June 2, 2010 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- The crew of the Libyan M/V Rim takes back the ship from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Another ship, the Panamanian M/V QSM Dubai, is captured. (BBC) (Daily Nation) (CNN)
- Gaza flotilla raid:
- The Israel Defense Forces claims that the 10 tonnes of aid delivered in the Free Gaza flotilla was turned back by Hamas when delivered to the border at Rafah, with Hamas stating that it will only accept the aid if all flotilla activists imprisoned in Israel are freed, and that the aid be delivered by the flotilla organizers. (CNN)
- Turkey announces its intention to cut all ties with Israel unless the dead and captured flotilla activists are returned by the end of the day, and sends doctors to Israel to supervise the treatment of wounded Turkish activists in Israeli hospitals. (Aljazeera)
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the "hypocrisy" of critics of Israel's raid against the Gaza-bound international aid shipment during a nationally televised address in Jerusalem. (BusinessWeek) (Reuters) (Xinhua)
- Israeli-Arab MP Haneen Zoubi, who accompanied the flotilla and was arrested but released before the other activists due to parliamentary immunity, tells a press conference in Nazareth that Israel intended to kill peace activists as a way to deter future aid convoys and says she witnessed two passengers slowly bleed to death, while Hebrew messages requesting medical assistance for them were ignored. (The National)
- Arab League foreign ministers meet in Cairo and reach an agreement to ask the United Nations Security Council to force Israel to end the blockade of Gaza. (Reuters)
- UK Prime Minister David Cameron calls the Israeli raid on an unarmed aid convoy "completely unacceptable". (BBC)
- Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen asks that the Israeli government exercise "absolute restraint" in relation to its dealings with Irish citizens captured in the raid. (RTÉ)
- Israel releases all activists captured during the Gaza flotilla raid and sends them for deportation as the Attorney General states "keeping them here would do more damage to the country's vital interests than good". (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The Guardian)
- Cumbria shootings:
- At least 12 people are killed and 25 injured during shootings carried out by a taxi driver in the Whitehaven, Egremont and Seascale areas of west Cumbria, England. He is found dead, an apparent suicide, in Boot. (Cumbria Police) (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Times) (Los Angeles Times)
- It is confirmed as the worst incident of this kind in the UK since the 1996 Dunblane massacre. (TIME) (Aljazeera) (Xinhua)
- ITV's scheduled broadcast of the television series Coronation Street, which was to mirror events in Cumbria, is cancelled and replaced with TV Burp. (STV) (Digital Spy) (Daily Mail)
Art, culture and entertainment
- Stage and screen actor Sir Patrick Stewart, known for his role in Star Trek, is knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in England. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Boston Globe)
- The BBC announces that Last of the Summer Wine, the world's longest-running sitcom, is to be axed after 37 years. (BBC) (The Guardian) (RTÉ) (The Scotsman) (The Press Association)
Disasters
- The Government of Kenya announces that 2.3 million bags of maize are unfit for human consumption due to contamination with high levels of aflatoxins, which have killed at least one child. (BBC)
- 15 people die after a minibus drives off a cliff in the Philippines. (Hindustan Times)
- 14 people are killed and injuries are caused when a four-storey building collapses in Tejgaon, Dhaka. (BBC)
- 3 people are killed and 6 wounded when a leftover bomb from World War II explodes while being defused in Göttingen, Lower Saxony. (AFP) (Aljazeera) (BBC) (The Times of India)
- A heatwave strikes India and South Asia, reaching 53C (127F) and killing many hundreds of people. (Guardian)
International relations
- President of South Africa Jacob Zuma goes to India on his first state visit to Asia, launching a bilateral trade forum in Mumbai. (BBC)
Law and crime
- Amnesty International condemns Sunday's execution, in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, of 18 people, some of whom were from Chad, Egypt and Nigeria. (AFP) (BBC)
- Archbishop of Freiburg (Germany) Robert Zollitsch is charged with "aiding and abetting child sex abuse", though the archdiocese rejects the charges and coverage of them as "absolutely weak" and "sensationalist". (Deutsche Welle) (BBC) (France24) (Houston Chronicle)
- Police in Saudi Arabia investigate three young Saudis, two men and one woman, who spoke critically of the country's laws on the MTV documentary, Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia. (BBC) (National Post) (The New Yotik Times) (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigns after breaking his campaign promise to remove a United States military base from Okinawa. (Aljazeera) (AP via Yahoo News) (Wall Street Journal)
- The right's Civic Democratic Party (ODS), TOP 09 and Public Affairs sign a coalition agreement in the wake of last Saturday's general election in the Czech Republic, even though the left Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) won more votes. (Aljazeera)
- New Caledonia President Philippe Gomès is indicted over alleged misuse of business contracts. (RNZI)
- President of Lombardy, Roberto Formigoni, offers pregnant women €4,500 if they do not have abortions: anti-abortion campaigners welcome the move and critics call it "propaganda". (BBC) (The Times)
- Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, opens a national peace conference to discuss negotiating with the Taliban. A rocket lands near the venue of the conference in Kabul and a suicide bomber sets off explosives outside the conference. (Aljazeera) (AP via Palm Beach Post), (AP via Google News)
Science
- The South Korean government says that it will spend 11.3 billion won (US$9.3 million) until 2013 to support research on key three-dimensional 3D TV technologies. (Yonhap News)
Sports
- Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had his perfect game bid broken up by an incorrect call made by the first base umpire Jim Joyce that would have been his final out. (MLB News)
- Brazil and Zimbabwe play a football game in front of a sell-out crowd in Harare ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the first time since independence that a non-African team has performed in the country. President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai both attend and civil servants are given time off work. (BBC) (Times Live) (CBC) (Fox News) (The Guardian)