August 2, 2011 (Tuesday)
Armed conflict and attacks
- 2011 Libyan civil war: Seven rebels are killed and 50 injured in fighting in the town of Zlitan. (Xinhua) (Reuters)
- Suicide bombers attack a guesthouse used by foreigners in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz with at least four security guards dead. (Reuters)
- 2011 Syrian uprising: Syrian Army forces shell the town of Hama for a second successive day. (BBC)
- Fifteen people are wounded in a bombing of a Syrian Catholic Church in Kirkuk, Iraq. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
- Egypt's military police and riot police end a three-week Tahrir Square sit-in. (The Washington Post) (The National)[permanent dead link] (Al-Ahram)
- Four Ethiopian peacekeepers are killed by a landmine in the Abyei region of Sudan. (Reuters)
Disasters
- The United Nations warns that Uganda could be the next country to be affected by the famine in the Horn of Africa. (Reuters)
- Tropical Storm Emily moves towards Puerto Rico. (NOAA)
International relations
- The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calls on China to release Liu Xiaobo and his wife. (BBC)
- Israel's Supreme Court orders the West Bank outpost of Migron, inhabited by 250 Jewish settlers, to be evacuated without delay. (Reuters)
- Four European nations (the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Portugal) circulate a draft United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Government of Syria for its recent crackdown on protesters. (Bloomberg)
Law and crime
- South Korean prosecutors send a summons to Park Chul, President of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, over alleged embezzlement. (Yonhap)
- News International phone hacking scandal
- Former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner is arrested and later bailed as part of the ongoing investigation into phone hacking. (BBC)
- Jonathan May-Bowles is jailed for six weeks for throwing a foam pie into the face of Rupert Murdoch at a House of Commons Select Committee hearing. (BBC)
Politics
- Around 10,000 Papuan people demonstrate in support of independence from Indonesia in the Papuan capital of Jayapura. (Straits Times)
- Peter O'Neill of Southern Highlands Province is elected Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea in a 70-24 vote, ousting acting Prime Minister Sam Abal who promises to contest the decision in court. (Sydney Morning Herald)
- The United States Senate passes legislation to raise the debt ceiling in order to avert the 2011 US debt ceiling crisis and President Barack Obama signs it into law. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald) (New Zealand Herald)
Science
- French and Ugandan scientists discover a 20-million-year-old skull of a tree-climbing ape in the Karamoja region of Uganda. (Reuters) (Hindustan Times)