Portal:Current events/2007 February 11

February 11, 2007 (Sunday)

UK's Vodafone buys 67% stake in India's fourth largest mobile operator, Hutch Essar, for $11.1 billion. (BBC) (Economic Times)
Nine people are shot dead in Rio de Janeiro as police battle drug gangs and private militias for control of the favelas or shanty towns. (BBC)
The Queen wins the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Film of 2006 with Helen Mirren winning the award as Best Actress. Forest Whitaker wins the Best Actor award for his role in the The Last King of Scotland which won the Best British Film Award. (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Dixie Chicks dominate the 2007 Grammy Awards by winning five statuettes, including Record and Song of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"). (NME) With the completion of the "big three" music awards, Mary J. Blige and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood are the only two artists this season to sweep all three major music awards (American Music, Billboard Music, and Grammy Awards). (Billboard) (Yahoo Music).
Portugal votes on an abortion referendum which despite failing due to low turnout, has a clear result in favor of legalizing abortion, prompting Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates to say abortion will be legalized through the parliament. (BBC)
Islamist insurgency in Somalia:
- An explosion at a ceremony in Kismayo kills at least four people and injures 24 others, including senior military officers and regional leaders. General Abdi Mahdi, the recently appointed Somali military chief, is among the injured. (Aljazeera)
- Mortar attacks in two areas of Mogadishu kill at least five people and injure several others, a day after a PRMLTM said it increase attacks. (Aljazeera)
Two people die in protests in Priština, Kosovo over a United Nations plan for the future of the Serbian province. (BBC)
Iran:
- The U. S. military accuses the government of Iran of supplying sophisticated roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq. (BBC)
- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed calls by Western countries for Iran to suspend its nuclear program. (CNN) (Al Jazeera)
U. S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) following a political rally in Ames, Iowa, regretted saying the lives of military personnel had been "wasted." (Register) (Boston Hereld)^{[permanent dead link]}
Voters in Turkmenistan vote in their first presidential election to select a successor to former President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov. Interim leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is widely expected to win the election. (BBC)
Rakhat Aliyev, son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and First Vice Foreign Minister, is demoted to ambassador to Austria for the second time amid accusations he stole money from Nurbank bank and alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murdering of two Nurbank officials. (EurasiaNet)
A top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been suspended from her job for six months while a corruption inquiry is conducted, officials say. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
The National Court of Spain finds five out of six Algerian men guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and document forgery for terrorist purposes, sentencing each of them to 13 years imprisonment. All six were acquitted of conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack