Top News Stories –

Queen filmed calling Chinese officials ‘very rude’ –
The Queen has been filmed saying Chinese officials were “very rude” during last year’s state visit by President Xi Jinping. She was discussing their treatment of Britain’s ambassador to China with a senior police officer at a Buckingham Palace garden party on Tuesday. It came after David Cameron was overheard saying Afghanistan and Nigeria were “fantastically corrupt“. The Queen’s remarks were filmed as she was introduced to Metropolitan Police Commander Lucy D’Orsi, who the monarch is told had overseen security during President Xi’s visit to the UK in October. [BBC]
The Queen

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Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • 11 May 2016 Baghdad bombings
    • At least 64 people are killed and 87 injured in a bomb attack on a market in Sadr City, Baghdad. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) claims responsibility. (CNN) (NY Times)
  • ISIS bury alive 45 of their own fighters in Qayyarah for fleeing a battle. (Mirror) (Armen Press)
• Dissident Irish Republican campaign
  • MI5 raises the threat level for dissident Northern Ireland militants from “moderate” to “substantial”, meaning there is a strong possibility of an attack on the British mainland. (NY Times) (Reuters) (BBC)

Arts and culture

• A fragment of the world’s oldest ground-edge axe dated at between 45,000 and 49,000 years old is found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. (ABC News Australia)

International relations

• Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015–present)
  • Israel seals off the West Bank and Gaza Strip for two days while Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s remembrance day and independence day) is celebrated. (Haaretz)

Law and crime

• The head of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Motiur Rahman Nizami, is executed for his alleged role in acts of genocide and war crimes 45 years ago during the independence war against Pakistan in 1971. Nizami is the fifth senior opposition leader to be executed in connection with the war; a total of 17 people have received the death penalty. Authorities prepare for possibly violent protests. (AP via The Washington Post) (Vice News) (The New York Times)
• Amnesty International reports that this year at least 149 have died, including children, in a military detention center, Giwa barracks, in Maiduguri, Nigeria. (VOA News) (Amnesty)
• West Fertilizer Company explosion
  • The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives finds that a 2013 fire at a fertilizer plant in the American town of West, Texas, that killed 15 people was arson and begins the search for suspects.(Fox News)
• German Justice Minister Heiko Maas says he will propose legislation to annul homosexuality convictions, and create a “right to compensation.” A 19th-century law outlawed sexual relations between men. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969, but the law itself was not rescinded until 1994. (AP via The Washington Post) (Deutsche Welle)

Politics and elections

• Impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff
  • The Federal Senate of Brazil debates whether to suspend and impeach President Dilma Rousseff for allegedly breaching budget rules. The President’s allies are not optimistic about the Senate vote. (New York Times) (India.Com)
• Recognition of same-sex unions in Italy
  • The Italian Parliament gives final approval to legislation recognizing civil unions of same-sex couples. (The New York Times)
• Ugandan general election, 2016
  • Uganda arrests opposition leader Kizza Besigye as he addressed a crowd of supporters in the capital Kampala, and shuts down access to social media within the country prior to President Yoweri Museveni’s inauguration tomorrow. (The New York Times) (Global Voices)

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