Portal:Current events/2012 August 1

August 1, 2012 (Wednesday)

Arts and culture

Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 suspense thriller Vertigo is named as the greatest film of all time in a poll by the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine. (BBC)

Business and economy

Power is restored in India following an earlier blackout in three grids that left over 600 million people without power. (AFP via France 24)
Saudi Aramco is ranked by Forbes as the first among the world's 25 largest oil companies. (Global Financial Network)
Knight Capital Group lost $440 million in 45 minutes due to the improper deployment of software on servers and the re-use of a critical software flag that caused old unused software code to execute during trading.^[1]

Disasters

Heading toward Taiwan, slow-moving Typhoon Saola's torrential rains lead to the deaths of at least 12 people and displacement of 154,000 in the Philippines. (The Washington Post)

Law and crime

The Tal Law, which granted a sweeping exemption from military service to a majority of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox population in Israel, expires. As a result Defense Minister Ehud Barak orders the Israeli Defense Forces to prepare for a universal draft of ultra-Orthodox Jewish males in 30 days. (BBC) (Jerusalem Post) (Ynet) (USA Today)
Somali security forces kill two suicide bombers trying to infiltrate a meeting of 825 Somali elders discussing the country's new constitution in Mogadishu. (AP via Chron.com)
Prosecutors formally charge three Mexican Army generals, including active General Roberto Dawe Gonzalez and retired General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, and a lieutenant-colonel for their alleged links to a drug trafficking organization known as the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. (The Washington Post)
Four coordinated low intensity bombs explode in the Indian city of Pune. (CNN-IBN) (DNA India)

Politics and elections

A second Israeli who set himself on fire in protest of economic difficulties in Tel Aviv dies of his injuries in hospital. (Reuters)

Sport

2012 Summer Olympics: The Badminton World Federation charges eight women's doubles players from South Korea, China and Indonesia with "not using one's best efforts to win a match". (BBC)