World Current Affairs, January 2012(Part - 2)

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 second set of World Current Affairs, January 2012.

• The King Center publishes online 200,000 personal papers belonging to Martin Luther King, Jr. to mark his birthday.(16th January)
• The online shoe retailer Zappos reports that up to 24 million customer accounts may have been accessed by hackers, and has warned its customers to change their passwords.(16th January)
• Syria rejects calls for Arab troops to intervene in the country's conflict.(17th January)
• Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang resigns as chief executive officer.(17th January)
• Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, predicts the regime will fall if reforms are not made soon.(17th January)
• Abdollah Jassbi resigns as President of Islamic Azad University after near thirty years in position.(17th January)
• Federal prosecutors in the United States charge seven people with insider trading in shares of computer firm Dell Inc., alleging that the ring made a criminal profit of nearly $62 million.(18th January)
• The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Yousuf Raza Gilani, appears before Pakistan's Supreme Court, facing contempt proceedings that could see him barred from holding public office if found guilty.(18th January)
• A new Neptune-sized exoplanet is discovered by an amateur astronomer in Peterborough, England.(18th January)
• Kodak files for bankruptcy protection.(19th January)
• Five people are killed and thousands of others are affected following the first tropical storm to hit Mozambique since 1984.(19th January)
• News International pays out compensation to 37 people, including the actor Jude Law and politician John Prescott. over phone hacking by the News of the World.(19th January)
• The army of Bangladesh says it has foiled a military coup.(19th January)
• A decision by the International Telecommunication Union on whether to abolish the leap second is postponed until 2015 pending the results of further studies.(19th January)
• Several people are killed in a series of bomb explosions in the city of Kano, Nigeria.(20th January)
• The United Nations says 120,000 people in South Sudan required aid amid tribal fighting.(20th January)
• An Indonesian man is charged with blasphemy after saying that God does not exist on his Facebook page.(20th January)
• China warns Iran against developing nuclear weapons.(20th January)
• Around 2,000 women in Malawi stage a protest against attacks on women wearing trousers, who were stripped in the streets by unemployed youths and street vendors.(20th January)
• Leading international virologists agree to temporarily halt work on a more virulent strain of the H5N1 influenza virus, due to fears that an airborne strain of the lethal virus could be used by bioterrorists.(21st January)
• Egyptian police shoot two African migrants dead as they attempt to cross the border into Israel.(22nd January)
• Sri Lanka orders 161 foreign clerics from the Tablighi Jamaat movement to leave the country for breaking the terms of their tourist visas.(22nd January)
• At least 16 people drown after a passenger boat sinks off Iran's southern coast.(22nd January)
• Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announces that he is to leave for treatment in the United States.(22nd January)
• End and Closing ceremony of the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, showing Germany receiving the most medals at the Medal table, followed by China and Austria.(22nd January)
• A group of Gaddafi loyalists take control of part of the town of Bani Walid and fly the green flag after a battle with NTC forces left 5 dead and 20 injured.(23rd January)
• The European Union imposes more sanctions on Iran's banking and oil industries in response to Iran's nuclear program.(23rd January)
• The French Senate passes a bill that makes it illegal for citizens to deny the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire.(23rd January)
• Andrew Miller's novel Pure wins the 2011 Costa Book of the Year Award.(24th January)
• Apple Inc. announces that the technology generated over $127 billion in revenue during 2011. Apple sold over 37 million iPhones and over 15 million iPads during the fourth quarter of 2011.(24th January)
• United States President Barack Obama presents his 2012 State of the Union Address to the United States Congress.(24th January)
• A Tibetan monk is shot dead in Sichuan, China, in the second violent clash this week as unrest spreads.(25th January)
• A United States rescue operation in Somalia frees two foreign hostages and kills nine pirates.(25th January)
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Iran is willing to talk about Iran's nuclear program with other leaders.(25th January)
• Illumina a U.S. based gene sequencing company, adopts a poison pill strategy to defend its independence against a hostile bid by Roche Holding.(26th January)
• Three people are killed and 16 missing after three office buildings collapse in Cinelândia square in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.(26th January)
• Chinese security forces shoot dead a young Tibetan man in Sichuan province, at least the third such killing this week.(27th January)
• 13 people are killed in three separate clashes between the Russian forces and Islamist militants in the Russian republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Kabardino-Balkariya.(27th January)
• The Economic Commission for Africa says Africa's economy faces "serious" threats because of the Eurozone crisis and the Arab Spring.(27th January)
• Two sacks of cocaine are accidentally delivered to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.(27th January)
• Russia's Central Election Commission refuses to register opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky of the Yabloko party, citing invalid signatures.(27th January)
• A media advisor to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard resigns after leaked information that led to a confrontation between Australian Aborigines and Gillard yesterday.(27th January)
• Twitter alters technology to enable country-specific censorship of messages.(27th January)
• Archbishop of York Dr. John Sentamu calls on the Church of England not to permit same-sex marriage.(28th January)
• The African Union opens its new headquarters in Addis Ababa.(28th January)
• Eight sea lions are found shot dead in the U.S. state of Washington.(28th January)
• Israeli police enter the Red Cross compound and arrest two more Palestinian MPs associated with Hamas.(28th January)
• A poll finds most voters in Ireland want to see any new European Treaty put to a referendum, though the government remains undecided.(28th January)
• Approximately 300 people are arrested in the US city of Oakland, California during Occupy Oakland protests.(28th January)
• The 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards is held in the US city of Los Angeles with Jean Dujardin winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for his role in The Artist.(29th January)
• Cyclone Iggy kills 14 people and injures 60 over a four day period in Indonesia.(29th January)
• Greece rejects outright German proposals for direct European Union control of the country's financial affairs, expressing opposition to further outside interference.(29th January)
• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors begin a three-day visit to Iran.(29th January)
• At least three people are killed and 100 injured in clashes between Bangladeshi police and members of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party protesting against the government.(29th January)
• The President of France Nicolas Sarkozy outlines an economic reform package increasing taxes and proposing a new tax on financial transactions.(29th January)
• Tibetan advocacy groups claim that as many as seven ethnic Tibetans have been killed and 60 wounded in the past week in protests in China's Sichuan province bordering Tibet.(30th January)
• Sudanese officials claim that the army has freed 14 of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the South Kordofan region since last Saturday.(30th Janauary)
• A US drone airstrike kills 15 members of al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in the Yemeni town of Lawdar in the Abyan Governorate.(30th Janauary)
• The death toll from a fake medicine crisis at a cardiology hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, reaches 112.(30th Janauary)
• The People's Republic of China claims that 29 Chinese citizens abducted while working on a construction project in the Sudan are still missing.(31st January)
• An Afghan woman was killed by her husband and mother-in-law 3 months after giving birth to her third daughter after not producing a son.(31st January)
• Former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin loses his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II as a result of the near collapse of the bank in 2008.(31st January)
• A search continues off Turkey's Black Sea coast for eight missing crew members of the Cambodia-flagged freighter the Vera.(31st January)
• The International Atomic Energy Agency gives its approval to nuclear reactor safety checks made by Japan.(31st January)
• China tightens control of monasteries and on main roads in Tibet following deadly protests in the region.(31st January)
• The Cabinet of Japan approves a bill to put a 40-year cap on the life of nuclear reactors following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.(31st January)
• In tennis, Novak Djokovic of Serbia wins the Men's Singles championship of the 2012 Australian Open defeating Rafael Nadal of Spain 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7(5–7), 7–5.
• In the Netherlands, the Council of Ministers vote in favor of a ban on the Burqa, an outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions.