Timeline 2007 January-March
Return to home
2007 Jan 1,
The 9th-ranked Boise State Broncos completed a perfect season with a
43-42 overtime victory over No. 7 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
Southern California beat Michigan 32-18 in the Rose Bowl.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, In SF the minimum
wage rose 3.6% to $9.14 per hour following a mandatory 2003
requirement for annual cost of living adjustments. SF police
reported a decline in homicides to 85 in 2006, down from 96 in 2005.
(SFC, 1/2/07, p.E1)
2007 Jan 1, In Washington DC a
smoking ban passed in 2005 was extended to bars and nightclubs. The
ban for smoking in restaurants and offices had taken effect in April
2006.
(SFC, 1/2/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, In Denver,
Colorado, Broncos football player Darrent Williams was killed in a
drive-by shooting in the early morning and two people with him were
injured. On October 8, 2008, Willie D. Clark (25) was indicted for
the murder.
(Reuters, 1/1/07)(AP, 10/9/08)
2007 Jan 1, Tillie Olsen (94),
writer and SF labor activist, died. In 1961 she won the O. Henry
Award for best short story for her “Tell me Riddle.” In 2008 Ann
Hershey completed her documentary “Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action.”
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.E1)
2007 Jan 1, Grand Ole Opry star
Del Reeves died at age 74.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2007 Jan 1, The government of
President Evo Morales approved a decree requiring US citizens to
obtain visas to enter Bolivia. Morales said the decree was "a matter
of reciprocity." The US government requires Bolivians to obtain
visas to enter the United States.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, In Brazil Sergio
Cabral took office as governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The
state’s economy was valued at around $130 billion, about the same as
that of Venezuela.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.50)
2007 Jan 1, Bulgaria and
Romania joined the EU. Some 30,000 Israelis gained EU citizenship
due to their dual registration in Romania.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A11)(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, China’s government
began requiring all companies listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai
stock markets to prepare their accounts according to Int’l.
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The initial decision had been
made in Nov 2005. New rules came into effect that allowed foreign
reporters to go more or less where they pleased.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.13, 63)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.18)
2007 Jan 1, Li Zhaoxing,
China's foreign minister, signed a string of accords in Benin as
part of a whistle-stop tour of seven African nations as Beijing
bolsters economic ties on the continent. From Benin Li flew to
Equatorial Guinea ahead of visits in the coming days to
Guinea-Bissau, Chad, the Central African Republic, Eritrea and
Botswana.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, In Germany a
government plan to encourage working couples to have children went
into effect with benefits worth up to 25,200 euros (17,000 pounds).
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, Hong Kong became a
mostly smoke-free city as a ban on smoking in many public places
went into effect.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, Flight KI-574, an
Indonesian passenger plane carrying 102 people, disappeared in
stormy weather off Sulawesi island. Rescue teams were sent to search
in the area where the Boeing 737-400 sent out a distress signal. In
2008 investigators said the pilots had accidentally disconnecting
the plane's autopilot. A speed boat capsized in poor weather off the
coast of Borneo island, killing 15 people.
(AP, 1/1/07)(AP, 1/2/07)(AFP, 3/25/08)
2007 Jan 1, Iraqi authorities
reported that 16,273 Iraqis, including 14,298 civilians, 1,348
police and 627 soldiers died violent deaths in 2006. Iraqi police
reported finding the 40 handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-riddled
bodies in Baghdad. The US military killed six Iraqis during a raid
on the offices of a prominent Sunni political figure, where American
forces believed al-Qaida fighters had taken refuge. A US soldier was
killed by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad. The blast wounded
three others, including an interpreter, as they talked with local
residents about sectarian violence.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 1, A photographer for
the French news agency Agence France Presse was kidnapped in Gaza
City just before sundown.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, Somali government
troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and fighter jets captured the last
major stronghold of a militant Islamic movement, while hundreds of
Islamic fighters, many of them Arabs and South Asians, fled the
town. PM Ali Mohamed Gedi set a 3-day deadline for gun collection.
(AP, 1/1/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 1, South Korean
diplomat Ban Ki-moon became the UN’s eighth secretary-general.
(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 1, Slovenia adopted
the euro, becoming the 13th EU nation to use the single European
currency. The transition to the euro included a 14-day period for
dual use of the euro and Slovene tolar.
(WSJ, 12/30/06, p.A4)(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Jan 2, The Wall Street
Journal introduced a new print format.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, Jim Gibbons, former
Republican Representative in Congress, was sworn in as governor of
Nevada. He soon faced FBI investigations over unreported gifts while
serving on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, US markets and
federal agencies closed in respect for funeral rites for former
Pres. Gerald Ford. Ford’s body was flown to Michigan for burial
following services in the National Cathedral.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 2, New York City
commuter Wesley Autrey Sr. saved a 19-year-old student who had
fallen onto subway tracks by leaping down and pulling the teen and
himself into the trough between the tracks as a train passed over
them.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Garry Betty (49),
chief executive of EarthLink Inc., died of cancer. Betty had led the
company from 1995, one year after Sky Dayton founded the Internet
service provider.
(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 2, An Australian
Aborigine tribe was granted joint management rights over several
state and national parks under a deal that recognizes its
traditional ownership of the land.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, In Brazil an
explosion in Sao Paulo ripped through a state police warehouse used
to store guns and ammunition, killing one officer and injuring five.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, China's foreign
minister continued his whistle-stop African tour in Equatorial
Guinea, where he cancelled debt, promised aid and opened a new
Chinese-built media centre.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Ethiopian
helicopters pursuing Somali Islamists missed their target and bombed
a Kenyan border post, prompting Kenyan fighter planes to rush to the
area. The gun collection program in Mogadishu began with little
response. 2 Ethiopian soldiers were shot dead.
(AFP, 1/2/07)(SFC, 1/3/07, p.A3)(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.41)
2007 Jan 2, In France prisoner
Nicolas Cocaign (b.1971) killed his cellmate killed Thierry Baudry.
In 2010 Cocaign, who was in jail for armed robbery and was awaiting
trial for attempted rape at the time, said he proceeded to eat part
of the lung raw before frying the rest with onions on a camping
stove and dining on the dish.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2007 Jan 2, Gunmen attacked the
car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the
official and three relatives. A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi
civilians and wounded seven others in eastern Baghdad. US troops
killed a suspected al-Qaida weapons dealer and two other people in
Baghdad raids. Police found 15 bodies dumped in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Teddy Kollek
(b.1911), the legendary mayor of Jerusalem, died. He was born in
Hungary, but was brought up mostly in Vienna. Kollek arrived in
Palestine in 1934 and in 1965 was elected mayor of Jerusalem and
served to 1993. He presided over the reunification of the city after
the 1967 Mideast war and tried to balance the needs of its split
Jewish and Arab populations.
(AP, 1/2/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.78)
2007 Jan 2, Mexico said it is
sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight
drug gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has
become a major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine
entering the United States.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 2, In South Africa
Oprah Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls south of
Johannesburg, fulfilling a promise she made to former President
Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 students a
chance for a better future. The school later became embroiled in
allegations of abuse; Winfrey apologized and promised an overhaul.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/2/08)
2007 Jan 2, Tamilnet.com said
at least 15 civilians were killed and dozens more wounded when Sri
Lankan air force jets "carpet bombed" territory held by the Tamil
Tigers.
(AFP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, New UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ran into trouble on his first day of
work over Saddam Hussein's execution when he failed to state the
United Nations' opposition to the death penalty and said capital
punishment should be a decision of individual countries.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said
the UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and
child rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 2, Rival gangs battled
for control of Uribana Prison in eastern Venezuela, killing 16
inmates and injuring 13. National Guard troops restored order after
the riot broke out overnight. The death toll in riots this week rose
to 22.
(AP, 1/2/07)(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Hundreds of hay
bales fell from the sky across Colorado's rangeland as military
helicopter and cargo plane crews delivered food to cattle that have
been stranded by heavy snow and high drifts for a week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, Bob Nardelli
abruptly resigned as chairman and chief executive of The Home Depot
Inc. after a six-year tenure that saw the world's largest home
improvement store chain post big profits but left investors
disheartened by poor stock performance. He left with a severance
package of $210 million. He was succeeded by Frank Blake.
(AP, 1/3/07)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.C1)(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.54)
2007 Jan 3, C. William Verity
Jr. (89), former US Commerce Secretary, died in Beaufort, SC.
(AP, 1/3/08)
2007 Jan 3, Afghanistan’s the
interior ministry said Afghan and NATO troops killed 17 rebels,
including two commanders, in a sweep of a Taliban stronghold in
southern Afghanistan. In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed
five Afghan security forces and wounded four as they patrolled with
NATO troops.
(AFP, 1/3/07)(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, A key political
alliance announced it would boycott this month's general elections
in Bangladesh, deepening a political crisis that has crippled the
South Asian country for months.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Belarus vowed to
charge fees for transshipped oil.
(WSJ, 1/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 3, Mike Perham (14), a
British teenager, became the youngest person to sail solo across the
Atlantic Ocean, reaching the Caribbean island of Antigua after a
six-week voyage. Perham was trailed by his father in another boat.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, It was reported
that more than a million Chinese die each year of smoking related
diseases. The toll was expected to double by 2025. A roadside bomb
in southern China killed two children who found the explosive
wrapped in a package and began playing with it in Shenzhen.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A1)(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, China's Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing arrived in the central African nation of
Guinea-Bissau for cooperation talks. His 7-nation tour reflected
Chinese interest in Africa.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, In northern India
ash-smeared and naked Hindu saints led millions of devotees in a
pre-dawn holy dip at the meeting of three major rivers, starting a
weeks-long pilgrimage to wash away their sins.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Iraq arrested 3 men
who were present at Saddam Hussein's execution, including the person
believed to have recorded the event on a cell phone camera. US
troops detained 23 people suspected of ties to senior al-Qaida
leaders in raids in western Iraq. Police in Baghdad found 27 bodies,
most of them with gunshot wounds to the head. Four Americans and an
Austrian abducted in southern Iraq spoke briefly and appeared
uninjured in a video.
(AP, 1/3/07)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/4/07,
p.A1)(AP, 1/3/08)
2007 Jan 3, Kenya sent extra
troops to its border with Somalia to keep Islamic militants from
entering the country after Ethiopian helicopters attacked a Kenyan
border post by mistake while pursuing suspected fighters.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, Myanmar's military
government freed nearly 3,000 convicts, but key political prisoners
were not among those released.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, A Nigerian militant
group said it had seized $545,000 sent by Italian oil firm Agip to
obtain the release of 4 foreign workers kidnapped on Dec 7 but had
kept the men hostage.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 3, In the northern
Philippines a minibus carrying partygoers from a beach collided with
a cargo truck, killing eight people and injuring 17.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 3, In Saudi Arabia
Muslims circled the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, for a final time,
bringing to a close what may have been the largest hajj pilgrimage
ever.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, South Korea’s
official media reported that Paek Nam Sun, North Korea's foreign
minister and the country's top diplomat for nearly 10 years, has
died at the age of 78.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 3, In Tunisia at least
14 people, including two security forces, were killed in the
shootout in Soliman, 25 miles south of the capital, Tunis. Fifteen
people were arrested. On Jan 12 the interior minister said nearly 30
Islamic extremists involved in a deadly gunbattle with police had
blueprints of foreign embassies and documents naming foreign envoys.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 3, Turkmenistan's
acting president, in his first campaign statement for next month's
election, called for wider Internet access in the country and for
improving pensions that were slashed last year.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, The 110th Congress
convened with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for
the first time in a dozen years. "Today we make history. Today we
change the direction of our country," exulted Rep. Nancy Pelosi,
poised to become the first woman speaker in history. The House of
Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership,
voted to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting
gifts and meals from lobbyists. Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th
District became the first Muslim member of Congress.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, The US Federal
Trade Commission fined the marketers of four weight loss pills $25
million for making false advertising claims ranging from rapid
weight loss to reducing the risk of cancer.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Harriet Miers
resigned as White House counsel.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, Vincent Sardi Jr.
(91), owner of Sardi's restaurant, the legendary Broadway watering
hole, died in Berlin, Vt.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, NATO and Afghan
forces fought a three-hour ground battle with suspected Taliban
militants in southern Afghan mountains, killing 15 of them. 3
suspected Taliban died when a land mine they were planting on a
highway in Grieshk district exploded prematurely.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, US officials said
Colombia has extradited to the US a police officer and a former
policeman charged with helping smuggle more than 2 tons of cocaine
into the US on cargo flights in 2005 and 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Pieces of a spent
Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming,
showering parts of the western United States with space debris.
(Reuters, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, John W. Simpson
(1914-2007), former president of Westinghouse (1969-1977), died. He
had worked with Adm. Rickover to create a nuclear US Navy.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 4, Victor Ramirez
(27), a day laborer from El Salvador, was gunned down by 2 black
teenagers in Richmond, Ca. Ramirez was taken off life support after
2 weeks and died Jan 19.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 4, Overshadowed by an
Israeli raid into the Palestinian territories, a summit between
Israel and Egypt achieved little in reviving the long-stalled
Mideast peace process, highlighting instead the disagreements
between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Two car bombs
exploded near a fuel station, killing 13 people and wounding 25 amid
a relative downturn in violence in Baghdad during an Islamic holiday
that ended this week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Israeli troops and
Palestinian gunmen exchanged heavy fire in downtown Ramallah after
undercover Israeli forces tried to arrest fugitives in the city's
vegetable market. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded.
Pres. Abbas demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to
shops and cars in Ramallah. Fatah Col. Mohammed Ghayeb and six of
his bodyguards were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Musir Salem Jawher
(28) from Bahrain won the 30th International Tiberias Marathon,
around the Sea of Galilee. The Kenyan runner (Leonard Mucheru),
adopted by Bahrain 4 years earlier, faced anger from Bahrain for
running in an Israeli marathon.
(WSJ, 4/16/07,
p.A1)(www.tiberias-marathon.co.il/en/)
2007 Jan 4, Kenya said it has
closed its border with Somalia in an apparent effort to keep Islamic
militants and refugees from entering the country.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Jorge Bajos
Valverde, a Mexican state legislator, was gunned down in the center
of Acapulco on his way to an interview at a radio and TV station.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Nigeria’s President
Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigeria has repaid 1.4 billion dollars (1.12
billion euros) to the so-called London Club of private creditors and
that the rest of the debt will be cleared by March. At least 3
people were killed in violent clashes between farmers and nomads in
the northwestern state of Zamfara. A 4th died in hospital the next
day.
(AFP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Authorities lifted
a ban on kite-flying in Pakistan’s Punjab province after the sport
was forbidden last year following a series of deaths caused by
glass-coated or metal reinforced kite strings. The ban was lifted
ahead of Basant, Feb 25, an annual festival that heralds spring.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Polish newspapers
reported that Stanislaw Wielgus (67), who is poised to be sworn in
as archbishop of Warsaw, was a "secret and conscious" collaborator
with Poland's hated communist-era security forces from 1973-1978.
(AFP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, A Somali government
spokesman said government troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, were
fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the south.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Marais Viljoen
(91), former president of South Africa (1979-1984), died. The post
of president in the then apartheid state was largely ceremonial
during his term.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Police in the
Basque region said they had found a bomb in northern Spain, five
days after a Madrid car bombing, blamed on the separatist group ETA,
killed 2 people.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan
as "outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into
the affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, In Uzbekistan Elena
Urlayeva, a prominent human rights advocate, was attacked and beaten
by a group of women she said were sent by police. Urlayeva has
accused the tightly controlled ex-Soviet state of abuse and torture.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Pres. Bush
nominated Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral, to be
the next director of national intelligence (DNI). He would follow
John Negroponte, who served 18 months as the 1st head over 16
intelligence agencies.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 5, The White House
announced a planned shuffling of military leaders in the Iraq war.
Adm. William Fallon ended up replacing Gen. John Abizaid as top US
commander in the Middle East; Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus succeeded
Gen. George Casey as top American general in Iraq; Casey replaced
retiring Gen. Peter Schoomaker as Army chief of staff.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2007 Jan 5, US House Democrats
approved new budget rules that required new spending or tax cuts to
be paid for by other spending cuts or tax increases. The new rules
also required lawmakers to disclose which spending items (earmarks),
they have added to bills.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, SF signed a
contract with EarthLink and Google to install and operate a free
wireless Internet service across the city.
(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced
the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte
drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 5, Momofuko Ando
(b.1910), inventor of instant noodles (1958), died in Japan.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.94)
2007 Jan 5, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber in a car wounded four soldiers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Australia’s Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China have ratified a
nuclear agreement clearing the way for the export of uranium to feed
Beijing's giant nuclear power program.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Bangladesh police
over the last 2 days detained about 1,500 activists ahead of a
two-day nationwide general strike aimed at forcing electoral reform
and the postponement of a general election this month.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese police
raided an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near
the border with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 at a
training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
Critics accused Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to
crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of
Uighur identity.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 5, Chinese Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing met with Pres. Bozize of the Central African
Republic. Zhaoxing was set to sign a series of accords as part of
seven-nation tour highlighting China's increasing interest in the
African continent.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In central Congo a
diamond mine collapsed in Tshikapa. 2 people were soon rescued and
15 bodies were later pulled from the mine. Further rescue efforts
were abandoned. The group appeared to have been teenagers who hoped
that recent rains had uncovered diamonds in the community mine.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Leon Febres
Cordero, Former President of Ecuador (1984-1988), resigned from
Congress and political life, citing unspecified medical problems.
His center-right Social Christian Party long dominated Ecuadorian
politics.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Nicolas Cocaigne, a
French prisoner in Rouen, confessed to killing his cellmate and then
eating part of the man's body. Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was
found Jan 3 by a guard at the prison. A third cellmate who claimed
he slept though the attack was charged with complicity in homicide.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, A prominent Sunni
Arab group charged that some officials in the Iraqi government have
links with Shiite militias involved in sectarian violence and said
authorities should be held responsible for any attacks by the armed
groups. Mortar rounds killed four civilians on Baghdad's outskirts,
and gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint north of the capital,
killing four soldiers. Police in the southern city of Basra reported
that an American contractor and two Iraqis were abducted. The 2
Iraqis were later found dead. The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji (28), an
Associated Press employee, was found in Baghdad shot in the back of
the head, 6 days after he was last seen by his family leaving for
work. A US soldier died from combat wounds sustained in Iraq's Anbar
province.
(AP, 1/5/07)(AP, 1/6/07)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.A5)(AP,
1/7/07)
2007 Jan 5, Mexican officials
in Michoacan state said they had found nine bodies in a shallow
grave in the city of Uruapan.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In southern Nigeria
gunmen kidnapped five Chinese workers fixing overhead telephone
lines.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, The Norwegian
Directorate of Fisheries warned that some 790,000 salmon and trout
escaped from Norwegian fish farms in 2006, up 10% on the previous
year and a trend that poses a serious threat to wild salmon.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Pakistan's part
of Kashmir a landslide triggered by recent heavy rains swamped a
minibus and a car on a narrow mountainous road, killing 15 people
and injuring three others.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Gaza Adel Nasar,
an anti-Hamas cleric, was shot by men in a car after he delivered a
sermon warning that God would punish those responsible for seven
killings the previous day.
(AP, 1/5/07)(WSJ, 1/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 5, Stanislaw Wielgus,
Warsaw's incoming archbishop, admitted he had cooperated with the
Communist-era secret police and said he was leaving his fate in the
hands of Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, In Sri Lanka an
explosion inside a passenger bus killed 6 people in Nittambuwa.
Officials blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any
involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Sudanese aircraft
carried out strikes on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state near
the border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 5, Taiwan's high-speed
rail system welcomed its 1st paying passengers amid lingering safety
concerns and embarrassing ticketing glitches. Construction of the
system began in 2000 with an original launch date of October 2005,
but a delay in the completion of the project's core electrical
systems forced a postponement to October 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania's Foreign Minister
Asha-Rose Migiro to the deputy secretary-general post at the UN,
calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who
has championed the developing world. A senior UN official said the
United Nations has investigated more than 300 members of UN
peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse
during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent
home.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 5, Senior doctors at
Zimbabwe's state hospitals joined junior doctors in a strike over
pay that has left patients stranded at the country's major medical
centers. Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told state radio
meanwhile that he had met with representatives of the striking
doctors and that they had agreed to return to work.
(AFP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 6, New Orleans
considered a curfew as 8 slayings took place in the 1st week of the
new year.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 6, In Colorado a huge
snow slide knocked two cars off the road in a high pass and buried
them.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Calvin
Jenks (24), a Tennessee state trooper, was found beside his patrol
car near the intersection of state highways 14 and 54. He was shot
during a traffic stop. The next day police arrested two people they
believed were responsible for the killing.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Knoxville,
Tenn., Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom were last seen as
they left a friend’s apartment. Newsom’s shot and burned body was
found the next day along some railroad tracks. Christian’s body was
discovered 2 days later in a trash can at a house rented by one of
the suspects. Both had been sexually assaulted. 4 black suspects and
an accessory faced murder trials.
(SFC, 5/19/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 6, The body of Cha
Vang (30), a Hmong man, was found hidden under a log in a Wisconsin
wild life refuge. Vang had been shot and stabbed 5 times. On Nov 28
James Nichols (29) was sentenced to 69 years in prison for Vang’s
murder.
(SFC, 11/29/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 6, Pete Kleinow, film
effects artist and guitarist for the Flying Burrito Brothers, died
in Petaluma, Ca.
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.B5)
2007 Jan 6, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a NATO vehicle, wounding one
soldier.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Bangladesh at
least 41 people were burned to death after fire engulfed a bus
packed with migrant workers.
(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Belarus stepped up
its dispute with Russia over energy sales by announcing Saturday it
has started a customs case against Transneft, Russia's pipeline
operator.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In southeastern
Brazil officials said mudslides and flash floods triggered by
torrential downpours killed at least 31 people and drove thousands
from their homes during the past five days.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, David Whelan (60)
and his son Andrew (35) trawled through a farmer's field near
Harrogate, in northern England, when their metal detector squealed.
The pair discovered a Viking trove of coins and jewelry was buried
more than 1,000 years ago, a collection of items from Ireland,
France, Russia and Scandinavia that testified to the raiders'
international reach.
(AP, 7/1907)
2007 Jan 6, China unveiled its
Jian-10 multi-role indigenous fighter jet, marking a "historic leap
forward" and narrowing a technological gap with major military
powers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Cardinal Frederic
Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi (b.1930), Congo's top Roman Catholic prelate,
died in a Belgian hospital. He had warned of what he called
international meddling in the country's recent landmark elections.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Cindy Sheehan,
American "peace mom," called for the closure of the US military
prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She and other activists arrived to
draw attention to the nearly 400 terror suspects held at the remote
site.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Riots erupted
overnight in a maximum-security prison in western El Salvador,
leaving 21 inmates dead.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Hong Kong reported
that a wild bird found a few days earlier had tested positive for
the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
(WSJ, 1/8/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 6, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels fatally shot 13 sleeping migrant workers
before dawn, adding to a string of attacks over two days that killed
a total of 48 people and wounded at least 19.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, The Iraqi army
reported killing 30 militants in a Sunni insurgent stronghold in the
center of Baghdad. In Baghdad two car bombs killed four civilians.
Across the country at least 8 more people were reported killed or
found dead as a result of sectarian violence. 27 bodies were
discovered in a heavily Sunni district just north of the Green Zone.
Most of the victims showed signs of torture. A US soldier died after
coming under fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/6/07)(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Mexican federal and
state police manned checkpoints within Tijuana’s city limits as
local police suspended their patrols because soldiers sent to crack
down on drug gangs and corruption seized most of their guns on
suspicion they aided traffickers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas declared Hamas' paramilitary militia in the
Gaza Strip illegal, raising the stakes in his standoff with the
Islamic movement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Philippine troops
killed six members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group,
including one wanted by the US for involvement in the kidnapping of
Americans.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Seven people were
killed in shootings across Puerto Rico, prompting the US territory's
police chief to plead for tougher gun laws.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Somalia's interim
government indefinitely postponed plans to forcibly disarm Mogadishu
as hundreds of people burned tires, looted vehicles and said they
wouldn't give up their guns. Two people were reported killed and at
17 people wounded.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Meetiyagoda, Sri
Lanka, an explosion inside a passenger bus killed 15 people.
Officials blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels, but the group denied any
involvement.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 7, Newly elected House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation," said
Democrats running Congress would not give President Bush a blank
check to wage war in Iraq.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2007 Jan 7, The North American
Int’l. Auto Show opened in Detroit. China’s Changfeng Group Co.,
made its first appearance at the international auto show in Detroit,
Mich. China numbered over 100 automakers and industry consolidation
was expected.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.54)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 7, Bobby Hamilton
(49), NASCAR driver, died. He had won the 2001 Talladega 500.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2007 Jan 7, In eastern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb ripped through a vehicle, killing a
woman, her two newborn twin babies and the children's grandmother.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Activists and
police clashed in Bangladesh, injuring at least 50 people at the
start of a three-day transport blockade aimed at derailing upcoming
general elections.
(Reuters, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Staff at a
logistics company in Qingdao, in China's eastern Shandong province,
found a human torso in a box seeping blood but marked as carrying
medicine. Two days later, police in Beijing and Jiangyin, in eastern
Jiangsu province, found a man's head and arms. On Jan 15 state media
said Chinese police have detained a man and a woman suspected of
killing a man and posting his body parts to three different cities.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 7, A helicopter
crashed into the garden terrace of a restaurant in southeastern
France, killing three people on the ground and severely injuring a
fourth.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Suspected
separatists fatally shot eight people in India's northeast as army,
police and paramilitary forces swept through a remote corner of the
region after earlier militant attacks killed dozens.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Three US airmen
died in a car bombing in Baghdad, among at least 17 people killed in
violence across Iraq as Iraqi troops launched a fresh battle to oust
militias and pacify the capital. Two American soldiers were killed
north of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/7/07)(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 7, In Israel former PM
Ehud Barak announced his political comeback, saying he will run for
the leadership of the Labor Party in a first step toward a possible
bid at regaining the country's top office.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, In Jamaica the
Accompong Maroons, descendants of freed African slaves, vowed to
fight any plans for bauxite mining in the forested region where they
have lived in semiautonomy for centuries. Sydney Peddie, the group's
leader, said opening up the territory to mining would breach a
treaty signed between the Maroons and the British in 1739, which
gave the group nearly 25,000 acres in Cockpit Country, an
inhospitable terrain of rocky cliffs and limestone towers.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 7, A senior Kenyan
health official said about 75 people have died of Rift Valley fever
(hemorrhagic fever) during the past three weeks and another 183 are
infected with it. The last outbreak of the disease in East Africa
was between 1997-1998, when 478 people died in Somalia and Kenya.
Currently there was no human vaccine.
(AP, 1/8/07)(WSJ, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 7, Tens of thousands
of Fatah supporters packed Gaza's main soccer stadium in a show of
strength to boost the movement in its increasingly violent struggle
against the Islamic militant group Hamas.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Stanislaw Wielgus,
Warsaw's new archbishop, resigned over his involvement with the
communist-era secret police. The Vatican said his past actions had
"gravely compromised his authority."
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 7, Russia stopped
pumping oil into a pipeline network that crossed Belarus. The
line delivered 12.5% of the EU’s oil needs.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.44)
2007 Jan 7, An American AC-130
gunship began attacking suspected al-Qaida positions in southern
Somalia. The US airstrikes were the first offensive in the African
country since 18 US troops were killed there in 1993. The main
target was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998
attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,
that killed 225 people.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A4)(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 7, Eight Taiwanese
banks took charge of a failing subsidiary of the country's Rebar
conglomerate, just a day after the financial regulator rescued a
private bank owned by the same group.
(AFP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 8, USS Newport News
nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the
Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil
supplies travel. The bow of the submarine was traveling submerged
when it hit the stern of the supertanker Mogamigawa. Damage was
light.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger proposed to extend medical insurance to all
Californians, including illegal immigrants. He said the $12 billion
cost would be spread among employers, individuals, insurers,
government and health care providers.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 8, Ron Dellums was
sworn in as Oakland’s 48th mayor.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 8, A wildfire
destroyed 5 multimillion dollar homes in Malibu, Ca.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B10)
2007 Jan 8, In NYC an
unidentified rotten-egg smell wafted over the city.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 8, In Texas police
shut down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown Austin
after dozens of birds were found dead.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, General Electric
Co. it agreed to buy oil services company Vetco Gray for $1.9
billion from a group of private equity funds.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The San Francisco
Hyatt Regency, opened in 1973, was sold by Strategic Hotel Capital
LLC to Dune Capital Management and DiNapoli Capital Partners,
privately held investment funds in a deal pegged at over $200
million.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.E3)
2007 Jan 8, Yvonne De Carlo
(84), TV and film star, died. She played Moses' wife in "The Ten
Commandments," but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The
Munsters" (1964-1966). In her 1987 book, "Yvonne: An Autobiography,"
she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt
Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and
an Iranian prince.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 8, Iwao Takamoto (81),
creator of the Scooby-Doo cartoon character, died in Los Angeles. He
also assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated
features and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan,"
"Lady and the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Austria's two main
political parties, the Social Democrats and the People's Party,
agreed to form a new coalition government.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Bangladesh riot
police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to disperse
thousands of stone-throwing protesters in Dhaka, who are demanding
postponement of this month's elections and electoral reforms.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Backers of leftist
Bolivian President Evo Morales set fire to the Cochabamba state
capitol in a protest to demand the resignation of state Gov. Manfred
Reyes Villa, who is allied with the conservative opposition.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Finland 2
newspaper editors were fined for publishing a letter that said
violence against Jews was justified and that the Holocaust was
acceptable.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Germany Mounir
el Motassadeq, a Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four
suicide pilots who committed the Sept. 11 attacks, was sentenced to
the maximum of 15 years in prison for his role in the terror plot.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Thousands of poor
migrant laborers fled India's remote northeast despite a government
promise of protection after dozens were massacred at the weekend by
a powerful rebel group.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Iraq 9 workers,
primarily Shiite, were killed in an ambush near Baghdad's airport. 6
bodies found in a largely Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Israeli police
arrested Yigal Saar, the US representative of the Israel Tax
Authority, as part of a bribery and influence-peddling probe that
has so far questioned the authority's top officials and an aide to
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov,
the PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of
his performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian
country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its
independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he
tried to secure his position and balance interests of various
powerful elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The Nigerian
government withdrew a suit seeking to sack Vice President Atiku
Abubakar for defecting to a party other than the one in which he was
elected.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Fatah gunmen
released the deputy mayor of Nablus unharmed, two days after
kidnapping him. Fatah militants torched stores of Hamas supporters
in Ramallah and shot at the house of a top Hamas official. Agence
France-Presse expressed gratitude for the release of a photographer
who had been held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza
Strip.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Rev. Janusz
Bielanski, head priest of Krakow's prestigious Wawel
Cathedral, left his post amid allegations he collaborated with
secret services of the communist era, a day after Warsaw's
newly-appointed archbishop resigned in a scandal that shocked the
nation.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, A senior Russian
official said that Russia has been forced to stop delivering oil to
Europe via Belarus after disruptions to the flow of exports it
blamed on Minsk.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres.
Hugo Chavez announced plans to nationalize power and
telecommunications companies and make other bold changes to increase
state control as he promised a more radical push toward socialism.
Chavez stated that he had been a “communist” since at least 2002.
(AP, 1/9/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.34)
2007 Jan 9, The Bush
administration barred Bank Sepah, Iran’s oldest bank, from doing any
future business in the US, accusing it of transferring Iranian
missile payments to North Korea. Germany’s Commerzbank AG said it
will stop handling dollar transactions for Iran at its new York
branch by Jan 31.
(AP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 9, Pres. Bush lifted a
ban on oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol area.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 9, Mike Beebe,
Democrat, was sworn in as the 45th Governor of the State of
Arkansas.
(www.governor.arkansas.gov/gov_biography.html)
2007 Jan 9, The National Park
Service announced that it signed a 60-year lease with San Francisco
developer to restore Fort Baker and build a hotel called “Cavallo
Point, the Lodge at the Golden Gate.”
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 9, Steve Jobs
introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld Expo in SF. The 4GB
version would be sold for $499 starting in June. A television set
add-on called Apple TV was planned to hit stores in February for
$299. Apple dropped the word “Computer” from its name.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.C1)(Econ,
1/13/07, p.57)
2007 Jan 9, Rex Farrance (59),
a longtime editor for PC World, was shot to death during a robbery
at his home in Pittsburg, Ca. Farrance had let his son grow medical
marijuana. In September Tremaine Amos (25), Darryl Hudson (23) and
Montrell Hall (23) were charged with murder in the commission of a
robbery. In 2009 Hudson was convicted of murder, robbery and
assault. Amos pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in
exchange for testifying against Hall and Hudson. A mistrial was
declared in Hall’s case. In a retrial Hall was convicted on Oct 9,
2009, of murder, assault, robbery and burglary.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A1)(SFC, 9/26/07, p.B1)(SSFC,
6/21/09, p.B2)(SFC, 10/12/09, p.C4)
2007 Jan 9, An Australian zoo
put a group of humans on display to raise awareness about primate
conservation, with the proviso that they don't get up to any monkey
business.
(Reuters, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
turned into a battlefield as protesters, demanding the scrapping of
national elections, hurled bombs and rocks at police who responded
by firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The parties demanded the
postponement of January 22 elections, alleging that they cannot be
fair without massive changes to the voter list.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9 Britain’s Royal Mail
released a set of six stamps depicting the iconic Beatles' album
covers.
(Reuters, 12/28/06)
2007 Jan 9, Freddy Munoz, a
reporter for a state-controlled television network in Venezuela, was
released from a Colombian jail, 52 days after his arrest on
accusations of plotting bomb attacks with leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Mikhail Prokhorov
(41), chief executive of Russian mining giant OAO Norilsk Nickel,
was detained in France for questioning as part of a crackdown on a
suspected prostitution ring at an upscale ski resort.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 9, A landslide in a
western Indonesian village killed up to 13 people, burying several
homes and a small mosque.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Iraqi and US
soldiers, backed by American warplanes, battled suspected insurgents
for hours in central Baghdad, and 50 militant fighters were killed.
A cargo plane carrying Turkish construction workers crashed during
landing at an airport near Baghdad, killing 32 people and injuring
two. 4 members of a family died when their house in Baghdad's Sadr
City section was destroyed. Police initially said the attack was
from two mortar shells, but later a police official and witnesses
said the home was fired on by US aircraft.
(AP, 1/9/07)(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in China for a visit centered around
boosting trade ties and discussions on Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Carlo Ponti
(b.1912), Italian film producer and longtime husband of Sophia
Loren, died in Geneva. His productions included such films as “La
Strada” and “Blowup.” In 1965 he joined with David Lean to produce
“Doctor Zhivago.” Ponti first married Sophia Loren using lawyers in
a proxy marriage in Mexico in 1957. They remarried again in France
in 1966.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.B5)
2007 Jan 9, Japan launched its
first full-fledged defense ministry since World War II as part of
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to build a more assertive
nation.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Jordanian police
killed one suspected al-Qaida member and detained a second in a
crackdown that foiled a terrorist plot against Jordan.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, In Mexico Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has refused to accept his slim loss to
President Felipe Calderon in July's election, launched a weekly TV
show mocking the government's battle against crime and unemployment
and promising to promote a law targeting Mexico's monopolies.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, Nigeria started
paying more than 1,000 Biafran police pensioners, 37 years after the
west African country ended a bloody civil war.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, More than 100
Indian fishermen left for home after Pakistan set them free in a
goodwill gesture to its longtime rival.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, Philippine troops
killed Binang Sali, a senior al-Qaida-linked militant, who allegedly
led an urban terror unit of the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 9, In Somalia US
AC-130 strikes were reported to have killed 10 al-Qaida suspects.
Local officials said the toll was much higher and included
civilians.
(AP, 1/9/07)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 9, Armed Basque
separatist group ETA claimed responsibility for the bomb attack at
Madrid airport that killed 2 people last week but said its ceasefire
still held and it wanted peace.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 9, St. Lucian
lawmakers made history in the Caribbean island when they selected
two women to lead Parliament.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 10, Pres. Bush said
that an additional 21,500 US troops will head to Iraq soon to try
improve the security situation mainly in Baghdad and the western
province of Anbar. Bush’s plan became known as “the surge.”
(AP, 1/15/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.11)
2007 Jan 10, The
Democratic-controlled US House voted 315-116 to increase the federal
minimum wage to $7.25 per hour.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2007 Jan 10, The US Postal
Service honored Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), the First Lady of Song,
with her own postage stamp.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/10/07, p.E8)
2007 Jan 10, California State
coastal regulators voted to impose restrictions on the US Navy's use
of sonar, which has been linked to harmful effects on whales and
other marine mammals.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger released a proposed $143.4 billion budget.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 11, NATO forces
overnight fought two large groups of suspected Taliban militants
crossing the border from Pakistan, and scores of insurgents were
killed. Some 150 militants under Jalaluddin Haqqani were killed by
the US 10th Mountain Division.
(AP, 1/11/07)(WSJ, 11/7/07, p.A16)
2007 Jan 10, Belarus lifted a
duty it had imposed on Russian fuel transiting the country.
(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A7)
2007 Jan 10, Bolivian President
Evo Morales renewed his pledge to nationalize his country's mining
industry, saying he would complete the task this year.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Bosnia's state
court jailed a Swede, a Turk and a Bosnian for up to 15 years four
months for planning a suicide attack in Europe. All 3 men were
Muslims and wanted to pressure Bosnia and European governments to
withdraw forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In England 2 RAF
training helicopters collided in mid-air in Shropshire, with some
reports claiming that one person was killed and three injured.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, China said 2006
its global trade surplus jumped nearly 75% from the previous year to
a record $177.5 billion. Lan Chengzhang, who worked for the China
Trade News, was beaten while visiting a mine in Hunyuan county in
the northern province of Shanxi and died of an apparent brain
hemorrhage the next day. His death sparked a media outcry and a
police investigation. On June 27 the Intermediate People's Court of
Linfen city in Shanxi province convicted Hou Zhenrun, the head of a
small unlicensed mine outside the northern city of Datong, for
organizing a gang of five men to beat reporter. Zhenrun sentenced to
life in prison. The five men who beat the reporters received jail
terms of 5-15 years. A sixth was sentenced to a year in jail for
harboring the suspects.
(AP, 1/10/07)(Reuters, 1/17/07)(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jan 10, Cuban dissident
Manuel Valdes Tamayo (50) died. He was one of 75 activists jailed in
a massive crackdown in 2003 and released a year later for health
reasons.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Guinea shop,
government and business workers held a general strike, heeding a
union call for protests after President Lansana Conte decided to
free two corruption suspects. Unions demanded that Mamadou Sylla and
Fode Soumah, who have been charged with embezzling public funds and
imprisoned in Conakry on December 6, be put back in jail. The strike
threatened the world’s surplus of alumina, used to make aluminum.
Guinea accounted for 10% of the world’s bauxite exports and 30% of
its reserves.
(AFP, 1/10/07)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.A13)
2007 Jan 10, Former
Guinea-Bissau PM Carlos Gomes Jr. sought asylum at the local UN
office, three days after he said President Vieira was behind the
assassination of an ex-military commander last week.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In northern Indian
a 4-story building under construction in Allahabad collapsed,
killing 10 workers and injuring at least 25.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, A 14-year-old
Indonesian boy died from bird flu, just days after being
hospitalized. It was the first H5N1 fatality in the country in six
weeks.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In central Iran a
truck smashed into a bus, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, Bombings and
shootings across Iraq killed at least 99 people, including a US
soldier who died from a gunshot wound in Diyala province. A suicide
bomber killed four civilians in a crowd outside a police station in
the northern city of Tal Afar.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 10, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert, midway through an official visit to Beijing, said he
received a candid assurance from China that it opposes Iran having a
nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Lebanese trade
unions threatened to escalate protests unless the government drops
plans to raise taxes, adding to troubles for Lebanon's US-backed
prime minister amid an opposition campaign to bring him down.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, A new report
alleged that Myanmar's military junta is allowing gold mines to
pollute the world's largest wild tiger reserve and has promoted
development that is destroying ethnic Kachin communities.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Nicaragua
former revolutionary Daniel Ortega took office in a ceremony
attended by more than a dozen world leaders.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Khaled Meshaal,
the leader of Hamas, said Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel
but formal recognition by the group will only be considered when a
Palestinian state has been created.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, In Russia Liana
Askerova said she was detained as part of the investigation into the
killing of Andrei Kozlov, the Central Bank first deputy chairman who
was shot point-blank on Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in Moscow.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 10, Militants
kidnapped nine South Korean oil workers and one local worker in the
Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria, bringing the total number of
foreigners currently held hostage there to 18.
(AFP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, US forces launched
a third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. At least four
separate strikes were reported around Ras Kamboni, on the Somali
coast near the Kenyan border. Unknown insurgents attacked a
transitional government barracks and soldiers responded by sealing
portions of Mogadishu and searching house to house for guns.
(AP, 1/10/07)(SFC, 1/11/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 10, In the southern
Philippines a bomb exploded across the street from a public market,
killing six people and wounding 22 others. A second blast in the
region hours later wounded two people near a police outpost.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 10, Sudan and rebel
groups, prodded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, agreed on a
60-day ceasefire, plus diplomatic efforts by the UN and African
Union, to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 10, Zimbabwe’s central
statistics office (CSO) said inflation had hit a new record high of
1,281%, puncturing government hopes of reining in the galloping rate
which has left households struggling to make ends meet.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 11, President Bush's
plan to send more troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on
Capitol Hill as administration officials drew confrontational
challenges from both Democrats and Republicans.
(AP, 1/11/08)
2007 Jan 11, The US government
said Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden
inside were found planted on US contractors with classified security
clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005
and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, A US federal judge
ruled that the Vatican can be sued for damages by US victims of
clerical sex abuse.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 11, The Pentagon said
it has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be
required to serve on active duty, a major change that reflects an
Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 11, Fourteen members
of an advisory board to Jimmy Carter's human rights organization
resigned to protest his new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,"
which has been attacked as unfairly critical of Israel and riddled
with inaccuracies.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, NATO forces
overnight fought two large groups of suspected Taliban militants
crossing the border from Pakistan, and scores of insurgents were
killed.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, An Argentine judge
ordered the arrest of the third wife of former political strongman
Juan Domingo Peron, saying he has questions about her chaotic
20-month rule, a time when shadowy right-wing violence destabilized
Argentina ahead of her political downfall. Isabel Peron has lived in
exile in Spain since 1981.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 11, Iajuddin Ahmed,
the president of Bangladesh, declared a state of emergency following
weeks of violent protests and threats by a political alliance to
disrupt general elections. Gen. Masud Uddin Chowdhury led a coup and
forced the president to cancel elections and declare a state of
emergency. Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed was sworn in as head of Interim
government.
(http://tinyurl.com/6zr23k)AP, 1/11/07)(Econ,
6/7/08, p.54)(Econ, 11/8/08, p.58)
2007 Jan 11, Protesters seeking
the ouster of a Bolivian state governor for his opposition to
leftist President Evo Morales battled with the governor's supporters
in clashes that left two dead and more than 60 injured.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Brazilian
prosecutors sought the extradition of two church leaders arrested in
the United States on money smuggling charges.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The Bank of
England (BoE) raised British interest rates by a quarter of a point
to 5.25 percent to fight inflation.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, China destroyed
its Feng Yun 1-C, an aging weather satellite launched in 1999, with
a ballistic missile 537 miles above the Earth. The impact created
about 28% of the junk currently floating in space. The US halted
such tests in 1985 for fear of creating debris deadly to spacecraft.
(WSJ, 1/19/07, p.A1)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.38)(Econ,
1/19/08, p.26)
2007 Jan 11, Former Ethiopian
dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was sentenced to life imprisonment,
ending his 12-year trial in absentia for genocide and other crimes
committed during his iron-fisted rule (1974-1991). Mariam lived
comfortably in exile in Zimbabwe, where Pres. Robert Mugabe has said
he won't deport Mengistu if he refrains from political activity.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Indonesian police
raided a house on Sulawesi Island where several alleged Islamic
militants were staying, sparking a fierce gun and bomb battle that
left one suspected terrorist dead.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, In Iraq US-led
multinational forces detained six Iranians at Tehran's diplomatic
mission in the northern city of Irbil. A suicide truck bomber hit
the house of the head of the municipal council in Samarra, killing
three people and wounding 33. Gunmen killed a professor driving home
from the University of Mosul. Suspected Sunni insurgents set fire to
a large oil pipeline in northern Iraq, interrupting the flow from
the Kirkuk oil fields.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert ended a visit to China after talks with Chinese leaders on
Iran's nuclear program and efforts to boost trade and economic ties.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The Nigerian
military said it has recovered the body of an officer who was
abducted last week in the country's southern oil producing region.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Oil flowed again
through the main pipeline from Russia to Europe after Moscow and
Belarus agreed to settle a dispute that has hurt Russia's reputation
as an energy supplier.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, South Korean
officials said that the bird flu virus had been transmitted to a
human during a recent outbreak among poultry, but the person showed
no symptoms of disease.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, The UN Security
Council said it backs the speedy deployment of African troops to
Somalia and strongly urges a dialogue among all political players,
in addition to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the country.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 11, Vietnam became the
150th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a milestone
expected to launch an era of radical change as the communist nation
enters the global economic mainstream.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, Pres. Bush signed
a bill into law that made it a crime to lie to obtain telephone
records of private citizens, a procedure known as pretexting,
following a 2006 case at Hewlett-Packard.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 12, Durham County,
N.C., District Attorney Mike Nifong asked to be removed from the
Duke lacrosse rape investigation. State prosecutors later exonerated
three suspects.
(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Jan 12, Francisco Javier
Dominguez-Rivera (22) of Puebla, Mexico, was killed in a
confrontation with the unidentified agent north of the US-Mexico
border in Arizona between Bisbee and Douglas. On Jan 16 the Mexican
government sent a diplomatic note to the United States protesting
the fatal shooting.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 12, In California the
Fresno-based Westlands Water District purchased 3,000 acres on the
McCloud River for $35 million. They planned to sell the land to the
federal government if officials and lawmakers decide to raise the
nearby Shasta Dam.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 12, Jennifer Strange
(28) of Rancho Cordova, Ca., died after guzzling a large quantity of
water as part of a Sacramento KDND-FM radio show contest. In 2009
Entercom Sacramento LLC was found negligent and ordered to pay
nearly $16.6 million to the family of Jennifer Strange.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A1)(SFC, 10/30/09, p.A8)
2007 Jan 12, In Missouri 2
missing boys were found at the suburban St. Louis home of Michael
Devlin (41). William Ownby (13) had been missing for 5 days; Shawn
Hornbeck (15) had been missing since Oct 2002. In October Devlin was
sentenced to multiple life terms for kidnapping and sexual assault.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A5)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.A6)(AP,
1/12/08)
2007 Jan 12, Larry Stewart
(58), known as “Secret Santa” for the millions he passed out with no
strings attached to people in need, died at St. Lukes Hospital in
Kansas City, Missouri of esophageal cancer. Stewart, from the Kansas
City suburb of Lee's Summit, made his millions in cable television
and long-distance telephone service.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243578,00.html)
2007 Jan 12, A suicide bomber
rammed his explosives-filled car into a two-vehicle convoy carrying
foreigners south of Kabul, wounding at least one Afghan civilian.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Fakhruddin Ahmed,
a former Bangladesh central bank governor, was sworn in as head of
the country's new interim government.
(AFP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Bolivia’s
President Evo Morales proposed a new law to allow recall votes
against elected officials, a move that would give protesters
demanding the resignation of an opposition-aligned state governor a
way to remove him from office.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, In Sao Paulo,
Brazil, a hole being excavated for a new subway station collapsed,
opening a huge crater that swallowed cars and dump trucks. A missing
minibus was feared under the dirt.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, Severe gales and
heavy rains powered by an Atlantic storm left at least one person
dead and eight missing, sunk two fishing trawlers and disrupted
travel across Britain and Ireland.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Canada unveiled
plans to spend more than $368 million over the next five years to
protect its border from terrorist, economic and environmental
threats.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, State media said
China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women
in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from
the country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced. In
northern China an underground gas explosion struck the Niuxinhui
Coal Mine in the province of Shanxi killing 13 people with 9
injured. Police in southern China arrested 10 farmers in Botang in
the impoverished region of Guangxi embroiled in a dispute with a
paper mill over pollution they say is killing their crops and
fouling their water sources.
(AP, 1/12/07)(AP, 1/13/07)(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 12, China and Russia
blocked the Security Council from demanding an end to political
repression and human rights violations in military-ruled Myanmar,
rejecting a resolution proposed by the United States. South Africa
sided with China and Russia.
(AP, 1/13/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.47)
2007 Jan 12, East Timor and
France signed non-aggression treaties with ASEAN member countries on
the sidelines of the annual ASEAN summit in the Philippine resort
city of Cebu. Both countries looked to strengthen ties with a bloc
representing a sixth of the world's people.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 12, French authorities
freed Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, following four days
of questioning in connection with an investigation into a suspected
prostitution ring at the swank Alpine ski resort of Courchevel.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, The US Embassy in
Athens came under fire from a rocket that exploded inside the modern
glass-front building but caused no casualties in an attack police
suspect was the work of Greek leftists.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, An American man
dubbed by local media the "butcher of New York" was sentenced to 38
years in prison for killing and dismembering his Honduran wife.
Andrew Gole (49) of Long Island, NY, confessed to strangling and
cutting up his wife, Martha Isabel Moncada (28) with an electric saw
in May 2003.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 12, In Iraq at least
19 people were reported killed or dead including 10 bullet-riddled
bodies found in Baghdad and Khudr Younis al-Obaidi, an Iraqi
journalist killed in a drive-by shooting in Mosul.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.A9)
2007 Jan 12, In Nigeria 9 South
Korean pipeline workers and a Nigerian kidnapped in southern Nigeria
were released with the help of a youth group.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Roman Abramovich,
Russian oil magnate, was reported to have ordered a new yacht called
the Eclipse. It was under construction in Germany and was
expected to measure over 525 feet, making it the largest privately
owned yacht in the world.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.W1)
2007 Jan 12, Russia reportedly
agreed to slash the duty on oil exports to Belarus by 70% and
Belarus will share with Moscow a substantial amount of profits from
the refined oil products it sells to Europe.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, A government
official said Somalia's warlords have agreed to disarm and join a
new national army. Violence in the capital brought home the
challenge of restoring order in this fractious and heavily armed
country.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, In the tea growing
region of central Sri Lanka at least 18 people were killed in
landslides. The National Disaster Management Center said at least
three people were killed and another 61,000 made homeless in south
and central Sri Lanka in flash floods caused by heavy monsoon rains.
(AP, 1/12/07)(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 12, A Darfur rebel
group denied that it agreed to a cease-fire with the Sudanese
government during a meeting this week with New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, Ugandan rebels
pulled out of peace talks with the government, dealing a blow to
already faltering negotiations aimed at ending one of Africa's most
brutal conflicts.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 13, The North Carolina
state attorney general's office agreed to take over the sexual
assault case against three Duke University lacrosse players at the
request of embattled Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong.
All three players were later exonerated.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, In SF the Muni
Metro T-Third line began operations.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported
that Kink, a Web-based pornography distributor, had purchased the
1912 old armory building on Mission St. in San Francisco for $14.5
million.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 13, In Huntington,
W.Va, 9 people were killed in an apartment building fire.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, In McDowell
County, W.Va., 2 miners were killed when a roof collapsed inside the
Brooks Run Mining Company's Cucumber coal mine.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported
that the Asian vulture had declined by up to 99% in the last decade
due to poisoning from diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug for
cattle. In 2006 India, Pakistan and Nepal banned the making and
importing of the drug.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 13, In Afghanistan
British marines, supported by Dutch and British attack helicopters,
staged a pre-dawn attack on a mud-brick compound atop a barren hill
where insurgents were thought hiding, setting off a battle that
killed 16 suspected militants and one marine in Helmand province. US
warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, ASEAN leaders
meeting in the Philippines signed an agreement to regulate migrant
workers.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported
that thousands of birds had dropped dead over the past 3 weeks in
Western Australia.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jan 13, Bangladeshi police
and soldiers arrested more than 2,500 people overnight and raided
the homes of several political leaders after a new caretaker
government was sworn in to quell unrest ahead of elections.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, A Bolivian air
force plane crashed in a southern state, killing all eight people on
board.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, In Canada
groundbreaking took place in Calgary on the 58-story Encana tower,
The Bow. In Dec 2008 construction was halted due to falling oil
prices.
(Econ, 1/17/09,
p.40)(http://highriseconstruction.wordpress.com/2008/07/)
2007 Jan 13, China said Wang
You-theng, founder of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group, left China for
the US. You-theng had vanished earlier this month amid accusations
he stole millions of dollars from his Taiwan company.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 13, Pranab Mukherjee,
India’s foreign minister, visited Islamabad to discuss Sir Creek and
other disputes. 2 days later Indian and Pakistani surveyors began
mapping the creek in preparation for settling their maritime border
there.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.52)
2007 Jan 13, In Iraq at least
11 people were killed or found dead, including a Sunni cleric who
was shot to death near his home in Samarra, 60 miles north of
Baghdad and five who were slain in separate attacks in northern
Iraq.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, An Italian
military tribunal gave life sentences in absentia to 10 German
former SS men for massacring about 800 Italian villagers in 1944.
They had laid waste to the villages of Marzabotto, Grizzana and Vado
di Monzuno near Bologna, as the Germans retreated before Allied
troops.
(Reuters, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported
that swarms of locusts had descended on the Mexican state of Yucatan
and threatened over 12,000 acres of vegetation.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jan 13, Suspected avian
influenza was recorded in northern Nigeria's Sokoto State, a day
after the disease reportedly infected 5,000 birds in nearby Kastina
state.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 13, Somali lawmakers
authorized the government to declare martial law as the country's
internationally recognized leaders struggled to assert their
authority after battling an Islamic movement that had controlled
much of southern Somalia.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 13, In southern
Thailand a Buddhist man and his wife were working at a rubber
plantation in Yala province when a group attacked them, shooting the
man three times in the chest before beheading him and killing his
wife. Another Buddhist was killed in a drive-by shooting in a
separate attack in Yala. The Islamic insurgency, that flared in
January 2004, has killed more than 1,900 people.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, President Bush,
facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more
troops to Iraq, said on CBS' "60 Minutes" that he had the authority
to act no matter what Congress wanted. On "Fox News Sunday," Vice
President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism would not
influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by
committee."
(AP, 1/14/08)
2007 Jan 14, In Oklahoma a
minivan carrying 12 people skidded off an icy highway and slammed
into an oncoming tractor-trailer, killing seven.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Scientists said
they have pinpointed a new gene (SORL1) linked to Alzheimer's
disease, the incurable brain disorder that is the top cause of
dementia in the elderly.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Darlene Conley
(72), a veteran stage, film and television actress, died in Los
Angeles. She entertained daytime audiences for nearly two decades as
the feisty fashion mogul Sally Spectra on "The Bold and the
Beautiful."
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 14, Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton ate breakfast with soldiers from New York and Indiana
at the main US base in Afghanistan before meeting with the top
American general in Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
After leaving Kabul, Clinton went to Lahore, Pakistan, where she met
with the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. A suicide
bomber blew himself up near a convoy of foreign construction workers
and Afghan soldiers in southern Afghanistan, wounding one civilian.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, ASEAN leaders
meeting in the Philippines signed an agreement to liberalize the
trade in services between China and ASEAN countries.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 14, Australia's
Environment Minister Ian Campbell told national radio that Japanese
whaling ships on their annual hunt in the Antarctic are banned from
docking in Australia and should use restraint in looming clashes
with protesters.
(AFP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Belarus held local
elections. Government loyalists appeared to sweep the local
elections, as President Alexander Lukashenko retained a firm grip
over the former Soviet nation. Belarus opposition and human rights
activists denounced the vote as rigged, and the United States and
the European Union said it failed to meet democratic standards.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, France's interior
minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, formally clinched the ruling
conservatives' presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Guatemala's Pres.
Oscar Berger declined to read his state-of-the nation speech to
Congress, instead sending a written version to lawmakers after
violent clashes erupted between protesting teachers and police
outside the legislative building.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, The US military
said 5 Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected
to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms
insurgents in Iraq. At least 78 people were reported killed or found
dead, including 41 bullet-riddled bodies discovered in Baghdad. The
US military also said two American soldiers died from roadside bombs
in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/14/07)(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, A court convicted
Sheik Talal Nasser Al Sabah, a member of Kuwait's ruling family, for
drug trafficking and condemned him to death.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, Gunmen burst into
the home of Jaime Meraz Martinez, a political leader in the northern
Mexican state of Durango, and fatally shot him, two family members
and an employee.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, In Nicaragua
Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad, touring Latin America in search of an
alliance of "revolutionary countries," said the US is trying to hide
its failures in Iraq by accusing his nation of funding insurgents
there.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 14, In Nigeria 12
chiefs from various delta communities were killed overnight when
assailants attacked their boat.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 14, Hurricane-strength
winds whipped across southwestern Sweden, leaving more than 100,000
households without power and causing major disruptions in train and
boat traffic across Scandinavia.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, An African Union
delegation was in Somalia's capital to discuss the deployment of
peacekeepers, as the government struggled to disarm Mogadishu
residents reluctant to give up their guns after years of fending for
themselves amid chaos.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Two passenger
trains collided near a beach resort town south of Bangkok, killing
three people and injuring more than 100 others.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 14, Gulbakhor
Turayeva, an Uzbek doctor and rights advocate, was arrested for
allegedly possessing banned literature. She claimed to have seen
hundreds of bodies in the bloody crackdown of the 2005 Andijan
uprising.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 15, In the 64th Golden
Globe Awards the film "Babel" won for best dramatic film;
"Dreamgirls" was named best musical or comedy; "Grey’s Anatomy" won
best dramatic television series, while "Ugly Betty" won for best TV
musical or comedy series. Forest Whitaker won the film actor award
for “The Last King of Scotland; Helen Mirren won the film actress
award for “The Queen.”
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.E1)(AP, 1/15/08)
2007 Jan 15, California’s top
agricultural official said 3 days of freezing temperatures had
ruined as much as 70% of the state’s citrus crop.
(SFC, 1/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 15, The death toll
from a powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states as utility
crews labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of
Missouri households and businesses enduring cold weather without
electricity for heat and lights.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Richard Musgrave
(b.1910), German-born American economist and Harvard professor
(1965-1981), died in Santa Cruz, Ca. His books included the classic
textbook: “The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy.”
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.B4)
2007 Jan 15, In southern
Afghanistan NATO troops attacked a militant base in an operation
that left one Western soldier dead and several wounded. 13 suspected
Taliban militants were killed and 17 others were wounded during the
clash with NATO troops. Gunmen in the east killed a deputy
provincial council chief. Afghan agents arrested Abul Haq Haqiq, aka
Dr. Mohammad Hanif, one of two spokesmen who often contacted
journalists on behalf of the Taliban, in eastern Afghanistan. He
said that fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is under the
protection of the ISI in Quetta. (ISI is Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency and Quetta is a city in southwestern Pakistan
near the border with Afghanistan.) Afghan officials have alleged
some of the Taliban's leadership may be based there.
(AP, 1/15/07)(AP, 1/16/07)(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 15, A British
prosecutor told a jury that 6 men plotted to kill London subway and
bus passengers with bombs made from hydrogen peroxide and flour on
July 21, 2005, two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters
in the city. The devices failed to explode.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, It was reported
that a team at the British institute that cloned Dolly the sheep
have made a genetically engineered chicken that produces cancer
drugs in its eggs. The proteins they chose were miR24, a monoclonal
antibody with potential for treating melanoma, and human interferon
b-1a, an immune system protein from a family of proteins that
attacks tumors and viruses.
(Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, More than 100
rebels attacked a northwestern town in the Central African Republic,
sparking the first fighting with government troops in more than a
month.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Anti-government
rebels in Chad said they have captured a new location in the far
north of the central African country after ending a truce at the
weekend. Chadian defense minister, General Bichara Issa Djadallah,
denied the rebel claim.
(AFP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, More than 500
armed militants in Chechnya and other parts of Russia's troubled
North Caucasus surrendered to authorities as part of an amnesty that
expired at day’s end.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Bo Yibo (b.1908),
one of China's first Communist revolutionaries and a member of the
post-Mao circle of leaders known as the "eight immortals," died in
Beijing.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 15, In Colombia
Eugenio Montoya Sanchez (37), believed by authorities to be a leader
of the Norte del Valle drug cartel, was captured following a
shootout, ending a years-long hunt for a man wanted by American
officials for allegedly smuggling tons of cocaine into the US. 2
cold-storage tanks owned by a Nestle supplier outside the town of
San Vicente de Caguan were blown up in an attack also attributed to
the FARC. Salvatore Mancuso became the 1st senior paramilitary
leader to make a voluntary confession of his involvement in
kidnappings and mass murders. Sanchez was later extradited to the US
and in 2009 pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. He was sentenced to
30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/16/07)(AP, 1/19/07)(Econ, 1/20/07,
p.48)(SFC, 4/29/09, p.A4)
2007 Jan 15, In Ecuador
nationalist Rafael Correa was sworn in as president. He pledged to
fight a political establishment widely discredited as corrupt. He
signed a decree calling a referendum for a Constituent Assembly and
doubled a monthly welfare payment to $30 for some 1.3 million of the
poorest people.
(AP, 1/15/07)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.48)(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.39)
2007 Jan 15, In India hundreds
of Hindu holy men, naked but for the ash smeared on their bodies and
an occasional marigold garland, led a sea of humanity to the waters
of the Ganges River to wash away their sins at the apex of a
weekslong pilgrimage.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Two top aides to
Saddam Hussein were hanged before dawn, and the head of one of them,
the former Iraqi dictator's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was severed
from his body during the execution. 3 policemen were killed and two
hurt when a roadside bomb targeted their car in a southeastern
section of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, The Israeli
government published plans to build 44 homes in Israel's largest
West Bank settlement, violating a pledge to the US as Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice was in the region on a peace-seeking mission.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, An Israeli court
ruled that a dead soldier's family can have his sperm impregnated
into the body of a woman he never met.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 15, Kyrgyzstan Pres.
Bakiyev signed into law constitutional amendments strengthening his
powers that he had pushed through after threatening to dissolve
parliament.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, President Felipe
Calderon launched a program to create jobs for young Mexicans and
curb the flow of millions of migrants to the United States.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, The editor and a
journalist at a Moroccan news weekly that published jokes relating
to Islam were convicted of insulting the religion. The court gave
three-year suspended sentences to Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane,
and to journalist Sanaa al-Aji. Both were barred from journalistic
activity with Nichane for two months and the independent
Arab-language magazine was suspended for two months. They were fined
$9,280 each.
(AP, 1/15/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 15, Nepal’s Parliament
was dissolved and replaced by an interim legislature including
former communist rebels, a major step to co-opt the ex-guerrillas
into mainstream Nepalese politics after they agreed to end their
decade-long insurgency. 4-time prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala
became acting head of state, succeeding King Gyanendra.
(AP,
1/15/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girija_Prasad_Koirala)
2007 Jan 15, Some 2,000 ethnic
Pashtun tribesmen rallied in this Pakistani border town near
Afghanistan to condemn the Pakistani government for new border
control measures.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, Russian
authorities began cracking down on millions of illegal migrants
throughout Russia as new rules tightening government control of
migration came into effect, prompting concerns that the country
could face serious shortages of low-wage laborers.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, A cargo ship and a
commuter hydrofoil collided near the entrance to the Sicilian port
of Messina, killing four people and leaving dozens of passengers
injured.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 15, Somali troops and
allied Ethiopian soldiers conducted house-to-house searches,
pursuing gunmen who carried out an attack in the northeastern part
of the capital.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, In South Korea
unionized workers at Hyundai Motor Co. began a promised partial
strike amid a dispute with management over bonuses.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 16, The US Senate
voted to shine more light on thousands of expensive pet projects
buried in legislation after the new Democratic majority bowed to a
successful push by Republicans to make new disclosure rules even
tougher than originally planned.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Sen. Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) launched his bid for the White House.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2007 Jan 16, Ron Carey
(b.1935), TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles. He played Officer
Carl Levitt in the Barney Miller (1976-1982) TV sitcom. His 15
movies included “High Anxiety” (1977) and “History of the World:
Part I” (1981), both with Mel Brooks.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.B4)
2007 Jan 16 Pookie Hudson (72),
lead singer for the Spaniels doo-wop group, died in Capitol Heights,
Md.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2007 Jan 16, In southern
Afghanistan NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent
Taliban commander during a raid on a compound.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Canadian Trade
Minister David Emerson signed a technology deal with China, on a
visit aimed at reinvigorating relations with the Asian superpower
that have been dented by Canada's blunt talk on human rights.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Chinese search
engine Baidu.com and EMI Music launched an Internet venture that
will let users listen to streaming music for free, adding to Baidu's
growing entertainment business.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Colombian police
found about $19 million belonging to a drug trafficking group buried
under a house in the southwestern city of Cali. On Jan 12 police
found $16 million hidden in a modest house in Cali.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, The European
Parliament elected German conservative Hans-Gert Poettering as
president of the chamber to replace outgoing Spanish Socialist Josep
Borrell.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh reiterated his government's offer for talks with separatist
rebels in restive northeast Assam state after recent violence left
73 people dead.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, An Indonesian
passenger train jumped its tracks, sending a crowded rail car
plunging nearly 20 feet near the central Javanese town of
Purwokerto. Five people were reported killed and more than 250
injured.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Baghdad was struck
by two bombings apparently targeting Shiite neighborhoods one near a
university as students were leaving classes for the day that killed
at least 31, and another at a used motorcycle marketplace that
killed at least 15 people. The death toll across Iraq approached 150
including four who died when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol
in a predominantly Shiite area of downtown Baghdad. Gianni
Magazzeni, the chief of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in
Baghdad, said 34,452 civilians were killed and 36,685 were wounded
last year.
(AP, 1/16/07)(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 16, In Israel Abir
Aramin, a 10-year-old Palestinian girl, was hit by a rubber-coated
bullet as she stood some distance from a demonstration. She died two
days later in a Jerusalem hospital. In 2010 a Jerusalem court
decided in a ruling that the Israeli state was responsible for the
death of the girl. In 2011 an Israeli court ordered the government
to pay $432,000 to the family of Abir.
(AP,
8/18/10)(www.counterpunch.org/peled08082007.html)(AP, 9/26/11)
2007 Jan 16, In Kenya deaths
due to Rift Valley fever (hemorrhagic fever) had climbed to at least
95 for the past month.
(AFP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Pedro Diaz Parada,
a drug cartel leader, was arrested in the southern state of Oaxaca
and taken to Mexico City. This was the first major drug arrest under
the administration of President Felipe Calderon.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 16, King Mohammed VI
of Morocco launched work on a major road linking Fez to the Algerian
border as part of construction on a north African highway stretching
from Mauritania to Libya. Construction of the 328-kilometer road
(204-mile) from Fez to the eastern city of Oudja, on the border with
Algeria, is expected to cost 820 million euros (one billion
dollars).
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Royal Dutch Shell
evacuated staff from two oil installations in southern Nigeria and
the military boosted troop levels in the volatile area after a dozen
village elders were killed in a riverboat attack.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Pakistan's army
destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an airstrike near the
Afghan border, killing 10 people. A resident said the slain men were
Afghan laborers.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, In the Philippines
Jainal Antel Sali Jr. (41), popularly known as Abu Sulaiman, a top
al-Qaida-linked militant, was killed. He was accused of kidnapping
three Americans in 2001 and of masterminding one of Southeast Asia's
worst terror attacks three years later. DNA evidence soon confirmed
Sulaiman’s death.
(AP, 1/17/07)(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had
delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would
consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Spanish court
officials said Spain has issued an international arrest warrant for
three US soldiers after reopening a murder investigation into the
killing of Spanish television cameraman Jose Couso in Iraq on Apr
18, 2003.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, In Sri Lanka
fierce clashes for control of a stretch of rebel-held-land in
eastern Batticaloa district left at least 16 dead. The military said
it lost four soldiers and that 29 more were wounded during the
battle. A pro-rebel Web site said only 12 guerrillas died. TamilNet
said 40 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 16, Rebels said
Sudanese government planes bombed Darfur rebel areas despite a
declared truce.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 16, Benon Sevan (69)
of Cyprus, former UN oil-for-food chief, was charged with taking a
$160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil during the $64
billion program that ran from 1996-2003. This brought to 14 the
number of people charged in the case.
(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A6)
2007 Jan 17, A year after
disclosure of a domestic spying program that President Bush
maintained was within his authority to operate, Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales announced the administration had shifted its
position and would seek the approval of an independent panel of
federal judges.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2007 Jan 17, Alaska’s newly
elected Gov. Sarah Palin (42) delivered her 1st state speech.
(http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/104605)
2007 Jan 17, The Doomsday
Clock, created in 1947 and run by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
was nudged forward to 11:55 due to moves by Iran and North Korea. It
reached 11:58 in 1953 and moved back to 11:43 in 1991.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 17, In Texas James
Waller, who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy, became
the 12th person in Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.
(AP, 1/19/07)(http://tinyurl.com/27evec)
2007 Jan 17, A US snow and ice
storm was blamed for at least 64 deaths in nine states. These
included 20 deaths in Oklahoma, 9 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New
York, 5 in Texas, 4 in Michigan, 3 in Arkansas, and 1 each in Maine
and Indiana.
(AP, 1/17/07)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 17, The SF Police
Commission approved Mayor Newsom’s request to add surveillance
cameras at 8 additional high-crime locations.
(SFC, 1/18/07, p.B3)
2007 Jan 17, Art Buchwald (81),
columnist and author, died. For over four decades he chronicled the
life and times of Washington DC with an infectious wit and endeared
himself to many with his never-say-die battle with failing kidneys.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, In southern
Australia firefighters battled to contain a wildfire that razed a
number of homes amid soaring temperatures and warnings that the
worst was yet to come.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Britain’s Guardian
reported that senior executives at defense manufacturer BAE Systems
have been named as suspects in a corruption inquiry being conducted
by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into contracts with South Africa.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Chadian rebels
captured the small town of Ade on the border with Sudan, the latest
in a series of raids in the lawless east of the central African
country.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In southern
Colombia a pickup truck carrying 660 pounds of explosives destroyed
a dairy plant owned by Swiss food giant Nestle SA, an attack police
attributed to leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, Conservationists
said rebels in eastern Congo, loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda, have
killed and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas in Virunga
National Park. Congo’s army said Nkunda agreed two weeks ago to stop
fighting government forces in exchange for a government promise not
to pursue war crimes charges against him.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Greece
protesters torched cars, broke bank windows and clashed with riot
police during a student demonstration against plans to allow private
universities to operate.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Honduras a
concrete wall collapsed at a coffee warehouse in Villanueva,
crushing six workers under tons of bagged coffee beans.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, A suicide car bomb
struck a market in the Shiite district of Sadr City and police said
17 people died. Another suicide car bomb exploded earlier at a
checkpoint in the city of Kirkuk after guards opened fire as the
driver approached a police station. The blast killed eight people
and injured dozens. A mortar attack on a residential area in
Iskandariyah killed a woman and injured 10 people. Police found the
body of an Iraqi policeman whose hands and legs had been bound
hanging by electric wire, two days after he was kidnapped while
going to his home in the same area. Gunmen in a car also opened fire
on two brothers, aged 30 and 35, on their way to work as
construction workers in Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad. One was
killed and the other was wounded. In Baghdad, a civilian was killed
in a drive-by shooting and police found 5 unidentified bodies. An
attack in Baghdad on a convoy of a Western democracy institute
killed a 28-year-old Ohio woman and three security contractors.
(AP, 1/17/07)(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 17, Alice Lakwena, a
Ugandan warrior priestess who led an insurgency in the 1980s, died
at a Kenyan refugee camp. She was known as Alice Auma and claimed to
have been possessed by a spirit called Lakwena, which gave her
spiritual powers to protect her fighters from bullets by anointing
them with oil. Her cousin, Joseph Kony, is the messianic leader of
the Lord's Resistance Army.
(AP, 1/18/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.87)
2007 Jan 17, Nepal's former
communist guerrillas began an orderly handover of weapons to UN
monitors, putting in motion a landmark peace deal that calls for
thousands of fighters to disarm and be confined to camps.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Nigeria rebels
released 5 Chinese telecommunications workers and an Italian oil
worker abducted in the southern delta region. A female (22) in Lagos
died from bird flu. This was Nigeria’s first confirmed fatality from
Avian Influenza. Tests on 3 other deaths were inconclusive.
(AP, 1/18/07)(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian
prosecutors charged Alexei Frenkel, a bank officer, with organizing
the murder of a senior Central Bank official who sought to clean up
Russia's banking industry. Charges were formally entered against
Frenkel in connection with the killing of Andrei Kozlov, who was
shot at point-blank range on Sept. 13 as he left a soccer game in
Moscow.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Russian lawmakers
sharply criticized Estonia for possible plans to remove a 1947
statue that honors Red Army soldiers who helped drive Nazi forces
from the Baltic nation. Last week the Estonian president signed into
law a bill allowing for the removal of the statue. The monument
upset many in the country that suffered five decades of Soviet
occupation.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 17, A top Somali
lawmaker closely associated with the recently ousted Islamic
movement was voted out as speaker by parliament, a move that could
undermine reconciliation efforts in the restive country.
(AP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, In Thailand
suspected separatist rebels shot dead two Buddhist villagers in the
Muslim-majority south. The insurgency there has killed more than
1,800 people in three years.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 17, Yevgeny Kushnaryov
(55), described as "the right-hand man" to Ukraine's pro-Russian PM,
Viktor Yanukovych, died from his wounds one day after being shot by
one of his hunting companions.
(www.alertnet.org/thenews/pictures/MOS11.htm)
2007 Jan 17, Morgan Tsvangirai,
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, urged mass protests against
President Robert Mugabe's nearly 27-year-rule.
(AFP, 1/17/07)
2007 Jan 18, The United States
criticized China for conducting an anti-satellite weapons test in
which an old Chinese weather satellite was destroyed by a ballistic
missile on Jan 11.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the US Congress that failure to take
action soon to deal with the budgetary strains posed by an aging US
population could lead to serious economic harm.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Truck driver
Tyrone Williams was spared the death penalty and sentenced in
Houston to life in prison for his role in the deaths of 19 illegal
immigrants crammed in a sweltering tractor-trailer.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2007 Jan 18, The heated
controversy at ABC's top show, "Grey's Anatomy," boiled over as the
network rebuked co-star Isaiah Washington for an anti-gay comment
and Washington issued a lengthy apology.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2007 Jan 18, A suicide bomber
detonated his explosives next to Afghan soldiers in an eastern
Afghan market, killing one soldier and wounding three.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, South America's
most prominent leaders met in Rio for a two-day summit of the
fractured Mercosur economic bloc. Leaders sought to refocus Mercosur
on the needs of the region's poor as Venezuela's outspoken president
called for remaking Mercosur to fit his vision of "21st century
socialism."
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, In China hundreds
of riot police clashed with villagers protesting against an alleged
land grab by officials in the southern province of Guangdong.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, In Dubai a
high-rise apartment building under construction caught fire,
injuring up to 25 workers and trapping others in thick smoke as
rescue crews scrambled to reach them.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, East Timor and the
UN launched an appeal for $16.6 million to help resettle and
reintegrate about 100,000 people displaced by violence which wracked
the country last year.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, India prepared to
send 125 of its crack policewomen to Liberia to act as UN
peacekeepers, the first time the world body has deployed an
all-female unit.
(AFP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, In India a boat
carrying people to a religious festival sank on the Krishna River.
As many as 66 pilgrims were feared drowned.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, In Iraq at least
59 people were killed or found dead. 3 car bombs detonated within
minutes of each other in front of a wholesale vegetable market near
a Shiite enclave on the edge the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of
Dora in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding
30. The US military acknowledged that coalition forces had searched
the Sudanese Embassy in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/18/07)(SFC, 1/19/07, p.A10)
2007 Jan 18, President Felipe
Calderon signed an accord with businesses to curb soaring tortilla
prices and protect Mexico's poor from speculative sellers and a
surge in the cost of corn driven by the US ethanol industry.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Truck driver
Albano Ramirez Santos tried to commit suicide by throwing himself
onto the tracks of the Mexico City subway and was later beaten to
death by police. Santos was reportedly despondent over the theft of
his truck.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 18, Myanmar’s state
media accused pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi of evading taxes
by spending her money from the 1991 Nobel Peace prize and other
awards overseas.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, A Philippine
Marines platoon battled about 30 extremists under Abu Sayyaf veteran
Radullan Sahiron in the Jolo town of Patikul. Ten Abu Sayyaf members
and three government troops died in the hour-long fight, while three
militants were captured.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, President Vladimir
Putin ordered Russia's ambassador to Georgia to return to the
Georgian capital after recalling him four months ago, saying that
the two countries must "normalize" badly strained ties.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, South Korean
regulators fined the Hyundai Motor Co. 23 billion won ($24.5
million) for violating competition rules.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.67)
2007 Jan 18, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's foreign minister, accused the Cabinet of PM Yanukovych of
cutting off funds to his ministry, leaving it unable to pay its
employees or contribute dues to international organizations.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 18, Venezuelan
lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill granting President Hugo
Chavez the power to rule by decree for 18 months so that he can
impose sweeping economic, social and political change.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, US deputy
ambassador Mark Wallace charged that the UNDP operated "in blatant
violation of UN rules" for years in North Korea. UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded quickly to the accusations,
calling on all UN funds and programs to conduct an urgent outside
investigation into their operations.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Former Ohio Rep.
Bob Ney was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for
trading political favors for gifts and campaign donations from
lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, North Carolina’s
Gov. Mike Easley said Google will invest up to $600 million to build
a data center in his state.
(SFC, 1/20/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 19, CNL Hotel &
Resorts agreed to sell a collection of 8 resorts, including the
Claremont Resort & Spa in Berkeley, Ca., to Morgan Stanley Real
Estate for $6.6 billion.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.D4)
2007 Jan 19, The so-called
"Storm Worm" swept into US email systems, cutting a wider swath of
American email systems than within Europe.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/199062)
2007 Jan 19, Denny Doherty
(66), one-quarter of the 1960s folk-rock group the Mamas and the
Papas, died at his home in Ontario, Canada. The group was known for
their soaring harmony on hits like "California Dreamin’" (1966) and
"Monday, Monday."
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Belgian lawyers
confirmed that a group of Belgian newspapers had asked Yahoo! Inc.
to remove links to their archived stories from its Web search
service, claiming they infringe copyright laws.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, British foreign
secretary Margaret Beckett admitted that her government was aware of
a secret CIA prison network before Pres. Bush acknowledged its
existence in September.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Europeans labored
to restore services across the continent after hurricane-force winds
toppled trees, brought down power lines and damaged buildings,
killing at least 47 people and disrupting travel for tens of
thousands.
(AP, 1/19/07)(SFC, 1/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 19, An Egyptian woman
died from bird flu after six days in hospital.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, The EU said it has
donated an additional 3.95 million euros ($5 million) to support the
implementation of the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary demarcation project.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, In Guinea 2 people
were killed when police and troops opened fire on thousands of
demonstrators, raising the death toll to five since a general strike
was launched in the west African nation this month.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Iraqi and US
forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr's top aides in Baghdad as
pressure increased on the radical Shiite cleric's militia ahead of a
planned security crackdown in the capital. Al-Sadr said in an
interview with an Italian newspaper that the crackdown had already
begun and that 400 of his men had been arrested. A US Marine died
from wounds due to enemy action in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of
Anbar province. Another was killed by a roadside bomb while
conducting combat operations in Ninevah province.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Israel said it had
paid $100 million in frozen tax funds to the Palestinians and
rescinded a contentious decision for a new West Bank settlement,
strengthening the hand of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of
crucial weekend talks in Damascus with his Hamas rivals.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Jordan's King
Abdullah II told an Israeli newspaper that his country wants its own
nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Mexico extradited
four major drug traffickers to the US, including Osiel Cardenas,
head of the so-called Gulf Cartel. President Felipe Calderon
announced that 7,600 soldiers have massed in the Pacific coast state
of Guerrero to go after drug gangs that have committed beheadings
and other violence in the resort city of Acapulco in recent months.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/20/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.p33)
2007 Jan 19, Five Moroccans
sent home from the Guantanamo US military camp in 2004 were
acquitted of terrorism charges leveled at them on their return.
(Reuters, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Mozambique
officials said 4 people have died, hundreds of homes destroyed and
more than 6,000 affected by torrential rains over the last two days.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, North Korea said
it reached an agreement with the US during talks this week on its
nuclear program, and the top US nuclear envoy expressed optimism
that progress could be made when wider arms negotiations reconvene.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Pakistan's
president discussed the "deteriorating situation" in the Middle East
with his Iranian counterpart ahead of his tour of the region.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, A Polish court
convicted two doctors and two ambulance workers of participating in
a scheme in which 14 patients were allowed to die, or in some cases
killed with muscle relaxants, in return for kickbacks from funeral
homes. All received prison sentences, ranging from five years to
life.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Rwanda's
government said it has approved plans to scrap the death penalty, in
a step which could remove a major obstacle to the transfer back home
of defendants facing trial over the 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, The African Union
agreed to deploy a long-discussed peacekeeping force in Somalia.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 19, Sri Lankan troops
captured the main rebel bastion in the island's east. After weeks of
fighting, at least 45 security forces and 331 Tiger rebels were
killed in the battle for Vakarai.
(AP, 1/19/07)
2007 Jan 19, Hrant Dink (53), a
Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot to death at the
entrance to his newspaper's offices. The journalist had faced
constant threats and legal proceedings as one of the most prominent
voices of Turkey's shrinking Armenian community. Dink had called the
1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide. In 2012
Yasin Hayal was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding the
killing, while another 19 were acquitted of charges of acting under
a terrorist organization's orders.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/19/12)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.58)
2007 Jan 20, Democratic Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton embarked on a widely anticipated campaign for
the White House. The former first lady, intent on becoming the first
female president, said on her Web site: "I'm in and I'm in to win."
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback began a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential
nomination. He withdrew in October.
(AP, 1/20/08)
2007 Jan 20, George Smathers
(b.1913), former 3-term US Senator from Florida, died. He helped
pass bills to create Medicare, the Small Business Administration and
Everglades National Park. He also pushed for federal holidays to be
moved to Mondays and ardently supported the war in Vietnam.
(SSFC, 1/21/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 20, Richard
Vollenweider (1922-2007), Swiss scientist, died. He developed
methods for quantifying the eutrophication of freshwater. His
methods were used to save Lake Erie and helped form the basis of the
1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Act.
(http://tinyurl.com/ygrc3p)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A8)
2007 Jan 20, The Taliban's
governing body said it has decided to open schools in the areas
controlled by the militants in Afghanistan.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 20, Anselmo Oliveira
Magalhaes (32), a man accused of helping steal more than $70 million
in cash from a branch of Brazil's central bank in 2005, was found
dead with a broken neck and his hands and feet tied inside a 75-foot
well at a ranch in Santa Izabel. The bodies of two other men were
found in the well, but it wasn't immediately clear whether they had
any connection to the bank heist.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 20, The London Times
said police had tracked down the man, who was introduced to former
Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko and his associates as "Vladislav",
using details that the ex-agent recounted on his deathbed.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, The UN’s food
agency said some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after
devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central
African nation.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, Czech PM Mirek
Topolanek said the US wants to build a radar base in the Czech
Republic as part of its global missile defense system. Poland was
also mentioned as a potential site. Russia in response warned of an
arms race.
(AP, 1/20/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 20, Elite Iraqi police
forces dropped off by US helicopters staged a raid against an
al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group, killing 15 insurgents and
capturing five others. At least 25 American service members were
killed in military operations in the deadliest day for US forces in
two years, including 13 who died in a helicopter crash and five
slain in an attack by militia fighters in Karbala. An American
general later said Iranian forces helped plan the Karbala raid in
which gunmen posed as an American security team and launched an
attack that killed five US soldiers. Laith al-Khazali, a key member
of a group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous), and
his brother Qais, were later accused of organizing the Karbala raid.
Laith al-Khazali was released in June, 2009, as part of national
reconciliation efforts by the Iraqi government. 4 US soldiers and a
Marine were killed during combat in Anbar province. In 2009 Shiite
militant Laith al-Khazali, accused of being involved in the killings
at Karbala, was released as part of "the wider Iraqi government
reconciliation process of reaching out to groups that are willing to
set aside violence in favor of taking part in the political
process." In January, 2010, Qais al-Khazali was released by the
Iraqi government.
(AP, 1/20/07)(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07,
p.A1)(AP, 7/2/07)(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 8/4/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/6/10, p.A3)
2007 Jan 20, In Nairobi, Kenya,
more than 80,000 people from around the globe descended on the
massive Kibera shanty-town, home for at least 700,000 of Kenya's
poorest, to kick-off the seventh annual World Social Forum.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Jan 20, In Mexico Rodolfo
Rincon (54), who worked for the newspaper Tabasco Hoy, was last seen
after he reported on local drug dealers. In 2010 Mexican authorities
said he was killed by a drug cartel's hit men who dissolved his body
in acid.
(AP, 3/2/10)
2007 Jan 20, The Russian
population was reported to be shrinking by some 750,000 people per
year. New rules put severe restrictions on foreign workers in retail
operations. Russia planned to make available 6 million work permits
for migrants from poor ex-Soviet republics.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.61)
2007 Jan 20, Konstantin Borovko
(25), a Russian television journalist, was beaten to death in
Vladivostok. Colleagues said they did not think the killing was
related to his work.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 20, The last major
warlord in Somalia surrendered his weapons and 200 militiamen to the
army, while an Islamic leader claimed responsibility for a string of
guerrilla attacks and promised there would be more until the
government agreed to talks. An Ethiopian military convoy was
ambushed in a new round of deadly violence in the Somali capital
Mogadishu, hours after the African Union agreed to send peacekeepers
to the war-torn country. Kenya handed over 34 Islamic militiamen to
Somalia's transitional government. A Somali government spokesman
said that some of them may be senior leaders of the country's
Islamic movement.
(AP, 1/20/07)(AFP, 1/20/07)(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 20, Istanbul police
arrested Ogun Samast, a teenage boy (16-17), for the fatal shooting
of Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist. Samast confessed to
the murder.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson entered the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 21, Lovie Smith became
the first black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his
Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans
Saints 39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis
Colts took the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Jan 21, More than a foot
of snow fell on parts of northern Arizona, while children as far
south as Tucson got a rare chance to play in the snow.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Zdzislaw Rurarz, a
former Polish ambassador to Japan, died of cancer in Virginia. He
humiliated Poland's communist regime by defecting to the US in 1981
to protest its imposition of martial law.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 21, Louis Malcolm Boyd
(b.1927), aka L.M. Boyd, master gatherer of random facts, died at
his home in Seattle, Wa. He began his column in 1963 at the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer using the pen name Mike Mailway. In SF the column
was titled Grab Bag.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.B3)
2007 Jan 21, Oil leaked from
the Napoli, stricken freighter beached on the England’s southwest
coast, Two containers of hazardous chemicals fell into the sea as
salvage crews struggled to operate.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Canada announced
it will spend $25 million to protect, the Great Bear Rainforest, a
16-million-acre preserve that stretches 250 miles along British
Columbia's rugged Pacific coastline, one of the largest intact
temperate rainforests left in the world.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, The Danish
container ship Eleonora Maersk, one of the largest ships in the
world, was officially registered.
(www.ships-info.info/mer-eleonora-maersk.htm)(Econ, 11/12/11, p.72)
2007 Jan 21, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met with Pres. Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort
of Sochi for talks set to focus on securing guarantees for energy
supplies to the EU. Putin promised to smooth energy flow to Europe.
(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 21, Embattled Guinean
President Lansana Conte called on his country's armed forces to
stand united in the face of a crippling general strike that has
claimed 10 lives as pressure mounted for him to resign. The African
Union called on Pres. Conte to pursue talks with trade union leaders
to ease a 12-day-old strike.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, In India at least
one person was killed and eight wounded in two separate explosions
in the insurgency-hit northeastern state of Assam.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, A major
6.5-magnitude undersea earthquake has rocked Indonesia's northern
Sulawesi province. The earthquake left four people dead and four
injured.
(AFP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc announced it is lifting its political
boycott, some seven weeks after it began to protest the Iraqi prime
minister's summit with President Bush. A bomb struck a small bus in
Baghdad as it headed to a predominantly Shiite area, killing six
passengers and wounding 10. Two US Marines were killed in separate
attacks in the Anbar province. Another US soldier was killed in
fighting south of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 21, Islamic Jihad
militants launched homemade rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip
in retaliation for Israel's continuing military operations against
their group in the West Bank.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Russian border
police seized a Japanese fishing boat and its six crew members in
disputed waters between the two countries, prompting the Japanese
government to protest. The No. 38 Zuisho Maru was captured off
Kunashiri Island, one of four disputed islands in a group the
Japanese call the Northern Territories and the Russians call the
Kurils.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Serbs voted in
parliamentary elections that could determine whether the troubled
Balkan nation will continue with pro-Western reform or return to its
nationalist past.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Sheik Sharif Sheik
Ahmed, a top leader of Somalia's ousted Islamic movement seen by the
US as a potential key to preventing a widespread insurgency,
surrendered to authorities and went under police protection in
Nairobi.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, In Sri Lanka's
northern waters Tiger rebels rammed an explosives-laden boat against
a private merchant vessel operated by foreign crew, sparking a land,
sea and air battle.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Darfur rebels
accused the Sudanese government of bombing its areas for two days,
killing at least 17 civilians, in an attempt to delay a conference
of rebel leaders.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez told US officials to "Go to hell, gringos!"
and called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "missy" on his weekly
radio and TV show, lashing out at Washington for what he called
unacceptable meddling in his country's affairs.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Jan 22, The US Supreme
Court struck down a California sentencing law because it allowed
judges to add years to a prison term based on their own fact
finding. The court said juries must rule on any evidence used to
justify longer prison terms.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 22, It was reported
that federal officials had arrested 119 people in Contra Costa
County, Ca., in a weeklong immigration crackdown that was part of
“Operation Return to Sender.” Immigration officials arrested over
750 illegals in the Los Angeles area. The operation has arrested
13,000 nationwide people since June 2006.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.B8)(WSJ, 1/24/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 22, Intel and Sun
Microsystems announced a major partnership under which Sun would
begin selling business computers running on Intel’s Xeon
microprocessors, while Intel will endorse and support sun’s Solaris
operating system.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.D3)
2007 Jan 22, Nickel prices
surged to an all-time peak above $37,000 per ton in London trading
owing to concerns over dwindling stockpiles of the metal.
(AFP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Scientists warned
that glaciers will all but disappear from the Alps by 2050, and that
most would be gone by 2037.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 22, Brazil’s
government announced a growth acceleration package.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.34)
2007 Jan 22, Hundreds of
scavengers swooped onto a beach in southwest England and carted away
motorcycles, wine barrels, car parts and tennis shoes spilling from
a container ship damaged in recent storms and listing about a mile
off shore.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, The EU threatened
Sudan with sanctions if it refused to allow UN peacekeepers into
war-torn Darfur, but rights groups and analysts said the warning was
not enough to stop the killings.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Abbe Pierre
(b.1912), a French priest praised as a living legend for devoting
his life to helping the homeless, using prayer and provocation to
tackle misery, died in Paris. He founded the international Emmaus
Community for the poor. Abbe Pierre, born as Henry Groues,
served as a spokesman for France's conscience since the 1950s when
he persuaded parliament to pass a law, still on the books,
forbidding landlords to expel tenants during winter months.
(AP, 1/22/07)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.87)
2007 Jan 22, In Guinea security
forces fired on protesters marching on the presidential palace. At
least 30 people were killed and over a hundred injured.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.48)
2007 Jan 22, In Indonesia 16
people, including a policeman, were shot dead and others wounded in
a shootout with residents on Sulawesi, as police searched for
suspected militants in the restive town of Poso.
(AFP, 1/22/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.42)
2007 Jan 22, Iran barred 38
nuclear inspectors on a UN list from entering the country in what
appeared to be retaliation for the UN sanctions imposed last month.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, A suicide bomber
crashed his car into a central Baghdad market crowded with Shiites
just seconds after another car bomb tore through the stalls where
vendors were hawking DVDs and used clothing, leaving 88 dead in the
bloodiest attack in two months. An Egyptian embassy worker was
kidnapped in Baghdad while on a trip outside the compound. 137
people were killed or found dead across Iraq. Two US soldiers were
killed in Iraq, one in fighting in Anbar province and the other in a
roadside bombing.
(AP, 1/22/07)(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, Leftist Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega, who took power earlier this month, said
that he was slashing his salary and those of Cabinet members.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, In Northern
Ireland a report was published that detailed how some in the old
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) protected a band of loyalist
paramilitary killers.
(Econ, 1/27/07, p.56)
2007 Jan 22, Pakistan's
military lodged a protest saying US-led forces in Afghanistan
mistakenly fired at a Pakistani border post and killed a soldier. A
suicide car bomber attacked a military convoy in northwestern
Pakistan, killing himself and at least four soldiers.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Rosoboronexport
chief Sergei Chemezov said Russia had fulfilled a contract to sell
air defense missiles to Iran. This included 29 sophisticated missile
systems under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, Voting results in
Serbia indicated that the ultra-nationalist Radicals won the most
votes in parliamentary elections, but several pro-democratic groups
collected enough seats to form a new government if they can unite.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, Klas Bergenstrand
(61), the head of Sweden's intelligence agency, died from an
apparent heart attack.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, In Turkey police
said Yasin Hayal, a nationalist militant convicted of bombing a
McDonald's restaurant in 2004, had confessed to inciting the killing
of an ethnic Armenian journalist last week. Hayal said he provided a
gun and money to the teenager who is suspected of carrying out the
Jan 19 shooting.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 22, In northern Uganda
a minibus with 21 people collided with a truck. The dead included 6
foreign missionaries, an American couple, a Dutch couple and two
Kenyans.
(Reuters, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 22, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that an external audit would
be conducted of the UN Development Program in North Korea after the
US alleged the program had funneled millions of dollars to Kim Jong
Il's regime.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 23, President Bush won
cautious kudos in Europe and Asia for urging reduced dependence on
oil and backing alternative energy sources in his State of the Union
address, but his push for more troops in Iraq was widely derided.
Bush called for 20% cut in gasoline consumption over the next
decade.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 1/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, US customs rules
went into effect calling for passports for US citizens returning by
air from any country including Canada, Mexico and Caribbean nations.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 23, Two US inmates, a
convicted rapist in Georgia and a man who was unjustly convicted of
murder in New York but helped find the real killer from his prison
cell, were granted their freedom after DNA tests proved their
innocence.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, E. Howard Hunt
(b.1918), leader of the 1972 Watergate break-in, died in Florida. He
described the affair in his book “Under Cover: Memoirs of an
American secret agent” (1974).
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.B7)
2007 Jan 23, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of workers outside
a US military base, killing as many as 10 and wounding more than a
dozen others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Brazil said it had
requested the US extradite two leaders of an evangelical church
(Reborn in Christ) who allegedly used their followers' donations to
buy mansions, a horse farm and apartments in Brazil and the US.
Estevam Hernandes Filho (52) and his wife, Sonia Haddad Moraes
Hernandes (48) were arrested by US customs agents in Miami earlier
this month on charges of carrying a large sum of undeclared cash.
The couple was sentenced to five months in prison, five months of
house arrest and a probation period for failing to declare they were
carrying more than $10,000 into the United States. They were also
fined $60,000. Both returned to Brazil on Aug 1, 2009.
(AP, 1/24/07)(AP, 8/2/09)
2007 Jan 23, British police
arrested five men under anti-terror laws, in dawn raids reportedly
linked to the escape of a terror suspect and the distribution of
Islamist propaganda.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, British police set
up roadblocks to try to hinder scavengers who descended on a
southwest England beach to pick through shipping containers that
washed ashore from a stranded cargo vessel.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, China Central
Television banned all images and spoken references to pigs in order
to avoid offending Muslims. The Year of the Pig was set to begin in
February.
(WSJ, 1/25/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, Ethiopian troops
who helped Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic militia
began withdrawing in military trucks and tanks.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, A special
committee of the European Parliament approved a report alleging EU
nations including Britain, Poland, Germany and Italy were aware of
secret CIA flights over Europe and the abduction of terror suspects
by US agents into clandestine detention centers.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, French doctors
said that they had performed the world’s third partial face
transplant on a man whose face was disfigured by severe tumors.
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 23, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels set off a large bomb in a crowded market
in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, killing at least one person
and wounding 12.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, The UN refugee
agency said that men allegedly wearing uniforms of the Iraqi
security forces abducted a group of 17 Palestinian refugees from a
building rented by the agency in Baghdad. Two bombs struck separate
Shiite targets in Baghdad, killing five people. A Blackwater USA
security helicopter crashed in a Sunni neighborhood in central
Baghdad and 5 men were shot execution style in the back of the head.
(AP, 1/23/07)(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Bertie Ahern,
taoiseach of Ireland, launched a $238 billion national-development
plan for the economy over the next 7 years.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 23, A Jordanian man
fatally shot his 17-year-old daughter whom he suspected of having
sex despite a medical exam that proved her chastity. The man
surrendered to police hours after the killing, saying he had done it
for family honor. On average, about 20 women in the country are
killed by their relatives in such cases each year.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hezbollah-led
protesters paralyzed Lebanon, clashing with government supporters
and burning tires and cars on roads in and around the capital to
enforce a general strike aimed at toppling US-backed Prime Minister
Fuad Saniora. Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Mozambique’s
National Institute for Disaster Management said torrential rains in
central Mozambique had claimed five lives and rendered more than
3,500 homeless since the weekend.
(AFP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, In southern
Nigeria unidentified assailants seized oil engineers, an American
and a Briton, in the latest kidnapping.
(Reuters, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Dozens of masked
gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaida stormed an empty Gaza
Strip beach resort and blew up a reception hall, saying they were
sending a message to an ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Ryszard
Kapuscinski (b.1932), Belarus-born Polish writer and journalist,
died following heart surgery. He gained international acclaim for
his books chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the
Middle East and other parts of the world. His books included "The
Emperor" (1978), a chronicle of the decline of Haile Selassie's
regime in Ethiopia. In 1981 he published "Shah of Shahs," a book
about the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi. His last book “Travels With Herodotus” was published
shortly after his death.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(SSFC, 7/22/07,
p.M1)
2007 Jan 23, In northern Sri
Lanka 2 roadside bombs exploded in Jaffna town, killing a government
soldier and three civilians.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hundreds of
Venezuelans protested against a congressional measure that would
grant President Hugo Chavez the power to pass laws by decree in
areas from the economy to defense.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 24, The
Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed
President Bush's plans for a troop buildup in Iraq as "not in the
national interest" of the United States.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2007 Jan 24, Ecuador's first
female defense minister died in a collision of two helicopters that
also killed her daughter and five members of the military.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Egyptian security
forces arrested seven members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood north
of Cairo in a widening crackdown on the country's largest opposition
movement.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Jean-Francois
Deniau (b.1928), a former French government minister, diplomat,
sailor and novelist, died. His novel "Un Hero Tres Discret" (A Very
Discreet Hero) told of an ordinary man who reinvented himself as a
hero of the World War II Resistance. The book was adapted into a
movie by director Jacques Audiard and given the English-language
title "A Self Made Hero."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In Haiti UN troops
traded gunfire with armed gangs after seizing an abandoned primary
school that had been used to stage attacks on the peacekeepers.
Witnesses said one person died and five were injured.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, India and Russia
agreed two arms deals meant to bring bilateral military ties into a
new era, a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrival for
a two-day summit.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In India some
18,000 rickshaw operators went on strike in Kolkata to protest a ban
on rickshaws by the Communist government of West Bengal.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.43)
2007 Jan 24, Iraqi and US
troops clashed with gunmen in a Sunni insurgent stronghold north of
the heavily fortified Green Zone. As many as 30 militants were
killed and 27 captured.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav, facing charges of rape and abuse of power, asked
parliament to temporarily remove him from office in an effort to
blunt growing calls for his resignation. Israeli troops shot dead a
Palestinian and arrested two others, as the men tried to sneak into
Israel from the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, A study released
about the trade in Malaysia found that catches of some grouper
species and the endangered Napoleon wrasse fell by as much as 99%
between 1995 to 2003, a period coinciding with soaring economic
growth in countries where the exotic fish are a delicacy.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In southern Mexico
a bus plunged into a ravine in remote mountains, killing at least 29
people.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Nicaraguan
lawmakers approved a bill backed by President Daniel Ortega to
create "people's councils" that some fear will resemble the defense
committees that operated under the Sandinista government of the
1980s.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, In Somalia gunmen
launched several mortars at Mogadishu International Airport, killing
at least two people and wounding several others.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, A hijacker seized
a Sudanese passenger plane carrying 103 people and forced the pilot
to fly to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, where he surrendered. The
gunman wanted the plane to be flown to Britain but when told there
was insufficient fuel agreed to go to the capital of neighbouring
Chad. He said he wanted to draw attention to the Darfur conflict.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 24, Some 2,400
registered participants gathered at Davos, Switzerland, for the
4-day World Economic Forum, whose theme this year was: "The Shifting
Power Equation."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 25, A rare late work
by Rembrandt depicting the Apostle James in prayer was sold in NYC
for $25.8 million.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Ford Motor Co.
lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter amid slumping sales and huge
restructuring costs, pushing the automaker's deficit for the year to
$12.7 billion, the largest in its 103-year history.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 24, Scientists
reported that they had built the densest memory chip to date. It
measured about 100 million bits per square centimeter, about 40
times as much as current memory chips. The chip was about the size
of a white blood cell and held about 160,000 bits.
(SFC, 1/25/07, p.C2)
2007 Jan 25, Officials said
Afghanistan's heroin-producing poppies will not be sprayed with
herbicide this year despite a record crop in 2006 and US pressure to
allow the tactic. In southern Afghanistan a NATO airstrike destroyed
a Taliban command post, killing a suspected senior militant leader.
In eastern Afghanistan border police clashed with suspected
militants in Gomal district in Paktika province, leaving 10
suspected Taliban and one police dead.
(AP, 1/25/07)(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, Australia’s PM
John Howard announced multibillion-dollar water reforms aimed at
easing Australia's record drought.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, China reported
that its sizzling economy grew at 10.7% in 2006, its fastest rate in
a decade, as the government struggled to contain the strains of an
export-driven boom.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Guinea’s Health
Ministry said battles between security forces and protesters earlier
this week killed at least 59 people, almost double the toll
previously reported.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Guyana's president
hired former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as a
state security adviser despite criticism in this South American
country over his record of alleged ethics violations.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, In India an angry
crowd severely beat up two suspects who are accused of sexually
assaulting and killing up to 20 children and women. The crowd
pounced upon the two as they were being taken to a lockup by police
after a court in Ghaziabad, a town on the outskirts of New Delhi,
sent them to police custody for 15 days.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Iraq's prime
minister told parliament that the coming US-Iraqi security sweep in
Baghdad, dubbed "Operation Imposing Law," would not be the last
battle against militants. A suicide car bomber struck a
predominantly Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad, killing at
least 19 people and wounding 23. At least 3 policemen were among the
dead.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Israel’s President
Moshe Katsav, who insists he is the victim of a conspiracy, stepped
aside after a parliamentary committee voted 13-11 to grant his
request to do so. He preserved his immunity by taking a leave rather
than resigning.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, International
donors pledged $7.6 billion in aid and loans at a conference to
raise money for Lebanon's U.S.-backed prime minister and his
economic reform program. The US pledged to more than triple its
economic aid to $770 million including $220 million in military aid.
Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university
campus. At least 3 people were reported killed.
(AP, 1/25/07)(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 25, Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi chaired a meeting of African presidents and other
top officials to prepare for an African Union summit as conflicts
rage on the continent.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, In southern
Nigeria gunmen stormed the local offices of a major Chinese oil
company, abducting seven Chinese employees and stealing a large
amount of cash.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Nigeria divested
24.87% of its equity in the ailing Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria
(PAN), while the French government also conceded to shed 30%
interest in the company, which was turned over to ASD Motors
Nigeria.
(AFP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 25, In northwestern
Pakistan a car bomb exploded in the shopping district of Hangu,
killing at least two passers-by and wounding four other people.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Russian President
Vladimir Putin arrived in India, hoping to use the two nations'
decades-long friendship to push for deals in civilian nuclear
cooperation, military hardware and trade expansion. Putin sealed a
deal to construct more nuclear power plants in India.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, In southern
Somalia gunmen attacked Ethiopian soldiers stationed there, killing
one and wounding another.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 25, Ukraine’s PM
Yanukovych said that he is working to completed a pipeline to carry
Caspian-region oil directly to the EU.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A4)
2007 Jan 25, Uruguay’s
left-wing government under Pres. Tabare Vazquez signed a trade and
investment “framework agreement” with the US.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 25, Pope Benedict XVI
met with Vietnam's PM Nguyen Tan Dung. Their talks marked an
important step toward establishing diplomatic relations following
decades of tension.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 26, The White House
said President Bush had authorized US forces in Iraq to take
whatever actions were necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a
threat to American troops or the public at large. Defense Secretary
Robert Gates told a news conference that a congressional resolution
opposing President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq undercut US
commanders and emboldened the enemy.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2007 Jan 26, The United States
issued a formal rule banning exports of luxury items to North Korea,
including jet skis, I-pods, jewelry and fancy cars, in an effort to
put pressure on the communist leadership in Pyongyang.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Maine
Legislature overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real
ID Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for
driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping
systems to national databases. Within a week of Maine's action,
lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and
Washington state also balked at Real ID. Idaho approved a similar
bill on March 8.
(AP, 2/4/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.36)
2007 Jan 26, Intel said it will
begin using a new material on its next generation of chips making
them more energy efficient. IBM also announced changes in its
chip-making processes.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported
that Dr. Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular
scientist, has come up with a way to add caffeine to baked goods,
without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the
equivalent of about two cups of coffee.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Scientists
reported that damage to one area of the brain was found to curb a
smoker’s urge to smoke.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, A US Navy
helicopter crashed during a training mission in the ocean about 50
miles off the southeastern coast of California. One sailor was
reported dead and 3 missing.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 26, In Afghanistan an
assailant gunned down lawmaker Maulavi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi. He
was the Taliban's governor of Bamiyan province and had overseen the
destruction of two Buddha statues carved into a cliff under the
former Taliban regime. In 2005 Mohammadi said: "It was foreigners
like Chechens and Arabs with the Taliban who made the decision. They
were crazy people. Even though I was governor, I had no power." A
suicide bomber blew himself up outside the offices of an aid group
in the capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah. A policeman and two
civilians were wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The last Islamic
militant group still fighting in the 16-year-old civil war against
Algeria's government said in an Internet statement posted that it
had changed its name to highlight its allegiance to the Al-Qaeda
network. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) said
that it was changing its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on the orders of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden.
(AFP, 1/26/07)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.38)
2007 Jan 26, Argentina
authorized officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in
human rights trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of
atrocities committed during the country's 1976-1983 military
dictatorship.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, British and
American television stations reported that British police have
concluded that a former Russian spy was poisoned by a lethal dose of
radioactive Polonium-210 added to his tea at a London hotel.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Andy Coulson
resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone hacking
affair which would several weeks later see the jailing for four
months of the paper's Royal correspondent Clive Goodman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Coulson)
2007 Jan 26, Canada apologized
to software engineer Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by US
agents after Canadian police mistakenly labeled him an Islamic
extremist, and paid him C$10.5 million ($8.9 million) in
compensation.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, China’s state
media said police in northern China have detained three men for the
deaths of two women last year whose corpses were sold as "ghost
brides" to accompany dead men in the afterlife. The ghost bride
tradition, called "minghun" or afterlife marriage, is common in the
Loess Plateau region of northern China.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Germany Peter
Hartz, Volkswagen human resources executive, was fined $750,000 and
given a 2-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to funding
an account that provided special travel perks for employees.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/volk-j27.shtml)
2007 Jan 26, Inmates rioted at
a prison on the outskirts of Guatemala City, leaving at least one
person dead before 3,000 riot police and soldiers stormed the
penitentiary.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In western India a
four-story boarding school collapsed, killing at least 11 girls and
injuring 14. The school in Tichakpura, a village in Gujarat, served
tribespeople in the area.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, An Iranian
opposition group based in France claimed Iran has thousands of paid
operatives working in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha, both vocal war critics, were in
the Iraqi capital at the head of a delegation of House members on a
fact-finding mission. A bomb hidden in a box holding pigeons tore
through a crowded pet and livestock market in Baghdad, killed 15
people and wounded dozens. 38 bullet-riddled bodies were found in
Baghdad. A former member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party and
an interpreter who works for the US military were killed in two
separate drive-by shootings in Kut. The body of a well-known Shiite
boxer was found in central Baghdad near the dangerous street where
he was kidnapped several days ago. A US Marine was killed in
fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 1/26/07)(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A9)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported
that scientists in Japan have developed a new technique for
detecting explosives such as TNT in landmines or luggage using radio
waves. The scientists created a device called superconducting
quantum interference device (SQUID), which has a very sensitive
magnetic field sensor that detects nitrogen, an element found in
many explosives, including TNT.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Kenya a
regional director for the aid agency CARE was killed.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Jan 26, Six federal police
officers involved in President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug operation
were being investigated for extortion after they were videotaped
taking money from a driver in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Jim Anderton, New
Zealand’s agriculture minister, declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb
Day.”
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials at
Davos, Switz., said Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, now
depends 100 percent on imports of petroleum products due to the
closure of its three refineries and canalization of pipelines.
(AFP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, William James
Fulton, a Protestant extremist was convicted on 48 terror counts and
sentenced to 28 years in prison, following the longest criminal
trial in Northern Ireland's history. The court found him guilty of
killing a grandmother with a pipe bomb, wounding four police
officers with a grenade, possessing firearms used for other
killings, smuggling drugs and a host of other crimes.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, A Pakistani
security guard died when he blocked a suicide bomber outside the
Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. At least seven other people were
wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, Hamas gunmen
stormed the home of a militant from the rival Fatah movement,
sparking a deadly gunbattle and capping a day of factional violence
across the Gaza Strip that killed 16 people, including a 2-year-old
boy.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Martin Ngoga,
Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, said Rwanda will release another 8,000
prisoners convicted or awaiting trial over the central African
nation's 1994 genocide, raising fears among survivors of a fresh
round of bloodletting.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Singapore executed
two Africans on drug trafficking charges despite pleas for clemency
by Nigeria's president.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Somalia a spate
of gunfire and mortar attacks in Mogadishu killed five people
overnight and injured at least four others.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In South Africa
historian David Rattray (48) was found shot dead at his home in the
eastern Kwa-Zulu Natal province. On Feb 5 a court handed Sethe
Nkwanyana (23) a 25-year prison term for armed robbery and the
murder of Rattray. Nkwanyana said in court that Banozi Ndlovu shot
Rattray.
(AFP, 2/5/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.91)
2007 Jan 26, Darfur rebels said
they would refuse peace talks and would fight African Union
peacekeepers on the ground if Sudanese President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir became chairman of the pan-African body. In southern Sudan
gunmen killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded 2 others.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Swedish
government announced an agreement with suborbital space-tourism
company Virgin Galactic that Swedish officials believe will lead to
midsummer and mid-winter flights of Virgin's SpaceshipTwo vehicle to
observe the Aurora Borealis from Sweden.
(www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html)
2007 Jan 26, Suspected Muslim
separatists ambushed police patrols and torched a school as PM
Surayud Chulanont returned to southern Thailand for a third attempt
at ending the bloody insurgency.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the
Holocaust, with only Iran rejecting it as an attempt by the United
States and Israel to exploit the atrocity for their political
interests.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials said
Jody Williams, the US anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize
winner, will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe
killings, rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 27, Sundance Film
Festival's grand-jury prize for best US drama went to "Padre
Nuestro," an immigrant saga about a Mexican teen's heartbreaking
search for his father in America.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Washington DC
tens of thousands converged on the National Mall to oppose Pres.
Bush’s plan for a troop increase in Iraq. Thousands marched in San
Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A15)
2007 Jan 27, In Oregon the new
$57 million Portland Aerial Tram officially began operations. Two
78-passenger cabins carried commuters from the Banks of the
Willamette to the campus of the Oregon Health and Sciences Univ. on
Marquam Hill.
(SFC, 1/29/07, p.A4)
2007 Jan 27, In China a gas
explosion in the Yile Coal Mine in the southern town of Shuitang in
Guizhou province killed at least 15 miners.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 27, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon held up Congo's first elections in 46
years as a sign of hope for the rest of Africa, praising the
country's fragile democracy on his first tour of the continent.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Two car bombs in
quick succession struck a market in a mainly Shiite district in
Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 40. US
airstrikes killed 14 terror suspects and destroyed a safe house for
foreign fighters during a raid south of Baqouba that also led to the
capture of two other suspects. At least one rocket struck Baghdad's
heavily fortified Green Zone, and two people suffered minor
injuries. Two mortar shells slammed into a residential district in
the western Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing two people and
wounding seven others. Armed men who wore commando uniforms and
drove cars with license plates commonly used by the Interior
Ministry stormed a computer company and kidnapped seven people,
including shoppers, in the mainly Christian neighborhood of Sina'a.
A taxi driver was shot to death after he was caught in the crossfire
during clashes in the northern city of Mosul. The bodies of five men
were pulled from the Tigris River in Suwayrah. A US Marine died from
wounds suffered in fighting in Anbar province, and two soldiers were
fatally injured in separate bombings in the Baghdad area.
(AP, 1/27/07)(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Guinea's union
leaders ended a deadly 17-day strike after the president agreed to
name a new prime minister with boosted powers.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Gunmen carjacked a
US Embassy vehicle on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital and killed
two women in the car.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Police in Tijuana,
Mexico, got their guns back three weeks after they were forced to
turn over weapons to federal authorities because of allegations they
were colluding with drug traffickers.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, The Netherlands'
government extradited Iraqi-born Wesam al Delaema (32), a
naturalized Dutch citizen, to the US. He was charged with
involvement in terror attacks on US troops in Iraq. In 2009 Delaema
was sentenced in Washington DC to 25 years in prison. His actual
term was up to the Netherlands. In 2010 a court in Rotterdam slashed
the sentence to eight years and released him for time served.
(AP, 1/28/07)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)(AP, 10/13/10)
2007 Jan 27, A Belgian man
working for a building materials company was murdered in the oil
city of Warri, in Nigeria's Niger Delta. 2 suspects were arrested.
Carjackers with AK-47s shot dead two women in a US embassy vehicle
in Nairobi's western outskirts, and police killed two of the fleeing
gunmen during a shootout in the nearby bush.
(Reuters, 1/27/07)(Reuters, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Nancy Pelosi, the
speaker of the US House of Representatives, held talks with Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf focusing on the fight against terror. A
bomb went off near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the northwestern
Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing 15 people and wounding 35.
(AFP, 1/27/07)(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, A Belgian man
working for a building materials company was murdered in the oil
city of Warri, in Nigeria's Niger Delta. 2 suspects were arrested.
Carjackers with AK-47s shot dead two women in a US embassy vehicle
in Nairobi's western outskirts. Police killed two of the fleeing
gunmen during a shootout in the nearby bush.
(Reuters, 1/27/07)(Reuters, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 27, Andrei Lugovoi,
the man reported by British media to be a suspect in the murder of a
former Russian agent in London hit out at "lies, provocation and
government propaganda," denying any role in the radiation poisoning
death of Alexander Litvinenko.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Switzerland
major powers at Davos agreed to resume global free trade talks. A
meeting of the world's top commercial powers yielded only a vague
pledge of commitment to global trade liberalization efforts, a
disappointment after business and political leaders called for
progress in the World Trade Organization talks.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, In Yemen 6
security forces were killed and 20 others were injured in clashes
with followers of Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi in Saada.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, The comedy "Little
Miss Sunshine" won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Forest Whitaker won for his portrayal of Uganda's brutal dictator
Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren won for her
performance as Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen."
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 28, Jim Gray (63), an
acclaimed computer scientist, was last heard from shortly after he
set out from San Francisco for the shark-infested waters of the
Farallon Islands, about 25 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 28, Rev. Robert Drinan
(b.1920), former Jesuit congressman from Massachusetts (1971-1981),
died.
(SFC, 1/30/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
2007 Jan 28, Afghan Pres.
Karzai told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that his security forces need
to be stronger as the two discussed possible US troop increases.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Officials said
India will set up an aerospace defense command to shield itself
against possible attacks from outer space.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, US-backed Iraqi
forces killed 263 militants in a daylong battle near Najaf against a
group called the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven. The group's
leader and foreign fighters were among the dead. The US military
confirmed a report that a helicopter crashed during the battle and
that the two crew members were killed. Mortar shells rained down on
a girls' secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad,
killing five pupils and wounding 20. At least seven other people
died in a series of bombings and shootings across the capital,
mostly in Shiite areas. Drive-by shooters killed a high-ranking
Shiite official at the Iraqi industry and mines ministry, along with
his 27-year-old daughter and two other people. Two car bombs
exploded within a half-hour of each other in the northern oil city
of Kirkuk, killing a total of 11 people and wounding 34. US troops
captured 21 suspected terrorists including an al-Qaida courier in a
series of raids in Baghdad and Sunni areas north and west of the
capital. At least 61 people were killed and scores wounded across
Iraq. Ghanim al-Qureyshi, the provincial police chief of Diyala
province, said the mayor of Baqouba and 1,500 provincial police
officers have been fired in a bid to end the raging violence.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, The Israeli
government approved the appointment of Raleb Majadele, the country's
first Muslim Cabinet member.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Some 50 Nigerian
rebels attacked a city centre police station in the Niger Delta and
freed George Sobomabo, a top commander, arrested earlier that day.
Militants released 125 inmates when they stormed the police station
in Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, Sinn Fein members
overwhelmingly voted to begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland
police, formally abandoning their decades-old hostility to legal law
and order in the British territory.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In southern
Pakistan dozens of people sitting on the roof of a crowded passenger
train were by hit by an overhead power line. At least 15 people were
killed and 40 were injured.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Hamas and Fatah
gunmen battled each other in the streets in an increasingly bloody
power struggle that left more than two dozen Palestinians dead over
the weekend. Palestinian gunmen shot dead a member of a Hamas police
force and a senior Fatah intelligence official was abducted in Gaza
as Saudi Arabia called for talks to end the spiraling violence.
(AP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In Somalia gunmen
attacked a police station in Mogadishu, sparking an hour-long battle
that killed two people just hours after two other stations were hit
with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 29, Deeply distrustful
of Iran, President Bush said "we will respond firmly" if Tehran
escalated its military actions in Iraq and threatened American
forces or Iraqi citizens.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an
aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in
a row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Bayer said the US
Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use of Bayer
Schering Pharma AG's drug YAZ to allow it to be used to treat
moderate acne in women who also want to use an oral contraceptive
for birth control.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Kentucky Derby
winner Barbaro was euthanized because of medical complications eight
months after his gruesome breakdown at the Preakness.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Australia’s
Queensland state planned to introduce recycled sewage to its
drinking water as a record drought threatens water supplies around
the nation.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, An official said
at least 33,000 people have been arrested in Bangladesh by the army,
police and security forces since a state of emergency was imposed
earlier this month.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Paris City Hall
announced it has selected French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux
SA to operate a new free bicycle service in the capital.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, The African Union
chose Ghana to head the 53-member bloc, turning aside Sudan's bid
for the second year in a row because of the worsening bloodshed in
Darfur.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, The International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled there was enough evidence against Thomas
Lubanga, a Congolese militiaman accused of recruiting child
soldiers, to launch the new court's first trial.
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, In Iraq a
prominent Shiite leader said that setting up federal regions in Iraq
would solve the country's problems, adding that Shiites are being
subjected to mass killings but they should not retaliate by using
violence. Bombings and mortar attacks targeting Shiites killed at
least 15 people. A parked car bomb struck a bus carrying Shiites to
a holy shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least four people.
Mortar rounds rained down on a Shiite neighborhood in the
Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar. 10 people were killed,
including three children and four women, and five other people were
wounded. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar province and an
American soldier died in an accident northwest of Nasiriyah.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Libya will not
execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to
death last month, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a
newspaper interview, calling their trial "unfair."
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, A truck crashed in
northern Nigeria's Yobe state killing at least 35 people and
seriously injuring another 37. A burst tire caused the truck loaded
with cement as well as 72 people to veer off the road.
(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 rockets exploded near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the city
of Bannu, wounding 11 people, two seriously. A suicide bomber killed
a police officer protecting a Shiite Muslim procession. In eastern
Pakistan 2 brothers beat to death their sister and her lover with
bricks for bringing shame upon the family with their out-of-wedlock
affair. The woman had lived with her brothers in the village of
Donga Bonga, Punjab province.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 29, A Palestinian
suicide bomber attacked a bakery in Eilat, a southern Israeli resort
town, killing three people and himself. The Palestinian who blew
himself up was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby
daughter and driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli
troops. Hamas and Fatah gunmen battled each other across the Gaza
Strip, attacking security compounds, knocking out an electrical
transformer and kidnapping several local commanders in some of the
most extensive factional fighting in recent weeks.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said
it would begin a 158,000 barrel-a-day cut in oil production
effective Feb 1.
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 29, Turkish police
arrested 46 suspected Islamic militants in operations in five
provinces across the country.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 30, The Windows Vista
computer operating system from Microsoft went on sale in the
consumer retail market.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 30, The draft of a new
global climate report said rising temperatures will leave millions
more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in
China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United
States.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Florida 2
people shot and killed a sheriff's wife and a deputy before officers
killed the suspects at the sheriff's home in Jackson County.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, A propane tank
explosion leveled the Little General Store in Ghent, W.Va., killing
four people.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2007 Jan 30, Jeanne Kane, a
member of the 1960s singing group the Kane Triplets, was shot and
killed by her ex-husband John Galtieri, a retired NYC police
officer. In 2009 Galtieri was sentenced to 32 years to life in
prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lhbevm)(SFC, 5/28/09, p.A5)
2007 Jan 30, Gordon S. Macklin
(79), a founder of the Nasdaq stock exchange (1971) and a board
member for Worldcom during its notorious accounting fraud, died of
unknown causes.
(http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070131/obit_macklin.html?.v=1)(WSJ, 2/3/07,
p.A8)
2007 Jan 30, Sidney Sheldon
(89), American writer, died. He won awards in three careers,
Broadway theater, movies and television, then at age 50 turned to
writing best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a
hostile world of ruthless men.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Britain shut down
Northern Ireland's legislature and planned a new election to
determine the fate of power-sharing, the central goal of the peace
accord.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Manchester was
chosen as the site for Britain's first Las Vegas-style supercasino.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao set out on an eight-nation tour of Africa. Foreign ministry
spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: “On the arms exports to Africa, China
takes a cautious and responsible attitude.”
(AP, 1/30/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Colombia’s Supreme
Court opened preliminary investigations into four more politicians
for alleged ties to illegal right-wing militias after it was
revealed they signed a 2001 letter of understanding with the
paramilitary groups.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Supporters of
Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa armed with sticks and
stones fought their way into the Congress building, demanding
lawmakers call a referendum on whether the country's constitution
should be rewritten.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, The African Union
summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ended with a proposed peacekeeping
force for Somalia still lacking firm commitments for thousands of
troops.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Thousands of
German workers took part in protests against a government plan to
raise the retirement age to 67.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The United Nations
said it will send 350 more peacekeepers to Haiti in the latest
effort to flush out armed gangs from the capital's slums.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Hong Kong Cheng
Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress, told the Financial Times in an interview: "There
is a bubble going on. Investors should be concerned about the
risks." He said 70% of the domestically traded companies were
worthless and should be delisted.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/2ubmjk)
2007 Jan 30, Reliance
Industries opened 9 shops in and around Delhi. They were among the
first supermarkets to appear in India.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.64)
2007 Jan 30, Assailants struck
Shiite worshippers in three Iraqi cities, killing at least 39 people
in bombings and ambushes during the climax of ceremonies marking
Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar. Mortar shells
slammed into predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad hours
later, killing at least five people and wounding 20. Bloodshed
killed at least 58 people despite heightened security surrounding
Ashoura ceremonies. A morgue official in the city of Kut said his
facility received six more bodies from previously unreported
Ashoura-related violence. Two US soldiers and one Marine died of
wounds sustained due to enemy action in Anbar province.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Another outbreak
of bird flu was suspected in southern Japan after 23 chickens were
found dead at a farm.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, The first
all-female UN peacekeeping unit, made up of 103 women from India,
arrived in Liberia to help the West African nation recover from 14
years of on-and-off civil war.
(Reuters, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Jamal Khalifa, a
Saudi citizen married to a sister of Osama bin Laden, was killed
when gunmen broke into his house in village in Madagascar in an
apparent robbery.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Nigeria's Vice
President Atiku Abubakar accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of
buying arms to suppress unrest in the oil-rich Niger delta rather
than pacifying the region with development.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Pakistan's PM
Musharraf appealed to the European Union to help repatriate some 3
million Afghan refugees, a move he said would help clear his country
of militants blamed for attacks in border regions. A rocket or a
grenade exploded at a Shiite procession, sparking violence in Hangu
in which two Sunni Muslims were fatally shot and 13 other people
were wounded, many of them policemen.
(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 30, Palestinian PM
Ismail Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence
in the internal violence that killed 36 people in recent days as a
tenuous cease-fire took hold in the Gaza Strip. Gunmen killed a
Hamas militant, but the cease-fire seemed to hold.
(AP, 1/30/07)(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 30, The Saudi foreign
minister said Saudi Arabia and Iran are working together to try to
calm the crises in Iraq and Lebanon.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Somalia's
president agreed to a national reconciliation conference to try to
end 16 years of anarchy in the war-ravaged country.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Researchers said
South Africa's AIDS epidemic, often regarded by health workers as a
disease of the poor, is in fact spreading quickly among the
country's richest and best educated people.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Sweden former
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist
Mossaad Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to
protect human rights.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Borys Tarasyuk,
Ukraine's pro-Western foreign minister, resigned saying a monthlong
struggle between him and the government dominated by a
Russia-leaning party risked damaging the country's international
reputation.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 30, Venezuela said it
plans to obtain air defense missiles to guard strategic sites such
as oil refineries and major bridges against any air strike.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 31, President Bush,
visiting Wall Street, delivered his "State of the Economy" speech in
which he took aim at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate
executives.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2007 Jan 31, Delaware Sen. Joe
Biden formally launched his bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2007 Jan 31, The New York Stock
Exchange announced a cooperative agreement with the Tokyo Stock
Exchange.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, The Ziff Davis
Games Group handed out the 4th annual 1Up Awards for computer games.
Nintendo’s “Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” won the top prize as
selected by 13 million Ziff Davis users.
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.C3)
2007 Jan 31, A special
committee, invited by IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato,
proposed new ways for the IMF to fund itself. A loan to Turkey at
this time accounted for two-thirds of the IMF’s outstanding credit.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.75)
2007 Jan 31, Molly Ivins
(b.1944), political columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, died
of breast cancer.
(SFC, 2/1/07, p.B7)
2006 Jan 31, Jennifer Merritt
(31) was shot in the arm and head while riding a bicycle in the San
Francisco Ingleside Heights neighborhood. She died from her wounds
on Feb 11. Police had no explanation.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.E6)
2007 Jan 31, The Afghan
Parliament voted for an amnesty for leaders accused of war crimes
during a quarter-century of fighting, arguing that it would help
heal deep divisions.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, A senior AU
official said 3 battalions of peacekeepers from Uganda and Nigeria
are ready to be deployed in Somalia and will be airlifted in as soon
as possible.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, The caretaker
government of Bangladesh approved a deal with an Indian company to
build a 240MW power station.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 31, British
counterterrorism police arrested nine men in an alleged kidnapping
plot. The plan reportedly involved torturing and beheading a British
Muslim soldier and broadcasting the killing on the Internet.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Canada's former
Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and
human rights lawyer David Matas released a report saying China's
military is harvesting organs from prison inmates, mostly Falungong
practitioners, for large scale transplants including for foreign
recipients.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Chinese President
Hu Jintao arrived in Cameroon to begin his second African tour to
boost ties with a continent that has many of the oil and commodity
reserves the Asian giant needs for its ballooning economy.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 1, Zhengzhou city
authorities put Gao Yaojie under house arrest to stop her from
traveling to Washington to be honored by a charity backed by Sen.
Hillary Clinton. The retired Chinese doctor helped expose
blood-buying schemes that infected thousands with HIV.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Congo at least
37 people were killed in clashes between security forces and
opposition supporters protesting against the results of governorship
polls in western Bas-Congo province.
(Reuters, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, Tata Steel said
its $11.3 billion offer to acquire European steel maker Corus
(formerly British Steel) is strategic to its global ambitions, even
as the winning bid raised concerns that the deal's high cost could
undermine the combined company's financial health.
(AP, 1/31/07)(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.C3)
2007 Jan 31, Unidentified
gunmen opened fire on a car carrying the chief Muslim leader in
Ingushetia, seriously wounding the mufti and his son.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A series of car
bombs struck mostly Shiite areas in Baghdad, killing eight people,
while a mortar attack on a Sunni neighborhood killed four in more
retaliatory sectarian violence. The bodies of three Sunni professors
and a student also turned up in the morgue, three days after they
were abducted by gunmen from a law school in a predominantly Shiite
area in northern Baghdad. A suicide bomber driving an oil truck blew
himself up after he was stopped at a checkpoint near an Iraqi army
headquarters north of Baghdad, wounding 9 soldiers. A parked car
bomb also struck a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul
killing one policeman and wounding two others. In the cities of
Fallujah and Ramadi at least eight bodies were found with their
hands and legs bound and showing signs of torture.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico City
some 75,000 unionists, farmers and leftists marched to protest price
increases in basic foodstuffs like tortillas, a direct challenge to
the new president's market-oriented economic policies blamed by some
for widening the gulf between rich and poor.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico a
lesbian couple registered what officials called Mexico's first gay
civil union in the northern city of Saltillo.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A human rights
group said its study of one of Nigeria's oil-producing states found
that officials squandered or stole public money, some hospitals
required patients to bring their own beds, and schools were running
out of chalk.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In a northwestern
Pakistan a mortar round struck a home in Hangu, killing two men and
wounding another amid sectarian tensions.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Two Spanish men,
both charged with providing explosives for Islamist train bombings
in Madrid in 2004, were given jail sentences in a separate trial for
selling explosives in 2001. The court in Asturias said it jailed
former miner Jose Emilio Suarez-Trashorras and his brother-in-law,
Antonio Toro, for 10 and 11-1/2 years respectively on charges of
drugs and explosives trafficking.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, In eastern Sri
Lanka suspected separatist Tamil rebels detonated a roadside bomb,
killing six policemen and one civilian.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, A Congress wholly
loyal to President Hugo Chavez met at a downtown plaza to give the
Venezuelan leader authority to enact sweeping measures by
presidential decree.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan 31, Officials said
Vietnam's ruling Communist Party and the military will relinquish
control of dozens of companies, ranging from hotels to telecoms, as
part of an ongoing government overhaul. An oil spill from an
unidentified source hit Vietnam's central coast, blackening popular
resort beaches as thousands of local people help with the cleanup.
(AP, 1/31/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, Zimbabwe's central
bank chief Gideon Gono unveiled a battery of belt-tightening
measures which include slashing the money supply and state spending
to put the brakes on four-digit inflation. The Zimbabwe dollar
traded at 250 against the greenback on the official market while
fetching up to 4,200 on the black market.
(AFP, 1/31/07)
2007 Jan, Avaaz, a web-based
political movement, was launched with a simple democratic mission:
organize citizens everywhere to help close the gap between the world
we have and the world most people want.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.62)(www.avaaz.org/en/about.php)
2007 Jan, In California
construction began on new execution chambers at San Quentin State
Prison. Lawmakers did not learn of the project until April because
it fell just under a $400,000 mark that would have required
legislative approval. Construction was halted in April pending
legislative approval. $725,000 was already spent on the new room.
(SFC, 4/14/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan, Carl Malamud of
Sebastopol, Ca., introduced www.public.resource.org, a web site
offering a variety of public code manuals free online.
(SFC, 9/27/08, p.B1)(www.public.resource.org)
2007 Jan, The culinary workers’
union in Nevada numbered some 51,000 members representing hotel and
casino workers.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.30)
2007 Jan, Kashmir Khan, Taliban
commander in Konar and Nuristan provinces, met for an
interview with a Western journalist. He noted that Taliban enlistees
get paid some $140 per month as compared to $100 paid by the Afghan
National Army.
(SSFC, 1/21/07, p.A12)
2007 Jan, In Antarctica the
South Pole Telescope (SPT) opened to search signs of dark energy.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.87)
2007 Jan, In Barbados the
George Washington House and Museum was completed following an 8-year
restoration project. The site stood just outside Bridgetown.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.G2)
2007 Jan, In Brazil the Mato
Grosso do Sul state government stopped distributing food baskets to
some 11,000 Guarani-Kaiowa Indians on the Dourados reservation,
about 800 miles west of Rio de Janeiro when a new government was
elected. The suspension worsened malnutrition among thousands of
Indians, and at least two young children died.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Jan, In Cambodia villagers
reported seeing a naked woman stealing food. Sal Lou (43) a retired
police officer, identified her as his oldest child, Rochom P’ngieng,
by a scar on her arm. P’ngieng (29) had vanished in 1989 while
tending buffalo near the jungle in remote northern Rattanakiri
province. In 2010 Rochom P’ngieng reportedly fled back to the
forest.
(www.salem-news.com/articles/july092008/jungle_girl_7-9-08.php)(AP,
5/28/10)
2007 Jan, In eastern England a
16-year-old girl lost nearly all her fingers after she put her hands
in a bucket of plaster of Paris during an art lesson. She was
attempting to make a sculpture of her own hands. In 2009 Giles
School, in Boston, was ordered to pay 19,000 pounds ($30,140) for
breaching health and safety regulations and also failing to report
the incident to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
(Reuters, 10/12/09)
2007 Jan, In Bulgaria 2
Chernobyl-era nuclear energy units were shut down at Kozloduy as an
accession to Bulgaria’s joining the EU. This led to a cut in energy
exports and to soaring energy prices in the Balkans.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.51)
2007 Jan, Police in China
arrested Song Tiantang, who soon confessed to killing 6 women and
selling their bodies to buyers of ghost brides. In the late 1990s he
had been arrested for supplying the ghost bride market by just
robbing graves.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.44)
2007 Jan, Work began on the
Int’l. Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Cadarache,
France. 34 nations collaborated to realize the ITER project's First
Plasma in November 2019. The project was born at the Geneva
Superpower Summit in November, 1985.
(Econ, 9/3/11, p.79)(www.iter.org/factsfigures)
2007 Jan, Guinea-Bissau
officials learned that Whoopi Goldberg (51) had taken a DNA test
that indicated her ancestors came from the indigenous Papel and
Bayote tribes. They soon extended to her a formal invitation to
visit.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan, Police in India’s
Jammu & Kashmir state turned up 5 bodies of Kashmiris buried as
Pakistani militants. 8 police officers in the Ganderbal district
were arrested including Hansraj Parihar, Ganderbal’s top policeman.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.44)
2007 Jan, In Kazakhstan police
arrested a manager of the Atyrau Balyk cannery, charging him and 3
colleagues, who had fled to Russia, with poaching. The cannery had a
monopoly in exporting Kazakhstan’s CITES-approved quota of sturgeon.
An expert estimated that poaching on the Ural River could eliminate
the sturgeon in 5-10 years.
(SFC, 6/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan, The film “Bamako,” by
Mauritanian-born director Abderrahmane Sissako, opened in West
Africa after premiering at the 2006 Cannes film festival. It took
its broadest swipe at the "structural adjustment programs"
championed by the World Bank and IMF during the world recession of
the late 1970s and early 1980s.
(Reuters, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan, Russia's Supreme
Court upheld a lower court's ruling that the Russian-Chechen
Friendship Society must close its doors. Rights advocates denounced
the ruling, charging it was a Kremlin attempt to silence criticism
of its conduct in the violence-wracked Chechnya region. The group
has campaigned against the Russian government's war on separatists
in Chechnya, and published reports alleging torture, abductions and
killings of civilians by Russian forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen
allies.
(AP, 9/14/07)
2007 Jan, The World Bank called
itself the "Knowledge Bank," and employed 10,000 people.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.67)
2007 Feb 1, The departing top
US commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that improving security in Baghdad would take
fewer than half as many extra troops as President Bush had chosen to
commit.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 1, The National
Academy of Engineering announced that the 2007 Grainger Challenge
Prize for Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry
professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He had
developed an inexpensive, easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic
from well water, and planned to use most of the $1 million
engineering prize to distribute the filters to needy communities
around the world.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 1, Montana sued
Wyoming in the Supreme Court saying its neighbor takes more Tongue-
and Powder- River water that it is entitled to.
(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 1, In SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom admitted to having an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, his
campaign manager’s wife.
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 1, Coca-Cola announced
that it had signed an agreement to acquire Fuze Beverage LLC in a
deal estimated at $225-250 million. Fuze was launched in 2001.
(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 1, Oil giant Exxon
Mobil topped its own record for the biggest annual profit by a US
company last year, racking up earnings that amounted to $4.5 million
an hour for the world's largest publicly traded oil company.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Whitney Balliett
(80), jazz chronicler writer for the New Yorker magazine, died.
(WSJ, 2/6/07, p.D5)
2007 Feb 1, John Bryan,
underground press writer and editor, died in SF. He had started the
Open City Press, San Francisco’s 1st alternative paper, in 1964.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 1, The United States
presented hundreds of armored vehicles and trucks and thousands of
weapons to the Afghan army as Afghanistan braces for renewed
fighting with Taliban-led insurgents. In southern Afghanistan
Taliban militants overran Musa Qala, where a contentious peace
agreement was negotiated last fall, roaming through the town center,
burning its government compound and threatening elders. In eastern
Paktika province coalition aircraft dropped two bombs, killing as
many as seven militants.
(AP, 2/1/07)(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, Defense Secretary
Des Browne said Britain will increase its military presence in
southern Afghanistan by about 800 troops to 5,800 this summer.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Chadian rebels
fighting to overthrow President Idriss Deby attacked the eastern
border town of Adre on the main road route into Sudan's Darfur
region.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, China’s Pres. Hu
Jintao arrived in Liberia. He held talks with Liberian Pres. Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf and address the parliament, before meeting some 500
Chinese peacekeepers. Jintao was also due to visit Sudan, Zambia,
Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and the Seychelles during his
12-day tour.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In Colombia
President Alvaro Uribe ordered the seizure of assets belonging to
demobilized paramilitary leaders after the killing of a woman who
was leading a campaign to reclaim land stolen by the illegal
militias.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Ahmed Abu Laban
(60), Denmark's most prominent Muslim leader and a central figure in
last year's uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, died from
cancer.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 1, Ecuador’s
government named Lorena Escudero (41) to be defense minister, to
take over after the first female to hold the office was killed in a
helicopter accident.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A Lebanese
publisher said the Egyptian government had censored several Egyptian
and foreign titles at its annual book fair, including the classic
novel "Zorba the Greek" as well as books by Czech author Milan
Kundera.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France top
global warming experts huddled for a last day of talks with
bureaucrats from more than 100 countries on a closely watched global
warming report that could influence government and business policy
worldwide.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France a ban on
smoking in public spaces came into effect.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A suicide attack in
Hillah killed at least 73 people with 163 wounded. Mortar rounds
slammed into a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad for the third day in a
row, killing at least three people and wounding 10. At least 9
people were killed in Baghdad as a bomb tore through a minibus in a
predominantly Shiite commercial district and mortars hit a Sunni
area. A US soldier died of wounds sustained in fighting in Anbar
province.
(AP, 2/1/07)(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad launched anniversary celebrations for Iran's Islamic
Revolution with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's
controversial nuclear program.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2007 Feb 1, Israeli troops
killed two Palestinian gunmen in an exchange of fire in Nablus.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Gian Carlo Menotti
(b.1911), Italian composer and Pulitzer Prize winner, died in
Monaco. His operas included “The Medium” (1946) and “Amahl and the
Night Visitors” (1951).
(SFC, 2/2/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 1, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon praised a new law that obligates federal and local
authorities to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women,
and he promised a "relentless" fight against gender-related
abuse.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, A Nigerian oil
worker abducted 2 days earlier from a facility operated by Addax
Petroleum in southern Nigeria was found dead.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Palestinian gunmen
opened fire at Hamas officials in separate attacks, marring efforts
to shore up a truce that brought relative quiet to Gaza after days
of deadly factional violence.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Romanian President
Traian Basescu told Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that pirated
Microsoft software helped Romania to build a vibrant technology
industry.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Russia's Emergency
Ministry planned to fly a chemical laboratory to the Omsk region in
southern Siberia to analyze oily yellow and orange snow which has
covered an area home to 27,000 people. Omsk is a heavily industrial
city with a number of oil and gas refineries.
(Reuters, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 1, In South Africa 20
people, including four children, were killed in a car accident in
Mpumalanga province.
(AFP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Radhika
Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General
for Children and Armed Conflict, said child soldiers are
increasingly being used in the war-torn region of Darfur, even as
their use is on the decline elsewhere in Sudan.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 2, Scientists from 113
countries issued a report saying they have little doubt global
warming is caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures
and rises in sea level will "continue for centuries" no matter how
much humans control their pollution. The 4th report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in
Paris.
(AP, 2/2/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.86)
2007 Feb 2, Gov. Rick Perry
issued an order making Texas the 1st state to require schoolgirls
get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes
cervical cancer.
(SFC, 2/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 2, Storms blew through
central Florida, killing 21 people, flattening dozens of homes and a
church and lifting a tractor trailer into the air.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/2/08)
2007 Feb 2, Ivan Santos (15)
was shot and killed in San Pablo, Ca. On Mar 22-23 Police arrested
Ramon Alejandre (30), Roberto Garcia (21) and a boy (17) for
shooting Santos, who was allegedly dressed like a rival gang member.
(SFC, 3/24/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 2, Joe Hunter (79),
Motown’s first bandleader, died in Detroit, Mich.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 2, Billy Henderson
(67), singer in the band called the Spinners, died in Florida. His
songs included “I’ll Be Around” (1972) and other hits. The 5-member
band had formed in 1954 in Ferndale, Mich.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 2, Eric von Schmidt
(75), guitarist and painter, died in Connecticut. He was a mentor
for Bob Dylan, who wrote the liner notes for Schmidt’s 1969 album:
“Who Knocked the Brains Out of the Sky.”
(SFC, 2/5/07, p.B4)
2007 Feb 2, In Bolivia a high
court ruled in favor of a Amauris Sanmartino, a Cuban dissident who
was recently deported from Bolivia for criticizing President Evo
Morales, saying a law prohibiting foreigners from involvement in the
Andean country's politics is unconstitutional. Sanmartino went to
Colombia and planned to relocate to Norway.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 2, US Peace Corps
volunteers flew to Cambodia to teach English at rural schools,
marking the 45-year-old organization's first mission
there.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Abdoulaye Miskine,
the head of one of the Central African Republic's main rebel groups,
inked in Libya a peace deal described as "historic" by the
government. Under the deal, which CAR's other main rebel factions
are expected to sign up to, there will be an immediate ceasefire and
Miskine's rebels will be integrated into civilian life or absorbed
into the army. Rebel prisoners are to be freed.
(AFP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 2, A mine explosion in
China’s Henan province killed 24 coal miners at the Xing'an coal
mine. Newspapers later reported that mining officials had said that
seven miners had died in the blast, and that mine owner Fu Faming
ordered miners back into the shaft to seal it with earth in an
attempt to bury evidence of the deaths.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 2, Ecuador’s President
Rafael Correa dismissed the country's army commander, just over a
week after a military helicopter crash killed Ecuador's first female
defense minister.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, A French court
convicted dozens of people in a baby-trafficking case involving the
sale of nearly two dozen Bulgarian infants over two years.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, In northern India a
crowded bus veered off a steep mountain road and fell into a gorge,
killing at least 10 people and injuring 17 others.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Iran said it will
allow UN surveillance cameras at its Natanz nuclear complex.
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 2, US forces killed 18
insurgents in fighting overnight after insurgents opened fire on the
Americans from several positions in Ramadi. A roadside bomb struck a
police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing one officer. A
US military helicopter went down near Taji and 2 crew members were
killed.
(AP, 2/2/07)(SFC, 2/3/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 2, UN envoy Martti
Ahtisaari unveiled his long-awaited plan for Kosovo, a proposal
recommending internationally supervised statehood for the contested
province where separatists fought a bloody war with Serbia in the
late 1990s.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Lebanon's top Sunni
Muslim clerics published a religious edict prohibiting Muslims from
killing their fellow countrymen, particularly other Muslims.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Fatah fighters
stormed a Hamas-affiliated university for the second time, hours
before the two political factions grappling for control of the
Palestinian government said they had agreed on a new cease-fire. 17
people, including four children, were killed in renewed fighting
before the announcement.
(AP, 2/2/07)(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 2, Malaysia said it is
ready to halt free trade talks with the United States after a US
lawmaker called for a suspension in protest over an energy deal with
Iran signed in January.
(AFP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan will erect fencing to reinforce parts
of its porous mountain border with Afghanistan, acknowledging for
the first time that some outgunned Pakistani frontier guards have
allowed militants to cross. The United States handed over eight
Cobra attack helicopters to Pakistan, which is under growing
pressure to stop Taliban guerrillas crossing into Afghanistan to
fight NATO forces.
(AP, 2/2/07)(Reuters, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Suspected Muslim
guerrillas stormed a Philippine jail and blasted a hole through a
wall, freeing three alleged bombers and dozens of other inmates. In
the southern Philippines 50 people were killed and 65 others injured
when a tanker truck exploded as it was negotiating a downhill
mountain road.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 2, In Somalia an
explosion at an Islamic school for women and girls in Mogadishu
wounded at least seven people. At least three mortar attacks were
launched overnight in the city by unknown
attackers.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Chinese President
Hu Jintao offered Sudan assistance for the peaceful resolution of
the Darfur conflict but ignored Western pressure to make future aid
conditional on the progress made. Jintao agreed on closer economic
cooperation with Sudan after sealing talks with a series of trade
agreements. Jintao told Sudan's leader he must give the United
Nations a bigger role in trying to resolve the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, A ruling by
Switzerland's highest court opened up the possibility that people
with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take
their own lives.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 3, President Bush
designated four central Florida counties disaster areas in the wake
of tornadoes that ripped through the region, leaving 21 dead.
(AP, 2/3/08)
2007 Feb 3, Britain scrambled
to contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain
of bird flu in domestic poultry after the virus was found at a farm
run by Europe's biggest turkey producer. Some 2,500 turkeys had died
since Feb 1 at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft in eastern
England. Over 160,000 were culled over the next few days.
(AP, 2/3/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.59)
2007 Feb 3, In Chile a fire
swept through a small hotel in Punta Arenas, killing 10 foreign
tourists, including two children, as they slept in their rooms. A
large gas explosion rocked a historic area in the port city of
Valparaiso, killing at least one person, injuring 11 more and
causing extensive damage over three city blocks.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, In southern China a
tour bus traveling in the wrong lane on a highway plowed into an
oncoming bus in Hechi, killing 13 passengers and injuring 75.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Police said they
found $19 million in cash under the floorboards of a house in Cali.
The loot likely belonged to Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, among a
dozen alleged top drug kingpins whom US authorities targeted for
arrest using a $5 million reward for information. In the
northeast an explosion tore through a makeshift coal mine, killing
32 miners.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In Congo officials
said clashes last week between security forces and demonstrators
claiming electoral fraud left 97 people dead in several southwestern
towns.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In India at least
19 laborers were crushed to death when a wall they were building
collapsed near Mumbai.
(AFP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, Indonesia’s
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said Indonesia will pursue its
plans to develop nuclear power as part of efforts to find
alternative energy sources to address its growing needs. Officials
said flooding has killed at least 44 people and left more than
340,000 others homeless in Jakarta, as neck-high waters submerged
large sections of the city.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 3, Iraq's top Shiite
cleric called for Muslim unity and an end to sectarian conflict, his
first public statement in months on the worsening security crisis. A
suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area
of Baghdad, killing 137 people among the crowd buying food for
evening meals, the most devastating strike in the capital in more
than two months. A series of car bombs struck the oil-rich northern
city of Kirkuk in a 2-hour span, killing at least 2 people and
wounding 30. 5 US soldiers died, 4 in fighting and one of an
apparent heart attack.
(AP, 2/3/07)(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Maize reportedly
occupied 90% of the cultivated land in Malawi.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 3, In Mexico thousands
of protesters marched in Oaxaca to demand the resignation of the
state governor. A man's chopped up body was discovered in Acapulco
dumped in plastic garbage bags.
(AP, 2/3/07)(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 3, The Mahadhesi
ethnic community in southeastern Nepal demanded that the region be
turned into an autonomous state to end two weeks of unrest that has
claimed at least 13 lives.
(AFP, 2/3/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.43)
2007 Feb 3, Fatah and Hamas
clashed at Cabinet ministries, universities and security
headquarters in defiance of a truce that was to have calmed the
seething Gaza Strip.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, In northwest
Pakistan a suspected Islamic militant rammed his explosive-laden car
into a Pakistan army convoy near Tank, killing two soldiers and
wounding six others.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, The interior
ministry spokesman said Saudi police have arrested 10 people who are
accused of collecting donations and recruiting on behalf of militant
groups.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 3, Tens of thousands
of people marched in Madrid to reject any negotiations with the
Basque separatist group ETA, whose car bombing in the capital a
month ago shattered a nascent peace process.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, In northern Vietnam
5 miners were killed when a large rock fell on them as they worked
to extract zinc ore.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 3, Chinese President
Hu Jintao brought his eight-nation African tour to Zambia, a
copper-rich country where China's growing clout has prompted charges
of exploitation and emerged as a volatile political issue.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 4, Peyton Manning
added the missing ingredient to his Hall of Fame credentials by
leading the Indianapolis Colts to a 29-17 victory over the Chicago
Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 4, Barbara McNair,
black singer and actress, died in Los Angeles. Her films included
“Change of Habit” (1969). She hosted the TV Barbara McNair Show from
1969-1972.
(SFC, 2/5/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 4, Gen. Dan McNeill,
the highest-ranking US general to lead troops in Afghanistan, took
command of 35,500 strong NATO-led force, putting an American face on
the international mission after nine months of British command under
Gen. David Richards. A NATO airstrike killed a senior Taliban leader
riding in a car near Musa Qala.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Bangladeshi
security forces used emergency powers to detain 13 senior
politicians and former government ministers. Some 3 million Muslim
devotees raised their hands in prayer for global peace, putting
aside their country's sometimes violent struggle with political
corruption and Islamic extremists, at one of the world's largest
religious gatherings. The annual World Congregation of Muslims, or
"Bishwa Ijtema," has been held each year since 1966 on the banks of
the River Turag in Tongi, just north of the capital, Dhaka.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In eastern China a
fire swept through a two-story building of shops and apartments,
killing at least 17 people in Zhejiang province's Taizhou city.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Armed kidnappers
seized an American missionary as he left his church near Haiti's
capital and have demanded a ransom for his release.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Iraq at least
103 people were killed or found dead, mostly in Baghdad. A roadside
bomb struck a police patrol in a predominantly Sunni area in
Baghdad, killing 4 policemen and wounding 3. The US command said it
has ordered changes in helicopter flight operations. 4 had been shot
down in the last 2 weeks. Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms seized
Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy, as he
drove through central Baghdad. Iran said it held the United States
responsible for the diplomat's "safety and life."
(AP, 2/4/07)(SFC, 2/5/07, p.A8)(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Kenya a top
Kenyan AIDS researcher was killed and an American woman traveling
with him was shot in the face.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 4, In Nigeria
officials said 9 Chinese oil workers, abducted last month by
militants in an armed attack in the southern delta, were released.
(Reuters, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In eastern Pakistan
a passenger train crushed to death a group of six young boys as they
played on a railway track.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, Hamas gunmen
attacked bases of Fatah-allied troops with mortars and
rocket-propelled grenades, part of a four-day campaign by the
Islamic militants to weaken the security forces loyal to Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Nepal police
opened fire on protesters in two towns, killing at least three
people and wounding several more.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, A Philippine marine
general and 19 others were released from a Muslim rebel camp where
they were held for two days by guerrillas demanding more benefits
under a 1996 peace accord.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, A Saudi newspaper
reported that a Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to
receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting
them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women
danced.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Turkmenistan an
eight-story building collapsed in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir killing 5 people. A 15-year-old boy was rescued 36 hours
later.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 4, In Zambia China’s
President Hu Jintao pledged $800 million in investments, debt
write-offs and a "showcase" free trade zone as he ended a tour
there. Beijing's economic juggernaut has sparked tensions in Zambia.
(AFP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 5, President Bush sent
a $2.9 trillion spending plan to a Democratic-controlled Congress,
proposing to spend billions more to fight the war in Iraq while
squeezing the rest of government to meet his goal of eliminating the
deficit in five years.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, The US insisted
that Nicaragua destroy hundreds of Soviet-made surface-to-air
missiles after President Daniel Ortega said the weapons were needed
for the country's defense.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, NASA astronaut Lisa
Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., accused of trying to kidnap a
perceived rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot.
(AP, 2/5/08)
2007 Feb 5, Britain pressed
ahead with a cull of 160,000 turkeys after the nation's first
outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu in farmed poultry as Russia
and Japan banned British poultry imports.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, A Cold War-era
Soviet submarine that was being towed to Thailand sank off
northwestern Denmark. The Soviet Union built more than 200
Whiskey-class submarines during the Cold War, many of which are now
being offered for sale by private companies.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 5, In northern Germany
3 men and 3 women were found shot dead in a Chinese restaurant in
the early hours in Sittensen. A 7th person died a day later. German
police soon arrested two Vietnamese men in connection with the
killings.
(AFP, 2/5/07)(AP, 2/6/07)(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 5, In India a fire
gutted a garment factory in eastern India, killing seven workers in
Howrah, a suburb of Calcutta.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Violence raked
Baghdad as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in
the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks,
initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint
operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed. At least
29 people died in bomb and mortar attacks across the city, 15 of
them as they waited to refill propane cooking tanks when two car
bombs blew up in quick succession in south Baghdad. A soldier killed
in a roadside bombing in Basra was the 100th British death
attributed to hostile action since the US-led invasion in 2003. A US
Marine was killed in fighting in the volatile Anbar province. US
forces shot and killed Donald Tolfree of Owosso, Mich., a civilian
contract truck driver at Camp Anaconda, the huge air base north of
Baghdad.
(AP, 2/5/07)(AP, 2/6/07)(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 5, China’s president
Hu Jintao brought his eight-nation African tour to Namibia, a
sparsely populated, mineral-rich desert country that hopes to
benefit from an influx of Chinese investment and tourists.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, A home-made bomb
ripped through a train station in Spain's Basque region. Police said
it appeared to have been the work of Basque independence street
gangs, rather than armed separatists ETA.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Syria’s President
Bashar Assad said cooperation, and negotiations, between Syria and
the US could be the "last chance" to avoid full-scale civil war in
Iraq.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, In Hanoi, Vietnam,
international aid experts from the World Bank, UN and other
development agencies and 40 nations met for the Third International
Roundtable on Managing For Development Results, a four-day
conference aimed at making global development efforts more
effective.
(AFP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 5, Teachers across
Zimbabwe began an indefinite industrial action to press for better
salaries and better working conditions.
(AFP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 6, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee that
President George W. Bush had given authority to create the new
African Command. US Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller was named as
Executive Director, head of the transition team for AFRICOM, with
initial quarters in Germany.
(AP, 2/6/07)(Econ, 6/16/07,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Africa_Command)
2007 Feb 6, An official said
Lisa Marie Nowak (43), a NASA astronaut accused of trying to kidnap
a romantic rival for a space shuttle pilot's affections, will remain
in jail because authorities planned to charge her with attempted
first-degree murder.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, The San Mateo, Ca.,
Board of Supervisors adopted a ban on smoking at 17 parks, trails
and a beach managed by the county.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 6, It was reported
that thieves have long targeted car stereos, air bags,
high-intensity headlights, even pocket change from the ashtrays. But
now they are slithering under vehicles and cutting away the
catalytic converters.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Kentucky a fire
engulfed a home in Bardstown killing 10 people.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 6, Frankie Laine
(1913), pop singer born as Francesco Paolo LoVecchio in Chicago,
died in San Diego. His songs included “Mule Train,” Cool Water” and
the theme song for “Rawhide.” He had started in jazz but was
sidetracked by arranger Mitch Miller.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 6, More than 20,000
miners from across Bolivia marched into the capital, tossing sticks
of dynamite that sent booming explosions echoing through the streets
in a protest of President Evo Morales' plans for a steep hike in
mining taxes.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Sao Paulo,
Brazil, suspected gang members torched 3 buses and shot at police,
raising concerns the violence could mushroom into a repeat of last
year's crime wave.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, An underground
explosion in a central Colombia coal mine killed eight workers, just
days after a similar blast in the nation's northeast killed 32
miners.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, Church officials
said The Episcopal Church has named a woman as bishop in Cuba, the
first such appointment by the church in the developing world.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, In France nearly 60
nations pledged not to use children to wage war and to disarm and
rehabilitate underage soldiers. The Paris Commitments agreement was
seen as a strong moral step against the problem, though it carried
no legal weight. They also signed a treaty that bans governments
from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and
some of its key European allies were not among them.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Honduras 3
Americans on a charity mission were killed and 17 other people were
injured in a traffic accident.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 6, Iraqi and US forces
set up more checkpoints in preparation for a security sweep in
Baghdad amid complaints that the operation was moving too slowly.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Mexico more than
a dozen armed assailants staged and videotaped simultaneous attacks
against two offices of the state attorney general in Acapulco,
killing five agents and two secretaries.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, Dutch media
reported that the parties of the incoming centre-left Dutch
government agreed to grant amnesty for some 30,000 failed asylum
seekers who came to the Netherlands before April 2001.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Pakistan a
suicide attacker detonated a bomb in a parking area at the
international airport in Rawalpindi, which serves Pakistan's
capital, wounding at least two police and killing himself.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 6, China’s President
Hu Jintao vowed to forge a partnership of equals with South Africa
as he held talks with his counterpart Thabo Mbeki.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Washington Post
reported that President George W. Bush has approved plans for the US
Treasury Department to block US commercial bank transactions
connected to Sudan's government, including those involving oil
revenue.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) announced its approval of sales of Alli, a
reduced-strength version of the prescription diet drug Xenical. The
first diet pill for over the counter sale hit stores June 15.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Indictments were
filed in New Jersey against 3 US Army Reserve officers for taking
part in a bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars for Iraq
reconstruction to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars and
jewelry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A12)
2007 Feb 7, In SF Mayor Gavin
Newsom met with Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus at the Fairmont
Hotel following an address at the World Affairs Council. Pres.
Adamkus, accompanied by a Lithuanian business delegation, was here
for a one week visit seeking US trade opportunities and potential
investors.
(www.president.lt/en/news.full/7476)
2007 Feb 7, Blowing snow and
intense cold was blamed for two more deaths, a total of 13
nationwide since the cold settled in, and kept schools closed for a
second and in some cases a third day across much of Ohio and West
Virginia.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Chicago Equity
Office Properties (EOP), America’s largest commercial landlord,
accepted a cash offer from The Blackstone Group, a private equity
firm that valued the company at nearly $39 billion (including debt).
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 7, Austrian
authorities said they have uncovered a major international child
pornography ring involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77
countries, including hundreds in the United States, who paid to view
videos of young children being sexually abused.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, A twin-engine plane
crashed in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, killing all six people aboard.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Six people were
hurt by a third letter bomb in three days aimed at British
motoring-related organizations and police are investigating if the
attacks are part of a coordinated campaign.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss,
director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace, presented a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's
schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West,
especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in
a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of
Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Canada’s Nortel
Networks Corp. said it will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its
workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees
to lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North
America's biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up
its profits.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In central China an
overcrowded passenger vehicle returning from a wedding party plunged
off a cliff, killing 16 members of an extended family.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Colombia's top
court ruled that gay couples, who have lived together for more than
2 years, should have the same rights to shared assets as
heterosexual couples. The decision by the Constitutional Court
marked the first recognition of gay couples' rights in Colombia.
(AP, 2/9/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb 7, Georgia signed a
regional cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan and Turkey which
included plans for a railway connecting the three countries.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2gbbgg)
2007 Feb 7, At least 15 people
were killed in attacks across Iraq, including two employees of the
government-funded Iraqi Media Network in Baghdad. A female census
worker was shot to death while she was riding to work with her
husband in the northern city of Mosul. A Sea Knight CH-46
helicopter went down northwest of Baghdad, the fifth helicopter lost
in Iraq in just over two weeks. All 7 aboard were killed. Four US
Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province from wounds
sustained due to enemy action in two separate incidents. Another 3
US soldiers were killed in fighting Anbar province.
(AP, 2/7/07)(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 7, An Italian judge
ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal
shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad
on March 4, 2005.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Michel Niaucel, a
French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast, was shot to
death in his home overnight. Niaucel was in charge of West Africa
security operations for the EU.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Japan's PM Shinzo
Abe pledged to regain four disputed northern islands from Russia,
saying it was time to end the bickering between Tokyo and Moscow
over the prime fishing grounds.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Embassy
issued a travel advisory saying violent crime was on the increase in
Kenya.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 7, The Mozambique
government said floods have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands
of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the
country in the past two weeks.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Gunmen seized a
French oil worker in Nigeria's restive southern petroleum-producing
region. Kidnappers there also seized a woman from the Philippines.
Kidnappers released a British oil-worker after the man taken in a
raid last month fell ill. President Olusegun Obasanjo called for a
high-level meeting to address the violence.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Russia's defense
minister laid out an ambitious plan for building new
intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly
aircraft carriers.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Saudi Arabia
rival Palestinian leaders began open-ended talks in Mecca optimistic
that they could reach an agreement to end their bloody street
battles and resume the peace process with Israel.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Somalia doctors
said a cholera outbreak has killed more than 115 people and
hospitalized 724 in towns where people were forced to use
contaminated water from a flooded river.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In South Africa
Chin’s President Hu Jintao promised to increase imports from Africa,
responding to fears about the trade deficit that increased as China
pumped unprecedented aid, investment and loans into the poor but
resource-rich continent.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Spanish Civil
Guard said authorities have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown
on a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in
southern Spain.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka
Selliah Parameswar, a Hindu priest who welcomed President Mahinda
Rajapakse to a former guerrilla bastion, was dragged out of his
house in Batticaloa district and killed by a group of unidentified
gunmen. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed a
breakaway group allegedly linked to government forces.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Officials in
Venezuela confirmed that Venezuela will buy whatever legal products
Bolivia can make from coca leaf as part of an effort to wean farmers
from the cocaine industry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 7, Zimbabwe’s
President Robert Mugabe, under mounting pressure over a world
record-busting inflation rate and escalating strike action in the
public sector, sacked his finance minister. A union chief said 60
Zimbabwean junior doctors have been sacked from Harare's main
hospital after going on strike in December demanding salary hikes.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 8, A federal judge in
Fargo, N.D., sentenced Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to death for the
slaying of college student Dru Sjodin.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2007 Feb 8, The Museum for
African Art unveiled plans for a new home in Manhattan, becoming the
first major addition to New York's Museum Mile in 50 years.
(Reuters, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Anna Nicole Smith
(b.1967), former Playboy centerfold (Miss May 1992) and wife of
former oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II (1905-1995), died in
Florida. Authorities later said Smith died of an accidental drug
overdose of nine prescription medications, but an extensive six-week
investigation found no signs of foul play. In 2010 her psychiatrist
and boyfriend were convicted of conspiracy for filling her demands
for prescription drugs.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 2/9/07, p.A1)(AP, 3/26/07)(SFC,
10/29/10, p.A6)
2007 Feb 8, Joe Edwards (85),
comics artist, died at his home in NY. He worked on the 1942 debut
issue of Archie comics and later created the character Li'l Jinx.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 8, Benin, Nigeria, and
Togo formed a new regional body aimed at fast-tracking the
integration of their economies. The body, known as the Co-Prosperity
Alliance Zone (COPAZ), was formally inaugurated following a
mini-summit of Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, Benin’s
President Boni Yayi and Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, In Cape Verde 3
Italian women, aged 17-33, were brutally attacked while vacationing,
dragged into the woods, pelted with stones and left for dead at the
bottom of a hole. One woman survived. 3 local men were arrested.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 8, State media said
officials in eastern China plan to name and shame rich families who
ignore the country's strict one-child policy and simply pay the fine
for having a second or third baby. China executed Ismail Semed, an
ethnic Muslim and member of the Uighur minority group in Xinjiang,
for alleged separatist activities. Human rights groups condemned
because they said the prosecution's case against him lacked evidence
and his confession may have been coerced.
(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, Cuba deported
reputed drug kingpin Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante to Colombia,
which plans to extradite him to the United States to face
trafficking and money laundering charges.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, In France teachers,
tax collectors, railway workers and other public servants went on
strike to protest job losses and demand higher pay.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, India’s air force
chief S.P. Tyagi told reporters at the Bangalore air show that the
government expects to sign a contract to buy 40 Russian Sukhoi-30
aircraft by the end of the fiscal year March 31.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, An object fell from
the sky and killed 3 nomads in northern India’s Rajasthan state. The
impact left a crater and the object was believed to have been a
meteor.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.B6)
2007 Feb 8, In Indonesia fresh
rains triggered more flooding, compounding the misery for hundreds
of thousands forced from their homes. Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel
leader, was inaugurated as governor of Aceh province, cementing a
peace deal to end 29 years of fighting that killed more than 15,000
people.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Iraqi forces
detained a senior Health Ministry official accused of corruption and
helping to funnel millions of dollars to Shiite militiamen blamed
for much of the recent sectarian violence in the capital. A parked
car bomb exploded at a meat market in the predominantly Shiite town
of Aziziyah killing 20 people and wounding 45. Car bombs struck
Shiite targets in Baghdad and south of the capital. Gunmen burst
into two houses belonging to Sunni Muslims northeast of Baghdad and
killed at least 10 males after pushing the women and children aside.
In northern Iraq a late night US airstrike hit a Kurdish position in
Mosul, killing at least eight Kurdish troops and wounding six. The
US military said it was looking into the report. A separate US
airstrike killed eight suspected terrorists and destroyed a building
south of Baghdad. A US airstrike killed 13 insurgents in a volatile
area west of Baghdad. Local officials said 45 civilians, including
women and children, died in the attack.
(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, China’s President
Hu Jintao arrived in Mozambique on the penultimate stop in his
8-nation African tour.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Nepal's government
decided to replace the image of embattled King Gyanendra with an
image of Everest, the world's highest mountain, on 10 rupee (13
cent) bills.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, North Korea agreed
in principle to take initial steps toward dismantling its nuclear
programs at the start of international talks seeking the first
concrete progress on disarming Pyongyang.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, Welding equipment
touched off an explosion at a West Bank gas station, killing at
least eight people and wounded 17.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 8, A Fatah official in
Saudi Arabia said that rival Palestinian factions had reached an
agreement on how to divide up Cabinet posts in a power-sharing
government.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, South Africa,
burdened with one of the world's major HIV/AIDS epidemics, unveiled
plans for its biggest AIDS vaccine trial.
(Reuters, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, President Chen
Shui-bian said the name 'Taiwan' would soon replace 'China' on the
island's stamps, a move likely to anger Beijing.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 8, President Hugo
Chavez's government moved to nationalize Venezuela's largest private
electric company, signing an agreement to buy a controlling stake in
Electricidad de Caracas from its US-based owner, AES Corp.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Munich, Germany, that
serial numbers and other markings on bombs suggested that Iranians
were linked to deadly explosives used by Iraqi militants.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2007 Feb 9, Fred Everts (36),
the former roommate of Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller (one of the
nation's most prolific child molesters), was sentenced in San Jose,
Ca., to at least 800 years in prison for sexually abusing three
boys.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Fortress Investment
Group LLC, became the 1st private equity group to go public. Shares
were issued on the NYSE at $18.50 and closed at $31.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 9, It was reported
that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have
overcome a major obstacle in harnessing the full power and speed of
the light waves for Internet fiber-optic networks.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Taliban militants
ambushed a truck full of Afghan police in southern Afghanistan,
killing four officers and injuring three. A separate gunfight left
11 Taliban fighters dead.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo
Morales declared the Vinto tin smelter to be nationalized. Glencore,
the Swiss based owner, demanded compensation saying the seizure
violated a 1991 bilateral agreement between Bolivia and Switzerland.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.40)
2007 Feb 9, In London airline
tycoon Richard Branson announced a $25 million prize for the first
person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of
the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, British government
scientists said the avian flu strain that hit the farm in Suffolk
owned by poultry giant Bernard Matthews appeared to be identical to
that found in Hungary, where Matthews owns local company Saga Foods.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, British bus and
train operator FirstGroup PLC said it agreed to buy US-based bus
company Laidlaw International Inc. in a 1.9 billion pound ($2.7
billion) deal.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Ian Richardson
(b.1934), Scottish-born film and TV actor, died in London. He played
the evil Francis Urquhart in 3 TV miniseries “House of Cards”
(1990), “To Play the King” (1993) and “The final Cut” (1995).
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.B7)
2007 Feb 9, In Cambodia the
American navy's USS Gary docked at Sihanoukville, becoming the first
US military craft to visit the former communist country in more than
30 years.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, China’s state Food
and Drug Administration vowed to probe up to 170,000 medicines
produced by manufacturers, which allegedly bribed its sacked head
Zheng Xiaoyu for production licenses. The top drug safety official
was being investigated for bribery after a number of deaths and
scandals were linked to shoddy medicines.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In China envoys to
international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program
struggled to find a compromise as differences emerged over a Chinese
proposal on how to begin the disarmament process.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, A French appeals
court ruled that Pierre Pinoncelli (78), who attacked Marcel
Duchamp's famed porcelain urinal (fountain) with a hammer last year,
does not have to pay $260,000 in damages. Pinoncelli urinated on
"Fountain" during a 1993 exhibition in Nimes in southern France, and
cut off his own finger as an expression of solidarity with
Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt, held hostage by
leftist guerrillas in Colombia since 2002.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In France
Alcatel-Lucent SA said it plans to cut another 3,500 jobs after it
swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, the first for which the
telecom equipment maker reported combined earnings.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In Guinea President
Lansana Conte named Eugene Camara, a recently appointed cabinet
member, as prime minister. The move was apparently aimed at
appeasing union leaders who led a crippling two-week strike. Under
an agreement signed by the two sides, the new PM cannot have
previously served in the government.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Hundreds of UN
peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum, seizing a
portion of it in a six-hour gunbattle that left a gang member dead
and two soldiers wounded.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, The UN atomic
monitor suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran,
a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only
North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Gunmen dressed in
Iraqi army uniforms swept into a village south of Baghdad,
kidnapping 13 civilians and killing at least 11 of them. A British
soldier was killed and three others were hurt in a roadside bomb
attack in southern Iraq. 3 US soldiers died in an explosion in
volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/9/07)(AFP, 2/9/07)(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 9, Israeli police
stormed the grounds of Islam's third-holiest shrine, firing stun
grenades and tear gas to disperse thousands of Muslim worshippers
who hurled stones, bottles and trash in an eruption of outrage over
Israeli renovation nearby.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Nichiro Corp., a
Japanese food company, recalled nearly 5 million cans of tuna after
a customer found part of a box cutter blade in a can. The small
piece of blade was found in a can of tuna produced in Vietnam in
February 2006 and imported to Japan by a third company for sale by
Nichiro.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, An official said
flooding in central Mozambique threatened some 285,000 people.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, Gazans rejoiced in
the streets to celebrate a Hamas-Fatah power-sharing deal they hope
will avert civil war, but Palestinian officials preached patience,
saying implementing the agreement would be a challenge.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, The Kremlin said
oil tycoon and Chelsea soccer club owner Abramovich will stay on as
governor of the Chukotka region in northeastern Russia. Abramovich
had submitted his resignation in December.
(www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/4542629.html)
2007 Feb 9, In Vietnam the US
ambassador said the US government will give Vietnam $400,000 toward
cleaning up a former US military base contaminated by Agent Orange,
its biggest step yet toward resolving one of the most contentious
legacies of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, The United Nations
agreed to a Serbian request to delay final talks on the fate of
breakaway Kosovo province by a week to give Belgrade time to appoint
delegates.
(Reuters, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 10, Democrat Barack
Obama announced in Illinois that he is running for the White House
in 2008.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a NATO convoy outside
Kandahar city, killing himself but hurting no one else.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, Azerbaijan’s
population, at about 8 million, was mostly Shia Muslim.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 10, It was reported
that researchers in Bolivia had found that the more education a
Tsimane villager had, the longer he was willing to delay
gratification in return for a bigger reward.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.86)
2007 Feb 10, Canadian National
Railway Co. said that 2,800 of its conductors and yard-service
workers at its operations in Canada began a strike, a work stoppage
that could affect the country's key shipments of grain, timber and
other commodities.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, A group of
scientists and nature lovers exploring tunnels on Tenerife in the
Canary Islands became trapped underground and at least 6 of them
died after apparently inhaling toxic gases.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Guinea at least
four people were killed in Conakry as protesters rioted against the
president's decision to appoint a political ally as prime minister.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Indian Kashmir
2 suspected Muslim rebels and a civilian died in a gunbattle with
troops when militants opened fire on an army patrol.
(AFP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, The death toll
from massive flooding in Indonesia rose to 80.
(AFP, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In Iraq Gen. David
Petraeus (b.1952) took command of the 135,000-strong US force.
Gunmen ambushed two Shiite houses south of Baghdad, killing three
members of one family and wounding two of their neighbors. Gunmen
killed eight new recruits for the police border forces as they were
returning to their homes near the border with Syria.
(AP, 2/10/07)(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, while visiting Munich for a security conference,
warned that the increased use of military force by the US is
creating a new arms race, with smaller nations turning toward
developing nuclear weapons.
(AP, 2/10/07)(WSJ, 2/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 10, In Somalia mortar
attacks in a residential area and on a hotel in Mogadishu killed
five people and injured 10. In Kismayo two people were killed after
an explosion hit a rally in support of foreign peacekeepers,
prompting government troops to fire into a crowd of thousands.
(AP, 2/10/07)(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 10, UN police in
Kosovo fired teargas and rubber bullets during clashes with ethnic
Albanians protesting against a UN plan on the fate of the breakaway
Serbian province.
(Reuters, 2/10/07)
2007 Feb 10, In South Korea a
fire at a detention center killed 10 people and injured 17 others,
mostly Chinese, who were waiting deportation for illegal entry to
the country.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, The Dixie Chicks
won five Grammys in a defiant comeback after being shunned over
their anti-President Bush comments about the Iraq war.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, Harvard Univ.
appointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its 28th and first female president.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a
new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip
scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion
mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use
would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 11, Scientists
reported in the journal Nature that they had successfully prevented
cleft palates in embryonic mice using a technique called chemical
genetics.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 11, Helmand’s
provincial governor said an estimated 700 foreign fighters are
operating in a southern Afghan province where Taliban fighters
overran a town earlier this month. Asserting a right to self-defense
the commander of US forces in the region said American forces in
eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to
strike Taliban fighters who attack remote US outposts. A US service
member died of a gunshot wound in northern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Muhammad Yunus,
Bangladesh's "banker to the poor" and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
formally announced his willingness to form a new political party to
take part in forthcoming elections. In May Yunus reversed his
decision to enter politics.
(AFP, 2/11/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.46)
2007 Feb 11, In Egypt Osama
Hassan Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was released. The Egyptian
Muslim preacher had been allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the
streets of Milan, Italy, on Feb 17, 2003, and taken to Egypt. It was
reported that since the end of December seven women have been
stabbed by a dark-skinned man in his 20s in Cairo’s Maadi suburb,
whose richer areas are home to numerous embassies and many
foreigners.
(AP, 2/12/07)(AFP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, In France
socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal unveiled a
long-awaited platform that promised to boost the minimum wage and
pension payments.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution, vowed his country would not give up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, A suicide truck
bomber slammed into a crowd of police lining up for duty near
Tikrit, collapsing the station and killing at least 30 people and
wounding 50. 21 of the 30 killed were policemen. Minutes later, a
roadside bomb struck a car on a highway on the western outskirts of
Tikrit killing two civilians and wounding two others. A suicide
bomber blew himself up next to a police patrol in the religiously
mixed neighborhood of Ilam in southwestern Baghdad, killing one
policeman. A parked car bomb exploded near an intersection, killing
two people and wounding three in Mansour. A US soldier was killed
after coming under small-arms fire northeast of Baghdad. A senior US
intelligence officer said high-tech roadside bombs, that have proved
particularly deadly to American soldiers, are manufactured in Iran
and delivered to Iraq on orders from the "highest levels" of the
Iranian government. Another US soldier was killed in fighting in
Anbar province.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 11, Israel
successfully conducted its first nighttime test of the Arrow
anti-missile system after sundown.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Indian Kashmir was
hit by clashes between police and protesters as separatists held a
general strike marking the anniversary of the execution of a
prominent rebel.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Kosovo 2
protesters injured the previous day in violent clashes with police
died of their wounds.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Stanley Ho’s
casino and restaurants within Grand Lisboa opened in Macao. The
hotel was expected to be completed in 2008.
(Econ, 7/5/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Lisboa)
2007 Feb 11, Portugal held a
national referendum on whether to discard its strict abortion law, a
battle that pits the Socialist government against conservative
parties and the Catholic Church. Almost 60% of voters approved the
referendum allowing women to opt for abortions up to the 10th week
of pregnancy, however the turnout was only 44%.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, President Vladimir
Putin, making the first visit by a Russian leader to Saudi Arabia,
met King Abdullah and other senior officials for talks that touched
on regional tensions including Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, A Syrian court
sentenced Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a man believed to have known the
Sept. 11 hijackers, to 12 years in prison for membership in the
banned Muslim Brotherhood organization.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Voters cast
ballots as Turkmenistan, ruled for more than two decades by an
eccentric autocrat, held its first presidential election with more
than one candidate, but still only one party.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Venezuela
officials said President Hugo Chavez's government has drafted a
decree allowing officials to take control of food distribution
chains, including supermarkets and storage depots, if services are
interrupted.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Washington DC
Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus met with Pres. Bush ahead of an
address at the National Press Club. He was accompanied by a
Lithuanian business delegation seeking US trade opportunities and
potential investors.
(http://eupolitics.einnews.com/news/valdas-adamkus)
2007 Feb 12, In SF John
Konstin, owner of John’s Grill on Ellis St., reported the weekend
theft of his Maltese Falcon, a copy of the statuette used in the
1941 eponymous film.
(SFC, 2/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 12, In California the
Berkeley City Council passed a new Public Commons Initiative to deal
with myriad issues facing those living on the streets.
(SFC, 6/14/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 12, In upstate New
York intense lake-effect snow squalls that buried communities along
eastern Lake Ontario for nine straight days started up again.
Unofficially, the squalls have dumped 12 feet, 2 inches of snow at
Redfield.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Philadelphia,
Penn., 3 men were shot to death in a marketing company conference
room and another was critically injured by a gunman who killed
himself as police closed in. The gunman had put a gig sum in a
failed venture.
(AP, 2/13/07)(WSJ, 2/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 12, In Salt Lake City,
Utah, Sulejmen Talovic (18) opened fire on shoppers, killing five
and wounding four others before police fatally shot him at the
Trolley Square shopping mall. Talovic was armed with several rounds
of ammunition and carried two guns. Ken Hammond, an off-duty
officer, cornered Talovic and prevented further loss of life.
(AP, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A6)
2007 Feb 12, Peter Ellenshaw
(93), special effects artist for Walt Disney, died. He made it
possible for Mary Poppins to fly and for 50 chimney sweeps to dance
on London rooftops.
(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 12, Helmand Governor
Asadullah Wafa said at least 700 Taliban fighters have crossed from
Pakistan into Afghanistan to reinforce guerrillas attacking the key
Kajaki dam, a major source of electricity and irrigation. Several
Taliban fighters were killed in an attack targeting a senior
guerrilla leader. NATO and Afghan forces killed 22 Taliban fighters
in separate clashes over the last 3 days in the Kajaki district of
Helmand province.
(Reuters, 2/12/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, China's General
Administration of Customs said surging trade surplus jumped 67% in
January from the same month last year to $15.88 billion.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, EU foreign
ministers approved plans for implementing UN sanctions against Iran,
a move that is meant to punish Tehran over its refusal to halt
uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced the formation
of an Indian-led political movement whose primary aim is to back her
probable bid for the presidency this fall.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, An Iraqi court
raised the sentence against Saddam Hussein's vice president to death
by hanging for the killings of Shiites in the town of Dujail.
Thunderous explosions and dense black smoke swirled through central
Baghdad when 3 car bombs tore through a crowded marketplace, setting
off secondary blasts and killing 81 people with 172 wounded.
(AP, 2/12/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, Police conducted
raids across northern Italy, breaking up a leftist militant group
that was allegedly planning kidnappings or kneecappings of victims
to finance its plots. The group traced back to the Red Brigades.
Police said they arrested 15 suspects accused of belonging to the
Politico-military Communist Party (PCPM) in Milan, Turin, Padua and
other northern Italian cities. Police in 7 locations across Italy
arrested 17 men, including four alleged arms traffickers: Massimo
Bettinotti (39), Gianluca Squarzolo (39), Ermete Moretti (55), and
Serafino Rossi (64). A 5th member, Vittorio Dordi, was believed to
be in Congo, apparently involved in the diamond trade. The luggage
of Squarzolo had yielded the original clue to the arms deal. They
were involved in a $64 million deal negotiated with Libyan officials
for some 500,000 Chinese-made assault rifles. Iraqi and Italian
partners had haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made
automatic weapons into Iraq.
(AP, 2/12/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.54)(AP,
8/13/07)(WSJ, 12/13/07, p.A18)(AP, 4/12/08)
2007 Feb 12, A Japanese whaling
ship issued a distress signal from Antarctic waters, after it
collided with a protest boat trying to save whales from slaughter.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Mozambique
officials said soldiers and relief workers using helicopters and
canoes have evacuated some 60,000 people from the flooded Zambezi
River Valley in central Mozambique, where more than 100,000 others
are at risk.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A report issued by
a human rights group accused Myanmar's military of killing, raping
and torturing ethnic Karen women as part of its battle against the
minority group over the past 25 years.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Portugal's prime
minister said he will enact more liberal abortion laws in the
conservative Roman Catholic country even though his proposal to
relax restrictions failed to win complete endorsement in a
referendum.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Qatar Russia’s
Putin and Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani announced
they would explore the creation of a natural gas cartel to represent
the interests of producer countries. Qatar sits atop the world's
single largest gas field.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Russian military
prosecutors pledged to investigate allegations that young conscripts
were forced into prostitution by fellow soldiers, the latest claim
of rampant abuse in the nation's armed forces.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, In Somalia a
mortar slammed into a home in Mogadishu, killing a father and his
6-year-old son as they slept and wounding four people.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A vessel smuggling
120 people across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia to Yemen capsized as
it approached the coast. At least 30 Somali and Ethiopian migrants
trying to reach the Arabian peninsula drowned.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 12, South Africa said
it will build a second nuclear power plant generating more than
1,000 megawatts of electricity.
(AFP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Sri Lanka's navy
said it destroyed a boat of the separatist Tamil Tiger movement and
killed at least eight rebels off the country's east coast.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Ma Ying-jeou,
chairman of Taiwan’s main opposition party (KMT), was indicted for
embezzlement. He then defiantly announced he was running for
president.
(AFP, 2/13/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.44)
2007 Feb 12, Thailand, which
has upset big drug companies by issuing patent-overriding licenses
for generic versions of heart and HIV/AIDS pills, said it would
issue more unless the firms cut prices.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, A state official
said Turkmenistan planned to open its first public Internet cafes,
signaling at least some liberalization under Interim President
Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, the presumed winner of its presidential
election.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Ugandan army raids
in the northeast allegedly killed up to 66 children who were shot or
crushed by armored vehicles and stampeding animals. Save the
Children later called for an independent, international
investigation into the reports.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Feb 12, Venezuela signed a
preliminary agreement to purchase Verizon Communications Inc.'s
stake in the country's largest telecommunications company, the
latest move by President Hugo Chavez toward nationalizing strategic
sectors of the economy.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 12, Zimbabwe's central
statistics office reported that the inflation rate, already the
highest in the world, had soared again by more than 300 points to
1,593% in January.
(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 13, With Democrats in
control, House members debated Iraq in an emotional and historic
faceoff over a war that Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned as a
commitment with "no end in sight."
(AP, 2/13/08)
2007 Feb 13, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said the US plans to cancel $391 million in
outstanding debt owed by Liberia, and she urged others to help the
struggling West African nation.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, The US Commerce
Department reported that the gap between what America sells abroad
and what it imports rose to a record $763.6 billion last year, a
6.5% increase from the previous record of $716.7 billion set in
2005.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Brent Wilkes, a
former CIA official, was indicted on corruption charges related to
ex-Congressman Randy Cunningham and defense contractors.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, David Passaro, a
former CIA contract employee, was sentenced to 8 ½ years in
prison for beating Afghan detainee Abdul Wali in July, 2003. Wali
died 48 hours after interrogation.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, Mitt Romney,
former one-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, officially
entered the 2008 presidential race. In what amounted to a
made-for-TV coming-out tour, Romney announced his candidacy in
Michigan, the place of his birth. His father George Romney, a
Michigan governor in the 1960s and an AMC chief executive, made a
short-lived attempt at the presidency four decades ago.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, A powerful storm
and likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area killing an elderly
woman, injuring at least 15 other people.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Richmond, Ca.,
Luz Maria Aguilar-Bucio (32), mother of 3, was killed with her fetus
at home by shots from a high-powered assault rifle. In December
Robert Valentino Hernandez III (19) and Robert Joe Leyva (22) were
charged with her murder.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 13, Charles Norwood
(b.1941), tobacco-chewing conservative Georgia congressman, died of
cancer and lung disease.
(SFC, 2/14/07, p.B9)
2007 Feb 13, In Algeria 7 bombs
went off almost simultaneously, killing six people east of the
capital Algiers in an elaborate assault by suspected Islamist
rebels. The Salafist group Call and Command claimed responsibility
under its new name: al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa.
(Reuters, 2/13/07)(SFC, 2/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, A Belgian court
ruled that Google may not reproduce extracts from a variety of
Belgian newspapers, imperiling one of the web search leader's most
popular services if other courts follow suit.
(Reuters, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Belgium a
government-backed report blamed Belgian authorities and the ruling
elite for collaborating with the Nazi persecution of Jews during
World War II.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Brazil 2
students, who endured more than 60 hours without food and water,
were rescued after being robbed and thrown into an abandoned well.
Police entered a Rio slum and clashed with drug gangs in shootouts
that killed six people, including at least four suspected gang
members.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Canada D-Wave
Systems, based in Burnaby near Vancouver, announced the existence of
the world’s first practical quantum computer.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.81)
2007 Feb 13, Police and troops
in Bangui, CAR, used live ammunition to disperse residents angered
at the killing of two of their number by officers of the
anti-banditry squad.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Gan Yisheng, a
senior party discipline and oversight official, said nearly 100,000
members of China's ruling Communist Party were punished last year
for corruption, and that eradicating graft in the near future
remains a huge challenge. A Chinese business executive was sentenced
to death for swindling $385 million from investors in a bogus
ant-breeding scheme. Wang Zhendong, chairman of Yingkou Donghua
Trading Group Co., had promised returns of up to 60% for buying kits
of ants and breeding equipment.
(AFP, 2/13/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 13, In south-east
Congo a freight train derailed and at least 20 people were killed.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Ecuador's Congress
approved holding a referendum on whether to create an assembly to
rewrite the constitution, bowing to demands by the new leftist
president who is seeking to weaken traditional political parties.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Ethiopia
federal police said weekend clashes between Garbo and Borena nomads
in the southeastern Oromia region with least 16 people killed. The
clashes erupted after cattle were stolen from a rival group,
sparking fresh revenge attacks.
(AFP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Guinea citizens
were banned from leaving their homes as a strict curfew took effect
in this West African country after the president instituted martial
law following days of deadly protests.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, India's central
bank tightened monetary policy for a second time in two weeks to
fight accelerating inflation, hiking the amount of cash commercial
banks must keep on deposit. Inflation at 6.73% hit a 2-year high,
despite 5 interest rate hikes in the past year. Italian PM Romano
Prodi led a jumbo-sized trade delegation to India and called for
closer ties for companies from his country with Indian industry in
farming and manufacturing.
(AP, 2/13/07)(AFP, 2/13/07)(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 13, A suicide truck
bomber blew himself up near a college and a ration office in a
mainly Shiite area of the capital, killing at least 15 people with
27 wounded. Police discovered a booby-trapped ambulance about 500
yards away, but the explosives were defused. Hours later, a parked
car bomb exploded near a bakery in another predominantly Shiite area
in southeastern Baghdad, killing four people and wounding four. Iraq
said it will close its borders with Syria and Iran for 72 hours as
part of the drive to secure and pacify Baghdad.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Officials in the
Ivory Coast said that Trafigura, a Dutch-based oil trading company,
agreed to pay $197 million to secure the release of three executives
from an Ivory Coast prison and settle claims that it dumped toxic
waste that killed at least 10 people in the West African nation.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 13, Japan opened an
international whaling conference by blasting a boycott by dozens of
anti-whaling nations, saying their absence would block much-needed
reforms of the commission that sets regulations.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Jordan's King
Abdullah II and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a
stronger international push for lasting Mideast peace and urged for
a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear standoff.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Lebanon bombs
packed with metal pellets tore through two commuter buses in a
mainly Christian area, a day before the second anniversary of former
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. At least 3 people were
killed and 20 wounded in the coordinated attack.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, In Nigeria gunmen
released 24 Filipino sailors taken hostage in the lawless southern
oil-producing region.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, North Korea agreed
to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its
atomic weapons program in exchange for millions of dollars in aid.
The agreement reached in Beijing said North Korea would close its
nuclear plants within 60 days in return for aid and other
inducements. North Korean state media said the pact required only a
temporary suspension of the country's nuclear facilities.
(AP, 2/13/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.28)
2007 Feb 13, Pakistan's ruling
party introduced a bill to outlaw forced marriages, including under
an ancient tribal custom in which women are married off in order to
settle feuds.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Jun 13, Fierce battles
over key security positions spread to central Gaza, with Hamas
fighters wresting control of the coastal strip's main north-south
road, and putting themselves in position to cut off reinforcements
to beleaguered Fatah forces. At least 20 Palestinians died across
Gaza.
(AP, 6/13/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 13, In Geneva the US
clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate over how
to prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized
Beijing for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile. Russia and
China, in turn, condemned the "one state" that refuses to consider a
treaty banning space weapons, a reference to the US.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 13, Military officials
said clashes between the Yemeni army and followers of a Shiite rebel
leader have killed 16 troops and 69 guerrillas during the past three
days.
(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 14, Challenged on the
accuracy of US intelligence, President Bush told a news conference
there was no doubt the Iranian government was providing
armor-piercing weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq, and he
said he would fight any attempt by the Democratic-controlled
Congress to cut off money for the war.
(AP, 2/14/08)
2007 Feb 14, Former New York
City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, acclaimed for his leadership after the
September 11 attacks, confirmed he is running for US president in
2008, eliminating any lingering doubt about his candidacy.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 14, The Milton
Friedman Foundation said each high school dropout costs Texas $3,168
a year in lost revenue, plus Medicaid and prison expenses.
(WSJ, 2/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 14, Sleet stung the
faces of pedestrians in New York and snow and ice coated windshields
and streets as a Valentine's Day blizzard roared out of the Midwest
and shut down parts of the Northeast.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, ConAgra recalled
all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made at a Georgia plant
because of a salmonella outbreak.
(AP, 2/14/08)
2007 Feb 14, German-US auto
giant DaimlerChrysler said it planned to axe 13,000 jobs at its
loss-making Chrysler subsidiary as part of a broad restructuring
plan aimed at returning the US unit to profitability by 2009. The
bulk of the job losses will affect union workers, with 9,000 hourly
jobs eliminated in the United States and 2,000 in Canada.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, NATO officials
said warplanes struck a Taliban compound in southern Afghanistan
with "precision munitions," killing an area commander and about 10
of his men. Villagers said the raid in the southern province of
Helmand also killed civilians. NATO said Taliban fighters used
children as human shields to flee heavy fighting this week during an
operation by foreign and Afghan forces to clear rebels from around a
key hydro-electric dam. In eastern Afghanistan US-led troops killed
a suspected militant and detained 6 others, including one with
alleged links to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
(AFP, 2/14/07)(Reuters, 2/14/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 14, Brazil’s President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Bolivian President Evo Morales reached
a deal late on how much Brazil will pay for Bolivian natural gas,
apparently resolving an issue that has deeply divided the
neighboring nations for a year.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Brazil violence
cast a shadow over Rio's famed Carnival when gunmen killed Guaracy
Paes Falcao (42), a leader of one of the premiere samba band groups.
Falcao was with an unidentified woman who was also shot dead.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Ethiopia US
former president Jimmy Carter announced distribution of thousands of
insecticide-treated mosquito nets, in a drive that could save up to
100,000 lives annually.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, The European
Parliament approved a controversial report accusing Britain,
Germany, Italy and other European nations of turning a blind eye to
CIA flights transporting terrorism suspects to secret prisons in an
apparent breach of EU human rights standards.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Deutsche Boerse,
operator of the Frankfurt stock exchange, said it has agreed to buy
five percent of the Mumbai stock exchange for 42.7 million dollars
(32.8 million euros).
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, A car loaded with
explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 11 of them and
wounding 31. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group reportedly
claimed responsibility. Within a week Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi was
convicted and executed for the bombing.
(AP, 2/14/07)(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 14, The Iraqi
government formally launched a long-awaited security crackdown in
Baghdad. A parked car bomb struck a predominantly Shiite district
elsewhere in central Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding
10. In Mosul a suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi army patrol,
killing one soldier and four civilians and wounding 20 other people.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Mexican
immigration agents allegedly locked 10 Guatemalan and two Salvadoran
migrants in a trailer after they refused to pay a bribe against of
$110 each. In late 2008 the country's National Human Rights
Commission called for a government investigation.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2007 Feb 14, Serbia's
parliament overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan that would give virtual
independence to the breakaway province of Kosovo.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, In Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, a conference of Anglican leaders opened as the 77
million-member church struggled with a potentially disastrous fight
over the Bible and sexuality.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, Gurbanguli
Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan's new president, took office a few
minutes after the head of the central elections commission announced
he had won Sunday's election with nearly 90 percent of the vote. He
pledged to follow the ways of longtime autocrat Saparmurat Niyazov,
but also promised changes in a country ruled for decades in an
all-encompassing cult of personality. He also promised "development
of private ownership and entrepreneurship," educational reforms, and
more doctors and hospitals.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 14, UNICEF issued
report on child well-being. Of 21 OECD countries the US and Britain
ranked at the bottom.
(www.tsunamigeneration.org/media/media_38299.html)(Econ, 2/17/07,
p.57)
2007 Feb 15, Top US auditors
told Congress that over $10 billion paid to military contractors for
Iraq reconstruction and troop support was either excessive or
unsupported by documents.
(SFC, 2/16/07, p.A13)
2007 Feb 15, A US federal judge
ordered a trial for a suit seeking $105 million from Sudan for aid
to al-Qaeda in the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 in 2000.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, Jim Black (72), US
House speaker from North Carolina, pleaded guilty to illegally
taking thousands of dollars from chiropractors while pushing their
legislative agenda. Black was sentenced to 5 years in prison for
political corruption.
(SFC, 7/31/07,
p.A3)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/369jo9)
2007 Feb 15, A new version of
the US $1 coin, paying tribute to American presidents, went into
general circulation. A unknown number were mistakenly struck without
their edge inscription “In God We Trust.” George Washington appeared
on the first coin.
(AP, 2/15/07)(SFC, 3/8/07, p.A2)(AH, 4/07, p.10)
2007 Feb 15, Hundreds of
drivers became stranded on a stretch of eastern Pennsylvania that
had been hit by a monster storm. The National Guard was called in to
deliver food and other necessities to a 50-mile line of vehicles
trapped on I-78.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)(AP, 2/16/08)
2007 Feb 15, Hershey Co. said
it would cut about 11 percent of its workforce and reduce the number
of production lines it operates by more than a third as it spends as
much as $575 million to overhaul its manufacturing. The
Chicago-based US chocolate maker also said it will build a new,
cost-efficient manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Mexico.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, JetBlue Airways
Corp. tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism, after passengers were
left waiting on planes at a NY airport for as long as 11 hours
during a snow and ice storm.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Government
scientists struggled to pinpoint the source of the first US
salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter. Nearly 300 people in 39
states have fallen ill since August, and federal health
investigators said they strongly suspect Peter Pan peanut butter and
certain batches of Wal-Mart's Great Value house brand, both
manufactured by ConAgra Foods. By June the number of cases grew to
over 600 in 47 states.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Feb 15, Scientists
gathered in Atlanta, Ga., to find a way to stop a fungus killing the
world’s frogs. Up to 170 species have gone extinct in the past
decade.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, Robert Adler (93),
co-inventor of the TV remote control, died in Boise, Idaho. He and
Eugene Polley invented the Zenith Space Command remote control in
1956.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 15, Ray Evans
(b.1915), songwriter and longtime partner with Jay Livingston
(d.2001), died. Their songs included “Whatever Will be, Will Be (Que
Sera, Sera)” and “Mona Lisa,” as well as the themes for the TV
series “Bonanza” and “Mr. Ed.”
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.D7)
2007 Feb 15, A summit of
African leaders opened in Cannes on the French Riviera. The crisis
in Darfur and violence in Guinea overshadowed the summit, as well as
perennial issues of poverty, development and AIDS. France won
agreement from three involved African nations (Sudan, Chad and
Central African Republic) that they would not support armed rebel
movements on each other's territories.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Officials warned
of a potential environmental disaster in Antarctica after fire
erupted on a Japanese whaling ship, as the search continued for a
missing crewmen from the crippled ship. The next day Japanese
officials said the ship posed no environmental threat.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Australian
government said it was negotiating with the US on a plan to build a
military satellite communications facility in Perth. Defense
Minister Brendan Nelson said the two nations had negotiated for two
years to build a number of ground-based communications systems
around Australia.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, It was reported
that shooting ranges continued to operate in Cambodia despite
government cancellation of licenses in 1997. Tourists were
able to fire 30 rounds with an AK-47 for $30. Other offers included
tossing grenades at chickens for $200 and killing a cow with a
rocket-propelled grenade for $555.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.14)
2007 Feb 15, A fast-thinking
pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled hijacker Mohamed Abderraman,
a 32-year-old Mauritanian, by braking hard upon landing in Gran
Canaria, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell,
flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10
people pounced on him.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Five Colombian
congressmen, including the brother of the foreign minister, were
arrested in a widening scandal linking the country's political class
and far-right militias drew closer to the president.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the nearly 18,000-strong UN
peacekeeping force in Congo for two months to give the
secretary-general time to recommend possible changes in its mandate
following last year's successful elections.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, In Egypt police
arrested 80 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in what appeared to
be a pre-emptive strike against the country's largest Islamic group
ahead of elections and a key parliamentary debate.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Nadia Abdel Hafez,
an Egyptian woman (37), died of bird flu in a Cairo hospital and a
boy, 5, became the 22nd Egyptian to test positive for the deadly
disease.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Estonian lawmakers
narrowly approved a bill calling for the removal of a Soviet war
memorial from their capital, ignoring Moscow's warning of
"irreversible consequences" for relations between the two countries.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Nokia, the world's
leading maker of mobile phones, said it would shed some 700 jobs,
with Finland taking the brunt of the cuts.
(AFP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, In Germany Ernst
Zundel (b.1939), a far-right activist, was convicted of incitement
and sentenced to the maximum five years in prison for anti-Semitic
activities, including contributing to a Web site dedicated to
Holocaust denial.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, An adviser to
Iraq's prime minister said that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during
an escalating security crackdown.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Iraqi and US
troops moved into a Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad, while
insurgents struck back with car bombs that killed seven people. In
southern Iraq, British troops sealed off the border with Iran to
prevent weapons smuggling. Terror leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also
known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was wounded and an aide killed in a
clash with Iraqi forces near Balad, north of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Assailants shot
dead four police officers in the western Mexican city of
Aguascalientes, the latest in a wave of slayings of law enforcement
officers across Mexico.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, Palestine’s PM
Ismail Haniyeh and his government resigned and President Mahmoud
Abbas of Fatah appointed him to form the new team, based on last
week's agreement in the Muslim holy city of Mecca to split power
between the two rivals.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, A leftist student
leader was murdered in the central Philippines, amid plans to set up
special tribunals to try people suspected of carrying out
extrajudicial killings. Farly Alcantara (22) was head of the League
of Filipino Students at Camarines Norte State College.
(AFP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 15, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin dismissed Alu Alkhanov, the president of the republic
of Chechnya, and named its widely feared PM Ramzan Kadyrov as acting
president.
(AP, 2/16/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.62)
2007 Feb 15, Russia’s Pres.
Vladimir Putin named Anatoly Serdyukov as defense minister, the
country’s first civilian defense minister in 90 years.
(AP,
11/5/10)(http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Anatoliy_Serdyukov)
2007 Feb 15, President Paul
Kagame said in an interview published in The Times that Rwanda wants
to join the Commonwealth, the 53-nation grouping of former British
colonies, in what will be seen as a rebuke to France.
(AFP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, The US House of
Representatives voted 246-182 for a non-binding resolution opposing
Pres. Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. 17 Republicans
voted in favor.
(SFC, 2/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 16, An annual survey
released Forbes.com said Raleigh, North Carolina, topped the list of
the best US cities for getting a job.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, US coffee giant
Starbucks, locked in a trademark tussle with Ethiopia, said it will
not oppose Addis Ababa's bid to brand its coffee in America and
pledged to pursue dialogue over the matter.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, Francisco
Castaneda, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, died of penile
cancer that went undiagnosed for more than a year while he was in
state and federal custody in California. In 2010 a Los Angeles jury
awarded his family $1.73 million.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/2atfmvw)
2007 Feb 16, A rebel commander
said the Taliban have deployed 10,000 fighters for a spring
offensive of "bloody attacks" against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, The ritual
sacrifice of a snow-white llama symbolically marked President Evo
Morales' nationalization of Bolivia's lone operating tin smelter.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, French President
Jacques Chirac said US cotton subsidies were scandalous and immoral
because they hurt African farmers.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, A spokesperson
said the UN has allocated $2.35 million from an emergency fund to
provide humanitarian aid to Guinea, which is in the midst of a tense
nationwide strike.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, The number of
Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad's sectarian violence fell
drastically overnight. 10 bodies were reported by the morgue in the
capital, compared to an average of 40 to 50 per day. A US Marine was
killed during combat operations in western Anbar province.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, An Italian judge
indicted 26 Americans and five Italians in the abduction of an
Egyptian terror suspect on a Milan street in what would be the first
criminal trial stemming from the CIA's extraordinary rendition
program. The proceedings were later suspended pending a ruling on
the Italian government's request to throw out the indictments.
(AP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/16/08)
2007 Feb 16, Japan's Cabinet
approved sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program under UN
Security Council guidelines.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, Abdul Ghani, a
Pakistani health official in charge of a campaign to inoculate
children against polio, was killed in a bomb blast following rumors
the vaccination was a US plot to sterilize them. Police in southern
Pakistan announced they had arrested five suspected militants from
the southern city of Karachi and Rawalpindi, a garrison city near
Islamabad, and that the suspects were planning suicide attacks on
foreigners and minority Shiite Muslims. Police also arrested three
Islamic militants who were planning suicide attacks to take place at
forthcoming Shiite Muslim gatherings in Sindh province.
(AFP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 16, Peru’s President
Alan Garcia said that he is selling the presidential airplane in an
effort to curb "frivolous" expenses in his administration.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Poland Antoni
Macierewicz (b.1948), vice-minister of national defense, authored a
report on the recently disbanded WSI (military intelligence service)
that named dozens of current and former agents.
(Econ, 2/24/07,
p.63)(www.warsawvoice.pl/view/13967)
2007 Feb 16, Russian
prosecutors released more details on new theft and money laundering
charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a jailed former oil tycoon,
and increased by $2 billion the amount of money they say he and his
partner stole from subsidiaries of OAS Yukos.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Serbia Slobodan
Milosevic's paramilitary commander, his secret police chief and five
others were convicted of killing four people in an attack against a
prominent opposition leader who survived.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, BBVA, Spain's
number two bank, said it has reached an agreement to buy US bank
Compass Bancshares for around 9.6 billion US dollars (7.4 billion
euros) in the latest major foreign acquisition by a Spanish firm.
(AFP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, Sri Lanka's navy
said it destroyed two Tamil Tiger rebel boats as the craft were
hauling hundreds of thousands of steel balls often used in bombs.
Four rebel fighters were believed killed. Tamil Tiger rebels accused
Sri Lankan security forces of killing 39 civilians and blamed them
for the disappearance of 39 others in the last two weeks.
(AFP, 2/16/07)(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, In Sudan heavy
fighting took place between the Targem and Rezegat Maharia tribes in
South Darfur state. Unconfirmed reports suggested that between 70 to
100 tribesmen were killed and 14 injured.
(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 16, A Turkish court
sentenced seven suspected al-Qaida militants to life in prison for a
pair of 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people,
attacks prosecutors said were ordered by Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 16, A Yemeni official
said a boat loaded with Somali and Ethiopian migrants capsized in
the Gulf of Aden during a night crossing in which at least 112
people died.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, US Senate
Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate President Bush's
deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2007 Feb 17, At Camp Pendleton,
Calif., Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington was sentenced to 8
years in military prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing
of an Iraqi civilian.
(AP, 2/17/08)
2007 Feb 17, In Cape Canaveral,
Florida, a rocket carried 5 satellites into orbit as part of the
THEMIS mission to study magnetic storms in the Earth’s atmosphere.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 17, In North Dakota
More than 8,900 people flapped their arms and legs on the state
Capitol grounds in an attempt to reclaim the record, which was
snatched away about a year ago in Michigan. The snow angel category
was created in 2002 when 1,791 people made snow angels on the
Capitol grounds in North Dakota.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Chicago 3 women
were found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in two apartments on
the city's far North Side. Police had a suspect in custody. All were
Assyrian Christians, and recent immigrants to the US.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In southwestern
Pennsylvania fire swept through a house in Waynesburg, killing six
young children and a woman and injuring one other person.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, NATO-led forces in
southern Afghanistan shot to death an Afghan civilian mistaken for a
suicide bomber because of twine and straps protruding from his
jacket.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Rio de Janeiro
the Black Ball band, which has played carnival since 1918, opened
the first full day of Carnival.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, About 40 prisoners
escaped from a jail in East Timor, adding to security concerns as it
prepares for elections following political turmoil and violence last
year.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Ecuador’s new
leftist President Rafael Correa said he will resign if his
supporters do not win control of an assembly to rewrite Ecuador's
constitution.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, President Jacques
Chirac awarded the Legion d'Honneur order to actor and director
Clint Eastwood (76), calling his latest films lessons in humanity.
Chirac said Eastwood's latest films "Flags of our Fathers" and
"Letters from Iwo Jima" showed the impasse that can follow from the
blind use of force.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Maurice Papon
(96), a former French Cabinet minister, died. He was convicted of
complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews
during World War II and became a symbol of France’s collaboration
with the Nazis.
(AP, 2/17/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.99)
2007 Feb 17, Police in the
central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recovered 390 pieces of bones
of newly born babies or fetuses from the backyard of a Christian
missionary hospital. Last December, the government said 10 million
girls had been killed by their parents in the past 20 years either
before they were born or immediately after.
(Reuters, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Iraq a suicide
car bomber rammed into a crowded market in Kirkuk moments after a
booby-trapped vehicle exploded, killing at least nine people and
injuring 60. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced
stop in Baghdad before heading for scheduled talks in Israel. Iraqi
authorities foiled a potential suicide bomber near Karbala. A
minivan came under fire after the driver failed to slowdown at a
checkpoint, and then detonated the explosives and was killed in the
blast. A US soldier in Baghdad was killed when an insurgent hurled a
grenade at his vehicle. Another soldier died when a patrol came
under fire north of Baghdad. A US Marine died in western Iraq.
(AP, 2/17/07)(AP, 2/18/07)(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 17, Some 70 thousand
Italians under heavy police guard protested against the expansion of
a US military base in Vicenza that has divided the center-left
government.
(Reuters, 2/17/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.61)
2007 Feb 17, Lesotho held
elections. The ruling party, which has brought stability to the
mountain kingdom, faced a new rival set up on a platform of change.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Former Nicaraguan
President Arnoldo Aleman acknowledged for the first time that he
spent $1.8 million in government money on jewelry and meals, mostly
while he was abroad seeking aid following the devastation of
Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, Nigerian hostage
takers released an American oil worker in Port Harcourt.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, In southwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber killed 15 people, including a judge, after
blowing himself up inside a courtroom in Quetta.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, A US human rights
watchdog that recently sent a team to Saudi Arabia to investigate
abuses said in a new report the kingdom keeps thousands of prisoners
in jail without charge, sentences children to death and oppresses
women.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 17, Syrian President
Bashar Assad arrived in Iran to discuss Iraq and other Middle East
issues with President Mahmoud Ahmadinajed.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, James Morris, the
head of the UN food agency, said some 18,000 children die every day
because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed
every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world
in 2007."
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 18, The United States
sent eight more US F-22 stealth fighter planes to the southern
Japanese island of Okinawa in their first full deployment overseas.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Scientists at a
symposium on the neurobiology of chocolate reported that flavanols,
a chemical found in cocoa beans, could be good for memory. They
noted that chocolate usually looses its flavanols during processing.
(SFC, 2/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 18, A US military
helicopter crashed in southeastern Afghanistan after its pilot
reported engine failure, killing eight American troops and wounding
14. A roadside bomb killed four officers involved in opium poppy
eradication in Farah province. In western Ghor province a clash
between poppy farmers and police involved in eradication left one
civilian dead and two wounded.
(AP, 2/18/07)(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, Albanians went to
the polls in municipal elections. Allegations of vote-rigging flared
within a few hours of polls opening, as the opposition accused PM
Sali Berisha's Democratic Party of releasing false identity
documents to allow some supporters to vote repeatedly. In Tirana
Interior Minister Sokol Olldashi (34) faced Socialist Party leader
and city mayor, Edi Rama (42).
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, A Bangladesh
anti-graft body named 50 people for having wealth that did not match
their income. 30 arrests soon included 11 former ministers,
lawmakers and businessmen with party links.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 18, British PM Tony
Blair announced plans to overhaul gun laws after three teenage boys
were shot dead in south London this month, prompting a national
debate about guns and gangs among youths.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, The Chinese
flocked to temples, parks and Disneyland to pray, play, eat, and
celebrate the first day of the Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year
of the Pig. The celebrations extended to March 4.
(AP, 2/18/07)(WSJ, 3/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 18, Egyptian
authorities arrested Mohammed Sayed Saber (35), an Egyptian engineer
from the country's nuclear energy agency, for spying for Israel, but
the arrest was not announced until April 17.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Feb 18, Fierce inter-clan
fighting killed at least 43 people in Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden
region, inhabited mainly by ethnic Somalis.
(AFP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, India’s federal
minister for women and child development said the government plans
to open centers where people can abandon unwanted daughters in a bid
to tackle the abortion of female fetuses and infanticide.
(AFP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18 In northern India 2
bombs exploded on a train headed from India to Pakistan, sparking a
fire that swept through two coaches and killed at least 68 people.
Most of the dead were Pakistani. Officials said the attack was aimed
at undermining the peace process between the rivals.
(AP, 2/19/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.47)
2007 Feb 18, Twin landslides
hit Indonesia's Java island, killing at least 12 people after they
were buried under mounds of earth.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Israel and the US
agreed ahead of a three-way meeting with the Palestinians to shun
any new Palestinian government that does not renounce violence,
recognize Israel and accept existing peace agreements.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Japanese
researchers said they had grown normal-looking teeth from single
cells in lab dishes, and transplanted them into mice.
(Reuters, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, Officials said the
Mexican government will expand its anti-drug raids to two states
across the border from Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers,
sailors and federal police.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In Nigeria gunmen
seized three Croatian workers. The men were abducted in the region's
main city of Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In the southern
Philippines an unidentified gunman fatally shot Hernani Pastolero
(64), the editor of a weekly newspaper in front of his home in the
village of Bulalo.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, In St. Petersburg,
Russia, an explosion hit a McDonald's restaurant in the city center,
injuring at least six people.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 18, In Thailand 29
bombings and 20 other attacks rocked the country's four southernmost
provinces. Most of the attacks took place in a span of 45 minutes.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, A bus and a truck
carrying goods collided head-on in Uganda, killing 7 people and
injuring 20. Police said 2,000 Ugandans die in road accidents on
average each year.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 18, Zimbabwe riot
police crushed an opposition rally amid government fears of a new
street campaign against President Robert Mugabe. Morgan Tsvangirai
cancelled a planned mass rally in Harare after police blocked
supporters from attending the gathering in defiance of a court
order.
(AFP, 2/18/07)(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, New Jersey became
the 3rd US state to offer civil unions for gay couples.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 19, XM Satellite Radio
Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. announced an agreement to
merge as equals. Sirius planned to XM shareholders $4.57 billion in
stock.
(SFC, 2/20/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 19, Actress Janet
Blair (85) died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2007 Feb 19, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban insurgents briefly captured Bakwa, a small town in
Farah province after police abandoned their posts.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, An official said
Algeria has translated the Koran into the Berber language,
Tamazight, for the first time, to promote Islam among a community
that has long campaigned for more language and cultural rights.
(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, British police
arrested a man near Cambridge in connection with a series of letter
bombs sent to offices linked to traffic enforcement. On Feb 22 Miles
Cooper (22), a primary school caretaker, was charged with 12
offences under the Explosive Substances Act and the Offences Against
the Person Act.
(AP, 2/19/07)(AFP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 19, Canada
unexpectedly granted permanent resident status to Amir Kazemian
(41), an Iranian, man who spent nearly three years in sanctuary in a
Vancouver church before being arrested over the weekend. The
Citizenship and Immigration officials granted him residency on
humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Maria Consuelo
Araujo, Colombia’s foreign minister, resigned as a growing scandal
linking the political establishment and far-right paramilitaries
claimed its first member of President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet. 4 days
earlier her brother, a senator, was jailed on charges of colluding
with the paramilitaries and the kidnapping of a potential political
rival. 2 clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman
during their performance of Circo del Sol de Cali, a traveling
circus, in the eastern town of Cucuta.
(AP, 2/19/07)(Reuters, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 19, Police found the
charred bodies of three Salvadoran representatives to the Central
American Parliament and their driver on a rural road outside
Guatemala City.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, In Iraq
gunmen ambushed a minivan on the main highway from Baghdad to Anbar.
The attackers accused the 13 aboard of opposing al-Qaida in Iraq.
All 13 were executed, including an elderly woman and two boys. A
string of car bombings and other attacks claimed more than 40
civilian lives in Baghdad and elsewhere. Insurgents launched a
brazen coordinated attack on a US combat post near Tarmiyah, sending
in a suicide bomber and clashing with American troops. Six US
service members were killed.
(AP, 2/19/07)(AP, 2/20/07)(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 19, Three-way talks
between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli and
Palestinian leaders, initially billed as a new US push to restart
peace efforts, ended with little progress other than a commitment to
meet again.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2007 Feb 19, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon announced that soldiers waging an offensive against
drug traffickers will get a pay hike of 45 percent this year in a
bid to insulate them from corruption. This coincided with a decision
to lower his own pay by 10% and abolish pensions for Mexican
presidents.
(AP, 2/19/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Feb 19, In Pakistan
suspected Islamic militants killed an Afghan refugee they accused of
spying for the US and dumped his beheaded body by a road in North
Waziristan.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, Daniel Petru
Corogeanu, a Romanian priest, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In 2005 he had led a dayslong exorcism ritual with 4 nuns for
Maricica Irina Cornici (23), a young nun, that ended with the
woman's death. One of the nuns, Nicoleta Arcalianu, was sentenced to
eight years in prison, and the other three, Adina Cepraga, Elena
Otel and Simona Bardanas, received five-year sentences.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Gen. Nikolai
Solovtsov, a top Russian general, warned that Poland and the Czech
Republic risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to
host a proposed US missile defense system.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Rwanda released
8,000 prisoners accused of involvement in the country's 1994
genocide, prompting anger from survivors of the slaughter who fear
new ethnic killings.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, A Saudi court
ordered the bodies of four Sri Lankans to be displayed in a public
square after being beheaded for armed robbery.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 19, Anglican leaders
in Tanzania demanded that the US Episcopal Church unequivocally bar
official prayers for gay couples and the consecration of more gay
bishops to undo the damage that North Americans have caused the
Anglican family.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 19, In Thailand
violence continued as bombs exploded at four locations in the south,
killing an army major and wounding two soldiers, three policemen and
13 civilians.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Military officials
said ongoing clashes between the Yemeni army and followers of a
Shiite rebel leader in the north of the country have killed more
than 100 people in the past five days.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, The EU extended
sanctions on Zimbabwe for another year including an arms embargo,
travel ban and asset freeze on President Robert Mugabe and other top
officials.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 20, In a victory for
President Bush, a divided federal appeals court ruled that
Guantanamo Bay detainees could not use the U.S. court system to
challenge their indefinite imprisonment.
(AP, 2/20/08)
2007 Feb 20, In New Orleans,
thousands of hurricane-weary residents joined with rowdy visitors to
celebrate the second Mardi Gras since Katrina.
(AP, 2/20/08)
2007 Feb 20, Vice President
Dick Cheney arrived in Japan for a meeting with the emperor, dinner
with the PM and a pep rally for US troops aboard the aircraft
carrier Kitty Hawk.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, It was reported
that Jerry Yang (38), co-founder of Yahoo, will donate $75 million
to Stanford Univ. Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo in March, 1995.
(WSJ, 2/20/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 20, Three men from
Canada, Taiwan and the United States completed a 4,000 mile run
across the Sahara Desert over 111 days to draw attention to the lack
of access to water in many countries they crossed.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew
himself up at a hospital opening ceremony, wounding at least 6 US
soldiers. An official said Afghan authorities raided dozens of
guesthouses suspected of illegally serving alcohol and arrested 14
people, including five foreigners, in a crackdown on vice in this
Islamic country.
(AP, 2/20/07)(WSJ, 2/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 20, Claiming a world
first for a national government, Australia’s Environment Minister
Malcolm Turnbull said incandescent lightbulbs would be phased out by
2010 in favor of the more fuel-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Britain’s PM Tony
Blair said its 7,100 man force in Iraq would be cut to 5,500 over
the next few months.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.68)
2007 Feb 20, In Britain Ken
Livingstone, London's socialist mayor, signed an agreement with
Venezuela's state-owned oil company to provide discounted oil for
the city's iconic red buses.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, The Canadian
government and Bill Gates announced an initiative to establish a
research institute to develop an AIDS vaccine, committing a total of
$119 million to the project.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, Congo’s army and
UN officials said days of clashes between the army and Rwandan and
Congolese militias in eastern Congo have killed at least 23
combatants and forced thousands to flee.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 20, EU ministers
agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below their 1990 level
by 2020.
(SFC, 2/21/07, p.C5)
2007 Feb 20, In southern India
a river boat carrying children on a school trip capsized, and at
least 18 children and four teachers drowned, a local official said.
Sixteen children were missing.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, A car bomb and a
suicide attacker killed at least 11 people across Baghdad. Later in
the day a suicide bomber in Baghdad had struck a funeral procession
and killed at least seven people. Outside Baghdad nearly 150 people
were hospitalized complaining of breathing problems, vomiting and
other ailments after a truck carrying a chlorine-based substance was
hit by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad. The attack left 7 dead. A
government statement said 3 officers of the Shiite-dominated police
force have been cleared of allegations that they raped a Sunni woman
in their custody. A raid on the car bomb factory near Karmah, in
Anbar, uncovered a pickup truck and three other vehicles that were
being prepared as car bombs.
(AP, 2/20/07)(AFP, 2/22/07)(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 20, Nigeria's court of
appeal ruled that President Olusegun Obasanjo had no legal power to
sack of his deputy president for having joined an opposition party.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Pakistani
authorities shut down a zoo in Islamabad and slaughtered dozens of
birds after the deadly H5N1 flu virus was found in peacocks and
geese. This marked the fourth case of the virus detected in Pakistan
this month.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Mohammad Sarwar, a
suspected Islamist zealot, shot dead Zil-e-Huma (37), social welfare
minister of the Punjab government, because he believed women should
not be in politics. Sarwar was immediately arrested.
(Reuters, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, In Somalia mortar
rounds and rockets hit Mogadishu in a series of attacks that killed
15 people, including a 4-year-old boy, and wounded more than 40
others. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorize an
African Union force to help stabilize Somalia.
(AP, 2/20/07)(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, Sri Lankan
military aircraft bombed rebel-held territory, killing at least two
villagers, as the military reported four more deaths.
(AFP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 20, South Africa's
environment minister announced long-awaited restrictions on hunting,
declaring he was sickened by wealthy tourists shooting tame lions
from the back of a truck and felling rhinos with a bow and arrow.
(AP, 2/20/07)
2007 Feb 21, The government
reported that US consumer prices jumped in January, a week after
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke warned that inflation remains the
central bank's top concern.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Mayor Newsom and
Philip Mangano, the government’s head of homelessness, announced
that SF had received $19.7 million in federal funds to help fight
homelessness.
(SFC, 2/22/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb 21, The SF Police
Commission approved a computerized system to track problematic
behaviour by police officers.
(SFC, 2/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 21, Food retailer
Asda, owned by US group Wal-Mart, said it would create 8,000 jobs
and build 18 new supermarkets across Britain this year.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, PM Tony Blair said
Britain will withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming
months and aims to further cut its 7,100-strong contingent by late
summer if Iraqi forces can secure the country's south.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Ottawa took the
first step to end a strike by Canadian National Railway workers that
has spurred demands for government intervention by a chorus of
shippers as well as an internecine union battle.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A land mine killed
five Colombian soldiers after a patrol chasing leftist rebels
stumbled in to a mine field.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Costa Rica an
American senior citizen (70) killed an alleged mugger with his bare
hands. His traveling companions aboard a tour bus fended off two
other assailants in the Atlantic coast city of Limon. The tourists
left on their Carnival cruise ship after the incident and
authorities did not plan to press charges against them.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Denmark’s PM
Rasmussen said that his country will withdraw its 460-member
contingent from southern Iraq by August and transfer security
responsibilities to Iraqi forces.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Security officials
said Egyptian border and security authorities had arrested 23
Palestinians and Egyptians in the Sinai region, including one who
was wearing an explosives belt and had crossed from Gaza to Egypt in
an underground tunnel.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Ethiopia the UN
humanitarian office said that 684 people have died in a diarrhea
epidemic and that neighboring countries were also affected.
Ethiopia’s government has refused to declare the phenomenon as a
cholera epidemic, preferring to refer to it as "acute watery
diarrhea."
(AFP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, Europol said
Police in seven European countries have broken up a network that
carried out more than 200 carefully choreographed armed robberies of
jewelry stores, and channeled $53 million in loot into drugs and
real estate.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Nobel Peace Prize
winner Rigoberta Menchu announced that she will run for the
presidency of Guatemala in the country's September elections, a move
likely fuel talk about an Indian resurgence in Latin American
politics.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, India said it has
banned the export to Iran of all material, equipment and technology
which could contribute to Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, India and Pakistan
signed a deal to reduce the risk of a nuclear arms accident in a
show of cooperation and defiance against terror attacks that killed
68 people from both countries.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A suicide car
bomber struck a police checkpoint in the Shiite city of Najaf,
killing at 13 people in the spiritual heartland of the militia
factions led by Muqtada al-Sadr. A car bomb in the western Baghdad
district of Bayya killed at least two and injured 31. Later, a car
bomb in the neighborhood killed at least three people. The area is
mixed between Sunni and Shiites. PM Nouri al-Maliki fired a top
Sunni official who had called for an international investigation
into the rape allegations leveled by a Sunni Arab woman against
three members of the Shiite-dominated security forces. A tank truck
carrying chlorine exploded killing 3 people and wounding at least
25. In Ramadi a six-hour battle broke out after insurgents armed
with rocket-propelled grenades attacked US troops from nearby
buildings. A Marine spokesman said 12 insurgents were killed and
there were no civilian casualties reported. Iraqi authorities said
the dead included women and children.
(AP, 2/21/07)(AFP, 2/22/07)(SFC, 2/22/07,
p.A10)(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Israeli troops
fatally shot a West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group
who was involved in an attempted bombing near Tel Aviv. 93.6 RAM FM
began broadcasting 20 independent news bulletins a day from studios
in Jerusalem and the West Bank to a target audience of half a
million English-speakers on both sides of the divide in the Holy
Land.
(AFP, 2/20/07)(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Italy Premier
Romano Prodi stepped down following an embarrassing parliamentary
defeat of his government's proposed foreign policy program. His
center-left government had been in power for just 9 months.
(AP, 2/22/07)(SFC, 2/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 21, The Bank of Japan
voted to raise interest rates by a quarter of a point to 0.5%.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.85)
2007 Feb 21, Lebanese
anti-aircraft guns fired at Israeli warplanes over southern Lebanon,
indicating that Lebanon's army is taking a new assertiveness toward
Israel.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, At a regional
meeting in Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad said they agreed to
redouble efforts to end violence spilling over their border from
Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Human Rights Watch
condemned Malaysia's plan to introduce tough laws that curb the
movements of migrant employees and allow employers "to lock up
workers."
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Montenegro police
arrested Smail Tulja (67) in his home in Montenegro's capital,
Podgorica, on an international arrest warrant that the authorities
received from FBI and Interpol agents. He was wanted for the killing
and dismemberment of an elderly woman in New York City in 1990 and
is also suspected in similar slayings of women throughout Europe.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Nigeria a
Lebanese hostage abducted along with three Italians in southern
Nigeria was freed after being held for more than 10 weeks. MEND said
the men guarding Saliba had been bribed to allow his escape. Two of
the Italians abducted with Saliba were still being held by MEND. The
third was freed on January 18 because of health problems. Gunmen
killed two soldiers and wounded a third in the southern Niger delta.
(AFP, 2/21/07)(AP, 2/22/07)(AFP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 21, Finance Minster
Alexei Kudrin said that a new domestic offering for shares in
Russia's largest state-controlled bank had brought in $8.8 billion.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Seven Saudis
released from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay returned home and were
promptly detained to see if they had terrorist connections.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, In Somalia gunmen
fatally shot two local government officials in Mogadishu.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, South Africa's
finance minister painted an upbeat picture of the economy,
forecasting five-percent annual growth to the end of the decade as
he posted the first budget surplus in recent memory. Two people were
arrested over the theft of jewelry worth more than 500,000 dollars
from the home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of South
Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, Thailand police
said suspected Islamic separatists had set ablaze Thailand's biggest
rubber warehouse and shot dead four people in fresh attacks across
the Muslim-majority southern provinces. A top economic aide to
ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra resigned from his position in the
current military-appointed government following sharp criticism from
pro-democracy groups.
(AFP, 2/21/07)(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 21, A 5.7 magnitude
earthquake shook southeastern Turkey. A five-story apartment
building collapsed in Istanbul, killing at least two people and
injuring more than two dozen others.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 22, The Bush
administration announced its plan to have US inspectors oversee
Mexican trucking companies that carry cargo across the border.
Mexico responded to the US announcement by saying it will allow
trucks from 100 US companies to travel across the border. The news
that Mexican trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the
US drew an angry reaction the next day from labor leaders, safety
advocates and members of Congress.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, The US General
Accountability Office said it will cost at least $ 12 billion to
clean up contamination from tens of thousands of gasoline storage
tanks that were leaking underground.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 22, A US federal judge
ordered Microsoft to pay $1.52 billion to Alcatel-Lucent SA for
infringing a patent on a fundamental technology for digital music.
(WSJ, 2/23/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 22, Tongsun Park (71),
a South Korean businessman, was sentenced in NY to 5 years in prison
for accepting at least $2 million to work on Iraq’s behalf to
influence the UN oil-for-food program.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 22, Police clashed
with demonstrators protesting the visit of Vice President Dick
Cheney hours before he arrived in Australia to thank one of
Washington's staunchest supporters in the increasingly unpopular war
in Iraq.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Female tennis
stars hailed an announcement that women would receive the same prize
money as men at this year's Wimbledon tennis championships after
years of dogged campaigning.
(AFP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Britain's Ministry
of Defense announced that Prince Harry, a second lieutenant in the
British army, would be deployed to Iraq. Officials later reversed
the decision because of insurgent threats.
(AP, 2/22/08)
2007 Feb 22, In Colombia Jorge
Noguera, a former director of the secret police under President
Alvaro Uribe, was arrested and charged in connection with the
murders of labor leaders and academics while collaborating with
far-right militias responsible for some of Colombia's worst
massacres. In Cali, Colombia, confused hit men on the lookout for
two men in a white sedan gun down the wrong people. Then they spot
their intended targets, in the same traffic jam 20 yards away. And
killed them, too. It was all caught on a traffic camera.
(AP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 22, Estonia's
president vetoed legislation calling for the removal of a Soviet war
memorial, averting at least temporarily a confrontation with Russia.
Estonia chose Baltic herring over the pike in a government-sponsored
contest to find a fish suitable to join the blue, black and white
flag, the blue cornflower, limestone, and chimney swallow as
national symbols.
(AP, 2/22/07)(http://tinyurl.com/2l7acu)
2007 Feb 22, Abdel Kareem Nabil
(22), an Egyptian blogger arrested in 2006, was convicted of
insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four
years in prison in Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger. Nabil was
convicted for calling Islam a brutal religion in a piece he wrote in
2005 after Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church in
Alexandria. In 2009 an Appeals court upheld his 4-year sentence.
Nabil, aka Kareem Amer, was released on Nov 5, 2010, and then
re-arrested, held for 11 days and beaten.
(AP, 2/22/07)(AP, 12/22/09)(AP,
11/17/10)(Reuters, 11/24/10)
2007 Feb 22, Gambia expelled
Fadzai Gwaradzimba, the UN chief representative in the country,
after she expressed doubts over President Yahya Jammeh's claims to
cure AIDS. Jammeh had claimed to have mystical powers and herbs to
treat HIV/AIDS and asthma within three days.
(www.aegis.com/news/afp/2007/AF070285.html)(Econ,
4/28/07, p.54)
2007 Feb 22, Lothar-Guenther
Buchheim (89), the German author and art collector best known for
his 1973 autobiographical novel, "Das Boot," died. In 1981, the book
was turned into an acclaimed German film starring Juergen Prochnow
that detailed the hopelessness of war and its effect on sailors
living in the cramped confines of their submarine.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, In Guatemala a top
police official and three other officers were arrested in the
killings of three Central American Parliament members, including the
son of the alleged founder of El Salvador's death squads.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, A fire broke out
on an Indonesian ferry carrying 300 passengers. The number of dead,
soon climbed to 49. Scores of passengers jumped into the sea and 120
people remained missing.
(AFP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 22, The UN nuclear
watchdog agency said Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum
to freeze uranium enrichment, and instead had expanded its program
by setting up hundreds of centrifuges.
(AP, 2/22/08)
2007 Feb 22, An official said 4
Iraqi soldiers have been accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman
on Feb 8 and the attempted rape of her two daughters in the second
allegation of sexual assault leveled against Iraqi forces this week.
Issa Abdul-Razzaq Ahmed (22), a suspected al-Qaida-linked insurgent
leader accused of financing attacks and recruiting fighters, was
captured in southern Iraq. 3 US soldiers were killed in combat in
Anbar province.
(AP, 2/22/07)(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, The Israeli daily
Haaretz reported that Syria has embarked on an "unprecedented"
effort to bolster its armed forces with Iranian and Russian help.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, A court ordered
Malaysia's government to pay a 69-year-old British man $857,000 for
seizing his passport and preventing him from leaving the country in
Dec, 1981.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, In Mozambique
roofs were blown off, trees uprooted and power lines cut by the
force of a tropical cyclone which slammed into coastal regions. The
storm killed four people and injured at least 70 in the resort town
of Vilanculos, where thousands of homes were destroyed along with
the hospital and power grid.
(AFP, 2/22/07)(Reuters, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, Russia’s
government approved a five-year financing plan aimed to decrease
mortality from diseases including diabetes, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS
and cancer. The news came as the state statistics agency said
Russia's population dropped by more than 560,000 last year to 142.2
million, a new post-Soviet low.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, Sam Hinga Norman
(67), a former government minister on trial for allegedly overseeing
a militia accused of torturing and mutilating civilians during
Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, died at a Senegalese hospital.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 22, Extremists in
Somalia threatened to carry out suicide attacks against African
Union peacekeepers who are to begin deploying in the coming days.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 22, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN mission in East Timor for
a year and beef up the international police force ahead of upcoming
elections.
(AP, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 23, A Mississippi
grand jury refused to bring any new charges in the 1955 slaying of
Emmett Till, a black teenager who was beaten and shot after
whistling at a white woman, declining to indict the woman, Carolyn
Bryant Donham, for manslaughter. Democrat Tom Vilsack abandoned his
bid for the presidency.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, Democrat Tom
Vilsack abandoned his bid for the presidency.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, Phoenix Sky Harbor
International Airport became the first in the United States to begin
testing new X-ray screening technology that can see through people's
clothes.
(AP, 2/23/08)
2007 Feb 23, In Kabul some
25,000 people, including top government figures and former fighters,
rallied to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war
crimes.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, An Australian
soldier opened fire on a group of East Timorese attacking him with
steel arrows, killing one of the youths and critically wounding two.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In northern
England one commuter died and five were seriously injured when the
high-speed London to Glasgow Virgin train, packed with 120
passengers and staff, derailed in the county of Cumbria.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, Canada's Supreme
Court struck down the government's right to detain foreign terrorism
suspects indefinitely and without trial, ruling that the system
violates the country's bill of rights.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Chadian PM Pascal
Yoadimnadji (56) died at a Paris hospital following a brain
hemorrhage.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, It was reported
that China had established clinics to treat teens addicted to the
Internet.
(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A16)
2007 Feb 23, It was reported
that Cuban press authorities have told certain Havana correspondents
for the Chicago Tribune, the BBC and a major Mexican newspaper that
they can no longer report from the island.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Egyptian security
forces discovered approximately 1 ton of explosives hidden
underground near Egypt's border with Gaza.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Guatemala a
330-foot-deep sinkhole killed two teenage siblings when it swallowed
about a dozen homes and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people
in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. A 3rd body was found the
next day.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, In India the
Toxics Link environmental group said India has generated 150,000
tons of electronic waste each year for the last 3 years, with no
laws to regulate its disposal.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Iraq US troops
arrested Amar al-Hakim, the son of Iraq's top Shiite politician, as
he returned to the country from Iran. He was later released and US
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a rapid apology.
(AP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, A fire raced
through a home for the elderly and disabled in western Latvia
leaving 25 people dead or missing.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Myanmar at
least five protesters who took part in a rare demonstration that
urged the ruling military junta to improve health care, education
and economic conditions were taken into custody.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Nigeria gunmen
shot dead a Lebanese engineer and kidnapped two Italians in two
separate incidents in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt.
(Reuters, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, North Korea asked
the chief UN atomic inspector to visit four years after expelling
his experts and dropping out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Norway 46 of 49
nations adopted a declaration calling for a 2008 treaty banning
cluster bombs, saying the weapons kill and maim long after conflicts
end and inflict "unacceptable harm" on civilians, particularly
children. Some key arms makers including the US, Russia, Israel and
China, snubbed the conference of 49 nations. Of those attending,
Poland, Romania and Japan did not approve the final text.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Pakistan
successfully test-fired a new version of its long-range
nuclear-capable missile, two days after Pakistani and Indian
officials signed an agreement in New Delhi to reduce the risk of an
accidental nuclear war between them.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23-2007 Feb 24, In
Gaza City Mohammed Ghelban, a 28-year-old commander from Hamas'
military wing, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside his home. A
22-year-old man from a Fatah family, Hazem Karouah, was killed
several hours later, as was 75-year-old Ismail Sabah, who was caught
in the cross-fire.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 23, A Somali official
said Uganda's top military officials promised to help train a
national army for Somalia and help provide security for its
government.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, European
cease-fire monitors said that nearly 4,000 people were killed in Sri
Lanka in the past 15 months and they emphasized the importance that
the government and the rebels adhere to the cease-fire.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, In Turkey Hilmi
Aydogdu, leader of the Democratic Society Party's branch in the
mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, was charged with inciting hatred
and threatening public safety after suggesting that fellow Kurds
would rise against the state and fight if Turkey ever attacked their
Kurdish brethren in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Uganda's army said
that 400 rebel Lord's Resistance Army fighters and their leaders
have moved into the Central African Republic, dashing hopes of a
renewal of stalled peace talks.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 23, Teachers across
Zimbabwe called off a 3-week strike for better wages and working
conditions after the government agreed to a near four-fold increase
in their pay.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 24, In the 27th annual
Razzie Awards the film “Basic Instinct 2” was named worst picture of
the year.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 24, The Virginia
General Assembly, meeting in Richmond on the grounds of the former
Confederate Capitol, voted unanimously to express "profound regret"
for the state's role in slavery.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Arkansas
tornado winds injured 40 people and damaged dozens of homes and
businesses. Much of the town of Dumas was destroyed. The Midwest
storm system was blamed for 8 traffic deaths, 7 in Wisconsin and one
in Kansas.
(SFC, 2/26/07, p.A4)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.30)
2007 Feb 24, Herman Brix
(b.1906), Olympic medalist (1928) and former film star, died. His
film work included playing Tarzan in “The News Adventures of Tarzan”
(1935). In his later film roles he worked under the name Bruce
Bennet.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 24, Broncos running
back Damien Nash (24) collapsed and died after a charity basketball
game in suburban St. Louis, less than two months after the slaying
of teammate Darrent Williams.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, Paul Secon
(b.1916), co-founder of Pottery Barn, died. He and his brother
Morris opened their first store in Manhattan in 1950. Pottery Barn
was later acquired by Williams-Sonoma.
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 24, Bermuda was cited
as the world’s richest country with a GDP per person estimated at
$70,000.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, Thousands of
anti-war protesters converged on London, calling on PM Tony Blair to
withdraw all of Britain's troops from Iraq and voicing fears over a
potential conflict with Iran.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Burkina Faso
the Fespaco film festival began. Hundreds of films made by Africans
and people of African descent competed for the Yennenga stallion, a
golden statue of a prancing horse.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.54)
2007 Feb 24, A tentative deal
was reached to end a two-week-old strike by about 2,800 Canadian
National Railway Co. employees that had provoked a threat of
government intervention.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 24, The Cayman Islands
were cited as the world’s 5-th largest banking center with $1.4
trillion in assets.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, Eq. Guinea was
cited as the world’s 3rd richest country with a GDP per person
estimated at $50,000.
(Econ, 2/24/07, SR p.4)
2007 Feb 24, In India 16 police
officers were killed when suspected rebels ambushed their patrol in
northeast Manipur. In eastern India an ill Sabita Behera (30), was
beaten to death by her in-laws. They suspected she had AIDS and
feared she would infect the rest of the family.
(Reuters, 2/26/07)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.50)
2007 Feb 24, Thousands of
Shiites rallied in Najaf to protest the nearly 12-hour detention of
the eldest son of Iraq's most influential Shiite politician as he
crossed back from Iran. Iraqi commandos backed by US aircraft raided
a Sunni insurgent base north of Baghdad, killing dozens. Local
authorities said six children and their father were among the dead.
Attacks in Baghdad killed at least seven civilians. A suicide truck
bombing in Anbar province left 52 dead and 74 injured. The attack
was on worshippers leaving a mosque in Habbaniyah. An arsenal was
discovered north of Baghdad containing components for so-called
EFPs, explosively formed projectiles that fire a slug of molten
metal capable of penetrating armored vehicles. The weapons cache
contained more than two dozen mortars and 15 rockets. There were
enough metal disks to make 130 EFPs.
(AP, 2/24/07)(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 24, Israel denied a
report in a British daily that it is seeking permission from the
United States to fly its bombers over Iraq to attack Iran's nuclear
facilities.
(AFP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, Italy's president
asked Romano Prodi to stay on as premier and put his center-left
government to a new vote of confidence in parliament.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In southern Nepal
police arrested at least 14 people after violence broke out between
Maoists and supporters of ethnic groups.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, The foreign
ministers of seven key Muslim nations started arriving in Pakistan
for talks on a collective push to end the turmoil in the Middle
East. Three Islamic militants died in eastern Pakistan when a
powerful bomb they were carrying on a bicycle accidentally exploded
in Cheecha Watni, Punjab province. Pakistani police arrested two men
in southern Sindh province and accused them of hacking two young
women to death for allegedly having sex outside marriage.
(AP, 2/24/07)(AFP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas ended his European tour without persuading
any country to end crippling economic sanctions based on his
power-sharing deal with the rival Islamic militant Hamas.
(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Spain thousands
of people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid
against a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of
the Basque separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Martin Scorsese's
mob epic "The Departed" won best picture at the Academy Awards and
earned the filmmaker the directing prize that had eluded him
throughout his illustrious career. Forest Whittaker won for best
actor in "The Last King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren took the
best actress trophy for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The
Queen." Alan Arkin won the best supporting actor award for his role
in “Little Miss Sunshine.” Jennifer Hudson won the best supporting
actress award for her role in “Dreamgirls.”
(AP, 2/26/07)(SFC, 2/26/07, p.D1)
2007 Feb 25, In Detroit Nation
of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan stressed religious unity during what
was billed as his final major speech, saying the world was at war
because Christians and Muslims were divided.
(AP, 2/25/08)
2007 Feb 25, In Bangladesh at
least six prominent political figures were arrested as they appeared
before an anti-corruption panel to explain how they amassed wealth
far in excess of their income.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In Brazil gunmen
killed five people in a Sao Paulo slum in what police suspect was a
drug-related crime, bringing to 21 the death toll from attacks this
month in South America's biggest city.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, State news media
reported that Cuba has opened an experimental wind farm, hoping
alternative energy sources can one day ease occasional power
shortages while reducing the island's dependence on oil.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, PM Jose
Ramos-Horta of East Timor told a cheering crowd in his hometown that
he will run in April's presidential elections, vowing to help return
peace and stability to the troubled nation.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Four imprisoned
Guatemalan policemen were killed in their cells, days after being
arrested in connection with the deaths of three Salvadoran
politicians. Rioting inmates also took the warden and other prison
officials hostage.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Guinea's powerful
union chiefs called off a crippling strike after the president
agreed to appoint a new prime minister in an attempt to end
simmering unrest that has killed scores of people this year. Conte
later appointed Lansana Kouyate as prime minister, from a list
approved by union leaders.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 9/29/09)
2007 Feb 25, In India a 6-day
national meeting of Indian sex workers started in the city of
Kolkata to press demands for labor rights and legal recognition as
entertainment workers.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Levina 1, a
charred Indonesian ferry, sank while investigators and journalists
were on board inspecting the damage from a fire last week. At least
one cameraman drowned and three other people were missing. The death
toll from the Feb 22 fire continued to rise.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Iran’s Pres.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would proceed with its nuclear
program, comparing its nuclear drive to a train that has no reverse
gear or brakes. Iran said it had successfully launched its first
rocket into space for research purposes. The rocket reached an
altitude of 150 kilometers (93 miles) but did not stay in orbit.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, A suicide bomber
struck outside a college campus in Baghdad, killing at least 41
people and injuring dozens. Earlier, two Katyusha rockets hit a
Shiite enclave in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10, and a bomb
near the fortified Green Zone claimed two lives. A separate car
bombing in a Shiite district in central Baghdad killed at least one
person and injured four. In Mosul US troops killed two gunmen in a
raid and captured a suspected local leader of the insurgent group
al-Qaida in Iraq. Iraqi and US troops killed 10 militants and seized
six weapons stashes in raids in Diyala province.
(AP, 2/25/07)(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 25, Dozens of Israeli
jeeps and armored vehicles poured into Nablus overnight, placing
large areas of the city under curfew and conducting house-to-house
arrest raids in one of the largest West Bank military operations in
months.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, It was reported
that Libya, 30 years after officially proclaiming itself socialist,
is gradually opening up its banking system with a string of
privatizations in the works and the establishment of foreign banks.
In late January, the Central Bank of Libya announced its intention
to sell a minority stake in one of the north African country's five
state-owned commercial banks, Sahara Bank, to a "leading
international financial institution."
(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Heavy rains from a
cyclone sparked more flooding in Mozambique, worsening a
humanitarian crisis that has already killed 45 people and forced
140,000 from their homes.
(Reuters, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In Nigeria riot
police were deployed to quell communal clashes that have claimed
several lives in the southern oil-rich Ogoniland.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Thieves in Oslo,
Norway, stole a work of art by Jan Christensen called "Relative
Value." It had pasted bills worth $16,300 on a sprawling 7-by-13
foot canvas.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Pakistan PM
Shaukat Aziz told foreign ministers from seven key Muslim states
meeting in Islamabad that a joint push by the Islamic world is
needed to end the turmoil in the Middle East.
(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, In eastern
Pakistan at least 11 people were killed and more than 100 people
injured by sharpened kite strings, stray bullets and other accidents
at the annual two-day Basant kite-flying festival. Five of those who
died were hit by stray bullets, including a 6-year-old boy who was
struck in the head.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 25, Senegal held
elections. President Abdoulaye Wade, seeking another five years in
office, declared he was confident of winning the election outright
and would avoid a runoff in the ballot to decide who will lead one
of Africa's most stable democracies.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Pirates hijacked a
cargo ship delivering UN food aid to northeastern Somalia, at least
the third time since 2005 that a vessel contracted to the United
Nations has been hijacked off the country's dangerous coast.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 25, Vietnamese
officials and state media said police have accused Nguyen Van Ly, a
prominent dissident Catholic priest, of disseminating propaganda
intended to undermine the communist government. Van Ly founded Bloc
8406, which called for democracy, in 2006.
(AP, 2/25/07)(Econ, 3/31/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 26, A independent US
Postal Regulatory Commission recommended a new “forever” stamp good
for first class letters no matter how much rates go up. The panel
also recommended a 2-cent increase in first-class rates to 41 cents.
(SFC, 2/27/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 26, Former US Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the American economy
might slip into recession by year's end.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, A US Treasury
Department delegation was in Macau discussing with local officials
how to resolve sanctions on a bank that allegedly was involved in
North Korean money laundering and counterfeiting.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Five Western US
states (Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington)
announced an agreement to create a regional effort to lower
greenhouse gas emissions.
(SFC, 2/27/07, p.A7)
2007 Feb 26, The SEC sued Blue
Bottle, a Hong Kong firm, alleging they hacked into computer systems
to get corporate news releases early and traded on that information,
making a profit of $2.7 million.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.71)
2007 Feb 26, Texas' largest
electricity producer, said it has agreed to be sold to a group of
private-equity firms for about $32 billion in what would be the
largest private buyout in US corporate history if shareholders go
along.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, A storm that
pounded the US Midwest brought snow and sleet across the Northeast,
closing schools, turning highways sloppy and slowing air travelers.
JetBlue canceled 68 flights because of snow.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, The World Vision
humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee
camps around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced
some form of sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the
Burundi, Congo (DRC), Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said
widespread poverty made children vulnerable to abuses.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Bangladesh a
fire swept through a building that housed two private TV stations
and a newspaper in Dhaka, killing at least three people and injuring
scores.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Bolivia police
said the body of Simon Matthew Boily (23), a Canadian cyclist, has
been found in a mountain ravine more than a month after he set out
on the "Highway of Death" from the La Paz on Jan 21.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, the concrete awning of a hotel in the Copacabana beach
district collapsed, killing two people and injuring six.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, Coordinated
international efforts led to the capture in Brazil of Manuel Juan
Cordero (67) a retired Uruguayan colonel wanted in "dirty war"
probes in both Argentina and Uruguay. He was detained in Santana do
Livramento, a town near the Uruguayan border where he was living.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 26, In London Abu
Qatada, a radical Muslim cleric and suspected key Al-Qaeda figure,
lost an appeal against deportation from Britain to Jordan.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, China’s state
media said falling water levels in the Yangtze River have left 1
million people short of drinking water.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, In Costa Rica tens
of thousands of union members, farmers and political activists
marched through San Jose to protest a free-trade pact with the US
they say will be harmful to local businesses.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Indonesian
engineers dropped several large concrete balls into Lusi, a volcano,
to try to stem a gushing mud eruption that has engulfed hundreds of
homes and displaced 11,000 people. Over the next few weeks,
authorities plan to drop nearly 1,500 balls, each weighing up to 88
pounds, into the crater that started spewing mud at a gas drilling
field on Java island nine months ago.
(AP, 2/26/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.79)
2007 Feb 26, The Iraqi Cabinet
approved a draft law to manage the country's vast oil industry and
distribute its wealth among the population, a major breakthrough in
US efforts to press the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups
to reach agreements to achieve stability. Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq's
Shiite vice president, escaped an apparent assassination attempt
after a bomb exploded in municipal offices where he was making a
speech, knocking him down with the force of the blast that left at
least 10 people dead. A statement from the US military said that 63
weapons caches have been discovered during major US-Iraqi security
sweeps around Baghdad that began Feb. 14. The arsenals included
anti-aircraft weapons, armor-piercing bullets, bomb components and
mortar rounds.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Israeli troops
sealed off the center of Nablus' old city with cement blocks and
trash containers, and searched apartments for seven Palestinian
fugitives whose names the army broadcast over local TV and radio
stations.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Officials said
that after nearly a decade of trying, Japan has succeeded in
establishing a network of spy satellites that can peer at any point
on the globe.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Audrius Bruzga
(b.1966) became ambassador of Lithuania to the United States.
(www.washdiplomat.com/ambprof/Lithuania.html)
2007 Feb 26, Malawi's vice
president pleaded innocent to charges of treason and conspiring to
murder the president at the start of his trial.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Malaysia's
securities watchdog said it has frozen two local bank accounts, shut
down two Web sites and questioned several people suspected to be
involved in a global Internet investment scam. In March 3 men were
indicted by the US for securities fraud. The indictment named
Jaisankar Marimuthu (32) of India, Thirugnanam Ramanathan (34), an
Indian residing in Malaysia, and Chockalingam Ramanathan (33) of
Chennai, India. The 1st two were arrested in Hong Kong, while the
3rd remained at large.
(AP, 2/26/07)(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 26, Four Mexican
soldiers were arrested and accused of raping and murdering a
73-year-old woman a day earlier in a case that outraged Indian
groups in Soledad Atzompa in Veracruz state. In May a special
prosecutor found no evidence that soldiers beat and raped Ernestina
Ascensio Rosario. An autopsy on Ascensio's body showed that she died
of acute anemia from internal bleeding in her digestive tract.
(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Feb 26, Nepal’s Cabinet
appointed Gopal Man Shrestha to head the three-member committee,
which will have a month to investigate, locate, seize and
nationalize King Gyanendra's property.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 26, Pakistani security
forces in Quetta reportedly captured Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the
former Taliban defense minister. US VP Cheney, accompanied by CIA
deputy director Steve Kappes, made an unannounced stop in Pakistan
en route to Afghanistan. Cheney held detailed talks with Pres.
Musharraf, including a one-on-one lunch.
(AP, 3/2/07)(www.nysun.com/article/49331)
2007 Feb 26, In Poland a new
book, "Priests In The Face Of The Security Services" by Rev. Tadeusz
Isakowicz-Zaleski, dredged up more painful allegations from Poland's
Communist era, naming some 30 Roman Catholic priests, including
several bishops, as registered informants with the secret police.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, Three Frenchmen
who lived in Saudi Arabia were killed by gunmen on the side of a
desert road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted
to Muslims only. Soon after a 4th died from his wounds. An
investigation later revealed that Waleed bin Mutlaq al-Radadi, among
the kingdom's most wanted terrorists, was the mastermind and one of
the triggermen in the shooting. Al-Radadi was killed on April 6 in a
gunbattle with Saudi forces.
(AP, 2/26/07)(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Feb 26, Sudan rejected the
legitimacy of the International Criminal Court in pressing charges
over the conflict in Darfur, still ravaged by war and famine four
years after the violence erupted.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, The United
Nations' highest court exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility
for the mass slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the
1992-95 Bosnia war, but ruled that it failed to prevent genocide.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 26, President Hugo
Chavez ordered by decree the takeover of oil projects run by foreign
oil companies in Venezuela's Orinoco River region.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Dow Jones
industrial average dropped 416.02 points, the worst drop since the
2001 terrorist attacks.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2007 Feb 27, Chicago’s Mayor
Daly won a 6th term despite a City Hall corruption scandal.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 27, CompUSA said it
will close 126 retail stores by the end of May. The restructure
would leave 103 stores and include a $440 million cash infusion from
parent company US Commercial Corp., a holding company in Mexico City
controlled by Carlos Slim.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.C3)
2007 Feb 27, Federated Dept.
Stores posted a 4.9% rise in 4th quarter profit and said it will
change its name to Macy’s Group Inc.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.B3)
2007 Feb 27, In SF a 75-foot
wide chunk of Telegraph Hill slid down a granite and sandstone slope
above Broadway following recent rains. 120 residents were forced to
leave their homes pending repair of the hillside, which could take
months.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 27, A suicide bomber
attacked the entrance to the main US military base in Afghanistan
during a visit by VP Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and
wounding 20. In Kandahar a suicide attacker targeting Afghan police
blew himself up, wounding three people. Suspected Islamic militants
captured and beheaded an Afghan teacher whom they accused of being a
spy for the US. The man's body was found in a large sack dumped by a
road near Jandola, a town in the South Waziristan tribal district.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Brazil 3 French
nationals who ran a nonprofit group that helps poor children were
stabbed to death at their headquarters near Rio's Copacabana beach
and authorities arrested three suspects. The slayings that left one
of the victims decapitated were part of a botched scheme to protect
a Brazilian accountant, Tarsio Wilson Ramires (25), accused of
stealing money from the group.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Cambodia the US
ambassador said direct US aid to support Cambodian government
projects will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by
Washington.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Canadian
parliament voted to end two anti-terror measures adopted in the wake
of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, one that allowed for preventive
arrests and another that permitted forced testimony.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In China stocks
sold off sending the Shanghai composite index down 8.8% as rumors
circulated that the government was considering new measures to tame
speculation. The plunge, assisted by order routing problems on the
NYSE, led to a 416 point drop in the DJIA.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.C8)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.11)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.70)
2007 Feb 27, China’s state
media said scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in
controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in
their brains.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, At least 2 Picasso
paintings ("Maya and the Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline"), worth
a total of nearly $66 million, were stolen overnight from the
artist's granddaughter's house in Paris. The paintings were
recovered August 7 and police took 3 people into custody.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Feb 27, DaimlerChrysler
AG, seeking to cut costs and boost sales in North America, said it
will start selling Chinese-made cars in that market and western
Europe as it tries to meet demand for smaller, more economical
vehicles.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Iraqi and US
forces staged raids in Baghdad's main Shiite militant stronghold as
part of politically sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. At the popular Kabab Abu Ali restaurant, a
bomb left in a plastic bag exploded during the busy lunch hours,
killing at least three people and injuring 13. About the same time,
a suicide bomber struck an area filled with restaurants and ice
cream parlors. At least five people were killed and 13 injured.
Earlier, a bomb-rigged car exploded in a parking lot, killing at
least two people. Near Mosul a suicide bomber struck a factory,
killing at least four people. A separate suicide car bombing in
Mosul killed at least six policemen and injured 38 police and
civilians. Three US soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast
southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, The Israeli army
pulled its troops and armored vehicles out of the West Bank city of
Nablus after a three-day operation targeting Palestinians militants.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, A report said
Malaysian environmental and residents' groups are joining forces to
buy swathes of forest in a desperate bid to save them from
developers.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that the armed forces cannot kick out HIV-positive
members because doing so is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Mexico's head of migration pledged to improve the agency's detention
centers in response to criticism that Mexico fails to give Central
American immigrants the same respect it demands for its own citizens
in the United States.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, In southwestern
Nepal at least two people were killed in a clash between former
Maoist rebels and ethnic activists. A bus veered off a mountain
highway and plunged into a river, killing at least 13 people and
injuring another 25.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, The International
Criminal Court's prosecutor in Netherlands named Ahmed Muhammed
Harun, a former Sudanese junior minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali
Abd-al-Rahmann (aka Ali Kushayb), a janjaweed leader, as suspects in
war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Sudan
rejected the legitimacy of the ICC, insisting it would try Darfur
war criminals.
(Reuters, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)(Econ, 7/19/08,
p.55)
2007 Feb 27, Pakistani
officials said police are seeking 10 men, including several tribal
elders, accused of pressuring a Pakistani woman to hand over her
teenage daughter as payment for a 16-year-old poker debt.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Peru's Congress
passed a new law stiffening penalties for attacks on tourists,
making the maximum sentence for murdering or severely injuring a
tourist life in prison.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Feb 27, The UN said Somali
authorities have arrested four suspects in the hijacking of a
UN-chartered cargo ship delivering food aid. The MV Rozen, however,
was still under the control of four pirates who remained aboard with
12 crew members as hostage. Attackers in Mogadishu killed Yusuf
Mohamed Dhisow, the brother-in-law of Somalia's prime minister.
(AP, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Sri Lanka the
US and Italian ambassadors were wounded when their helicopters came
under fire from ethnic Tamil rebels who said they mistook them for a
military target.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, In central Sweden
2 crowded commuter buses collided on a slippery road, killing six
people and injuring nearly 50.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 27, Pridiyathorn
Devakula, Thailand’s finance minister and deputy prime minister,
quit.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 28, The US government
said the nation has 754,000 homeless people, filling emergency
shelters through the year and spilling into special seasonal
shelters in the coldest months.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A federal judge in
Miami ruled that suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was
competent to stand trial on terrorism support charges, rejecting
arguments that he was severely damaged by 3 1/2 years of
interrogation and isolation in a military brig.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2007 Feb 28, Sen. John McCain
made it official that he is seeking the 2008 Republican presidential
nomination and said he plans a formal announcement in April.
(Reuters, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A US military
court in Florida sentenced Air Force Capt. Devery L. Taylor to 50
years in prison for raping 4 men and attempted rape of 2 others. A
day earlier the court had found him guilty of drugging and
kidnapping servicemen he had picked up in bars.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 28, Albert Facchiano
(96), a Genovese family mobster, pleaded guilty in Florida to
racketeering conspiracy. His arrest record dated back 75 years.
(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 28, A group of 12
North Korean refugees has arrived in the United States to seek
asylum, the largest group from the communist nation to have recently
defected there.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Michigan Thomas
Katona, a former county treasurer of a Lake Huron vacation
community, was ordered to stand trial on charges that he looted
$186,500 in public funds for a Nigerian investment scam. Katona was
treasurer of Alcona County from 1993 until his dismissal late in
2006. On June 12 Katona (56) was sentenced for up to 14 years in
prison.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 6/12/07)
2007 Feb 28, Wall Street
rebounded fitfully from the previous session's 416-point plunge in
the Dow industrials as investors took comfort from comments by
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that he still expected
moderate economic growth.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2007 Feb 28, A US study said
more than one-third of American women are infected with human
papilloma virus (HPV) by the time they are 24 years old. Overall
about one-quarter of women under age 60 are infected at any given
time.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 28, Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr. (89), the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and
"court philosopher" of the Kennedy administration, died in NY. He
remained a proud liberal even as others dared not use the word. In
2007 Penguin Press published his “Journals: 1952-2000.”
(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.85)(Econ, 10/20/07,
p.116)
2007 Feb 28, Martin Metal (88),
a Berkeley sculptor, musician and poet, died.
(SFC, 3/17/07, p.B5)
2007 Feb 28, In Belgium a
mother killed her five children, then tried to commit suicide at the
family's home. The four girls and a boy, aged between 4 and 14, were
stabbed with a knife. The woman called emergency services, then
tried to kill herself.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Bolivia’s
President Evo Morales officially declared months of deadly flooding
a national disaster, committing some $50 million to the crisis that
killed 35 people and affected some 72,000 families.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, The Church of
England's assembly affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is
no bar to full participation in the church but avoided the fractious
debate within the Anglican Communion about accepting gay sexual
relationships.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Lord Charles Forte
(b.1908), Italian-born British businessman, died. He had parlayed a
London soda shop in 1934 into one of the world’s largest hospitality
businesses. He was knighted in 1970 and in 1982 PM Margaret Thatcher
made him Baron of Ripley. He authored an autobiography in 1986.
(WSJ, 3/3/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 28, Burundi said that
it will send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia as part of an
8,000-strong African Union force, while the first Ugandan contingent
prepared to leave for the war-torn nation.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Djidda Moussa
Outman, Chad's minister of foreign affairs, said that Chad had never
accepted the idea of a military force of "whatever nature" on its
eastern border.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, An official report
said China's population grew by almost 7 million people last year.
China's National Bureau of Statistics said that the country's
population was 1,314,480,000 at the end of 2006, an increase of 6.92
million people. Numbers also showed that China will overtake the US
this year or in 2008 as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse
gases.
(AP, 2/28/07)(SFC, 3/5/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 28, Chinese stocks
recovered following their worst plunge in a decade as regulators
shifted into damage control, denying rumors of plans for a 20
percent capital gains tax on stock investments. A sandstorm with
hurricane-strength wind gusts derailed a train in the far west,
killing at least four people and injuring another 30.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, An Egyptian court
ordered a freeze on the assets of 29 known financiers of the Muslim
brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful opposition movement. An Egyptian
with Canadian citizenship on trial for spying for Israel shouted
from his courtroom cage that a confession had been extracted under
torture.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner
maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and
switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some
10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A boat carrying
Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the Dominican
Republic, leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44 missing.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, The fifth of six
former Guatemalan police officers suspected in the killings of three
Salvadoran politicians and their driver turned himself. Prosecutors
said the ex-officer allegedly bought the gasoline used to burn the
victims.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Honduras named its
first ambassador to Cuba in 45 years, completing the restoration of
diplomatic ties with communist-run island that were severed during
the Cold War.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Kashmir Indian
officials charged 7 policemen in Srinagar with murdering a man and
claiming he was an Islamic militant, the first charges in an alleged
plot by officers to kill innocent people and earn rewards.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In India finance
minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented his annual budget speech.
As inflation approached 7% he increased funds for education by 34%
and money for health and family welfare by 22%. Defense spending was
set to increase 7.8%.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.49)
2007 Feb 28, French author
Dominique Lapierre opened the first of 15 schools planned in India
with money raised by auctioning an iconic dress worn by Audrey
Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it
is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than
10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of
crashes and accidents.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with
his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Iraq a car bomb
killed at least 10 people packed into a Baghdad market. US forces
killed 8 suspected militants in a raid north of the city, and
captured 6 others in separate operations around Baghdad. Guards
outside the Bab al-Sheik police station in central Baghdad fired on
a suicide truck bomber as he approached them. The bomber changed
course and crashed into a cement barrier, detonating his explosives.
An Algerian whose suicide payload was hidden in gas and chlorine
bottles, was foiled when his path into Bab al-Sheikh police station
in central Baghdad was blocked by a departing policeman's car. Two
civilians were killed and two policemen and another civilian were
wounded in the blast and exchange of gunfire. Two brothers of a
leading Sunni lawmaker were gunned down in Muqdadiyah. In Mosul a
high-ranking officer and his driver were killed in a drive-by
shooting. The tortured body of another senior police officer was
discovered in central Baghdad, about two months after the man
disappeared. A US Marine was killed in the western Anbar province.
80 al-Qaida members were killed and 50 captured in fierce clashes
between al-Qaida and residents of the village of Amiriyat near
Fallujah, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west of Baghdad. The US military
could not confirm the report. In 2010 video was made public of Iraqi
police who appeared to lynch the failed suicide bomber at the Bab
al-Sheikh police station. The police were shown stamping on the
bomber's head and kicking his body and faced human rights charges.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 3/2/07)(AFP,
5/1/10)
2007 Feb 28, Syria said it
would participate in a Baghdad-organized conference of Iraq's
neighbors that the US plans to attend. Iran said it was considering
whether to take part.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Israeli troops
shot and killed three Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of
Jenin and raided the nearby city of Nablus for the second time this
week, placing tens of thousands of people under curfew.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Italian Premier
Romano Prodi kept his fractious center-left coalition together to
win a confidence vote in the Senate, ensuring the immediate survival
of his nine-month-old government.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Japan and Russia
looked to expand trade despite rocky relations as they agreed to
cooperate on nuclear energy and in preventing disasters in disputed
islands.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Officials said
Japan has decided to pull its whaling fleet out of the Antarctic and
end this year's whale hunt early after a deadly fire crippled its
mother ship.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Namibia
hundreds of people protested a visit by Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe, holding signs reading, "Go home dictator." The local
National Society for Human Rights called Mugabe's three-day state
visit an insult to Namibia.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, In Nigeria at
least 50 people were feared dead when a ferry sank on the Nun River
in the southern state of Bayelsa.
(AFP, 3/2/07)
2007 Feb 28, An air force
helicopter crashed in Peru's highlands, killing 3 military personnel
and injuring an army general who commanded a military base in the
area.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Feb 28, Vladimir
Nikolayev, the mayor of Vladivostok, was stripped of his authority
amid a criminal investigation into suspect land deals and
embezzlement in the latest bout of corruption to hit the
long-troubled Pacific port.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Sri Lanka
escalated sea and land attacks against Tamil Tigers and killed at
least 18 people.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, A Swiss court
acquitted seven men of providing logistical support to a Saudi
terror cell in the first Swiss trial of alleged al-Qaida associates.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, It was reported
that international developers planned a $4 billion resort and casino
complex in Vietnam. The project, dubbed Ho Tram, would be on the
South China Sea, a 2-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.B1)
2007 Feb, In SF Workers began
moving into the new federal building at Seventh and Mission. The
$144 million structure was designed by Thom Mayne.
(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Coca-Cola and Nestle
introduced Enviga, a new health drink containing green-tea extracts,
caffeine and plant micronutrients.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.52)(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Santiago, Chile,
launched an overhaul of its public-transport system. For a year the
program created a nightmare for the city’s commuters.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.40)
2007 Feb, In Colombia Pres.
Uribe's administration started banning the sale of coca products
outside the reservations where Indians have a constitutional right
to grow the plant. Many Indians in the Andes, where coca is revered
as a sacred plant and a matter of national pride in several
countries, are angry that the US is importing coca leaves legally
while their own coca products are banned. A loophole in a 1961
treaty allows coca leaves to be sold internationally if they are
later distilled of their cocaine alkaloid to produce a "flavoring
agent." Stepan Co., based in Northfield, Ill., buys about 55 tons of
Peruvian coca leaves each year under a US Drug Enforcement
Administration license.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 Feb, In Finland "The Prime
Minister's Bride," a book by Susan Kuronen (36), a twice-divorced
mother of three and the former girlfriend of PM Matti Vanhanen, was
released as parliamentary campaigning began. It immediately hit the
country's nonfiction best seller list.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Feb, In Cologne, Germany,
Mina Ahadi, an Iranian-born woman, set up Europe’s first Muslim
atheist group: The National Council of Ex-Muslims.
(WSJ, 4/1207, p.A11)
2007 Feb, Ghana’s health budget
per person was about $31 per year as calculated by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Some 45% of the people lived on less than $1 per
day, 79% on less than $2 per day, yet funerals tended to cost
between $2,000 and $3,500.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.22)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.49)
2007 Feb, An Indian chili, the
bhut jolokia, was accepted by Guinness World Records as the world’s
spiciest chili. In 2010 the Indian military decided to use the bhut
jolokia to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspected
terrorists.
(SFC, 3/24/10, p.A2)(www.thehottestpepper.com/)
2007 Feb, Mexican customs agent
Jorge Santillan seized a truck crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to
Matamoros, Mexico, carrying a grenade launcher and 17 grenades along
with 18 rifles and 17 pistols. Days later, the agent was shot to
death with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Feb, In South Africa 6 US
nationals employed by the embassy in Pretoria were forced at
gunpoint to lie on the floor during a raid on their home during
which a gang stole thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb, In Brazil 21
political parties were represented in the 513-seat Congress.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.36)
2007 Feb, China's top leaders
approved a program to build large commercial aircraft, lending
crucial government support to plans to challenge the domination of
Boeing and Airbus in the country's fast-growing aviation market.
State-owned China Aviation Industry Corporation I, or AVIC I,
planned to start making large aircraft by 2020.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Feb, An Egyptian publisher
recalled copies of a book written by a controversial feminist after
discovering it "offends religion." Nawal al Saadawi (b.1931), one of
Egypt’s most renowned feminists, authored her play “God Resigns in
the Summit Meeting.” Religious leaders attacked the script without
reading it on the grounds that Islam does not allow criticism of
“God’s work.” In 1965 she lost her job in Egypt’s Ministry of Health
because of her political views. In 1981 she created the Arab Women’s
Solidarity Association, the nation’s first independent women’s
organization.
(SSFC, 5/6/07,
p.F3)(http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/02/07/10102478.html)
2007 Feb, In Iraq American
forces began a serious crackdown on oil smuggling.
(WSJ, 3/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb, Saudi Arabia arrested
10 intellectuals for signing a polite petition suggesting it was
time for the kingdom to consider a transition to constitutional
monarchy.
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.54)
2007 Feb, A UN report said all
lowland forests on Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra islands could be
lost by 2022 at current logging rates of 2.8 million hectares a
year.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb, In Western Sahara
Muhammad Abdelaziz, leader of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab
Democratic Republic, marked the 31st birthday of his would-be state.
An estimated 165,000 Sahrawi refugees languished in Algeria
subsisting on foreign aid.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.43)
2007 Mar 1, The US Department
of Defense notified Congress that it plans to sell Taiwan missiles
worth $421 million dollars.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, The US Army general
in charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center was relieved of command
after disclosures about dilapidated buildings and inadequate
treatment of wounded soldiers.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2007 Mar 1, An independent
commission concluded the US National Guard and Reserves weren't
getting enough money or equipment.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2007 Mar 1, The US military
announced that it has sent home two Afghans and three Tajikistani
detainees at Guantanamo Bay, leaving fewer that 400 prisoners at the
naval base.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Deborah Palfrey
(50) of Vallejo, Ca., was indicted in Washington DC for running a $2
million prostitution ring. She threatened to sell detailed phone
records of her clients to pay for her defense. At least 132 women
were employed by her firm in the Washington area from 1993-2006. On
April 15, 2008, Palfrey was convicted of racketeering and other
charges.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.B1)(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A2)
2007 Mar 1, Paul Joyal (53), a
US expert on Russian intelligence, was hit several times as he
returned home in Washington DC. The shooting came four days after
Joyal alleged in a major television network interview that the
government of Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the
radiation poisoning of a former KGB agent in London.
(AFP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 1, A violent storm
system ripped apart an Alabama high school as students hunkered
inside and later tore through Georgia, hitting a hospital and
raising the death toll to at least 20 across the Midwest and
Southeast. Eight students died when a tornado struck Alabama’s
Enterprise High School.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, NASA said the
Cassini spacecraft has snapped never-before-seen images of Saturn
showing the planet from perspectives above and below its ring
system.
(Reuters, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In western
Afghanistan a bomb targeting a provincial police chief's vehicle
killed two people and wounded 53. Authorities in Helmand province
found the bullet-riddled body of a kidnapped doctor.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner trumpeted his government's performance on the
economy and human rights during his state-of-the-nation address, and
also defended his ties to Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chavez. Argentina
under Kirchner had begun doctoring inflation statistics to keep them
in single digits while the true rate this year rose to around 25%.
The government was able to save some $500 million in payments on
bonds linked to the consumer price index, but destroyed its
credibility.
(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.49)
2007 Mar 1, Belarus dismissed
new financial sanctions imposed by the United States as politically
senseless. President Alexander Lukashenko said his country was ready
to normalize relations with Washington.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Belgian
firefighters clashed with police, trading barrages from water
cannons during a chaotic demonstration near the nation's parliament,
injuring six people. The firefighters sought better working
conditions, earlier retirement and better compensation when they are
injured.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Brazil Slovenian
Martin Strel approached the halfway point of his attempt to swim the
entire length of the Amazon river, trying to avoid severe burns,
alligators and the dreaded bloodsucking toothpick fish.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Britain confirmed
it will withdraw its more than 600 remaining troops from Bosnia as
concerns about security in the Balkan state ease.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Cynthia Carroll
(49), former head of Canada’s Alcan Primary Metal Group, replaced
Tony Trahar as CEO of Anglo American, the world’s 2nd biggest mining
conglomerate.
(Econ, 6/30/07,
p.77)(www.miningmx.com/mining_fin/318860.htm)
2007 Mar 1, In Colombia a car
bomb exploded in the southern city of Neiva, injuring 8 people in an
apparent assassination attempt of the town's pro-government mayor by
leftist rebels.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Denmark dozens
of people were arrested after angry protesters threw cobblestones at
police when an anti-terror squad started a disputed eviction of
squatters from a building in downtown Copenhagen.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In northern
Ethiopia 15 European tourists were kidnapped in the Afar desert. The
ARDUF has been fighting for years against Ethiopia and Eritrea over
lands inhabited by ethnic Afar.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, EU officials
launched the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, an effort to stamp
out intolerance in the 27-nation bloc under a crush of immigrants.
(SFC, 3/2/07, p.A14)
2007 Mar 1, In France, Germany
and Spain workers at Airbus revolted against massive cutbacks,
planning a strike next week in a warning to the company that its
recovery strategy is in for a long, tough haul.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, The environment
ministry in the state of Lower Saxony said a German man had obtained
enriched uranium and buried it in his garden, raising concerns about
the security of Germany's nuclear reactors.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, India’s government
approved a proposal to merge 4 state-owned air-carriers in order to
make them more competitive.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 1, Surender Koli, an
Indian servant, confessed to killing and sexually assaulting at
least 19 children and women and stuffing their dismembered remains
into a storm drain outside the house where he worked.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Iraq one person
killed in a roadside bomb in Baghdad. Up to 5 guests were killed and
10 injured when a car bomb exploded at a police officer’s wedding in
Fallujah. An American Marine was killed in combat in Anbar province.
(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 3/2/07)(SFC, 3/2/07, p.A8)
2007 Mar 1, PM Shinzo Abe said
there was no evidence Japan coerced Asian women into working as sex
slaves during World War II, backtracking from a landmark 1993
statement in which the government acknowledged that it set up and
ran brothels for its troops. A passenger train derailed in northern
Japan after slamming into a truck, leaving dozens injured including
25 high school students.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Avalanches and
landslides in Kashmir forced Indian security teams to airlift
thousands of people to safe areas, while at least eight Pakistani
soldiers were feared dead after they were buried under a snowslide
near the Afghan border.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, Morocco’s King
Mohammed VI pardoned 8,836 prisoners to celebrate the birth of his
baby girl. Princess Lalla Salma gave birth to a baby girl a day
earlier. The king also reduced the sentences of 24,218 other
prisoners.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 1, North Korea's No. 2
leader pledged his country's commitment to giving up its nuclear
program amid intensifying diplomacy aimed at implementing
Pyongyang's pledge to disarm.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Paraguay declared a
state of emergency following a wave of dengue fever cases as
concerns over the mosquito-borne illness rise across Latin America.
Health officials have reported some 14,000 cases of the disease this
year, with four deaths.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Peru church
bells rang and a sea of confetti fluttered through Lima's historical
central plaza at the stroke of noon, alerting Peruvians to
synchronize their watches at the start of a nationwide campaign to
promote punctuality.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Puerto Rico the
US attorney's office in San Juan announced that a US federal grand
jury indicted seven people in a case where terminally ill cancer
patients were allegedly injected with a bogus cure made from the
patients' own blood.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, President Vladimir
Putin nominated Ramzan Kadyrov, a widely feared security chief, as
the new president of Chechnya. Europe's human rights chief denounced
torture and other rampant abuses in the war-battered region.
Kadyrov, who previously had served as Chechnya's prime minister, has
run a security force that is accused of abducting and abusing
suspected rebels and civilians believed to be connected to them.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Senegal officials
said President Abdoulaye Wade received 56 percent of the vote to
avoid a runoff and easily win re-election in this West African
nation.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Singapore’s
American Chamber of Commerce said trade between Singapore and the
United States rose 19 percent in 2006 from the year before, the
second fastest growth rate among Washington's major trading
partners.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, An advance team of
an African peacekeeping force to Somalia arrived unannounced into
the country.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 1, Zambia's Lands
Minister Gladys Nyirongo acknowledged at a major conference on graft
in Africa that "Corruption is everywhere, in the villages,
wherever." Hours later she was sacked. President Levy Mwanawasa
said: "She gave land to herself, her two daughters, her sons and her
husband."
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 1, Zimbabwe's central
bank introduced two new bank notes as it battles a four figure rate
of inflation that is rapidly eroding the value of the local
currency. Zimbabwe state media reported that the government has
admitted that state agents are jamming radio broadcasts by foreign
stations deemed hostile to President Robert Mugabe's government.
(AP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 2, US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates fired Army Secretary Francis Harvey as the
Bush administration scrambled to respond to an outcry over poor
treatment for veterans at the Army's top hospital.
(Reuters, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, The US Energy and
Defense departments chose Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to
design the country’s first new nuclear warhead since the Cold War.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 2, A charter bus
carrying a college baseball team from Ohio’s Mennonite-affiliated
Bluffton University plunged off a highway ramp in Georgia and
slammed into the pavement below, killing six people, injuring 29 and
scattering sports equipment across the road. A 7th player died from
his injuries on Mar 9.
(AP, 3/2/07)(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 2, Checkpoint Systems
Inc. said it will provide Reno GmbH with RFID (radio frequency
identification) tags and store tagging systems. Reno GmbH plans to
embed wireless chips in shoes sold at hundreds of stores across the
continent.
(http://tinyurl.com/2cpo45)
2007 Mar 2, Scientists scanning
the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water
reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the
Arctic Ocean.
(www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beijing_anomoly.html)
2007 Mar 2, In western
Afghanistan insurgents attacked a police post, leaving one police
officer dead and two wounded. A mortar round landed on a US military
outpost in the same Herat province, wounding 12 civilian Afghan
workers and two Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, Brazilian police
arrested 18 people accused of allowing illegal logging in the Amazon
rain forest and were searching for 19 others, including
environmental protection agents.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, The British
Broadcasting Corp. said that it has signed a deal with Google Inc.'s
YouTube that will allow the popular Web site to show excerpts of the
broadcaster's news and entertainment programs.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Bulgaria's
Socialist-led government survived a no-confidence on a motion filed
by the opposition, claiming that the government was unable to cope
with a health care crisis.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Chechnya's
parliament approved Ramzan Kadyrov, a widely feared former security
chief as president of the war-battered Russian republic in a nearly
unanimous vote.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, China demanded the
United States scrap a planned sale of hundreds of missiles to
Taiwan, warning the deal would harm regional stability and bilateral
ties.
(AFP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Colombia
prosecutors ordered the arrest of Alvaro Araujo Noguera, a prominent
political boss, for alleged involvement in a kidnapping at the heart
of a scandal tying the country’s political elite to right-wing
paramilitary groups.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Henri Troyat (95),
French writer, died. He fled Russia's revolution as a child and went
on to become one of France's most prolific, popular and respected
authors.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 2, An al-Qaida-linked
Sunni group said that it kidnapped 18 government workers and
soldiers in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by
members of the Shiite-dominated police force. Hours later, the
government said the bodies of 14 security officers had been found.
In Baghdad, a pair of car bombs killed 11 people in separate
attacks.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Italy Premier
Romano Prodi won a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament,
formally ending Italy's political crisis.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Moammar Gadhafi
said in an unusual debate that it was time for his long-isolated
nation to open up to the world and that one day Libya won't need him
as leader. Still, he insisted that the ruling ideology he has
entrenched here for three decades is superior to Western democracy.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Morocco 12
Islamic militants were convicted of terrorism-related charges,
including eight with alleged ties to al-Qaida who had volunteered to
fight in Iraq.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Nigeria 7 people
were shot dead and 10 others were seriously wounded when gunmen
opened fire in a crowded district of Port Harcourt.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 2, In eastern Pakistan
a bomb rigged to a bicycle exploded near a car carrying a judge,
seriously wounding him and killing at least three people in Multan.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, People caught
smoking in bars and restaurants in Puerto Rico faced fines as a ban
on lighting up in enclosed public spaces took effect.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Ivan Safronov, a
Russian military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, fell to
his death from a fifth-story window in Moscow. On Mar 6 his
newspaper said he had received threats while gathering material for
a report claiming Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to
Syria and Iran.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 2, An explosion in a
Slovakian ammunition factory killed two people, left six missing and
injured 45, five seriously.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Somalia 4 mortar
explosions rocked Mogadishu, wounding six people, including two
children.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, South Korea delayed
a full resumption of aid shipments to North Korea until the
communist regime shuts down its main atomic reactor under an
international agreement to take steps toward abandoning its nuclear
weapons program. A South Korean activist said 80 North Korean
refugees are hiding in various Asian countries and preparing to seek
asylum in the United States. North and South Korea agreed to resume
reunions of families that have been separated by their divided
border.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In the jungles of
southern Thailand soldiers killed five suspected Muslim insurgents
during a raid on a weapons training camp.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, Venezuela accused
US anti-drug agents of collaborating with traffickers and rejected
Washington's allegations that rampant corruption has allowed illegal
drug smuggling to thrive in the South American country.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In San Jose, Ca.,
members of the De Anza College baseball team gang-raped a girl at a
house party. Members of the women’s soccer team rescued Jessica
Gonzalez (17). In 2011 prosecutors said no criminal charges would be
filed because the DA’s office could not prove that a crime occurred.
(SFC, 10/15/11, p.C1)
2007 Mar 3, In Oklahoma
Cherokee Nation members voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an
estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as
slaves.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, Warren Alpert
(b.1920), philanthropist, died in NYC. In 1950 he formed Warren
Equities Inc., which became one of the largest independent gasoline
and convenience store marketers and one of the leading independent
wholesale petroleum marketers in the Northeast. In 1986 Alpert
founded the Warren Alpert Foundation, a philanthropic effort devoted
to supporting medical research and health care. On Jan 29 it was
announced that he had donated $100 million to Rhode Island’s Brown
Medical school.
(WSJ, 3/5/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/25gd5v)
2007 Mar 3, A bomb blast in
western Afghanistan killed two Afghan civilians and wounded 17
others. In southern Afghanistan 2 British soldiers were killed
during a NATO combat operation.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Algeria 4
workers from Russia and Ukraine and three Algerians were killed in a
bomb attack on a bus near the town of Ain Defla, south of the
capital Algiers.
(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Brazil gunmen
killed five people in Rio de Janeiro's poor outskirts in an attack
blamed on rival drug gangs.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, Britain sent a
crisis team to Ethiopia in an effort to obtain the release of five
British embassy workers or their relatives who were kidnapped along
with a group of French while on a trip to remote northeastern
Ethiopia. An Ethiopian administrator accused Eritrean forces of
kidnapping a group of five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians in a remote
part of Ethiopia, and taking them to a military camp near the
Eritrean border. Several Ethiopians who were kidnapped along with
five Britons touring the African country's remote northeast were
found.
(AP, 3/3/07)(Reuters, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, CAR rebel and
government military sources said rebels in the Central African
Republic have attacked the northeastern town of Birao, which they
had occupied for a month in November.
(AFP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Colombia 4
police officers and a civilian were killed as officers moved a
powerful bomb allegedly planted by leftist rebels as part of an
attempt to kill a city mayor.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In eastern
Indonesian a bomb packed with nails exploded at a port in the city
of Ambon, wounding 12 people. Landslides triggered by days of heavy
rain killed at least 40 people in eastern Indonesia, and nearly 30
more were believed to be buried under the mud.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Gunmen stormed the
home of a Sunni family threatened with death for meeting with local
Shiites, separating out the women and children and executing six
men. American warplanes bombed an area near Taji, on Baghdad's
northern outskirts, killing "key terrorists" who were using
anti-aircraft artillery to fire at military helicopters. In a
separate raid in the Taji area, nine suspected insurgents were
captured, including two believed to be responsible for recruiting
and helping foreign militants join the insurgency in Baghdad. At
least 7 other people wee killed in shootings and roadside bombs.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In central Japan an
annual hunt for as many as 20,000 dolphins drew to a close. Herded
since October the youngest and most attractive dolphins were put up
for sale to theme parks for as much as $100,000.
(SFC, 3/3/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 3, In Kuwait a
criminal court acquitted two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners of
joining al-Qaida or the Taliban.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In southern Mexico
gunmen killed two members of Mexico's former ruling party in the
mountain city of Tlapa in Guerrero state.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, In northern Morocco
a bus skidded off a treacherous mountain road, killing nine people
and injuring 45 others.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Officials said
Mozambican marines rescued more than 1,700 people, including 900
children, from flooding in central Mozambique.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Pakistan
successfully test-fired a short-range missile capable of carrying a
nuclear warhead.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Pope Benedict named
Kazimierz Nycz, a bishop with a spotless record, as archbishop of
Warsaw to replace a prelate who resigned in disgrace after admitting
he spied for the communist police.
(Reuters, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Russian police
violently broke up an unauthorized opposition rally in St.
Petersburg, clubbing dozens of activists before dragging them into
waiting buses.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 3, Saudi Arabia's king
personally welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad upon his
arrival, a rapprochement many hope will help calm sectarian tensions
threatening the Middle East. The leaders pledged to fight the spread
of sectarian strife in the Middle East, which they said was the
biggest danger facing the region.
(AP, 3/3/07)(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 3, A Yemen official
said a hundred jailed Muslim extremists, including some who
allegedly fought for al-Qaida in Iraq, had been released. Some had
completed serving their sentences, while some of the others were
acquitted for lack of evidence.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, NAACP President
Bruce S. Gordon announced he was quitting the civil rights
organization after just 19 months at the helm, citing growing strain
with board members over the group's management style and future
operations.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2007 Mar 4, Stephen Grant (37)
of Mount Clemens, suspected of killing and dismembering his wife,
was captured as he fled searchers, running through snow in northern
Michigan. Tara Grant (34) was last seen on Feb 9. Stephen Grant
reported her missing five days later.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In NYC a videotape
captured Rose Morat (101) as she repulsed an attack by a mugger in
the vestibule of her apartment. A suspect was later arrested.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 4, Thomas Eagleton
(b.1929), former US Senator from Missouri, died. In 1972 he served
as George McGovern’s nominee for vice-president until it was
revealed that he had been hospitalized for psychiatric depression.
(SFC, 3/5/07, p.D5)
2007 Mar 4, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide attack by an explosives-filled minivan hit an
American convoy. US Marine Special Forces fleeing a militant ambush
opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in
Nangarhar province. As many as 19 people were killed and 34 wounded
in the violence. The marine unit involved was soon ordered to leave
Afghanistan. The attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of
Hezb-e-Islami that was once led by Younis Khalis, a former
mujahedeen commander who died last year. The group is now believed
to be led by a son of Khalis. A US-led coalition airstrike destroyed
a mud-brick home, killing nine people from four generations of an
Afghan family during a clash between Western troops and militants.
On May 23, 2008, Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, the commander of US Marine
Corps Forces, Central Command, decided not to bring charges after
reviewing the findings of a special tribunal.
(AP, 3/4/07)(AP, 3/5/07)(SFC, 3/24/07, p.A8)(SFC,
1/9/08, p.A13)(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 Mar 4, In Algeria
suspected Islamic militants attacked a police checkpoint with
rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, killing five officers
and wounding three others.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In the Central
African Republic French fighter jets destroyed several rebel
vehicles in retaliation for an attack on French troops.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Chad named the
former rebel leader Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim as its new defense
minister in a major reshuffle of the volatile central African
country's government.
(AFP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, China said it will
boost military spending by 17.8% this year, continuing more than a
decade of double-digit annual increases that have raised concerns
among the United States and China's neighbors.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Copenhagen police
arrested dozens of people in a third straight day of unrest
triggered by the eviction of squatters from a disputed youth center.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In East Timor
International security forces backed by helicopters raided a rebel
hide-out and killed four suspected insurgents, though their leader
Alfredo Reinado escaped.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Voting stations
opened in Estonia's first Parliamentary election since joining the
EU. PM Andrus Ansip's center-right Reform Party narrowly won
parliamentary elections. Ansip's party had 27.8% of the votes, ahead
of the left-leaning Center Party led by political veteran Edgar
Savisaar, which had 26.1%. Ansip pledged to preserve the
market-friendly policies credited with the Baltic nation's
impressive growth. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves likely will ask
Ansip to form the next government of the country of 1.3 million.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In Ethiopia a group
of French tourists who had also been missing since March 1 arrived
in Mekele, the Afar region's capital, and said they had not been
kidnapped, as was previously believed. Eritrea denied accusations
that it was behind the disappearance of five kidnapped Britons.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, In eastern India
suspected communist rebels assassinated lawmaker Sunil Mahato as he
watched a soccer game being played. Two bodyguards and a civilian
also were killed.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Hundreds of US
soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in the first
major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began
last month around Baghdad. US troops raided a mosque in Baghdad and
captured three suspected insurgents hiding inside. At least 10
people died in violence, including three women and a child, all
Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala, killed in a
roadside bombing in Hillah. Two policemen were killed and three hurt
in clashes the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. A British-Iraqi raid on
a police intelligence headquarters in southern Iraq found 30
prisoners with signs of torture and an alleged death squad leader
was captured.
(AP, 3/4/07)(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Ivory Coast's Pres.
Laurent Gbagbo signed a peace accord with Guillaume Soro, the
country's main rebel leader, calling for a new government to hold
elections by the year's end, and for the dismantling of a vast
buffer zone separating the two sides. The latest deal is the result
of meetings between the two camps that started in early February
under the oversight of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, An aide said PM
Shinzo Abe will stand by Japan's 1993 apology over forcing Asian
women to have sex with Japanese troops in the last century, after
the leader's denial that Tokyo used coercion caused an international
uproar.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Officials said
Kuwait's Cabinet has resigned in a widely expected move that
pre-empts a vote of no-confidence in the health minister, who is a
member of the ruling family. Kuwaiti governments have previously
pre-empted votes of no-confidence by resigning and Cabinet
reshuffles. Such moves have even led to dissolving parliament.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 4, Avalanches killed
at least five skiers in the Swiss and French Alps following days of
heavy snow.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, Thirty-six Yemenis
with alleged ties to al-Qaida went on trial on charges they planned
to take part in foiled suicide attacks on oil and gas installations
in the country.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 5, President Bush,
facing criticism he'd been ignoring Latin America, said the US would
spend tens of millions of dollars to improve education, housing and
health care across the region.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2007 Mar 5, In SF Richard
Aicardi (19) and Brian Dwyer (19) were charged with felony assault
and battery in the Jan 1 assault on members of Baker’s Dozen, a Yale
singing group.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 5, In Hayward, Ca., 3
children, aged 3-4, were shot in a drive-by shooting at their home
on the 27700 block of Seminole Way. Two 4-year-old sisters were left
clinging to life. Datasha Wilson (4) died Mar 8.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.D1)(SFC, 3/10/07, p.B1)(SFC,
11/17/09, p.C2)
2007 Mar 5, In southern
Afghanistan NATO-led troops launched an offensive, dubbed Operation
Achilles, against Taliban militants Helmand province where hundreds
of militant fighters have massed in recent months. The UN drug
agency chief said a "cancer of insurgency" in southern Afghanistan
could drive the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, African Union
commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare urged Guinea's President Lansana
Conte to step down as he voiced solidarity with recent protests
against the veteran leader.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, in Austria a
helicopter and a small plane collided in the air and crashed near a
ski slope, killing all eight people aboard the two aircraft.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Brazil Bishop
Ivo Lorscheiter (79), a prominent critic of the former military
regime, died in Santa Maria. Lorscheiter, a leading advocate of
liberation theology, had also squared off with the Vatican over his
progressive beliefs.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian
People’s Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and
slum-dwellers fell victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 5, In Copenhagen,
Denmark, demolition crews started tearing down a graffiti-sprayed
brick building, prompting tears and cries of protest from youths
whose eviction from the makeshift cultural center led to three
nights of rioting. The Youth House served since 1982 as a popular
cultural center for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups.
The squatters considered it free public housing, but courts ordered
them out after the city sold the building to a Christian
congregation. Ruth Evensen, leader of the small congregation that
bought the Youth House in 2001, said the four-story structure had to
be torn down because it was "a total wreck" and posed a fire hazard.
(AP, 3/5/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.48)
2007 Mar 5, Badri
Patarkatsishvili, one of the most famous Georgian oligarchs, left
Georgia. His departure was announced in London as the relocation of
his activities of "Georgia in the West," underscoring the desire to
leave the country definitively. The millionaire, who holds
first-rank influence in both finances and the media, co-holds one of
the most important Georgian media concerns, Imedi, which includes a
radio station and a television station.
(www.caucaz.com/home_eng/breve_contenu.php?id=307)
2007 Mar 5, A suicide car
bomber shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence, killing at
least 38 people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a
blizzard of bloodstained paper from a popular book market. Gunmen
opened fire on Shiite pilgrims in several places around Baghdad,
killing at least seven people. Six US soldiers died when a bomb
exploded near their vehicles during a combat operation in Salahuddin
province. Another three US soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack
in Diyala province.
(AP, 3/5/07)(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, A Tokyo paper said
Japan, the United States and India will carry out a joint military
drill in the Pacific off Japan's coast amid concerns about China's
military build-up.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, Kosovo's former PM
Ramush Haradinaj went on trial in the Netherlands at the UN tribunal
on war crimes charges related to his time as a guerrilla leader in
the war against Serb forces between 1998-99. Haradinaj, a former
regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), resigned as
prime minister in 2005 after being indicted for murder, rape and
torture allegedly committed by forces under his command.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, The bodies of two
Pakistani tribesmen, accused of being US informers, were found near
the Afghan border shot dead by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, A daylong gunbattle
between rival Palestinian factions raged in the streets of Gaza City
as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniyeh again
failed to agree on the formation of a unity government.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Somalia gunmen
shot dead five people in two separate attacks in the lawless capital
of Mogadishu in an escalation of killings ahead of the planned
deployment of African Union peacekeepers.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Sudan gunmen
killed two African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded a third
in the western Darfur region.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 5, In central Turkey a
rock fall caused the roof of a hillside nightclub to collapse in the
Cappadocia area, killing three people.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, John Holmes, the
new UN humanitarian chief, said the UN plans to open an office in
Jordan to deal with the increasingly serious humanitarian problems
posed by 1.8 million Iraqis who have fled to neighboring countries
and a similar number who have fled their homes and are still inside
Iraq.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Democratic
lawmakers accused the Bush administration of carrying out a
political purge by firing at least 8 US attorneys.
(SFC, 3/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 6, Former US White
House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted of lying and
obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's
identity. Sentencing was scheduled for June.
(AP, 3/7/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.27)
2007 Mar 6, More than 30
Vermont towns passed resolutions seeking to impeach President Bush,
while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on
Washington to withdraw US troops from Iraq.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, US Army medic Spc.
Agustin Aguayo, who refused to return to Iraq because of his
opposition to the war, was convicted in Germany of desertion at his
court martial. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, far short
of the maximum seven-year sentence.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, It was reported
that Myers Development Co. of SF planned to start construction next
month on its $428 million Mandalay Terrace project on the west side
of San Bruno Mountain in South San Francisco. It included 12 and
21-story office towers.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 6, Researchers
reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that
pollution from Asia is helping generate stronger storms over the
North Pacific, according to new research. Satellite measurements
have shown an increase in tiny particles generated from coal burning
in China and India in recent decades.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Ernest Gallo (97),
who parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from a public library into the
world's largest winemaking empire, died at his home in Modesto, Ca.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, In southern
Afghanistan a remote-control bomb targeting a police vehicle on
killed one policeman and wounded another in the Murja district of
Helmand province. Afghan soldiers caught Mullah Mahmood, a senior
Taliban commander at a checkpoint in Kandahar province. He was
wearing a burqa, the all-encompassing Islamic veil worn by women.
One British soldier and four Taliban fighters were killed. A
Canadian soldier died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Enemy
action was ruled out as the cause. The Taliban claimed that it had
kidnapped 4 journalists, including a Briton and an Italian.
(AP, 3/6/07)(AP, 3/7/07)(WSJ