China overtook America in December as the world’s biggest oil importer for the first time. America’s net oil imports slid to 5.98m barrels a day, the lowest since February 1992, while China’s rose to 6.12m. America’s reliance on oil imports has fallen as domestic production has surged to 7m b/d, mostly because of the boom in shale oil.
North Korea carried out its third test of a nuclear bomb, bringing condemnation from around the world. It said the test was in response to America’s “reckless hostility”. Barack Obama warned this would only isolate North Korea further. The UN Security Council called it a clear threat to international security.
America’s Federal Aviation Administration grounded Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner after an All Nippon Airways flight in Japan had to make an emergency landing because of a burning smell, the most serious of several recent incidents related to the aircraft’s electrical systems. The Dreamliner was also grounded in Europe, Japan and elsewhere. Boeing, which is hoping to ramp up production of its new jet this year, said it would work with regulators to fix the problems as quickly as possible.
Further rallies were held across India demanding more action on women’s rights, after last month’s murder of a 23-year-old student. The woman was gang raped, attacked with metal bars and thrown out of a bus in Delhi. The rape sparked violent protests in the capital over official indifference to women’s safety.
After three weak and divided years in office, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan lost an election. The winners were the Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled for most of the half century up to 2009. Shinzo Abe returned to his old job as prime minister; his previous one-year term is widely considered a disaster.
Barack Obama was re-elected as America’s president, beating Mitt Romney by around 50%-48%. Although the result was close in the popular vote, Mr Romney managed to win over only two states−Indiana and North Carolina−that had voted for Mr Obama in 2008, and failed to make much of an impression in the crucial Midwest. Mr Obama’s victory was helped in large part by strong support from Hispanic voters and women.
Mo Yan, a Chinese writer, won the Nobel prize in literature. The prize’s committee praised Mr Mo’s works for their “hallucinatory realism”. The Nobel peace prize was awarded to the European Union for its “advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights” over 60 years.
In Japan two cabinet ministers visited Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo to mark the anniversary of the end of the second world war on August 15th. The shrine is dedicated to Japan’s war dead, including war criminals, and is seen by China, South Korea and others as a reminder of Japan’s military past. Yoshihiko Noda, the prime minister, had urged the ministers not to visit the shrine.
Meanwhile, a group of South Korean activists completed a 220km relay swim to another group of disputed islands, controlled by South Korea but claimed by Japan. The swim followed the first ever visit of a South Korean president to the islands, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.
Japanese police arrested 14 activists from China, Hong Kong and Macau who had sailed to disputed islands claimed by China, Taiwan and Japan, which controls them. Five of the group were arrested on one of the islands, having swum ashore. The islands are known as the Senkakus in Japanese, and as the Diaoyus in Chinese.
Tens of thousands of people protested against nuclear power in Tokyo, in Japan’s biggest demonstrations since the 1960s. Anger has increased partly as a result of the government’s decision to restart two reactors closed after last year’s Fukushima disaster, in order to avoid power shortages.
In the biggest shake-up to immigration policy in America for years, Barack Obama announced that the government would no longer deport illegal immigrants under the age of 30 who had been brought to the United States as children, had been in education or the armed forces and had no criminal record. The policy is similar to the DREAM act, a bill in Congress that has been blocked by Republicans.
SpaceX, a private company, successfully docked (1) [it / its] Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station 390km (240 miles) above the Earth, ushering in a new era in transporting space cargo. (2) [Setting / Set] up by Elon Musk, an internet entrepreneur, SpaceX is under contract with NASA to begin shuttling supplies to the ISS, and also has orders on its books from governments and businesses to launch satellites.
(1) [Many / More] births of non-white babies than white babies were recorded by the Census Bureau for the first time in the United States. Hispanic, black, Asian and mixed-race babies (2) [made / took] up 50.4% of total births in the 12 months to July 2011.
François Hollande, the Socialist candidate, won France’s presidential election, (1) [beating / to beat] Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right incumbent, by 51.6% to 48.4%. He will be inaugurated on May 15th; a day later he will travel to Berlin to (2) [meet / meet with] Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Top of the agenda will be the German-backed “fiscal compact”, which the Frenchman has threatened to scupper if it is not accompanied by growth-promoting measures.
Bo Xilai, a former rising star in China’s Communist Party (1) [who / which] was removed as head of the province-level municipality of Chongqing last month, was suspended from the Politburo. His wife, (2) [meanwhile / meantime], was detained on suspicion of murdering Neil Heywood, a British businessman found (3) [death / dead] in Chongqing last November. The scandal has rocked China’s political class.
Myanmar’s National League for Democracy party won most of the seats (1) [it / its] contested in by-elections that were held in 45 constituencies. Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democracy movement, won a seat just outside Yangon. It was the first time the NLD (2) [had / was] participated in an election since 1990, (3) [which / when] the result was overturned by the army.
Maryland became the eighth state in America (1) [legalizing / to legalise] gay marriage, after a vote in the legislature. But gay Marylanders may not get the chance to wed, if an alliance of Republicans and black churches get (2) [their / them] way at the ballot box in November and stop the law from coming into (3) [effect / effective].
As (1) [expecting / expected], Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential election on March 4th. Officially Mr Putin got 64% of the vote, (2) [although / however] there were widespread reports of foul play. Around 15,000 people took part in a heavily policed anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow (3) [after a day / a day after] the election; some 260 were arrested, although most were released soon afterwards.
Chinese television viewers will (1) [no / not] longer be able to watch foreign shows during prime time, according to new government regulations. The rules also (2) [restrict / conflict] imported programming to no more than 25% per channel per day. Last year China’s TV regulator (3) [took / has taken] a popular talent show off the air and announced that channels must broadcast more cultural programmes.
Facebook at last began the process of launching its initial public offering, in the most (1) [eager / eagerly] awaited stockmarket flotation for years. The world’s biggest social-networking site is seeking to (2) [rise / raise] $5 billion in its IPO. That is about half the amount that analysts had speculated it would aim for, but the figure could rise. Facebook revealed some financial data for the first time in its filing: its revenue last year was $3.7 billion, up from $2 billion in 2010, and it (3) [made / took] a profit of $1 billion, up from $606m.
In an effort to press Iran harder to make it halt its nuclear programme, the European Union agreed in principle (1) [blocking / to block] imports of Iranian oil. Iran urged Arab countries (2) [not to / to not] increase their production in response to the sanctions. America is also seeking the support for the measure from other big importers of Iranian oil, notably China.
America restored full diplomatic relations with Myanmar after the military-controlled civilian government released scores of political prisoners and announced a ceasefire with a rebel group. Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the country’s democracy movement, declared that she would stand for a by-election seat in parliament.
New figures showed that Macau’s revenue from casino gambling rose by 42% last year, to $33.5 billion. Macau has already surpassed Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world. A recent report from PwC forecast that Asia will soon overtake the United States as the biggest casino market, generating revenue of $79.3 billion in 2015.
Herman Cain told his campaign staff that he was considering pulling out of the Republican presidential nomination race, after a woman claimed to have had an affair with the candidate. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich received a boost to his surging candidacy by gaining the endorsement of New Hampshire’s biggest newspaper for the state’s primary in January.
Facebook agreed to resolve a number of charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission in relation to privacy. Among other things, the FTC found that the social-networking site had “deceived” users by sharing personal data with advertisers that it had promised to keep private. The agreement removes an obstacle for Facebook as it prepares to launch its long-awaited initial public offering, which could come as early as the spring.
The UN marked October 31st as the day the world’s population reached seven billion, just a dozen years after it reached six billion. Unlike the previous milestone the UN declined to identify baby seven billion, but that did not stop several candidates from claiming the mantle, including a baby girl in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
Japan’s corporate-governance practices were thrown into the spotlight, after Michael Woodford was ousted as president of Olympus by the company’s board. Mr Woodford suggests that his offence was to ask questions about large payments to a firm in the Cayman Islands. Olympus said he was sacked because of a clash of management styles.
Tributes poured in for Steve Jobs, who died at the age of 56. He had battled cancer and received a liver transplant in 2009. Mr Jobs was the driving force behind Apple and is widely credited with revolutionising the personal-technology industry. He once said that, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me…Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.”
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, formally declared his intention to re-enter the Kremlin. In a speech to his United Russia party he said that he would accept an offer to stand as its candidate in a presidential election next March. In a plan hatched two years ago Mr Putin will swap jobs with Dmitry Medvedev, the current president, who will head the United Russia list at elections in December. Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s long-serving finance minister, seen by many as the most competent member of the government, left after a public spat with Mr Medvedev.
Carol Bartz was abruptly ousted (“over the phone”) as Yahoo!’s chief executive by the internet company’s board. Ms Bartz took the job almost three years ago, replacing Jerry Yang, Yahoo!’s co-founder, who famously rejected a takeover bid from Microsoft that valued the company at $45 billion. Yahoo!’s market capitalisation just before Ms Bartz’s sacking was around $16 billion.
Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved up America’s east coast. New York shut down its transport system, there were widespread power cuts and people were evacuated from low-lying areas, but in the end big cities were spared and the worst damage was caused by flooding from swollen rivers inland, especially in Vermont.
A number of British cities were hit by rioting and looting. The trouble started in an area of north London, when a peaceful protest over the shooting by police of a black suspect turned violent. Gangs of youths took advantage of the situation to commit severe looting and arson throughout London. The lawlessness soon spread to other cities. After police were criticised for yielding control of the streets to thugs, David Cameron returned from his holiday and promised a robust response.
The UN’s World Food Program sent food to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, in an effort to save the lives of people hit by drought in the Horn of Africa. Aid agencies estimate that 3.7m people in Somalia and millions of others in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya are close to starvation. At a meeting in Rome officials said the UN had received about $1 billion for emergency relief since November but needed $1 billion more by the end of the year.
Apple had a bumper second quarter of 2011. Its net income more than doubled to $7.31 billion compared with the same period last year on the back of strong demand for its iPad 2 tablet and the iPhone. The figures calmed investors who had fretted that the lack of a new iPhone, not due until September, would hobble sales. Apple’s share price rose by 2.7% on the news and is up 20% since the start of the year.
Greece was again hit by strikes, protests and rioting, as the parliament voted in favor of a crucial new round of austerity measures and economic reforms. The European Union and the IMF are now expected to release the latest tranche of bail-out funds that Greece needs in order to avoid defaulting on its debt payments. Meanwhile, the French banking industry floated a proposal for an orderly restructuring of Greek debt that would involve private investors rolling over their holdings in bonds.
Confusion reigned over the outbreak of a strain of E. coli in Germany that has killed 26 people and infected thousands more. The authorities said an organic bean-sprout farm near Hamburg may have been responsible, but tests seemed to suggest otherwise. Farmers from Spain, which Germany had earlier incorrectly identified as the source of the outbreak, demanded compensation over lost vegetable sales.
Dominique Strauss-Khan stepped down as head of the IMF, following his arrest for an alleged sexual assault on a New York chambermaid. Lobbying began over who should succeed him at the helm of the fund. EU finance ministers restated their belief that any new managing director of the IMF should be a European, as tradition dictates. Mr Strauss-Kahn had been expected to quit the fund in June and return to France to compete for the Socialist nomination for the French presidency; polls had suggested that, if nominated, he would beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election.
Microsoft’s agreement to buy Skype raised a few eyebrows. At $8.5 billion the deal is Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date, and provides a $4 billion profit to the investors who bought the online phone and video-calling service from eBay in 2009. The price Microsoft is paying is 400 times greater than operating income at Skype, which generates surprisingly little revenue per user.
More concerns were raised about the potentially weak measures that companies employ to protect and secure data over the internet. Amazon’s cloud-computing online-storage service broke down, causing websites run by Foursquare, ProPublica and others to crash and prompting questions about Amazon’s backup procedures. And Sony (eventually) admitted that hackers had broken into its PlayStation Network and gained access to the personal information of some 77m customers, possibly including credit-card details.
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