Portal:Current events/2012 April 16

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Current events of April 16, 2012 (2012-04-16) (Monday)

Israeli soldier's assault of Danish national:
- Video footage emerges of an Israeli soldier smashing a foreign activist in the face with his gun in an apparently unprovoked attack during a bicycle rally in the West Bank. The assault, which knocked the victim, believed to be Danish, to the ground draws international condemnation. (Al Jazeera) (Toronto Star) (Los Angeles Times)
- The Danish ambassador to Israel Liselotte Plesner demands an explanation from Israel over the assault by a senior officer. (The Guardian) (Haaretz)

Ted Hughes's older brother, Gerald, is to publish a memoir about his early years with the poet. (BBC)
The Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen", which featured a defaced image of Elizabeth II on its cover, called the British government “a facist regime” and was banned by the BBC, is to be re-released 35 years after its debut, in time for June's Diamond Jubilee. (BBC) (The New York Times)

The first ever challenge to the U.S. nominee for World Bank president is unsuccessful; the selection of Korean-American physician Jim Yong Kim draws criticism, such as the historical U.S. dominance of the post and the fact that Kim, a former director of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department, is not an economist. (Al Jazeera)

The U.S. military's top officer Martin Dempsey speaks of being "embarrassed" and tells a Pentagon news conference "we let the boss down" in relation to allegations that secret service agents habitually associated with prostitutes in Colombia. Pentagon spokesman George E. Little tells reporters that the number of military staff involved could be more than the five originally reported. (BBC)

The trial of confessed perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, starts in Oslo, Norway. (CNN)
The European Court of Human Rights rules that the Soviet Union violated the Rights of relatives of the victims in the 1940 Katyn Massacre, and describes the massacre as a war crime. Reuters

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, the heir to the Dutch throne, buys a villa for €4.5 million beside the Greek town of Kranidi near a home owned by Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin. (BBC)

The club of Piermario Morosini, who died on the pitch on Saturday, is to take care of his disabled sister who relied on him for financial and emotional support following the deaths of their parents. (BBC)
Fabrice Muamba is discharged from hospital after his cardiac arrest. (BBC) (East African Standard)