Sri Lanka
Mahinda Rajapakse urged the cricket team to do better next time. The representatives from Sri Lankan government and fans welcomed its cricketers warmly at the Bandaranaike international airport in Colombo. Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse consoled Kumar Sangakkara after his team lost the cricket World Cup to India. "We can be proud of the team and Sri Lanka will stand by them to move forward," the president was quoted as saying in a message to the team who returned Sunday after Saturday s defeat in India. The president thanked them for taking Sri Lanka to the World Cup finals, where India beat them by six wickets. Rajapakse had earlier asked the team to win the championship as a tribute to star spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who retired from international cricket at the end of the 2011 World Cup.
Libya
The anti-government protesters have also deployed heavier weapons. Libyan protesters put their best troops in to battle Muammar Gaddafi s forces for the eastern oil town of Brega on Sunday, while Western warplanes flew overhead and the sound of explosions ripped through the air. The sound of explosions and machinegun fire came from the town, a sparsely populated settlement spread over more than 25 km (15 miles). Without the backbone of regular forces, the lightly-armed volunteer caravan has spent days dashing back and forth along the coast road on Brega s outskirts, scrambling away in their pick-ups when Gaddafi s forces fire rockets at their positions.
Ivory Coast
A curfew imposed by Ouattara's ministry of defence starts at midday, every day. It s not only the bullets flying in all directions, but shortages of food, water and other basic supplies that make life for those civilians who never had a chance to flee Abidjan before the conflict started, a real nightmare. Caught in the middle of the fight for control of the Ivory Coast’s main city, residents walk far in search of basic supplies. Fighting has been intense over the last four days between forces loyal to presidential rivals Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara. Nothing is coming in and what s left is unaffordable. "We have nothing left to eat at home, I only have one fish left at home in the fridge and after that I don t know what I will do. I went to the market yesterday and I was able to buy 4 tomatoes for 1,000 Francs (2 USD). It s really difficult," says student Pamela Somda.
Bahrain
There are no private broadcasting stations in Bahrain. Bahrain suspended the Gulf Arab state s main opposition newspaper on Sunday, after accusing it of falsifying news about recent sectarian unrest and a government crackdown on protests. Mansoor al-Jamri, Al-Wasat s editor-in-chief, said it was not clear if its print license would be revoked or not. Al-Wasat s printing press was damaged during the unrest and on March 17 a group of plainclothes men with weapons were in the streets around its offices, holding up production.Bahrain has seen the worst unrest since the 1990s after mostly protesters took to the streets in February, inspired by uprisings that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, to demand a bigger say in the Sunni-ruled country.
Japan
Radiation has leaked into the sea, food, drinking water and air. Hundred of anti-nuclear took to the streets of Tokyo on Sunday, as Japanese engineers continued to grapple with the world s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl for a fourth week. Around 300 demonstrators gathered in front of the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co , the operator of the earthquake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, before taking the protest to the offices of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The drama at the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex has unsettled the global nuclear industry and compounded Japan s suffering after an earthquake and tsunami that left about 27,500 people dead or missing. Experts say that beyond the disaster zone, there is minimal risk to human health further afield in Japan or abroad.
USA (burning of the Quran)
President Barack Obama on Saturday condemned a US pastor’s burning of the Quran, after violent protests at what he called an act of “extreme intolerance and bigotry” left 17 dead in Afghanistan. Obama also reiterated his condemnation of the “outrageous” attacks by protesters as “an affront to human decency and dignity.” “No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonorable and deplorable act,” he added. Ten people died amid fresh protests that began in the center of the main southern city of Kandahar and spread as police clashed with crowds on Saturday, a day after seven UN staff were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the worst attack on the world body in the country since the 2001 invasion. “The desecration of any holy text, including the Quran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” Obama said in a statement honoring those killed in the attacks. Kandahar is the spiritual heartland of the Taliban, who have fought an insurgency against President Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul and its Western allies since they were ousted by the US-led invasion. “Death to America” and “Death to Karzai” chanted the demonstrators. “They have insulted our Quran,” shouted one. Police had fired into the air to try to deter thousands of protesters marching toward the UN offices and provincial administration headquarters. Provincial authorities said the protesters had damaged government and private buildings and torched vehicles. Smoke rose from different parts of the city as protesters burned cars and tires. Friday’s attackers in Mazar-i-Sharif had broken away from a large demonstration in the city against the burning of a Quran, Islam’s holy book, at an evangelical church in Florida. They overwhelmed guards at the UN compound before setting it ablaze. The United Nations did not announce the nationalities of the three civilian staff killed. But Sweden named one as 33-year-old Swede, Joakim Dungel. Norway said Lieutenant Colonel Siri Skare, a 53-year-old female pilot, was killed. Diplomats said the third was a Romanian. “Now is a time to draw upon the common humanity that we share, and that was so exemplified by the UN workers who lost their lives trying to help the people of Afghanistan,” Obama said in extending his “deepest condolences” to friends and relatives of the victims. Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center, an evangelical church in Gainesville, Florida, told AFP that “we don’t feel responsible” for the attack, adding: “The radical element of Islam takes (the burning) as an excuse to promote their violent activities.”
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