April 5 – Former Soviet Republics: ARMENIA / AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijan’s government and Armenian separatists in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region agree to a ceasefire after several days of renewed clashes. The Armenian Defense Ministry accuses Azerbaijan of launching an offensive to seize this territory. There are casualties on both sides. Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region situated within the borders of Azerbaijan and internationally recognized as part of it, but it has been governed by its ethnic Armenian majority backed by neighboring Armenia. The dispute about the region led to a bloody war between both countries, which ended in 1994, but the conflict remains unresolved.

April 6 – International Organizations: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Amnesty International reports a significant rise in state-sponsored executions across the world in 2015. At least 1,634 people have been put to death, the highest number in the last 25 years. Almost 90 percent of these executions took place in three countries: Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. This statistics, however, does not include China, which does not disclose its numbers, but Amnesty International estimates that it is in thousands each year. Among those executed are people with mental disabilities and charged with non-lethal crimes, such as adultery, blasphemy, and corruption. There were also cases of executing minors in violation of international law. Bangladesh, Chad, India, Indonesia, Oman and South Sudan are countries that resumed death penalty.

April 18 – Latin America: Brazil
Brazil’s lower house of parliament votes to start impeachment proceedings against the country’s president, President Dilma Rousseff. She is accused of manipulating the governments’ accounts during her reelection campaign in 2014. She denies the accusations, and her supporters accuse the Congress of a coup. Her case moves now to the Senate, which is expected to suspend her during a formal impeachment trial.

April 20 – South Asia: PAKISTAN
In a Pakistani city of Karachi, gunmen kill several policemen in a drive-by shooting targeting polio vaccination station. Islamist militants oppose vaccination programs calling them a Western conspiracy to sterilize Pakistani children. Polio is a highly contagious viral disease that can causes paralysis and sometimes death. Polio has been eradicated in most countries, but in 2015 it was still endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2014, Pakistan recorded over 300 new polio cases, the highest number since 1999.

April 21 – Latin America / North America: MEXICO / UNITED STATES
Authorities in the US state of California discover a sophisticated cross-border drug tunnel that ran from a home in Tijuana, Mexico to a suburb in San Diego, California. They also seize a ton of cocaine valued at around $22 million and seven tons of marijuana. The nearly half-a-mile- tunnel was equipped with lights, ventilation, a rail system and a motorized freight elevator capable of carrying up to 10 people.

April 25 – Middle East: SAUDI ARABIA
The Saudi Arabian government approves a plan of economic reforms that would diversify the country’s economy. The Saudi Arabian economy depends on oil and its petroleum sector accounts for about 87 percent of the country’s budget revenues, 42 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and 90 percent of export earnings. Dependence on one product, such as oil, makes a country subject to the market volatility. The recent significant drop in oil prices caused Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit of 18.8 percent of GDP in 2015. According to the reform plan, a number of shares of the state-owned petroleum giant, Aramco, will be sold, increasing revenue and outside investment. The country will also make investments in mineral mining and military production. The country plans to expand the guest worker program and include more women in the workforce.

April 26 – Europe / Former Soviet Republics: UKRAINE
Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, the worst nuclear catastrophe in history. Thirty years ago on this day, a nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat located in what was then the Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union spewing radioactive particles into the atmosphere for 10 days. The radioactive cloud spread over much of the western Soviet Union and Europe. During the accident, 31 reactor staff and emergency workers died and thousands more deaths have been linked to the disaster. Tens of thousands of people from the area were evacuated. After 30 years, the surrounding area is still highly radioactive. The town of Pripyat is an abandoned, uninhabitable ghost town. It is believed that there is about 200 tons of the uranium still left in the damaged reactor. In 2010, works began to replace the original now-crumbling sarcophagus that was put over the collapsed reactor after the explosion. The new $2 billion-giant arch, about the size of Norte Dame, will be slowly inched over the reactor on specially constructed tracks, which will contain the radiation for the next 100 years.

April 26 – Middle East / North America: SYRIA / IRAQ / UNITED STATES
The United States military officials say that after following intelligence leads about where the Islamic State (IS) stores its money across Syria and Iraq, the U.S. destroyed up to $800 million of IS cash in special air strikes. This includes $150 million that was kept in a house in Mosul in Iraq. IS’s losses of territory, oilfields, and cash have had a negative impact on its capabilities of maintaining its current fighters and recruiting new ones. The U.S. says that in February 2016 IS had about 25,000 fighters, about 10,000 less compared to the previous year.

April 27 – Middle East / International Organizations:
IRAN / COMMITTEE TO PROTECTS JOURNALISTS
Four journalists in Iran receive long-term sentences in prison for “spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and acting against national security. A US-based media advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemns the sentencing and the laws that allow harassment of journalists.

April 30 – Africa: KENYA
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta sets fire to a stockpile of more than 100 tons of confiscated ivory amassed in Nairobi National Park to show his country’s determination to save its elephants by discouraging poaching and illegal trading in ivory. It is estimated that there are about half a million elephants in all of Africa, but its population is endangered with 30,000  being killed yearly for their tusks. Demand for ivory comes primarily from affluent countries in Asia. In the four years up to 2014 the wholesale price of raw ivory in China tripled, which encourages poaching.