Portal:Current events/2012 May 12

May 12, 2012 (Saturday)

Arab Spring:
- Syrian uprising: At least eight more people are killed in the ongoing violence in Syria, despite the presence of 145 United Nations ceasefire monitors. (Al Jazeera)
- The United States resumes shipping armaments to Bahrain, after a pause that coincided with the ongoing popular uprising against the Bahraini regime. (Al Jazeera)
The United States conducts two drone strikes in southeastern Yemen, killing 11 suspected Al-Qaeda militants. (Washington Post) (Huffington Post)
Nigerian police claim to have captured a senior commander of the radical Islamist militant group Boko Haram. (BBC)
Four NATO soldiers die in separate incidents in southern Afghanistan – two in a gun attack by insurgents, one in a roadside bombing, and one of non-combat injuries. (CNN)

Eurozone debt crisis:
- The European Commission states that the combined eurozone economy is likely to contract by 0.3% in 2012, as an ongoing debt crisis and high unemployment continue to wrack the 17 euro-using nations. (Sky News Australia)
- The Spanish "Indignants" protest movement celebrates its first anniversary, with at least 100,000 people gathering in Spanish cities to protest against the politicians and bankers widely blamed for the country's economic downturn. Similar protests take place in other world cities, including London, Lisbon, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv, as part of a global day of action. (BBC) (Reuters via Yahoo News) (Al Jazeera) (Wall Street Journal)
- Leading European Central Bank policymakers state that crisis-hit Greece may be able to abandon the euro without compromising the wider eurozone. (Reuters)

Three Boston University students are killed and another five are injured in a minivan crash during a trip to New Zealand. (Boston Herald)

China denies that its military has been placed on a war footing amid an ongoing dispute with the Philippines over territorial claims in the South China Sea. (BBC)
Two Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are reportedly close to death, having refused to eat for 74 days. A further 1,600 prisoners have been on hunger strike since 17 April. (Daily Telegraph)
President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls Israel "nothing more than a mosquito" and downplays the idea of war between the two countries ahead of talks over Iran's nuclear program. (CNN)

President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez returns home after successfully completing of a course of radiotherapy for cancer in Cuba. (BBC)
The President of Greece, Karolos Papoulias, begins efforts at forming a coalition government, after three failed attempts by major political parties to reach a coalition agreement. (BBC)
In the United States, prospective Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney condemns same-sex marriage as illegitimate. At a Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia, he describes marriage as exclusively "a relationship between one man and one woman." (BBC)

The discovery of a missing piece of the Mayan calendar appears to render the 2012 phenomenon obsolete, by proving that the Maya did not believe 2012 to be the end of the world. (WBRC)