World

A man committed suicide on Tuesday by jumping from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The unnamed man, believed to be in his twenties and of a South Asian ethnicity, jumped from the 147th floor and landed on a decking area of the 108th floor. His death would be the first known suicide that has happened at the skyscraper—currently the tallest in the world—since the building opened in January 2010. The owner of the building, Emaar Properties, released a statement saying that at 09:00 local time Tuesday, "an incident involving a mal

The Swedish Navy have released a picture regarding a foreign submarine discovered in the Saltsjöbaden river of Lake Mälaren in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, situated on the western coast of the Baltic Sea. The submarine was seen by Hanna Harge, a 40-year-old entrepreneur who lives locally, when walking with her dog on the morning of 13 April this year. She woke up her family, brought them to the location and took pictures of the submarine, before it disappeared. She and her family immediately called the Swedish Navy, believing it to b

Six people, including four U.N. staff working for the anti-narcotics department in Bolivia, have been killed in a plane crash in a remote area in the west of the country. Two Bolivian military pilots are also among those killed in the accident, which happened in the Los Yungas area, northeast of the capital city, La Paz. The aircraft had been missing since Thursday and was found on Saturday morning according to a general in the Bolivian Air Force, who added the light Cessna aircraft hit a tall tree and then impacted the ground. Robert Brockm

A group of students at London Metropolitan University (LMU) who had been occupying the graduate centre at their university since the afternoon of Wednesday May 4 were evicted just before midnight on Monday by police, university security and private bailiffs. Wikinews, in contact with the occupiers, obtained a first-hand interview with one of the occupiers less than two hours after the occupation ended. The students staged the occupation in protest against cutbacks to courses at the university which, if enacted, would close 70% of the courses t

State officials in Queensland, Australia, have begun working on a draft protocol to use security cameras to record conversations in taxis. The new draft proposes to change a current policy which allows for cameras in taxis which do not record sound for privacy reasons, in the hope that audio recordings will make some investigations easier. The paper, which says audio recordings would "provide greater certainty with regard to investigations, particularly in situation of conflicting statements," is currently at the Transport and Main Roads depar

Forces loyal to besieged Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have entered into the rebel stronghold of Misrata, Libya, in helicopters bearing Red Cross markings to drop naval bombs on the port city, continuing a two-month long attack. Gaddafi forces are attempting to cut off humanitarian aid that the rebels are receiving, which primarily comes from ships which dock in Misrata's port from humanitarian organisations. The helicopters reportedly flew over Misrata, the third largest city in the country and located on the northwest coast of Libya, on Thu

Officials say 27 people are dead after a plane crashed into the sea off east Indonesia today. Fifteen bodies have been recovered and it is thought the others on board have sunk with the wreckage. "I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea," an Indonesian navy official told local radio station ElShinta. He said around ten navy divers were sent to the Papua crash site 400 metres off-shore in six kilometres of water but "had difficulties locating them [trapped passengers] due to strong cu

__NOTOC__ The U.S. did not inform Pakistan of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden because of fears they were harboring the leader of al-Qaeda and would warn him of the mission, a senior American intelligence official has said. Pakistan has defended itself against allegations it was protecting the world's most wanted man, and expressed embarrassment after it emerged bin Laden may have been living in the compound in Abbottabad for as many as six years without being intercepted by Pakistan intelligence. Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, s

Officials from France's aviation accident investigation agency, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), announced on Tuesday that they had recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of Air France Flight 447. It was located and brought to the surface by a Remora 6000 unmanned submarine, then taken aboard the Île de Sein, one of the vessels taking part in the recovery and salvage efforts. This came two days after an announcement on Sunday that the crash-survivable memory unit of the flight data recorder (FDR) of the a

Four officers from London's Metropolitan Police went on trial today accused of repeatedly beating a Muslim arrested on suspicion of helping "terrorist organisations operating abroad." The men deny assaulting Babar Ahmad, 36, in his home, in a police van and in a police station. The assault charges stem from the December 2003 arrest in the city's south-west. Less than a year earlier a similar operation in Manchester had seen an officer stabbed to death by a suspect now serving life in prison. Jonathan Laidlaw, prosecuting, told the jury in Sout

A short-lived tornado with an average wind speed of 200 kilometres per hour hit Auckland's North Shore at around 3pm NZT (3am UTC), passing through the suburb of Albany and dissipating across the harbour near Point Chevalier. Among the hardest-hit buildings was the Albany Mega Centre, the local shopping mall, which had its roof torn off. Emergency services were seen tending to a man in his thirties in the car park of the shopping centre, but were unable to resuscitate him. Civil Defence originally stated there were two dead and fourteen known

__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__ U.S. officials last night said Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader and orchestrator of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and embassy bombings in 1998, had been killed by U.S. special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan near the capital Islamabad. White House officials say that four others were killed in the forty-minute raid that began at 2000 UTC yesterday—including a woman said to have been used as a human shield. One of those shot is thought to be bin Laden's son. An American helicopter was lost due to mechan