World Current Affairs, January 2012(Part - 1)

This time I am loading the current affairs of the world for the month of January 2012. I hope viewes may like it and express their feelings. This is the first set of World Current Affairs, January 2012.

• Syrian opposition groups say that over 5,800 people were killed in violence in 2011.(1st January)
• Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan declares a state of emergency in parts of the country hit by violence by Islamist militant group Boko Haram.(1st January)
• Queen Elizabeth II appoints former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard and British painter David Hockney to the Order of Merit.(1st January)
• Rio Tinto Alcan locks out hundreds of workers from a smelter in the Canadian town of Alma, Quebec.(1st January)
• The Iranian Navy test-fires a surface-to-air missile.(1st January)
• The second of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft is in orbit around the moon.(1st January)
• In football, the Swaziland national football team withdraws from the qualifying rounds of the Africa Cup of Nations due to financial constraints.(1st January)
• Hundreds of Muslim villagers clash with riot police in the Ningxia region of China after a mosque is demolished by local authorities.(2nd January)
• Iran states that it has successfully test-fired two long-range missiles, a Qader and a Noor, during military exercises in the Persian Gulf.(2nd January)
• Iranian news agencies report that the country has produced its first nuclear fuel rod.(2nd January)
• The military government of Fiji announces that it is to lift martial law and other emergency regulations.(2nd January)
• President of China Hu Jintao warns of attempts to "westernise" the country by "hostile powers".(2nd January)
• Germany's unemployment rate reportedly reaches its lowest level since 1991.(3rd January)
• Negotiators from Israel and the Palestinian Authority meet in the Jordanian capital, Amman, for the first time in 16 months.(3rd January)
• Iran warns the United States not to send any more aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf.(3rd January)
• South Korea lifts a temporary ban that it placed on travel to North Korea after the death of Kim Jong-Il.(3rd January)
• Libya appoints Yousef al-Manqoush as the new head of its armed forces.(3rd January)
• Two bombs explode in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri with the Boko Haram movement believed to be responsible.(4th January)
• The China Air Transport Association advises that Chinese airlines will not pay the carbon costs under the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme.(4th January)
• The military-backed civilian government of Burma (Myanmar) marks the anniversary of the country's independence by commuting prison sentences and releasing more than thirty prisoners.(4th January)
• The President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner temporarily hands over power to her Vice-President Amado Boudou ahead of surgery for thyroid cancer.(4th January)
• Former Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou announces that he will resign as head of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement.(4th January)
• Armed commandos will be ordered to protect endangered tigers in India's Bandipur and Nagarhole national parks.(4th January)
• Qatar's prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani says the Arab League monitors have made "mistakes" in Syria.(5th January)
• A series of explosions occur in mainly Shia Muslim neighbourhoods of Baghdad and in the city of Nasiriyah, with at least 73 killed and 149 wounded.(5th January)
• The Pakistan Taliban claims to have killed 15 security force members it kidnapped last month.(5th January)
• An alleged North Korean spy is indicted in South Korea.(5th January)
• The President of the United States Barack Obama announces a new defense strategy, cutting spending dramatically.(5th January)
• Portia Simpson Miller is sworn in for the second time as the Prime Minister of Jamaica.(5th January)
• The Ramnit worm steals more than 45000 Facebook logins and passwords.(6th January)
• A Tibetan protester sets himself on fire in Sichuan, China.(6th January)
• The Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller announces that the country is to become a republic, with plans to remove Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and the Jamaican monarchy in general.(6th January)
• Peter MacKay, Canadian Minister of Defence. marries Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian former beauty queen, in a private ceremony in Mexico.(6th January)
• Iran praises the United States Navy after American sailors rescued Iranian fishermen from armed pirates in the Arabian Sea.(7th January)
• Several of Bosnia's leading cultural institutions are due to close following funding disputes. The affected institutions include the National Library, the National Museum, the Historical Museum and the National Gallery.(7th January)
• Piracy in Somalia: Georgia announces 15 Georgian sailors held hostage by pirates for over a year are released through the government's efforts.(8th January)
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on the first stop of Ahmadinejad's Latin American tour.(9th January)
• A bombing in Khyber Agency, Pakistan, kills at least 29 people and leaves over 50 others injured.(10th January)
• The Scottish Government announces that it plans to hold the referendum on Scottish independence in the autumn of 2014, but Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore tells the House of Commons that the power to hold a referendum is "reserved" to Westminster.(10th January)
• The United States denies any involvement in a bomb blast that killed an Iranian scientist.(11th January)
• The Burmese government signs a ceasefire with Karen rebels.(12th January)
• The Supreme Court of Israel upholds a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.(12th January)
• The Standard & Poor's credit rating agency lowers its long-term credit ratings on the eurozone countries of Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, and Spain by two notches each and Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia by one notch each.(13th January)
• Lions Gate Entertainment, the largest independent studio in the United States, purchases Summit Entertainment for US$412.5 million.(13th January)
• Reforms in Burma: Burma announces a mass pardon for political prisoners, including student leader Min Ko Naing.(13th January)
• The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground at the Isola del Giglio in the Mediterranean Sea with 11 deaths and 14 other casualties confirmed.(13th January)
• A suicide bomber kills at least 53 people and injures more than 130 in the Iraqi city of Basra.(14th January)
• A bomb detonates near a Shia Muslim procession in the Pakistani town of Khanpur, killing at least 18 people and wounding 30.(15th January)
• The Russian tanker Renda, accompanied by the US Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Healy, prepares to deliver fuel to Nome, Alaska. A fall storm had blocked an earlier fuel delivery, leaving the city facing fuel shortages.(15th January)
• Russia's unmanned Fobos-Grunt space probe re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after a failed mission to the Martian moon Phobos. The 13-ton spacecraft disintegrates over the southern Pacific Ocean at approximately 16:45 UTC. China's first Mars probe, Yinghuo-1, which was launched together with Fobos-Grunt, is also destroyed.(15th January)