Monday, August 29
United States—Cleanup from Hurricane Irene began along the East Coast. The storm hit over the weekend, bringing down trees and power lines, causing flooding and evacuations, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
Wednesday, August 31
Syria—The Attorney General of the Syrian city of Hama resigned to protest the military crackdown of President Assad on anti-regime protestors. This marks the first high-profile resignation caused by protests in Syria.
Thursday, September 1
Nigeria—Violence between Christians and Muslims in the Nigerian city of Jos left 40 dead. The government has appealed to its citizens for peace.
North and South Sudan and Ethiopia—Clashes between political factions along the border of North and South Sudan caused an estimated 20,000 people to flee towards Ethiopia according to the UN.
Libya—Muammar Gaddafi gave a speech televised on a station owned by his son where he declared he would “not surrender.” The speech came on the 42nd anniversary of the coup in which he initially seized power. His present whereabouts are uncertain.
Friday, September 2
United States—Job data released by the U.S. Federal government showed that there were no new jobs created in the month of August. The news prompted markets to fall.
Turkey—The Israeli ambassador to Turkey was expelled by the Turkish government. The expulsion was a result of Israel’s refusal to apologize over its raid last year on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
Global—Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables uncensored. While the information leak-based website had previously published secret cables, this latest development has drawn criticism from the site’s supporters.
Saturday, September 3
Vatican City—The Vatican rejected charges that it attempted to cover up clergy abuse scandal in Ireland. The charges were brought by the Irish government as part of the fallout from the Cloyne report (released by the Irish government in July), which indicated that the Catholic Church in Ireland had knowingly hid the scandal from the authorities.
Sunday, September 4
France—Former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, landed in France. Strauss-Kahn was being held until recently in the United States on charges of sexual assault. The case against him fell apart, and the charges were subsequently dropped.
Japan—Typhoon Talas has reportedly killed at least 19 people. The storm made landfall Saturday, and it is still too early to determine the full extent of the damage it caused.
Germany—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling party (the Christian Democratic Union) appeared to suffer losses in recent elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to exit polls. The same exit polls saw the opposition Social Democrats party win a plurality of votes cast.
Sources: BBC, Reuters, CNN
