January 2021

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This article covers daily news and events in January 2021 . An overview of articles on thematic "long-running hits" and on longer-lasting events can be found on the page on current events .

Daily events

Friday 1st January 2021

• Accra / Ghana : The African free trade area based on the African free trade agreement is opened.
• Berlin / Germany : The minimum wage increases by 1.6% to € 9.50; the VAT rises again to the regular 19%, the reduced rate to 7%.
• Brussels / Belgium : Portugal takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union .
• Washington, DC / United States : With 81-13 votes, the United States Congress overturns a veto by US President Donald Trump against the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021.
• Vienna / Austria : The New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic will be conducted for the sixth time by Riccardo Muti . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , it will take place without an audience.

Saturday 2nd January 2021

• Tchioma Bangou and Zaroumbey Darey / Niger : At least 70 civilians are killed and 20 others injured in a simultaneous Islamist terrorist attack on two neighboring villages in the west of the country, near the border with Mali . The attack occurs a few days after the parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential election . It was possibly in retaliation for the earlier murder of two fighters by a self-defense group set up by the villagers.

Sunday 3rd January 2021

• Basel / Switzerland : The river flea shrimp is named Animal of the Year in Switzerland .
• London / United Kingdom : The Welshman Gerwyn Price defeated the Scotsman Gary Anderson in the final of the PDC World Darts Championship 2021 with 7: 3 and won his first world title and thus rose to number 1 in the PDC world rankings .
• Washington, DC / United States : Members of the 117th United States Congress are sworn in and begin their work. Nancy Pelosi is re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Monday 4th January 2021

• Brandenburg an der Havel / Germany : The new Federal Office for Foreign Affairs is opened.
• Brussels / Belgium : The European Commission approves German state aid in the amount of 1.25 billion euros to recapitalize the travel group TUI , which has suffered losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic due to travel restrictions imposed by the authorities .
• Kuwait City / Kuwait : Foreign Minister Ahmed Nassir al-Mohammed al-Sabah announces that, at the suggestion of the Emir of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have agreed to immediately reopen their borders, which were closed since 2017 during the Qatar crisis . The chief political advisor to US President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner , was also involved as a mediator .
• London / United Kingdom : The Westminster Magistrates' Court chaired by Judge Vanessa Baraitser decides after a hearing in the first instance that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States. As a justification, she cites the conditions of detention Julian Assange has to reckon with and his mental health. The US announced that it would appeal.
• Moscow / Russia : After a change in labor law, women are allowed to drive the Moscow subway as drivers for the first time .
• Seoul / South Korea : The Korail railway company puts the KTX-Eum high-speed train into operation on the Jungang route .

Tuesday 5th January 2021

• Atlanta / United States : In the extraordinary election (runoff) for the United States Senate in Georgia , the Democrat Raphael Warnock wins against the Republican incumbent, Senator Kelly Loeffler , with 51% to 49%. This is the first ever African American to win a state election in Georgia for federal office. Warnock also becomes the first African American in the US Senate for Georgia. It is also the first victory for the Democrats in a US Senate election in Georgia since 2000. The regular runoff election in Georgia is won by Democrat Jon Ossoff against Republican David Perdue by about 1%. Ossoff becomes the youngest US Senator after the inauguration. By swearing in the two candidates, the Democrats take control of the US Senate.

Wednesday 6th January 2021

• Bischofshofen / Austria : The Polish ski jumper Kamil Stoch wins the Four Hills Tournament for the third time .
• Washington, DC / United States : The United States Congress begins counting and confirming the votes cast by the Electoral College to elect the new US President at the Capitol . The procedure is interrupted for a few hours because a protest mob of supporters of the still incumbent US President Donald Trump violently enters the building . Five people die, including a woman from serious gunshot wounds.

Thursday 7th January 2021

• Munich / Germany : According to Munich Re's damage balance sheet , 8,200 people died in natural disasters in 2020.
• Vienna / Austria : Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl is voted Austrian Scientist of the Year 2020 by the Club of Education and Science Journalists .

Friday 8th January 2021

• Vatican City : With Vicenzo Buonomo , Pope Francis appoints a layman for the first time as President of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia .

Saturday 9 January 2021

• Jakarta / Indonesia : A Boeing 737-524 of the low-cost airline Sriwijaya Air with 62 people on board crashes on flight 182 shortly after take-off from Soekarno-Hatta airport near the Seribu archipelago into the Java Sea .
• Madrid / Spain : Storm Filomena paralyzes parts of Spain and kills at least four people. The Madrid-Barajas airport is temporarily operating.
• Vienna / Austria : Christine Aschbacher , Federal Minister for Labor, Family and Youth in the Federal Government Kurz II, declares her resignation after allegations of plagiarism with regard to her diploma thesis and dissertation.

Sunday 10th January 2021

• Bishkek / Kyrgyzstan : presidential election and constitutional referendum
• Islamabad / Pakistan : A defect in the Guddu thermal power station leads to a nationwide power outage lasting several hours on Sunday night.
• Nur-Sultan / Kazakhstan : General election
• Xicheng near Qixia , Shandong Province / People's Republic of China : In the Hushan gold mine of Shandong Wucailong Investment Co. Ltd. if an explosion occurs, 22 miners are trapped underground.

Monday, January 11, 2021

• Geneva / Switzerland : The trial against Beny Steinmetz has started.
• Paris / France : Emmanuel Macron opens the fourth and first virtual One Planet Summit .

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

• Kiev / Ukraine : During her first visit abroad with her Ukrainian counterpart, Moldovan President Maia Sandu affirmed the willingness of both countries to join the Three Seas Initiative and the European Union .

Wednesday January 13th 2021

• Bangui / Central African Republic : The armed forces repel a rebel attack by supporters of the former President François Bozizé on the capital Bangui.
• Berlin / Germany : Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier gives a speech on the 150th anniversary of the founding of the German Empire .
• Cairo / Egypt : Start of the men's handball world championship 2021 (until January 31)
• Lamezia Terme / Italy : The trial of 350 suspects of the Calabrian Mafia 'Ndrangheta begins.
• Washington, DC / United States : One week before the end of the US President's term of office, the US House of Representatives votes for a second impeachment trial against Donald Trump .

Thursday January 14, 2021

• Kampala / Uganda : Parliamentary and presidential elections are held in Uganda . In the latter case, the election commission declared incumbent Yoweri Museveni the winner, he prevailed with 59% of the vote, his competitor Bobi Wine received 35% of the votes.
• Paris / France : An original drawing of the title page of The Blue Lotus by Hergé , which was never published, was auctioned for 3.2 million euros.

Friday 15th January 2021

• Berlin / Germany : Beginning of the digital CDU federal party convention with new election of the federal executive board as the first digital election in German party history.
• Brasília / Brazil : In several cities of the country there were demonstrations against the president of the country, Jair Bolsonaro . He is accused of failing to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic . Many demonstrators called for Bolsonaro to resign.
• The Hague / Netherlands : The Dutch government under Prime Minister Mark Rutte draws the conclusions from a financial affair and submits a resignation.
• Mamuju / Indonesia : At least 73 people were killed in an earthquake in West Sulawesi ; more than 740 were injured.
• Moscow / Russia : The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Russia is starting to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty .
• Worldwide: Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia, turns 20.

Saturday, January 16, 2021

The new CDU chairman Armin Laschet

• Berlin / Germany : As the successor to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer , the delegates of the CDU party congress elect Armin Laschet as the new party chairman. He wins in the second ballot against Friedrich Merz , Norbert Röttgen was eliminated in the first ballot .
• Dallas / United States : The NRA filed for bankruptcy.
• El Geneina / Sudan : Over 80 people are killed in violent clashes between members of different ethnic groups in the Darfur region . The trigger was the violent death of an Arab man from the Masalit ethnic group in the Krinding camp for internally displaced persons.

Sunday 17th January 2021

• Mojave / United States : The space company Virgin Orbit succeeds in its first satellite launch with the airborne launcher LauncherOne .

Monday, January 18, 2021

• Moscow / Russia : After landing in Moscow, the opposition politician Alexei Navalny was placed under arrest by the local authorities. The arrest has been condemned internationally and Nawalny's immediate release has been demanded. A Russian court urgently sentenced him to 30 days in prison.
• Rome / Italy : The Italian Chamber of Deputies expresses its confidence in Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ( Conte II cabinet ).
• Zurich / Switzerland : The International Ice Hockey Federation withdraws co-hosts Belarus the Mitausrichtung of this year's World Ice Hockey Championships . The official reason given is "safety concerns".

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

• Berlin / Germany : The Prime Ministers of the federal states, as well as Chancellor Angela Merkel , meet for a special summit to discuss further measures to contain the corona pandemic .
• Cologny / Switzerland : The World Economic Forum publishes the annual World Risks Report in the run-up to its annual meeting .

Wednesday 20th January 2021

46th President of the United States Joe Biden

The 49th Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris

• Washington, DC / United States : Joe Biden has been officially sworn in as the 46th President of the United States . Kamala Harris has been officially sworn in as the 49th Vice President of the United States . She becomes the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American in United States history to hold this office.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

• Baghdad / Iraq : At least 28 people are killed and 73 others are injured in a terrorist attack in which two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a busy market after a chase. This is the first terrorist attack in the Iraqi capital since June 2019 (see list of explosive attacks ).
• Salzburg / Austria : Beginning of the Mozart Week

Friday, January 22nd, 2021

• The Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty comes into force.

Saturday, January 23, 2021

• Moscow / Russia : After Alexei Navalny was arrested , there were nationwide protests in Russia with numerous arrests.

Sunday January 24th 2021

• Cape Canaveral / United States : The company SpaceX is launching 143 satellites into space with a Falcon 9 rocket , setting a new record .
• Lisbon / Portugal : In the presidential election in Portugal , incumbent Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected for a second term.

Monday, January 25, 2021

• Start of the Davos Agenda of the World Economic Forum (until January 29)

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Kaja Kallas , Prime Minister of Estonia

• Rome / Italy : After the ruling coalition broke, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte submitted his resignation.
• Sydney / Australia : Demonstration against Australia Day .
• Washington, DC / United States : The United States and Russia have agreed to extend the New START disarmament treaty for another five years.
• Tallinn / Estonia : Kaja Kallas is the first female head of government to take over the office of Prime Minister .

Wednesday January 27, 2021

• Frankfurt am Main / Germany : A message from Federal and the General Prosecutor Frankfurt According to German investigators have the infrastructure of the current world's most dangerous malware Emotet taken over and destroyed.
• Washington, DC / United States : US President Joe Biden orders the stop of new oil and gas wells on state-owned land. Existing contracts and drilling on private land are not affected by this decree. He also announces that 30 percent of the state-owned land will be placed under nature protection by 2030.
• Warsaw / Poland : After the Polish government has made its justification for tightening abortion law public, demonstrations take place in many cities in the following days to protest against the reformed abortion law.

Thursday, January 28, 2021

• Frankfurt am Main / Germany : In the criminal proceedings for the murder of the Kassel District President Walter Lübcke , the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main sentenced the main defendant Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment. Lübcke was shot in front of his house in Istha on June 1, 2019 . It is the first right-wing extremist murder of a German politician since 1945.

Friday 29th January 2021

Saturday 30th January 2021

Sunday 31st January 2021

See also

• Nekrolog January 2021 for deaths this month
• List of annually recurring memorial and action days in January
• Category for commemorative days, holidays or action days in January

Web links

Commons : January 2021  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ United States Senate: Roll Call Vote 116th Congress - 2nd Session , January 1, 2021, accessed January 2, 2021
2. ↑ New Year's concert without an audience "strange". In: ORF.at . December 10, 2020, accessed December 26, 2020 . 
3. ↑ tagesschau.de: More than 70 dead in the attack in Niger on January 3, 2021, accessed on January 3, 2021
4. ↑ https://www.merkur.de/politik/niger-schwerer-anschlag-tote-is-al-kaida-terror-mali-terrorgruppen-wahl-zr-90157098.html
5. ↑ From rugby professional to number one in darts. In: spiegel.de. January 3, 2020, accessed January 4, 2021 . 
6. ↑ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/de/ip_21_7
7. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/saudi-arabien-katar-101.html
8. ↑ https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2951027
9. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/world/middleeast/qatar-saudi-arabia.html
10. ↑ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/endet-das-arabische-embargo-gegen-qatar-17088630.html
11. ↑ Spiegel Online: Assange should not be delivered to the USA on January 4, 2021, accessed on January 4, 2021
12. ↑ Konstantin Zimmermann: Women are allowed to control the Moscow subway for the first time. In: time online . January 4, 2021, accessed January 7, 2021 . 
13. ↑ Final competition in Bischofshofen: Kamil Stoch wins the Four Hills Tournament , Spiegel online , accessed on January 7, 2021
14. ^ Evening Standard: Donald Trump supporters storm US Capitol in protest over Joe Biden election victory
15. ↑ Why there will be billions in damage from natural disasters worldwide in the future In: Handelsblatt from January 7, 2021, accessed on January 7, 2021
16. ↑ Scientist of the Year: Virologist Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl. In: ORF.at . January 7, 2021, accessed January 7, 2021 . 
17. ↑ Andrea Gagliarducci: First lay head of disciplinary commission at Roman Curia appointed. In: Catholic News Agency . January 8, 2021, accessed January 28, 2021 . 
18. ↑ Moldovan President arrives in Ukraine on her first foreign visit. In: ukrinform.net. January 12, 2021, accessed January 16, 2021 . 
19. ↑ Ukraine, Moldova willing to join Three Seas Initiative. In: uawire.org. January 12, 2021, accessed January 16, 2021 . 
20. ^ Antoine Rolland: Bullets and panic: rebels attack Central African Republic capital. In: Reuters . January 13, 2021, accessed January 16, 2021 . 
21. ↑ The Federal President: 150th anniversary of the founding of the German Empire, Bellevue Palace, January 13, 2021.
22. ↑ Donald Trump: House of Representatives opens impeachment proceedings. In: Spiegel online . January 13, 2021, accessed January 14, 2021 . 
23. ↑ Uganda: Veteran leader Yoweri Museveni declared election winner. In: BBC . January 16, 2021, accessed January 16, 2021 . 
24. ↑ Brazilians queue for oxygen. Retrieved January 17, 2021 . 
25. ↑ Dutch government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte resigns. In: Spiegel online . January 15, 2021, accessed January 19, 2021 . 
26. ↑ Armin Laschet elected as the new CDU chairman. In: Spiegel online . January 16, 2021, accessed January 16, 2021 . 
27. ^ US arms organization NRA files for bankruptcy. Retrieved January 17, 2021 . 
28. ↑ More than 80 dead in fighting. In: Spiegel online. January 17, 2021, accessed January 17, 2021 . 
29. ↑ Navalny affair: USA and Berlin increase pressure on Russia. Retrieved January 18, 2021 . 
30. ↑ Silke Bigalke: Russia: Navalny demonstrated Putin. Retrieved January 18, 2021 . 
31. ↑ World Federation withdraws the World Cup from Belarus. In: time online . January 18, 2021, accessed January 19, 2021 . 
32. ↑ https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021
33. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/weltwirtschaft/weltrisikobericht-weltwirtschaftsforum-klimawandel-klimaschutz-101.html
34. ↑ Dozens of dead and injured in the attack in Baghdad. In: Spiegel online . January 21, 2021, accessed January 21, 2021 . 
35. ↑ Mozart Week. Retrieved October 6, 2020 . 
36. ↑ Italy's Prime Minister Conte resigned. In: Spiegel online . January 26, 2021, accessed January 26, 2021 . 
37. ^ Large demonstration against "Australia Day". In: Deutschlandfunk . January 26, 2021, accessed January 26, 2021 . 
38. ↑ tagesschau.de: Estonia is getting a head of government for the first time. Retrieved January 25, 2021 . 
39. ↑ German investigators render Emotet malware harmless. In: time online . January 27, 2021, accessed January 27, 2021 . 
40. ↑ Biden imposes a stop on oil and gas drilling on federally owned land. In: time online. January 27, 2021, accessed January 27, 2021 . 
41. ↑ Poles resist the abortion ban. In: n-tv. January 30, 2021, accessed January 30, 2021 . 
42. ↑ Lübcke Trial: Family calls judgment disappointing , Deutschlandfunk , January 28, 2021, accessed on January 29, 2021