Nod Stream gas pipeline to Europe. |
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Apr. 10
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Polish President Lech Kaczynski and a high level delegation are killed after a plane carrying 97 persons crashes in thick fog near the Smolensk airport in western Russia. Poland declares a week’s official mourning. |
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French doctor and explorer Jean-Louis Etienne makes the first Arctic crossing abroad his balloon the Generali Arctic Observer after taking off from the Norwegian archipelago of Spitzbergen on April 5. |
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Switzerland says graft cases against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari cannot be reopened. |
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Apr. 11
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Voting begins in Sudan’s National election. |
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Apr. 12
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British-Indian author Rana Dasgupta wins the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for 2010 for his epic tale Solo. Australian Glenda Guest’s Siddon Rock adjudged Best First Book. |
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A two-day Nuclear Security Summit being attended by 47 countries opens in Washington. |
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Apr. 13
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announces India’s decision to set up a Global Centre for Nuclear Energy partnership at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. New Delhi for zero tolerance’ of nuclear traffickers. |
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The Nuclear Energy Summit adopts a communiqué and a work plan. |
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Apr. 14
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At least 600 people are killed and more than 10,000 injured as a 7.1 magnitude earthquake strikes a remote border area in China’s Qinghai province. Yushu county in a Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture bordering Siachen is the epicentre. |
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A 5,466-foot volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland erupts spewing smoke and steam into the air. |
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Apr. 15
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The U.S. and Russia announce a plutonium elimination deal. Russia shuts down its last weapons-grade plutonium reactor near the Siberian town of Zheleznogorsk. |
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The volcanic eruption in Iceland creates massive ash cloud disrupting flight services in Europe. British airspace completely sealed. |
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Pakistan Senate passes the 18th Amendment — seeking to strip the presidency of its powers and restore them to Parliament. |
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Deposed President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev step down after earlier leaving the country for the neighbouring Kazakhastan. |
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The Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC) summit declaration sets 2010 deadline for World Bank IMF reform. |
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The assassination of the former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 prerentable, says U.N. Commission of Inquiry report. |
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Apr. 16
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The toll in the Qinghai earthquake goes up to 791, with 11,486 injured and 294 missing. |
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission files a civil suit against investment bank Goldman Sachs, alleging fraud. |
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Apr. 17
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Suicide blasts at a facility for Internally Displaced Persons claim 49 lives in Kohat in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. |
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The Qinghai quake toll goes upto 1,339. Over 11,849 have been injured. |
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The international air travel crisis caused by volcanic ash from Iceland worsens. Much of the European airspace remains closed for the third day. |
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Apr. 18
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Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari signs the 18th Amendment Bill restoring parliamentary democracy. |
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Panel orders recount of votes cast in Baghdad during the March 7 Iraqi election. |
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At least 24 persons are killed in bombings in the Pakistan city of Peshawar. |
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Apr. 19
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Azizullah Yarmal, deputy mayor of Kandahar in Afghanistan is assassinated while praying in a mosque. |
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Apr. 20
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Shuttle Discovery and its astronauts return to earth wrapping up their 15-day, 9.7 million km journey to the International Space Station. |
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The Deepwater Horizon rig operated by British Petroleum sinks in the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion leaving 11 workers dead. |
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Apr. 21
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Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Jayaratne is appointed Sri Lanka Prime Minister. |
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Britain and other European countries lift the ban on flights after six days following the volcanic ash crises. |
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China declares a day of national mourning in remembrance of the 2064 lives lost in the Qinghai quake. More than 12,135 left injured. |
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Apr. 22
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A series of blasts near a massive encampment in Thailand capital Bangkok leaves 28 persons injured. |
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The Brazilian government headed by Premier Yves Leterme quits following a linguistic spat between the coalition partners over a bilingual voting district. |
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Chamal Rajapaksa is elected Sri Lanka Parliament Speaker. |
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Apr. 23
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Fiftyeight persons are killed in a series of bomb blasts targeting Shia worshippers in Iraq. |
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G.L. Peris is designated Sri Lanka Foreign Minister and Basil Rajapaksa is assigned the newly created Economic Development Ministry as a 76-member Cabinet takes office. |
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Apr. 24
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The Hubble Space Telescope celebrate the 20th anniversary of its launch on April 24, 1990. |
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The Boy Scouts of America is ordered to pay $18.5 billion to a man who was sexually abused by a former assistant scoutmaster. |
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At least 55 persons are killed and 85 injured in clashes in Sudan’s Darfur border between south Sudan Army and Arab nomads. |
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Apr. 25
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The Austrian President, Heinz Fischer, wins a second six-year term. |
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Apr. 26
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Sudan’s President Omar Hassan El-Bashire registers a decisive election win. |
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Apr. 27
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The Russian and the Ukrainian Parliaments ratify a landmark agreement to extend the lease of a key Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol to Moscow by 25 years. |
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Oh Eun-sun, a South Korean mountaineer becomes the first woman to scale the world’s 14 highest mountains. |
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The U.S. extradites the former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to France. |
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Apr. 28
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The 16th SAARC summit opens in the Bhutan capital Thimphu. |
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Eight children are killed in a primary school in China’s Fujian province. |
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Apr. 29
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India and Pakistan agree to resume high-level dialogue disrupted since the November 28 Mumbai terror attacks following talks between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani at Thimphu on the sidelines of the SAARC summit. |
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The SAARC plans an Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Climate Change. |
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Belgium’s Lower House of Parliament votes to on wearing burqa in public, becoming the first state in Europe to do so. |
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Events 2010
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
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