April 25th Major News Events

1981 Northern Ireland Bobby Sands

1981: Nearly blind and close to death Bobby Sands in the MAZE Prison in Belfast refused to meet with Human Rights Activists , he is on hunger strike until the British Government recognize him as a Political Prisoner not as a criminal.

1982 Falkland Islands Marines Take South Georgia

1982: British Marines have retaken the remote island of South Georgia from Argentinean control as the beginning of taking back the Falkland Islands following the Argentine invasion in March of this year.

1983 Soviet Union Cold War

1983: The Soviet Union publishes a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine. Andropov's letter came in response to a letter Samantha Smith had sent him in December 1982, asking if the Soviets were planning to start a nuclear war.

1992 Afghanistan Overthrow of Communist Government

1992: Islamic forces in Afghanistan take control of the country following the collapse of the Najibullah government. The country is made up of a number of War Lords and the country is plunged into civil war between the various militias, which had coexisted during the Soviet occupation. With the end of of their common enemy (Communist Rule), the militias, ethnic, clan, and religious differences took over, and civil war continued.

2006 Iran to Share Nuclear Technologies

2006: Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that his country is happy to share its nuclear technology with other nations. The Ayatollah made the offer during a meeting with the visiting Sudanese President. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has condemned the comments. Iran's top nuclear negotiator has threatened to suspend its cooperation with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog if Iran is facing sanctions. The U.N. Security Council has set Iran a deadline of April 28th to freeze its uranium enrichment. The next day in a continued attack against sanctions and threats Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announces that U.S. interests around the world will be harmed if America launches an attack against Iran. "The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said on television. Addressing the workers at Tehran's International Labourers' Day, he warned that Iran would not pay attention to U.S. "threats and intimidation". "The Iranian nation and its officials are peace-seekers and the Islamic republic would not invade anybody."

2007 Discovery of Earth-like Planet

2007: Astronomers have discovered an Earth-like planet outside of this Solar System, which could have running water on its surface. The planet orbits a faint star, Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. The discovery was made using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile. The staff there have said that the planet's benign temperatures mean that water could exist there in liquid form, and that this meant that the planet could harbor life.

2008 NYPD Acquitted of Sean Bell’s Shooting

2008: A New York judge has acquitted three police officers of shooting an unarmed man hours before his wedding. Sean Bell, 23, was shot as he left a strip club in the suburb of Queens in November 2006. He died at the scene. Two detectives, Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora, had been facing manslaughter charges, and the third man, Marc Cooper, had been accused of reckless endangerment. The next day A protest has takes place in New York over the decision to clear three police officers of charges in the killing of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton has told crowds in Harlem that the police had no right to shoot an unarmed man, and has called for a campaign of civil disobedience against the verdict. Sharpton went on to tell the rally he would be holding a meeting to "close this city down". Hundreds of people who packed the street front hall of his National Action Network offices were seen to chant: "Shut it down!"

2009 Calderon Decrees State of Emergency on Swine Flu

2009: The Mexican President Felipe Calderon has issued an emergency decree to give the government the power to run tests on its infected population and to isolate them for the prevention of the new swine flu spreading. Mexico City has shut its schools and museums, and has canceled sporting and cultural events. This outbreak of swine flu has killed up to sixty-eight people in the country, and is spreading north to infect the United States. Saturday's decree was published in Mexico's official journal. The decree allows the government to enter homes or workplaces, and to regulate air, sea and land transportation.

2010 100,000 people rally against the U.S. base in Okinawa

2010: Nearly 100,000 people have attended a rally on the Japanese island of Okinawa. They are demanding that its U.S. base be moved off of the island. Under a 2006 agreement with the U.S., the Marines' Futenma base was to be moved from its center to the coast. Demonstrators want the Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, to stick to his election pledge and remove it. Questions on the base have been undermining relations between his government and the U.S.

2011 Boat Capsizes on Lake Kivu

2011: A ferry carrying around one hundred passengers across Lake Kivu to the city of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo capsized after facing strong winds. At least thirty eight people were dead as a result of the incident, with at least another fifty people missing, and only eleven known survivors. A recovery effort was being made by a Red Cross rescue crew, but a local Red Cross official announced they would only continue rescue operations until the next morning.

2012 Pakistan Tests Nuclear Capable Ballistic Missile

2012: Pakistan has tested the Shaheen 1-A, an intermediate-range missile that would be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, less than a week after India tested a long-range missile. The missile had a likely range of 1,550 miles to 1,850 miles. The military said the test was successful and it hit its target in the Indian Ocean.

2013 US Lifts Boeing 787 Ban

2013: The United States has lifted its ban on the Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" airplane after Boeing made improvements to the plane and regulators gave the plane a formal "air-worthy" approval. All 787s had been grounded in January over safety concerns.

2014 Portugal Democracy Anniversary Overshadowed by Protests

2014: Portugal celebrated forty years of democracy after one of Europe's longest dictatorships was overthrown during the Carnation Revolution in 1974. The celebrations were overshadowed by protests over severe European Union austerity measures that had been placed on the country since its 2011 bailout. Leaders of the 1974 democratic revolution joined in the protests.