Friday 8 January 2010

Holidays:

• Commonwealth Day is celebrated in Northern Mariana Islands.

Famous Birthdays:

Famous Deaths:

• Tony Halme: Finnish boxer and politician (Born 1963).
• Monica Maughan: Tongan-Australian actress (d. 2010).

Facts:

• Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 African Cup of Nations, killing three.
• The Togo national football team is involved in an attack in Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations.
• A large statue of the Pharaoh Taharqa is discovered deep in Sudan. (''The Independent'')
• Police in England respond to a security alert on a Dubai-bound flight from London Heathrow Airport. (''Toronto Star'')
• Sékouba Konaté, the interim head of the junta in Guinea, is flown to Senegal after falling ill. (Reuters South Africa)

• The Portuguese parliament approves a bill to legalise same-sex marriage. (Deutsche Welle)
• China Mobile, the world's largest mobile telephone operator, sacks its vice chairman Zhang Chunjiang. (''The Washington Post'')
• The Ugandan death penalty for homosexuality may be declared ampquotnot necessaryampquot. (''The Philadelphia Enquirer'')
• Mehdi Karroubi's car is hit by fire in Qazvin, Iran. (''The New York Times'')
• China becomes the number one automobile market in the world. (Reuters)
• Two people are arrested over a bomb plot in New York City last year. (AFP)
• A Georgian flight lands in Moscow, Russia, the first since the 2008 war. (''China Daily'')
• Two Burmese whistleblowers are sentenced to death for leaking details of secret government visits to North Korea. (''The New York Times'')
• Several churches in Malaysia are attacked amid tensions over the use of ampquotAllahampquot by non-Muslims in the country. (Al Jazeera)
• Riots break out amongst immigrants and local inhabitants in the town of Rosarno in southern Italy in a protest against an attack on African workers by white youths. (AFP)
• Three people are arrested for their involvement in the killing of six Copts as they left a church in southern Egypt. (BBC)
• The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's anti-whaling speedboat ''Ady Gil'', which was damaged on Wednesday during a confrontation with the Japanese security vessel ''Shonan Maru 2'', sinks in the Southern Ocean shortly before 3:30 a.m. AEDT as the Society's ''Bob Barker'' attempts to salvage the boat. (ABC News)
• French research in ''Analytical Chemistry'' suggests that the heavy eye make-up of Cleopatra could be medically useful. (ANSAmed)
• British MP George Galloway is deported from Egypt. (Al Jazeera)