Portal:Current events/2014 May 19

• Two Chinese workers are kidnapped from a controversial copper mine in Burma by activists. (AP)
• 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine:
  • Russia's President Vladimir Putin says he ordered troops in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions to withdraw and return to their permanent bases. (BBC News)
  • NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, says the Western allies had not seen any sign of a withdrawal of Russian forces. (Kyiv Post) (New York Times)

• AstraZeneca rejects the latest, and likely the last, takeover price from Pfizer, close to 70 billion pounds or US$118 billion. (Reuters)

• Sinking of the MV Sewol:
  • Park Geun-Hye, the President of South Korea, announces that the Republic of Korea Coast Guard will be broken up in the wake of the ferry disaster. (BBC)
• An apartment building collapses in Pyongyang, North Korea, with casualties estimated to be in the hundreds. (CNN) (The Guardian)
• An electrical problem causes an explosion south of Seoul in Seoul Metropolitan Subway Gunpo station, injuring 11 people. (AP via Yahoo! News)

• China–United States relations:
  • The United States Department of Justice charges five Chinese military officers with hacking into private-sector American companies in a bid for competitive advantage. (BBC News)
• Saudi Arabia closes its embassy in Tripoli over security concerns in Libya. (Chicago Tribune)

• Same-sex marriage in Oregon becomes legal as a U.S. federal district court judge rules that the state's ban on such marriages violates equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (The Oregonian)

• An Egyptian court acquits 169 Muslim Brotherhood members for charges relating to unrest that followed the ousting of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. (Reuters)
• Radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been found guilty of supporting terrorism. (BBC News)