** Dilma
Rousseff assumes office as Brazil
President.
** India
joins United Nations Security council as a non permanent member for 2 years.
** Arnold
Schwarzenegger terminates his stint of more than eight years as California
governor.
** Salman
Taseer , Governor of Pakistan’s Punjab Province gunned down by a
security guard at a parking lot for supporting death row designate Aasia Bibi
charged with blasphemy.
** La Nina
triggered flood causes catastrophic damage in Queensland.
** India and
Sri Lanka sign an MoU on passenger Transportation by sea facilitating
resumption of ferry services between Tuticorin – Colombo and Talaimannar and
Rameswaram.
** Inderjit
Singh Reyat, convicted in the June 23, 1985 Air India flight bombing
sentenced to to nine years in jailfor perjury.
** Sudanese
cast ballots in a week – long independence referendum to decide on the
status of the southern regions.
** 70
people on board an Iranian passenger jet
killed after a crash near the north western city of Urumiyeh.
** Russia
and U.S. enact a nuclear cooperation pact in Moscow.
** More
than 500 people killed in Brazil as mudslides and floods devastate.
** Lebanese
Government led by Saad Hariri collapses following the resignation of 11
cabinet ministers belonging to Hezbollah.
** Indian –
American Nikki Hailey sworn as the first woman and non- white governor
of South Carolina.
** Tunisian
Government dissolved and Parliament dismissed.
** Tunisian
president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali exits to Saudi Arabia.
** The Social Network sweeps up 4 awards at
the 2011 Golden Globe Awards.
** British
House of Lords holds a first ever night long session.
** Former
Swiss private banker Rudolf elmer hands over data on offshore bank
account holders to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
** 56
persons killed in a suicide bomb attack in tikrit, Iraq ** Sea life aquarium in
Oberhausen, Germany unveils an outsized memorial for Paul the octopus.
** 5
persons killed and 180 injured as a suicide bomber strikes at the Domodedovo
airport in Moscow
** Sri
Lanka’s Supreme Court upholds the disqualification from parliament of
the former army commander
** A.R.
Rehman honoured with Crystal award of the World Economic Forum at the
annual meeting of world elites at Davos.
** Egyptian
president Hosni Mubarak designates Ahmed Shafik Prime Minister. Omer
Suleiman made vice- president.
** South
Sudan votes to split from the north in a referendum as per preliminary
results.
** A two
million strong rally in Cairo’s Tahrir square calls for an end to the Hosni
Mubarak regime in Egypt.
** Jordan’s
king Abdullah II fires the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Samir Rifai.
Marouf al-Bakhit is named Prime Minister designate.
** Cyclone
Yasi batters Australia’s north eastern coast. Power blackouts darken
1,77,000 homes across the Queensland region.
** Thein
Sein elected Myanmar’s first first president under its 2008 constitution.
**
Jhalanath Khanal is sworn in Nepal Prime Minister.
** Sudan
President Omar Al Bashir endorses independence referendum result. Juba
to be new capital of Southern Sudan.
** Hosni
Mubarak steps down as Egyptian Presidenr after being at the helm for 30
years.
** King’s
Speech wins the Best fim award at BAFTA. Best actor – colin firth, best
actress – Natalie portman.
** Clashes
in Bahrain as protestors observe day of rage.
** Riots
erupt in Libya sparked by the arrest of human rights activist Fethi Tarbel.
** The
first cosmic census reveals the presence of at least 50 billion planets in
the milky way.
** Uganda’s
long term president Yoweri Museveni wins new term.
** BP signs
a mega deal with Reliance Industries limited to buy 30 percent stake in RIL oil, gas blocks for $7.2 million
in London.
** 155 dead
and 226 missing in the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.
** Wikileaks
founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden in a sex crime
enquiry, rules a british judge.
** U.S.
imposes unilateral sanctions on Libya.
** 83 rd Academy Awards
>Best picture – King’s
Speech
> Best actor – Colin Firth
>Best director – Tom hooper
> Best actress – Natalie
**
Opposition announces formulation of the Libya National Transitional Council.
** The US
Securities and Exchange Commission slaps insider trading charges on
former McKinsey managing director Rajat Gupta.
** Pakistan
Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaaz Bhatti is gunned down near his
residence.
** Order of
St. Andrews Russia’s highest honour, is conferred on the last Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
** Nepal
Prime Minister and founder of the Nepali Congress Krishna Prasad Bhattarai
passes away in Ksthmandu.
** Jacques
Chirac becomes the first French president
to go on trial on criminal charges.
** A strong
earthquake strikes off the coast of northeast Japan.
**
Discovery space shuttle returns to earth after its final flight wrapping up its
27 year career.
** An 8.9
magnitude offshore earthquake unleashes a 23 feet tsunami in Japan
leaving 8199 people dead and 12722 missing. Atomic power plant Fukushima No 1
is evacuated.
** An
explosion at the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Reactor in Japan triggered by
the quake-tsunami destroys the building housing it.
**
Emergency declared at Japan’s Onagawa nuclear power plant. The 1421 metre
Shinmoedake volcano erupts. Hiromitsu Shinkawa is saved by the
military after he remained
clinging on to the roof of his house for two days.
**
Radiation spread strikes japan. A magnitude 6 earthquake rattles Tokyo.
**
Chinese government suspends the approval of all new nuclear power plants.
** US
embassy staffer Raymond Davis, arrested for shooting down two men on
January 27 in Lahore, is freed after payment of blood money hours after being
indicted for murder by a sessions court.
** UN
authorises the imposition of no-fly zone in Libya and use of air-power to
prevent attacks on civilians by Col. Gadaffi’s forces.
** 46
persons are killed and hundreds injured in the crackdown on prodemocracy
protest in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.
** Yemen’s
president Ali Abdullah Saleh fires his cabinet.
** Former
Isreali president Moshe Katsev is sentenced to a seven year jail term
for rape.
**
Legendary Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor who enthralled audience in
a career spanning 5 decades dies at a Los Angeles hospital.
** Abel
Prize for the year to US Mathematician John Willard Milnor for his pioneering
discoveries in topology, geometry and algebra.
** 74
people are killed and 111 injured after a powerful earthquake rocks
north-west Myanmar.
** The
Canadian government headed by Stephen Harper is ousted in a vote of
no-confidence passed in the parliament.
** Parts of
Japan especially the Miyagi prefecture are rattled by an offshore earthquake
measuring 6.5 on the Richter Scale.
** Syrian
Cabinet’s resignation is accepted by the President Bashar-Al Assad after
nearly two weeks of pro-democracy unrest.
** Heavy
turnout marks Kazakhstan’s presidential polls.
** Internationally renowned Chinese artist Ai
Weiwei is detained by authorities while boarding a flight to Hong-Kong.
** Wreckage
of an Air-France jet which crashed off Brazil coast killing all 228
people aboard is found in the Atlantic Ocean.
** Nursultan
Nazarbayev is re-elected Kazakhstan’s president.
**
Bangladesh Supreme Court upholds a High Court order confirming Grameen
Bank decision to remove Muhammad Yunus as Managing Director.
**
Guardian’s coverage of the Wikileaks publication wins “Newspaper of the Year” at the 2011 Press Awards given in
London.
**
Peruvians cast ballots in presidential polls.
** Ban on
full-face veils comes into effect in France.
** Nuclear
radiation crisis at the Fukushima –Daichi plant is rated a “major accident”
like the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster.
** The
world’s five major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa (BRICS) – draw up action plan for better coordination on the world
stage at the Summit in Sanya, China.
** BRICS
nations sign a pact to use their own currencies instead of the US dollar
in credit or grants among each other.
** Nigerians
cast ballots in presidential polls.
** Goodluck
Jonathan wins Nigerian Presidential polls.
** Indian
American Siddharth Mukherjee’s book on Cancer wims the 2011 Pulitzer
Prize in the General non-fiction category. Jennifer Egan wins the Pulitzer
prize in the fiction category for her novel “A Visit From The Goon Squad”.
Carol Fuzy, a photographer from the Washington Post becomes the first
journalist to win four Pulitzer Prizes.
** Syria lifts an emergency law that has been
in force for 48 years following month-long
protests in which at least 200 have died.
** President
Raul Castro is named first-secretary of Cuba’s Communist Party.
**
Governments from around the world pledge $785 million to seal the stricken
nuclear reactor at Chernobyl within a 20000 tonne steel shield at a conference
in the Ukranian capital Kiev.
** Popular
singer-turned-politician Michel Martelly is declared of Haiti’s presidential
elections.
**
Thousands of people join an “energy shift parade” in Tokyo, Japan to demand
an end to nuclear power.
**
Congolese children’s right activist Murhabazi Namegabe wins the $100,000
World’s Children’s Prize for the rights of the child.
**
Singapore’s elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew is returned to Parliament unopposed
for the fifth successive term.
** The toll
from severe storms that battered five Southern US States touches 193.
Alabama worst hit with 128 deaths.
**
Britain’s Prince Williams marries long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton at Westminster
Abbey, London.
**
Saif-al-Arab Gadaffi, the youngest son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi,
and three grandchildren are killed in a NATO air attack on a residential
building in Tripoli.
** Pope
Benedict XVI beatifies the late Pope John II at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican.
** Al-Qaeda
supremo Osama Bin Laden is killed in a US special forces operation in
Abbottabad near the Pakistan capital Islamabad.
** Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper
wins majority in Canadian Parliamentary polls.
** The
Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, sign the unity pact
paving the way for the formation of National government.
** The
Bangladesh Supreme Court dismisses Dr Muhammad Yunus’s petition seeking
reversal of a High Court ruling sacking him as the Grameen Bank MD.
**
Elections are held for the Scottish Parliament, the devolved assemblies in Northern Ireland and Wales.
** Britons
overwhelmingly reject a proposal to abandon the first-past-thepost system in
favour of Alternative Vote.
** Scottish
National Party pulls off a dramatic victory.
** A joint
celebration by India and Bangladesh of the 150th Birth
Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore begins in Dhaka.
**
Singapore’s long-governing People Action’s Party wins absolute majority in
parliamentary polls held a day earlier.
** Raj
Rajaratnam, Galleon hedgefund founder, is found guilty of fraud and conspiracy
by a federal jury in Manhattan.
**
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is awarded the Sydney Peace Prize’s Gold Medal.
**
Singapore’s top leaders and former PrimeMinisters Lee Kuan Yew and Goh
Chok Tong announce their retirement from the Cabinet.
** The IMF
President Dominique Strauss-Kahn is arrested in New York on attempted
rape, assault charges.
** Philip
Roth, one of America’s prolific novelists is named winner of the 60,000
pounds Man Booker International Prize.
** Arjun
Vajpayee, a school boy from Noida, achieves a rare double, after being the youngest Indian to scale Mt.
Everest, he scales Mt. Lhotse, the world’s fourth highest peak.
** India’s
GSAT-8 – the largest and heaviest satellite built by the ISRO is launched
from Kourou, French Guiana by Ariane-5 rocket.
** U.S
director Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life wins top honours at the Cannes
Film Festivals. Kirsten Dunst bags best actress for her role in Lars von Trier’s apocalyptic psychodrama
Melancholia. France’s Jean Dujardin gets best actor for part in Michel
Hazanavicius’s silent movie The Artist
** At least
89 people are killed as a tornado rips through the city of Joplin in
Missouri, U.S.
** Bosnian
Serb Army Commander General Ratko Mladic, also known as the Butcher of
Srebrenica, wanted for crimes during the 1991-95 Balkan wars is arrested in
Lazarevo, Serbia after 16 years on the run.
** George
Atkinson (16) from Surbiton, a London suburb becomes the youngest person ever
to climb the highest of all the seven continents after scaling Mt. Everest.
** G-8
leaders launch a partnership for North Africa and West Asia at the end
of their own two day annual summit in Deanville, France.
** Nepal’s
major parties amend interim constitution and extend the term of the
Constituent Assembly by three months.
**
Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad is found dead 48 hours after he went
missing from the ‘Red Zone’ of Islamabad.
** Jill
Abramson is appointed first-ever woman Executive Editor of the New York
Times.
** Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan survives
the no-trust vote in Parliament.
**
Indian-American Sukanya Roy wins the crown at the spelling-bee championship
in Maryland, US.
** Jack
Kevorkian nicknamed Dr Death who said he helped some 130 people end
their lives from 1990-1999 dies at William Beaumount Hospital in Michigan after a short illness.
** Ollanta
Humala secures a razor thin victory in Peruvian presidential polls.
** M.F.
Hussain, India’s foremost modern painter and an internationally recognised
artist dies at a London Hospital.
** The
six-nation Shanghai Corporation Organisation opens its doors for India’s membership at its 10 Th anniversary
summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
**
Ayman-al-Zawahari is chosen to succeed the slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin
Laden.
** The
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon gets Security Council
support for a second five-year term.
** Swiss
Parliaments gives nod to amendments to tax treaties with nations making
it easier to track black money.
** 44
persons, including designers of the nuclear reactors in Kudankulam Tamil
Nadu,are killed in an air-crash in Northern Russia.
** The
former presidents of Ghana and Brazil, John Agyekum and Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva are chosen for the World Food Prize 2011.
**
Endosulfan is listed under the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed
Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in
International Trade.
** Hindi films Dabangg and My Name Is Khan bag
top honours at the 12 th International Indian Film Academy Awards in
Toronto, Canada.
** Jose
Graziano da Silva of Brazil is elected Director-General of the Food and
Agriculture Organization.
** Chinese
activist Hu Jia is freed after being behind the bars for three and a
half years on subversion charges.
** Chinese
railways unveils test-run of CRH high-speed train linking Beijing and
Shanghai.
** French
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is elected IMF Managing Director.
** The Danish
High Court dismisses government’s plea to extradite Kim Davey, an
accused in the Purulia Arma drop case of 1995, to India.
** The
World’s longest sea bridge, spanning 36.48 km across the mouth of the
Jiaozhou bay in Eastern Shandong Province, Chinapoens to traffic. Undersea
tunnel running parallel to the bridge too ready High speed rail link between
Shanghai and Beijing inaugurated.
** Prince
Albert II of Monaco and his South African bride, Princess Charlene ,
marry in a religious ceremony.
** Yingluck
Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party secures majority in Thailand’s
parliamentary polls
**
Christine Lagarde takes office as IMG Managing Director in Washington.
** At least
95 people killed in four days non-stop sectarian violence in Karachi,
Pakistan.
** Space
shuttle Atlantis lifts off on its last voyage since the launch of the
program in 1981 from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral,Florida.
** Rebekah
Brooks, Chief Executive of News International announces closure of the
tabloid News of the World, following furore over its role in a phone hacking
scandal.
** South
Sudan declares independence from Sudan to become the world’s 193 rd Nation. President Salva Kiir
offers peace to rebels.
**
Australia unveils its most sweeping economic reforms in decades, with a plan
to tax carbon emissions from the nation’s worst polluters.
** Ahmed
Wali Karzai, the Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s youngster half brother and head of Kandahar’s
provincial council is assassinated by a security team member at his home in
Karz Town.
** British
Prime Minister David Cameroon announces a judicial probe into the phone
hacking scandal.
** Rebekah
Brooks, the Chief Executive of the British Media Group News International
resigns in the aftermath of the phone hacking scandal.
** The US
recognizes the Libyan opposition, the Benghazi-based Transitional
National Council.
** Rebekah
Brooks, the former Chief Executive of the British Media Group News
International, is arrested in the phone hacking scandal.
** NATO
begins phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
** Paul
Stephenson, the Scotland Yard Chief, resigns over links News International.
** General
David Petraeus, the US Commander in Afghanistan steps down.
** Sean
Haore, a former News of the World journalist, who was instrumental in revealing
the illegal news gathering practices at the newspaper, is found dead at his house in
Watford town in Hortfordshire, north-west of central London.
** Hina Rabbani Khar is sworn in Pakistan’s
Foreign Minister, thus becoming the youngest and the first woman to
occupy the post.
** The FBI
arrests prominent Kasmir activist Ghulam Nabi Fai at his home in Fairfax,
Virginia.
** The UN
declares famine in parts of omalia, with up to 350,000 people hit in the
most severe food crisis in Africa in two decades.
** Serbia
arrests Goran Hadzic, the last remaining Yugoslav war crimes suspect
sought by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
** Space
Shuttle Atlantis returns from the ISS bringing an end to NASA’s 30 year
old journey with one last touchdown at Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral,
Florida.
** The EU
summit in Brussels comes out with a second international bailout package
for Greece.
** At least
40 persons killed and 190 injured as a bullet train rams another one while running on a bridge in
Wenzhou in east China’s Zhejiang province.
** Amy
Winehouse(27), Grammy award winning British soul singer is found dead at
her flat in North London.
** India
and the Republic of Korea ink a civil nuclear agreement after a meeting
between Presidents Pratibha Patil and Lee Myung Bak in Seoul.
**
Bangladesh Swadhinata Samanona (Bangladesh Freedom Honor) is conferred on Indira Gandhi at a function in
the capital Dhaka.
** India,
Iraq and Syria sign a $ 10 bn gas pipeline deal.
** Indians
Harish Hande and Nileema Mishra among six award winners of 2011 Ramon Magsaysay awards announced
in Manila.
** At least
163 killed on board a Carribean Airlines jet miraculously survive after
the plane crashlands and splits in Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
** AUGUST
** The
Former Eqyptian President Hosni Mubarak is charged with an array of
crimes at an open trial court in a Cairo Court.
** Signs of
water found on Mars, say Scientists.
** Standard
& Poor’s for the first time removes the US Government from its list
of risk-free borrowers.
** NASA
launches the billion dollar unmanned solar powered Juno spacecraft on a
five year journey to Jupiter.
** China
puts into orbit Pakistan’s first communications satellite, PAKSAT-1R
from a launch centre in western Sichuan Province
** Nepal
Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal resigns.
** Sukhoi
fifth generation stealth fighter, T-50 being jointly developed by Russia
and India makes public debut at a Moscow air show.
** IBM
reveals brain chips called ‘core’
** A State
Supreme Court in Manhattan dismisses the criminal charges against the
former IMF MD Dominique Strauss Kahn.
** Austrian
climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner becomes the first woman to scale all the
world’s 14 highest summits without oxygen.
**
Hurricane Irene batters the North Carolina coast. The New York City Transit
system begins a shutdown.
** Baburam
Bhattarai is elected Nepal Prime Minister by the nation’s legislature-Parliament.
** Tony Tan
is elected Singapore President after a dramatic recount.
** Yoshihiko Noda becomes Japan’s sixth Prime
Minister in five years.
**
Wikileaks publishes its full archives of 251,000 secret US diplomatic cables, without redactions.
**
Iran connects its first nuclear plant at Bushehr to the country’s national
electricity grid.
** 43
persons, including members of an ice-hockey team are killed after a Russian
passenger jet crashes immediately after takeoff from an airport near the city
of Yaroslavi.
** The US
President Barack Obama unveils a $447 billion plan labelled the American
Jobs Act before the Congress.
** Miss
Angola Leila Lopes is crowned Miss Universe 2011 at a pageant in the
Brazilian capital Sao Paulo.
** The “Red
Bloc” led by Thorning-Schmidt wins Parliamentary polls in Denmark.
**
Scientists announce the discovery of a new planet Kepler 16B that has two
suns.
** “Mad
Men” wins the best drama Emmy for the fourth year, “Modern Family” bags
the best comedy gong. Kate Winslet gets Best Actress Emmy role for her role in period drama “Mildred
Pierce” at the 63 rd Annual prime time Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
** Rupert
Murdoch’s media group News International offers 3 million Pounds pay-off
to the family of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl the hacking of whose phone led to the closure
of the 168 year-old tabloid.
** The US
military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is repealed.
** R.E.M.,
the pioneering American alternative rock group, calls it a day after 21
years and 15 albums.
** European
scientists report of tiny specks called neutrinos apparently travelling
faster than light.
** The
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submits his historic request for Palestinian statehood during his speech at
the UN General Assembly in New York.
** Saudi
women gain the right to vote and run as candidates in the local elections
to be held in 2015.
** Wangari
Muta Mathai, the first African woman to win
a Nobel Peace Prize dies of cancer.
**
Barcelona bans bull-fighting on grounds of cruelty to animals.
** French
socialist’ wrest control of the senate gaining 175 out of 348 seats in a
historic win for the first time since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.
** Saudi
men cast votes in Municipal election, the last all-male poll in the Muslim
Kingdom.
** China
launches its first space laboratory module the 8.5 tonne Tiangong-1 or
Heavenly Palace from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
** An
anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi awards death sentence to Malik Mumtaz
Husain Qadri, the assassin of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.
** Denmark
imposes a “fat tax” on foods such as butter and oil.
** Bruce A.
Beutler of the US Jules Hoffman of Luxembourg and Ralph Steinman of
Canada (who died of pancreatic cancer on September 30) are awarded the Medicine
Nobel for discovering the accelerating expansion of universe.
** Steve Paul Jobs, the iconic
co-founder of Apple, dies of pancreatic cancer in California.
** Swedish
poet Tomas Transtromer wins the Literature Nobel Prize.
** Israeli
scientist Daniel Shechtman is awarded the Chemistry Nobel Prize for
discovering quasicrystals.
** Liberian
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, compatriot and Peace activist Leymah Gbowee
and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner are awarded the 2011
Nobel Peace Prize.
** Two
American economists Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims are awarded the
Nobel Peace for their research on cause and effect in the Macroeconomy.
** Dennis
Ritchie, a computer czar who wrote the
popular C programming language
and helped develop the Unix Oprerating system is found dead at his home in
Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
** Raj
Rajaratnam, billionaire hedge fund manager is handed a 11 year jail term
by a Manhattan Court.
** Bhutan’s
King Jigme Khesar Namgyel marries Jetsun Pema in the Palace of Great
Happiness in Phunaka.
** Fauja
Singh (100) becomes the oldest person to complete a full distance marathon
after taking part in Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in Canada.
** British
novelist Julian Barnes is declared winner of this year’s Man Booker
Prize for his novella “The Sense of an Ending” in London.
** The
Palestinian Hamas frees Gilad Shalit abducted Israeli soldier in return
for the release of 477 Palestinians as part of a prisoner swap deal.
** A European Court rules that
procedures that use embryonic stem cells cannot be patented.
** The
toppled Libyan strongman Muammer Gadaffi is killed by new regime forces
while trying to flee his home town of Sirte.
** US
President Barack Obama honours Indian-American activist Vijaya Emani
posthumously with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
** Saudi
Arabian Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz al Saud dies while undergoing
treatment for an unspecified illness in New York.
**
Lousiana’s Indian-American Governor Bobby Jindal is re-elected for a
second term.
** Over 500
people are feared killed as a powerful earthquake strikes Turkey.
**
Tunisia’s moderate Islamist Enhada party win in the first elections held after
the onset of the Arab Spring.
** South
Arabian interior minister Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz al Saud is named Crown
Prince and Vice Prime Minister
**
Australia unveils a 1012 kg gold coin to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s visit
** The
royal daughters of the UK will soon get regal right to rule after Britain and 15 Commonwealth nations agree
to repeal male primogeniture laws on the sidelines of this CHOGM summit in
Perth
** The US
Space Agency launches a first of its kind weather satellite, The $1.5
billion National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satelite System
Preparatory Project, from Vandenberg Air Force base in California
** Kamlesh
Sharma is reappointed Commonwealth Secretary General at the CHOGM
meeting in Perth
**
Philippines becomes the first country to declare a seven billionth baby,
a girl named Danica
** In a
historic work at its headquarters in Paris UNESCO grants full membership
to Palestine
** The High
Court in London rejects Wikileaks founder Jullian Assange’s plea against extradition to Sweden
** Pakistan
cabinet decides to grant MFN status to India ** Six volunteers complete a 520
day Mars Mission at an isolation module in Moscow in a bid to simulate
the effects of a return trip to the Red Planet
**
Political leaders in Greece clinch a historic deal to form a national
unity government
**
Venezuela’s Ivan Sarcos is crowned Miss World 2011 at a pageant in London
** The
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi loses parliamentary majority
** Greek PM
George Papandreou steps down
** India
offers Pakistan a Preferential Trade Agreement, easy visa regime after
talks between PMs Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the
SAARC summit in Addu city, Maldives
** Senior
banker Lucas Papademos is named PM of the new Greek interim government
** Liberian
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is declared re-elected for a second term
after winning a run-off held on November 8th.
** Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigns.
**
Myanmarese leader Aung Saan Suu Kyi accepts the 2002 UNESCOMadanjeet Singh
Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-violence.
** China’s unnamed air-craft Shenzhou-8 lands
at the Gobi desert after a month-long docking exercise.
** Mariano
Rajoy leads his peoples party to victory in Spains General elections
**
Newzealands Prime Minister John Key wins second term
** The Arab
league gives nod for sanctions against Syria to pressure Damascus to end
its eight month crackdown on dissent which has left 3500 people dead.
** Michael
Jacksons physician Dr. Conrad Munray is sentenced to a four year jail
term by a Los Angeles court
** Britain
witnesses the biggest public sector strike in a generation
** Britain
expels all Iranian diplomats and orders the closure of its embassy in London
** Russians
launch nationwide protest against election fraud
** Yemens
national unity government headed ny PM Md. Basindawa is sworn in at the
Republican Palace in Sana’a
** After
nearly 72 hiurs of continous wrangling 190 nations sign an agreement to
work towards a future treaty on global climate at the UN talks over climate
change at Durban. Kyoto protocol get extension till 2017
** Canada
pulls out the Kyoto protocol
** US
formally ends militatary operations in Iraq which began in March 2003 at
a simple ceremony in Baghdad
** A French
court sentences the Venzuevelan militant Carlos the Jackal to life
sentence for four deadly attacks in France in the 1980’s
** More
than 1000 people are killed in flashfloods triggered by tropical storm
Washi in the Philippines
** Vaclav
Havel the former Czech President and the hero of Velvet Revolution
passes at his country home near Prague
** 57
people are killed as blasts rock Baghdad
** An
Australian teenager gets a 13 year old jail term for the January 2010 killing
of an Indian student Nitin Garg in Melbourne
** China
launches its first test train that can travel at 500KMPH in Quindao, Shandong province
** Russians
take out a massive rally seeking cancellation of parliamentary posts
held earlier in December 2011.
** Indian-
American nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan is conferred knighthood
by Britain.
