April 13, 2011 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2011 Libyan civil war
- Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi continue to attack the city of Misrata. (Al Arabiya)
- The Malaysiakini Malaysian news website is attacked ahead of elections in Sarawak. (AFP via Channel News Asia)
- The 2011 Syrian protests spread to Aleppo. (Gulf News)
Business and economy
- Toyota closes several plants in Europe for part of April and May due to parts shortages caused by the power outages associated with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. (AP via Forbes)
- Royal Dutch Shell announces that it will close the Clyde oil refinery in Sydney, Australia, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs. (Sydney Morning Herald)
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announces that it has launched a new environmental impact study of oil shale and tar sands development. (Denver Post)
Disasters
- Japan's Sendai Airport partially reopens for the first time since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. (Kyodo News)
International relations
- The United States requests the release of one of its citizens detained in North Korea. (AFP via Google News)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- The government in the West Bank is largely ready to govern a Palestinian state, a United Nations report claims. (BBC) (Washington Post) (Al Jazeera)
Law and crime
- Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara says former leader Laurent Gbagbo will face charges at the national and international level. (Al Jazeera)
- Egyptian authorities detain former president Hosni Mubarak and his sons Alaa and Gamal for 15 days as part of an investigation related to possible charges of corruption and abuse of power. (Al-Arabiya) (BBC) (AFP via Yahoo! News)
- English actor Brian Regan is charged with the murder of a bouncer in a pub in Liverpool. (BBC)
- US baseball star Barry Bonds is convicted of obstruction of justice charges with a hung jury on other charges. (AP via Fox News)
- Lee Bradley Brown, 39, a British tourist is allegedly beaten to death in the Bur Dubai police station in Dubai after being arrested for swearing. (Daily Mail)
Politics
- Chinese authorities continue a crackdown on dissent, with some activists placed on labour camps according to rights groups. (Taipei Times) (Radio Television Hong Kong) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Former US Senator Rick Santorum announces that he has formed a committee to explore a bid for the Republican Party nomination in the presidential election. (USA Today)
- The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States Senate releases a report on the financial crisis of 2008, focusing largely on the role played by Goldman Sachs in "creating and selling structured finance products" that had their customers betting in one direction while Goldman itself bet the other way. (Subcommittee Release)