Portal:Current events/2008 June 17

June 17, 2008 (Tuesday)

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opens the U.S. general election campaign with a narrow lead over Republican John McCain. (Reuters)
Demonstrators in the Moquegua Region in southern Peru release 48 police officers who they had held hostage for a day. (CNN)
The Boston Celtics defeat the Los Angeles Lakers to win the 2008 NBA Finals. (NZ Stuff)
President Nicolas Sarkozy announces that France intends to return to the military structure of NATO for the first time since Charles de Gaulle led it out of the organisation in 1966. (AFP via Google News)
Iraq:
- A military judge dismisses charges against a United States Marine Corps colonel of failing to investigate the Haditha killings. (AP via Google News)^{[permanent dead link]}
- A car bomb at a bus stop in northern Baghdad kills at least 51 people and injures another 75. (AFP via Google News)
In its annual report, the UNHCR says the number of refugees in the world rose to 11.4 million in 2007 from 9.9m in 2006. (AP via Forbes)
Tsutomu Miyazaki, known as "The Otaku Murderer", is executed by hanging in Tokyo for the murders and cannibalization of four young girls in 1988 and 1989. He was hanged with two others, each convicted in separate, unrelated murders. (The Times)
In the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese government faces growing criticism from grieving parents who allege that corrupt and shoddy construction was behind the disproportionately high number of collapsed school buildings. (Christian Science Monitor)
Lebanese security officials say that clashes between pro-government and anti-government lead to three deaths in the villages of Taalabaya and Saadnayel in eastern Lebanon. (AP via Google News)^{[permanent dead link]}
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions calls a one day strike for July 2 in protest at the President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak's economic reform plans. (Reuters via The Guardian)
Summer 2008 China region floods: Large areas of southern China are hit by the worst floods in decades with Guangzhou and Shenzhen worst affected. So far, 63 people have died and 1.66 million have been evacuated. (AFP via Google News)