Inside
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Month in review: International
End to embargo Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swears in a new government in the West Bank after sacking the Hamas led government. Attacks by Hamas militants on Fatah security headquarters in the Gaza Strip had led to days of bloody civil war earlier in June. Arab and western governments strongly back Abbas with the west ending a U.S. led embargo freeing millions of dollars in aid to Palestine.
Sudan agrees to a joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force in the war-torn region of Darfur in June. Darfur rebels are unhappy with Sudan's acceptance of the peace force insisting that the UN should have overall command. After months of negotiation Khartoum agrees to accept the joint force of at least 20,000 troops and police but says the majority of the troops must come from Africa with command and control left to the AU.
India's first female president? India's Congress-led ruling coalition names Rajasthan governor Pratibha Patil as a presidential candidate in June. She could become the first woman to occupy the mostly ceremonial position. Patil emerges as a surprise candidate after the left-of-centre parties opposed the Congress party's first choice. Patil, 72, is a former deputy speaker of the upper house of India's parliament, the Rajya Sabha.
UN nuclear watchdog to visit N Korea North Korea invites a delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in what appears to be a first step to an international agreement to curb its nuclear programme. The nuclear inspectors discuss the schedule for the shutdown of the country's main Yongbyon nuclear reactor. This is the first such visit since the IAEA were forced to leave in 2002.
Rushdie Radical Islamic groups in Pakistan and Indian-held Kashmir hold protests over the UK's decision to confer a knighthood on the author Salman Rushdie. Britain defends the knighthood -- which entitles the author to be known as Sir Salman -- arguing that it upholds free speech and honours Muslims in the British community.
Civil violence escalates in Sri Lanka International protest follows the temporary expulsion from Colombo of hundreds of Tamils early in June after violence escalates in Sri Lanka. Police force hundreds of Tamils out of the capital, citing security concerns, but a court orders an end to the expulsions. The country's civil conflict has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past 19 months despite a 2002 cease-fire.
Former Serb leader gets 35 years Former Croatian Serb rebel leader Milan Martic is sentenced to 35 years in jail by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague for murder and persecution in the former Yugoslavia. Martic is found guilty of ethnic cleansing targeting non-Serbs during his leadership in Croatia in the early 1990s. Prosecutors say Martic was a key figure in a "joint criminal enterprise" masterminded by the former Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
Woolmer died of 'natural causes' |
