2010

Chilcot rumbled on

Blair, Clair Short

Obama washes his hands of Palestine – see Fisk

Conspiracy theories used against Obama

US intervention in Yemen – special forces

Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, stated he did not want to be prime minister of Lebanon. Which meant he probably did. This phenomenally wealthy man was planning to spend billions on a kilometre high tower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saad_Hariri   actual pm of Lebanon too office 9th November 2009

January 1 – Spain takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.

January 1 – A suicide bombing occurs at a volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 95, and injuring over 100.[2]

January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.[3][4][5]

January 8 – The Togo national football team is involved in an attack in Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations.[6]

January 12 – A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. With a confirmed death toll over 230,000[7][8][9] it is one of the deadliest on record.

January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.

January 25 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on-board.

February 2010

February 3 – The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.[10][11][12]

February 12–28 – The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.

February 18 – The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou, is overthrown after a group of soldiers storms the presidential palace[13] and form a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.[14]

February 27 – An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing 497.[15] The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history.

NASA’s moon project cancelled

UK squeeked out of recession

Haiti earthquake

Israel clampdown

Labour try to cover up torture allegations

17th February

Mossad agents caught red-handed

Nuclear power revival

Greece bailout – Eurozone depressed

March 2010

March 16 – The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire.[16]

Elections in Iraq during March

April 2010

April 2010

April 7 – Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees Bishkek amid fierce rioting during the 2010 Kyrgyzstan crisis. Former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva is placed at the head of an interim government as the opposition seizes control.[17]

April 10 – The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes in western Russia.[18][19]

April 13 – A 6.9-magnitude earthquake occurs in Qinghai, China, killing at least 2,000 and injuring more than 10,000.[20]

April 14 – Volcanic ash from one of several eruptions beneath Eyjafjallajökull, a glacier in Iceland, begins to disrupt air traffic across northern and western Europe.[21][22][23]

April 20th – The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers. The resulting oil spill, one of the largest in history, is not stopped for several months and causes considerable environmental damage to the waters and coastline of several states in the United States and affecting other nearby nations.[24]

During March and early April, several platform workers and supervisors expressed concerns with well control. At approximately 9:45 p.m. CDT on 20 April 2010, methane gas from the well, under high pressure, shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform, and then ignited and exploded.[30][33] Fire then engulfed the platform.[34] Most of the workers were evacuated by lifeboats or were airlifted out by helicopter,[35][36] but eleven workers were never found despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation, and are presumed to have died in the explosion.[33][37] Efforts by multiple ships to douse the flames were unsuccessful. After burning for approximately 36 hours, the Deepwater Horizon sank on the morning of 22 April 2010.[38] As a result, the drilling riser running from the wellhead on the ocean floor up to the oil rig was destroyed.

On the afternoon of 22 April, a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site.[39] Two remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) unsuccessfully attempted to cap the well.[40] BP announced that it was deploying a ROV to the site to assess whether oil was flowing from the well.[41] On 23 April, a ROV reportedly found no oil leaking from the sunken rig and no oil flowing from the well.[42] Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry expressed cautious optimism of zero environmental impact, stating that no oil was emanating from either the wellhead or the broken pipes and that oil spilled from the explosion and sinking was being contained.[43][44][45][46] The following day, 24 April, Landry announced that a damaged wellhead was indeed leaking oil into the Gulf and described it as "a very serious spill".[47] BP has not given a cause for the explosion.[48] According to the US Congressional investigation the rig's blowout preventer, a fail-safe device fitted at the base of the well, built by Cameron International Corporation, had a hydraulic leak and a failed battery, and therefore failed.[49] ~ Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

BP did all they could to avoid taking the blame; then tried to wriggle out of paying compensation – lying if necessary.

April 27th – Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk four days after the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout, triggering Stock markets worldwide and the Euro currency decline, [25][25][26] and furthering a European sovereign debt crisis.

May 2010

May 2 – The Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund agree to a €110 billion bailout package for Greece. The package involves sharp Greek austerity measures.[27]

May 12 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes at runway at Tripoli International Airport in Libya, killing 103 of 104 on board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19wed1.html

“Brazil and Turkey — both currently hold seats on the Security Council — are eager to play larger international roles. And they are eager to avoid a conflict with Iran. We respect those desires. But like pretty much everyone else, they got played by Tehran.”

After its Security Council misdeed last year, Turkey was warned by Obama's top diplomat on European affairs, Philip Gordon, that it must "demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West." A scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations asked, "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" -- following orders like good democrats. Brazil's Lula was admonished in a New York Times headline that his effort with Turkey to provide a solution to the uranium enrichment issue outside of the framework of U.S. power was a "Spot on Brazilian Leader's Legacy." In brief, do what we say, or else.

An interesting sidelight, effectively suppressed, is that the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal was approved in advance by Obama, presumably on the assumption that it would fail, providing an ideological weapon against Iran. When it succeeded, the approval turned to censure, and Washington rammed through a Security Council resolution so weak that China readily signed -- and is now chastised for living up to the letter of the resolution but not Washington's unilateral directives -- in the current issue ofForeign Affairs, for example.

While the U.S. can tolerate Turkish disobedience, though with dismay, China is harder to ignore. The press warns that "China's investors and traders are now filling a vacuum in Iran as businesses from many other nations, especially in Europe, pull out," and in particular, is expanding its dominant role in Iran's energy industries. Washington is reacting with a touch of desperation. The State Department warned China that if it wants to be accepted in the international community -- a technical term referring to the U.S. and whoever happens to agree with it -- then it must not "skirt and evade international responsibilities, [which] are clear": namely, follow U.S. orders. China is unlikely to be impressed.

Noam Chomsky in 2011

May 22 – Air India Express Flight 812 overshoots the runway at Mangalore International Airport in India, killing 158 and leaving 8 survivors.[36]

May 28 – In terrorist attacks against two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan, 98 are killed.

May 29–30 – Tropical Storm Agatha causes widespread flooding across Central America, killing at least 180 people.

May 31 – Nine activists are killed in a clash with soldiers when Israeli Navy forces raid and capture a flotilla of humanitarian ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade.

The foreign policy literature is full of proposals as to how to counter the threat. One obvious way is rarely discussed: work to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the region. The issue arose (again) at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference at United Nations headquarters last May. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, called for negotiations on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including the U.S., at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

International support is so overwhelming that Obama formally agreed. It is a fine idea, Washington informed the conference, but not now. Furthermore, the U.S. made clear that Israel must be exempted: no proposal can call for Israel's nuclear program to be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency or for the release of information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities." So much for this method of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

Chomsky 2011 http://mistymountain.info/content/noam-chomsky-world-too-big-fail-contours-global-order

June 2010

June 9 – Ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks results in the deaths of hundreds.[39]

June 25–26 – The 36th G8 summit is held in Huntsville, Ontario, Canada.

June 26–27 – The 4th G20 summit is held in Toronto, Canada.

July 2010

Tony Hayward goes.

Chilcott

July 8 – The first 24-hour flight by a solar powered plane is completed by the Solar Impulse.[46]

July 25 – Wikileaks, an online publisher of anonymous, covert, and classified material, leaks to the public over 90,000 internal reports about the United States-led involvement in the War in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.[47]

Elite contempt for democracy was revealed dramatically in the reaction to the WikiLeaks exposures. Those that received most attention, with euphoric commentary, were cables reporting that Arabs support the U.S. stand on Iran. The reference was to the ruling dictators. The attitudes of the public were unmentioned. The guiding principle was articulated clearly by Carnegie Endowment Middle East specialist Marwan Muasher, formerly a high official of the Jordanian government: "There is nothing wrong, everything is under control." In short, if the dictators support us, what else could matter?

Chomsky http://mistymountain.info/content/noam-chomsky-world-too-big-fail-contours-global-order

July 29 – Heavy monsoon rains begin to cause widespread flooding (pictured) in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Over 1,600 are killed, and more than one million are displaced by the floods.[48]

August 2010

September 2010

October 2010

October 13 – Thirty-three miners near Copiapó, Chile, trapped 700 metres underground in a mining accident in San José Mine, are brought back to the surface after surviving for a record 69 days.[52]

October 22 – The International Space Station surpasses the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space, having been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000 (3641 days).[53][54]

October 23 – In preparation for the Seoul summit, finance ministers of the G-20 agree to reform the International Monetary Fund and shift 6% of the voting shares to developing nations and countries with emerging markets.[55]

October 25 – An earthquake and consequent tsunami off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, kills over 400 people and leave hundreds missing.[56]

October 26–ongoing – Repeated eruptions of Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia, have killed at least 240 people and forced hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate.[57][58][59]

November 2010

November 4 – Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashes in central Cuba, killing all 68 people on board.[60]

November 11–November 12 – The G-20 summit is held in Seoul, South Korea. Korea becomes the first non-G8 nation to host a G-20 leaders summit.[61]

November 13 – Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi is released from her house arrest.[62]

November 17 – Researchers at CERN trap 38 antihydrogen atoms for a sixth of a second, marking the first time in history that humans have trapped antimatter.[63]

November 20 – Participants of the 2010 NATO Lisbon summit issued the Lisbon Summit Declaration.

November 21 – Eurozone countries agree to a rescue package for the Republic of Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility in response to the country's financial crisis.[64][65][66]

November 23 – North Korea shells Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response by South Korea. The incident caused an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula and prompted widespread international condemnation. The United Nations declared it to be one of the most serious incidents since the end of the Korean War.[68][69][70]

November 28 – WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables, including 100,000 marked "secret" or "confidential".[71][72]

November 29 – The European Union agree to an €85 billion rescue deal for Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility, the International Monetary Fund and bilateral loans from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.[73]

November 29–December 10 – The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference is held in Cancún, Mexico. Also referred to as the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), it served too as the 6th meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 6).[74][75]

December 2010