The document summarizes 10 major news stories from 2011:
1) The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March, causing widespread damage and triggering a nuclear disaster.
2) Osama bin Laden was killed in an American raid in Pakistan.
3) Prince William married Kate Middleton in a globally watched royal wedding in London.
4) A civil war broke out in Libya between forces loyal to Gaddafi and those seeking to depose him.
5) A series of student suicides occurred at the elite Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
3. Japan was hit by an enormous earthquake on March 11, 2011, that triggered a deadly 23-foot tsunami in the country's north. The giant waves deluged cities and rural areas alike, sweeping away cars, homes, buildings, a train, and boats, leaving a path of death and devastation in its wake. United States Geological Survey reported the earthquake and on Monday revised its magnitude from 8.9 to 9.0, which is the largest in Japan's history. The earthquake struck about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo. Disaster struck again on Saturday, March 12, when about 26 hours after the earthquake, an explosion in reactor No. 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused one of the buildings to crumble to the ground. The cooling system at the reactor failed shortly after the earthquake.
5. Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run. Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy. Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden's sons.
7. Prince William & Kate Middleton were watched by 2,000 friends, family and dignitaries inside the abbey, and an estimated 2 billion people around the world for their wedding. The nation rejoiced today as Prince William married his bride Kate Middleton in a historic ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The happy couple will now be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after the Queen gave Prince William a dukedom - the highest rank in British peerage - on his wedding day. With all the recent doom and gloom of these recession hit times, coupled with trouble in the Middle East, the prospect of an upcoming Royal Wedding has helped to lift people’s spirits and given them something to look forward to. The world can only hope that lessons have been learnt from Diana and Kate will have a much happier Royal life and marriage than she did.
9. 2011 Civil war is an ongoing armed conflict in the North African state of Libya being fought between forces loyal to the country's defactoruler MudammarGadaffi and those seeking to depose him. The situation began on 15 February 2011 as a series of peaceful protests which were met with violent responses by the Gaddafi regime. The protests escalated into an uprising that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing a government based in Benghazi named the Transitional National Council whose goal is to overthrow the Gaddafi led government and hold democratic elections. The regime executed opposition activists publicly and rebroadcasted the executions on state television channels.Engaging in political conversations with foreigners is a crime in Libya. The protest was broken up violently by police, resulting in 38 injured, among them ten security personnel.
11. ●The elite Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist) is reeling from an unprecedented suicide crisis, including a 54-year-old professor who killed himself Sunday and four students who committed suicide. The professor surnamed Park was found by his wife hanging from a gas pipe around 3:00 p.m. in his apartment in Daejeon. The Professor spent about 22 million won ($20,285) of university funds for personal purposes. ●Four students have killed themselves since January. In January, a 19-year-old freshman took an overdose of sleeping pills. On March 20, a 19-year-old sophomore died and left a note in Suwon, Gyeonggi. Nine days later, a 25-year-old senior jumped from an apartment building in southern Seoul. And on Thursday, a 19-year-old sophomore was found dead in an apartment in Incheon. These suicides have stunned the nation in a profound and poignant way
13. There has been a significant rise in the number of people in Europe infected by a strain of E. coli which has led to the deaths of 17 people. More than 1,500 people in nine nations - though mostly in Germany - have been infected by enterohaemorrhagicE.coli (EHEC), which can cause the deadly haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS). The Robert Koch Institute, the German federal institution responsible for disease control, said on Wednesday afternoon that 1,534 people in the country had been infected by EHEC. EHEC is a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria, which is found in the digestive systems of cows, humans and other mammals. Unusually, more than 60% of the EHEC cases in Germany have been women - 88% over the age of 20 - and nearly 90% of the HUS cases have been women over the age of 20.
15. Basically, molten basalt rock at a temperature of 1000c or more is meeting glacial ice and cold water. The result is an explosion of steam that is driving fine ash particles (fragments of solidified lava) high into the air. It is these abrasive ash particles that pose a danger to aircraft, with the potential to wreck the delicate, rapidly whirling innards of their engines. All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries had been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south. Initial optimism over the potential lesser impact of the latest volcanic ash cloud to hit airspace has all but been extinguished as thousands of travelers due to fly in and out of Scotland and Ireland have had their flights cancelled.
17. The 2011 Syrian uprising is an uprising occurring in Syria, which began on 26 January 2011. It is influenced by concurrent protests in the religion, and has been described as "unprecedented." Like the revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt , it has taken the form of protests of various types, including marches and hunger strikes, in a sustained campaign of civil resistance. In reacting to the largest uprising to take place in the country for decades, Syrian security forces have killed hundreds of protesters and injured many more. The Syrian government claims there are armed Islamist elements among the protesters, who are claimed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 100 Syrian security forces. Syrian protests, which reached unprecedented numbers , have spread to the key cities of Aleppo and Hama. The unrest has begun to draw in Lebanon.
19. Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn is a French economist, lawyer, and politician, and a member of the French Socialist Party. Strauss-Kahn is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. On 14 May 2011, a 32 year old maid at the Sofitel New York Hotel alleged that Strauss-Kahn had sexually assaulted her after she entered his suite. Strauss-Kahn was formally indicted on 18 May and granted US$1 million bail, plus a US$5 million bond, the following day. He was ordered to remain confined to a New York apartment under guard. He was arraigned on June 6, 2011, and pled not guilty.
21. ●ImSang-gyu, president of Sunchon National University and former agriculture minister, was found dead in his car.●Im Sang-gyuIm was suspected of receiving $18,407 from a local businessman in exchange for facilitating a contract to operate canteens at construction sites in 2008. He was also under investigation for withdrawing $46,000 from his account at Busan Savings Bank at the end of January, just weeks before the bank collapsed.
