International News(July)

1. Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa announc­es decision to appoint an All-Party Committee (APC) for development and reconciliation work in the country.
Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), becomes the international hub for dissemination of clean energy technology after the city is elected as head­quarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a grouping of 129 countries.

2. Britain's efforts to isolate Iran over the arrests of its embassy staff in Tehran for allegedly fomenting the post-poll turmoil meets with partial success when the European Union governments decline to set a deadline for downgrad­ing their diplomatic missions in Iran.
United States Marines move into villages in Tali­ban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, in one of the big­gest American military operations in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone and External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, chairing the third round of the Japan-India strategic dialogue in Tokyo, agree to sustain and possibly expand their "canvas of coopera­tion" in the bilateral and international domains.

3. Defying sanctions imposed by the United Nations, North Korea test-fires up to seven short-range missiles in a move that set to further increase tensions in Northeast Asia.
Senior CIA officials, including the London station chief, are called before a grand jury in Virginia investigat­ing the potentially illegal destruction of 92 video tapes re­cording the torture and interrogation of Al Qaeda detenus.
Britain becomes the first western country to relax some travel restrictions to Sri Lanka in the post Prabakaran era.

4. Riots break out in Urumqi, the capital city of Chi­na's Muslim-majority Xinjiang autonomous region, with hundreds of protesters attacking passers-by and torching vehicles.
The incoming MI6 chief, Sir John Sawers, is em­broiled in an embarrassing row after his wife puts family photographs, including his, and other personal details on Facebook prompting calls for an inquiry into whether it amounted to a security breach.

5. Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral United States Secretary of Defence who was vilified for prosecuting the Vietnam War, then devoted himself to helping the world's poorest nations, dies in Washington D.C.
United States President Barack Obama and Rus­sian President Dmitry Medvedev agree in Moscow on a framework to cut their nuclear arsenals by up to a third.
A leading light of the early leftist movement in Ceylon and wife of S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, Dona Caroline Rupasinghe Gunawardena, passes away in Kosogama, on the outskirts of Colombo.

6. United States President Barack Obama proclaims prosperity in countries like India and China as good for the United States and West as it opens new markets for them and pushes their businesses to innovate.
In one of the biggest celebrity send-offs in history, Michael Jackson's family, friends and fans held a me­morial service for the 'King of Pop' at the Staples Centre in downtown Los Angeles.

7. Intelligence agency MI5 is sued by Rangzieb Ahmed, a British extremist of Pakistani origin for allegedly offering him inducements to withdraw his allegation that it colluded in his torture by Pakistani security services three years ago.
Pakistan, for the first time, acknowledges at the highest level that militant groups were created and nur­tured by it for "tactical" objectives.

8. China raises concerns with Pakistan that militants based in its territory could be involved in the ethnic unrest in its Xinjiang province.
Leaders of the G8 industrial nations and the G5 developing countries at their summit in L'Aquila, north-east of Rome, call for an "ambitious and balanced conclusion" to the Doha Development Round of trade talks in 2010.
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, owner of Star TV, is at the centre of a growing scandal after it is reported that one of his leading British tabloids, the News of the World. had been involved in "criminal methods" to get stories.

9. Russia announces to open a second military base in the strategic Fergana valley in southern Kyrgyzstan, close to the borders with China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in a major expansion of its military presence in Central Asia.
United States persuades the G8 to ban the trans­fer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to coun­tries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including India.
An undergraduate team of Sahaj Panchal and Dhrumir Patel, from the Sardar Vallabhai Patel Institute in Gujar­at, is declared runner-up in the non-United States category of a NASA competition to design a small supersonic airliner.
Leaders of the world's largest economies meeting at the Major Economies Forum summit in L'Aquila, agree on some specific emission reduction goals and on moving towards a financing and technology transfer framework.

10. One week after ethnic violence engulfed Urumqi in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, calm is restored to the troubled city.

11. Tens of thousands of people, including hundreds of Indians, join a 'harmony walk' in Melbourne, aimed at reaffirming the Victorian government's support for multi-culturalism and sending a strong message that Australia is a safe destination for international students.
The BBC suspends Hardeep Singh Kohli, an an­chor of the popular One Show, for six months after a female researcher filed an informal complaint regarding his inappropriate behaviour.

12. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) announces a special loan scheme, 'The Awakening North", for the re­sumption of economic activities, including agriculture, live­stock rearing, fisheries, and micro and small enterprises, in the Northern province.

13. The United States federal budget deficit tops $1 trillion for the first time ever.
Russia and China announce to conduct massive joint war games "Peace Mission-2009" in a display of grow­ing strategic ties between the two neighbours.

14. A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane, Caspi­an Airlines Tu-154M jet, carrying 168 people crashes shortly after takeoff, nose-diving into a field northwest of Teheran and shattering into flaming pieces.
Sri Lanka cancels the import of ammunition val­ued at $200 million from China and Pakistan following the end Eelam War IV.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is announced to be Britain's candidate for the European Union presidency when the job becomes available.
The 15th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement is inaugurated at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

15. NAM First Ladies Summit opens in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.
Nepal's CPN (UML)-led government announces that 4,008 People's Liberation Army (PLA) personnel, disquali­fied as combatants by the United Nations Mission in Nepal, will be discharged.
In a concluding declaration barely five pages long, Non-Aligned Movement leaders end their summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, emphasising the need for collective action on the principal global issues of the day.

16. Pakistan's Supreme Court sets aside opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's conviction in the so-called plane hi­jack case, ensuring it will not come in the way of his stand­ing for election again.
Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman, called "the most trusted man in America," dies in New York.

17. Sikhs in the United States slam a draft Oregon state law that would bar teachers in public schools from wearing "religious dress", including turbans, a move that may spark a racial row.
Nicolas Sarkozy pays back more than euro 14,000 to the state after it emerged that personal and family bills were put through the Elysee Palace accounts.
Two astronauts, at the International Space Sta­tion-Endeavour shuttle complex, venture out to help attach a platform for science experiments to the station—the third and final piece of Japan's huge billion-dollar lab.
The World Crafts Council (WCC) chooses Vienna to showcase African arts and crafts such as abstract soap-stone creations, wooden tribal masks, walking canes, and wildlife handicraft carvings.

18. Israel rejects a United States demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction.
The formation of a new "pro-tem party," for cham­pioning the "rights" of Malaysia's ethnic Indian minority, is announced in Kuala Lumpur.
Turkey - a nation of smokers - extends a ban on indoor public smoking to bars, restaurants, and even to traditionally smoke-filled village coffeehouses.

19. The former Iranian President, Mohammad Khata­mi, calls for a nationwide referendum on the legitimacy of the government.
The former Peruvian President, Alberto Fujimori, is sentenced to seven and half years years in prison for embezzlement after he admits illegally paying his spy chief $15 million in government funds.
The pro-democracy Myanmar leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is felicitated with the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation in Durban.

20. As the United States reaffirms its commitment to complete all steps of the civil nuclear deal with India, Unit­ed States President Barack Obama transmits to the Con­gress his first report op the landmark accord.
Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolves the powerful lower house of Japan's Parliament and vows his divided ruling party will make a new start in national elections in August 2009.

21. A total solar eclipse sweeps across a narrow swathe of Asia, lasting 6 minutes, 39 seconds. The next eclipse with a duration comparable to July 22, 2009 solar eclipse will occur only in 2132.
Chinese and Russian troops begin a five-day joint military exercise, dubbed "Peace Mission-2009" in Russia' far eastern city of Khabarovsk. ,

22. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approves a 20-month stand-by arrangement worth Special Drawing Rights 1.65 billion (about $ 2.6 billion) for Sri Lanka.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is declared re-elected by a landslide margin.
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie abondons his week old position as first Vice President of Iran after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayotollah Ali Khamenei orders his dismissal.

23. Sarah Plain steps down as Alaska Governor. She burst into the United States political spotlight in 2008 as Re­publican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.
At least 42 persons are killed in clashes,between police and members of a radical sect in Nigeria that is in­spired by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

24. United States President Barack Hussein Obama calls for broad cooperation with China to set the course of the 21 st century at the first United States - China Strate­gic and Economic Dialogue in Washington.

25. Signaller Singh, who is with 21 Signal Regiment based in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and Lance Corporal Sarvjit Singh, who is with 3 Regiment Army Air corps based at Wattisham, are the first Sikhs to guard Queen Elizabeth in England.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor takes a big step toward becoming the first Hispanic justice on the United States Supreme Court as a key Senate panel votes in favour of her historic nomination.

26. Zhuo Lin, wife of Chinese late leader, Deng Xiaop­ing, passes away at the age of 93.
Troops struggle to crush on Islamist sect in Maiduguri city in northern Nigeria as the death toll from four days of clashes surges past 300.

27. Two Indian non-governmental Organisations, Ecosphere Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and Barefoot College in Rajasthan receive the 2009 Green Energy and Green Live­lihoods awards.
Nigerian forces put Islamist extremists to flight in a brutal all-out assault on their northern stronghold Maiduguri after an uprising led to clashes that have left hun­dreds dead.
The first of four Chinese F-22P frigates construct­ed for Pakistan is formally handed over at a ceremony at the Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai.

28. Pakistan's Supreme Court delivers a historic judge­ment that declares the former President Pervez Mushar­raf's November 3, 2007 Emergency and subsequent dis­missal of judges unconstitutional and illegal.A wave of bombs targeting Shia worshippers at mosques across Baghdad kill 29 people and wounded more than 136 a month after United States troops withdrew from Iraq's main urban centres.