| January 2012 |
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Syrian mass protests started in Daraa on the border with Jordan on
March 18. They were prompted by the arrest of a group of school students
who wrote anti-government mottos on walls. The unrest later spread to
other Syrian regions.
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The crewmembers of the Maltese-flagged cargo ship on fire off Crimea in the Sea of Azov are Russian nationals, the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry said on Sunday.
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck near the Bushehr nuclear power plant in south Iran, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website on Sunday.
Over 6,000 individuals have applied for joining NASA’s astronaut corps, which is twice as many as the U.S. space agency typically receives, NASA said in a statement on Sunday.
Russia will build a reliable aerospace defense system to effectively counter NATO missile threats, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.
Due to a reassessment of the threat from Iran, Washington announced a new
scheme for a more flexible system, with a combination of land- and sea-based
interceptors based on the Standard Missile interceptor, SM-3. Under the new plan, the United States would place ship-based SM-3s in the
North and Mediterranean seas in 2011, and mobile land-based SM-3s in Central
Europe by 2015

U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton told her Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian that the Nagorny Karabakh conflict should be settled solely by peaceful means
Nagorny Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian
population, has been a source of conflict between the former Soviet
republics since the late 1980s. The mountainous province has its own
government and is de facto independent. The Madrid principles, put forward in November 2007, stipulate that the
occupied Armenian territories surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
should be brought back under Azerbaijan's control. They also envisage a
future referendum of self-determination in Karabakh.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday explained why Russia vetoed a resolution on Syria in the UN Security Council.
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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said on Saturday she was "disgusted" by the Russian and Chinese veto on a Security Council resolution on Syria that urges President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
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Iran has launched of the Zafar (Triumph) marine cruise missile for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval forces, Iranian news networks Press TV reported on Saturday.
Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Syria that calls on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
At least 12 people were killed in riots in Egyptian cities in the last two days, a spokesman for the country’s health ministry said on Saturday.
At least 73 people were killed and up to a thousand injured following clashes and a stampede at a football stadium in the Egyptian city of Port Said on Wednesday, February 1, night.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday he and Foreign Intelligence Service head Mikhail Fradkov will visit Syria and meet with President Bashar Assad on February 7.
There has been no shift on the issue of a European missile defense system, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
Russia’s arms supplies to Syria will not affect the balance of power in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.



