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Facebook profits up almost 200% to $1.51 billion –
Facebook has revealed stronger-than-expected results for its first quarter, helped by a growing number of users and higher advertising revenue. The social network reported earnings of $1.51 billion, or 52 cents per share, up from $512 million, or 18 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier, and over 1.65 billion users now use the social network, with the average users visiting for 15 minutes a day. The results are in stark contrast to Apple and Twitter, who posted poor results yesterday, with Apple shares falling 7% today. Separately, Facebook also announced that it will create a new class of non-voting stock, known as ‘Class C capital stock,’ designated to let CEO Mark Zuckerberg keep tight reins on the company even as it issues more shares to compensate employees and investors. [Daily Mail]
Mark Zuckerberg

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Moro conflict
  • Philippine president Benigno Aquino III says that the Abu Sayyaf militants plan to kidnap his sister actress Kris Aquino and boxer Manny Pacquiao. (CBS)
• 2016 Bursa bombing
  • A suicide bomber blows herself up in the Turkish city of Bursa, injuring at least seven people. (AP via The Washington Post)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • Israeli forces kill two Palestinian assailants at a checkpoint in the West Bank. (Reuters)
• 2016 Cape Verde army mutiny
  • Cape Verdean police capture a suspect in the murder of 11 soldiers. (AFP)
• 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes
  • According to officials from the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, one of their soldiers was killed overnight by Azerbaijani troops. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• War in Donbass
  • Representatives of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine say at least five civilians are killed by artillery fire at a checkpoint in the town of Olenivka, with another 10 injured.Kiev denies the accusation. A local border-guard spokesman says there was an explosion at the checkpoint but he saw no artillery fired from either side, suggesting the blast could have been a bomb.(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• War in Afghanistan
  • The U.S. military warns that the Kabul Attack Network, comprised of fighters from various jihadist groups such as the Taliban and Haqqani networks, is planning attacks on people in the Parwan, Khost,Kabul, and Logar Provinces, Afghanistan, and asks for information from the Afghan public. (The Long War Journal)

Arts and culture

• Archaeologists in Taiwan discover 48 sets of remains unearthed in graves in Taichung. The most striking discovery among them is the 4,800-year-old skeleton of a mother looking down at a child cradled in her arms. (The Guardian)
• The German cities of Augsburg and Cologne are testing a scheme of traffic lights embedded in the ground to reduce cell phone-texting pedestrian accidents with vehicles that happen when so-called “smombies” step out into the street against the signal. (The Christian Science Monitor) (Autoblog)

Business and economy

• Philippine presidential election, 2016
  • The Philippine peso sinks to become the “worst performing currency in Asia” as a result of a volatile and unpredictable presidential election. (Bloomberg)

Disasters and accidents

• Heavy rain pelts earthquake-hit Ecuador causing floods, mostly in the town of Alluriquin in the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province, killing at least four people and injuring several more. About 300 people have been affected by the floods after a local river burst its banks, engulfing the town with water. (Al Jazeera)

Health and medicine

• In the United Kingdom, the Royal College of Physicians reports e-cigarettes are “much safer” than tobacco smoking, and should be widely promoted as an option for smoking cessation. (BBC) (Daily Mail)

International relations

• The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O’Neill states that the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre will be closed following the ruling of the Supreme Court and that he will ask the Australian Government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum seekers detained there. (ABC News)
• Libyan Civil War
  • The unrecognized House of Representatives, one of the rival governments based in eastern Libya, ships its first cargo of crude oil in defiance of the U.N.-backed authorities in the capital Tripoli in a move that could deepen divisions within the country. The Tripoli-based government asked the United Nations Security Council yesterday to blacklist the tanker. (The Guardian)
• European migrant crisis
  • The government of Austria passes a new law that restricts the right of asylum in the country and allows claimants to be rejected directly at the border, a move criticized by rights groups. Officials say they are also considering building a fence at the main border crossing with Italy at the Brenner Pass. (BBC)
• Taliban insurgency
  • The Taliban’s Qatar office confirms its leaders are in Pakistan to talk about Afghan refugees and the release of prisoners. The representative did not say if the delegation will discuss the peace process.(The Nation PK) (Pakistan Today)
• United Nations Security Council members are considering a draft resolution that would restore the UN mission in Western Sahara to full functionality. Last month, Morocco expelled 75 UN staffers. (AFP via GlobalPost)
• Iraqi Civil War
  • Senior Kurdish and Shi’ite Muslim leaders agree to withdraw from Tuz Khurmato, Iraq, where recent violence has killed more than 10 people. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Two days before the one-year anniversary of the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the Bali Nine, member Michael Czugaj is discovered to be in possession of drugs in prison. (SBS)
• November 2015 Paris attacks
  • Belgian prosecutors hand over Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks, to French authorities. (Washington Post)
• Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Dennis Hastert is sentenced to 15 months in prison for breaking banking laws in order to make payments to cover sexual misconduct from past decades. (Wall Street Journal)
• Iraqi authorities ban Qatar-based satellite television network Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the country and closes its offices in Baghdad, accusing it of violating government guidelines issued in 2014 to regulate media “during the war on terror”. (Reuters)
• Censorship in Iran
  • Iran sentences four reformist newspaper journalists to long prison terms for so-called national security crimes. Analysts say this case indicates that President Hassan Rouhani’s calls for press freedoms will likey face an unsympathetic hearing from Iran’s conservative judiciary. (UPI)

Politics and elections

• An Iranian asylum seeker self-immolates himself in Nauru to protest Australia’s treatment of refugees. The protest coincides with a visit by representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the island. Instead of admitting refugees into the country, Australia has been sending them to Nauru or Papua New Guinea. (Radio New Zealand)
• The government of North Korea announces its ruling Workers’ Party of Korea will hold a party congress on May 6, the first in nearly 40 years. (BBC)
• United States presidential election, 2016, Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016
  • Texas Senator Ted Cruz names former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his vice-presidential running mate. (CNN)
• Bradford West MP Naz Shah is suspended from the opposition Labour Party over comments she made on Facebook about Israel. (BBC)
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office confirms German Federal Intelligence Service President Gerhard Schindler will be replaced by Bruno Kahl. Schindler has been widely criticized following the disclosure his agency spied for the U.S. National Security Agency. (BBC)

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