• Three armed men are killed in a shootout in the Russian republic. (rferl)
• A suicide bomb explodes at a rebel Houthi procession in northern Yemen, killing several people. (BBC) (The Hindu)

• United States country music singer Willie Nelson is charged with marijuana possession. (AP via MSN)

• Irish financial crisis. Widespread speculation that senior bondholders of Irish banks will have to take a "haircut" -- i.e. share in the costs of an EU bailout -- leads to downgrades in the credit worthiness of the institutions that hads the most at stake in the ballooning property values of recent years. (CNBC)

• A third explosion within a week occurs at the Pike River Mine on the South Island of New Zealand, where 29 men are presumed dead. (ABC Australia)

• Korean peninsula:
  • North Korea issues warnings about a planned exercise by South Korea and the United States this weekend. (Jerusalem Post)
  • North Korea holds an artillery drill near Yeonpyeong Island, which it shelled earlier this week. (Times of India) (Jerusalem Post)
• China warns the U.S. against performing any military acts within their exclusive economic zone, ahead of joint South Korean-U.S. military exercises aimed at threatening North Korea. (Reuters)
• Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri visits Iran, seeking help to prevent violence if a U.N.-backed tribunal indicts Hezbollah members for killing former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, and 21 others in a car bombing (Reuters Africa)

• A Rwandan court reschedules the trial date of the United Democratic Forces opposition party leader, Victoire Ingabire, for another 30 days for prosecutors to complete building their case against her. (Bloomberg)
• Pakistani police arrest two Islamist militants planning a suicide bombing attack against a mosque and a government building in Islamabad. (UK Press Asscociation) (VOA)
• Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrest 149 people with links to al-Qaeda suspected of planning attacks on government officials and journalists. (Al-Jazeera)
• Authorities find the largest cache of homemade explosives ever discovered in the United States, in two houses near Escondido, California. (CNN) (Los Angeles Times)
• Human Rights Watch criticizes the punishment of Israeli soldiers who forced a Palestinian child to open bags thought to be booby-trapped as inadequate and a sign that the "Israeli military justice system will not seriously sanction soldiers convicted for offenses that are war crimes". (Human Rights Watch) (Press TV)

• A gunman opens fire at a Kuomintang political rally in Taiwan; prominent member Sean Lien is shot in the face. (Focus Taiwan News Channel) (The Independent)
• Kim Kwan-jin becomes the new Minister for Defense in South Korea, replacing Kim Tae-Young who resigned following the shelling of Yeonpyeong. (Yonhap)
• Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin wins a by-election for the Donegal South–West constituency in the Irish parliament reducing the majority of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to two. (BBC)
• Police in the UK are seeking the power to take down websites they deem "criminal", with critics worried over the lack of judicial oversight. (BBC)