July 25, 2012 (Wednesday)
Armed conflict and attacks
- Syrian civil war:
- The Syrian Army reportedly fires rockets and artillery barrages at the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Al-Tall. (Al-Jazeera)
- Lamia al-Hariri, Syrian ambassador to Cyprus, and her husband Abdelatif al-Dabbagh, Syrian ambassador to the UAE, defect to Qatar. (Al Jazeera)(Al Arabiya)
- Nine people are killed overnight in ethnic clashes in the Indian state of Assam with the total death toll since last Friday being 35. (AFP via New Straits Times)
Business and economy
- Egan-Jones Ratings Company downgrades Italy to CCC+ from B+, saying the country has a one-year default probability of 22%. (MarketWatch)
- Official figures indicate economic output in the United Kingdom fell by 0.7% between April and June, meaning the recession has deepened in the country. (BBC)
Disasters
- A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs off the Indonesian island of Sumatra with one man dying while fleeing his home. (AFP via Google News)
Law and crime
- The court hearings are rescheduled for Leonid Khabarov, an alleged mastermind behind the new Russian revolution. (ITAR-TASS)
- A private South Korean committee announces that it plans to file a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court against North Korea over repatriation of prisoners of war and remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War. (Yonhap)
Politics and elections
- Guo Jinlong resigns as the Mayor of the Chinese capital Beijing with Wang Anshun appointed as the acting mayor. (Xinhua)
- Pranab Mukherjee is sworn in as the President of India. (IBN Live).
- North Korea state media declares the marriage of Kim Jong-un and Ri Sol-ju. (BBC)
- Union officials call off a public sector strike in the United Kingdom scheduled for the eve of the 2012 Olympics. (BBC)
- The Scottish Government announce plans to legalise same-sex marriage, prospectively becoming the first part of the United Kingdom to do so. (BBC)
- Ivica Dačić is sworn in as the Prime Minister of Serbia.
Sports
- The 2012 Summer Olympics commences in Great Britain with the Women's football tournament. (CNN-IBN)
Transport
- The UK's Manchester Airport launches an inquiry after an 11-year-old boy boarded a plane to Rome unaccompanied, and without passport, tickets or boarding pass. (BBC) (The Guardian)