Armed conflicts and incidents

• 15,000 villagers are to be displaced in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of British mining company Randgold Resources's search for gold. (BBC)
• Fighting in north and south Yemen leaves 24 dead. (BBC) (News24)
• Two Ugandans and one Peruvian are killed and 15 others are injured in a bomb in Baghdad, Iraq. (Aljazeera) (BBC)
• The Israeli military tells the United Nations it will restrict its use of artillery shells containing white phosphorus. (BBC)
• A Palestinian militant is killed and seven other people wounded when Israeli troops open fire in northern Gaza. (BBC)

Arts and culture

• 1984 Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu announces he is to withdraw from public life. (BBC) (Aljazeera) (euronews) (France24) (The New York Times) (Reuters Africa)
• Writers such as Martin Amis, V. S. Naipaul, Orhan Pamuk, Philip Roth and Salman Rushdie begin selling ebooks via Amazon.com in a dispute over digital royalties. (The Guardian)
• The UN's John Ging says more than 7,000 Palestinian children have successfully attempted a Guinness World Record by simultaneously dribbling basketballs. (CNN) (AP) (UN News Centre) (People's Daily)
• Catalan tenor José Carreras announces he is to perform at La Scala for the first time in 14 years. (BBC)
• Damon Albarn-fronted Gorillaz announce their first world tour and will visit at least four continents. (BBC) (Brisbane Times)
• Coronation Street cat Frisky's ashes sell at auction for nearly six times the expected price in Gloucestershire, England. (BBC)

Business and economics

• The International Monetary Fund cancels Haiti's $268 million debt and approves a new three-year loan worth $60 million; the IMF expects Haiti to start paying back interest in late 2011. (Aljazeera)
• A proposal to develop nuclear energy is discussed at an energy policy meeting held by Asean in Da Lat, Vietnam. (BBC)

Disasters

• Volunteers use their hands to clean an oil spill in the Yellow Sea after pipelines burst off Dalian in Northeastern China's Liaoning Province, spilling 1,500 tonnes of oil and covering an area close to 1,000 km² and about 90 km of coast. (Xinhua), (AFP)
• Tornado strikes Battle Creek, Michigan

International relations

• The International Court of Justice rules that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence was legal, in a move that could set a precedent for unrecognised countries.(Al-Jazeera) (BBC) (The Guardian)^[1]
• Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon stalls on his earlier proposal for an international investigation into the Gaza flotilla raid. (Asia Times Online)
• A spokesperson for North Korea suggests new United States sanctions against it are "in violation" of a United Nations statement which did not apportion blame for the sinking of a South Korean warship. (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Aljazeera)
• Belarus and Georgia form political alliance against Russia. (The Guardian)
• Chad suggests the International Criminal Court is biased against African leaders. (BBC)
• Fiji leader Frank Bainimarama opens a meeting, "Engaging the Pacific". (BBC)
• The United States decides to resume training Indonesian soldiers after 12 years. (BBC) (Bangkok Post) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (The Washington Post)
• Israel warns the United Nations that two ships carrying aid to Gaza would not, by "all necessary means", be allowed to reach their destination. (Reuters India) (AP)

Law and crime

• It is announced that the police officer who was filmed pushing Ian Tomlinson to his death during the 2009 G-20 London summit protests will not face charges; his family call it "outrageous". (BBC)
• Three more dissidents released by Cuba on humanitarian grounds arrive in Spain. (BBC)
• Nobel Peace Laureates Desmond Tutu and Shirin Ebadi lead hundreds of rights groups in calling on Senegal to try exiled Chadian dictator Hissène Habré for mass murder and torture. (AFP) (Ekklesia) (The Independent)
• Iran pressurises Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to death by lapidation, calling on her to name those campaigning for her release. (The Guardian)
• Nuclear specialist Igor Sutyagin, released as part of a spy swap between Russia and the United States, asks to return home. (BBC)
• Salon.com claims Irish teenager Phoebe Prince, driven to suicide by high school bullies in the United States, had serious psychological problems long before her death. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• A report by Transparency International indicates that Rwanda is the "least corrupt country in East Africa". (BBC)
• Human Rights Watch alleges Chinese security forces beat and tortured protesters during 2008 unrest in Tibet. (BBC)
• Bishops in Chile request clemency for those convicted of crimes committed under the military rule of the 1970s and 1980s. (BBC) (Aljazeera)
• Kyrgyzstani police arrest Akhmat Bakiyev, a brother of ousted leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, in an apartment raid in Jalalabad. (BBC)

Politics

• President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak makes a televised speech in contrast to concerns for his health. (BBC)
• U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Wednesday apologizes to Shirley Sherrod for firing her over a heavily-edited video tape of a speech, circulated by Tea Party activists, which alleged that Sherrod's actions were the result of racism, and offers her an official job. (EuroWeb.com) (BloombergBusinessweek)
• Cabinet formation in the Netherlands: Former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers is appointed the new informateur for the formation of a new coalition cabinet. (NOS)
• The funeral of Roy Oldham, the UK's longest serving council leader, takes place. (BBC)

Science

• A woman is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease ("human mad cow disease") in Milan then hospitalised in Livorno, only the second case in Italy's history and the first since Sicily 2002. (WAtoday)
• A new henge is discovered at Stonehenge World Heritage Site, described to be the biggest discovery of a major monument in over 50 years around Stonehenge. (BBC News)

Sports

• Muttiah Muralidaran takes his 800th Test wicket for the Sri Lanka cricket team in his final ball before his retirement and finishes his career as the world record holder for number of wickets. (ABC Online)