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New Zealand stages first Pastafarian wedding on pirate boat –
The light-hearted Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has staged its first legally recognised wedding. Toby Ricketts and Marianna Fenn tied the “noodle knot” in the New Zealand South Island town of Akaroa. The happy couple say that guidelines of the Pastafarian religion stipulate that wedding celebrants must be pirates. Members of the church profess the belief that the world was created by an airborne spaghetti and meatballs-based being and humans evolved from pirates. New Zealand officials last month designated the religion as an officially-recognised faith, allowing Wellington-based Pastafarian Karen Martyn the legal right to conduct marriages. She carried out her inaugural wedding as an ordained “ministeroni” on Saturday. [BBC]

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • A battle rages in the Kunduz Province of Afghanistan as the Taliban launches its spring offensive to capture the city of Kunduz. According to a Taliban spokesperson, several outposts already fell to them but this could not be verified immediately while a police chief says that the security forces were keeping “the situation under control”. (Al Jazeera)
• PKK rebellion (2015–present)
  • At least four Turkish Army soldiers are killed and two others are wounded after a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the southeast Mardin Province. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

• Human rights abuse victims during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos stake a claim on auction proceeds from Imelda Marcos‘ art collection, which includes pieces by Michelangelo, Monet, Van Gogh, andPicasso. (Rappler)

Disasters and accidents

• 2016 Kumamoto earthquake
  • The death toll from yesterday’s earthquake rises to nine with eight dead in the town of Mashiki. Eight hundred people have been injured including over 50 seriously injured. (AP)
• At least two people are killed and five missing after a building collapses in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. (France 24)
• A tornado hits the Uruguayan town of Dolores resulting in at least four deaths and seven injuries. (AP via Star Tribune)
• A Malayan tiger attacks and kills a 38-year-old American zookeeper at the Palm Beach Zoo in Florida. (Reuters)

International relations

• Territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Philippine general election, 2016
  • Presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte says he will set aside the Philippine claim on the Spratly islands and forge better economic relations with China. (Rappler)
• North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
  • South Korea‘s Yonhap news agency reports that North Korea tried to launch a BM25 Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile but was unsuccessful. (Reuters)
  • Chinese state media condemn the action saying that saber-rattling will “lead the country to nowhere”. (The Guardian)
• Russia–United States relations
  • John Kerry informs Russia that under the rules of engagement the plane that flew over the USS Donald Cook on April 13th could have been shot down. (AFP via MSN)
• Poland–Russia relations, NATO–Russia relations
  • Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, during a visit to Slovakia for talks on the future of NATO, says Russia is more dangerous than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). “By all evidence, Russia’s activity is a sort of existential threat because this activity can destroy countries,” Waszczykowski told reporters in Bratislava. He described ISIL as a very serious threat but said “it is not an existential threat for Europe”. (The Guardian)

Law and crime

• Authorities in Rwanda jail former politician Léon Mugesera for life. Mugesera was known for describing Tutsis as “cockroaches” and called for their extermination in a speech in 1992 and is said to be a precursor to the Rwandan genocide. (BBC)
• Two firefighters are shot, one fatally and the other is in critical condition, during a welfare check in Temple Hills, Maryland. (AP)

Politics and elections

• The New York Post, a daily newspaper controlled by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, makes a u-turn and endorses Donald Trump for President of the United States. (Washington Post) (New York Post)
• Philippine presidential election, 2016
  • Presidential candidate Miriam Defensor Santiago, who lags in surveys, accuses pollsters of fabricating results by excluding her name in opinion polls.(GMA News) (Inquirer) (The Manila Bulletin)
• Impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff
  • The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil rejects a bid by the Attorney General to suspend a vote in the parliament to begin impeachment procedures against the President Dilma Rousseff. (Reuters)
  • Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies begins debating the impeachment of the President. (AP)
• Aftermath of the 2016 Brussels bombings
  • Belgian Minister of Transportation Jacqueline Galant resigns in the wake of the recent bombings that shook Brussels last March. Galant resigned amid accusations her ministry ignored EU criticism of security at Belgium’s airports. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• Riot police violently break up an anti-Sisi protest in Cairo, Egypt. In the first sign of public discontent with President Sisi’s rule, hundreds of people gathered and shouted slogans calling for his overthrow. (Al Jazeera)
• Leaders of the Czech Republic choose “Czechia” as the one-word alternative name of their country to make it easier for companies, politicians and sportsmen to use on products, name tags and sporting jerseys. However, this change must still win cabinet approval before the foreign ministry can lodge the name with the United Nations for it to become the country’s official short name. (The Guardian)

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