Thailand's army brought an end to more than two months of protests in Bangkok. Dozens of people were killed and scores injured over several days as troops moved in to break up the red-shirt camps and capture their leaders. The government imposed a curfew in much of the country. Nearly 30 prominent buildings in Bangkok were set on fire by protesters. See article

South Korea officially accused North Korea of having fired a torpedo to sink one of its warships in March, killing 46 sailors. Its evidence included a propeller with North Korean markings. North Korea said it would treat any sanction it might face because of the incident as an act of war. See article

Maoist “Naxalite” rebels in India bombed a passenger bus in Chhattisgarh, killing 35 people, including 11 police officers. Four soldiers were killed in a Naxalite bombing in West Bengal. The Maoists also called a two-day general strike that spanned parts of five states.

The Taliban claimed credit for a complex assault on the NATO base at Bagram, one of the biggest in Afghanistan. Two days earlier in Kabul a suicide-bomber targeted an American convoy killing 18 people, including five American troops and one Canadian.

Malaysia's governing coalition suffered a bitter defeat in a by-election in Sarawak state, when ethnic-Chinese voters swung en masse to support the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim.

The Tehran two-step

In a deal negotiated by Turkey and Brazil, Iran agreed to send 1,200kg of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 120kg of uranium enriched to a higher level for use in a medical-research reactor. But many were unconvinced. Soon after, Hillary Clinton, America's secretary of state, said she had secured the backing of China and Russia for a draft UN resolution extending sanctions on Iran.

In Iraq, the electoral commission upheld the result of the March parliamentary election after a partial recount, leaving intact the two-seat lead of Iyad Allawi over Nuri al-Maliki, the incumbent prime minister. See article

After a high-profile trial which provoked international condemnation, a court in Malawi convicted a gay couple of gross indecency. They could face up to 14 years in prison. Uganda's parliament is considering a bill that would make homosexuality a capital offence.

A coincidence?

The French government was accused of striking a secret deal with Iran to secure the release of a French national from captivity. Two days after the Iranian authorities had freed Clotilde Reiss, a French teacher whom they had accused of spying, a French court ordered the release of Vakili Rad, who in 1994 was convicted of murdering a former Iranian prime minister. The French said the cases were unrelated.

Greece received €20 billion ($25.4 billion) from the European Union and the IMF, the first tranche of its €110 billion bail-out package. The country was hit by another general strike. Separately, the deputy tourism minister resigned when it emerged that her pop-star husband owed more than €5m in taxes and fines.

Tens of thousands of Romanians took to the streets to protest against their government's austerity measures, which include plans to cut public-sector pay by a quarter and pensions by 15%.

A report into NATO's future called on the alliance to prepare for unconventional threats such as cyberwarfare. The report is a prelude to NATO's revised “strategic concept”, which will be unveiled in November.

Preliminary findings from an investigation into the air crash that killed the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and 95 others in April found that some passengers had been in the plane's cockpit 20 minutes before the disaster. There had been speculation that the pilot attempted to land in bad weather under instruction from the president; the investigation provided no direct evidence for this claim.

A sawing achievement

In what was billed as the biggest commercial forest-preservation agreement in history, environmental advocates and timber companies struck a deal to protect 72m hectares of forests in Canada. The pact will ban logging in parts of the area and limit it in others.

The UN appointed Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat, as its top official on climate change. Yvo de Boer resigned from the job after December's climate-change talks in Copenhagen.

Jamaica's government announced it would extradite Christopher “Dudus” Coke, an alleged gang leader, to the United States. He is wanted in America for drug-trafficking and gun running. Jamaica had previously refused for months to hand him over.

Diego Fernández de Cevallos, a former presidential candidate in Mexico, disappeared in a suspected kidnapping. His car was found abandoned with blood stains inside it.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico's president, travelled to Washington for a state visit. Standing beside Barack Obama, Mr Calderón roundly condemned a new Arizona law that cracks down on illegal immigrants. See article

Arlen's not their darlin'

A smattering of primary elections in America confirmed the anti-incumbency mood of voters. In Pennsylvania Arlen Specter, a senator who was first elected in 1980, lost his renomination bid. He had switched parties from the Republicans to the Democrats, providing Barack Obama with a (temporary) filibuster-proof Senate majority, but was defeated in the primary by a contender to his left. See article

In Arkansas Blanche Lincoln, a moderate Democratic senator, was forced into a run-off after failing to win a majority in her primary against a union-backed challenger.

Rand Paul scored a big win for the tea-party movement in the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky by trouncing the establishment-backed candidate. Mr Paul's father is Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008 and is a hero to libertarian conservatives. See article

Democrats breathed a sigh of relief after winning a special election for a congressional seat in Pennsylvania that had been held by the late John Murtha, a legendary wrester of pork from Washington for his district.