Current Events for the Week of 15 February 2010
Current Events for Monday, 15 February 2010
- Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI to hold talks with Irish bishops over sex abuse scandal
- Suspected U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, drone) attack on North Waziristan kills three suspected Pakistani Taliban militants
- British journalist arrested in Gaza, Palestinian authority announces he may be held for fifteen days
- Spain announces they may take up to five U.S. Guantánamo Bay Naval Base detention center (Gitmo) prisoners
- Belgian passenger trains collide head-on, at least ten killed
- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Iran moving towards military dictatorship
- Yemeni Shi’a rebels hand-over captured Saudi soldier
- Main Port-au-Prince airport to reopen for big carriers on Friday
- Two people, including former U.S. gold-medal skater Peggy Fleming, were minorly injured in U.S. Vice-President Joseph “Joe” Biden motorcade crash at Vancouver Olympics
- U.S. Marines making “steady progress” in Afghan authority
- Intel, Nokia merge mobile operating system (OS) platforms to better compete with “more established” mobile platforms
- Hollywood director Kevin Smith kicked-off Southwest Airlines flight because of girth
- University of Lausanne researchers: Temnothorax unifasciatus ants leave nest to die alone when ill to “protect colony”
- Somalian Defense Minister Yusuf Mohamed Siyad survives suicide attack amid rising tensions in Mogadishu
- Israeli settlers still building twenty-nine homes in the West Bank, despite government order to cease
- University of Washington researchers: affordable, common herpes treatment aciclovir delays human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) illness
- Twenty-four of the largest phone operators join consortium to make it easier to sell, distribute mobile applications
- Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga accuses President Mwai Kibaki of “over-stepping powers” when he reinstated two suspended ministers
- Students clash with police as fresh protests break-out in Andhra Pradesh state over creation of new state
- U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana calls 2010 “critical year” in that country with upcoming elections
- British educational charity Sutton Trust study: students from “poorest” homes lag a full year behind those in middle-class homes by the age of five
- Oldest death-row inmate in the U.S., Viva Leroy Nash, dies of natural causes at the age of 94
- Microsoft launches Windows 7 Mobile
- Former U.S. President William “Bill” Clinton recovering well after heart surgery
Current Events for Tuesday, 16 February 2010
- Pakistani lawyers for five Americans held on terror charges seek bail, claim prosecution lacks evidence
- Iran strikes-back at U.S. over dictatorship comment
- Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ): new media helps fight, causes repression
- Top Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar captured by Pakistani forces in joint offensive with U.S. forces
- U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D., IN) won’t seek reelection due to Washington “politicking”
- Haitian judge to take closer look at allegations lawyer seeking release of U.S. missionaries is under-investigation of human trafficking in El Salvador
- The Financial Times: U.S. Federal Reserve has seen “paper losses” from JPMorgan Chase & Company’s purchase of Bear Stearns
- Chinese figure-skaters Shen Xue, Zhao Hongbo win first-ever Chinese gold medal at Vancouver Winter Olympics
- Eurozone chief, Luxembourger Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker: Greece faces economic sanctions unless it can cut deficit
- U.S. forces finding sporadic resistance in Afghan Taliban stronghold of Marjah
- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Canada to build Haitian government headquarters
- Amnesty International pressures Burmese junta to end repression of ethnic minorities ahead of elections
- At least twenty-two Indian soldiers killed in West Bengal Maoist attack
- Transparency International: Kenya facing political “meltdown”
- British Equality and Human Rights Commission: full body scanners “may be unlawful”
- Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud: any new Iranian sanctions would not be quick enough to make a difference
- New revelations in Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili’s death
- Guinean interim Prime Minister Jean Marie Dore unveils transitional government
- Moldovan break-away republic of Trans-Dniester reacts to U.S. missile proposals with one of its own, for Russian Federation
- French judge issues arrest warrant for American cyclist Floyd Landis on allegations of hacking into French anti-doping agency computer
- The Gambia expels U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) envoy Min Whee-Kang, possibly due to recent human rights criticisms
- U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts set to open shutters on new International Space Station (ISS) “observation deck”
Current Events for Wednesday, 17 February 2010
- Pakistani court rejects Americans’s bail request
- U.S. Navy (USN) aircraft carrier USS Nimitz expected in Hong Kong despite tensions between China, U.S.
- U.S. White House report: stimulus plan halted economic freefall
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: any nation that takes part in new economic sanctions would “regret it”
- International Security Assistance Force—Afghanistan (ISAF-A) resumes use of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (H-MARS) after it is concluded there was no fault in missile strike that killed twelve Afghan civilians
- U.S. President Barack Obama announces intention to reappoint U.S. ambassador to Syria
- U.S. President Obama to set-aside $8.3 billion for new nuclear power plants
- Bomb explodes outside Athenian JPMorgan Chase headquarters
- Maplecroft’s Terrorism Risk Index:
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Pakistan
- Somalia
- Lebanon
- Japanese automaker Toyota to add brake-override system to all recalled vehicles
- Dutch banking group ING reports fourth-quarter 2009 losses due to repayment of some of its government bailout
- U.N.: cluster-bomb ban reaches ratification, to go into effect
- Cochrane Library study: employees who can choose their own hours “healthier” both physically and mentally
- Amid oil row with U.K., Argentine government requires ships heading to the Falkland Islands to ask permission
- New research shows King Tutankhamun probably died from malaria
- U.S. dollar ($) weakens, oil jumps $3 per barrel to $77.19
- Facebook Zero launches for mobile users
- Ministers loyal to Kenyan Prime Minister Odinga announce cabinet boycott
- Kraft Foods posts profit tripling for fourth-quarter 2009, based mostly on increasing sales in developing nations
- E.U. renews Zimbabwean sanctions, suspends Sri Lankan special trading rights
- North Korea marks the Great Leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday
- U.S. President Obama to sign executive order creating bipartisan fiscal commission aimed at reigning-in soaring federal debt
Current Events for Thursday, 18 February 2010
- At least ten killed in Khyber region village market bombing
- Mossad chief Meir Dagan “will not resign,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unlikely to ask him, as supsicions deepen Israel had a hand in the assassination of Hamas commander in Dubai
- U.S. White House hosts Dalai Lama delegation today, villagers near Dalai Lama’s birplace in northwest China defiantly mark occasion with fireworks
- Haitian judge frees eight of ten Americans being held on child kidnapping charges
- American golfer Tiger Woods to make first public appearance since bizarre auto crash on Friday
- U.S. federal district court judge dismisses suit against U.S. government over two suicides at Gitmo
- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with U.S. Under Secretary of State William Burns, discusses regional security
- January U.S. housing starts post greater-than-expected rise
- Iranian Supreme Leader the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Khamenei: U.S. should stop “war-mongering”
- Ugandan anti-gay clergyman shows homosexual pornography in his church to promote anti-gay laws
- Toyota faces new U.S. government investigation after admission of power-steering problems in some Corollas
- Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders): Bangladesh “repressing” Burmese refugees
- Google heads to New York City courtroom over controversial book plan
- Suspected Indian Maoists kill eleven villagers in Bihar attack
- BBC Newsround: children losing sleep due to video games, mobile phones
- Hewlett-Packard (HP) raises financial outlook for 2010 after strong Christmas sales
- Small aircraft carrying three Tesla Motors employees crashes into homes in California, all aboard killed
- Kenyan Minister of Agriculture William Ruto enters political fraying between Prime Minister Odinga, President Kibaki
- U.S. Federal Reserve: U.S. unemployment to stay high for the foreseable future
- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe threatens to quit the Kimberley Process (KP) if economic sanctions continue
- Three Malaysian women publicly flogged for having extra-martial affairs
- International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) condemns Israeli “occupation” of West Bank
- Canadian officials admit mentally ill man with false identification “got close” to U.S. Vice-President Biden during Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies
- U.S. National Naval Medical Center opens inquiry into surgical steps taken which resulted in U.S. Representative John Murtha’s death
- U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke in Pakistan
Current Events for Friday, 19 February 2010
- U.S. Federal Reserve tries to calm banks after it announces rise in emergency lending rate
- Conseil suprême pour la Restauration de la Démocratie (CSRD, Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy) seizes Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja, institutes martial law
- Haitian relief struggles as heavy rains turn camps into mudpits
- U.N. nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Iran “likely” developing nuclear warhead
- An apparently disgruntled man flies plane into U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Austin, Texas
- U.S. President Obama names former Democratic White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, former Republican U.S. Senator Alan Simpson to head deficit panel
- United Airlines flight diverted to Salt Lake City, Utah after bomb threat
- ISAF-A commanders: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops, Afghan counterparts may need thirty more days to secure Marjah
- Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim: Interpol should issue arrest warrant for head of the Mossad if responsible for Hamas killing
- Hamas sources accuse Fatah of complicity in Dubai assassination
- Alleged U.S. missile strike in Pakistan kills three suspected Taliban militants
- U.N. Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Yvo de Boer to quit in July after failed Copenhagen conference
- New seasonal influenza vaccine to include H1N1
- New York federal district judge “will not rush to judgement” in Google Books case
- North Korea announces naval firing zone near its border with the South
- Australia informs Japan to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean by November or face international legal action
- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: last surviving Canadian veteran of World War I, John Babcock, dies at 109 year-of-age
- Former New York City Police Chief Bernard Kerik sentenced to four years in prison for lying to the White House, tax evasion
- Far-right Czech Workers’ Party to challenge ban in court, vows to run in May elections
- Interpol places eleven suspects in-connection with Dubai assassination on its Most Wanted list
- European, U.S. regulators clear Microsoft plan to purchase Yahoo’s Internet search
- Ludwigshafen, Germany school attack kills teacher, wounds others
- Dutch-based website PleaseRobMe.com raises questions of Web2.0 location awareness