Portal:Current events/2012 October 25

Current events of October 25, 2012 (2012-10-25) (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks Syrian civil war: The Syrian government announces via its state media that it will suspend military operations from Friday to Monday, during this year's Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, as part of a ceasefire proposal by U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. (CNN) Business and economics Official GDP figures indicate the 2012 Summer Olympics helped the UK economy emerge from recession in the three months from July to September, with growth of 1.0%. (BBC) Costa Coffee—the world's second-largest coffeehouse chain—pulls out of Totnes, the Devon town that prides itself on having independent shops. (BBC) (ITV) (The Huffington Post) Disasters Hurricane Sandy heads towards The Bahamas after making landfall in Cuba and Jamaica. (CNN) Law and crime A rape claim against a major Irish celebrity is investigated. The victim was made pregnant during her ordeal. (Irish Independent) A jury fails to reach a verdict in the retrial of a policeman thought to have racially abused a suspect in the aftermath of the 2011 England riots. (BBC) Scotland Yard says that the number of potential victims in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal has risen to 300. (The Daily Telegraph) (The Guardian) A New York Police Department officer, 6-year employee Gilberto Valle III along with an unnamed co-conspirator, is charged with allegedly conspiring to cross state lines and kidnap, torture, cook, and eat women (at least 100 names and pictures, some with physical descriptions, were found on his computer). He could get up to life in prison. (MSN) Politics and elections Amid concerns of voting fraud, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign is linked to Hart InterCivic a firm providing the voting machines to be used to tally the ballots in the crucial state of Ohio. (The Belfast Telegraph)(Salon.com) France's interior minister Manuel Valls is embroiled in controversy amid reports he ordered police to clear his Paris neighbourhood of homeless so his wife could go about her shopping "in peace". (Ottawa Citizen) Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and his cabinet are approved by the Parliament of Georgia following the victory in the parliamentary election. (BBC News) Israeli Prime Minister and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman announce the unification of their two parties which will run as a single bloc for the upcoming election to be held in January 2013; the joint party will be called "Likud Beiteinu" ("The Likud Is Our Home") and Netanyahu will be number 1 on the list, followed by Liberman who will be number 2 on the list. (BBC) (The Jewish Press) (The Times of Israel) Religion and diplomacy Bishop Richard Williamson, because of his opposition to dialogue and his Holocaust denial, is expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) by its superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay. The SSPX is a formerly breakaway ultra-conservative Roman Catholic society founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre that is critical of many of the changes in the Church brought about by Vatican Council II. (Catholic News Service) Sports Emanuel Steward, International Boxing Hall of Fame inducted trainer, and most notable for training 41 world champion fighters throughout his career, including Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, Thomas Hearns, and Tony Tucker, dies at the age of 68. (ESPN)