Portal:Current events/2013 April 1

Current events of April 1, 2013 (2013-04-01) (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Iraqi insurgency (post-U.S. withdrawal)
  • A suicide attacker blows up a tanker lorry at the police headquarters in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, killing at least nine people. Three people are killed in a separate shooting. (CNN)
• Syrian civil war
  • Lebanese gunmen kidnap eight Syrian from the Alawites minority and demand a hostage exchange. (The Jerusalem Post)

Arts and culture

• Eli Reimer, aged sixteen, becomes the first teenager with Down syndrome to climb to Mt. Everest's Base Camp. (Fox News)

Disasters

• At least six people are killed in a explosion at a coal mine near Baishan, China. (Associated Press)

Business and economy

• India's Supreme Court rejects a plea by Novartis to patent an updated version of its cancer drug, Glivec, amid concerns that a patent could threaten access to cheap generic versions of drugs in poorer countries. (BBC)
• Apple Inc. publishes a letter, signed by CEO Tim Cook, to Chinese customers, to address the growing controversy over the company's warranty policies in the country. (CNN)

International relations

• Japan accuses three Chinese surveillance ships of entering the territorial waters of Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands. (Channel NewsAsia)

Law and crime

• Scotland's eight regional police forces are merged to create the nationwide Police Service of Scotland. (The Guardian)
• Arapahoe County, Colorado District Attorney George Brauchler decides, after speaking with survivors and relatives of the deceased, to pursue the death penalty against James Eagan Holmes, the perpetrator of the 2012 Aurora massacre; the case is given to a new judge. (NBC)
• Pirates drown sixteen fishermen in southern Bangladesh in order to steal their boats. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• The annual session of North Korea's Parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly, takes place in Pyongyang, following repeated threats of violence by the leader Kim Jong-Un against South Korea and the United States. Choi Bu-Il is appointed Minister of Internal Security. (Channel NewsAsia)
• Major changes to welfare payments in the United Kingdom introduced by the Welfare Reform Act 2012 begin to go into effect. (Channel 4 News)
• Health experts warn that the National Health Service in England is "not ready for" major changes passed in 2012 that go into effect today. (MSN)
• Privately owned newspapers go on sale in Myanmar for the first time since 1964. (GlobalPost)

Sports

• Police in India's Punjab claim Olympic medal winning boxer Vijender Singh consumed heroin procured from drug smugglers, after he refuses to give blood samples. (BBC)
• Russian ice hockey player Dmitri Uchaykin dies from cerebral hemorrhage in hospital after receiving a high check in a game on 30 March 2013 in the Kazakhstan Major League. (Yahoo! Sports)