Portal:Current events/2010 November 18

• Police discover a detonator, batteries and a ticking clock in Namibia's Windhoek Airport apparently due to be loaded on an aircraft bound for Munich, Germany. (BBC) (AFP)

• American actor, George Clooney, is awarded the 2010 Ripple of Hope award at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, in recognition of his humanitarian work in Darfur and Haiti. (ITN)

• Officials from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union arrive in Dublin to discuss the Irish debt crisis with the Irish Government. (BBC)
• About 40 Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines on Airbus A380 aircraft around the world will be replaced due to the engine failure on Qantas Flight 32 earlier this month. (News Limited)
• Auto maker General Motors is listed again on the New York Stock Exchange in the biggest Initial public offering in United States history. (Reuters)

• Haiti police fire tear gas into a camp for internally displaced people in Port-au-Prince after riots over United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal allegedly bringing cholera into the country turn violent. (Al Jazerra)
• President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos declares a state of emergency in Colombia after ongoing floods and landslides kill at least 136 people and the flooding spreads to the capital, Bogotá. (CNN) (Colombia Reports) (Momento24)

• The Nobel Committee says the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo may not be handed out this year as China will not allow anyone from his family to attend the event. (The New York Times) (Al Jazeera) (Sify India)
• A South Korean Government report finds that the Sunshine Policy to North Korea adopted by the former government had not resulted in changes to Pyongyang's behaviour. (Reuters via Yahoo News)
• At the Caspian Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticizes NATO for adopting policies based on "false information". (Press TV)

• Nearly 200 prisoners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo escape from a jail in the northwest of the country. (BBC)
• Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny who leads a criminal investigation of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is seeking a court order for his immediate arrest. (AFP) (Washington Post)
• A Chinese woman is sentenced to a year in a labour camp after she posted on Twitter, on charges of "disrupting social order". (BBC) (CNN)
• Australia deports Gabe Watson to face trial in the US state of Alabama for the alleged murder of his wife Tina. (The Australian)
• Japanese police arrest Kiyoshi Takayama, the number two gangster in the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group in Kobe. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald)

• Egyptian authorities release blogger Kareem Amer who was imprisoned for four years for insulting Islam and defaming President Hosni Mubarak. (BBC) (Al-Masry Al-Youm)
• The United States House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct recommends that the United States House of Representatives censure Rep. Charlie Rangel D-NY for ethics violations and be required to make restitution for any unpaid taxes. (CNN)
• US health insurers gave over $86.2million to the Chamber of Commerce last year for the purpose of opposing the health-care overhaul. (Bloomberg) (Democracy Now!)

• The Leonid meteor shower was visible across much of the US early this morning. (USA Today)
• China is to use own uranium resources to meet growing nuclear demand. (RIA Novosti)
• A fault discovered in Idaho could produce an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude. (BBC)
• A planet, HIP 13044 b, which was formed in another galaxy has been discovered in the Helmi Stream. (BBC)

• FIFA bans executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii following claims of corruption associated with the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bids. (Daily Mail)