US Features

2011: Year of Arab Spring, eurozone crisis, nuclear disaster - Part Three

Dec 28, 2011, 10:56 GMT

A general view of the Utoya island in the Tyrifjord, Norway, 24 July 2011. EPA/BRITTA PEDERSEN

In late 2010, many media outlets paid scant attention when a young man set himself ablaze in Tunisia, protesting government corruption. A year later, it's clear that might have been one of the key events of the last decade, sparking the Arab Spring.

July 2011 - Afghan forces began to take over security responsibility from international troops. The process will go on through 2014.

July 1 - Moroccans overwhelmingly approve a new constitution curtailing the powers of King Mohammed VI and boosting those of the prime minister, government and parliament. In November, a moderate Islamist party wins parliamentary elections.

July 1-2 - Prince Albert II of Monaco marries South African former swimming champion Charlene Wittstock.

July 3 - Seven people are killed in riots in Burkina Faso after three months of protests over rising food prices.

July 3 - The Pheu Thai party wins the Thai general election, bringing in Yingluck Shinawatra - younger sister of the fugitive former prime minister - as Thailand's first female premier.

July 6 - The South Korean town of Pyeongchang is chosen to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

July 7 - British tabloid News of the World stops publishing, over a scandal about reporters hacking into the mobile phones of celebrities and crime victims.

July 9 - Riot police arrest more than 1,000 people in a massive Malaysian democracy rally. Two months later, leaders announce that a decades-old security law will be repealed and replaced.

July 10 - A Russian tourist ship sinks in the Volga River, leaving 112 dead.

July 11 - Thirteen die in an explosion at a southern Cyprus military base depot containing confiscated Middle Eastern ammunition. An inquiry later blames Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias.

July 12 - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's powerful brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, is killed in his house by his security detail. The Taliban takes responsibility.

July 13 - Three coordinated bomb explosions in India's financial hub, Mumbai, kill 25, injuring at least 130.

July 15 - A first round of stress tests of European banks shows several failing. Criteria are tightened for a further round later in the year, when more fail to make the grade.

July 17 - Japan beat the United States 3-1 on penalties to win the Women's World Cup, in Germany, a first.

July 20 - Guinean President Alpha Conde survives a coup attempt. Thirty-seven people, including army members, are later arrested.

July 20 - The UN declares a famine in Somalia, owing to drought, mismanagement and conflict. Tens of thousands die; hundreds of thousands flee the country.

July 20 - Goran Hadzic, the last Serbian wanted on war crimes charges stemming from the breakup of Yugoslavia, is arrested in Serbia and delivered to the Hague.

July 20-21 - Police shoot dead 20 demonstrators in Malawi during nationwide anti-government protests.

July 21 - European Union leaders agree to first-ever 'selective' eurozone default, as banks are pushed into accepting a 21-per-cent loss on loans to Greece. That later rises to 50 per cent.

July 21 - The space shuttle Atlantis touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the end of the three-decade, 135-flight space shuttle programme.

July 22 - Norway experiences its worst massacre since World War II, when 77 die in a mass shooting at a political youth camp and earlier car bombing in Oslo's government district. Anders Behring Breivik is arrested and confesses to the crime. He is later declared legally insane, an assessment that remains up for review.

July 23 - At least 40 people die and more than 200 are injured when two high-speed trains collide near the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou.

July 23 - Singer Amy Winehouse is found dead from alcohol poisoning in a London flat, 35 days after attempting to start a comeback tour.

July 25 - The Vatican recalls its ambassador to Ireland, prompted by 'excessive' criticism of the Catholic Church by Irish officials in the wake of a report on child sex abuse by priests.

July 25 - Ogun Samast is sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison for murdering Hrant Dink, a prominent Armenian journalist in Turkey, in 2007.

July 25-26 - Truong Tan Sang is approved as the next Vietnamese president and Nguyen Tan Dung for a second term as prime minister.

July 28 - Left-wing populist Ollanta Humala is inaugurated as Peruvian president.

August 2 - US officials reach a last-minute compromise to raise the country's debt ceiling and prevent default. Nonetheless, Standard & Poor's downgrades the country's AAA rating. A legislative committee formed as part of the deal, to reduce the deficit, fails.

August 3 - Egypt's Hosny Mubarak appears in court to face charges of corruption and ordering the killing of at least 850 protesters. His sons Alaa and Gamal, and former interior minister Habib al-Adli, also appear. All plead not guilty.

August 6 - Somali Islamist militia al-Shabaab retreats from the capital Mogadishu, following heavy assaults by African Union peacekeepers and government forces.

Aug 6-10 - Britain is shaken by its worst street riots since the early 1980s when - sparked by the fatal shooting by police of a man in north London - rioting, arson and looting spreads across the capital and to other cities.

August 6 - Thirty-eight people, including 30 US soldiers, die when a helicopter is shot down by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. It is the single biggest death toll for the US since its 2001 invasion.

August 9 - The US Federal Reserve says the US economy will likely remain weak enough to keep benchmark interest rates at or near zero through mid-2013.

August 10 - An unusual spell of monsoon rains hits Pakistan's south. Over the next month, 486 die, 753 are injured and 930,000 displaced.

August 20 - An al-Qaeda-affiliated group says it has launched a campaign of 100 attacks in Iraq, in revenge for the death of Osama bin Laden. The statement comes five days after more than a dozen attacks shake Iraq, killing around 70.

August 23 - Libyan rebel forces take Tripoli.

August 25 - Fifty-two killed as a gang torches a casino in Monterrey, Mexico.

August 25 - Sri Lanka lifts three-decade-old state of emergency.

August 26 - A massive bomb blast hits a UN building in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, killing 24. Blame is laid on the radical Islamist group Boko Haram.

August 27 - Singapore's former deputy prime minister Tony Tan is declared the city-state's new president after a surprisingly tight race.

Septmber 3 - Israeli socio-economic protests reach their peak, with over 400,000 protesting nationwide against the high cost of living.

September 7 - An airliner crashes upon take-off from the central Russian city Yaroslavl, killing 44 of 45 aboard, most of them players and staff of a top-level ice hockey team. Investigators later blame a pilot forgetting to release a handbrake.

September 10 - At least 240 die after an overcrowded ferry sinks in the Zanzibar archipelago in Tanzania. Four people go on trial for the deaths.

September 10 - Staff flee the Israeli embassy in Cairo after a mob ransacks the building, enraged after five Egyptian border guards were killed in August by Israeli fire.

September 12 - More than 100 Kenyans die after a fire breaks out along a Nairobi oil pipeline.

September 15 - Danish parliament elections result in Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt forming a left-leaning government and becoming Denmark's first female prime minister.

September 15 - Swiss bank UBS reports the loss of 2.3 billion dollars due to unauthorized trades by a single employee. Later in the month, bank chief Oswald Gruebel steps down.

September 17 - A group of protesters sets up tents in a New York City park, beginning the Occupy Wall Street protests which spread around the world, before authorities start to clear them.

September 18 - At least 111 people die in an earthquake in the eastern Himalayas, most of them in India's Sikkim state.

September 20 - A suicide bomber with explosives in his turban assassinates ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading peace efforts with the Taliban, at his Kabul home.

September 20 - The US military formally ends its so-called Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, which prohibited open homosexuals from serving.

September 23 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submits a bid for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. The diplomatic Quartet on Middle East peace urges the Palestinians and Israelis to return to peace talks.

September 23 - Hundreds of thousands protest in Yemen after President Saleh returns to Sana'a.

September 25 - French Socialists win control of the upper house of parliament, the Senate, for the first time in the 53-year history of the Fifth Republic.

September 26 - Two US hikers jailed in Iran for spying are freed and returned home.

September 29 - China launches its first space laboratory module, Tiangong-1, a crucial stage in its plans for a permanent space station.

September 30 - Two former Rwandan ministers are sentenced by a Tanzania-based United Nations tribunal to 30 years in jail after being convicted of complicity in the country's genocide. Two more are sentenced to life in December.

September 30 - US-born radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, seen as a spiritual leader of al-Qaeda, is killed in Yemen in an airstrike.

September 30 - Jordan's king approves constitutional reforms following protests. Weeks later he sacks his prime minister.