Three were killed as security forces broke up a 100,000-strong sit-in to demand the ouster of Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh. A 14-year-old boy was also killed by police in the port of Mukalla.
John McCain introduced legislation to prohibit funding for civilian trials of Guantánamo Bay detainees and place restrictions on the transfer of detainees to foreign countries.
Officials are denying that the reactor has exploded at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, but admit that local hourly radiation levels are already at what is considered safe for a year.
Police in Bahrain fired tear gas as anti-government protesters clashed with regime loyalists. Meanwhile, police flooded the streets to suppress “Day of Rage” protests in Saudi Arabia.
Bedouin leaders in Israel’s Negev desert rejected a government offer to compensate “unrecognized” communities for some 50% of their lands, as a new thrust of Jewish settlement is planned.
Japan’s government has for the first time declared a “nuclear emergency” as diesel backup systems failed at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the wake of the devastating earthquake.
Mauritanian police clashed with pro-democracy demonstrators in the central plaza of the capital, Nouakchott. Police used tear gas and clubs to disperse the protest, leaving several hospitalized.
Police opened fire to disperse protesters at Qatif in Saudi Arabia’s mainly Shi’ite east, leaving one wounded, as Sunni and Shi’ite students clashed in neighboring Bahrain.
France became the first country to recognize Libya’s opposition as its rightful government, while Qaddafi’s forces succeeded in taking the oil hub of Ras Lanuf from its rebel defenders.
The Dalai Lama is stepping down as political leader of the Tibetan exile government, while Beijing passed a law mandating that the Tibetan leader be reincarnated within China.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for two deadly suicide attacks in as many days—one targeting the funeral of the wife of an anti-Taliban militaman in Peshawar.
In a move to head off protests, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI announced a constitutional reform that recognizes the importance of Amazigh (Berber) culture for the national identity.
