An online campaign urged people in Beijing

[lynk2510]

uammar Qaddafi, the ruler of LIBYA, deployed tanks and fighter jets in an attempt to put down a popular uprising, ignited by street protests, that started in the east of the country and spread to Tripoli, the capital. Rebels held large swathes of territory after taking heavy losses estimated to be at least 1,000 killed and many more injured. The UN Security Council demanded an end to the violence.



The open defiance of protesters against authoritarian government in the Middle East spread to MOROCCO and IRAQI Kurdistan.



In BAHRAIN the royal family ordered harsh force to be used against the demonstrators, killing several. But after heavy criticism it relented and vowed to work towards political reform.



In EGYPT the chief prosecutor called for the freezing of assets belonging to Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president.



Two IRANIAN warships passed through Egypt's Suez Canal for the first time in more than three decades, en route to Syria. Israel described the ships' presence off the Israeli coast as a "provocation".



Prosecutors in BRAZIL started an investigation into Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose presidential term ended last year, for spending $3.5m of public funds in 2004 to send letters promoting low-interest loans. The prosecutors say the letters had no legitimate purpose and only served to benefit a bank that was subsequently linked to a corruption scandal.



CUBA released seven more political prisoners, bringing the total to 70 freed since last year. One of the released prisoners is refusing, unlike all the others, to go into exile.



GERMANY'S ruling Christian Democratic Union suffered a heavy defeat in a state election in Hamburg. In a bad week for Angela Merkel her defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was embroiled in a plagiarism scandal that forced him to relinquish his doctorate. And after eight weeks of tortuous negotiations, her government agreed on a costly compromise with the opposition over reforms to unemployment benefits and the minimum wage.



Thousands of BASQUES marched in Bilbao in support of allowing the registration of Sortu, a new separatist party. Its predecessor, Batasuna, was outlawed in 2003 for having links to ETA, an armed terror group. Prosecutors want Sortu to be banned, too.



A new government was formed in KOSOVO. Parliament elected Hashim Thaci to serve a second term as prime minister, despite allegations linking him to a murder and organ-harvesting scandal after the Kosovo war in 1999.



Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND'S second-largest city, was devastated by an earthquake and several aftershocks. Scores of people died and hundreds were missing in New Zealand's worst natural disaster for 80 years. Damages were estimated at $6 billion. John Key, the prime minister, said it could turn out to be the country's "darkest day".



An online campaign urged people in Beijing and a dozen other cities in CHINA to heed the example of the "jasmine revolution" sweeping the Arab world and to converge in public places to call for political and economic rights. Very few civilians turned up, but police were out in droves and censors banned the word "jasmine" from China's microblogs. Activists reported that a number of their leaders were arrested ahead of the protests.

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