The World

1 | Washington

Wall Street on Capitol Hill

The Senate held another hearing on the financial crisis, this time turning the spotlight on Goldman Sachs. A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit has accused the Wall Street firm of fraudulently misrepresenting one of its mortgage-related products, but during hours of televised questioning, executives resolutely denied any wrongdoing. Trader Fabrice Tourre–who, along with the deal he structured, Abacus 2007-ac1, is at the center of the SEC’s allegations–was among those testifying, as was Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Elsewhere on the Hill, after repeatedly blocking debate of the Democrats’ financial-reform bill, Senate Republicans tentatively agreed to move forward.

2 | Greece

Credit Rating Downgraded

In a move that has deepened fears that Europe’s debt crisis could soon spiral out of control, Standard & Poor’s lowered Greece’s credit rating to junk status on April 27 and warned investors against buying Greek bonds. The move comes days after Greece activated a $60 billion rescue package offered up by the euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund. Both Spain and Portugal also had their credit ratings downgraded (to AA), and many analysts fear the struggling Iberian nations may soon face a similar junk fate. Standard & Poor’s has warned that further European downgrades are possible.

3 | Israel

Settlement Slowdown

A lull in the authorization of new Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem has led to speculation about a shift in policy on the issue. Though some Israeli legislators have pointed to U.S. opposition to the settlements as the reason behind the suspension, others have dismissed the matter as a bureaucratic holdup. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that preauthorized building will continue on schedule. Palestinians have claimed Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem as the location for the capital of a future state.

4 | Brussels

Government Collapses–Again

History is repeating itself in Belgium: on April 26, King Albert II accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s government, marking the collapse of the country’s fourth government since 2007. Elections that year produced a political stalemate between the country’s long-divided Flemish- and French-speaking populations, prompting speculation that the country could split into two. At issue in the latest crisis are language rights in a bilingual voting district. The collapse comes just two months before Belgium is scheduled to take over the European Union’s rotating presidency.

5 | France

Noriega Extradited

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, 76, was extradited from Miami to Paris on April 27 to stand trial for laundering drug money. In 1990, Noriega began serving a 30-year U.S. prison term for drug trafficking and racketeering. Though that sentence ended early, in 2007 (for good behavior), he remained incarcerated as competing extradition requests from Panama and France were reviewed. Noriega’s attorneys planned to argue that because the U.S. declared Noriega a prisoner of war following his surrender, the former despot falls outside French jurisdiction.

6 | Ukraine

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

A brawl erupted in Ukraine’s parliament on April 27 during debate over a treaty that would extend Russia’s naval presence in the port of Sevastopol through 2042. Punches were thrown, a smoke bomb was set off, Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn was pelted with eggs, and a group abstaining from the vote draped a huge flag over their seats in protest. The deal, which was eventually ratified, could save Ukraine billions of dollars on discounted Russian natural gas.

7 | Cape Cod

Windy Seas

On April 28, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar green-lighted America’s first offshore wind farm. Dubbed Cape Wind, it will feature 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound. Although the $1 billion project will create a relatively small amount of energy–enough to power an estimated 400,000 houses–its approval opens the door for additional offshore wind farms. Cape Wind remains controversial, however, because local residents fear the project may decrease property values or harm wildlife.

8 | Sudan

Al-Bashir Wins Another Term

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was the unsurprising victor of an election marred by accusations of voter fraud. Despite the irregularities, which led many opposition parties to drop out, al-Bashir, who has been in power for 22 years, has pledged to use his new term to proceed as scheduled with next January’s referendum on granting independence to oil-rich south Sudan, which could become its own nation by July 2011.

[The following text appears within a map. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual map.]

Geography of a new Sudan

The nation would be split in two along the historic north-south border

Khartoum

Oil fields

9 | Iraq

Electoral Confusion

An Iraqi court disqualified 52 of the candidates who had run in the March 7 parliamentary elections, saying they had ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. One of them was a winning member of former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s coalition, further complicating the already disputed outcome. Preliminary results–which are awaiting a partial recount–gave Allawi’s Sunni-backed bloc two seats more than the one led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

[The following text appears within a map. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual map.]

U.S. death-row population

690 Largest death-row population

• No death penalty

• 1-20*

• 21-100

• More than 100

*New Mexico abolished the death penalty in March 2009, though the law was not made retroactive; two inmates remain on death row

SOURCE: THE DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER

10 | Utah

‘Firing Squad, Please’

Ronnie Lee Gardner had 25 years on Utah’s death row to think about how he would die. On April 23, he chose firing squad, a method that has been phased out in nearly every state, including Utah itself. Though a 2004 law made lethal injection the state standard, inmates sentenced before the law was passed can choose to be shot instead. Gardner, sentenced to death for killing a lawyer in 1985 during an attempted courthouse escape, is one of at least four men on Utah’s death row who have selected death by firing squad, which critics call archaic. He is scheduled to die June 18, though attorneys filed a motion to put the execution on hold pending an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court.

* | What They’re Discontinuing in Japan: Most Americans long ago consigned floppy disks to the nostalgia bin, but Japan is only now following suit. Citing a lack of demand (despite selling 12 million of the tech relics in its home country last year), Sony, the world’s largest manufacturer of 3.5-inch floppies, announced that it would stop making them as of March 2011. Once a personal-computing staple, the disks have been rendered obsolete by CDs, flash drives and other higher-capacity devices.