Well The Year is nearly over with and before 2011 comes to a close I wanted to post a few things that I remember from 2011. This year was fairly quiet personally until August when I was made redundant.  For the first time in a long time I’ve undertaken short contract work which I still don’t like the lack of Stability. I will be starting a new permanent job in 2012 which I am very much looking forward to. Our Holiday this year was to Great Yarmouth which we all enjoyed a lot and I am sure we will end up back there in a few years.
      
    News headlines from 2011

          The Biggest news this year was the Arab spring and the revolutions/discontent which spread across the Middle East and North Africa. The biggest changes were the toppling of Mubarak in Egypt and Colonel Gadaffi in Libya. New Governments were also sworn-in, in Tunisia and Morocco. Large scale protests were also held in Bahrain causing the cancellation of the 2011 Bahrain Grand prix. There were also protests in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iran and Yemen. Protest and uprisings continued throughout 2011 in Syria and the current regime are believed to have caused over 3500 deaths in quelling the disturbances.

South Sudan voted in favour of Independence and became a new nation this year. Almost 99% of the population voted in favour and they became an independent nation on July 9, 2011.

The financial market instability continued throughout 2011 and looks set to continue into 2012. Several countries including the UK, Greece and Spain had protests against cuts and austerity measures.

The News of the World was closed down amid Hacking allegations which are still being investigated. The Investigation has so far led to several arrests and widespread condemnation. Jonathan May-Bowles was jailed for six weeks for throwing a foam pie into the face of Rupert Murdoch at a House of Commons Select Committee hearing. Personally I think he should have been given a knighthood.

Floods ravaged Australia in December 2010 and early January 2011. Floods have also struck Thailand, South Africa, Philippines, Pakistan, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and Brazil in 2011.

Riots struck London and other parts of the country over 5 nights in August leading to many arrests.
Wikileaks posted a wide range of files and documents which were leaked exposing private opinions throughout the upper political echelons.

Google launched Google+ as a new competitor in the social media world. Google+ quickly gained traction and new members flocked to the medium especially from the Tech world. While it doesn’t have the same density of close family members I believe it will become a very important stream for connecting with others.

Japan was hit by a large earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale which caused a Tsunami with waters up to 10 metres high. Severe damage was caused to several nuclear power plants, most notably to the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Multiple reactors went into meltdown and a large area was evacuated due to radiation fears. Large earthquakes also struck New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, India, Turkey, Peru, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Osama Bin Laden was killed on May 1st. He had been hiding out in a compound in Northern Pakistan. A raid was undertaken by the US without telling its “Ally” Pakistan. Bin Laden’s death was widely celebrated however in real terms nothing much has changed.
Harold Camping twice predicted the End of the world and unless you are sat reading this wearing a halo then I think it’s safe to say he was wrong.

Protestors Occupied Wall Street and St Paul’s in London among other places. Protestors even Occupied Sheffield however passing it every day I’ve never seen more than 20 people there. Tents seem to outnumber people most of the time.
The Earth’s population passed seven billion people.

That wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive list but please tell me what you remember about 2011 in the news. There will be more parts to this covering Notable deaths, Gaming, Tv, Music, Sport in general and specifically F1 and Football.

I will also be posting a look forward to 2012 sometime next week