January 20, 2012 (Friday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2011–2012 Syrian uprising: At least 10 people are killed in violence after Friday prayers. (CNN)
- AMISOM troops raid Islamist hideouts in the Somali capital Mogadishu. (AFP via Google News)
- Several people are killed in a series of bomb explosions in the city of Kano, Nigeria. (Vanguard)
- The United Nations says 120,000 people in South Sudan required aid amid tribal fighting. (Reuters)
- Fighting between Tuareg rebels and government troops in Mali kills 47 people. (IOL)
Arts and culture
- An Indonesian man is charged with blasphemy after saying that God does not exist on his Facebook page. (The Jakarta Globe) (BBC)
- Writer Salman Rushdie withdraws from the Jaipur Literature Festival in India due to new concerns about his possible assassination. (BBC)
International relations
- Chile's Supreme Court convicts two retired generals of illegal weapons sales to Croatia in 1991 in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. (Newsday)
- China warns Iran against developing nuclear weapons. (UPI)
Politics and elections
- Marking five years since the assassination of Hrant Dink, Turks protest.(Wall Street Journal)
- 2011–2012 Yemeni uprising: The Yemeni government modifies a new bill that would have granted legal immunity to aides of outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh. (Ahram Online)
- Cuban dissident Wilmar Villar dies after going on hunger strike. (Straits Times)
- Madagascar's former President Marc Ravalomanana says he will return to the country after three years in exile. (Al Jazeera)
- Romanian protests: Thousands of people demonstrate demanding the resignation of president Traian Băsescu and the Boc II Cabinet. (BBC)
- Around 2,000 women in Malawi stage a protest against attacks on women wearing trousers, who were stripped in the streets by unemployed youths and street vendors. (The Telegraph)
- SOPA and PIPA are postponed indefinitely as a result of the recent protests. (CNN)
Television
- TVOKids Premiere of Finding Stuff Out