April 6 — Former Soviet Republics: KYRGYSTAN
After an arrest of a Kyrgyzstan’s opposition leader, an angry crowd of thousands of protesters storm a government building in the city of Talas, demanding the resignation of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Discontent with President Bakiyev has been brewing for months, fueled by rising prices and allegations of corruption. (April 7): Thousands of protesters in the country’s capital, Bishkek, attack police cordons and storm the government buildings, the national TV and radio stations. Protests spread to other cities. Eighty people die in the clashes. President Bakiyev declares a state of emergency and flees the capital to his home town in the south to gather support. (April 8): The opposition under the leadership of Roza Otunbayeva announces its control of the government buildings. It ousts the president, dissolves the parliament, and establishes an interim government. It promises to hold elections within six months. In 2005, Roza Otunbayeva marched arm in arm with Bakiyev in what it became to be known the Tulip Revolution, which ousted President Askar Akayev and brought Bakiyev to power. (April 15): President Bakiyev signs a resignation letter and goes into exile to Belarus.
April 6 — Latin America/North America: BRAZIL/UNITED STATES
Brazil and the United States reach an agreement that settles their long-lasting trade dispute over the U.S. government subsidies for cotton farmers. The settlement comes a day before Brazil’s plan to impose $830 million sanctions, including $591 million in tariffs on a hundred various goods. The sanctions were approved by the World Trade Organizations, which ruled in 2009 that the subsidies violated trade agreements and were illegal.
April 7 — East Asia: THAILAND
Thousands of “red-shirts”, anti-government protesters and supporters of Thailand’s exiled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, storm the parliament building, forcing the legislators to flee. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declares a state of emergency in Bangkok, for the fourth time since 2008. Red shirts have been occupying parts of central Bangkok, demanding the resignation of the prime minister and early elections.
April 8 — South Asia: SRI LANKA
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s governing coalition, United People’s Freedom Alliance, wins a majority in first parliamentary elections since the end of the war with the Tamil Tigers. But international election observers say that the election was neither free nor fair, especially in the north of the country among the Tamil refugees. President Rajapaksa wants to introduce political reforms to fix the country’s ethnic problems, but he comes short of the two-thirds majority necessary to give him the power to change the constitution.
April 10 — Europe: POLAND
A plane carrying Poland’s president, Lech Kaczynski, first lady Maria Kaczynska, senior government and military officials, and cultural figures crashes near Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. The Polish delegation was on its way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by the Soviets during WWII. The initial investigation points to a pilot’s error. According to the Polish constitution, the speaker of the house Bronislaw Komorowski takes over as an interim president and the new presidential election has to take place in June.
April 12 — Europe: UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Ireland’s Assembly nominates David Ford of the Alliance Party to become the region’s justice minister after the devolution of policing and justice powers. He is the first justice minister since 1972, when London took policing powers away from Northern Ireland.
April 13 — Latin America: CUBA
In an attempt to introduce some reforms within the centralized system, Cuban President Raul Castro allows small barber shops and hairdresser salons to operate as private businesses in which employees will be allowed to rent their places of business and pay taxes. Other small businesses, such as taxi drivers, have been working for themselves for a while. It is hoped that the move is a beginning of a China- or a Vietnam-type of privatization.
April 13 — International Issues: NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT
Forty-seven countries end a two-day Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, D.C., which focused on safeguarding vulnerable weapons-grade plutonium and uranium. The leaders agreed to a four-year timetable to achieve this goal and a progress report summit in South Korea in 2012. The participants also agreed to supply the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations agency overseeing nuclear issues, with more resources.
April 15 — Africa: SUDAN
Sudan completes five days of presidential and parliamentary elections, the first multi-party poll in 24 years. President Omar al-Bashir is declared the winner and reelected for the second term, although the international election observers claim irregularities and vote rigging. The semi-autonomous south reelects Salva Kiir as its leader from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which controls the region.
April 18 — Europe: CYPRUS
Turkish Cypriots in the northern part of divided Cyprus elect a nationalist Dervis Eroglu their new president. Unlike the incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat, who supported reunification of Cyprus and close relations with the European Union, Eroglu favors two separate independent Greek and Turkish Cypriot states. The election shows the northern Cypriots’ frustrations with Talat’s unfulfilled promises of unification and ending of isolation.
April 20 — North America: UNITED STATES
A powerful explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, a BP-operated offshore drilling oil rig situated about 50 miles off southeast of the Louisiana coast, kills 11 workers and injures over 100 others. A subsequent fire that lasts 35 hours burns and sinks the rig, which starts a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It is estimated that more than 1,000 barrels of oil a day are gushing into the gulf, threatening an environmental disaster. (April 28): After BP’s unsuccessful attempts to stop the leak, the spill results in an oil slick that has a circumference of about 600 miles and covers almost 29,000 square miles. It threatens Louisiana’s wetlands and local businesses. It is believed that the Gulf of Mexico will not recover from the oil spill until the end of 2012.
April 21 — Former Soviet Republics/Europe: RUSSIA/UKRAINE
Newly elected pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych extends the lease for Russia’s naval base in a strategic Crimean city of Sevastopol for another 25 years. In return, Ukraine will obtain Russian natural gas at discounted price.
April 23 — North America: UNITED STATES
The governor of the U.S. state of Arizona Jan Brewer signs into law a controversial immigration bill, which requires state police to check people’s immigration status if there is a “reasonable suspicion.” Supporters of the bill say that the law will help bring illegal immigration under control. The opponents, on the other hand, say the law will lead to profiling and discrimination against all Hispanics.
April 25 — Middle East: IRAQ
A joint military operation of the Iraqi and NATO forces kills several main leaders of the terrorist al-Qaeda in Iraq group responsible for many violent attacks since the beginning of the Iraq operation in 2003. One of them, Ahmed al-Obeidi, was in charge of operations in the northern provinces of Iraq.