Last Minute Current Affairs for APPSC Group-I Prelims

** 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 150^th 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.