Portal:Current events/2012 February 6

• 2011–2012 Syrian uprising
  • Syrian government forces continue shelling the city of Homs with at least 17 people dead today. (AP via Google News)
  • Hacker group Anonymous publishes hundreds of emails from President Bashar al-Assad's office. (Haaretz)
  • The United States closes its embassy in Damascus, while the United Kingdom recalls its ambassador. (Washington Post) (CNN)
  • Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, says Turkey's doors were “open to all Syrians who want to flee from oppression.” (Hurriyet Daily News)
• Gunmen kill five refugees from the Libyan town of Tawergha in a camp in a Tripoli suburb. (Reuters)
• More than 1000 Brazilian Army and police surround the state Legislative Assembly in Salvador, Bahia, after striking police officers and their families occupy it. (Al-Jazeera)

• Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies, a pioneer of abstract art, dies in Barcelona at the age of 88. (AFP via Google News)

• Greek government debt crisis: The government of Greece fails to reach agreement over the terms of a new bailout from the European Union, but retracts the deadline they had given themselves to do so, 30 minutes before the deadline would have passed. (The Guardian)

• A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hits near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 13 deaths and 29 people missing with houses buried in a landslide in Guihulngan. (AP via Google News)
• A three-storey factory collapses in the Pakistani city of Lahore after a gas explosion resulting in at least three deaths with dozens of workers trapped. (Reuters)
• A motor vehicle crash near Hampstead, Ontario between a passenger van carrying 13 people and an eighteen-wheeler truck kills 11, including the van driver and ten Peruvian migrant workers. (CBC) (The Globe and Mail) (Hamilton Spectator)

• Queen Elizabeth II marks the 60th anniversary of her becoming the monarch of the United Kingdom and seven other sovereign states in the Commonwealth of Nations with events to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee set for later in the year. (BBC)
• Myanmar's Election Commission clears National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to run in a by-election in the seat of Kawhmu. (AP via US News and World Report)
• Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc and his entire cabinet resign after major social and political unrest in the country. (The Guardian)
• The BBC reports that rival Palestinian factions have agreed to form a government led by President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of elections. (BBC)

• In cycling, the Court of Arbitration for Sport bans Spanish rider Alberto Contador for two years for doping and strips him of championships including the 2010 Tour de France. (The Guardian)