2017 in REVIEW (INTERNATIONAL)

Jan 02: India successfully test-fired its Agni-IV intercontinental ballistic missile.

Jan 06: Veteran actor Om Puri died.

Jan 20: Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

Jan 29: Iran tested a new ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr, having a range of 1,000 kilometers.

Feb 17: Scientists found that New Zealand sits atop a previously unknown continent Zealandia.

Mar 06: The world’s longest serving warship INS Viraat was decommissioned by the Indian Navy.

Mar 09: Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, won a second term as European Council President.

Mar 10: South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office over a graft scandal, involving her friend.

Mar 17: Rima Khalaf, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, resigned after pressure from the UN Secretary-General to withdraw the report “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid”.

Mar 28: US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to undo a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations.

Mar 29: British Prime Minister Theresa May gave EU President Donald Tusk formal notification of intention to withdraw from the EU.

Apr 03: The UNSC voted unanimously to end the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

Apr 04: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, won the A.M. Turing Award, computing’s version of the Nobel Prize, for 2017.

Apr 13: The US military dropped the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (MOAB), the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat, in Afghanistan.

Apr 16: President Erdogan won the referendum on introducing presidential system in Turkey.

Apr 19: Chris Gayle became the first player to reach 10,000 runs in Twenty20 cricket.

Apr 24: Nasa astronaut Peggy Whitson set a new space record by marking 534 days in orbit.

Apr 29: EU leaders adopted their Brexit strategy.

May 09: Moon Jae-In won South Korea’s presidential election.

May 14: The two-day International Belt and Road forum kicked off in China.

May 14: Emmanuel Macron took power as the President of France.

May 20: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a resounding re-election victory.

May 23: Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected the new Director-General of WHO.

June 05: Bahrain, UAE, Yemen and the Maldives joined Saudi Arabia and Egypt to cut ties with Qatar.

June 08: Scientists discovered the hottest known exoplanet, designated KELT-9b.

June 14: Telecom giant Verizon acquired Yahoo’s core business for $4.48bn (£3.51m).

June 15: Israel’s David Grossman won the Man Booker International Prize 2017.

June 16: Germany’s longest serving post-war leader, Helmut Kohl, died at 87.

June 19: India and Afghanistan opened the first air cargo corridor between them.

June 21: Mohammed bin Salman was installed as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

June 22: Afghanistan and Ireland were approved as Full Members by the ICC.

July 03: Narendra Modi became India’s first-ever Prime Minister to visit Israel.

July 07: A global treaty banning nuclear weapons was adopted at the United Nations.

July 12: China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa.

July 20: BJP’s Ram Nath Kovind won the election to become the 14th President of India.

Aug 22: India’s Supreme Court banned triple Talaq.

Aug 22: Donald Trump announced his new strategy for South Asia and Afghanistan.

Aug 28: India and China agreed to pull back their troops from Dokhlam.

Sep 10: The first OIC Summit on Science and Technology was held in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Sep 13: Halimah Yacob became Singapore’s first female president.

Sep 15: Norway’s Borge Brende was appointed the president of the World Economic Forum.

Sep 17: Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s biggest dam, the Sardar Sarovar Dam, on the River Narmada in Gujarat State.

Sep 20: United Nations began signing the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

Sep 27: San Francisco-based Twitter started testing allowing tweets of 280 characters.

Oct 01: Catalonia overwhelmingly voted for independence from Spain.

Oct 03: Ex-Iraqi president and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani died in Germany.

Oct 12: The United States announced to withdraw from UNESCO.

Oct 12: Hamas and Al-Fatah signed a reconciliation deal which was brokered by Egypt.

Oct 13: Audrey Azoulay of France was selected to head the UNESCO.

Oct 22: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe swept to a resounding victory in a snap election.

Oct 24: The name of China’s president, Xi Jinping, was enshrined in the Communist Party’s constitution alongside Chairman Mao.

Oct 27: Burundi became the first ever nation to leave the International Criminal Court.

Oct 29: South Africa’s David Miller smashed the fastest century in Twenty20 International cricket.

Nov 05: The Saudi government launched a sweeping purge of the country’s upper ranks.

Nov 05: The ICIJ released another treasure trove of data, dubbed Paradise Papers.

Nov 15: Zimbabwe’s military took control of the country, ending the rule of President Mugabe.

Nov 17: Toto Riina, one of the most feared godfathers of the Sicilian Mafia, died.

Nov 24: Lionel Messi won the European Golden Shoe award.

Nov 30: The UN General Assembly voted to adopt the draft resolution ‘Jerusalem’.

Dec 03: Iran inaugurated a $1 billion project to expand its southeastern Chabahar port.

Dec 04: Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s former president.

Dec 04: Noted Indian actor Shashi Kapoor died.

Dec 05: The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of Trump’s revised ban on travellers from six countries.

Dec 06: The Time magazine named “The Silence Breakers,” the persons behind the #MeToo movement, its ‘Person of the Year’.

Dec 08: Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal won his fifth Ballon d’Or award.

Dec 13: India’s Rohit Sharma became the first batsman to hit three double centuries in ODIs.

Dec 14: European leaders inaugurated the landmark pact named Permanent Structured Cooperation on Defence, or Pesco.

Dec 14: Walt Disney Co. agreed to buy key film and television assets of 21st Century Fox, in a $52.4 billion deal.

Dec 15: The emblems of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, respectively named ‘Winter Dream’ and ‘Flight’, were unveiled.