The Firefly Brigade

(Originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the Jan. 29 to Feb. 4, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspaper based in Baguio city, Philippines.)

“HELLO! I am Sly Quintos. I am a biker.” is an introduction, when asked, that I cannot do in Baguio.

Yes, because bikers, as far as the City Ordinance of Baguio No. 55, Series of 1989 is concerned, are considered outlaws within the city’s central business district.

But in Manila, I was brave and proud enough to introduce myself that way during a forum I attended at the School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

Many of the attendees were taken aback. But not Katti Sta. Ana. It was like telling her that the sun, for sure, would rise from the east tomorrow morning. Yes, because she knows too well the level of awareness of the Baguio City government as far as cycling culture is concerned. She was not surprised at all.

Katti --- a Fine Arts graduate at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Major in Painting --- is the founder of the Firefly Brigade which advocates the use of bicycle as part of a sustainable transportation agenda. She has post-graduate studies in Urban and Regional Planning.

In the year 2000, she was awarded a prestigious Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award. In 2009-10, she also received a Fulbright Scholarship to take an M.A. in Community Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, U. S.A.

Katti finds purpose and meaning in teaching art. She has taught in UP Baguio, Ateneo de Manila University and is currently senior lecturer at the UP College of Fine Arts in Diliman where she spends most of her time in the ceramics studio.

The Firefly Brigade is composed of dedicated and fun-loving members and volunteers that embody the Firefly Spirit: an infectious love for cycling; a spirit of volunteerism; a strong sense of community; positive action for the environment; gender-sensitivity and non-discrimination; and responsible cycling behavior.

In order to become a bona fide member of the brigade, you would have to undergo the Firefly Flight Training (FFT) and pass the screening to be done by the current members. As a member, you would also need to share your personal time for promoting the advocacies of the Firefly Brigade.

What's in it for you? You get to spread your love of cycling to the world; have a good time with the brigade; learn more about cycling; proudly wear Firefly Brigade jerseys; get to know the latest news on cycling; and sense of fulfillment in what you're doing.

The Firefly Brigade actively promotes the bicycle as a sustainable form of transportation. Its main advocacies are: organize Critical Mass Rides (CMRs), install provision for bike parking in public/private areas, and campaign for road sharing.

Among its landmark projects include: organizing regular monthly Critical Mass Ride (CMR) to promote visibility on the road for cyclists and road sharing; conducting non-motorized transportation (NMT) forum and linkages with government agencies to promote the NMT agenda; promoting bicycle parking/spaces in commercial establishments and working towards the establishment of cycle-inclusive urban and regional planning; the Project R.A.C.K. (Raising Awareness, Capacities and Knowledge-sharing for the promotion of bicycle use in the Metro); awarding/donation of Bicycle Racks to city halls and government institutions; providing training on safe urban cycling through the Firefly Flight Training (FFT); soliciting bicycles and parts, assembling them, and donating them to cash-strapped students and poor urban communities through the Recycle-A-Bicycle (RAB) project; and, providing needy commuter cyclists with safety gear through the Kitang-Kita ang Bisikleta (KKB) Project.

The Firefly Brigade’s most popular advocacy event is perhaps the Tour of the Fireflies --- an annual bicycle ride (April) around the Metro Manila cities to promote cycling as an alternative means of transportation that is cheap, efficient, environmentally sensible, and good for one's health.

In 2011, Tour of the Fireflies traversed 6 Metropolitan cities (Pasig - San Juan - Quezon City - Manila - Pasay - Mandaluyong) with a total distance of approximately 42 kilometers which took 5 hours to complete at a relaxed pace of 12 to 15 kph.

This year’s 14th edition of the Tour of the Fireflies is scheduled on April 15 and is expected to attract 15,000 bikers from all over Metro Manila and the neighboring provinces and cities. There will also be simultaneous Tour of the Fireflies in key cities across the country, including Baguio.

“The idea of having the Tour of the Fireflies involved a lot of questioning and arguing with God,” Katti once said in a television interview. “At that time I was concerned with our quality of air. More than that, this happened when I was telling God that I was not happy with Him because things are not getting better in this country. After saying that, not long after, this idea came to my mind and it wouldn't go away. I felt that it was something that needed to be done. I was also wondering if this is something He wanted me to do that I would see that He is at work.”

With this resolve, Katti thought of having an environmental event that would mainly feature a bike ride.

With the help of her friends from various environmental organizations, the biking event was soon under way. Katti notes how she was always encouraged by Ramon Fernan III, then the president of the Cycling Advocates (CYCAD), to continue with the project in spite of her being a neophyte in events organizing.

When plans were already underway, the only problem was how to call the event. Katti brought this up with Lorie Tan of Bookmark and president/executive director of the World Wide Life Fund Philippines. Lorie suggested using the adage "When was the last time you saw fireflies in the city?"

The idea clicked well with Katti and she brought that up to Mon Fernan, who likewise picked up the suggestion.

"Fireflies are indicators of the balance in ecology,” she says. “The reason why we don't see fireflies anymore is because the air is really dirty. Trees and clean water are not enough. That's where you'll be able to find fireflies in places like that.”*

Road Revolution

(Originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the Jan 22 to 29, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspaper based in Baguio City, Philippines.)

IT was such an honor getting invited to a forum aptly titled Sustainable Transportation: Advocating Change at the School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

The topics are undoubtedly very relevant at this present time when almost every city in the country, Baguio not exempted, is grappling with their transport and traffic problems and the political issues that hinder their search for eventual solutions.

I do not consider my attendance in the said forum as coincidental (it is more of an appointment with destiny) just because we went to personally invite one of the speakers in the said forum, Atty. Antonio Oposa, Jr., to share us his insights on Road Revolution to a similar forum called “Recreating People-Friendly Session Road” which will be held on January 27 at the University of Cordilleras at 9 o’clock in the morning. The public is cordially invited to the said forum.

Conceptualized out of previous small-group discussions of which I am proud to be part of, it aims to promote and popularize the use of public space for the majority and for the common good (the concept of road sharing), more known as Road Revolution.

Atty. Oposa, who received his law degree from the University of the Philippines and earned his Master of Laws from the Harvard Law School, where he was the commencement speaker of his graduating class, is the legal adviser and international environmental negotiator of the Federated States of Micronesia to the Montreal Protocol and to the climate change negotiations. He is an Environmental Law consultant to various international development agencies while he teaches Environmental Law at the University of the Philippines College of Law and is a visiting lecturer of universities around the world.

He is the author of three books on the Philippine Environment and has won major cases in the Philippine Supreme Court, one of which is the case that established the right of children and of future generations to take legal action to protect the remaining virgin forests of the Philippines which eventually became known as the Oposa Doctrine in Philippine and in international jurisprudence. Another is the case he filed to compel the Philippine Government to clean up Manila Bay and, after more than a decade legal battle, the Supreme Court ordered 12 government agencies to clean up Manila Bay and to report its progress to the court every 90 days.

The Cebuano lawyer is considered as one of Asia’s leading voices in the global arena of Environmental Law. He is the founder of the School of the SEA (Sea, Earth and Air) in the white-sand shores of Bantayan Island in the Central Philippines. The school is totally powered by renewable energy, completely recycled water and solid wastes, and is a physical demonstration of the working principles for sustainable living.

Together with volunteer fishermen, enforcement operatives, scuba divers, scientists, lawyers, and ordinary citizens, he organized the Visayan Sea Squadron --- a seaborne team that helps local communities establish a network of marine sanctuaries around the Visayan Seas where he led some of the most daring enforcement operations against environmental crime syndicates.

For his work, he received The Outstanding Young Man of the Philippines (TOYM) award, and the highest United Nations award in the field of the Environment --- the UNEP Global Roll of Honor. He is the only Asian to receive the International Environmental Law Award from the Washington DC-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).

In 2009, “for his path-breaking and passionate crusade to engage Filipinos in acts of enlightened citizenship that maximize the power of the law to protect and nurture the environment, for themselves, their children, and generations yet unborn,” he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

In the said forum held at the University of the Philippines, Atty. Oposa said that Road Revolution simply means “to review the basics for transportation: why do we need transportation? why do we need roads?”

“Is the city made for people or for cars?” he asked. “Review the fundamentals; revise to make it more fair and to turn it around from having a priority for cars to priority for people,” he added, describing it as plain “madness for cars”.

“There are about a hundred million people in the Philippines and about 3 million motor vehicles, yet we are giving three million vehicles 99 percent of the road whereas these people do not even have a space to walk,” he said. “It is not about air pollution; it is a question of social justice.”

“The road is for everybody; not just for the car owners,” he declared. “Not because you have a car, the road is yours!”

“When you allow a motor vehicle to park on a prime public space on Session Road occupying 12 square meters, parking there the whole day, that’s unjust enrichment,” he argued. “When you benefit yourself at the expense of others.”

Road Revolution “restores sense of community,” he said. “It restores our sense of fun; when you have open spaces, people have spontaneous combustion of sense of fun.”

“We (the Filipinos) have among the best brains in the world but look what happened to our country,” he lamented. “Look at the traffic!”*

Nostalgia

(Originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the Jan. 15 to 21, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspaper based in Baguio City, Philippines.)

THE term ‘nostalgia’ is often used to describe a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.

In common and less clinical usage, ‘nostalgia’ sometimes includes a general interest in past eras and their personalities and events, especially the “good old days”, such as a sudden image, or remembrance of something from one's childhood.

The scientific literature on nostalgia is quite thin, but there are a few fascinating studies that have attempted to pin down the essence of nostalgia, and the reasons that we feel that warm glow when recalling the past. Smell and touch are also strong evokers of nostalgia and memories in general due to the processing of these stimuli first passing through the amygdale --- the emotional seat of the brain.

These recollections of our past are usually important events, people we care about, and places we’ve spent time at. Music is also a strong trigger of nostalgia.

In his book "Great Expectations", Landon Y. Jones wrote: " . . . nostalgia has very little to do with the comparative merits of the pop music of the ‘50s versus the music of the ‘70s . . . nostalgia tells us more about the conditions of the present than the past . . . nostalgia speaks most clearly about the strains our generation has faced dealing with a troubling present and an uncertain future".

Jones also theorized that “nostalgia reflects the discontinuities of the baby boom generation's turbulent coming of age . . . the giant generation, ill at ease with its place in a society that has yet to metabolize it, looks back to the last time it knew when its life was serene and its identity more certain . . . nostalgia is the special affliction of people who have traveled so far or so rapidly in space and time, that they are confused by the present and have no taste for the future.”

“Nostalgia thrives on dislocations in the life cycle whether in the life of an individual or the life of a generation . . . since nostalgia attempts to bridge gaps in our lives, between old selves and new selves, it follows that it is most likely to break out at times when disruptions are the sharpest . . . staggered and disturbed by change, questioning all its assumptions about society and the family, the baby boom (generation) was winding up with something close to a collective identity crisis," he said.

Jones concluded that “nostalgia is a functional emotion which, by shoring up a sagging sense of identity, can help either a person or a generation to cope up with difficult times . . . in nostalgia, a generation have found a haven from anxiety and a means of reaffirming stable identities badly shaken during the passage from the adolescence . . . if offers temporary relief . . . it was not that the past was so wonderful . . . (but) it was that the present is so troubling . . . music, with its ability to distill the most complex emotions into a brief minutes, is the most dependable carrier of nostalgia . . . “

The term was newly coined in 1688 by medical student Johannes Hofer (1669-1752), a Swiss medical student for anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home, although some military doctors believed their problems were specific to the Swiss and caused by the Alpine racket of cowbells.

The word is made up of two Greek roots --- nostos (returning home) and algos (pain/longing) --- to refer to “the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return to his native land, and fears never to see it again”. This neologism was so successful that people forgot its origin. Homesickness is often given as a synonym for nostalgia.

During this period, from the late 17th century to the late 19th century, that doctors diagnosed and treated nostalgia, it also had other names in various languages --- mal du pays (country sickness) in French, heimweh (home-pain) in German, hiraeth in Welsh, and el mal de corazón (heart-pain) in Spanish.

Cases resulting in death were known and soldiers were sometimes successfully treated by being discharged and sent home. Receiving a diagnosis was, however, generally regarded as an insult. In 1787, Robert Hamilton (1749-1830) described a case of a soldier suffering from nostalgia, who received sensitive and successful treatment.

“In the year 1781, while I lay in barracks at Tinmouth in the north of England, a recruit who had lately joined the regiment ... was returned in sick list, with a message from his captain, requesting I would take him into the hospital,” wrote Hamilton.

“He had only been a few months a soldier; was young, handsome, and well-made for the service; but a melancholy hung over his countenance, and wanes preyed on his cheeks; he complained of a universal weakness, but no fixed pain; a noise in his ears, and giddiness of his head; as there were little obvious symptoms of fever, I did not well know what to make of the case,” he added.

“Some weeks passed with little alteration . . . excepting that he was evidently become more meager; he scarcely took any nourishment . . . became indolent . . . he was put on a course of strengthening medicines; wine was allowed him; all proved ineffectual . . . he had now been in the hospital three months, and was quite emaciated, and like one in the last stage of consumption . . . on making my morning visit, and inquiring, as usual, of his rest at the nurse, she happened to mention the strong notions he had got in his head, she said, of home, and of his friends; what he was able to speak was constantly on this topic; this I had never heard of before . . . he had talked in the same style, it seems, less or more, ever since he came into the hospital; I went immediately up to him, and introduced the subject; and from the alacrity with which he resumed it . . . I found it a theme which much affected him; he asked me, with earnestness, if I would let him go home; I pointed out to him how unfit he was, from his weakness to undertake such a journey [he was a Welchman] till once he was better; but promised him, assuredly, without farther hesitation, that as soon as he was able he should have six weeks to go home; he revived at the very thought of it . . . his appetite soon mended; and I saw in less than a week, evident signs of recovery,” Hamilton described it in surgical details and accuracy.

Cases of nostalgia, which sometimes occurred as epidemics, were less frequent when the armies were victorious and more frequent when they suffered reverses.

By the 1850s, nostalgia was losing its status as a particular disease and coming to be seen rather as a symptom or stage of a pathological process. It was considered as a form of melancholia and a predisposing condition among suicides. Nostalgia was, however, still diagnosed among soldiers as late as the American Civil War.

By the 1870s interest in nostalgia as a medical category had all but vanished. Most saw the decline of this serious disease as a good thing, the result of progress.

Nonetheless, some lamented what they saw as the loss of the feelings for home that gave rise to the illness. Of course, the phenomenon of nostalgia did not disappear with its ‘demedicalization’.*

In The Year of Our Lord, 2012

(Originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the January 8 to 14, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspaper based in Baguio City, Philippines.)

2012 (MMXII) is a leap year starting on a Sunday in the Gregorian Calendar. It is the 2012th year of the Anno Domini or Common Era designation, the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 3rd of the 2010s decade.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as The International Year of Cooperatives, highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to socio-economic development, in particular recognizing their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. It has also been designated as The International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.

It has also been designated The Alan Turing Year, commemorating the mathematician, computer pioneer, and code-breaker on the centennial of Turing’s birth.

There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spirituality transformative to the apocalyptic, and center upon various interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Contemporary scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.

PREDICTED and SCHEDULED EVENTS

JANUARY 13 to 22: The first Winter Youth Olympics will be held in Innsbruck, Austria.

JANUARY 31: 433 Eros, the second-largest Near-Earth Object on record (size 13 km × 13 km × 33 km) will pass Earth at 0.1790 astronomical units (26,780,000 km; 16,640,000 mi). NASA studied Eros with the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched on February 17, 1996.

FEBRUARY 6: Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth, marking the 60th anniversary of her accession to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and the 60th anniversary of her becoming Head of the Commonwealth.

MAY 12 to AUGUST 12: The 2012 World Expo is to be held in Yeosu, South Korea.

MAY 20: Annular Solar Eclipse. Path of annularity runs through the Pacific Ocean from northern China to California.

JUNE 6: The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century. The next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.

JUNE 18 to 23: Turing Centenary Conference at the University of Cambridge, in honor of the mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptographer AlanTuring, the last day of the conference being the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

JULY 27: Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics begins in London to become the first city in history to host the Summer Olympic Games three times.

AUGUST 6 to 20: Mars Science Laboratory also known as the Curiosity Rover is scheduled to land on Mars.

AUGUST 12: Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

NOVEMBER 13: Total solar eclipse (visible in Northern Australia and the South Pacific).

DECEMBER 21: The Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization among others, completes a "great cycle" of thirteen b’ak’tuns (periods of 144,000 days each) since the mythical creation date of the calendar's current era.

DECEMBER 31: The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends. The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate change.

The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other states yet to ratify Kyoto include Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan, after Somalia ratified the protocol on 26 July 2010. In 2011, Canada declared its intention to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty.

Under the Protocol, 37 countries ("Annex I countries") commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases or GHG (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, suphur hexaflouride) and two groups of gases (hydroflourocarbons and perflourocarbons) produced by them, and all member countries give general commitments. At negotiations, Annex I countries (including the US) collectively agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent on average for the period 2008-2012. This reduction is relative to their annual emissions in a base year, usually 1990. Since the US has not ratified the treaty, the collective emissions reduction of Annex I Kyoto countries falls from 5.2 percent to 4.2 percent below base year.

After the lack of progress leading to a binding commitment or an extension of the Kyoto commitment period in climate talks at COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009, there were and will be several further rounds of negotiation COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico in 2010, COP 17 in South Africa in 2011, and in Qatar in 2012 (COP 18). Because any treaty change will require the ratification of the text by various countries' legislatures before the end of the commitment period on 31 December 2012, it is likely that agreements in South Africa or South Korea/Qatar will be too late to prevent a gap between the commitment periods.

DATES UNKNOWN BUT ARE EXPECTED TO HAPPEN IN 2012

· China will launch the Kuafu spacecraft.

· The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will be the next major Congress of the Communist party of China.

· Pleiades, a proposed supercomputer built by Intel and SGI for NASA’s Ames Research Center will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 10 Petaflops (10 quadrillion floating point operations per second).

· Sequoia, a proposed supercomputer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.

· On the Sun, the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 in the 11-year sunspot cycle is forecast to occur. Solar Cycle 24 is regarded to have commenced in January 2008 and on average will reach its peak of maximal sunspot activity around 2012. The period between successive solar maxima averages 11 years (the Schwabe Cycle) and the previous solar maximum of Solar Cycle 23 occurred in 2000 to 2002. During the solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic poles will reverse.

· The Kars-Tbilisi-Baku Railway across Caucasus is scheduled to be completed.

· The first quad-core smartphones will be available.

2011: The Year That Was

(Originally published in my sports page column Self-Propelled

in the Jan 1 to 7, 2012 issue of the Baguio Chronicle

--- a weekly newspapers based in Baguio City, Philippines.)

CIVIL unrest, dictators toppled down, terrorist attacks, wars, natural calamities and new scientific discoveries. These are just some of the world events that happened in 2011 that would forever be etched in our memories. Let us look back at them as we look forward to the coming year 2012.

JAN. 8 - Attempted assassination of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store kills 6 and wounds 13, including Giffords.

JAN. 8 – A stampede kills 104 devotees and injures 100 more near Sabarimala in Kerala, India.

JAN. 14 - Ben Ali, former Tunisian president, fled the country to Saudi Arabia after popular protests (dubbed as Jasmine Revolution) requesting his departure.

JAN. 24 - At least 35 died and 180 injured in a bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.

JAN. 25 - Egyptian Revolution of 2011 begins in Egypt, with a series of street demonstrations, marches, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labor strikes, and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, and throughout other cities in Egypt.

JAN. 28 - Hundreds of thousands of protesters fill the Egyptian's streets against the Mubarak regime in demonstrations referred to as the "Friday of Anger".

FEB. 11 - Egyptian Revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and the transfer of power to the Supreme Military Council after 18 days of protests.

FEB. 11 - The 2011 Bahraini uprising commenced.

FEB. 15 - Libyan protests begin opposing Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's rule.

FEB. 22 - An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude rocks Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people.

FEB. 24 – The final Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103).

FEB. 25 - In the Irish general election, the Fianna Fáil-led government suffered the worst defeat of a sitting government since the formation of the Irish state in 1921.

MARCH 9 - Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.

MARCH 11 - An earthquake measuring 9.0 in magnitude strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people. The earthquake also triggered the second largest nuclear accident in history (next to the Chenobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion and fire in 1986; the battle to contain the contamination and avert greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 million Rubles, crippling the Soviet economy) and one of only two events to be classified as a Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

MARCH 12 - A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.

APRIL 1 - After protests against the burning of the Quran turned violent, a mob attacked a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan and killed thirteen people, including eight foreign workers.

APRIL 9 – A gunman murdered 5 people, injured 11, and committed suicide in a mall in The Netherlands.

APRIL 19 - Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.

APRIL 25 - At least 300 people killed in deadliest tornado outbreak in the Southern United States since the 1974 Super Outbreak.

APRIL 27 – The deadliest day of the three-day 2011 Super Outbreak of Tornadoes --- the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded. In total, 353 tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service in 21 states from Texas to New York and even isolated tornadoes in Canada. Widespread and destructive tornadoes occurred on each day of the outbreak, with April 27 being among the most prolific and destructive tornado days in United States history with a record 208 tornadoes touching down that day. In total, 346 people were killed as a result of the outbreak. That death toll includes 322 tornado-related deaths across six states. In addition, 24 fatalities were not caused by tornadoes, but were confirmed to be as a result of other thunderstorm-related impacts such as straight-line winds, hail, flash flooding or lightning. It was also the costliest tornado outbreak and one of the costliest natural disasters in United States history (even after adjustments for inflation), with insured damage estimated as high as $6 billion, and total damages exceeding $10 billion.

APRIL 29 - Wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Kate Middleton.

MAY 1 - Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

MAY 2 - Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man is killed by the US Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

MAY 2 - The 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany, leaving more than 30 people dead and many others sick from the bacteria outbreak.

MAY 22 - An EF5 Tornado strikes the US city of Joplin, Missouri killing at least 158 people, the single deadliest US tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950.

MAY 25 - Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty five year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

JUNE 13 - Christchurch, New Zealand is hit by another strong earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3.

JULY 8 - Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

JULY 9 – South Sudan gains independence and secedes from Sudan.

JULY 10 - British tabloid News of the World publishes its last edition after 168 years in the wake of a phone hacking scandal.

JULY 11 - Neptune completes its first orbit since its discovery on September 23, 1846.

JULY 13 - Mumbai is rocked by three bomb blasts during the evening rush hour, killing 26 and injuring 130.

JULY 21 - NASA's Space Shuttle Program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.

JULY 22 - Norway is the victim of twin terror attacks, the first being a bomb blast which targeted government buildings in central Oslo, the second being a massacre at a youth camp on the island of Utøya.

AUG. 5 - A helicopter containing members of Navy SEAL 6 is shot down in Afghanistan killing 38.

AUG. 16 - Beginning of World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid.

AUG. 18 - The West Memphis Three are released from prison after 18 years in imprisonment. The West Memphis Three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the children were killed as part of a satanic ritual. A number of documentaries have been based on the case, and celebrities and musicians have held fund raisers in the belief that they are innocent.

AUG. 23 - Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War.

AUG. 23 – A 5.8 earthquake hits Mineral, Virginia and was felt as far north as Ontario in Canada and as far south as Atlanta, Georgia.

AUG. 26 - The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Boeing's all-new composite airliner, receives certification from the EASA and the FAA.

SEPT. 7 – A plane crashes in Russia killing 43 people, including nearly the entire roster of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Kontinental Hockey League team.

SEPT. 17 - Occupy Wall Street Movement began in Zucotti Park, New York City.

SEPT. 20 - The United States ends its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

SEPT. 22 – The European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN scientists announce their discovery of neutrinos breaking the speed of light.

OCT. 15 - Global protests break out in 951 cities in 82 countries.

OCT. 15 - Legoland Florida opens in Winter Haven, Florida the largest Legoland theme park in the world.

OCT. 18 - Gilad Shalit is released. He is an Israeli–French citizen and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who was captured inside Israel by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid via underground tunnels near the Israeli border with Gaza on June 25, 2006. The Hamas militants held him for over 5 years until his release as part of the terms of a prisoner exchange.

OCT. 20 - The former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi and his son Moatassem Gaddafi are killed shortly after the Battle of Sirte while in the custody of National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters.

OCT. 23 - A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake strikes Van Province, Turkey, killing 582 people and injuring thousands.

OCT. 27 - The Royal Australian Navy announces that they discovered the wreck of a World War II submarine (most likely to be Japanese) in Simpson Harbour, Papua New Guinea during Operation RENDER SAFE.

OCT. 29 - Record-breaking snowstorm in the northeastern US leaves nearly 2 million residents without power for more than 36 hours.

OCT. 31 - The world population reaches 7 billion inhabitants according to the United Nations.

NOV. 8 - The potentially hazardous Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 324,600 kilometers or 201,700 miles), the closest known approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15 in 1976.

NOV. 12 - Silvio Berlusconi resigns as Prime Minister of Italy due, in large part, to the European sovereign debt crisis.

NOV. 18 – Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was arrested after a Pasay City court issued a warrant for her arrest, following the filing of a complaint for electoral sabotage by the Commission on Elections; the arrest warrant was served at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig where she had been confined; days earlier, the Supreme Court issued a Resolution enjoining attempts by the Department of Justice to prevent her departure from the Philippines to seek medical treatment overseas.

NOV. 23 - After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.

NOV. 25 - Sudden violent storms strike southern Sri Lanka, killing 27 people and drowning many fishermen caught by surprise; Thousands of homes lose their roofs and several more sustain damage; Landslides, along with flooding, were reported on the mainland.

NOV. 26 - NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani checkpoint in a friendly fire incident killed 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others.

DEC. 1 – A mass shooting occurs in east Texas, killing 4 children who are confirmed to be all below 5 years old; one dies and 16 others were injured in three separate chain-reaction crashes involving 176 cars in Nashville, Tennessee.

DEC. 4 - Australia approves exports of uranium to India ; American golfer Tiger Woods wins the Chevron World Challenge --- his first tournament win in over two years.

DEC. 6 - After 541 days negotiations, the longest in history, the new federal government of Belgium is sworn in, with Elio di Rupo as Prime Minister, making him the first Walloon to reach this position in 38 years and the second openly gay head of government in the world.

DEC. 7 - The former President of Israel Moshe Katsav arrives at a prison outside Tel Aviv to start a seven-year term for rape; the former Governor of the US state of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is sentenced to 14 years in jail for corruption.

DEC. 8 - An investigation by the Associated Press and German media uncovers a secret prison suspected of having been operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Bucharest, Romania; the China executed a Filipino for drug trafficking despite a plea for clemency from the President of the Philippines on humanitarian grounds.

DEC. 10 - A light cargo plane crashed into an elementary school in Parañaque and killed 13; a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hits the Mexican state of Guerrero; astronomers in Asia, Australia, and North American observe a total lunar eclipse.

DEC. 11 – North Korea warns of “unexpected consequences” if SouthKorea lights a Christmas tree near their mutual border; former Panamanian leader of Manuel Noriega is extradited home from France and the US where he has been serving jail sentences for the past 22 years to serve more time for his role in the murder of political opponents.

DEC. 12 - The House of Representatives of the Philippines impeaches Chief Justice after 188 representatives signed a complaint. This is the second impeachment passed in the year after the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez early in March.

DEC. 15 – The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War; the US flag is lowered in Baghdad marking the end of US military operations in Iraq after nearly 9 years of the Iraq War.

DEC. 16 – Typhoon Sendong (International Codename Washi) brings 10 hours of torrential rains that triggered disastrous flash flooding over Mindanao, an area that rarely experiences tropical cyclones. More than 200 mm (7.9 in) of rain was reported in places where rivers were already swollen. During the overnight hours, hundreds of people were killed as flood waters and landslides destroyed homes along mountain sides. In some locations, flood waters rose by 3.3 m (11 ft) in less than an hour. Residents impacted by these flood waters were forced to seek refuge on their roofs amidst 90 km/h (55 mph) winds. The mayor of Iligan regarded the floods as the worst in the city's history. More than 2,000 people were rescued from the hardest hit areas. The total cost of damages to agriculture and infrastructure is estimated at P999.9 million according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. Government’s death toll estimates may reach 3,000.

DEC. 16 - Star baseball player Barry Bonds is sentenced to 30 days of home detention on obstruction of justice charges following misleading evidence about steroid use.

DEC. 19 - The death of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il on December 17 is announced by the Korean Central Television; military forces of neighboring South Korea are placed on high alert following the death of Kim Jong-il, fearing possible retaliation from North Korea; Kim Jong-un is proclaimed the expected successor to his father; a short-range missile test is conducted off North Korea's east coast.

DEC. 20 – Chinese police beat protesters and fire tear gas after demonstrators storm government buildings in Haimen in protest against a local 'polluting coal-powered electricity generation plant.

DEC. 22 – Brazilian police seek to press charges for environmental crimes committed by the US oil company Chevron and drilling firm TransOcean in relation to last month's Campos Basil oil spill.*