April 1
—Benjamin Netanyahu takes office as Israel’s prime minister.
April 2
—Leaders of the world’s rich and major developing countries meet at a G-20 economic summit in London.
April 3
—Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Najib Razak takes office, replacing Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who resigned.
April 4
—NATO leaders appoint Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance’s new secretary-general.
April 5
—North Korea fires a rocket over Japan, defying Washington, Tokyo and others who suspect the launch is cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.
April 6
—An earthquake in central Italy kills at least 294 people in the country’s deadliest quake in nearly three decades.
April 7
—Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Lima court for death squad killings and kidnappings during his 1990s struggle against Shining Path insurgents.
April 8
—Somali pirates hijack the Maersk Alabama, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard.
April 9
—North Korea’s parliament appoints Kim Jong Il to a third term as the nation’s leader.
April 10
—Abdelaziz Bouteflika wins a third five-year term as president of Algeria.
—France’s navy storms a French sailboat held by pirates off the Somali coast and frees four hostages. One hostage is killed.
April 11
—A 16-nation Asian summit in Bangkok, Thailand, is canceled after demonstrators storm the venue.
April 12
—U.S. Navy snipers take out three Somali pirates and rescue their hostage, American sea captain Richard Phillips.
April 13
—The U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea’s April 5 rocket launch and expands sanctions against the nation.
April 14
—Somali pirates seize four ships with 60 hostages.
April 15
—Pirates release the Greek-owned cargo ship Titan hijacked on March 19. Greek authorities say all 24 crewmen are in good health.
April 17
—U.S. monitors of North Korea’s nuclear program leave the nation after the regime ordered them out.
April 21
—The sole surviving Somali pirate from the hostage-taking of an American ship captain arrives in New York to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century.
April 23
—A Baghdad suicide bomber hits Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid, killing 31. A suicide booming in Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad, kills 57.
April 24
—Back-to-back suicide bombers strike near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing 71.
April 24
—Mexico City closes schools after at least 16 people has died and more than 900 others has fallen ill from what health officials suspect is a new strain of swine flu.
April 26
—President Rafael Correa of Ecuador declares re-election victory.
—Peru says it has granted asylum to Venezuelan opposition leader Manuel Rosales, who faces corruption allegations back home but claims to be a victim of political persecution by President Hugo Chavez.
April 28
—Swine flu crosses new borders with the first confirmed cases in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, while the number of U.S. cases jump to 68.
April 29
—The Geneva-based World Health Organization raises its alert level for the fast-spreading swine flu to its next-to-highest notch.
—Twin car bombs ravage a popular shopping area in Baghdad’s biggest Shiite district, killing at least 41 people.
April 30
—A man drives his car into a crowd of parade spectators and kills five in an attempt to attack the Dutch royal family.
