Timeline 2007 April-June
Return to home
2007 Apr 1,
Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor (GOP), announced that he
is running for president.
(SFC, 4/2/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 1, Brooklyn's borough
president launched the Coney Island amusement park's last season
ahead of a major redevelopment that will raze much of the lovably
seedy boardwalk area.
(Reuters, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, Morgan Pressel
became the youngest major champion in LPGA Tour history with a game
well beyond her 18 years, closing with a 3-under-par 69 at the Kraft
Nabisco Championship.
(AP, 4/1/08)
2007 Apr 1, In Charlotte, North
Carolina, 2 police officers shot during a struggle with a suspect
outside an apartment complex died, and a suspect was charged with
murder.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, In southern
Afghanistan the Taliban executed three men accused of spying for
NATO and government forces. A NATO airstrike targeted a compound
housing Taliban militants in Shahjoy district of Zabul province,
killing seven suspected militants inside. NATO-led troops and police
clashed with suspected Taliban militants in Kandahar's Zhari
district, leaving six militants dead. In eastern Afghanistan flash
floods caused by torrential rains killed at least 16 people and
destroyed dozens of houses near the Hindu Kush mountain range.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AFP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, Cambodia held local
commune elections. The Cambodian People’s Party won control in 1,592
of 1,621 communes amid opposition claims of fraud.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Apr 1, In Canada Nelly
Furtado stole the show at the Junos, playing the roles of both host
and big winner at the 2007 edition of the nation's top music awards.
(Reuters, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, A knife-wielding
Chinese tour guide injured 20 people in a stabbing-and-slashing
spree at a southwestern resort following an argument over kickbacks
on souvenir sales. Xu Mingchao (25) from the province of
Heilongjiang, was arrested following the incident.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 1, Danish researchers
reported that they have isolated bacterial enzymes that effectively
remove sugar molecules from red blood cells that provoke an immune
reactions. This would allow conversion of the A, B, and AB blood
types into Type O, the universal donor type that can be given to
anyone.
(SFC, 4/2/07, p.A2)
2007 Apr 1, Hans Filbinger
(93), a former governor of Germany's Baden-Wuerttemberg state
(1966-1978), died. He had resigned amid revelations about his past
as a Nazi-era naval judge.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, Laurie Baker (90),
a British-born architect, died in India. He spent more than 60 years
in India building homes that were ecologically sound and affordable
for the poor.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Iran about 200
students threw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy,
calling for the expulsion of the country's ambassador because of the
standoff over Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines.
Britain examined options for new dialogue with Tehran over the
seized crew of 15 sailors and marines, as a poll suggested most
Britons back the government's goal of resolving the standoff through
diplomacy. Iran's state television aired new video showing two of
the 15 captured British sailors pointing to a spot on a map of the
Persian Gulf where they were seized and saying it was in Iranian
territorial waters; Britain's Foreign Office immediately denounced
the video.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/1/08)
2007 Apr 1, An Iraqi military
spokesman said that militants fleeing a security crackdown in
Baghdad have made areas outside the capital "breeding grounds for
violence," spreading deadly bombings and sectarian attacks to areas
once relatively untouched. A bomb struck a popular market in Tuz
Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, killing three people and
wounding four. More than 600 Iraqis were killed in sectarian
violence last week alone. 6 US soldiers were killed in roadside
bombings over the weekend southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert invited Arab leaders to attend a peace conference to discuss
their ideas for reaching Mideast peace. The Israeli army sealed off
the West Bank ahead of the weeklong Passover holiday, restricting
the movement of Palestinians into Israel. In her first Mideast trip
as EU president, German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Europe's
help in bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating
table, trying to build on a new burst of international efforts to
restart peace talks.
(AP, 4/1/07)(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Monterrey,
Mexico, a tractor-trailer lost its brakes and killed nine people as
it plowed through a residential area. The driver of a
tractor-trailer was charged with homicide after testing positive for
drugs.
(AP, 4/2/07)(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 1, Nepal's communist
rebels joined an interim government as part of a landmark peace deal
that ended their decade-long insurgency, pledging to ensure
development in the Himalayan nation and hold credible elections.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, Palestinian
journalists announced a three-day strike in protest at what they
called their government's inadequate response to the suspected
kidnap of a British journalist.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, Mogadishu's
dominant clan said it has brokered a truce with Ethiopian military
officials who are supporting Somalia's government, even as mortar
shells continued slamming into the capital for a fourth day.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, In South Korea taxi
driver Huh Se-uk (53) drove through heavy security into the driveway
of a Seoul hotel where trade talks with the US were taking place. He
sprayed himself with flammable fluid and lit a fire, suffering
third-degree burns. Se-uk died from his wounds on April 15.
(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Sri Lanka 12
Tamil Tigers were killed in clashes in the northwestern district of
Mannar.
(AFP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 1, Unidentified gunmen
killed five African Union soldiers guarding a "water point" near the
Sudan’s border with Chad in the deadliest attack on the peacekeepers
since their deployment in 2004. The attackers fled the scene after
AU troops killed three of them in an exchange of fire.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Syria US House
members meeting with President Bashar Assad said they believed there
was an opportunity for dialogue.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 2, The US asked Tehran
for information on the disappearance of a former FBI agent who went
missing on a private business trip to Iran.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 2, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a US government agency, the EPA, has the power
under the clean air law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that
spur global warming. In its first case on climate change, the
Supreme Court declared in a 5-4 ruling that carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
(Reuters, 4/2/07)(AP, 4/2/08)(Econ, 2/12/11,
p.36)
2007 Apr 2, Florida won its
second consecutive college basketball championship, beating Ohio
State 84-75; the Gators became the first team to repeat since Duke
in 1991-92.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2007 Apr 2, Chicago’s police
superintendent, Philip Cline, announced his retirement after 2
videos emerged of off-duty police officers beating civilians.
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/2tt8en)
2007 Apr 2, Sam Zell,
billionaire real estate investor, reached an agreement to buy the
Chicago-based Tribune Co. in a 2-stage deal valued at $8.2 billion.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 2, First Data Corp.
said it is being acquired by an affiliate of private equity firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for about $27 billion.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C3)
2007 Apr 2, In Afghanistan 3
police died when militants attacked a checkpoint on the road linking
the southern town of Kandahar with Spin Boldak on the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, A UN conference on
climate change opened in Belgium with the EU's top environment
official calling on the US to join efforts to curb global warming.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Canada's
controversial annual seal hunt opened in the southern Gulf of St.
Lawrence, where the worst ice conditions in more than two decades
have nearly wiped out the herd there.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, China’s first
deadline for income taxes was extended a few days because of low
compliance. Anyone earning over 120,000 yuan ($15,500) annually was
supposed to file a return. In southwestern China developers tore
down a stubborn couple's house after a three-year standoff that
hindered a construction project and captivated the nation. The
couple reportedly negotiated a deal with the real estate developer
that gives them a new apartment and a sizable compensation package.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.49)(AP, 4/3/07)(Econ, 4/7/07,
p.39)
2007 Apr 2, In Iraq a suicide
truck bomber targeted a police station in the oil-rich northern city
of Kirkuk, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens, including
many children from a nearby school. A parked car exploded in a
garage near a governmental property registration agency in western
Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10. A suicide bomber
drove his car into a police checkpoint in the southern insurgent
stronghold of Dora, killing four people, including two policemen. A
roadside bomb killed four civilians and wounded 20 in the Shiite
town of Khalis. A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi military convoy,
killing one soldier and wounding 7 in the Qazaniyah area northeast
of Baghdad. 4 US soldiers were killed in combat.
(AP, 4/2/07)(Reuters, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 2, Jordan's military
court convicted six alleged militants of planning suicide attacks
against Jordan's main international airport and against hotels
hosting Israeli and American tourists.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Gunmen in Nigeria's
southern Bayelsa State kidnapped two Lebanese nationals.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Around 5,000
tribesmen gathered in a Pakistani border area to enlist for ongoing
battles against foreign Al-Qaeda militants.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Palestinian
journalists began a three-day strike to protest the kidnapping of
British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent Alan Johnston, the
longest-held reporter ever abducted in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Russia's foreign
spy service released previously classified files on a double agent
who, under the codename "Britt", passed secrets to Moscow from
inside British intelligence in the 1940s.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Saudi Arabia
signaled it is unlikely to accept an Israeli invitation to a
regional peace conference, saying that Israel must first stop
mistreating Palestinians and move to withdraw from Arab lands.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Tsunami waves
churned by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore in the Solomon
Islands, wiping away entire villages and triggering alerts from
Australia to Hawaii. At least 50 people were killed.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/2/08)
2007 Apr 2, In Somalia a human
rights organization said fierce fighting between Ethiopian-backed
government forces and Islamic insurgents has killed 381 people over
four days.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, South Korea and the
US agreed to a trade pact with only minutes to go before a deadline.
Last-minute haggling meant missing two self-imposed deadlines over
the weekend. Some estimates say the agreement could add $20 billion
to the already more than $70 billion of two-way trade each year.
(Reuters, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, In eastern Sri
Lanka at least 16 people, including three children, were killed and
25 wounded when a bomb ripped through a crowded bus. Sri Lankan
security forces killed at least 23 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh
fighting in the island's east.
(AP, 4/2/07)(AFP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 2, In Sudan 53 people
were killed in a gruesome pair of minibus accidents north of
Khartoum.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Thailand's premier
hailed ties with Japan as he prepared to sign a free-trade agreement
with his country's top investor, easing international isolation of
the kingdom since last year's coup. Army-installed PM Surayud
Chulanont will sign the deal April 3, which Thailand hopes will
boost investment from Japan.
(AFP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Ukraine’s president
called early elections for May 27 amid a standoff with the
pro-Russian premier, who vowed to fight what he called a coup.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 3, President Bush
denounced Democrats for going on spring break without approving
money for the Iraq war; he also criticized House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's trip to Syria.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2007 Apr 3, An AP investigation
said CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaida militants in the Horn
of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19
countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for
torture and abuse.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, An ex-con shot and
killed his ex-girlfriend at the CNN headquarters complex in Atlanta
before being wounded by a security guard. Arthur Mann was later
convicted of murdering Clara Riddles and sentenced to life without
parole.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2007 Apr 3, After a nine-year
title drought, Tennessee's Lady Vols basketball team captured a
seventh national title, beating Rutgers 59-46.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2007 Apr 3, Eddie Robinson
(b.1919), 56-year head football coach at Grambling College, died in
Ruston, La.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Robinson_(football_coach))
2007 Apr 3, UN officials in
Afghanistan said avalanches and floods triggered by heavy rains and
spring snow melt have killed about 150 people in recent days in the
mountains of central Asia. The toll in Afghanistan reached 88 with
over 50 killed in Pakistan. In southwest Afghanistan 2 French aid
workers and their three Afghan staff went missing between Nimroz and
neighboring Farah province.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 3, A state news agency
said China's government has ordered newspapers to stamp out the
common practice of demanding money from people they cover.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Colombian
authorities captured Ever Veloza, a fugitive right-wing warlord
accused in massacres and of running a murderous criminal band
involved in drug trafficking and extortion. He was arrested in the
banana-growing Uraba region on the Caribbean coast. Veloza already
faces charges in the April 11, 2001, massacre of 26 peasants in the
southwestern town of Naya.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Interpol issued an
international arrest warrant for three Israelis accused of training
private armies of Colombian drug cartels and right-wing death
squads. Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being
sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in
terrorism.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Official figures
said the number of Egyptians inside and outside the country has
risen to more than 76 million, meaning an Egyptian baby is born
every 23 seconds.
(AFP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, A French train with
a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed
record for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph as it zipped
through the countryside to the applause of spectators. It surpassed
the record of 320.2 mph set in 1990 by another French train. It fell
short of beating the ultimate record set by Japan's magnetically
levitated train, which hit 361 mph in 2003.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Nina Wang (69),
Asia's richest woman, died in Hong Kong after reports she had been
battling cancer, leaving unanswered questions over her estimated
$4.2 billion (2.1 billion pound) fortune. Wang successfully battled
her father-in-law for a multi-billion dollar estate left by her late
husband Teddy Wang, a property tycoon who vanished in 1990. Wang
left her $4 billion fortune to Chan Chun-chuen, a master of feng
shui in a will dated Oct. 16, 2006. On Feb 2, 2010, a Hong Kong
court deemed the will a forgery.
(Reuters, 4/4/07)(AP, 4/20/07)(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.78)(AP, 2/2/10)
2007 Apr 3, Activists said
traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often
lower than the cost of animals and most of them end up working as
laborers or commercial sex workers.
(Reuters, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a meeting of Islamic clerics
that Muslim nations should ultimately replace coalition forces in
Iraq after a period of national reconciliation. Cliff Muntu (21), a
student at Indonesia’s Institute of Public Administration (IPDN),
died from wounds due to hazing by his seniors. This was the 35th
death in the school since 1993.
(AP,
4/3/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Muntu)(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.49)
2007 Apr 3, Iran reported that
an Iranian diplomat in Iraq seized two months ago by uniformed
gunmen has been released.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, In Baghdad a senior
foreign ministry official said his government was "intensively"
seeking the release of five Iranians detained there by the US. Two
US soldiers were killed by small-arms fire, one in eastern Baghdad
and another on foot patrol in the southern outskirts of the capital.
Iraqi and US troops found a huge stash of weapons in a raid on the
home of Sunni legislator Khalaf al-Ilyan. They detained at least a
dozen men for questioning. Khalaf al-Ilyan, in Jordan for surgery,
later denied the charges and accused the Iraqi government and Iran
of trying to discredit him because of his criticism of state
policies.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/6/07)(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 3, Japan and Thailand
signed a free trade agreement that will cut tariffs on a wide range
of traded goods, from seafood to automobiles.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Nigerian Vice
President Atiku Abubakar lost an appeal against a decision by the
electoral commission to bar him from this month's presidential
election. Two courts issued competing rulings on the
disqualification, setting up a legal showdown just weeks before an
election meant to solidify civilian rule in the country.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Thousands of
flag-waving protesters rallied at Pakistan's Supreme Court to urge
President Pervez Musharraf to step down for controversially
dismissing the country's top judge.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, In the Philippines
Pete Amurin, a local election board official in the city of Puerto
Rincesa, capital of Palawan island west of Manila, was shot dead at
close range near his office.
(AFP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 3, Qatar's PM Sheik
Abdullah bin Khalifa Al Thani resigned and the country's emir
appointed the foreign minister as replacement.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Taiwan Presidential
front-runner Ma Ying-jeou pleaded not guilty at his corruption trial
in Taipei, saying that his use of a special municipal fund was in
keeping with government standards. A helicopter crashed into a radio
tower near Kaohsiung and killed 8 crew members.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 3, Thousands of
Ukrainian protesters streamed into the capital in the most serious
confrontation between the prime minister and the president since the
two men faced off during the Orange Revolution.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, In Zimbabwe trucks
of riot police drove through Harare and military helicopters flew
overhead on the first day of a national strike to protest deepening
economic hardships blamed on the government of President Robert
Mugabe. The strike received a cool response from workers worried
about forfeiting vital wages. A UN study said Zimbabwe was Africa's
worst economic performer in 2006.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AFP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 4, Apple updated its
desktop Mac Pro computers adding two new 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
processors, bringing 8-core processing to the Mac. The new machines
can run the 3.0GHz Intel Xeon processors and are available as build
to order options.
(www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/04/eightcore/index.php)
2007 Apr 4, Radio host Don Imus
made offensive on-air remarks about the Rutgers University women's
basketball team. Despite a subsequent apology, Imus was fired by CBS
Radio and cable network MSNBC; he was hired elsewhere by year's end.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2007 Apr 4, Jon and Karen
Huntsman, the billionaire parents of Utah’s Gov. Jon Huntsman,
announced that they would pay $1 million for a public education
campaign in Utah about the risks of cervical cancer and a new
vaccine that can prevent it.
(SFC, 4/5/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 4, NYSE Euronext
shares slipped in their first day of trading following the
completion of the $14 billion deal that created the first
trans-Atlantic stock exchange. Jan-Michiel Hessels served as
chairman of the NYSE following the merger with Euronext.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070404/ap_on_bi_ge/nyse_euronext)(WSJ,
4/14/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 4, Film director
Robert Clark (67), best known for the holiday classic "A Christmas
Story" (1983), was killed in southern California with his son in a
head-on crash with a vehicle steered into the wrong lane by a
drunken driver.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 4, In Algeria an
international desertification conference closed with a call (dubbed
the Algiers Appeal) to all African countries to ratify the Kyoto
Protocol, to help slow the rapid expansion of deserts on the
continent.
(AFP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Argentina's main
teachers' union called for a one-day national strike next week after
protesting colleagues seeking higher pay clashed with riot police in
two provinces.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, The United Nations
children's agency called for urgent action to tackle a "humanitarian
disaster" in the Central African Republic (CAR), affected by
conflict for the past ten years.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, In Chile police
used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesting
students in the capital of Santiago, and detained nearly 100 people.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Ecuador's
constitutional court upheld a decision by the country's electoral
tribunal to fire more than half of the politically unstable nation's
legislature.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 4, In India South
Asian leaders (SAARC) wrapped up a two-day summit predicting a new
dawn for the region but offering little in terms of concrete action.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Iran’s President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad freed the 15 detained British sailors and
marines as an Easter holiday "gift" to the British people. Syria
said it played a key role in resolving the standoff over the 15
British sailors and marines held by Iran. Turkey brokered the
release of the British sailors.
(AP, 4/4/07)(Econ, 8/21/10, p.42)
2007 Apr 4, Iraq's top
corruption fighter said that $8 billion in government money was
wasted or stolen over the past three years and claimed he was
threatened with death after opening an investigation into scores of
Oil Ministry employees. Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying
power plant workers in a predominantly Sunni area west of Kirkuk,
killing six men. Gunmen also attacked a police patrol near Baqouba,
killing four officers. 6 of the gunmen were killed in a subsequent
gunbattle. Two mortar rounds also slammed into a house in the
predominantly Shiite town of Khalis, just after midnight, killing a
woman and wounding two other women and a 4-year-old boy. Gunmen
wearing police uniforms seized 22 shepherds and their sheep in
southern Iraq in the latest mass abduction of Shiite workers by
presumed Sunni insurgents. A roadside bomb killed two US soldiers
and wounded three others in southern Baghdad. Another blast north of
the capital killed two soldiers and wounded one.
(AP, 4/4/07)(AFP, 4/4/07)(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 4, New Ivory Coast PM
Guillaume Soro, a rebel leader who has controlled the north for four
years, took office, a key step in an accord aimed at bringing a
lasting peace.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, In Kuwait a medical
source said preliminary tests for bird flu were positive on four
Bangladeshi workers who had been culling infected chickens.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi urged Africa to form a unified continental army to
defend its interests. He said former colonial powers should pay
compensation for the raw materials they had extracted.
(Reuters, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Hostage takers in
southern Nigeria released four foreign workers held captive in the
oil-rich region. The British High Commission and an industry source
said a Briton and a Dutch national held hostage in volatile oil-rich
southern Nigeria have been released. Gordon Gray was kidnapped March
31 from an offshore rig in the Niger delta. The Dutch man was
kidnapped March 23 from Port Harcourt. 2 Lebanese nationals working
for a construction firm, Setraco, were also released.
(AFP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, In Northern Ireland
protestant leader Ian Paisley shook hands with Irish PM Bertie Ahern
in public for the first time, marking another small step on the path
to peace.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Heavy fighting
between Pakistani tribesmen and foreign militants allegedly linked
to al-Qaida killed 60 people near the Afghan border. About 50 of
those killed in the past 24 hours in the South Waziristan region
were Uzbeks. The main commander of the tribal militia battling the
foreign militants is Maulvi Nazir, a known Taliban sympathizer who
the government says has come over to its side. Nazir recently
established Islamic courts throughout South Waziristan, a
10,000-square-mile area with some 500,000 inhabitants.
(AP, 4/4/07)(SFC, 6/1/07, p.A9)
2007 Apr 4, A Palestinian
gunman was killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops in an
area where militants frequently fire rockets toward Israel.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, In the Philippines
police said they found the bodies of two missing members of the
militant Peasant Movement of the Philippines, or KMP, near a river
in the northern town of Lailo in Cagayan province.
(AFP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Sri Lanka’s defense
ministry said its warplanes "bombed and completely destroyed" a key
Tamil Tiger naval base.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, In Damascus US
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria's leader despite
White House objections, saying she pressed President Bashar Assad
over his country's support for militant groups and passed him a
peace message from Israel.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Thousands of
supporters of Ukraine's Russian-leaning prime minister marched to
the office of the pro-Western president, protesting a presidential
order to hold early elections.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 4, Offices and
factories in Zimbabwe's two main cities were operating as normal on
the second day of a 48-hour strike called by the main labor
organization over the deepening economic crisis. Many workers
appeared to have shunned the call on the second day of the stoppage
organized by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
(AFP, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 5, The US pressed
Ethiopia for details on detainees from 19 nations taken to secret
prisons there and interrogated by CIA and FBI agents.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, The US
Transportation Dept. said it will require all passenger vehicles to
have electronic gear to prevent deadly rollovers by 2012.
(WSJ, 4/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 5, Florida’s Gov.
Charlie Crist persuaded 2 of 3 members of the state board of
executive clemency that most felons had served their time and should
automatically recover the right to vote.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.35)
2007 Apr 5, FBI Special Agent
Barry Lee Bush was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow agent as
a stakeout team closed in on three suspected bank robbers in
Readington, N.J.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, In San Mateo, Ca.,
Dr. William Ayres (75), a published child psychologist, was arrested
on 14 counts of child molestation, which dated back as far as 1969.
4 new charges were added on April 12.
(SFC, 4/7/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/13/07, p.B1)
2007 Apr 5, Darryl Stingley
(55), a former New England Patriots player paralyzed during an
on-field collision in 1978, died in Chicago.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 5, Australian police
charged two men, including an army captain, with stealing military
rocket launchers, some of which ended up in the hands of a suspected
terrorist.
(AFP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Fifteen British
sailors and marines held captive by Iran returned home to a nation
relieved at their freedom but also outraged that they were used by
Tehran's propaganda machine.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Ramzan Kadyrov was
inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya on a blessing from the
Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more
than a decade of separatist fighting.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, China told banks to
increase their reserves for the third time this year, cutting the
amount of money available for lending in a new effort to cool an
investment boom that Beijing worries could lead to a financial
crisis. Chinese celebrated the annual tomb-sweeping festival, but
state media said soaring funeral costs were leading to people
complaining they can no longer afford to die.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bus carrying
passengers on the start of the Easter holiday crashed in northern
Colombia, igniting a blaze that killed 27 people, including six
children.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Greek cruise
ship, the Sea Diamond, sank off the Aegean Sea island of Santorini,
forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,600 people.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SSFC, 12/14/08, p.E3)
2007 Apr 5, The editor-in-chief
of Playboy Indonesia was acquitted of charges that he violated the
Muslim nation's indecency laws by publishing pictures of scantily
clothed women.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bomb struck an
oil pipeline, cutting off supplies and causing a huge fire in
southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait. A US Army helicopter went
down south of Baghdad, injuring 4 of the 9 soldiers aboard. A US
soldier was killed by small-arms fire while on patrol in eastern
Baghdad. 4 British soldiers and a Kuwaiti interpreter were killed in
an ambush in southern Iraq. Thaer Ahmed, assistant director of
Baghdad TV, was killed when a car bomb struck the television offices
in Jami'a, in west Baghdad. 12 people were wounded. Police in west
Baghdad found the bullet-riddled body of Khamael Muhsin, a famous
television presenter during Saddam Hussein's rule. She was kidnapped
two days ago. Gunmen killed 18 Iraqi, British and American soldiers
in the past 24 hours in attacks in Baghdad, the southern oil hub of
Basra and near the northern city of Mosul.
(AP, 4/5/07)(Reuters, 4/5/07)(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 5, Kosovo's parliament
overwhelmingly endorsed a UN plan that proposes internationally
supervised independence for the disputed province.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, In eastern Pakistan
a speeding tractor plowed into a roadside school, killing nine
children and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A British diplomat
met with Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh to push for the release of a
kidnapped BBC journalist, the first direct meeting between a
European Union diplomat and a Hamas official of the Palestinians'
new coalition government.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi said that she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack
of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last
stop of her Mideast tour.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, Attackers fired a
grenade into a mosque in Thailand's restive south, wounding 16
Muslim worshippers in an act of defiance after authorities imposed a
strict curfew to contain escalating violence.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 5, A Ugandan court
scrapped the nation's adultery law, saying it was unconstitutional
and favored men.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, The US Department
of Education said an official in its student financial aid office
has been placed on paid leave while his stock ownership in a student
loan company is being reviewed.
(Reuters, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, Arizona authorities
found at least 80 suspected illegal immigrants in a house west of
Phoenix and arrested two suspected smugglers.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, In Florida US
District Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that Luis Posada Carriles
could be released on $250,000 bond. He is being held at the Otero
County jail in New Mexico on charges he lied to immigration
authorities in a bid to become a naturalized citizen. Posada, a
former CIA operative, is wanted in Cuba in the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people, a charge Posada denies. Castro
has repeatedly accused the US government of protecting Posada.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 6, Supernova SN2007bi
was first observed in a nearby dwarf galaxy. It burned steadily for
months. In 2009 scientists reported that the explosion was probably
that of a super massive star, at least two hundred times the mass of
the Sun.
(www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=astronomers-witness-biggest-st)
2007 Apr 6, in Afghanistan a
suicide car bomber hit a police checkpoint in Kabul, killing four
people, including a policeman who tried to stop him. Taliban rebels
seized control of Khak Afghan district in southern Zabul province.
(AP, 4/6/07)(AFP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, A Royal Navy
lieutenant who was among the captives held by Iran said British
sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks were blindfolded,
bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they strayed
into Iranian waters.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, Health officials
said teenage girls in Cambodia and Indonesia have died of bird flu
as the virus continues to stalk across Asia.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, China published new
rules governing human organ transplants in its latest effort to
clean up a business critics say has little regard for medical
ethics.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, The Greek cruise
ship Sea Diamond, which had struck a volcanic reef and forced the
evacuation of hundreds of tourists sank, 15 hours after it began
taking on water off the coast of Santarini Island. Navy divers
searched around the sunken wreckage for a Frenchman and his
daughter, the only two passengers still missing.
(AP, 4/6/07)(SFC, 4/6/07, p.A2)
2007 Apr 6, Iraq’s government
it has ordered that senior officers of Saddam Hussein's military
receive pensions and requested that lower-ranking soldiers serve
again as part of a sectarian reconciliation plan. The decision was
made last month. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with TNT
and toxic chlorine gas crashed into a police checkpoint in western
Ramadi, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens. American
troops swept into the troubled, predominantly Shiite city of
Diwaniyah before dawn, killing three militia fighters and capturing
27 in the first day of an assault, named "Operation Black Eagle." In
Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed and seven were wounded by
two separate roadside bombs.
(AP, 4/6/07)(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, Amado Ramirez, the
Acapulco correspondent for Mexico's top television news network, was
shot to death.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, In southern Nigeria
gunmen kidnapped two Turkish engineers from their car in Port
Harcourt.
(Reuters, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, Pakistani mullah
Abdul Aziz said he had set up a Taliban-style Islamic court at his
mosque in Islamabad and pledged "tens of thousands" of suicide
attacks if the government tries to shut it down.
(AFP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, Pasteur Bizimungu,
Rwanda's first post-genocide leader, walked free from prison after a
surprise presidential pardon of his convictions that included
inciting ethnic tension.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, In Saudi Arabia
Waleed bin Mutlaq al-Radadi, among the kingdom's most wanted
terrorists, was killed in a gunbattle with Saudi forces. Al-Radadi
was implicated in the Feb 26 killing of 4 French nationals.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 6, Somali pirates
freed two hijacked merchant ships, including one that had just
delivered UN food aid when it was seized more than a month ago with
12 crew on board.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 6, A Chinese
delegation arrived in Sudan's troubled Darfur region for a 4-day
visit. They met officials and visited camps for the internally
displaced.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 6, UN climate experts
issued their starkest warning yet about the impact of global
warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the
Himalayas, in a report that increased pressure on governments to
act.
(Reuters, 4/6/07)
2007 Apr 6, Human migrant
traffickers forced some 300 African migrants to jump into the sea
off Yemen causing at least 32 to die.
(SFC, 4/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 7, The New York Times
reported in its Sunday edition that the Bush administration in
January allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from
North Korea in an apparent violation of a UN Security Council
sanctions resolution passed months earlier over its nuclear test.
(Reuters, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, Thousands of people
marched through downtown Los Angeles, demanding a way for the
country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens
and condemning President Bush's latest proposal.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 7, It was reported
that Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum Corp.'s chairman and chief
executive, took in more than $400 million in compensation in 2006,
one of the biggest single-year payouts in US corporate history.
(Reuters, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, The sport salmon
fishing season opened in California.
(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 7, In Oregon 15
libraries in Jackson were due to close following the loss of $7
million in federal funding.
(SSFC, 3/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 7, It was reported
that injections of Mycobacterium vaccae into mice caused their
immune systems to produce serotonin. This neurotransmitter, when low
in humans, was known to be related to depression.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.79)
2007 Apr 7, Johnny Hart (76),
creator of the B.C. comic strip (1958), died at his home in
Endicott, NY. He and Brant Parker created the “Wizard of Id” strip.
(SFC, 4/9/07, p.B3)
2007 Apr 7, Actor Barry Nelson
(b.1917) died in Bucks County, Pa. He was the first actor to portray
Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond in a 1954 TV adoption of
Casino Royale.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.B8)(AP,
4/7/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Nelson)
2007 Apr 7, In southwestern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants ambushed Afghan workers of
an American de-mining company, leaving seven people dead and four
wounded. Officials said more than 1,000 NATO and Afghan troops
clashed with Taliban and took over control of Sangin, a district
center in southern Afghanistan long held by the militants.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, Suspected Islamist
militants opened fire on a military patrol in northwestern Algeria,
starting a gunbattle that left nine soldiers and six attackers dead.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 7, In Brazil Martin
Strel, a 52-year-old Slovenian, completed a 3,272 swim down the
Amazon River that could set a world record for distance. In 2000, he
completed an 1,866-mile swim along the Danube. He broke that record
two years later after swimming 2,360 miles down the Mississippi. In
2004 he broke it again by swimming 2,487 miles along the Yangtze
river in China.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 7, In India a jeep
carrying a gelatin-based explosive used for a highway construction
project exploded in a southern village, killing 16 people and
injuring 22 more.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, US warplanes
attacked suspected militiamen wielding shoulder-fired rockets in the
second day of fierce fighting against Shiite gunmen south of
Baghdad. At least one civilian was killed and five were seriously
wounded when an American tank fired on their house in Diwaniyah.
Iraqi troops killed Abu Baraa al-Libi, a Libyan al-Qaida figure, in
a raid on his Baghdad hideout just before the man could detonate an
explosives belt he was wearing. US forces also killed one suspect
and captured 8 others in raids in Baghdad and south of Ramadi. A
roadside bomb exploded next to a joint American-Iraqi army patrol on
a highway leading into Annah, 175 miles northwest of Baghdad. Two
Iraqi soldiers were killed and two were wounded. Police in Fallujah
reported finding four bodies in the center of the city. Four
American soldiers were killed in an explosion near their vehicle in
Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. Duaa Khalil Aswad (17), a
member of the insular Yazidi religious sect, was stoned to death for
loving a Sunni Muslim boy [see April 22].
(AP, 4/7/07)(AP, 4/8/07)(SFC, 5/22/07, p.A8)
2007 Apr 7, An Israeli
helicopter launched an airstrike along the Gaza Strip's border with
Israel, killing a Palestinian militant and wounding two others.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, The 17-year
insurgency in Kashmir continued with an average of 3 lives lost
every day. India had an estimated 600,000 soldiers and paramilitary
police stationed in Jammu & Kashmir state.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.14)
2007 Apr 7, Emergency officials
said 247 dead seals have washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea
in Kazakhstan in the past week.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, Libya’s
foreign-exchange reserves were estimated at $56 billion. The
population was reported to be about 5.6 million.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.46)
2007 Apr 7, Malaysian ministers
issued fresh attacks on bloggers, threatening to take away their
rights and accusing them of trying to overthrow the government,
according to reports.
(AFP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, In northern
Pakistan some 40 people were killed and more than 70 injured in 2
days of sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in
Kurram.
(AFP, 4/7/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.43)
2007 Apr 7, In the southern
Philippines 9 soldiers and a civilian were killed in a clash in a
small army camp in Jolo island’s Parang town.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 7, A Russian rocket
carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word
roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan, sending Charles Simonyi
and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the
international space station.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, A roadside bomb
tore through a civilian bus in northern Sri Lanka, killing seven
people and wounding 26. The army blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the
attack.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, Thousands of
supporters of Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovych rallied for a fifth day
in the streets of Kiev, calling for stability amid a political
crisis over the president's dissolution of parliament.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 7, Yemeni police
arrested three men suspected of setting fire to a mosque and
wounding at least 33 people.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 8, Zach Johnson won
the Masters with a two-shot victory over Tiger Woods.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2007 Apr 8, Bill Richardson,
the New Mexico governor who has undertaken diplomatic missions to
countries at odds with the United States, began a rare visit to
isolated North Korea to recover remains of American servicemen
killed in the Korean War.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 May 8, A federal judge in
El Paso, Texas, dismissed immigration fraud charges against Luis
Posada Carriles (79), a former CIA operative accused of
masterminding a 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane along with
1997 bombings in Havana.
(SFC, 5/10/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 8, Sol LeWitt
(b.1928), Connecticut-based artist, photographer and sculptor, died
in NY. He was known for his dynamic wall paintings and as a founder
of minimal and conceptual art styles. “LeWitt brought about a
fundamental shift in taste with sculptures and drawings that put
thought rather than feeling, ideas rather than aesthetics at the
forefront.”
(SFC, 4/10/07, p.D9)(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.P16)(SFC,
3/26/11, p.E1)
2007 Apr 8, A purported
spokesman for the Taliban said the kidnapped translator for an
Italian journalist was killed in southern Afghanistan. In the
eastern Paktika province, two Afghan guards were killed and five
wounded during a four-hour firefight with Taliban militants. In
eastern Khost province, a gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle
opened fire on Afghans working for NATO's International Security
Assistance Force, killing two of the men and wounding another. In
eastern Nangarhar province, a suicide car bomber blew himself up
next to a US-led coalition convoy. 2 roadside bombs in southern
Afghanistan left seven NATO soldiers dead. 6 Canadians died in one
of the 2 blasts.
(AP, 4/8/07)(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 May 8, In Argentina 7
managers of Skanska, a Swedish construction firm, were arrested for
tax evasion. Skanska sacked the managers and paid the tax authority
almost $5 million.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)
2007 Apr 8, Britain's Defense
Ministry came under fire for allowing 15 British sailors and marines
held by Iran for 13 days to sell their stories to the media.
(Reuters, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 8, A Chinese ship,
Jinhaikun, and a foreign cargo vessel, Harvest, collided off the
east China coast in Taizhou Bay. 19 Chinese and one Indonesian
missing in the accident were all on the Harvest.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 8, In western Iran at
least 26 people were killed and 18 others injured after a truck
smashed into a bus.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 8, The renegade cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with the US
and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate their attacks on
American troops rather than Iraqis. A pickup truck loaded with
artillery shells exploded near a hospital in Mahmoudiyah, killing 17
Iraqis. US forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader and two others
in a raid in Baghdad. 6 US soldiers were killed in a series of
attack.
(AP, 4/8/07)(AFP, 4/9/07)(SFC, 4/9/07, p.A5)
2007 Apr 8, In Japan
Nationalist Shintaro Ishihara won a third term as governor of Tokyo.
(Reuters, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 8, The body of a
murdered South African national, Kenneth Scott Andrew (26), was
found in a plastic bag on the outskirts of the northwestern
Pakistani city of Peshawar.
(AFP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 8, A Palestinian
attacker stabbed and wounded two Israeli police officers at a
checkpoint outside a Hebron shrine that has been a flashpoint for
violence in the past.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 8, In the Philippines
Julia Campbell (40), American Peace Corps volunteer from Fairfax,
Va., was last seen in the town of Banaue in Ifugao province. Her
body was found April 18 in a shallow grave near Batad village. In
2008 Juan Duntugan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 40
years in prison without parole.
(AP, 4/14/07)(AP, 4/18/07)(SFC, 4/19/07,
p.A8)(AP, 6/30/08)
2007 Apr 9, President Bush
visited the US-Mexico border to tout a guest worker program for
immigrants.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2007 Apr 9, Don Imus,
nationally syndicated shock jock, was suspended for 2 weeks by CBS
Radio and MSNBC due to his calling members of the Rutgers Univ.
women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s.” On April 11 NBC News
decided to fire him; CBS followed the next day.
(SFC, 4/10/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 9, Suspected Taliban
militants ambushed an Afghan army convoy with rocket propelled
grenades in southern Afghanistan, killing two soldiers and wounding
up to 14. Suspected Taliban attacked a police vehicle north of
Kandahar city, leaving a policeman dead.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, Thousands of
teachers walked out of public schools across Argentina in a daylong
strike to demand higher pay and justice for a slain colleague.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, Britain's
government beat a hasty retreat under withering criticism for
allowing sailors and marines to be paid large sums for their stories
about captivity in Iran.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, East Timor held
elections. A Nobel laureate squared off with two rivals in
presidential elections that could test East Timor's fragile calm a
year after one of the world's youngest and poorest nations reached
the brink of civil war.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, An Ethiopian judge
freed 25 journalists charged in a treason trial involving more than
100 opposition figures that has drawn international criticism as
being politically motivated.
(Reuters, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, State press
reported that China's farmland is becoming increasingly polluted,
with coal-dependent factories and polluted waterways causing
billions of dollars in damages.
(AFP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, China urged Sudan
to be more flexible on a plan put forward by former UN chief Kofi
Annan to bolster peacekeeping operations in the war-torn western
region of Darfur.
(AFP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, Iran announced that
it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, dramatically
expanding a program that the UN has demanded it halt. An Iranian
Revolutionary Guard general visited Russia despite a UN travel ban
over Tehran nuclear defiance. Russia denied any violation.
(AP, 4/9/07)(WSJ, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 9, Tens of thousands
draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched peacefully through the
streets from Kufa to Najaf to mark the fourth anniversary of
Baghdad's fall. Demonstrators were flanked by two cordons of police
as they called for US forces to leave, shouting "Get out, get out
occupier!" In southern Baghdad, a sniper killed a civilian and a
policeman, and a mortar round killed one person and wounded two
others. A total of 25 people were killed or found dead across Iraq.
4 US soldiers were killed, 3 by a roadside bomb and a secondary
explosion in southeastern Baghdad and another in combat in western
Anbar province.
(AP, 4/9/07)(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, Japan lent some 850
million dollars to PM Nuri al-Maliki's government as the oil-hungry
Asian power looked to boost output from the war-torn country. Iraqi
PM Nouri al-Maliki met with Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress
Michiko, starting off a four-day visit that was delayed after Iran
refused to allow his plane to fly over its airspace.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, Pakistan’s army
announced that the Talibs had cleared foreigners from South
Waziristan.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.43)
2007 Apr 9, Puerto Rico seven
inmates, convicted of homicides, escaped from prison using
ventilation ducts.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, Two Russian
cosmonauts and US billionaire Charles Simony bringing a gourmet meal
arrived at the international space station, to a warm welcome from
current crewmen.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 9, Officials said the
yearly salaries of Singapore's well-paid government ministers are
headed higher, by 60 percent to more than $1.25 million by the end
of 2008. Premier Lee Hsein Lloong will now make $2.1 million a year.
(AP, 4/9/07)(WSJ, 4/10/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 9, A Sudanese army
spokesman said 17 Sudanese soldiers were killed in clashes with
Chadian troops inside Sudanese territory.
(Reuters, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, In an Easter
message pinned to church bulletin boards around the country,
Zimbabwe's Roman Catholic bishops called on President Robert Mugabe
to leave office or face "open revolt" from those suffering under his
government.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 10, The US Treasury
Department said authorities in Macau are ready to release frozen
North Korean funds that have impeded disarmament talks.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Maryland became
the first US state to approve a plan to give its electoral votes for
president to the winner of the national popular vote, instead of the
candidate chosen by state voters. The plan would only go into effect
if states representing a majority of the nation’s 538 electoral
votes decided to make the same change.
(SFC, 4/11/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 10, Protein Sciences,
a vaccine company, said caterpillars offer a faster, safer medium to
culture flue vaccine than chicken eggs.
(WSJ, 4/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 10, Dakota Staton
(b.1930), jazz singer, died in NYC. She was well known for her 1957
album “The Late, Late Show.”
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.B5)
2007 Apr 10, A court in the
Bahamas announced that DNA tests proved Larry Birkhead, the former
boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith, is the father of her infant
daughter.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 10, Bolivia opened a
new front in its fight to reduce illegal coca production, sending
US-backed eradication teams into a traditional coca-growing region
in the Andean foothills long avoided by previous governments.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Diabetes
scientists reported that 15 Type 1 Brazilians did not need insulin
shots after therapy with stem cells from their own blood. It was
also reported that such stem cells helped repair heart damage due to
Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, carried
by kissing bugs (barbeiros).
(WSJ, 4/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 10, China reported a
sharp drop in its politically sensitive trade surplus and angrily
rejected US plans to file a World Trade Organization complaint over
product piracy amid pressure for Beijing to rein in its bulging
trade gap. The US filed two new complaints against China at the WTO
over copyright policy and restrictions on the sale of American
movies, music and books. China missed its deadline for announcing a
total tally of completed tax returns. Officials estimated some 1.6
million filed with 6m-7m required to file.
(AP, 4/10/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.49)
2007 Apr 10, In China’s
southeast Guangxi Zhuangzu region thousands of fish were reported
killed this month in a lake near Nanning due to “sharp drops in
temperature.”
(SFC, 4/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 10, Peter Brixtofte
(57), the free-spending Danish mayor of Hilleroed (1986-2002), was
convicted of abusing his office and sentenced to two years in
prison. He had became hugely popular for offering free vacations to
retirees and computers to school children.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, The Ethiopian
government acknowledged detaining 41 suspected international
terrorists from 17 countries and said foreign investigators were
given permission to question them. A statement said 29 of the
suspects have been ordered released by a Military Court and five
already have been freed.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, The European Court
of Human Rights ruled that a British woman left infertile after
being treated for ovarian cancer has no right to frozen embryos
against the wishes of her former fiance, who provided the sperm.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, In Greece cleanup
crews struggled to avert a major oil spill after a sunken cruise
ship leaked dozens of tons of oil off the resort island of Santorini
at the start of the summer tourist season.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Iraq's prime
minister began a visit to South Korea saying he wants to learn from
the Asian nation's fast rise as an economic power. A woman with
explosives hidden beneath her abaya detonated them in a crowd of
about 200 police recruits in Muqdadiyah, killing at least 16 people.
A battle in two Sunni enclaves left 20 suspected insurgents and 4
Iraqi soldiers dead, and 16 US soldiers wounded. A parked car bomb
exploded at a checkpoint near Baghdad University, killing at least 6
people and wounding 11. A Katyusha rocket hit a basketball court at
a boys school in eastern Baghdad, killing a 6-year-old boy and
wounding 17 others. US troops began building a wall around a Sunni
enclave in Baghdad.
(AP, 4/10/07)(AP, 4/11/07)(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 10, Israeli
authorities said they had arrested 19 Palestinian militants in March
for planning to set off a huge car bomb in Tel Aviv over the Jewish
holiday of Passover.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Japan's Cabinet
approved a six-month extension on trade sanctions against North
Korea, which were imposed in the wake of the communist state's
nuclear test last year.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, The African Union
readmitted Mauritania to the pan-African organization from which it
was suspended after a coup in 2005.
(AFP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Moroccan police
surrounded a building in Casablanca where four terrorism suspects
were holed, causing three to flee and blow themselves up with
explosives. The fourth was shot dead by a police sharpshooter as he
apparently tried to detonate his bomb.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Officials from
North and South Korea's Red Cross societies resumed talks on
resolving the issue of South Korean prisoners of war and civilian
abductees believed held in the communist country.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, In Panama the
charred and mutilated body of Staten Island businesswoman Toni
Grossi Abrams (57) was found on the outskirts of Panama City. Debra
Ann Ridgley (56) of Pennsylvania, was later arrested as a suspect in
the killing but had not been formally charged. Police searched for
two other suspects identified as Colombian men, one of whom has
previous drug charges against him.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 10, In Serbia 4
paramilitaries seen in a video gunning down Bosnian Muslims near
Srebrenica in 1995 were convicted of war crimes against civilians by
Serbia's War Crimes Court.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, South African
President Thabo Mbeki arrived in Khartoum to join the international
push for UN peacekeepers in Darfur, amid fears of a regional
spillover after clashes between Sudan and Chad. Officials said the
UN, the African Union and the Sudanese government have reached
agreement to beef up the African force in Sudan's violence-wracked
Darfur region with UN troops, police and equipment.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 10, Clashes between
Sri Lankan soldiers and Tamil rebels in the island's north killed
about 30 people. In southern Sri Lanka a passenger bus collided with
a beer delivery truck and burst into flames, killing at least 23
people and injuring 56.
(AP, 4/10/07)(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 10, In Switzerland
thieves stole jewelry worth about $825,000 from the Baselwood fair,
the world's biggest and most luxurious watch and jewelry fair.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 11, The US Pentagon
extended Iraq and Afghan tours of duty for all troops from 12 months
to 15 months.
(WSJ, 4/1207, p.A1)
2007 Apr 11, A federal grand
jury in Columbus, Ohio, indicted Christopher Paul (43), a US
citizen, on charges of joining al-Qaida in the 1990s and conspiring
to bomb European tourist resorts and US government facilities and
military bases overseas. Paul, born as Paul Kenyatta Laws, changed
his name to Abdulmalek Kenyatta in 1989, then to Christopher Paul in
1994.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 11, New York Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo said he will announce a settlement with a
"significant" student lender as a probe into a college loan scandal
continued to broaden.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Joe Francis
(b.1973), the creator of the “Girls Gone Wild” video series, was
indicted in Reno, Nevada, on federal tax charges. In September 2009,
Francis pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and bribing
Nevada jail workers. On November 5, 2009, US District Judge S. James
Otero accepted Francis’ deal on the grounds that a key witness
withheld information from prosecutors.
(SFC, 1/29/10,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis)
2007 Apr 11, North Carolina's
top prosecutor dropped all charges against three former Duke
University lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a
stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a
"tragic rush to accuse."
(AP, 4/11/08)
2007 Apr 11, MSNBC announced it
was dropping its simulcast of the "Imus in the Morning" radio
program, responding to growing outrage about host Don Imus' racial
slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team. CBS Radio followed
suit the next day.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2007 Apr 11, Citigroup Inc.,
the nation's largest financial institution, said it will eliminate
about 17,000 jobs as part of a companywide restructuring to reduce
costs and improve profit.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, The Evelyn and
Walter Haas Jr. Fund announced a $15 million donation for
renovations at the Presidio. Plans included 24 new trails.
(SFC, 4/11/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 11, Roscoe Lee Browne
(b.1925), stage, film and TV actor, died in Los Angeles. In 1966 he
made his directorial stage debut with “A Hand is on the Gate: An
Evening of Negro Poetry and Folk Music.”
(SFC, 4/14/07, p.B5)
2007 Apr 11, Kurt Vonnegut
(b.1922), regarded by many critics as a key influence in shaping
20th-century American literature, died in NYC. He mixed the bitter
and funny with a touch of the profound in books such as
"Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle," and "Hocus Pocus." In 2009
Loree Rackstraw, a former student, authored “Love as Always, Kurt:
Vonnegut As I Knew Him.”
(AP, 4/12/07)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.98)(WSJ, 3/16/09,
p.A17)
2007 Apr 11, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy, wounding
seven civilians, while a US-led coalition airstrike killed 13
suspected militants. Another bomb blast in the south killed two
Canadian soldiers and wounded three others.
(AP, 4/11/07)(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 11, In Algeria bombs
heavily damaged the prime minister's office in Algiers and a police
station, killing 33 people and wounding over 200.
(AP, 4/11/07)(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 11, Bangladesh police
said main opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed, former prime
minister and head of the Awami League, has been charged over the
murder of four people during political violence which racked the
nation's capital last October.
(AP, 4/11/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.46)
2007 Apr 11, In Brazil Gov.
Sergio Cabral Filho formally requested that the army intervene to
contain the violence that has been spiraling out of control in Rio
de Janeiro.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, PM Tony Blair
urged Britain's black communities to speak out against gang culture
and called again for tougher laws against gangs amid a spate of gun
and knife murders.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Canadian National
Railway faced picket lines, but the union said it does not plan this
new job action to be as disruptive as the strike that hamstrung
Canada's largest railway in February.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Three candidates
battled for a spot in East Timor's presidential runoff after none
got enough votes to win outright.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Officials said
Ecuador’s former President Gustavo Noboa will face charges for
allegedly mishandling foreign debt negotiations during his
three-year term (2000-2003).
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 11, Guyana's Pres.
Bharrat Jagdeo said former NYC police commissioner Bernard Kerik has
withdrawn from contracts to advise two Caribbean governments on
security because of unresolved legal troubles in the United States.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 11, The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a new report titled
"Civilians Without Protection: The Ever-worsening Humanitarian
Crisis in Iraq." Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the US military
spokesman, said Iranian intelligence operatives have been training
Iraqi fighters inside Iran on how to use and assemble deadly
roadside bombs known as EFPs.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, The Ivory Coast
government and rebels signed an agreement with foreign peacekeepers
to dismantle a buffer zone dividing the west African nation since
2002. The deal required the head of the UN mission to sign off on
election results.
(AFP, 4/11/07)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.60)
2007 Apr 11, Japanese and
Chinese leaders heralded a new era of closer ties between the two
Asian powers, moving to repair relations damaged by a harsh dispute
over history and signing accords on energy and environmental
protection.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, In Kyrgyzstan
thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the main square of
Bishkek to press President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to resign. Bakiyev had
sought to head off the opposition protest by signing constitutional
amendments curtailing his power a day earlier, but the opposition
rejected his move and showed up in full force.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, A Mexican court
ordered the reinstatement of ousted mineworkers union leader
Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, more than a year after the government turned
him out of office based on complaints of corruption.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Morocco presented
its plan to grant self-rule to the disputed Western Sahara territory
to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, In Nigeria 5
people, including a senior police officer, were killed in clashes
between rival cult gangs in the southern oil-rich state of Rivers.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 11, North Korea
replaced its prime minister during a session of its rubber-stamp
parliament. US envoys entered South Korea from North Korea in a rare
border crossing after securing the remains of six American soldiers
from the Korean War and pushing for action on the North's nuclear
disarmament.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, More than 50
Philippine military officers pleaded guilty to violating military
order and discipline in a plea bargain, escaping lengthy jail terms
for a failed mutiny in Manila nearly four years ago.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, Royal Dutch Shell
PLC and its partners ceded a controlling stake in the Sakhalin-2 gas
project to Russia’s state owned OAO Gazprom. The deal also entitled
Gazprom a percentage of profits from oil and gas and increased
managerial control.
(WSJ, 4/26/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/39c2yh)
2007 Apr 11, In Somalia
Ethiopian-backed government troops and Islamic insurgents exchanged
gunfire in northern Mogadishu, killing three people and ending more
than a week of relative calm.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 11, At least 40
civilians were killed and 25 wounded in an attack believed to have
be carried out by the Janjaweed militia in the war-torn Darfur
region.
(AFP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 12, The new US
“forever” postage stamp was scheduled to go on sale. The cost for
first class mail was set to rise to 41 cents on May 14.
(SFC, 4/11/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 12, World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged that he erred in helping a
close female friend get transferred to a high-paying job. "I made a
mistake for which I am sorry," he said.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, CBS fired Don Imus
from his radio program for insulting the Rutgers women's basketball
team on the air. In the evening, Imus met with team members at the
New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2007 Apr 12, New Jersey Gov.
Jon S. Corzine was involved in an SUV crash as he headed to a
meeting between radio show host Don Imus and the Rutgers women's
basketball team. The crash occurred when the SUV, driven by a state
trooper, was hit by another vehicle that swerved to avoid the pickup
truck. Corzine was not wearing his seat belt, as required by law,
and the crash left him with such serious injuries that he required a
ventilator.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 12, In NYC transit
officials and politicians broke ground on the Second Avenue line in
East Harlem.
(Econ, 4/21/07,
p.34)(www.mta.info/mta/news/releases07/index.html?en=070412)
2007 Apr 12, Muzak announced
plans to merge with rival DMX. The company was moving in the
direction of sensory branding and identifying songs that suit
particular companies.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.74)
2007 Apr 12, A study said
scientists have decoded the genome sequence of rhesus monkeys
proving they share 93% of man's genetic make-up.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Kelsie B. Harder,
onomastician (a student of names and their origins), died in
Potsdam, NY. His books included “Illustrated Dictionary of Place
Names” (1976),
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 12, In southern
Afghanistan a US-led coalition and Afghan troops backed by aircraft
clashed with suspected Taliban fighters, leaving more than 35
militants dead. Roadside bombs struck two NATO convoys in the east,
killing two soldiers. US and Afghan troops rescued five civilian
contractors pinned down by small arms fire from insurgents in
central Afghanistan after their helicopter made an emergency
landing. A coalition aircraft attacked the militants, killing three.
The contractors were evacuated to a nearby coalition base.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Brazilian police
broke up a gang accused of killing hundreds of people over several
years, arresting 18 suspects and searching for 10 others. The gang,
made up of police officers, hired guns and businessmen, had carried
out up to 200 killings a year over the past five years, most of them
linked to loan sharking.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, In London the
Beatles' Apple Corps company settled a royalties dispute with record
label EMI, raising hopes that Beatles recordings may soon be legally
available online.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Tens of thousands
of people marched through the streets of Cali to protest the bombing
of the city's police barracks, blamed on Colombia's largest leftist
rebel group.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Tens of thousands
of people marched through the streets of Cali to protest the bombing
of the city's police barracks, blamed on Colombia's largest leftist
rebel group.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, India test-fired a
new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads with a 1,900-mile
range. Indonesia said the missile forced 2 of its jetliners off
course.
(AP, 4/12/07)(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 12, A suicide bomber
blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria in the
deadliest-ever attack in the American-guarded Green Zone. Mohammed
Awad, a moderate Sunni lawmaker, was killed in the attack and 22
were wounded. The next day an insurgent umbrella group that includes
al-Qaida in Iraq claimed one of its "knights" carried out the
parliament suicide bombing. 11 civilians were killed in a bombing of
Baghdad’s al-Sarafiya bridge. 7 were killed by a powerful suicide
truck bomb, and 4 perished when their cars plummeted into the river.
The bodies of radio newscaster and her husband were found in Mosul,
three days after being kidnapped by gunmen.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Toyota named the
first non-Japanese to its board of directors, appointing American
James Press, the automaker's president of North American operations,
amid growing fears of a political backlash for its booming US sales.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon signed a law eliminating prison sentences for libel
or defamation, drawing praise from media watchdog groups.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Morocco’s police
detained two men near the scene of three suicide bombings in
Casablanca, and a police official said one was carrying explosives.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, An international
conservation group tens of thousands of villagers could be displaced
and a fragile ecosystem destroyed by a hydropower project being
built on northeastern Myanmar's Salween River.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, A Norwegian oil
rig support vessel carrying 15 people capsized off northern Scotland
and five crew members were missing.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Pakistan’s
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said that tribesmen have killed
about 300 foreign militants during a weekslong offensive near the
Afghan border and acknowledged for first time that they received
military support. Gunfights erupted again in villages near the
Afghan border where clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims have
killed at least 49 people over the past week.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Polish officials
said Google plans to open an operations center in Wroclaw later this
year, creating 200 new jobs and boosting the city's efforts to
become a technology hub.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Russian
authorities said they have halted the work of all foreign adoption
agencies for several months, virtually shutting down the placement
of children from one of the most important countries for US families
seeking to adopt.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, The Swiss-based
Nestle SA, the world's biggest food and drink company, said it will
buy Gerber Products Co. from pharmaceutical maker Novartis SA for
$5.5 billion, giving it the largest share of the global baby food
market.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, A Syrian-American
businessman with ties to the Damascus government made an
unprecedented appearance before an Israeli parliamentary panel,
telling lawmakers that Syrian President Bashar Assad is ready to
make peace with the Jewish state.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 12, Thailand police
said the king has pardoned a Swiss man who was given a 10-year
sentence for spray-painting over images of the revered monarch, but
the longtime Thailand resident has been ordered to leave the
country.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, Turkey's army
chief said the military had launched several "large scale"
offensives against rebels in the predominantly Kurdish southeast,
and he asked the government for approval to launch an incursion into
neighboring northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 12, In Uganda
protesters stoned to death two people of Asian origin during a
demonstration against a Ugandan-Indian company that wants to grow
sugar cane in this country's largest natural forest. Two others were
also killed in the rioting.
(AP, 4/12/07)(WSJ, 4/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 12, Zimbabwe
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai expressed optimism about planned
talks between his party and President Robert Mugabe's government to
end the crisis in the country.
(AFP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 13, In Delaware a
special committee of the board of directors of Computer Associates
accused founder and former chairman Charles Wang of directing and
participating in fraudulent accounting during the 1980s and 1990s,
which the US government had described as totaling $2.2 billion.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 13, Google said that
it will purchase DoubleClick, an Internet services company, for $3.1
billion.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 13, In NYC lawyer
Moshe Kanovsky (31) leaped to his death from the 69th floor of the
Empire State Building. At least 30 people have jumped from the
Empire State Building since it opened in 1931.
(SFC, 4/14/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 13, In SF Mayor Newsom
brokered an agreement to ban cars from Golden Gate Park’s main road
for 6 months of the year and to make permanent a Sunday ban for a
smaller area. The deal still required approval from the board of
Supervisors.
(SFC, 4/14/07, p.B1)
2007 Apr 13, A firefight in
southern Afghanistan killed one NATO soldier and wounded two others.
Eight suspected insurgents were killed by British forces west of
Basra. The suspects had been planting bombs in the path of a British
patrol.
(AP, 4/13/07)(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 13, Australia’s PM
John Howard said that people with HIV should not be allowed to
migrate to Australia, and that the government was investigating
whether it could tighten existing restrictions.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, An Austrian bank
recently bought by a US-led consortium acknowledged it told a
Cuban-born client to take her business elsewhere and suggested that
Washington's ban on commerce with Cuba was behind the decision.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 13, Federal police in
Brazil arrested the chief organizer of Rio's carnival parade, a
federal judge and a prosecutor in a crack-down on illegal gaming and
money laundering.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, A leading rebel in
the Central African Republic said he would be signing a peace deal
with President Francois Bozize in the northeastern town of Birao.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, Prominent Chinese
environmental activist Wu Lihong (39) was arrested for alleged
blackmail. Lihong has campaigned for years against the pollution of
Tai Lake which lies in the center of Yangtze Delta plain, a region
known for its natural beauty but littered with polluting light
industry and chemical factories. In August Lihong was sentenced to 3
years in prison for fraud and blackmail.
(AFP, 4/23/07)(Econ, 5/3/08, p.49)
2007 Apr 13, Iraq's parliament
met in an extraordinary session on a Friday, the Muslim day of
prayer, and declared it would not bow to terrorism; a bouquet of red
roses and a white lily sat in the place of a lawmaker killed in a
parliament dining hall suicide bombing. A roadside bomb killed one
policeman and wounded four others in southern Baghdad. US forces
captured 14 suspected al-Qaida in Iraq members in raids.
(AP, 4/13/07)(AP, 4/13/08)
2007 Apr 13, In Malaysia the
Negeri Sembilan state government closed down a museum exhibition on
ghosts, ghouls and supernatural beings after Islamic clerics claimed
it was detrimental to Muslims' faith.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 13, In Nigeria gunmen
shot dead a radical Muslim cleric in his mosque and fired on the
congregation, killing two more people, in the northern city of Kano.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, Protesters burned
an effigy of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and demanded his
resignation, as thousands rallied across Pakistan during a court
hearing for a top judge removed by the government.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, Five European
countries and the European Commission signed an accord on under
which they will give 5.2 million dollars for administrative reforms
within the Palestinian presidency.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, Former President
Alejandro Toledo returned to Peru to visit his ailing sister and
face accusations that he forged signatures nearly a decade ago to
get his party on the 2000 presidential ballot.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, Muslim rebels
fired mortar bombs on a Philippines marine base in the southern
island of Jolo, killing two soldiers and a child.
(Reuters, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 13, Boris Berezovsky,
the exiled Russian tycoon who has emerged as one of the Kremlin's
most vocal opponents, called for the use of force to oust President
Vladimir Putin and claimed he has support from some in the country's
political elite. In response, Russia's chief prosecutor opened a
criminal case against Berezovsky on charges of plotting a coup.
Britain, granted Berezovsky refugee status in 2003.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, In Tanzania the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ordered that
Michel Bagaragaza, the former head of Rwanda's national tea
industry, be tried by a court in the Netherlands. He was accused of
involvement in Rwanda’s 1994 mass slaughter. In Sep, 2009,
Bagaragaza (64) pleaded guilty to complicity in the slaughter. In
Nov he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(AFP, 4/13/07)(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 11/5/09)
2007 Apr 13, African health
ministers meeting in South Africa adopted a health strategy to deal
with the host of diseases on the continent, a dearth of health
workers and failing health systems.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, A landmine killed
nine Sudanese army soldiers and wounded 11 on Sudan's eastern border
with Ethiopia.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 13, Benedict XVI
published “Jesus of Nazareth,” his first book as pope. It offered a
very personal meditation on the early years of Christ's life and
teachings criticized the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and
the power of the wealthy over the poor. A second installment,
released in 2011, concerned the final part of Christ's life, his
death and resurrection.
(AP, 4/13/07)(AP, 3/2/11)
2007 Apr 14, The Morongo Indian
reservation in southern California and its 775 adult members
reportedly received seven-tenths of their casino’s profits which
amounted to roughly $15,000 to $20,000 per person, per month. In
1989 the tribe’s average, annual household income was $13,000.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.29)
2007 Apr 14, Legendary crooner
Don Ho (76) died in Hawaii. He had entertained tourists for decades
wearing raspberry-tinted sunglasses and singing his signature tune
"Tiny Bubbles."
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 14, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber blew himself up next to several Afghan
border policemen, leaving at least seven officers dead and six
others wounded. 3 suspected militants carrying explosives on their
bodies were killed when their bombs went off just outside the
southern city of Ghazni. Also in Ghazni, two Afghan army soldiers
were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the
province's Ander district.
(AP, 4/14/07)(AFP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Thousands of
landless workers invaded government property in Brazil's arid
northeast to try to stop a controversial river-diversion project.
About 7,500 people invaded plots of government-owned land near
Petrolina, 1,360 miles north of Sao Paulo in Pernambuco state.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 14, The population of
Brazil numbered about 188 million people.
(Econ, 4/14/07, SR p.3)
2007 Apr 14, June Callwood
(82), often described as Canada's social conscience, died.
(Reuters, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, A Chinese rocket
placed a navigation satellite in orbit as part of an effort to build
a global positioning system.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, The Egyptian state
news agency MENA said that Neo-Nazis had attacked an Egyptian
diplomat in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The Ukrainian government has
said it deeply regrets the incident.
(Reuters, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, A video showing a
German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision
African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was
broadcast on national television. The Defense Ministry said the
video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of
Rendsburg and that the army has been aware of it since January.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, A car bomb blasted
through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines,
killing 47 people and over 200 wounded. The bombing occurred about
200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala. At least 16
children were among the dead. A suicide car bomb killed 10 people on
Jadriyah bridge in downtown Baghdad, the second attack on a span
over the Tigris river this week. 4 would-be suicide attackers were
killed in Kirkuk when one of them detonated his explosives belt
prematurely. 3 civilians and a policeman were killed in drive-by
shootings in Fallujah and Hillah. American troops captured 17
suspected insurgents, including an alleged al-Qaida in Iraq member,
during raids. Two US soldiers were killed.
(AP, 4/14/07)(AP, 4/15/07)(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 14, In Mexico a
speeding bus crashed into a tractor-trailer outside the border city
of Ciudad Juarez, killing 28 people and injuring 11 others.
(AP, 4/15/07)(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 14, In Morocco 2
brothers strapped with explosives blew themselves up near the US
consulate. Moroccan officials said they had discovered a broader
suicide bombing conspiracy.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Voters went to the
polls in Nigeria to choose their state officers in the first of a
pair of elections meant to solidify civilian rule. PDP gunmen beat
up opponents, snatched ballot boxes and stuffed them with pre-marked
ballots. Gunmen killed seven policemen in raids on two police
stations in Port Harcourt. Some later judged the polls to be the
most rigged in the country’s history.
(AP, 4/14/07)(AFP, 4/14/07)(Econ, 4/28/07,
p.56)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.12)
2007 Apr 14, North Korea missed
a deadline for shutting down its main nuclear reactor, and a key US
negotiator said the country must keep the disarmament program from
foundering.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Russian police
detained Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion and leader of
one of Russia's strongest opposition movements, and at least 100
other activists as they gathered for a forbidden anti-Kremlin
demonstration in central Moscow.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Suspected Tamil
Tiger rebels shot dead five people in eastern Sri Lanka, as the
country marked the traditional New Year and the president appealed
for national unity.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, In Sudan
unidentified gunmen killed a Ghanaian military officer in the
African Union's peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and hijacked
his car within yards of the AU mission's headquarters. The dead
officer was the ninth peacekeeper slain this month, raising to 18
the number of AU soldiers killed since the mission deployed in 2004.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 14, Syria distanced
itself from comments by a Syrian-American businessman who recently
told Israeli lawmakers that President Bashar Assad was ready to make
peace with the Jewish state.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Flash floods swept
over two waterfalls on a southern Thai mountain packed with
picnickers and swimmers celebrating the country's New Year, killing
at least 35 people and leaving dozens more missing.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 14, More than 200,000
Turks protested against Turkey's Islamic-rooted PM Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, demonstrating the intense opposition he could face from
Turkey's secular establishment if he decides to run for president
next month. A bus full of second-graders crashed into a truck in
central Turkey, killing at least 32 people, most of them children.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, Uganda's
government and a rebel group responsible for one of Africa's longest
and most brutal wars signed a new truce and agreed to resume stalled
peace talks later this month. Joseph Kony, The elusive leader of the
rebel Lord's Resistance Army, witnessed the signing in Ri-Kwangba,
Sudan.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Airlines canceled
over 400 flights in the NYC area as a hard-blowing nor'easter
gathered strength along the East Coast. The storm out of the Great
Plains was already blamed for 5 deaths.
(AP, 4/15/07)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 15, Researchers
reported that cells that are supposed to nourish and support other
nerve cells instead secrete the poisons that cause amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Scientists
unveiled the world’s tiniest eyedropper, capable of squeezing out
zeptoliter droplets.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A9)
2007 Apr 15, A fire in Quincy,
Illinois, killed 5 children. Police arrested Zachary Meeks (27), a
cousin who had a grudge with the victim’s parents stemming from a
drug-related prison sentence.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A5)
2007 Apr 15, Brant Parker (86),
collaborator with Johnny Hart on the “Wizard of Id” (1964) cartoon
strip, died in Lynchburg, Va. In 1997 Parker handed the illustration
of the cartoon over to his son, Jeff Parker.
(SFC, 4/9/07, p.B3)
2007 Apr 15, Afghanistan's
government promised to end all hostage deals with the Taliban after
two Afghan kidnap victims were executed in an agreement to free an
Italian journalist. In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber
targeted a private US security firm, killing up to four Afghans
working for the company and wounding another. In Ghazni province,
southwest of Kabul, a clash between Afghan forces and insurgents
left 15 militants dead and 15 wounded. Police and US-led coalition
forces attacked suspected Taliban insurgents crossing from Pakistan
into Afghanistan, killing 10 militants and wounding 15.
(AFP, 4/15/07)(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, Authorities in
Bangladesh arrested a second son of former prime minister Khaleda
Zia, as the military-backed interim government stepped up its
anti-corruption drive. Arafat Rahman (36) was released the next day.
(AFP, 4/16/07)(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 15, In Belgium 2 men
hijacked a helicopter and forced the pilot to land in a prison
courtyard, where they picked up an inmate in a dramatic jailbreak.
RTL-TVI identified the fugitive as a Frenchman who was in pretrial
detention on charges of fraud and theft.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Blind British
aviator Miles Hilton-Barber, With the aid of co-copilot Richard
Meredith-Hardy, landed his microlight aircraft in Jakarta to
complete another leg of his London-Sydney charity flight.
(AFP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Ecuadoreans voted
on whether to create a special assembly to rewrite their
constitution. Exit polls said voters overwhelmingly supported Pres.
Correa's plan to remake the nation's system of government and weaken
its discredited Congress.
(AP, 4/15/07)(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, Iran said it is
seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants,
despite international pressures to curb its controversial program.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Four bombs
exploded in predominantly Shiite sections of Baghdad, killing at
least 37 people in a renewal of sectarian carnage. Many women and
children were among the casualties. North of Baghdad, two British
helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision, killing two
service members. The number of bodies found dumped in Baghdad
increased sharply to 30. The number of detainees held in US-run
facilities in Iraq reached 18,000, with an average stay of one year.
(AP, 4/15/07)(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.A7)(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, Israeli and
Palestinian leaders discussed the outlines of Palestinian statehood
for the first time in six years, taking a modest step toward
breaking the long paralysis in peacemaking.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, A 14-year-old
matador who left Spain to escape his home country's ban on young
bullfighters was nearly gored to death in a Mexican City ring, his
lung punctured by a 900-pound bull.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, Nigeria's mass
daily newspapers reported that dozens of people died during state
elections, as results began to emerge from state elections that were
marred by rigging and violence.
(AP, 4/15/07)(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, In Pakistan some
100,000 people rallied in Karachi against a radical Islamic mosque
and seminary that launched a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign in
Islamabad last week.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 15, Three explosions
hit Gaza City, damaging two Internet cafes and a Christian
bookstore. Palestinian security officials have said they suspect a
secret "vice squad" of Muslim militants.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Philippine marines
killed at least 8 Muslim rebels and captured two of their camps in
retaliation for a series of attacks that killed a child and two
soldiers.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, Russia launched
its first new generation nuclear submarine since the fall of the
Soviet Union, as the Kremlin seeks to upgrade its undersea nuclear
strike force. Russia began construction of its first floating
nuclear power plant, and planned to build at least six more despite
long-standing environmental concerns that they are vulnerable to
accidents at sea. In St. Petersburg, Russia, club-swinging riot
police clashed with opposition supporters as an anti-Kremlin protest
dispersed. Police chased small groups of demonstrators, beating some
on the ground and hauling them into police buses.
(AP, 4/15/07)(Reuters, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, In Russia a
keel-laying ceremony was held in Severodvinsk, on the White Sea, for
the new 460-foot Mikhail Lomonosov, a $360 million demonstration
ship capable of providing 76-megawatts of nuclear power to an
onshore location. Completion was expected in 2010 with construction
of new ships to start annually.
(WSJ, 8/21/07, p.A13)
2007 Apr 15, The official Saudi
news agency reported that Sudan has signed a joint agreement with
the UN and the African Union that defines their respective roles in
Darfur.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Carrie Underwood's
dark hit "Before He Cheats" won video of the year, female video and
best video director at the fan-voted CMT Music Awards.
(AP, 4/16/08)
2007 Apr 16, Shootings in a
dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech left 32 people dead. Two people
died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall,
including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15
people were hurt, some seriously. Two professors from India and
Israel were among the dead at the Virginia Tech shooting, the
deadliest in US history. The gunman was a South Korean national
named Cho Seung-Hui (23). Cho was an undergraduate student in his
senior year majoring in English who lived on campus. His residence
was in Centerville, Virginia, and he had resident alien status.
Between shootings Seung-Hui took time to e-mail videos, photos and
writings to NBC. Virginia law allowed Cho to buy one gun each month.
In 2009 Lucinda Roy, head of English at Virginia Tech, authored “No
Right To Remain Silent: The Tragedy at Virginia Tech.”
(AP, 4/16/07)(AP, 4/17/07)(AFP, 4/17/07)(WSJ,
4/19/07, p.A1)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.27)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.32)
2007 Apr 16, The board
overseeing operations at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International
Airport ruled that taxi drivers who refuse service to travelers
carrying alcohol face tougher penalties despite protests from Muslim
cabbies who sought a compromise for religious reasons.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Robert Cheruiyot
of Kenya won his 3rd Boston Marathon in 2:14:13. Russia’s Lidiya
Grigoryeva won in 2:29:18.
(WSJ, 4/17/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 16, A consortium of
financial companies agreed to acquire Sallie Mae, America’s leading
provider of student loans and administrator of college savings
plans, for $25 billion. In a recent settlement Sallie Mae agree to
adopt a code of conduct and to pay $2 million into a fund to educate
students about loans.
(SFC, 4/17/07, p.B1)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.86)
2007 Apr 16, In northern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber ran onto a police training field in
Kunduz and blew himself up, killing up to 10 policemen and wounding
dozens of others.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Hassan Hattab, the
founder of the group that claimed responsibility for last week's
deadly Algiers bombings, called on militants to put down their
weapons under a government amnesty and stop trying to turn Algeria
into a "second Iraq." Hattab made the comments in a published letter
to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Indians from
across Brazil pitched black plastic tents in front of government
buildings to demand that officials discuss with them infrastructure
projects they claim could have a negative impact on their ancestral
lands.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Thousands of BBC
staff across Britain held a silent vigil to remember its kidnapped
Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston after a Palestinian group said it
had killed him. Johnston was snatched at gunpoint on March 12 as he
returned to his Gaza City home. Johnston was not killed and was
freed on July 4.
(AFP, 4/16/07)(AP, 7/5/07)
2007 Apr 16, Scientists
reported that Britain once had around 25 native species of
bumblebee, but three of those have been wiped out in the past 50
years and 10 more are now severely threatened.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, In southwest China
about 450 people, including 135 school students, were hospitalized
after a fertilizer plant discharged a "huge amount" of sulfur
dioxide. A state-run newspaper said China's massive Yangtze river, a
lifeline for tens of millions of people, is seriously polluted and
the damage is almost irreversible.
(AP, 4/16/07)(AFP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 16, A top rebel leader
of Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group (ELN) said the group is
ready to "immediately" begin talks to reach a cease-fire with the
country's government.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Most of Cuba's
leading opposition groups issued a joint statement declaring they
were united in their struggle for peaceful change toward democracy
on the island.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, The staff of an
Indian news channel in Mumbai was attacked and its offices ransacked
by dozens of Hindu protestors after it broadcast an interview with a
runaway couple, a teenage Hindu girl and a young Muslim man. In
southern India a passenger train crashed into a minibus carrying
local council officials at an unmanned rail crossing, killing 11
people and injuring another 12 in the vehicle.
(AP, 4/16/07)(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, In Iran 2 Swedish
construction workers, who had been convicted of espionage and
imprisoned for taking photographs of military installations, were
released after being pardoned.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Six Iraqi cabinet
ministers loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
resigned to protest the prime minister's refusal to set a timetable
for an American withdrawal. In Mosul a university dean, a professor,
a policeman's son and 13 soldiers died near there in attacks that
bore the marks of al-Qaida. In Ramadi US forces mistakenly killed
three Iraqi police officers during a raid targeting al-Qaida in Iraq
members. Thousands of Iraqis upset about poor city services marched
peacefully through the streets of Basra, demanding the provincial
governor's resignation. Nationwide, at least 51 people were killed
or found dead. 3 US soldiers and two Marines were killed. One Marine
died in a "non-hostile incident" while on patrol in western Anbar
province.
(AP, 4/16/07)(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Four Iraqi men
were blindfolded, shot in the head and dumped in a Baghdad canal. In
2008 the US Army charged 7 soldiers assigned to 1st Battalion, 18th
Infantry Regiment, for their role in the alleged retribution
killings. In August the Army held Article 32 hearings investigating
the involvement of Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham and Sgt. Charles
Quigley in the incident. They have been charged with conspiracy to
commit murder. In September, 2008, Spc. Belmor Ramos (23), of
Clearfield, Utah, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and was
sentenced to seven months in prison and given a dishonorable
discharge. Spc. Steven Ribordy (25) of Salina, Kansas, pleaded
guilty on Oct 1, 2008, to charges of accessory to murder and was
sentenced to eight months in prison. In 2008 Sgt. Michael P. Leahy
Jr. (26) was court-martialed on charges of murder in the killings.
Two remaining soldiers said to be involved in the incident, Sgt.
John E. Hatley (40) and Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo (27) faced
charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and obstruction of
justice. On Feb 20, 2009, Leahy was convicted of murder and
sentenced to life in prison. In March 2009 Sgt. Mayo pleaded guilty
to charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy and was sentenced
to 35 years in prison. On April 15, 2009, John Hatley was convicted
of murder. He was sentenced the next day to life in prison with the
possibility of parole. In August the army reduced Hatley’s sentence
to 40 years; the sentences against Leahy and Mayo were reduced to 20
years.
(AP, 9/17/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 10/2/08)(AP,
11/12/08)(AP, 1/13/09)(AP, 2/20/09)(AP, 3/30/09)(AP, 4/16/09)(AP,
8/14/09)
2007 Apr 16, Five young
Japanese were found dead inside a sealed van in an apparent group
suicide.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, A quarter of the
1.5 million women in Mauritania a barren, dune-enveloped country
more than twice the size of Texas, are obese, according to the World
Health Organization. That's lower than the 40 percent of American
women who the WHO says are obese, but surprisingly high in a country
that has not a single fast-food franchise. Obesity is popular across
much of the Arab world. Nomadic peoples struggling to survive the
harsh desert came to prize fatness as a sign of health.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Police found 17
bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across
Mexico in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by
warring drug gangs.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Nepal's Maoists
demanded that the country immediately scrap the monarchy and declare
itself a republic amid probable delays in an election over the
issue.
(AFP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Nicaraguan police
announced the arrest of more than two dozen local members of
Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel but said they were still
seeking the group's leader.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Nigeria's Supreme
Court ruled that the country's electoral commission unlawfully
disqualified a top opposition politician once allied with the
president from running to replace his former mentor.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, A World Bank study
said that Palestinian industry is "bound to fail" unless Israel
lifts tight restrictions on trade and movement of people and goods
in the Palestinian territories. , The Palestinian information
minister said China and Switzerland said they will deal with the new
Palestinian unity government made up of the moderate Fatah movement
and the Islamic militant Hamas group.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Foreign Minister
Lam Akol said Sudan will accept UN attack helicopters in its Darfur
region as part of a support package for the African Union force
struggling to maintain peace in its vast west. US Deputy Secretary
of State John Negroponte said the janjaweed militia, accused of
widespread atrocities in Darfur, is actively supported by the
Sudanese government.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 17, A new survey said
US household with a net worth of $5 million, excluding primary home,
totaled one million in 2006, up from 250,000 in 1996.
(WSJ, 4/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 17, In Maryland a wall
collapsed at the Tri-Star Mining open pit coal mine near Barton. 2
miners were killed.
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 17, Kitty Carlisle
Hart (b.1910), stage and film singer and actress, died in New York.
(AP,
4/17/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Carlisle_Hart)
2007 Apr 17, US Marine Gen.
Peter Pace said US-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan
recently intercepted Iranian-made weapons that were being shipped to
Taliban fighters. A roadside bomb hit a United Nations vehicle in
southern Afghanistan's main city, killing four Nepalese guards and
an Afghan driver. An old artillery shell exploded outside a school
compound in the western city of Herat, killing four children and
wounding five others. Afghan troops searched a compound and
discovered 18 rocket propelled grenades and 27 AK-47 weapons. The
compound's guard later confessed that he commanded more than 100
Taliban fighters.
(AP, 4/17/07)(SFC, 4/18/07, p.A9)(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 17, Argentina said
will not send former junta leader Jorge Videla to Germany to face
charges in the March, 1977, abduction and murder of activist
Elisabeth Kaesemann, a German woman, during the Dirty War. Her
bullet-riddled body was later found dumped on the outskirts of
Buenos Aires.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 17, Australian
officials said that the US and Australia signed an agreement last
week to exchange a few hundred refugees held at island detention
camps in an effort by both governments to discourage future asylum
seekers.
(Reuters, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, In Brazil
shootouts involving drug gangs and police in Rio left at least 20
alleged gang members dead.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, The British pound
broke through the $2 mark for the first time in nearly 15 years
after new data showed an unexpected surge in inflation, prompting
speculation of interest rate increases.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, Canada’s
Parliament passed a law that will force striking workers at Canadian
National Railway to return to the job.
(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 17, In China state
media said Ablikim Abdureyim, the son of a prominent US-based
Chinese Muslim activist, was sentenced in Urumqi, capital of the
Muslim Xinjiang region, to nine years in prison on subversion
charges. Abdureyim's mother, Rebiya Kadeer, once was one of China's
most prominent businesswomen. She was detained in 1999 and sentenced
to 8 years in prison on charges of endangering state security but
was allowed to leave for the United States in 2005.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, Egypt launched
EgyptSat 1, its first remote sounding satellite, from Baikonur
Cosmodrome. The spacecraft was jointly developed by Egypt's National
Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences and the Yuzhnoye
Design Bureau in Ukraine. Israeli officials suspected it to be a spy
satellite. In 2010 ground-controllers lost it.
(http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/Spacecrafts-2007.html)(Econ, 10/30/10,
p.50)
2007 Apr 17, Guinea-Bissau's
new PM Martinho Ndafa Cabi announced an opposition-dominated
government after being chosen to lead the poor west African nation
following a political crisis.
(AFP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, Iraqi PM Nouri
al-Malaki said his government was talking with militant groups to
try to stop the violence. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, a top insurgent
leader, boasted that his al-Qaida-linked group was now making its
own rockets, posting the claim in an audiotape online. Al-Baghdadi's
group posted a Web statement saying its religious court had
condemned 20 kidnapped Iraqi soldiers to death. The deputy chief of
Mosul police was killed in a drive-by shooting along with two of his
guards. In Ramadi police uncovered 17 decomposing corpses beneath
two school yards. More than 100 bodies turned up across Iraq.
(AP, 4/17/07)(AP, 4/18/07)(WSJ, 4/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 17, Israel's Shin Bet
security agency said that it has broken up an Iranian plot to
recruit Israelis of Iranian origin as spies, part of what it says is
a burgeoning Iranian intelligence operation against the Jewish
state. Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian militant near
Jenin. Four Israelis were shot and wounded as they were driving near
the West Bank Jewish settlement of Naaleh.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 17, In Rome a US
soldier went on trial in absentia for the shooting death of Italian
intelligence agent Nicola Calipari at an Iraqi checkpoint in March
2005. However, a court later threw out the proceedings against Spc.
Mario Lozano, saying Italy had no jurisdiction.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2007 Apr 17, In Japan the mayor
of Nagasaki was shot outside a train station and is in critical
condition. Police arrested Tetsuya Shiroo (59), who they said was
the head of a local gang affiliated with Japan's largest "yakuza"
group, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Mayor Itcho Ito (61) died the next day.
The gangster arrested in the shooting had visited city offices more
than 30 times seeking compensation for car damage caused by a
pothole. In 2008 Shiroo was convicted and sentenced to death for the
murder.
(AP, 4/17/07)(Reuters, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/19/07)(AP,
5/26/08)
2007 Apr 17, Nigeria's
electoral commission said it would comply with a Supreme Court
ruling that the vice president be placed on the ballot for this
weekend's presidential elections, as sporadic violence was reported
around the country. 18 Nigerian opposition parties threatened to
boycott the presidential and legislative elections if the April 14
regional polls were not cancelled. 12 Nigerian police were killed
when an unknown armed group stormed their station in the northern
city of Kano.
(AP, 4/17/07)(AFP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 17, Pakistan executed
four brothers convicted of killing 13 of their relatives in a feud
over land. A video began circulating showing the grisly death of
Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban
official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan. The
video showed a boy about 12 hacking off the head of Nabi.
(AP, 4/17/07)(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 17, Sri Lankan
authorities have issued a death threat against Champika
Liyanaarachchi, a newspaper editor for reporting on military
excesses and human rights abuses.
(AFP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 17, State radio said
Zimbabwe has deregistered all non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
and told them to submit new applications to try to weed out groups
it says are trying to oust President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 18, The US Supreme
Court, in a 5-4 ruling, upheld the 2003 nationwide ban on a
controversial abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction,
handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected
from a more conservative bench.
(AP, 4/18/07)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.34)
2007 Apr 18, The DJIA rose
30.80 to a record 12,803.84. Nasdaq fell 6.45 to 2,510.
(SFC, 4/19/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 4/19/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 18, US research found
that Ethanol-fueled vehicles could contribute to more illnesses and
deaths from respiratory disease than gasoline-powered cars and
trucks.
(AFP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, More than 100
journalists protested a police raid ordered by Afghanistan's
attorney general on a private TV station that has fueled concern
over growing government harassment of the media. Afghan and US-led
coalition forces clashed with Taliban fighters and called in an
airstrike in southern Afghanistan, leaving 24 suspected militants
dead and two coalition soldiers wounded. Three other suspected
militants were reported killed in the western provinces. In eastern
Afghanistan coalition and Afghan forces arrested five suspected
al-Qaida. A US-led coalition convoy hit a boy in Kabul and killed
him.
(AP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 18, A catamaran was
discovered deserted off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef with the
sails up, engine running and food on the table. Its crew of 3 was
last seen April 15.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 18, Bangladesh's
military-backed emergency government exiled opposition leader Sheikh
Hasina Wajed as it stepped up a massive purge of the crisis-wracked
country's political hierarchy.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, The British
Foreign Office expressed disappointment and disagreement with a
National Union of Journalists vote to call for a boycott on Israeli
goods.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, A report said
Britain has the worst level of drug abuse in Europe, and the second
highest level of drug-related deaths.
(AFP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Burundi, Rwanda,
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda adopted a joint military
strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great
Lakes region.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 18, The futuristic No.
D460 bullet train departed Shanghai Station, heralding a new era of
high-speed rail travel in China. In northeast China at least 32
workers were killed and two injured when they were engulfed in
white-hot molten steel in a metal factory.
(AFP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/18/07)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.70)
2007 Apr 18, In Colombia
thousands of people were evacuated after a long-dormant volcano
erupted, provoking avalanches and floods that swept away houses and
bridges. The Nevado del Huila volcano's eruptions were its first on
record since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, At least 16
Egyptian secondary school students were killed on their way to
school when a truck they were riding in collided head-on with
another vehicle south of Cairo.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Ultrasound
machines in India, primarily sold by GE, were reported to be linked
to a declining sex ratio, even though laws forbade doctors from
disclosing the sex of fetuses. Females fetuses were widely aborted
due to high dowry costs.
(WSJ, 4/18/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 18, Iraq’s Pres.
Maliki declared that Iraqi forces would take over security of the
entire country by the end of this year. A few hours later a parked
car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in
central Baghdad, killing some 140 people and wounding 148 including
men who were rebuilding the market after a Feb. 3 bombing left 137
dead. A suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint
at an entrance to Sadr City killing at least 30 people, including
five Iraqi security officers. A parked car exploded near a private
hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people
and wounding 13. A fourth explosion from a bomb left on a minibus in
the northwestern Risafi area, killed four people and wounded six
others. 4 policemen were killed when gunmen ambushed their patrol
south of the city center. US troops killed five suspected insurgents
and captured 30 others in a raid in Anbar province. A suspected
insurgent was killed and eight captured in two raids north of
Baghdad. More than 230 people died in one of the war's deadliest
episodes of violence. Britain turned Maysan province over to Iraqi
rule.
(AP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/19/07)(SFC, 4/19/07,
p.A10)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.54)
2007 Apr 18, Mexican police and
soldiers battled gunmen at a hospital in Tijuana in violence that
left at least three people dead before the authorities subdued the
attackers. Authorities said next day that the gunmen were hit men
for the city's Arellano Felix drug cartel.
(AP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 18, Scientists in the
Netherlands said they have discovered a fungus in elephant dung that
will help them break down fibers and wood into biofuel.
(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Nigeria's
government rejected an opposition call to postpone the presidential
election following widespread abuses in state polls last weekend.
Nigerian soldiers killed at least 25 Islamic militants, in the
second day of violent clashes in Kano.
(AFP, 4/18/07)(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Russian police
raided Educated Media Foundation, an independent Russian
organization. Police said the search was linked to a criminal case
launched against the director after she failed to declare some
$12,500 in cash she brought into the country on January 21.
Foundation President Manana Aslamazyan said this was likely linked
to growing government pressure on Western-funded NGOs. Aslamazyan
fled to Paris and authorities shuttered the foundation.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/24/07)(SFC, 6/30/07, p.A7)
2007 Apr 18, In Somalia
overnight street battles in Mogadishu left at least 11 people dead
and dozens others injured.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, In central Turkey
assailants in Malatya tied up three people at a publishing house
that distributes Bibles and then slit their throats. Tilmann Geske
(46), a German missionary, and two Turkish Christians were killed.
Five young men were detained and charged with murder; they allegedly
said they killed to protect Islam.
(AP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council expressed "serious concern" at mounting reports of weapons
being smuggled from Syria to Lebanon and authorized an independent
mission to evaluate monitoring of the border between the two
countries.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 19, US Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid offered a bleak assessment of Iraq, saying the war
was "lost," triggering an angry backlash by Republicans.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 Apr 19, One-time CEO Joe
Nacchio was found guilty of illegally selling $52 million in stock
amid an accounting scandal that nearly sank Qwest Communications.
The jury acquitted Nacchio of all 23 insider trading counts
involving sales before April 2001 but convicted him on 19 counts
tied to sales of 1.33 million shares for $52 million in gross
proceeds from April 26 to May 29, 2001.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 19, Luis Posada
Carriles (79), an anti-Castro exile wanted in Cuba for the 1976
bombing of a Cuban airliner, was freed from a New Mexico jail after
he posted $250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000. He
must wear an electronic monitoring device while under house arrest
at his wife's home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration
fraud charges. Posada's immigration case was later thrown out by a
federal judge, but the government appealed.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 Apr 19, A Brooklyn jury
convicted Gerald Garson, a former matrimonial court judge, of taking
bribes. His arrest in 2003 prompted investigations into judicial
corruption.
(www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/20/judge.cigar.ap/index.html)
2007 Apr 19, A jury in Selmer,
Tenn., convicted Mary Winkler of voluntary manslaughter in the
shooting death of her preacher-husband, Matthew. Winkler spent seven
months in custody, with two months served in a mental facility.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 Apr 19, The DJIA rose 4.79
to a record 12,808.63. Nasdaq fell 5.15 to 2,505.
(SFC, 4/20/07, p.D1)
2007 Apr 19, Helen Robson
Walton (b.1919), widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died in
Bentonville, Ark. She had pushed for a profit-sharing plan for
employees in the Wal-Mart’s early days and demanded that the family
live in a small, rural town.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 19, British aerospace
engine maker Rolls-Royce said that it will withdraw from Sudan,
citing "increasing international humanitarian concerns" in the
violence-scarred region of Darfur.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, China jailed
Huseyin Celil (37), a Uighur-Canadian, for life for separatism and
terrorism and warned Canada not to get involved even as Ottawa
announced it would send its foreign minister to discuss the case.
Celil was detained in Uzbekistan in March 2006 when he was visiting
relatives and sent to China last June.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, In Cuba the
Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the Apr 13 arrest and
sentencing of Oscar Sanchez Madan (44), an independent Cuban
journalist, who wrote critical articles about dissident groups and
the hardships of island life.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, European Union
members agreed to new rules to combat racism and hate crimes across
the 27-nation bloc, including setting jail sentences against those
who deny or trivialize the Holocaust.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Former Rwandan
army major Bernard Ntuyahaga went on trial in Brussels, charged with
the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the Rwandan prime minister
in 1994.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Iranian engineers
began filling a new dam as archaeologists warned that its reservoir
will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's
grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, A Sunni insurgent
coalition posted Web videos naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq as
"minister of war" and showing the execution of 20 men it said were
members of the Iraqi military and security forces. A suicide bomber
breached Baghdad's heavy security presence, killing at least 12
people and wounded 34 in a mostly Shiite district. A US Marine in a
rocket attack on a base south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/19/07)(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 19, Israeli Knesset
speaker Dalia Yitzik arrived in Jordan, the second Israeli official
to visit the Arab kingdom this week for talks on ways to revive
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Kyrgyzstan police
used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of opposition
protesters who had marched to the president's office in Bishkek to
demand his resignation.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, President Sidi
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi took over from a military junta as
Mauritania's civilian head of state.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, North and South
Korea formally opened economic aid talks, after a delay caused by
Pyongyang's insistence that Seoul pledge food assistance to the
impoverished nation despite its failure to live up to a pact on
nuclear disarmament.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Chanting "down
with Talibanization," hundreds of human rights activists marched
through Pakistani cities, urging the government to rein in clerics
who have launched an anti-vice campaign in the capital.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, The heads of seven
men who were kidnapped by Muslim extremists on a volatile southern
island were delivered to a Philippine army detachment. The men, six
road project workers and a dried-fish factory worker, were kidnapped
at gunpoint in two separate incidents April 16 near the town of
Parang. A group of civilians was ordered to take the heads to Parang
by Muslim rebel commander Habier Malik.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Romania's
parliament voted to suspend the popular president who ushered in
economic and social reforms to help the country join the European
Union, accusing him of abusing his constitutional powers. President
Traian Basescu had earlier vowed to resign "within five minutes" if
lawmakers voted to suspend him. His resignation would prompt a new
election within three months, and he has said he would run again for
office. Former president Nicolae Vacaroiu (1992-1996) became acting
president.
(AP, 4/19/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)
2007 Apr 19, Rwanda filed a
case against France at the UN's highest court in The Hague over a
French request that President Paul Kagame be tried by the Rwanda war
crimes tribunal.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, In Somalia
fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents left at least 12
people dead in Mogadishu, while a suicide car bomb exploded at an
Ethiopian army base.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 19, A Sudanese rebel
group said government aircraft destroyed a village in northern
Darfur in an air strike.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Venezuela launched
a Zeppelin to patrol Caracas, seeking to fight crime in one of Latin
America's most dangerous cities but also raising fears that
President Hugo Chavez could be turning into Big Brother.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, In Zimbabwe 82
members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise group were arrested in
Bulawayo during a protest against power outages. 18 of the women
were stripped and jailed for hours.
(SFC, 4/23/07, p.A10)
2007 Apr 20, Vermont senators
voted to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised "serious
questions of constitutionality."
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, In NYC 13 people
were indicted on charges stemming from their roles in a credit card
fraud. Waiters in about 40 restaurants, in New York and as well
eateries in Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Connecticut, had
quietly recorded customers' credit card information and passed it on
to people who used the information to make more than $3 million
worth of worth of illegal purchases. The conspirators had operated
from November 2005 until this week.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, The American
Economic Association announced that Susan Athey (36), professor at
Harvard, had won the John Bates Clark medal. This prestigious honor
was awarded every 2 years to the nation’s most promising economist
under age 40.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 20, The family of
Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, who shot and killed 32 people
and himself, said they felt ‘‘hopeless, helpless and lost,’’ and
‘‘never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much
violence.’’
(AP, 4/20/08)
2007 Apr 20, Andrew Hill
(b.1931), jazz pianist, died in New Jersey.
(SFC, 4/23/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 20, William Phillips,
a NASA contract worker, shot and killed David Beverly, a NASA civil
servant, and then killed himself at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas.
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 20, A purported
Taliban statement demanded the release of a number of the group's
fighters and the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan in
exchange for the freedom of two kidnapped French aid workers. In
southern Afghanistan separate explosions killed two NATO soldiers. A
Dutch soldier was killed in one explosion, the first fatality from
hostile action among Dutch troops serving with NATO forces in the
country.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, Bolivia’s military
retook control of a natural gas pipeline to Argentina after days of
violent protests at gas installations in southern Bolivia. More than
1,000 protesters had seized the Yacuiba pipeline station run by
Transredes, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. The disturbances
killed at least one person and wounded dozens more.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, Eight workers went
missing after a fire swept through a fish-processing ship off
southern Chile, killing one person. 116 members of the Hercules'
crew were rescued.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 20, Bishop Fu Tieshan
(76), the hard-line chairman of the state-sanctioned Catholic
Church, died. He sparred had with the Vatican over China's
insistence on appointing its own bishops. An upsurge of gas in a
coal mine killed 11 miners in the Tao'er Coal Mine in Handan, an
industrial city in Hebei province.
(AP, 4/21/07)(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 20, Final results from
a nationwide referendum showed an overwhelming majority of
Ecuadoreans supported President Rafael Correa's push for a special
assembly to rewrite the constitution.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, German Defence
Minister Franz Josef Jung arrived in South Korea to discuss the
proposed sale of second-hand Patriot missiles and other military
issues.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, It was reported
that German researchers had discovered a natural anti-HIV factor.
The 20 amino acid peptide chain blocked multiple strains of HIV.
(SFC, 4/20/07, p.A7)
2007 Apr 20, AIDA, Germany’s
largest cruise line, christened the new 2,050 passenger AIDAdiva in
the Hamburg harbor.
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A5)
2007 Apr 20, Thousands of mine
workers in Indonesia's remote Papua province protested for a third
day as marathon talks with US firm Freeport McMoRan over pay and
benefits showed signs of progress.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, Clashes erupted
between gunmen and US and Iraqi forces around a Shiite mosque in
western Baghdad before Friday prayers, and two suspected insurgents
were killed. US forces killed eight suspected insurgents and
captured 41 in several raids across Iraq. A roadside bombing in
Diwaniyah killed a Polish soldier.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, Libya's National
Oil Corporation and US firm Dow Chemical announced a joint venture
to operate and expand the Ras Lanuf petrochemical complex in Libya.
(AFP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, In Nigeria the
opposition said that troops have intercepted a truck-load of already
completed ballots a day before the presidential election,
heightening fears the vote will be rigged. A Nigerian navy
helicopter crashed in the country's south, killing its three crew
members. 7 policemen on election duty were ambushed and shot dead
near Karu town in central Nassarawa State.
(Reuters, 4/20/07)(AFP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, North Korea
restated its commitment to a landmark nuclear disarmament deal,
saying it would invite UN atomic inspectors and discuss shutting
down its bomb-making atomic reactor as soon as it confirmed the
release of its funds frozen in a banking dispute.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, In Paraguay
Japanese businessman Hirokazu Ota, the leader of Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church in Paraguay, was freed following a 19-day
abduction and a 140,000-dollar ransom payment.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, In Somalia a local
human rights group said 3 days of fighting between Islamic
insurgents and Ethiopian troops backing the government has killed at
least 113 civilians.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 20, In Sri Lanka’s
northern district of Vavuniya troops on foot patrol fired at
suspected Tamil Tigers killing four rebels. A landmine explosion in
the northeastern district of Polonnaruwa killed two soldiers and
wounded two others.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 20, A Vatican
committee issued a report concluding that unbaptized babies who die
may go to heaven and not be stuck in Limbo, which “reflects an
unduly restrictive view of salvation.”
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A7)
2007 Apr 21, A US Navy Blue
Angel jet went down during an air show in South Carolina, plunging
into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the
pilot.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 21, Police in Las
Vegas raided illegal brothels as part of “Operation Dollhouse,” a
sting aimed at prostitution and human trafficking with suspected
links to Asia. Prostitution is legal in most counties of Nevada, but
not in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
(SFC, 4/25/07, p.B5)
2007 Apr 21, Reid Stowe (55)
and his girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad (23), set off from Hoboken, NJ, on
a sailing voyage planned to last 1,000 days and nights with no port
calls for supplies. Ahmad abandoned the cruise in February 2008,
citing seasickness.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.A9)(AP, 4/21/08)
2007 Apr 21, Rep. Juanita
Millender-McDonald (b.1938), a 7-term congressman from Southern
California, died of cancer.
(SFC, 4/23/07, p.A2)
2007 Apr 21, Taliban insurgents
vowed a new round of attacks against Afghan and foreign troops in
the war-torn country, promising to focus more attention on the
relatively-peaceful north. Suspected Taliban militants ambushed a
police patrol in eastern Afghanistan in a clash that left five
militants and one police officer dead. NATO-led troops shot and
killed a suspected militant and wounded another in the south. In
Nangarhar province US and Afghan troops killed one person and
detained nine others during a raid on a compound.
(AFP, 4/21/07)(AP, 4/21/07)(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 21, An earthquake in
remote southern Chile shook free a landslide of rocks, sending them
smashing into a narrow fjord and causing massive 25-foot waves that
swept away 10 beachgoers. Three bodies were recovered the next day.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Cairo an
Egyptian-Canadian man was convicted of spying for Israel and
sentenced to 15 years in prison by a special security court.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, Eritrean President
Issaias Afeworki arrived in Sudan determined to kick-start talks to
end the violence in Darfur.
(AFP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, Iran signed a
major gas development and production agreement with Austrian energy
group OMV.
(Reuters, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, A wall US troops
are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing
criticism, with residents calling it "collective punishment" and a
local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood
council's approval. A bomb left on a bus exploded in Baghdad's Sadr
City neighborhood, killing at least three people. A roadside bomb
killed the mayor of Musayyib. 2 bullet-riddled dead bodies were
discovered in Musayyib. Gunmen stormed a house in Kirkuk killing a
mother, father and their two teenage daughters. One American soldier
was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb southwest of
Baghdad. Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili, the chairman of Fallujah's city
council, an outspoken critic of al-Qaida who took the job in the
former Sunni insurgent stronghold after his three predecessors were
assassinated, was killed in a drive-by shooting.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, Israeli troops
killed four Palestinians in clashes in the West Bank, including
three militants who died when troops opened fire at their vehicle. A
Palestinian policeman was killed when he climbed on the roof of his
home during an Israeli arrest operation in the village of Kafr Dan.
Palestinian officials said a 17-year-old girl, identified as Bushra
Wahash, was shot by Israeli gunfire as she peered out the window of
her home in the Jenin refugee camp. Palestinian militants in Gaza
fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel. One of the
rockets scored a direct hit on a house in the Israeli border town of
Sderot, causing no injuries. Minutes later, an Israeli aircraft
fired a missile at a Palestinian car near the rocket launch site. A
37-year-old man in the car was killed and a second occupant was
wounded.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Indian-held
Kashmir police found the bodies of 2 Hindus with their throats slit,
as hundreds protested the killing of a Muslim woman.
(AFP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 21, Charles Simonyi,
an American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to
outer space, returned to Earth in a space capsule that also carried
a cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the
Kazakh steppe.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Mexico a
Durango state police commander was kidnapped and killed and two
other officers were shot dead in a gun battle with his abductors.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 21, A truck bomb aimed
at Nigeria's electoral commission headquarters ran into barriers and
failed to explode. Polls opened despite the attack for a
presidential vote already shadowed by charges of fraud and a
last-minute ballot hitch. Voting in Nigeria's parliamentary
elections was suspended in most of central Lagos, the economic
capital, because of errors on the ballot papers.
(AP, 4/21/07)(AFP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Somalia heavy
fighting between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops backing the
government left at least 52 civilians dead in Mogadishu.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Sri Lanka
suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a landmine targeting troops on
patrol in Batticaloa. A civilian was killed and three others
injured.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, Venezuelans
marched amid heavy security in the opposition's largest show of
support yet for a television station targeted by President Hugo
Chavez, whom they accuse of suppressing freedom of speech and
democratic rights.
(AP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 21, A Zimbabwe cabinet
minister said the Chinese government has given Zimbabwe a 58 million
dollars financing facility that will be used to purchase farming
equipment, implements and tools.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were announced on Earth Day. The winners
included Julio Cusurichi of Peru for his work to fight illegal
logging; Willie Corduff of Ireland for his work to halt an energy
project that disregarded local and environmental concerns; Sophia
Rabliauskas of Canada for her work to help protect the boreal forest
in Manitoba; Orri Vigfussen of Iceland for his work on the North
Atlantic Salmon Fund; Ts. Munkhbayar for his work against
unregulated mining in Mongolia; and Hammerskjoeld Simwinga for his
work in organizing microloan programs in Zambia.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.E1)
2007 Apr 22, In eastern
Afghanistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in Khost, killing
11 civilians and wounding over 40 others. In Paktia province, a mob
of Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol, kicking off a
three-hour battle that left 5 Taliban dead. Assailants in Laghman
province bombed an intelligence service vehicle in an attack that
killed two intelligence service officers, a soldier and a driver in
the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam. In Ghazni province assailants
abducted and beheaded an Afghan intelligence service employee.
(AFP, 4/22/07)(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 22, Bangladesh issued
an arrest warrant for opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed as a
plane arrived to take her arch rival, the country's last prime
minister Khaleda Zia, into exile in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, In Bosnia a
fast-moving fire tore through an orphanage in Sarajevo, killing five
babies and injuring 17 others.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Zhou Chunxiu made
history as the first Chinese runner to win the London marathon as
she came home in 2hrs 20min 38sec, finishing ahead of Ethiopia's
Gete Wami and Romanian Constantina Tomescu-Dita.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Jorge Luis Garcia
Perez, a veteran dissident leader who wrote a book about Cuban
prison conditions while behind bars, was freed after serving his
entire 17-year sentence.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 22, Government
officials said 8 Ethiopians held hostage for 52 days after they were
kidnapped along with five European tourists have been released
unharmed. The ex-hostages later told Ethiopian television that they
had been mistreated by their captors, who wore Eritrean army
uniforms.
(AP, 4/22/07)(AFP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 22, French voters
turned out in force to choose a new president in one of the
country's most suspense-filled elections in recent times. In the
first round conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival
Segolene Royal received enough votes to advance to a runoff, which
Sarkozy won.
(AP, 4/22/07)(AP, 4/22/08)
2007 Apr 22, In India’s Uttar
Pradesh state a small political party pushed for the reinstatement
of the legal rights of people wrongly declared dead by unscrupulous
relatives trying to steal their assets. The Indian Express reported
that 8 tigers were missing from the Ranthambore National Park in
western India, raising new concerns about the country's dwindling
big cat population.
(AP, 4/22/07)(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, PM Nouri
al-Maliki, on a tour to ask the mostly Sunni-led governments of the
Arab world to help his struggling government stop the violence in
Iraq, received a strong endorsement from Egypt. Two suicide car
bombers attacked a police station in Baiyaa, a mixed Sunni-Shiite
area of western Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and turning
nearby buildings into piles of rubble. A former member of Saddam
Hussein's Baath Party was gunned down near his house in Fallujah. In
Suwayrah three bodies were found floating in the Tigris River,
blindfolded with the hands bound, and gunshots in the head and
chest. The bodies of three brothers abducted six days ago in Mosul
were also discovered. In Basra a suspect accused of attacks on
British and Iraqi troops in the area was killed in a raid. Two of
the man's brothers were arrested. Gunmen in northern Iraq stopped a
bus filled with Christians and members of the tiny, mostly Kurdish,
Yazidi religious sect, separating out the groups. 21 of the Yazidi
passengers were killed. In Mahmoudiya US and Iraqi forces detained
eight suspected insurgents and confiscated three caches of weapons
during a raid on an apartment complex, including mortars, rockets
and ammunition. The weapons appeared to be new and were stamped with
recent dates and Iranian markings.
(AP, 4/22/07)(SFC, 4/23/07, p.A7)(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 22, Israeli troops
killed two Palestinian militants, including a top bombmaker, during
an arrest raid. The Islamic militant group Hamas called for new
attacks on Israel after eight Palestinians were killed in a surge of
fighting over the weekend.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22-2007 Apr 23, In
Italy Marco Ahmetovic (22) killed the four teenage boys after
driving his van onto a pavement while under the influence of
alcohol. He was sentenced to 6-1/2 years detention, but was allowed
to spend most of that time under house arrest in return for
cooperating with the court.
(Reuters, 11/29/07)
2007 Apr 22, Japan went to the
polls in two upper-house by-elections and a chain of local elections
that could further weaken the leadership of embattled PM Shinzo Abe.
(AFP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Marcos Leyes
Perez, the son of the US consul in southern Oaxaca state, was
stabbed during an apparent mugging.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 22, The two main
opposition parties denounced the conduct of Nigeria's presidential
elections. An influential, homegrown observer group called for a
cancellation of the vote meant to cement civilian rule in Africa's
top oil producer.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Trustees said a
fund to compensate Puerto Rico for damages from a 1994 oil spill
will be used to build an artificial reef, create a shoreline nature
reserve and restore the walls of a Spanish colonial fort.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, In Mogadishu,
Somalia, the two main hospitals said they admitted 26 civilians
wounded as fighting eased.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, South Korea agreed
to send 400,000 tons of rice to impoverished North Korea despite the
communist government's failure to meet a deadline to shut down its
nuclear reactor.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Congressional
Democratic leaders agreed on legislation requiring the first US
combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1, 2007, with a goal
of a complete pullout six months later; President Bush pledged to
veto such a measure.
(AP, 4/23/08)
2007 Apr 23, New projections
said US Medicare trust funds will run out in 2019 and Social
Security in 2041, each a year longer than said by earlier
projections.
(WSJ, 4/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 23, A US Agriculture
Department official said a virus in the Great Lakes, that has killed
tens of thousands of fish in recent years, is spreading and poses a
threat to inland fish farming.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 23, A Chicago man who
spent 25 years in jail for a rape he didn't commit was fully
exonerated on the basis of new DNA evidence, bringing to 200 the
number of such cases overturned since the 1980s. Jerry Miller (48)
was paroled from jail in March 2006 after serving more than half of
his 45 year sentence.
(AFP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Paul Erdman (74),
world-class economist and banker, died in Sonoma County, Ca. He used
his knowledge of economics and politics to write best-selling novels
that included “The Billion Dollar Sure Thing” (1973) and “The Crash
of ‘79” (1976).
(SFC, 4/24/07, p.B5)
2007 Apr 23, David Halberstam
(73), Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer, died in a car
crash in San Mateo, Ca. His books included “The Best and the
Brightest” (1972) and “The Powers That Be” (1979). He had just
finished his 21st book “The Coldest Winter,” a history of the Korean
War, which was published later this year.
(SFC, 4/24/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.108)(Econ,
10/6/07, p.98)
2007 Apr 23, Michael Smuin
(68), choreographer, died in SF of a heart attack.
(SFC, 4/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 23, In Afghanistan
assailants in Laghman province struck an intelligence service
vehicle with a remote-controlled bomb, killing six employees and
wounding three. In Zabul province, a roadside bomb hit police as
they were patrolling in Shamulzayi district, killing two policemen
and wounding five others.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, British bank
Barclays Plc agreed to buy Dutch rival ABN AMRO for about 67 billion
euros ($91 billion) in shares as it attempts to fight off rivals to
clinch the world's biggest bank takeover.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Chinese, state
television reported that President Hu Jintao has launched a campaign
to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and
make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, China’s The
Ministry of Land and Resources said agricultural land in China fell
to 121.8 million hectares (300 million acres) by the end of October
2006, a loss of 306,800 hectares since the start of the year. The
ministry said that heavy metals had contaminated about 13 million
tons of grain and that 30.4 million acres is contaminated by
pollution.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6582571.stm)(WSJ, 6/30/07,
p.A12)
2007 Apr 23, Ecuador's highest
court reinstated 51 lawmakers ousted last month for allegedly
interfering with a referendum on the South American nation's need
for a new constitution, the 19th over the last 180 years.
(AP, 4/23/07)(Econ, 9/1/07, p.30)
2007 Apr 23, In France Sarkozy
and Royal advanced to the second round of France's presidential
election, With nearly all votes counted, Sarkozy had 31.1%, followed
by Royal with 25.8% and Bayrou with 18.5%. Turnout was 84.6 percent,
the highest in more than 40 years and just shy of the record set in
1965.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Indian police
discovered a human "bones factory" in West Bengal state and arrested
six people for illegally trading in skeletons. Authorities in
northeastern Assam state launched a crackdown on rhinoceros
poachers, rushing in armed paramilitary soldiers to a sprawling game
reserve.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, The American
ambassador said the US would "respect the wishes" of the Iraqi
government after the prime minister ordered a halt to construction
of a three-mile wall separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding
Shiite areas in Baghdad. A suicide attacker detonated his car in
front of an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud
Barzani. At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded in the attack
in Tal Uskuf. A suicide car bomb struck a restaurant near Ramadi
killing at least 19 people and wounding 35. A suicide car bomber
also struck a police station in Baqouba killing at least 10 people
and wounding 23. In central Baghdad, a bomber wearing an explosives
belt blew himself up in an Iraqi restaurant in the mixed
Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Karradah Mariam, killing at least seven
people and wounding 16. Nearby a parked car bomb exploded in a
parking lot, killing one civilian and wounding another. 9 US
soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide car bombing against
a patrol base in Diyala province. An al-Qaida-linked group posted a
Web statement the next day claiming responsibility for a suicide
truck bombing. A US soldier was also killed in a roadside bombing in
Diyala.
(AP, 4/23/07)(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 23, Eleazar Medina
Rojas, described as a key member of the powerful Gulf drug cartel,
was arrested in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, along with his
father, four other cartel members and four women. Authorities
reported the killing of Jorge Gonzalez, police chief of Cardenas, in
the southern Gulf coast state of Tabasco. Mexican police found the
body of Saul Noe Martinez Ortega (36), a newspaper editor abducted
last week in the border city of Agua Prieta. He had been dead at
least six days and was found in neighboring Chihuahua state.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Umaru Yar'Adua of
Nigeria's ruling party was declared winner of a presidential poll
rejected by the opposition and condemned by observers as a
"charade."
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, In Northern
Ireland Brendan Cranston (42), was shot through both legs and
beaten, while his 38-year-old partner, Linda Doherty, also was
assaulted. A brother-in-law of Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein
deputy leader supposed to oversee a new power-sharing government for
Northern Ireland, was charged on April 26 with kidnapping and
assaulting the couple in an IRA-style operation.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 23, Philippine police
said they have identified a local woodcarver as a suspect in the
April 8 killing of Julia Campbell, a US Peace Corps volunteer, and
are following up leads on a possible accomplice. They named the
suspect as Juan Duntugan (25) from the village of Batad in Banaue
township. Duntugan gave himself up April 27 and confessed on
television, saying he would accept "whatever punishment you will
impose on me."
(AP, 4/23/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 23, Boris Yeltsin
(b.1931), former Russian leader (1991-1999), died. He engineered the
final collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) and pushed Russia to
embrace democracy and a market economy. His 1994 memoir was titled
"The Struggle for Russia."
(AP, 4/23/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.98)
2007 Apr 23, The WWF said
hunters in Russia's Far East have shot and killed one of the last
seven surviving female Amur leopards living in the wild.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, In Somalia masked
Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces pounded
each other with machine-gun fire, mortars and heavy artillery in
Mogadishu, bringing the death toll from six days of fighting to at
least 250.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, A bomb ripped
through a long-distance bus in northern Sri Lanka, killing at least
three passengers and wounding 35 in the third bombing of a civilian
bus this month.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, A top Sudanese
government official offered a two-month halt in military operations
in strife-torn Darfur to allow for rebel groups to join the peace
process.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Syrians voted for
a second day in a tightly controlled election to pick a new
legislature, a vote President Bashar Assad hopes can consolidate his
rule, soften his regime's authoritarian image and ease its
international isolation.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 24, In a harsh
exchange, Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democratic leader Harry
Reid of personally pursuing a defeatist strategy in Iraq to win
votes at home, a charge Reid dismissed as President Bush's "attack
dog" lashing out.
(AP, 4/24/08)
2007 Apr 24, The US military
formally charged Omar Khadr (20), a young Canadian prisoner, with
murder and other crimes, clearing the way for his trial before the
war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. Khadr was
captured during a gunfight at an alleged al Qaeda compound in
Afghanistan when he was 15 and sent to Guantanamo shortly after
turning 16. Khadr's family was close to Osama bin Laden and his
Egyptian-born father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was an alleged al Qaeda
financier killed in a battle with Pakistani soldiers in 2003. His
family had lived in Pakistan but returned to Canada after the elder
Khadr's death.
(Reuters, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, US FDA advisers
endorsed a Pfizer AIDS drug that fights HIV by blocking one of two
cell receptors that are infection routes.
(WSJ, 4/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 24, A consortium led
by US private equity group KKR was left unchallenged in its quest to
take over Alliance Boots, after a rival British bidder withdrew its
bid for Europe's biggest pharmacy chain.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, A tornado in the
Texas border town of Eagle Pass killed at least 10 people and
destroyed two schools and more than 20 homes. The storm killed 2
more people in Arkansas and Louisiana.
(AP, 4/25/07)(SFC, 4/26/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 24, European
astronomers announced they had found a potentially habitable planet
outside the solar system. They said the planet had Earth-like
temperatures, a find described as a big step in the search for "life
in the universe." The planet, named 581c, circled the red dwarf
star, Gliese 581, relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away.
(AP, 4/24/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.93)
2007 Apr 24, Japan's Toyota
Motor Corp. reported that it outsold General Motors Corp. by around
90,000 vehicles in the first quarter, moving a step closer to
unseating its US rival as the world's biggest automaker. Aside from
a few strike-related blips GM had been the top US car seller since
1931.
(Reuters, 4/24/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.76)
2007 Apr 24, Warren E. Avis
(b.1915), founder of the Avis Rent-A-Car System (1946), died in Ann
Arbor, Mich.
(WSJ, 4/28/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 24, Afghan and
international forces clashed overnight with Taliban insurgents in
two separate gun battles in the south and west, leaving 13 militants
dead and four other people wounded. Five more “enemy elements" were
killed in the northeastern province of Kunar in an operation by
troops from the Afghan security forces and US-led coalition.
Militants ambushed a police car in the west, killing four officers,
in the Guzara district in Herat province. Fighting in Ghazni
province left three construction company guards and seven Taliban
dead.
(AFP, 4/24/07)(AFP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 24, British
anti-terrorist police arrested six people who were suspected of
inciting others to commit acts of terrorism overseas and raising
funds for terrorism.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, Ecuador's popular
President Rafael Correa tightened his hold over all branches of
government, sending police to prevent the return of opposition
lawmakers as his tentative majority in Congress dismissed all nine
members of the nation's highest court.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, In Baghdad two
bombs went off outside the Iranian Embassy for the second
consecutive day. Six civilians were injured. In Diyala province
gunmen disguised as Iraqi soldiers killed six Iraqis and burned five
homes. South of Baghdad a family of seven was shot to death in their
beds at dawn by masked gunmen. The Shaibah logistics base, once the
main center of British military operations in Iraq, was turned over
to the Iraqi national army on for use as a training base.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, China's secretive
communist government said it has approved rules boosting official
transparency but added that state secrets have to be safeguarded and
social stability preserved. Eight miners were missing and feared
dead following an explosion in a mine in Handan, an industrial city
in Hebei province.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, In Ethiopia Ogaden
rebels raided a Chinese-run oil field near the Somali border,
killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers. An Ethiopian rebel
group claimed responsibility. The next day Ethiopia blamed Eritrea
for the attack. Eritrea issued a swift, angry denial. In 2008
security forces arrested eight men suspected of involvement in the
deadly raid.
(AP, 4/24/07)(AP, 4/25/07)(WSJ, 4/25/07,
p.A1)(AFP, 3/30/08)
2007 Apr 24, In Indonesia
Richard Ness an American director of Newmont Mining Corp., the
world's largest gold producer, was acquitted of charges the company
dumped dangerous amounts of toxic waste into a bay off Sulawesi
Island.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, The armed wing of
Hamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells from Gaza toward
Israel on its independence day, and said they considered it the end
of a five-month truce with Israel.
(AP, 4/24/07)(WSJ, 4/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 24, Joji Obara (54), a
Tokyo businessman, was sentenced to life in prison for a wave of
brutal assaults on women, but was cleared over the 2000 abduction
and killing of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman.
(AFP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, Mexico City
lawmakers voted to legalize abortion during the first three months
of pregnancy, a landmark decision likely to heighten church-state
tensions in the Roman Catholic nation and lead to a bitter court
battle.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 24, The Nigerian
government accused Bola Tinubu, the governor of Lagos, of operating
foreign accounts contrary to his oath of office.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 24, Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf arrived in Spain, part of a four-nation
tour of Europe, for talks expected to focus on Islamic radicalism
and NATO's mission in Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, At a conference in
Moscow titled “Megaprojects of Russia’s East,” supporters proposed a
68-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait. The tunnel linking Alaska
and Siberia would cost $65 billion and take some 20 years to build.
(SFC, 4/25/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 24, Rwandan media said
that a former Belgian army officer in the UN mission to Rwanda
(Minuar) has accused French soldiers of training extremist Hutus
responsible for the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, In Somalia
artillery shells and mortars rained down on Mogadishu in a seventh
straight day of raging battles that have left nearly 250 dead.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, Tamil rebel planes
bombed government positions in northern Sri Lanka in their
second-ever airstrike. The military said six soldiers were killed
but that the aircraft were turned back before reaching a key base.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, A Syrian court
convicted prominent human rights activist Anwar al-Bunni of
disseminating hostile information and sentenced him to five years in
jail.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, Turkey's foreign
minister Abdullah Gul was named as the ruling party's candidate for
the presidency, a decision that will maintain continuity in EU
reforms but fails to resolve a fight between the country's secular
and Islamist camps.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 24, Yanis Chimaras
(51), a Venezuelan soap opera actor, was stabbed to death when he
came upon a robbery in a Caracas suburb. The Justice Ministry
reported 9,402 homicides nationwide in 2005.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, Brushing off a
presidential veto threat, the House passed, 218-208, a $124.2
billion supplemental spending bill ordering US troops to begin
coming home from Iraq in the fall of 2007.
(AP, 4/25/08)
2007 Apr 25, US federal
authorities arrested John P. Tomkins (42) of Dubuque, Iowa, a man
suspected of mailing dud pipe bombs to financial companies in
Chicago and Kansas City, Mo., and threatening letters that were
signed "The Bishop."
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, Rosie O'Donnell
announced she was leaving the ABC talk show "The View" in June.
(AP, 4/25/08)
2007 Apr 25, The DJIA closed
above 13,000 for the first time rising 135.95 to a record 13,089.89.
Nasdaq rose 23.35 to 2,547.
(SFC, 4/26/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 25, Negotiators
reached a tentative settlement in the 10-day school strike in
Hayward, Ca.
(SFC, 4/26/07, p.B3)
2007 Apr 25, UCSF biochemist
Joe DeRisi said he found genes of the single-celled, spore producing
parasite Nosema ceranae in dead bees. Researchers in Spain had
recently shown that the parasite is capable of wiping out a beehive.
(SFC, 4/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 25, In eastern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb attack on an Afghan military convoy left
seven soldiers dead. A suicide attacker blew himself up close to the
vehicle of a district governor of Paktika. Militants ambushed a
police vehicle in the western province of Herat overnight and killed
three policemen. Afghan police and US special troops clashed with
foreign militants in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least five
militants.
(AP, 4/25/07)(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, In Argentina a
federal court threw out amnesties for former military President
Jorge Videla (81) and Navy chief Eduardo Massera, two leaders of the
former military dictatorship, saying they must serve their life
terms in prison for crimes against humanity.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, A top US diplomat
warned of new sanctions against Belarus if authorities refuse to
release what he said were political prisoners, and dropping charges
against others.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, China detained
four Americans on Mount Everest after they called for independence
for Tibet and protested the Beijing Olympics. More than 50 children
were poisoned by a kindergarten breakfast in Zhengzhou city in Henan
province, in the latest case highlighting problems in the country's
food supply chain.
(AP, 4/25/07)(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch lender and Santander of Spain
launched a blockbuster 72-billion-euro takeover battle for Dutch
group ABN Amro, outgunning by far an agreed offer by Barclays.
(AFP, 4/25/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.85)(Econ,
7/19/08, p.84)
2007 Apr 25, In Indonesia the
MT Maulana, an oil tanker that had just unloaded its cargo, exploded
on a Sumatran river, killing four crew members.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, A UN report was
released that said that violence in Baghdad remains at high levels.
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq singled out Kurdistan in its 10th
human rights report on Iraq, expressing concern over infringements
on freedom of expression by the regional government. A suicide
bomber wearing a hidden belt of explosives attacked a police station
in Iraq's volatile province of Diyala, killing at least four
policeman. Roadside bombs, mortar rounds and drive-by shootings also
killed 10 Iraqis and wounded 23 in the Baghdad area and the cities
of Kirkuk, Mosul and Fallujah.
(AP, 4/25/07)(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, Israel’s PM Ehud
Olmert authorized the army to carry out limited operations against
militants in the Gaza Strip, but ruled out a large-scale ground
offensive in response to a new round of Hamas rocket attacks.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, Japan adopted
stricter gun control guidelines following a spate of gangster
shootings that rattled a nation renowned for its crime-free streets.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, Barbara Blida
(57), a former Polish government minister, committed suicide in her
bathroom as police searched her house in connection with corruption
allegations. Blida, a lawmaker for the post-communist Democratic
Left Alliance from 1989-2005 and construction minister from
1993-1996, was suspected of taking and receiving material gains. The
raid was part of an investigation into corruption allegations
against 14 people.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, In Somalia
civilians were caught in the crossfire as the government's Ethiopian
backers used tanks and heavy artillery to pound insurgent
strongholds. Human rights groups said more than 350 people have been
killed in the last eight days, the majority civilians.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, The UN food agency
said Sudanese authorities were holding up to 100,000 tons of sorghum
meant for Darfur, alleging that it is genetically modified.
Laboratory tests had shown it was not genetically modified.
(Reuters, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 25, Ukraine’s
President Viktor Yushchenko pushed back the date of snap
parliamentary elections until June 24. The move was seen as a
conciliatory gesture as the Constitutional Court began deliberations
on the legality of his decree dissolving parliament.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 25, In Venezuela
officials from Chevron, BP PLC, France’s Total SA and Norway’s
Statoil ASA signed memorandums of agreement to give state-owned
Petroleos de Venezuela SA a majority stake in 3 projects.
ConocoPhillips resisted giving up control of 2 projects.
(SFC, 4/27/07, p.D3)
2007 Apr 26, The Senate joined
the House in clearing legislation calling for the withdrawal of US
troops from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, 2007, with a goal of a complete
pullout six months later. President Bush vetoed the measure.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2007 Apr 26, Authorities said 2
detainees at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, an Afghan and
a Moroccan, have been transferred to the custody of their native
countries.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, In Orangeburg,
S.C., 8 Democratic presidential hopefuls gathered for their first
debate of the 2008 campaign.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2007 Apr 26, California
lawmakers approved a $7.4 billion prison construction proposal. This
was called the biggest prison expansion plan in American history.
(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B1)
2007 Apr 26, The DJIA rose
15.61 to a record 13,105.50. Nasdaq rose 6.57 to 2,554.
(SFC, 4/27/07, p.D1)
2007 Apr 26, Alfredo Figueroa
(40), owner of the Red Onion hamburger restaurant in El
Cerrito, was shot and killed during a robbery.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.B2)
2007 Apr 26, Jack Valenti
(b.1921), 38-year president of the Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA), died. His autobiography “This Time, This Place: My
Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood,” was published
posthumously.
(WSJ, 6/22/07,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Valenti)
2007 Apr 26, More than 100
suspected Taliban attacked Giro, setting fire to buildings and
cutting telephone lines. The district mayor, police chief and three
policemen were killed during several hours of fighting. It was
estimated that about 10 of the militants also died.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 26, Six central
African countries (Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Central African
Republic, Cameroon and Congo) plan to launch a common passport in
July, permitting the free movement of goods and people across their
borders.
(AFP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Bangladesh's
emergency government backtracked on plans to exile two feuding
former prime ministers but appeared to threaten the women with
corruption charges if they stayed in the country.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Britain widened an
investigation into the collection of human body parts for scientific
tests at nuclear plants. Unions representing nuclear industry
workers said as many as 70 people who worked at the Sellafield
nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in northern England and other
nuclear facilities may have had bones, organs or other tissue
removed for tests.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Canada promised
curbs on air pollution and a new approach to greenhouse gas
emissions in a plan the government says will slow, then reverse the
rise in output of pollutants blamed for global warming.
(Reuters, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, China said it has
banned melamine from food products after the chemical was found in
exports of vegetable protein shipped to the United States, but
rejected it as the cause of dozens of pet deaths in North America.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Colombia's
electrical grid collapsed, causing a nationwide blackout that
briefly halted stock trading, trapped people in elevators and left
authorities struggling to determine the cause.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Ecuador’s
President Rafael Correa went deep into the Amazon jungle to show his
disdain for Chevron Corp., which is on trial here for allegedly
failing to clean up billions of gallons of toxic wastewater. He is
the nation’s first president to support the estimated 30,000
settlers and Amazon Indians who are suing the US oil giant.
Plaintiffs sought $6 billion in damages, alleging that Texaco dumped
more than 18 billion gallons of oily wastewater into the verdant
rain forest, and failed to properly clean it up. Their evidence
includes studies showing elevated cancer rates in the area.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 26, In Estonia
protesters gathered at a Soviet war grave in downtown Tallinn, as
authorities prepared to remove the bodies despite Russia's angry
objections. Estonia's government intends to relocate the Soviet
grave, believed to contain the remains of 14 soldiers, and the
Bronze Soldier statue next to it.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Ethiopian rebels
holding seven Chinese oil workers captured during an attack this
week on an oil venture in Ethiopia said they would release them "as
soon as possible."
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, In Greece
suspected anarchists threw gasoline bombs at cars parked outside a
central Athens police station, destroying 12 vehicles in the latest
in a series of arson attacks, authorities said.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, In India police
arrested 3 suspected Islamic militants armed with explosives near
the Dilli Haat crafts market, a popular New Delhi tourist site. A
Pakistani national and two Kashmiris were carrying a package of
explosives, a detonator and a hand grenade. They were believed to be
members of the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militant group.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, A suicide car bomb
attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Iraq killed 10
soldiers. 4 insurgents were killed as the US targeted suspected
al-Qaida in Iraq militants near Taji. 2 women and 2 children were
believed to have been killed during the fighting. 2 suicide bombers
attacked an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud
Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, killing
three of its guards and wounding five. In central Baghdad, a
roadside bomb missed a passing police patrol but killed 4 civilians
and wounded 9. A parked car bomb exploded near Baghdad University,
killing 6 civilians and wounding 18, including some students. US
forces killed 3 insurgents during a gunbattle in the Shiite
neighborhood Sadr City. The US military announced that Army Lt. Col.
William H. Steele has been charged with nine offenses, including
aiding the enemy. Violence in Iraq killed at least 72 people,
including the bullet-riddled bodies of 27 men dumped in Baghdad,
apparent victims of sectarian death squads.
(AP, 4/26/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 26, Police in Lebanon
found the bodies of a man and a 12-year-old boy who disappeared
earlier this week, an incident that has shaken the country and
sparked fears of renewed sectarian violence.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Sultan Mizan
Zainal Abidin, Malaysia's 13th king, formally ascended the throne,
pledging to reign wisely and safeguard the sanctity of Islam in a
ceremony marked by traditional Malay rites and imperial pageantry.
Malaysia's system allows each of its hereditary state rulers to take
turns reigning as the country's constitutional monarch for five
years each.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, A new measure
legalizing abortions in Mexico City was published into law, allowing
doctors to almost immediately begin terminating pregnancies in their
first trimester.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Myanmar and North
Korea signed an agreement to resume diplomatic ties during a visit
to Myanmar by the North Korean vice foreign minister.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Nigeria's main
opposition party said it will not recognize or cooperate with any
government formed as a result of last weekend's presidential
election, which was won by the party of outgoing President Olusegun
Obasanjo.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Peru’s Congress
granted President Garcia the power to rule by decree for 60 days on
matters related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime,
strengthening his hand in the battle against cocaine production and
smuggling. A US report claimed that the Shining Path may now have
hundreds of armed combatants and that it is entwined with drug
trafficking.
(AP, 4/27/07)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.50)
2007 Apr 26, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, in his last annual address to lawmakers, attacked US
foreign policy and embraced traditional values in a hawkish speech
that laid out a route for his successor to follow when he steps down
next year.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Somalia's prime
minister claimed victory over Islamic insurgents in Mogadishu, where
nine days of battles using tanks and artillery left hundreds dead.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Syria’s government
said that the ruling coalition took an overwhelming majority of
seats in parliamentary elections that were boycotted by the
opposition as a farce.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, In Turkey an
eight-story apartment building collapsed in Istanbul, and some
people were reportedly buried under the debris.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 26, Zimbabwe's central
bank governor Gideon Gono said the annual rate of inflation, already
the highest in the world, rose to 2,200 percent last month.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 27, President Bush and
visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe threatened stronger punitive actions
against North Korea if it reneged on a promise to padlock its sole
nuclear reactor.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2007 Apr 27, The US dollar slid
to a record low against the euro. The worst economic growth in four
years raised concern that troubles in the US housing market will
spread and throw the country into a recession before the year is
out.
(Reuters, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Randall Tobias,
head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly
resigned after his name surfaced in an investigation into a
high-priced call-girl ring.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 27, The Pentagon said
it had taken custody of Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior al-Qaeda
commander. Officials said al-Iraqi was handed over to the CIA in
late 2006.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A3)
2007 Apr 27, The Ninth Circuit
federal appeals court rebuffed a Bush administration effort to relax
dolphin-safe labeling standards.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 27, The DJIA rose
15.44 to a record 13,120.94. Nasdaq rose 2.75 to 2,557.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 27, In Santa Cruz,
Ca., Steven Harold Smith (50),a supervisor at a wastewater treatment
plant, wounded his estranged wife, shot and killed a co-worker and
then killed himself.
(SFC, 4/28/07, p.B2)
2007 Apr 27, Hundreds of Afghan
soldiers and police retook the Giro district from the Taliban,
pushing out militants who had seized the area in fierce fighting a
day earlier.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, China’s Premier
Wen Jiabao pledged to phase out tax breaks and discounts on land and
electricity for highly polluting industries, saying the country's
environmental situation was grim and required urgent action.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, China said it has
expelled five Americans who staged a protest against the Olympics on
Mount Everest to challenge Chinese rule over the mountainous region.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Estonia removed a
Soviet war memorial from downtown Tallinn under cover of darkness,
carrying out a plan that has rankled Russia and provoked protests
that left one person dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, US-led forces
detained nine suspected insurgents in raids aimed at al-Qaida in
Iraq, including five in Mosul that has seen a recent rise in
violence as militants fled there to escape a crackdown in Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Former Italian
prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was cleared in a high-profile
corruption case involving bribing judges.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Japan's Supreme
Court upheld a ruling denying compensation to two Chinese women who
were forced to work in military brothels during World War II. The
court said that the women had no right to seek war compensation from
Japan because of a 1972 agreement with China. The top court also
overturned a lower court ruling awarding compensation to five
Chinese who were forced to work for a Japanese construction company
during the war.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, The UN Security
Council lifted its embargo on Liberia's diamond exports, saying the
west African nation has made progress in certifying the origin of
its rough diamonds. A multi-day strike at the Firestone Rubber
plantation in Liberia turned violent as police clashed with striking
workers, leaving at least six people wounded.
(AFP, 4/27/07)(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Nigeria's Supreme
Court voided the removal of Joshua Dariye, a Plateau state governor,
who fled London on money laundering charges in November 2004. In
Nigeria police said 5 gunmen and two police officers were killed
during an attempt to kidnap two foreign oil workers in the oil-rich
city of Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, An apparent US
missile strike killed 4 people in Saidgi, a village in the North
Waziristan of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269012,00.html)
2007 Apr 27, A Russian military
helicopter crashed in Chechnya, killing all 18 people aboard,
emergency officials said. There were conflicting reports about
whether the craft was shot down.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, Mstislav
Rostropovich (b.1927), master cellist, died. He had fought for the
rights of Soviet-era dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach
suites below the crumbling Berlin Wall.
(AP, 4/27/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.92)
2007 Apr 27, Saudi
Arabia’s Interior Ministry said police had arrested 172 Islamic
militants, some of whom had trained abroad as pilots so they could
fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields. A spokesman
said all that remained in the plot "was to set the zero hour." More
than $32.4 million was seized in the operation, one of the largest
sweeps against terror cells in the kingdoms.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 27, A Spanish judge
indicted three US soldiers in the 2003 death of Jose Couso, a
Spanish journalist who was killed when their tank opened fire at a
hotel in Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 Apr 28, Actors and
musicians including Elton John, George Clooney, Bob Geldof and Mick
Jagger called on world leaders to take "decisive action" over
atrocities in Darfur. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi urged African,
Arab and Western diplomats to work with Sudanese rebels to find an
immediate solution to the crisis in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, Richard Holbrooke,
the former US ambassador to the UN, said Afghanistan's US-backed
government, tarnished by corruption and unable to control large
swaths of its own territory, is rapidly losing the support of
ordinary Afghans.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, Dabbs Greer,
character actor, died at age 90.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2007 Apr 28, Tommy Newsom,
"Tonight Show" assistant conductor, died at age 78.
(AP, 4/28/08)
2007 Apr 28, Lou Papan (78),
long-time California state assemblyman for San Mateo County, died.
Papan had started his political career as a Daly City councilman.
(SFC, 5/1/07, p.B5)
2007 Apr 28, The Taliban freed
a female French aid worker who was kidnapped more than three weeks
ago, but demanded the withdrawal of French troops or release of
prisoners for the freedom of a French man and three Afghans still
being held. Afghan and coalition forces clashed with Taliban
militants in separate incidents in the east and south, killing 21
insurgents.
(AFP, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, Australia's
centre-left Labor Party scrapped its 25-year ban on new uranium
mines in a move miners said would encourage new investment and
growth in the industry.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, China's president
called for closer business ties with Taiwan to help squelch the
self-ruled island's pro-independence movement as he met with a
former Taiwanese opposition leader.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, China's ZTE signed
a $200 million deal with Ethiopia's state-owned Telecom Corp.
(AFP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 28, In Estonia
minority Russian youths angry over the government's decision to
remove a Soviet war memorial from Tallinn rioted for a second night,
with unrest spreading to at least two other towns. 66 people were
injured in the capital, including six policemen. More than 500
people, many of them adolescents, were detained overnight as vandals
prowled the streets, breaking shop windows and looting stores.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, Guyana police
found the remains of a an elderly woman who was lynched by a crowd
of villagers. She had been accused of being an “Old Higue,” an evil
spirit who drinks the blood of human babies.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 28, It was reported
that pro-Indonesian militias had regrouped in the mountainous center
of Aceh as the Communication Forum for Children of the Nation
(Forkab).
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.47)
2007 Apr 28, A parked car
exploded near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in the city of
Karbala as people were headed to the area for evening prayers,
killing 68 people and wounding dozens. In Baghdad gunmen opened fire
on a vehicle in a Sunni-Shiite neighborhood, killing 4 of 7 people
aboard. In western Baghdad, two mortar shells hit another
residential area of poor, two-story homes, killing 3 Iraqi children,
between the ages of 5 and 7, and wounding 10 Iraqis, including 3
children. US forces detained 17 suspected insurgents in raids
targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. The Danish military announced that it
has sent an unspecified number of special forces to Iraq to
reinforce its 460-strong contingent near the southern city of Basra.
A US soldier was slain by small arms fire during a patrol in eastern
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/29/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 28, Israeli troops
killed at least three Hamas militants who were en route to carrying
out an attack.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, In Jamaica the
7-week, 1st Cricket World Cup ended with Australia defeating Sri
Lanka.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.48)
2007 Apr 28, The 1st round of
the Mali presidential election garnered a turnout of around 36%.
Incumbent President Amadou Toumani Toure (59), one of 8 candidates,
was widely expected to win a second term. General Amadou Toumani
Toure and Soumaila Cisse, candidate for the ruling party Adema,
faced each other for the 2nd round.
(AFP,
5/6/07)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1982814.stm)
2007 Apr 28, In Nigeria ballot
papers were stolen and voters intimidated as polls were re-staged
for hundreds of state and federal legislators' seats after elections
widely condemned as fraudulent. Oil officials said Nigeria is
currently losing 600,000 barrels of oil per day in the oil rich
Niger Delta as a result of the activities of militants in the
region.
(AP, 4/28/07)(AFP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, In northwest
Pakistan a suicide attacker detonated a bomb as Aftab Khan Sherpao,
the interior minister, finished speaking at a public meeting,
killing 28 people and wounding the official. Saud Memon (44), a
suspect in the death of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, was dumped, badly
injured and weighing less than 80 pounds, in front of his Karachi
home. He had been secretly detained and interrogated by US and
Pakistani intelligence.
(Reuters, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/29/07)(WSJ, 11/12/07,
p.A3)
2007 Apr 28, A Philippine air
force helicopter crashed on a busy street in Lapu Lapu City, Cebu
Island, pinning a motorcycle taxi and hitting another with its
spinning rotors. At least 9 people on the ground and one airman were
killed. Norberto Linao Jr., the mayor of Morong town in Bataan
province, escaped injury after assailants sprayed his house with
gunfire.
(AFP, 4/28/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 28, Turkey's
Islamist-rooted government called the army to order, saying it is
answerable to the civilian authority, after the military threatened
action to defend the country's secular system.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 28, President Hugo
Chavez said that Venezuela is ready to become the sole energy
supplier to Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti, presenting the
countries with his most generous offer yet of oil-funded diplomacy
in the region.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 28, Zimbabwe announced
new controls to clamp down on charities and other humanitarian
organizations, including democracy and human rights groups that the
government accuses of campaigning against it. A state daily reported
that Zimbabwe has compensated 800 white farmers for property seized
during controversial land reforms launched by President Robert
Mugabe's government.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 29, A stretch of
highway near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed after a
gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames, leaving one of the
nation's busiest spans in a state of near paralysis. Officials said
traffic could be disrupted for months. Driver James Mosqueda (51)
managed to away with 2nd degree burns.
(AP, 4/29/07)(SFC, 5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 29, In Kansas City,
Mo., David W. Logsdon, driving a dead woman’s car, was shot and
killed by police after he killed 2 people in the parking lot of a
mall.
(SFC, 4/30/07, p.A3)(AP, 4/29/08)
2007 Apr 29, St. Louis
Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock, 29, was killed in the crash
of his sport utility vehicle.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2007 Apr 29, Hundreds of angry
protesters chanting "Death to Bush" demonstrated in eastern
Afghanistan after six people, including a woman and a teenage girl,
were reportedly killed when US-led coalition and Afghan forces
raided a suspected car bomb cell. Afghanistan's education minister
said at least 85 students and teachers were killed last year in
attacks blamed on insurgents who oppose education for girls and
teaching boys anything other than religion. In western Afghanistan
coalition and Afghan forces attacked the insurgents and called in an
airstrike, destroying seven Taliban positions and killing 87
fighters during a 14-hour engagement in Herat province.
(AP, 4/29/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, Octavio Frias de
Oliveira (94), who published Brazil's biggest newspaper and Web site
and helped modernize the country's media, died of kidney failure.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, In China 7
suspects went on trial in the beating death of a reporter at an
illegal coal mine in northern Shanxi province. Lan Chengzhang was
attacked along with a colleague when they went to interview Hou
Zhenrun, the owner of the small unlicensed coal mine outside the
northern city of Datong on Jan 10. He died the next day from head
injuries.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, Colombia's navy
made the largest drug seizure in the nation's history as it
uncovered up to 27 tons of cocaine buried along the Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, In Ethiopia 7
Chinese oil workers and two Africans kidnapped during a rebel attack
on a Chinese oil field near the Somali border were released.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 29, In Egypt police
arrested two lawmakers and at least 10 other members of the banned
Muslim Brotherhood group as part of an ongoing campaign against the
country's strongest opposition group.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, American troops
also detained 72 suspected insurgents and seized nitric acid and
other bomb-making materials during raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq
in Anbar province. Britain said one of its soldiers was shot to
death while on patrol in southern Iraq. In Basra 5 people were
reported killed by an explosion. Iraqi police initially said it was
a car bomb, but the British military said it appeared the blast
accidentally occurred while explosives and weapons were being moved.
A roadside bomb killed 3 American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter
on a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad. A Marine was killed during
combat operations in Anbar province.
(AP, 4/29/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, Japan and the
resources-rich United Arab Emirates agreed to launch a high-level
dialogue aimed at boosting economic ties and to speed up talks on a
free trade pact. Officials of the governmental Japan Bank for
International Cooperation decided to extend massive loans to Abu
Dhabi National Oil Co. in exchange for securing a stable oil supply
for Japan.
(AP,
4/29/07)(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070430a2.html)
2007 Apr 29, Saudi Arabia's
King Abdullah held an unannounced meeting with Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the recent escalation in
Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Saudi Arabia banned the sale of
concentrated fertilizer, a favorite component of homemade terrorist
bombs.
(AP, 4/30/07)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.60)
2007 Apr 29, Tamil Tiger rebels
bombed a fuel refinery and gasoline storage facility near the Sri
Lankan capital, and authorities cut power to the city. Hours later,
the military pounded rebel positions in the north.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 29, Protests took
place around the world to demand that world leaders act to prevent
further bloodshed in Darfur on the fourth anniversary of the
conflict's start.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 29, Suspected Muslim
insurgents in southern Thailand killed two Buddhist villagers,
beheading one of them, and left a note saying the attack was revenge
for a deadly weekend bombing at a mosque.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 29, Some 700,000 Turks
waving the red national flag flooded central Istanbul to demand the
resignation of the government, saying the Islamic roots of Turkey's
leaders threatened to destroy the country's modern foundations.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 29, President Hugo
Chavez said that Venezuela hopes to gradually sell off its
refineries in the United States and build a new network of
refineries in Latin America, part of a plan to offer his leftist
allies in the region a stable oil supply.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The US announced a
major expansion of offshore oil and gas development, with proposed
lease sales covering 48 million new acres.
(WSJ, 5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, US and Mexican law
enforcement officials said Mexican druglords are taking over the
business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as
human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in
cocaine shipments across the same border.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines
emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Apr 30, Tom Poston
(b.1921), American TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles.
(AP,
4/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Poston)
2007 Apr 30, The presidents of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, a meeting arranged by Turkish leaders,
agreed to share intelligence on extremist groups to bolster efforts
to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists in both
countries. NATO-led troops killed 75 suspected insurgents on the
first day of an operation against Taliban militants in a valley in
southern Helmand province. Hundreds of people demonstrated in the
Shindand district of the western province of Herat, after coalition
and Afghan operations there on April 27 and 29, insisting that
civilians were among the victims. Police the next day said at least
30 civilians, including women and children, were among those killed
in Shindand's fighting. The US military reported killing 136 rebels
over 3 days of fighting in western Afghanistan. One US soldier died
in the clashes.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)(AFP, 5/1/07)(WSJ,
5/1/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 30, Miles
Hilton-Barber (58), A blind British adventurer, touched down in
Sydney Monday to end an epic 13,500-mile flight by microlight
aircraft from London. His 54-day journey was performed under the
supervision of sighted co-pilot Richard Meredith-Hardy.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, A British judge
sentenced five men to life in prison for plotting to bomb several
targets in London including a popular nightclub, power plants and
shopping mall in a trial that exposed links between the men and at
least two of the suicide bombers who attacked the capital two years
ago. Mohammed Junaid Babar's testimony in the yearlong trial
revealed how disaffected Britons were trained for terrorism in
Pakistan, where many have family ties. The former terrorist turned
informant was arrested in New York in 2004, and has since given
evidence to prosecutors in Britain, the US and Pakistan.
(AP, 4/30/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, Britain's first
convicted war criminal was sentenced to a year in prison and
dismissed from the army in connection with the death of an Iraqi
hotel worker. Corp. Donald Payne had pleaded guilty to inhumanely
treating Iraqi civilians in southern Basra in 2003.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In China a manager
of a feed company and one of the chemical's producers said that the
mildly toxic chemical melamine is commonly added to animal feed in
China. The process fraudulently boosts the feed's sales value but
risks introducing the chemical into meat eaten by humans.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Egyptian
authorities released two Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers but ordered 12
other members of the country's most powerful opposition group
detained.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, A suicide car
bomber apparently targeting an Interior Ministry convoy struck an
Iraqi checkpoint near a busy square in the predominantly Sunni Arab
area of Harthiyah in western Baghdad, killing 4 people and wounding
10. Some 50 gunmen attacked a police station in a mainly Sunni Arab
area in the northern city of Mosul, prompting clashes as police
chased the attackers through the streets. 4 gunmen were killed and
two were detained, while one policeman was wounded. A parked car
bomb struck a police patrol in the same area, killing one policeman
and wounding two. A suicide bomber struck a crowd of funeral
mourners north of Baghdad killing over 30 people. Nationwide at
least 102 people were killed.
(AP, 4/30/07)(SFC, 5/1/07, p.A12)
2007 Apr 30, An Israeli
government commission aimed harsh criticism at PM Ehud Olmert and
other officials for their handling of last summer's war in Lebanon.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, Hundreds of
protesters briefly pushed into the Palestinian education ministry as
Fatah-allied teachers in the West Bank went on strike to press for
the payment of overdue salaries. Angry Palestinian demonstrators
stormed the Egyptian embassy in Gaza City, demanding that Egypt
release five Palestinians held in Cairo jails.
(AP, 5/1/07)(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In the northern
Philippines Mayor Julian Resuello of San Carlos died 2 days after he
was shot to death.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The South African
government and AIDS campaigners launched a joint national body to
oversee a program aimed at halving the country's rate of new
infections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Sudanese armed
forces vowed to "crush" a coalition of rebel groups in Darfur for
killing an officer whose helicopter had landed in north Darfur after
a technical failure.
(Reuters, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern
Thailand suspected Islamic insurgents exploded a bomb at a busy
night market and wounded 20 people.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, In southern
Tunisia a stampede at an open-air concert by stars of the Arab
version of "American Idol" killed seven young people and injured 32.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Turkish stock
market plunged, reacting sharply to political tensions as the
Islamic-rooted government comes under strong pressure from secular
circles to call parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr 30, President Hugo
Chavez announced he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the
nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Apr, in Azerbaijan
journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was imprisoned. He was soon sentenced
to 8-1/2 years in jail on charges of terrorism, incitement of ethnic
hatred and tax evasion. In December 2009 new charges of illegal
possession of drugs were brought against him.
(Reuters, 6/3/10)
2007 Apr, Georgia reported that
outbreaks of African swine fever began at the end of April in 10
regions across the country. 20,000 pigs were soon slaughtered. In
June the UN said that the outbreak could have a "catastrophic"
economic impact unless its spread is halted.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Apr, The web site
mediapredict.com began operations. The NYC-based start-up used
editorial feedback from a large number of volunteers in a game
format to help executives decide which manuscripts should become
books.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.73)(http://mediapredict.com/)
2007 Apr, Bolivia became the
32nd nation to ban or restrict used clothing imports in an attempt
to protect native clothing industries.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Apr, In Colombia the
soldiers in Antelope Company's Third Platoon killed Leonardo Montes,
a civilian and brother to one of the platoon’s soldiers, and
registered the murder as a guerrilla kill. The brother’s pleas
failed to prevent the killing. The platoon hadn't registered a
guerrilla kill in months, and without results, they feared they
wouldn't be let off base for Mother's Day. 5 soldiers faced a
criminal probe in the murder, joining some 480 soldiers under
investigation for about 1,000 extrajudicial killings during the
presidency of Alvaro Uribe.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 Apr, Yoani Sanchez (32)
began posting her Generacion Y blog from Havana.
(WSJ, 12/22/07,
p.A1)(www.desdecuba.com/generaciony)
2007 Apr, In India Mahindra
Renault, a joint venture formed in 2005, launched a new version of
the Logan priced at $7,100 before taxes. The original Logan was
designed in Romania. It went on sale in Iran in March under the name
Tondar (thunder), with record orders and deliveries due in May.
Iran’s model was built by Iran Khodro (IKCO) and Saipa.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.78)
2007 Apr, A court in Venice,
Italy, allowed Alexandra Hai (40), a German of Algerian descent, to
operate a gondola, but only for the residents of one of the city’s
hotels. Her permit was opposed by the city’s male gondoliers.
(SFC, 5/14/07, p.A11)
2007 Apr, Stanislovas Jucys, a
Lithuanian businessman, disappeared. He was the CEO of a
Kaliningrad-based construction company with a majority stake in
Lithuanian hands. Jucys' replacement was killed a few months later,
and the company was taken over by a Russian firm.
(Reuters, 3/20/08)
2007 Apr, Mexico’s
CompartamosBanco went public as a lender to the poor. It was created
in 1990 as a non-Governmental Organization (NGO). ACCION Int’l., a
charity that has helped to spread microfinance since the 1970s, was
an early investor and banked $140 million in the IPO, while
retaining a 9% stake. ACCION had received funding from USAID.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.93)(http://tinyurl.com/46esnp)
2007 Apr, The International
Prize for Arabic Fiction was officially launched in Abu Dhabi,
capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2008 the Philanthropy
in Abu Dhabi awarded the 1st annual Int’l. Prize for Arabic Fiction
to Bahaa Taher for “Sunset Oasis.”
(Econ, 3/26/11,
p.95)(http://librarian.lishost.org/?p=1064)
2007 May 1, Pres. Bush cast the
2nd veto of his presidency rejecting an attempt by both chambers of
Congress to set a timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.36)
2007 May 1, Julie A. MacDonald,
a deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks,
resigned after an internal review found that she had violated
federal rules by giving government documents to lobbyists for
industry. In November the US Fish and Wildlife Service reversed 7
rulings that had denied endangered species increased protection.
(www.mindfully.org/Heritage/2007/Interior-Wildlife-Decisions21jul07.htm)(SFC,
11/28/07, p.A3)
2007 May 1, John Hickenlooper
(b.1952) was re-elected mayor of Denver with 86.3% of the vote.
(Econ, 11/3/07,
p.39)(www.citymayors.com/mayors/denver_mayor.html)
2007 May 1, Thousands of people
protested across the US to demand a path to citizenship for an
estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2007 May 1, Kenneth John
Freeman (44), a bodybuilder and computer expert from Benton County,
Washington, was arrested in Hong Kong. Freeman, who fled the US 13
months earlier, was accused of raping his daughter and posting a
video of the attack.
(www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2007/050207.htm)
2007 May 1, The design for the
Arizona quarter, chosen by Gov. Janet Napolitano, was announced. It
includes a "Grand Canyon State" banner across the middle of the
quarter, separating the canyon view with a multi-rayed sun above and
a saguaro in a desert landscape below. The 48th of the state series
will be released in 2008, followed by Alaska and Hawaii.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, A US ice expert
said the Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is
now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
(Reuters, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Australian police
arrested two men accused of raising money for Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger rebels on the pretext of collecting donations for victims of
the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Thirty people were
arrested in raids across Belgium, England, and the Netherlands
targeting suspected animal rights extremists.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, John Browne, head
of BP PLC, resigned after Britain’s highest legal body triggered the
release of documents detailing his relationship with a former lover.
(WSJ, 5/2/07, p.A1)
2007 May 1, Britain's largest
ever trade union, representing about two million public and private
sector workers, was launched following the merger of two workers'
bodies. The Unite union officially formed following a recent vote
for merger by members of Amicus and the Transport and General
Workers Union, founded in 1922.
(AP,
5/1/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_and_General_Workers%27_Union)
2007 May 1, China lashed out at
the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia for restoring diplomatic relations
with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as
Chinese territory.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, In Indonesia tens
of thousands of workers marked May Day by taking to the streets to
demand better wages and job security, amid a heavy police presence.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Iran stood firm in
opposing language in a nuclear conference agenda that reaffirms the
need for full compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a
stance that diplomats said could scuttle the meeting aimed at
strengthening the accord.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Iraqi officials
have received reports that Abu Ayyub al-Masri (aka Abu Hamza
al-Muhajer), the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by Sunni
tribesmen, but the chief government spokesman said the information
has not been confirmed. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said that
al-Masri was believed to have been killed April 30 in the Taji area
north of Baghdad. Gunmen ambushed travelers on a highway leading
from Baghdad to Shiite areas to the south, killing 14 people. Mortar
rounds slammed into an area near the Iraqi prime minister's office
in the US-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Japan and Qatar
stressed their solid energy partnership and agreed to launch initial
negotiations on moves to stimulate Japanese investment in the Gulf
state.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Liberia relaunched
its diamond trade after the UN lifted an embargo, hoping the revival
of the industry will fund reconstruction rather than lead to more
bloodshed.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, In Macao May Day
protesters clashed with riot police as a rally against labor
shortages turned violent, sparking rare scenes of civil unrest in
the southern Chinese territory.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, It was reported
that Malaysian doctors have declared neckties a health hazard and
called on the heath ministry to stop insisting that physicians wear
them.
(Reuters, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, In Mexico 5
soldiers, including a colonel, and a suspected drug cartel enforcer
were killed in a shootout in the western state of Michoacan, which
has been plagued by drug violence and is the target of a
military-led anti-drug offensive.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 1, The leader of
Nepal's Maoists threatened to push the nation back into turmoil by
launching huge nationwide protests unless parliament immediately
ousts the king and declares a republic.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Thousands of people
gathered in heavily guarded squares and stadiums in Nigeria's main
cities to protest last month's flawed presidential election. Dare
Folorunso, a Nigerian journalist of the state-owned radiotelevision
station, was beaten unconscious by policemen at workers rally in
Akure in southern Ondo state. MEND militants kidnapped six foreign
oil workers, including four Italians, in an attack on a floating
storage vessel off the coast of southern Bayelsa State. A Nigerian
sailor was killed.
(Reuters, 5/1/07)(SFC, 5/2/07, p.C2)(AFP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 1, Thousands of
laborers rallied across Pakistan demanding better wages and living
conditions to mark May Day.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Thousands of South
Africans marched in Durban to protest the renaming of streets after
heroes of the ruling African National Congress, sparking warnings of
violence in the Zulu heartland.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Turkish police
charged into crowds of leftist protesters marking the anniversary of
a deadly May Day rally in Istanbul, spraying tear gas and kicking
and clubbing demonstrators as they fled.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, President Hugo
Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last privately run oil
fields, intensifying a struggle with international firms over the
development of the world's largest known petroleum deposit.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 1, Zimbabwe boosted
the price of corn meal, a keystone of the nation’s diet, by nearly
600%.
(WSJ, 5/2/07, p.A1)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 2, In a defeat for
anti-war Democrats, Congress failed to override President Bush's
veto of legislation requiring the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Bush declared al-Qaida "public enemy No. 1 in Iraq."
(AP, 5/2/08)
2007 May 2, Cablevision Systems
Corp. agreed to be taken private by the founding Dolan family for
$10.6 billion in cash.
(SFC, 5/3/07, p.C2)
2007 May 2, James Abegglen,
American-born chronicler of the rise of “Japan Inc.,” died in Japan.
In the 1960s and 1970s he warned corporate America that Japan should
be taken more seriously. His 9th book was titled “21st-Century
Japanese Management.”
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.A8)
2007 May 2, Afghan regional
officials said that 51 villagers, some of them women and children,
were killed in recent fighting in western Afghanistan. The US-led
coalition said it had no reports of civilian deaths.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, A former prime
minister led his opposition party to victory in the Bahamas,
returning to power in elections dominated by questions about the
direction of the tourism-driven economy. Hubert Ingraham's Free
National Movement won 23 seats in the 41-seat legislature, while PM
Perry Christie's Progressive Liberal Party claimed the other 18.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 2, The Canadian Food
Inspection Agency said another case of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, has been confirmed in a mature
dairy cow in the province of British Columbia.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, An Egyptian court
sentenced Al Jazeera producer Huweida Taha Metwalli to six months in
jail or a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,760) for her part in
producing a feature on torture by Egyptian police.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Egypt and Japan
agreed to push together in a bid to end the crisis over Iran's
nuclear ambitions, calling for a Middle East free of weapons of mass
destruction.
(AFP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, The grave of
Hungary's last communist ruler, Janos Kadar (1956-1988), was pried
open and his remains and his wife's urn were thought to have been
stolen.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, The Iranian state
news agency reported that the country's former nuclear negotiator,
Hossein Mousavian, has been arrested on an unspecified security
charge.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, A suicide car
bomber struck in the main Shiite district of Baghdad, killing at
least nine people as the US military said its troop buildup in
Baghdad was nearly complete. Three more US soldiers were killed by
bombs in the capital. At least 85 Iraqis were killed or found dead
nationwide.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Kazakhstan’s
Emergencies Agency said hundreds of dead seals have washed up on its
Caspian Sea shoreline in the past several days, bringing the total
number of the animals found dead along the shoreline in recent weeks
to 832.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Ahmed Errachidi
(41) a Moroccan man sent home from the US detention camp at
Guantanamo Bay last week, was released by local authorities after
terrorism-related charges were dropped.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 2, The International
Criminal Court in the Hague said it has issued arrest warrants
for the Sudanese government's humanitarian affairs minister and a
janjaweed militia leader suspected of committing war crimes in
Darfur.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, A company spokesman
said US oil giant Chevron has shut down 15,000 barrels per day of
oil production in its Funiwa facility in southern Nigeria following
a militant attack.
(AFP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Romania’s
Parliament approved an agreement allowing the US to use four
military bases and station up to 3,000 troops in the former
communist country.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 2, Russian oil firms
rushed to re-route a quarter of their refined products exports away
from ports in Estonia after Russia's railways halted the route amid
a political dispute with Tallinn. Young Russians staged raucous
protests in Moscow to denounce neighboring Estonia for removing a
Soviet war memorial from its capital, and the Estonian ambassador
said pro-Kremlin activists tried to attack her as she arrived at a
news conference.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, The South Korean
government announced its first-ever plan to seize assets gained by
alleged Korean collaborators during Japanese colonial rule as part
of efforts to reconcile with its past more than 60 years after the
end of the peninsula's occupation. 2 defectors to South Korea
described how they had been tortured in a North Korean prison camp,
as a South Korean rights group issued a report on abuses of
detainees in the communist state.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Taiwan's opposition
leader Ma Ying-jeou was nominated by his Kuomintang party to run for
the 2008 presidential election and pledged to improve economic ties
with China.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Thailand's
military-installed PM Surayud Chulanont said he has tasked his
southern army commander with developing a detailed amnesty proposal
for Islamic militants.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, The US and EU
warned Turkey's military to stay out of the country's political
showdown between the Islamic-rooted government and those in the
secular establishment who fear the country will shift toward Islamic
rule.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 2, Isaac Matongo (60),
the chairman of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) and former trade unionist, died.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, A US House panel
called on the VA chief to explain why top officials got hefty
bonuses even as veteran’s care deteriorated.
(WSJ, 5/4/07, p.A1)
2007 May 3, A US federal judge
barred planting of alfalfa engineered by Monsanto to resist Roundup,
a popular weed killer made by Monsanto, pending further study.
(WSJ, 5/4/07, p.A1)
2007 May 3, The Florida
Legislature gave its final approval to moving the state's 2008
primary from early March to Jan. 29.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2007 May 3, Ignacio De La
Fuente Jr. (32), the son of Oakland, Ca., City Council President
Ignacio De La Fuente, pleaded guilty to 5 felony sex charges
committed between 2003 and 2005. Three of his 4 victims were
prostitutes.
(SFC, 5/4/07, p.B5)
2007 May 3, James H. Simons,
mathematician and philanthropist, announced a $10 million donation
to Berkeley’s Mathematical Sciences Research Institute from the
Simons Foundation. Simons is president of Renaissance Technologies
Corp., a private investment firm dedicated to the use of
mathematical methods.
(SSFC, 5/6/07, p.B7)
2007 May 3, In Alabama Jamison
Stone (11) killed a wild pig weighing 1,051 pounds with a .50
caliber revolver. The pig measured 9 feet, 4 inches from snout to
tail. The animal's former owner later said the not-so-wild pig,
named Fred, had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the
Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a
150-acre fenced area.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A3)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 3, Dr. Leonard D. Eron
(87), psychologist, died in Illinois. His research led him to warn
society that children who watch violent TV shows tend to show
aggressive and destructive behaviour later in life. He determined
that aggression is learned behaviour.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.B4)
2007 May 3, Wally Schirra, one
of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, died in La Jolla, Ca. From
1962 to 1968 he logged over 295 hours in space .
(SFC, 5/4/07, p.B9)
2007 May 3, A remote-control
bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and
wounding 29 people, including 22 soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, African neighbors
Sudan and Chad signed a Saudi-brokered reconciliation deal in Saudi
Arabia, requiring both sides to cooperate with the United Nations to
stabilize Darfur and the adjacent region in Chad.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Australia signed
the first in a series of contracts that will see its air force buy
24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter-bombers from the US Navy.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Voters handed PM
Tony Blair's Labour Party a string of embarrassing defeats in local
elections.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, Madeleine McCann
(3), a British girl, was kidnapped from her bed in a Portuguese
beach resort while her parents dined nearby.
(Reuters, 5/5/07)
2007 May 3, Seven of Canada's
biggest investment dealers said they plan to launch a new
Alternative Trading System in 2008 to boost the efficiency of equity
trading and make Canada more globally competitive. The Royal
Canadian Mint unveiled a monster gold coin with a face value of C$1
million (455,000 pounds) that it says is the world's biggest, purest
and highest denomination coin.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Forces loyal to the
outgoing president of the Comoros island of Anjouan took control of
a building housing federal offices in what one African Union
official called a coup.
(AFP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, A pair of heavily
armed Cuban soldiers seized a city bus, killed an army officer and
triggered a gun battle in a foiled bid to hijack a charter flight
bound for the United States.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, Ecuador's new
leftist government set up a truth commission to investigate alleged
human rights abuses committed over the last 27 years, particularly
during the right-wing administration of former President Leon Febres
Cordero.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, In Egypt a
conference of nearly 50 nations opened at Sharm el-Sheik to rally
international support, particularly from Arab nations, for an
ambitious plan to stabilize Iraq. US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice met Syria's foreign minister in the first high-level talks
between the two countries in years. Hours after the chief military
spokesman in Iraq said Syria had moved to reduce "the flow of
foreign fighters" across its border.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, In France Claude
Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told a news
conference that there is no reason why Iran should not have nuclear
energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, US-led forces
conducting a crackdown on al-Qaida in Iraq killed Muharib
Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, described as al-Qaida's information
minister. He was responsible for the high-profile kidnappings of
several Westerners. Gunmen stormed the offices of an independent
radio station in a predominantly Sunni area of Baghdad, killing two
employees and wounding five before bombing the building and knocking
the station off the air. Police in Fallujah found nine
bullet-riddled bodies, four members of a Sunni tribe that recently
joined an alliance against al-Qaida in Iraq and five found near the
tax office. Gunmen stormed a market in Baqouba killing a
plainclothes policeman after a militant read a death sentence issued
by al-Qaida and two Shiite men. They then killed a policeman after
he arrived at the scene to investigate.
(AP, 5/3/07)(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, In Israel the
campaign to oust PM Ehud Olmert shifted to the streets, with a mass
rally in Tel Aviv expected to draw tens of thousands of people
calling for the embattled leader to step down.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, In Nigeria at least
21 workers, most of them foreigners, were kidnapped in separate
attacks in the oil-rice delta region. 8 foreigners and a Nigerian
were later freed.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, The Ulster
Volunteer Force, an outlawed Northern Ireland group that for decades
attacked the province's Catholic minority, renounced violence and
pledged to disarm.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Philippine
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced that US-based Texas
Instruments Inc., the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips,
will build a $1 billion plant in the Philippines, choosing the
country over China despite concerns about power costs.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Russia lashed out
at the EU and NATO for supporting Estonia in its row with Moscow
over the relocation of a Soviet war monument.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Scotland held
parliamentary elections. Labor was knocked out of the top spot for
the 1st time in 50 years by the Scottish National Party. The SNP
supported a future referendum on independence.
(AFP, 5/3/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.61)
2007 May 3, Turkish lawmakers
moved up elections to July 22, after the Islamic-rooted ruling party
and its secular opposition agreed that an early ballot was the only
way out of their standoff over political Islam.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez warned he will nationalize the country's banks
and largest steel producer in an apparent bid to strong-arm the
businesses to contribute more to local industry.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, US federal
officials placed a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market in
several states because their feed was mixed with pet food containing
an industrial chemical.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, The United States
said it will provide more than $14 million in security assistance to
Kenya to boost efforts to combat terrorist activities in the east
African nation.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, An Alaska lawmaker
and two of his former colleagues were arrested for allegedly
soliciting and accepting bribes from VECO Corp., a private oil
services company, to pass a new oil-tax system.
(Reuters, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Reuters Group PLC
said that it had received a preliminary takeover approach. The
bidder was identified as Thomson Corp., a financial data and
information provider based in Stamford, Conn., owned by the Thomson
family of Canada.
(AP, 5/4/07)(http://tinyurl.com/2m8qt5)
2007 May 4, Tornadoes in
southwest Kansas killed at least seven people and leveled most of
Greensburg.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 4, In Austria a
standoff pitting Iran against most others delegations at a
130-nation nuclear conference deepened, with organizers adjourning
the third straight session in as many days without breaking a
deadlock over the language of the meeting's agenda.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Two Azerbaijani
journalists were convicted and sentenced to prison for inciting
hatred with an article criticizing Islam.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Brazil’s Pres. Lula
da Silva issued a license allowing Brazil to buy or produce a cheap
generic version of AIDS drug efavirenz, bypassing Merck’s patent.
The compulsory licensing for efavirenz will allow Brazil to import
unbranded copies at a quarter of current prices while paying Merck a
nominal royalty.
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)
2007 May 4, A British court
found Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's first democratically elected
president (1991-2001), guilty of stealing $46 million in government
funds and ordered him to repay the entire sum. He had gone on trial
in Zambia in 2003, accused of 169 counts of corruption, abuse of
power and theft, but was declared unfit to stand trial on the
grounds of ill health.
(AP, 5/4/07)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.51)
2007 May 4, A rebel spokesman
said a Saudi-brokered reconciliation deal signed by Chad with its
neighbor Sudan will not halt a guerrilla war by Chadian rebels aimed
at toppling President Idriss Deby.
(Reuters, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, In Guinea soldiers
protesting the government's failure to give them promised pay raises
beat a shopkeeper to death as they looted his store and fired shots
in the air, wounding at least 25 civilians.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, A boat loaded with
Haitian migrants capsized while being towed by a police boat from
the Turks and Caicos Islands. 78 of some 160 people survived.
Haitian migrants later claimed a Turks and Caicos naval vessel
rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized.
(AP, 5/4/07)(SFC, 5/5/07, p.A8)(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 4, A roadside bomb
killed five Iraqi policemen on a patrol in western Baghdad. US
forces broke up a Shiite militant cell believed to be smuggling an
armor-piercing Iranian weapon responsible for an increasing number
of American and Iraqi deaths. 16 suspected militants were arrested
in the Baghdad raid. 7 bodies were found floating in the Diyala
River in Baqouba. The bullet-riddled bodies of five police officers,
dressed in civilian clothes, were discovered outside the city of
Beiji. The US military identified two more top al-Qaida aides killed
during an operation earlier this week targeting Muharib Abdul-Latif
al-Jubouri. A US soldier was killed and two were wounded when their
patrol was hit by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad. A roadside bomb
killed a US soldier and wounded four others in western Baghdad.
(AP, 5/4/07)(AP, 5/5/07)(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 4, Assailants in
western Baghdad looted and burned the building which housed
independent Radio Dijla, founded by Ahmed Rikaby in 2004. The attack
came one day after staffers fought off some 2 dozen gunmen. Staff
moved to new quarters in Sulaymaniya and within 9 days resumed
broadcasting.
(SFC, 11/22/07, p.A25)
2007 May 4, The divided Koreas
agreed to discuss historic trial runs of cross-border railways, as
Washington cautioned Seoul against rushing to embrace Pyongyang
before it takes steps to dismantle its nuclear program.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, In Somalia Mohamed
Dheere, a former warlord, was sworn in as mayor of Mogadishu and
immediately ordered residents to get rid of their weapons. Aid
groups said 1,670 people were killed between March 12 and April 26
and more than 340,000 of the city's 2 million residents fled for
safety as the government, backed by Ethiopian troops, pressed to
wipe out an Islamic insurgency.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Delegates meeting
in Thailand from 120 countries approved the first roadmap for
stemming greenhouse gas emissions, laying out what they said was an
affordable arsenal of anti-warming measures that must be rushed into
place to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Ukraine's president
and prime minister reached agreement on holding early parliamentary
elections in a bid to end a political standoff between the rival
leaders.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, Former Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami met with Pope Benedict XVI for talks the
Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff's
remarks on Islam and violence, but the Iranian said the wounds were
still very deep.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 4, The UN agency for
refugees began repatriating thousands of Congolese refugees in
Zambia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 5, Street Sense roared
from next-to-last in a 20-horse field to win the Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/5/08)
2007 May 5, In Las Vegas Floyd
Mayweather Jr. won his boxing match against Oscar De La Hoya in a
12-round split decision. A sellout crowd of 16,200 paid a record $19
million gate.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 5, Four suicide
bombings struck Afghanistan, killing two policemen, as military
officials announced more than 10 Taliban commanders were killed in
major battles a week ago.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, Belgium’s daily La
Derniere Heure reported that prosecutors in Brussels, overwhelmed by
the number of speeding fines imposed since fixed radar traps were
installed, have asked police to let off all but the worst offenders,
angering local mayors.
(Reuters, 5/7/07)
2007 May 5, In central China an
explosion at the Pudeng mine, outside of Linfen city, killed 28
miners and trapped others.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 5, It was reported
that China has 16 of the world’s most polluted cities. The UN said
dirty air caused the premature death of some 400,000 Chinese
each year.
(Econ, 5/5/07, SR p.11)
2007 May 5, Colombian officials
reported that forensic teams have unearthed 211 bodies buried in
dozens of mass graves near La Hormiga in southern Colombia in the
past 10 months, a legacy of fierce fighting in this coca-rich land.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, Al-Qaida in Iraq
released a recording purportedly of its leader, who had been
reported killed in recent fighting, branding the country's Sunni
vice president a "criminal" for participating in the government. A
suicide bomber, meanwhile, struck an army recruitment center outside
Baghdad, killing 15 people, among nearly 40 killed or found dead.
Residents and police in a Shiite area in eastern Baghdad said US
helicopters fired on three houses, killing six men and wounding a
woman and five children. The US military said a helicopter
supporting ground operations in the area came under fire but did not
shoot back. Two US Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar
province.
(AP, 5/5/07)(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 5, A roller coaster
traveling up to 46 mph hit a guardrail at an amusement park in
western Japan, killing one person and injuring 21 others.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, A Kenya Airways jet
with 114 people on board crashed after sending out a distress signal
over a remote rainforest in southern Cameroon. The Boeing 737-800
was carrying 114 people, including 105 passengers, from 23
countries. There were no survivors.
(AP, 5/5/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 5, The 12 million
people of Mali earned on average less than $400 a year.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.62)
2007 May 5, The 3 million
people of Mauritania earned on average about $530 a year.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.62)
2007 May 5, In southern Nigeria
armed men kidnapped a Briton overnight from the Trident 8 oil rig.
Unknown gunmen in Port Harcourt kidnapped a Russian woman who worked
for a catering company.
(AFP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, Prince Abdul-Majid
bin Abdul-Aziz (65), the governor of Mecca, died after a long
illness.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, Hundreds of burly
former militiamen from the Balkan wars regrouped outside a church in
central Serbia, promising to fight together as a paramilitary unit
once more if Kosovo breaks away from the government in Belgrade.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, Sri Lankan naval
craft sank two suspected Tamil Tiger boats off the island's
northeastern coast, inflicting heavy losses on the guerrillas.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, In southern Sudan
an attack by one tribe left 54 members of another tribe dead, mainly
women.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 May 5, Tens of thousands
of secularist flag-waving Turks rallied for the third big
anti-government protest in a month as conflict rages over the role
of religion in the Muslim country's politics.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, President Hugo
Chavez said that Venezuela's largest steel maker, Sidor, will not be
allowed to make any more exports until it meets domestic needs, and
threatened to expropriate the Argentine-controlled company if it
resists.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 5, A state daily said
Zimbabwe has lost about 40 black rhinos to poachers who have killed
the animals in some government parks and conservancies over the past
3 years.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 6, Carey Bell,
Mississippi-born blues harmonica player, died in Chicago.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.B5)
2007 May 6, In eastern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed 5 police and wounded two others,
while a clash in the west left eight police and at least four
suspected militants dead. An Afghan soldier shot and killed two US
troops and wounded 2 others outside Pul-e-Charkhi prison. The next
day Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said the Afghan soldier
was mentally ill. A bus crashed in northern Afghanistan, sparking a
fire that left nine people dead and 25 injured.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, In Brazil Eneas
Carneiro (68), a three-time presidential candidate who was later
elected to Congress with the largest number of votes ever received
by a Brazilian lawmaker, died of leukemia.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, Britain’s Home
Secretary John Reid announced that he would resign from the
government within weeks, just as Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon
Brown is likely to take over from Tony Blair as prime minister.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Lord Weatherill
(86), the last speaker to wear the traditional shoulder-length wig,
died. He had ushered Britain's House of Commons into the television
age.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 6, In Egypt a plane
carrying foreign peacekeepers across the Sinai desert crashed near a
stretch of highway where it had tried to make an emergency landing,
killing eight French soldiers and a Canadian.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, French voters
turned out in force in a presidential election offering divergent
choices for the future, with conservative front-runner Nicolas
Sarkozy urging the French to work more and Socialist Segolene Royal
pledging to safeguard welfare protections. Nicolas Sarkozy (52), a
US-friendly conservative and an immigrant's son, defeated Socialist
Segolene Royal by 53% to 47% with about 85% voter turnout.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, A car bomb ripped
through a wholesale food market in western Baghdad, flattening cars
and shops and killing at least 30 people in the deadliest of a wave
of attacks across Iraq that killed at least 95 people. A car bomb
near the Ministry of Labor in Baghdad killed five people and wounded
10. Insurgents exploded another car bomb outside a police station in
the Sunni town of Samarra, killing 12 officers and disabling the
city’s water system. A few minutes later, militants in the town
attacked a police checkpoint near the Askariya shrine, killing
another police officer. US and Iraqi forces raided the Shiite
neighborhood of Sadr City, uncovering a weapons cache, a torture
room and killing at least eight insurgents in a gunbattle. In Diyala
6 US soldiers and a Russian photojournalist were killed when a
massive bomb destroyed their vehicle. Two American soldiers died in
separate bombings in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)(SFC, 5/7/07, p.A16)(SFC,
5/11/07, p.A18)
2007 May 6, Two Israeli human
rights groups charged in a report that Israel's Shin Bet security
service uses torture in its interrogation of Palestinian prisoners,
violating a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Italian news said a
Vatican court for the first time has issued a drug conviction,
giving a former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended
sentence for cocaine use.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Japan pledged $100
million in grants to the Asian Development Bank to combat global
warming and promote greener investment in the region and called for
a stronger international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, More than 18,000
people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City's vast main
square for US photographer Spencer Tunick's biggest nude shoot yet.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Chief Justice
Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Pakistan's sacked top judge, declared
the "era of dictatorship is over" to cheers from tens of thousands
as he took his battle with President Pervez Musharraf to the eastern
city of Lahore. In northwestern Pakistan a passenger bus veered off
a mountain road and fell about 600 feet into a ravine, killing 21
people and injuring seven others.
(AFP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 6, In Pakistan’s North
Waziristan tribal region Islamic militants began confiscating music
cassettes from public buses and ordering shops to only sell CDs
promoting jihad in the latest push to Talibanize the lawless
frontier region.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 6, Palestinian
militants opened fire near a children's festival at a UN-operated
elementary school in the southern Gaza Strip, killing a bodyguard of
a local Fatah leader and wounding seven other people. Palestinian
militants shot and seriously injured an Israeli motorist who was
driving west of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, In South Africa
Helen Zille, mayor of Cape Town, was elected as leader of the
Democratic Alliance (DA).
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.51)
2007 May 6, Spain's Supreme
Court barred hundreds of Basque separatist candidates from running
in regional elections later this month because of links to an
outlawed party closely tied to armed group ETA.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, In eastern Sri
Lanka a landmine detonated by Tamil Tigers killed three police
commandos, while seven suspected rebels died elsewhere in the
embattled region.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 6, Frank Hsieh, former
prime minister of Taiwan, won the ballot of the ruling Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), as candidate for next year’s presidential
elections. Hsieh favored better relations with China.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.44)
2007 May 6, Turkey’s Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul withdrew his candidacy for presidential
elections after Parliament failed for the second time to vote him
into office.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 7, President Bush
welcomed Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to the White House. He brought
roars of laughter when he mistakenly started to say that the queen
had helped the US celebrate its bicentennial in "1776," then quickly
corrected himself to say "1976."
(AP, 5/7/08)
2007 May 7, In New Jersey 6
Islamic militants from Yugoslavia and the Middle East were arrested
on charges of plotting to attack the Fort Dix Army post and "kill as
many soldiers as possible." In Dec 2008 a federal jury found 5 of
the men guilty of plotting to kill US soldiers. 4 of the 5 men were
also convicted of weapons charges. All were acquitted of attempted
murder charges. In 2009 three brothers, Dritan (30), Shain (28) and
Eljvir Duka (25), were convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life
in prison. Mohamad Schnewer was also sentenced to life in prison and
Serdar Tatar was sentenced to 33 years.
(AP, 5/8/07)(WSJ, 12/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 4/29/09,
p.A4)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A4)
2007 May 7, The DJIA rose 48.35
to a record 13,312.97. Nasdaq fell 1.20 to 2,570.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.C1)
2007 May 7, Scientists testing
the beds of streams around Portland, Oregon, found the residue of
the region's medicine cabinets and coffee shops. The list of
compounds includes many known by such names as Prozac, Tagamet,
Benadryl, Micatin, and caffeine.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 7, Alcoa, the world's
largest aluminum company, said it would make a hostile bid for
Canada's Alcan Inc., estimated at $27 billion, after talks between
the rivals failed to lead to a deal.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, In Afghanistan a
rocket slammed into a street outside an apartment building in Kabul,
killing one man and wounding five other people including a small
boy.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, The African Union
announced it would send an extra 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia but
said dialogue remained the only solution to the bloody conflict in
that country.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Australian gangster
Carl Williams was sentenced to 35 years in jail for murdering three
underworld rivals in a gangland war which lasted almost 10 years and
killed 28 people.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, In Austria a
130-nation nuclear meeting stalled for its sixth straight day after
Iran refused to commit itself to a compromise meant to break a
deadlock caused by Tehran's opposition to language of the
gathering's agenda.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Former prime
minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed was greeted by tens of thousands of
supporters as she returned to Bangladesh after the military-backed
government abandoned plans to force her into exile.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Stylist and fashion
guru Isabella Blow (b.1958)), a vibrant and often outrageous
presence on the British fashion scene, died of cancer.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 7, State media said
China's top family planning body has warned that the country could
face a "population rebound" because the newly rich are ignoring
population control laws and because of early marriages in rural
areas. In southwestern China a bus plunged off a highway, killing 17
people including three children and injuring 24 others.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Hong Kong
newspapers reported that an unidentified animal illness has spread
in two southern Chinese cities, infecting at least 1,300 pigs and
killing more than 300. The diseased pigs began dying in Gaoyao and
Yunfu in Guangdong province following Chinese New Year celebrations
in February. The illness, which killed at least 300 pigs, was soon
identified as a strain of blue ear disease. Blue ear disease, also
called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, was first
identified in the United States in 1987.
(AP, 5/8/07)(SFC, 5/8/07, p.A17)(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 7, Ecuador's foreign
minister said President Rafael Correa has decided not to renew a
1993 bilateral investment treaty with the United States, which
expires this week.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, More than 1,000
government delegates gathered in Bonn, Germany, to find ways to
break gridlock in international negotiations on widening action to
slow global warming. The UN urged far tougher action to fight
climate change at the 166-nation climate conference.
(Reuters, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Two suicide car
bombers attacked a market and a police checkpoint on the outskirts
of Ramadi, killing 13 people and dealing a blow to recent US success
in reclaiming the Sunni city from insurgents. A mortar attack also
killed five people and wounded two others in Baiyaa, a religiously
mixed neighborhood in western Baghdad. Four Iraqi troops were killed
in separate attacks in Baqouba. The bullet-riddled body of a
policeman bearing signs of torture also was found outside Kirkuk. At
least 68 people were killed or found dead nationwide including the
bullet-riddled bodies of 30 men found in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Israeli scientists
said they found King Herod’s tomb near Jerusalem.
(WSJ, 5/8/07, p.A1)
2007 May 7, The owner of the
Macau bank at the heart of a dispute over North Korea's nuclear
disarmament said he is challenging a US decision to shut it out of
the global banking system.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, In western Mexico 4
purported drug smugglers were killed in a shootout with soldiers in
Apatzingan, Michoacan state, the second deadly clash in a week
between traffickers and troops in the same remote, mountainous
region.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Nigeria's next
president Umaru Yar'Adua departed on a tour of seven African
countries, his first foreign trip since being elected in April. Oil
major Chevron said it had temporarily shut down its Ebite flow
station in southern Nigeria because of a community protest.
(AFP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Pakistan's Supreme
Court suspended a judicial inquiry into misconduct charges against
the country's top judge that triggered weeks of nationwide protests.
(AFP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Russia’s state
security service said fugitive Rustam Dzhumaliyev had evaded arrest
and become a minor celebrity by masquerading as a US citizen
hitch-hiking across the country for a record attempt.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, In South Africa
Dina Rodrigues was found guilty of murder for orchestrating the June
2005 killing of 6-month-old Jordan-Leigh Norton, her lover's baby
daughter from a previous marriage. This was South Africa's first
known contract killing of an infant.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, South Korea and the
European Union started free trade talks aimed at linking Asia's
third largest economy to the world's biggest trading bloc.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, Turkey's
Islamic-rooted government, whose presidential candidate dropped his
bid in the face of protests from pro-secular lawmakers, pushed for a
constitutional amendment that allows the president to be elected in
a popular vote rather than in a parliamentary poll.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 7, A large explosion
in Ukraine knocked out of service one of the main pipelines which
carries Siberian gas through Ukraine to Germany and other EU
clients. Shifting soil led to a break in the pipeline.
(AP, 5/7/07)(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 7, Venezuela said it
will not allow US agents to carry out counter-drug operations in the
country, accusing the US Drug Enforcement Administration of being a
"new cartel" that aids traffickers.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 8, The US hired a
Florida firm to build a Guantanamo camp by next May to house fleeing
Cubans should there be an exodus when Castro dies.
(WSJ, 5/9/07, p.A1)
2007 May 8, The Pentagon
announced that it had notified more than 35,000 Army soldiers to be
prepared to deploy to Iraq beginning in the fall.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2007 May 8, Governors and
environmental officials from 31 US states announced that they would
create a national registry to measure greenhouse gas emissions.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.A6)
2007 May 8, The SEC accused two
Hong Kong residents of "widespread and unlawful trading activity"
when they bought $15 million of Dow Jones & Co. stock ahead of
an announcement that News Corp. was seeking to buy the company.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, Maryland Gov.
Martin O’Malley signed the nation’s first statewide living-wage
bill.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.A4)
2007 May 8, In Michigan Thomas
Katona (56), the former Alcona County treasurer (1993-2006), pleaded
guilty to embezzlement charges. He was accused of dumping public
funds into fraudulent Nigerian investments. He lost more than $1.2
million in county funds altogether, plus $72,500 of his own money,
despite a warning from his bank that he might be getting swindled.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, It was reported
that San Jose State Univ. planned to name its college of education
after Connie Lurrie, the wife of former SF Giants owner Robert
Lurrie, pledged to donate $10 million to the school.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.B2)
2007 May 8, Comcast Corp. Chief
Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience, showing
off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data
download speed of 150 megabits per second, roughly 25 times faster
than today's standard cable modems. The technology, called DOCSIS
3.0, was developed by the cable industry's research arm, Cable
Television Laboratories.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, A new study found
that US hospitals are charging uninsured patients about
two-and-a-half times more than those with health insurance, a
mark-up that has been steadily rising despite pressure to level
prices.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, A flood surge moved
down the Missouri River and tributaries following weekend storms and
damages approached 1993 levels.
(WSJ, 5/9/07, p.A1)
2007 May 8, Afghanistan's upper
house of parliament passed a bill calling for a halt to all
international military operations unless coordinated with the Afghan
government, action seen as a rebuke of the international mission
here. In southern Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants ambushed a
NATO convoy, and a gunshot victim said soldiers fleeing the scene
shot him and killed a man in a bakery. Airstrikes called in by US
Special Forces soldiers fighting with insurgents killed at least 21
civilians in the Sangin area of Helmand province. One coalition
soldier was also killed. The US military apologized and paid
compensation to the families of 19 people killed and 50 wounded by
US Marines Special Forces who fired indiscriminately on civilians
after being hit by a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan in March.
Residents claimed that over 60 people were killed by the bombing.
(AP, 5/8/07)(AP, 5/9/07)(SFC, 5/11/07, p.A20)
2007 May 8, Algeria’s El-Watan
newspaper reported that authorities have arrested 5 people believed
responsible for organizing deadly terrorist attacks last month.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, Amnesty Int’l. said
in a report that China and Russia are supplying arms to Sudan that
are being used to fuel the violence in the Darfur region in
violation of a UN arms embargo. China and Russia quickly rejected
the report and Sudan's government said it was "not justified." China
confirmed it would send military engineers for a planned UN
peacekeeping force to Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, It was reported
that groups of elderly Australians are setting up backyard
laboratories to manufacture an illegal euthanasia drug so they can
kill themselves when they have had enough of life.
(AFP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In Austria
officials said Vienna's City Hall has launched a "sex hotline" to
raise money for the capital's main public library. Callers paid 53
cents a minute to listen to an actress read breathless passages from
erotica dating to the Victorian era.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, News and
information company Reuters Group PLC and financial data provider
Thomson Corp. confirmed that they are discussing a combination of
their businesses that values Reuters at more than $17 billion.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, A survey showed
that London beat the glamour of Monaco, New York, Hong Kong and
Tokyo to become the world's most expensive place to buy residential
property.
(AFP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, Cuba released
Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez, a journalist who served 22-months in
prison for participating in an anti-government rally. Guerra has
been a contributor to Miami's Payolibre and Nueva Prensa Cubana, as
well as the US government-funded Radio Marti.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 8, An Egyptian court
decided in a rare ruling that President Hosni Mubarak's order to try
40 of the banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood's top figures before
a military court was not valid.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, The leader of
France's defeated Socialists appealed for calm after a second night
of post-election violence left cars burned and store windows
smashed.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In India Mohammed
Shahabuddin, a popular Muslim lawmaker from the state of Bihar, was
convicted and sentenced to life in prison on a charge of kidnapping
with intent to kill a rival who disappeared eight years ago and has
never been found.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, Iran accepted a
compromise on the agenda of a 130-nation nuclear conference, meeting
in Austria, clearing the way for the meeting to approve it and end
six days of deadlock that threatened to doom the gathering to
failure.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, A suicide car
bomber flattened a restaurant in a busy market in the Shiite city of
Kufa, killing at least 16 people, including women and children, and
wounding 70. A roadside bomb went off next to a passing mini bus in
the Shiite area of Zafaraniyah on the southeastern outskirts of
Baghdad, killing three passengers and injuring five others. In
Jalula a suicide bomber attacked a police station as the night-shift
officers gathered in front of the building, preparing to go home.
The explosion killed two policemen and wounded 20 others. The
bullet-riddled bodies of six men, the apparent victims of sectarian
violence, were found with their hands and legs bound and bearing
marks of torture in an abandoned field in Baqouba. Also in Baqouba,
12 gunmen trying to rob a bank were confronted by Iraqi police,
sparking a gunbattle that killed one police officer and wounded
another. An Al-Qaida umbrella group threatened in a video to kill
nine abducted Iraqi security officers in 72 hours unless their
demands were met, including the release of all Sunni women from
Iraqi prisons. An American soldier was killed and four others were
wounded in a shooting attack in Diyala province. 2 children were
among five people killed when a helicopter fired at militants
operating an illegal checkpoint and planting a roadside bomb near
Mandali.
(AP, 5/8/07)(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, The Moroccan
Association of Human Rights, formed in 1979) announced that it had
chosen Khadija Ryadi (47) as its first woman president.
(AFP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and President Pervez Musharraf agreed
to strengthen security along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to
contain the Taliban insurgency.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In southern Nigeria
militants staged coordinated attacks on 3 pipelines in the wetlands
region, the most damaging assault on the country's vital oil
infrastructure in over a year. MEND claimed responsibility for the
bombings, which forced Italian oil giant Eni to halt production of
150,000 barrels per day (bpd) feeding its Brass export terminal.
Militants released 3 South Koreans and 8 Filipinos kidnapped last
week at a Daewoo construction site in the oil-rich south.
(Reuters, 5/8/07)(AFP, 5/8/07)(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, In Northern Ireland
Protestant firebrand Ian Paisley and IRA veteran Martin McGuinness
formed a long-unthinkable alliance as power-sharing went from dream
to reality.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In the Philippines
a homemade bomb ripped through a billiards hall in Tacurong city,
killing three on the spot and five more overnight with 33 seriously
wounded. Officials said the attack bore the hallmarks of
Al-Qaeda-linked militants from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
(AFP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 8, A newspaper owned
by Saudi Arabia's royal family said one of seven recently exposed
Saudi terrorist cells used Syria as a base for coordinating with
al-Qaida in Iraq and held training camps in the desert of
neighboring Yemen.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In Serbia an ally
of late President Slobodan Milosevic was elected as the new
parliament speaker, signaling a return of ultranationalists to power
in the Balkan country.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In Taiwan rival
lawmakers exchanged punches, climbed on each other's shoulders and
jostled violently for position around the speaker's dais as the
Legislature dissolved into chaos over an electoral reform bill.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, Thailand and the
United States launched their annual war games.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 8, In Zimbabwe riot
police violently broke up a demonstration by dozens of lawyers
protesting the arrest of two colleagues outside the High Court in
Harare.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 9, The NY Times
reported on its Web site that Amgen Inc. and Johnson & Johnson
are paying doctors hundreds of millions of dollars every year in
return for prescribing anemia drugs which regulators now say may be
unsafe at commonly used doses.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Alfred D. Chandler
Jr., American historian, died in Massachusetts. He helped establish
the field of business history. His books included “Strategy and
Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Revolution”
(1962).
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.A8)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.91)
2007 May 9, Afghan civilians
fought with Taliban militants who hit a checkpoint near Sangin,
leaving three of the attackers dead. A suicide car bomber killed two
Afghans and wounded five when he detonated his car in the eastern
Paktika province.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, Police in Brazil
and Norway detained at least 25 people in simultaneous raids on
suspected criminal gangs, seeking evidence of money laundering.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Britain’s Home
Office, once called "not fit for purpose" by the minister in charge
of it, was split into two in a bid to combat illegal immigration,
crime and terrorism more effectively. British police arrested four
people in connection with the suicide bombings that killed 52 bus
and subway passengers in London in 2005.
(AFP, 5/9/07)(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Chad pledged to
work to demobilize hundreds of child soldiers fighting in the ranks
of the government army and rebel groups across the conflict-torn
central African country.
(Reuters, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, China ordered
strengthened controls over its food industry after a series of
health scares with international repercussions laid bare lax
standards. A Beijing court sentenced a man to life in prison for
taking nearly $500,000 in bribes while posing as a reporter, and
sometimes a top editor, for the Communist Party's official
newspaper, the People's Daily.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, East Timor voted
for a new president, choosing between a Nobel Prize winner and an
ex-freedom fighter in polls critical to maintaining peace a year
after the nation was pushed to the brink of civil war.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, In the early hours
Internet traffic in Estonia spiked to thousands of times the normal
flow. May 10 was heavier still, forcing Estonia’s biggest bank to
shut down its online service for more than an hour. Hansabank
continued under assault and worked to block access to 300 suspect
Internet addresses. On March 12, 2009, Konstantin Goloskokov, an
activist with Russia's Nashi youth group and aide to a pro-Kremlin
member of parliament, said he had organized a network of
sympathizers who bombarded Estonian Internet sites with electronic
requests, causing them to crash.
(www.lunchoverip.com/2007/05/estonia_under_c.html)(Reuters, 3/12/09)
2007 May 9, France’s interior
minister said violence hit for a third night following the election
of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, with about 200 vehicles torched by
vandals and more than 80 people taken in for questioning nationwide.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, In France Nayef
al-Shaalan, a Saudi Prince, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in
jail on charges of involvement in a cocaine smuggling gang.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Hundreds of German
police raided the offices and apartments of left-wing activists
suspected of planning to disrupt next month's Group of Eight summit,
leading security officials to tighten border controls ahead of the
gathering.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, US VP Dick Cheney
and Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged problems in the pace of
reducing violence in Iraq, but both pledged their governments would
continue working together toward a solution. A majority of Iraqi
lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the
withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number
already in the country. A suicide truck bomb ripped through the
Interior Ministry headquarters in the Kurdish city of Irbil, killing
at least 14 people and wounding dozens. Four Iraqi journalists were
killed in a drive-by shooting near the northern oil-rich city of
Kirkuk. Gunmen killed two members of the minority Yazidi religious
sect and wounded another in a drive-by shooting in Mosul. A car bomb
exploded near an Iraqi military checkpoint in Baghdad, killing one
civilian and wounding two soldiers. Police found four decapitated
heads in the Sabtiyah area north of Baqouba. The body of a security
officer was found shot in the head and chest in Diwaniyah. 72 people
killed or found dead nationwide.
(AP, 5/9/07)(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, Japan's Supreme
Court rejected compensation claims by Chinese victims of atrocities
committed by Japan in the 1930s and 40s, which included the use of
biological weapons and a massacre in the city of Nanjing.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire on a naval commander in the Pacific resort city of
Ixtapa and killed his bodyguard. Suspected drug traffickers attacked
a military checkpoint in the Pacific resort of Huatulco. One
attacker was killed.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, In southern Nigeria
gunmen seized four American workers overnight as violence escalated
in the petroleum-producing region. South Korea's top builder Daewoo
Engineering and Construction welcomed the release of its kidnapped
workers in Nigeria and said the incident would not affect its
lucrative business in the country.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Military officials
from North and South Korea reached an agreement clearing the way for
the first railway journeys across their heavily fortified border for
half a century.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Pakistan and the
Czech Republic agreed to boost diplomatic links and promote
relations in trade, health and science.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, The Palestinian
information minister said Hamas militants have suspended a TV
program that featured a Mickey Mouse look-alike urging Palestinian
children to fight Israel and work for global Islamic domination.
Hamas militants in Palestine had enlisted a figure bearing a strong
resemblance to Mickey Mouse to broadcast their message of Islamic
domination and armed resistance to their most impressionable
audience, children. The show was broadcast as usual two days after
the Palestinian information minister said it would be suspended.
(AP, 5/9/07)(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 9, In the Philippines
Ernie Tatoy (41), an aide to a gubernatorial candidate, was fatally
shot and his daughter (13) wounded, as violence in the run-up to
next week's local and congressional elections claimed its 100th
victim in four months.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Saudi authorities
beheaded an Ethiopian woman convicted of killing an Egyptian man
over a dispute. Khadija Bint Ibrahim Moussa was the second woman to
be executed this year. The kingdom last beheaded two women in 2005.
Beheadings are carried out with a sword in a public square.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, Authorities said
Somali security forces are seizing and even burning Muslim women's
veils in Mogadishu to stop Islamist insurgents disguising themselves
for attacks.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, In northern Syria 7
people were killed and 7 were wounded when a 5-story building
collapsed.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, Pope Benedict XVI
departed for a 5-day visit to Brazil, as evangelical Christians
packed converted storefronts and cavernous churches every Sunday.
Benedict gave his first full-fledged news conference since becoming
pontiff in 2005. When a reporter pressed Benedict on whether he
agreed that Catholic politicians who recently legalized abortion in
Mexico City should rightfully be considered excommunicated, the
response was "Yes."
(AP, 5/9/07)(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 9, Zimbabweans braced
for darker days after President Robert Mugabe's government announced
20-hour daily electricity cuts for households across the country.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, A Zimbabwean court
authorized the extradition of Briton Simon Mann to Equatorial Guinea
on coup plot charges, sweeping aside concerns that he might face
torture or invalid justice there.
(AFP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 10, The
Democratic-controlled House, by a vote of 255-171, defeated
legislation to require the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq
within nine months.
(AP, 5/10/08)
2007 May 10, US congressional
Democrats and the White House reached a deal on trade and labor
standards.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.30)
2007 May 10, US VP Cheney
arrived at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to a red carpet
welcome. The vice president is on a weeklong tour of the Middle East
that will also take him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, A US federal jury
in Santa Ana, Ca., convicted Chi Mak, a China-born engineer, of
passing submarine data to Beijing. Mak was later sentenced to 24 1/2
years in federal prison.
(WSJ, 5/11/07, p.A1)(AP, 5/10/08)
2007 May 10, Thirunavukarasu
Varatharasa (37), a Sri Lankan national, pleaded guilty in a
Maryland court to charges he tried to smuggle US weapons to Tamil
Tiger rebels. He was the last of six defendants in the plot to be
convicted of trying to obtain military weapons in the 2006 scheme.
(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, In Virginia the
maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current
and former executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about
the drug's risk of addiction. Purdue Pharma L.P., its president, top
lawyer and former chief medical officer will pay $634.5 million in
fines for claiming the drug was less addictive and less subject to
abuse than other pain medications.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, In Afghanistan new
airstrikes in the Sangin area killed 10 Taliban fighters after the
insurgents ambushed a patrol. A Taliban commander said the militant
group kidnapped Uruzgan governor spokesman Qayum Qayumi. 4 policemen
and two more insurgents were killed when fighting erupted after a
group of the extremist militants attacked a police post.
(AP, 5/10/07)(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10-2007 May 11, Seven
Islamic extremists and two members of Algeria's security forces were
killed in the violent run-up to parliamentary elections.
(AFP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 10, EnGeneIC, an
Australian biotechnology firm, said it had developed a means of
delivering anti-cancer drugs directly to cancer cells, which aims to
avoid the debilitating toxicity associated with chemotherapy.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, Talks in Brussels
between NATO's top generals and their Russian counterpart failed to
narrow the gap between Moscow and the West over missile defense and
arms control in Europe.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, In Brazil Pope
Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to
abortion in his first speech but avoided further suggestion that
politicians who support abortion rights should be considered
excommunicated.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, Britain’s PM Tony
Blair said he would step down on June 27. The Bank of England raised
its key interest rate by a quarter of a point to 5.5%, the highest
level since 2001, to tackle surging inflation.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, China, criticized
for not pushing its close ally Sudan to resolve the Darfur crisis,
said that it had appointed a special representative on African
affairs to focus on the issue.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, In southwestern
Colombia A roadside bomb planted by leftist rebels killed 10
soldiers on patrol, the deadliest attack on security forces this
year.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, Nobel Peace Prize
winner Jose Ramos-Horta pledged to unite troubled East Timor after
the former resistance leader was elected president of one of the
world's poorest nations.
(AFP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, In Cairo Israeli
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held talks with Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak in the first high-level discussion between Israel and
the Arab world on an Arab initiative calling for an exchange of land
for peace.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, The armed forces
of Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to step up cooperation to boost
security along shared borders after successful patrols in the
Malacca Strait.
(AFP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, US-led forces
conducted a raid in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, killing
three militants as they tried to break up a cell accused of
smuggling weapons from Iran to fight US forces. Iraqi police and
medical officials said the airstrike damaged three houses and killed
eight civilians and wounded nine others. 2 gunmen on a motorcycle
killed an Iraqi military intelligence officer as he drove through
Diwaniyah. Iraqi police discovered two bodies, bound, blindfolded
and shot, floating in a river in Mahaweel. Two other bodies of
police officers, one of them a colonel, were found in Mosul. An
al-Qaida front organization posted a video showing the killings of
nine Iraqi security officers who were lined up blindfolded with
their hands bound behind them and shot in the back of the head. An
explosion in Diyala province killed one US soldier and wounded nine
others. One US soldier was killed and two others were wounded when
an improvised explosive device detonated on their patrol in eastern
Baghdad. One soldier was shot dead in combat security operations in
south Baghdad. Another, from the military police, died of his wounds
after being hit by gunfire in Diwaniyah.
(AP, 5/10/07)(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, Guillaume Soro,
Ivory Coast's former rebel chief-turned Prime Minister, called for
the fostering of new era ties between Africa and Europe, in line
with modern developments.
(AFP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, A Japanese
hospital opened the country's only anonymous drop box for unwanted
infants despite government admonitions against abandoning babies.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, Nigeria's Senate
cleared outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo of corruption in the
management of a multi-billion-dollar oil fund but indicted his
deputy. In Port Harcourt gunmen wearing military fatigues jumped
from their vehicles and killed two police officers.
(AFP, 5/11/07)(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, The Pakistani
military said it has completed building a fence on a first section
of its border with Afghanistan, a disputed measure designed to
prevent militants from crossing the mountainous frontier.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, A Palestinian
woman in the seventh month of her pregnancy lost her unborn baby
when she was caught in crossfire between Israeli troops and
Palestinian militants.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, Kamal Labwani, a
Syrian dissident who was arrested after meeting with White House
officials two years ago, was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in
prison for contacting a foreign country and inciting attack against
his country. His sentencing follows another in recent days against
Anwar al-Bunni, a human rights lawyer, who received a five-year
prison sentence, signaling a continuing of a crackdown by
authorities against dissent.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, A land mine attack
on a convoy of Somali government officials ended in the deaths of
two civilians in Mogadishu. Elsewhere, two aid workers were
reportedly kidnapped.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, South Africa's
common law was rewritten to classify forced anal sex with a woman or
girl, previously considered indecent assault, as rape.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 10, Turkey's
parliament approved a major constitutional amendment to allow the
president to be elected directly by voters, a move that could fan
fresh tensions between the Islamist-rooted government and
secularists.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 10, A Vietnamese court
sentenced 3 pro-democracy activists to prison after convicting them
of spreading subversive propaganda, as the communist country
continued its latest crackdown against dissent. Le Thi Cong Nhan
(30), human rights lawyer, was released in 2010 after serving a
3-year sentence for advocating for a multiparty government in
Internet posts. Nguyen Van Dai, a fellow lawyer who was convicted
along with Nhan, was sentenced to 5 years in prison. His sentence
was later reduced by one year. Nguyen Bac Truyen, a member of the
banned People's Democratic Party, was sentenced to four years. An
appeal court three months later reduced the term by six months.
Truyen was released on May 17, 2010.
(AP, 5/10/07)(AP, 3/8/10)(AP, 5/17/10)
2007 May 11, Speaking aboard
the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf, Vice
President Dick Cheney warned Iran that the US and its allies would
keep it from restricting sea traffic as well as from developing
nuclear weapons.
(AP, 5/11/08)
2007 May 11, In California
firefighters struggled to protect Avalon, Catalina island's main
city, from a wildfire that forced hundreds of residents to flee on
ferries as ash rained down like snow.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, In California the
high school graduation rate fell to 67%, a 10-year low, as the exit
exam for basic skills was required for the first time.
(SFC, 5/12/07, p.A1)
2007 May 11, Austrian
authorities said they have arrested 40 suspects and seized thousands
of videos, CDs and DVDs as part of a yearlong crackdown on child
pornography. Police in Italy made two arrests in connection with the
investigation, which was code-named Operation Max. The server was
located in St. Petersburg, Russia, and since has been shut down.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, In Sao Paulo Pope
Benedict XVI canonized Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao (d.1822), an
18th-century Franciscan monk, as Brazil's first native-born saint.
Friar Galvao began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing
out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people
seeking cures for all manner of ailments.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, Gordon Brown
launched his campaign to become Britain's next prime minister,
pledging to learn from the mistakes of the Iraq war. Tony Blair has
formally endorsed Gordon Brown to be prime minister.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, British private
equity group Terra Firma swooped into the aviation sector to become
the world's third-biggest aircraft leasing operator, snapping up US
firm Pegasus for 5.2 billion dollars.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11-2007 May 12, Local
militia allied to Rwandan Hutu rebels killed four Congolese soldiers
during clashes in a volatile eastern region of the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 11, Germany’s
steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG said it will build a new $4.19 billion
steel plant in Alabama. Deutsche Telekom employees began an
open-ended strike in protest at restructuring measures at Europe's
biggest telecoms operator.
(AP, 5/11/07)(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, Authorities in
Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia launched a blockade of
all ethnic Georgian villages in the province and demanded that the
central government withdraw its police troops from the settlements.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, In Guinea soldiers
demanding pay raises spread their revolt from Conakry, seizing
control of many provincial towns, going on looting sprees and
killing at least two people in the second day of an uprising in the
West African nation.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, In India's most
populous state of Uttar Pradesh, a party dominated by the lowest
caste (dalits) scored a surprise win in elections, while the
country's ruling and main opposition parties both lost ground. In
eastern India a bus plunged nearly 30 feet into a riverbed, killing
at least 20 people and injuring 12. Three Indian officials working
for a South Korean steel company were taken hostage by activists who
contend that the company's plan to build a plant in eastern India
would displace thousands of people.
(Reuters, 5/11/07)(AP, 5/11/07)(AP,
5/12/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.41)
2007 May 11-2007 May 12, At
least 31 people died as a storm hammered northern India. All the
deaths were reported from the worst-hit state of Uttar Pradesh.
(AFP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 11, Iran detained Kian
Tajbakhsh (45), an Iranian-American working for the George Soros
Open Society Institute.
(SFC, 5/24/07, p.A12)
2007 May 11, Iraq's Kurdish
president said his country may need American troops for one or two
more years. US-led forces targeting car bombing networks across Iraq
killed four suspected insurgents and detained nine others in a
series of raids. Two suicide car bombers struck police checkpoints
near bridges in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad, killing at
least 12 people. Near Iskandariyah US snipers killed Genei Nasir
al-Janabi in an effort to hide their presence. On June 30 Staff Sgt.
Michael A. Hensley from Candler, N.C., and Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval
from Laredo, Texas, were charged with the premeditated murder of
three Iraqis. A 3rd soldier Sgt. Evan Vela, of Phoenix, Idaho, was
similarly charged the next day. In 2008 Sgt. Vela was found guilty
on all charges.
(AP, 5/11/07)(AP, 7/3/07)(AP, 2/10/08)
2007 May 11, Only around half
of 45 oil exploration blocks Nigeria put up for auction attracted
bids, with foreigners wary of political uncertainty ahead of a
government change.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, North and South
Korea adopted a military agreement enabling the first train crossing
of their heavily armed border in more than half a century.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, Poland's highest
court struck down the key provisions of a new law requiring that up
to 700,000 Poles with public service jobs be screened for past
collaboration with the communist-era secret police.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, Malietoa
Tanumafili II, head of state of Samoa, died at age 94-95.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.101)
2007 May 11, In southern
Thailand separatist militants killed two policemen in a raid on a
security checkpost, attacking it with guns and grenades before
setting it ablaze with the victims inside.
(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 11, Zimbabwe won
approval, in a vote of 26-21 with three abstentions, to lead the
important UN Commission on Sustainable Development despite protests
from the US, European nations and human rights organizations.
African members nominated Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe's minister of
environment and tourism, for the post.
(AP, 5/12/07)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.49)
2007 May 12, Voters in Farmers
Branch, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, became the first in the nation to
prohibit landlords from renting to most illegal immigrants. Texas
courts quickly issued a restraining order against the city to
prevent the ordnance from taking effect.
(AP, 5/13/07)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.35)
2007 May 12, Joseph Rattigan
(87), former California state senator and justice, died. He
represented Sonoma County from 1958 to 1966. In 1966 Gov. Pat Brown
appointed him to the First District Court of Appeal in SF, where he
served for 18 years.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.B5)
2007 May 12, Afghan lawmakers
voted to oust the foreign minister over the mishandling of the
expulsion of Afghan refugees from neighboring Iran. Mullah Dadullah,
the Taliban's most prominent military commander, was killed in a
US-led military operation in southern Afghanistan. The one-legged
fighter had orchestrated ethnic massacre and a rash of beheadings.
Around 55 Taliban fighters were killed in two battles near the
Pakistan border.
(AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/13/07)(AFP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 12, In eastern Algeria
6 armed Islamist extremists were killed in Kabylia, in clashes with
the military in the run-up to legislative elections. Algeria's
official news agency APS said Algerian security forces had arrested
three Libyan Islamic militants planning to join al Qaeda's north
African wing. Algerian soldiers killed four armed militants in a
clash near the village of Ghoumrassa.
(AFP, 5/13/07)(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 12, Armenia held a
general election. Acting PM Serzh Sarkisian was elected prime
minister.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.58)
2007 May 12, In Bolivia
President Evo Morales vowed to move forward with his campaign to
nationalize Bolivia's oil and gas industry while presiding over
ceremonies marking the transfer of two Brazilian-owned oil
refineries to state hands.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, A cutter of the
Dominican Republic picked up 3 men hauling in bales of cocaine
dropped from a plane that had originated in Venezuela. A US plane
and British helicopters took part in the seizure of a half-ton of
cocaine as Colombian drug traffic via Venezuela escalated.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.A17)
2007 May 12, Egyptian security
forces arrested 59 Muslims in Bamha accused of setting fire to
Christian homes and shops the previous day in clashes over church
construction that underlined lingering sectarian tensions.
(Reuters, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, In Finland
Bosnia-Herzegovina opened this year's Eurovision Song Contest.
Marija Serifovic from Serbia won the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest at
the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, early Sunday May 13, 2007 with a
song entitled 'Prayer.'
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Eric Damfreville,
a French aid worker, returned to France after five weeks in Taliban
captivity in Afghanistan and made a plea for his captors to free
three Afghans seized with him.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Guinean President
Lansana Conte agreed to replace his unpopular defense minister, a
key demand of soldiers leading a three-day-old military revolt.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 12, Abdul-Aziz
al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite political party,
called for a "security agreement" to be negotiated between Iraq and
US-led forces to outline the authorities of each side in a further
indication of growing frustration over America's role in Iraq.
Iraq's parliament objected to the construction of walls around
Baghdad neighborhoods and called on PM Nouri al-Maliki to testify
about other security issues. 4 Americans and an Iraqi interpreter
were killed. 3 soldiers were captured south of Baghdad. The body of
Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. (20) of Torrance, Calif., was found a year
later in the Euphrates River. The bodies of Pvt. Byron W. Fouty (19)
of Waterford, Mich., and Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez (25), of Lawrence,
Mass., were found in July, 2008.
(AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/12/08)(AP,
7/11/08)
2007 May 12, In Italy thousands
of people, including families with their children, poured into a
Rome piazza to protest a government bill that would give legal
rights to unmarried couples, including gays and lesbians.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, In Italy security
officials from Europe's largest countries backed a plan to profile
mosques on the continent and identify radical Islamic clerics who
raise the threat of homegrown terrorism.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, The leaders of
Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan reached a landmark pipeline
deal that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's
energy export routes. The deal will dramatically increase the amount
of natural gas Russia moves from Central Asia to Europe.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, In Mexico a
severed head accompanied by a note of defiance from organized crime
gangs and two hand grenades was found outside a military barracks in
Veracruz state.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, A pregnant
Nicaraguan teenager (17) shot Kenneth A. Kinzel (53), her American
lover, and enlisted her siblings to help dismember the body. She
shot her live-in boyfriend because he threatened to kill her.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 12, In Nigeria Lora
Kabir, a Russian woman, set off with 50 volunteers on a
225-kilometer (140-mile) walk from polio-endemic Nigeria's most
populous city Kano to raise public awareness among parents of the
dangers of polio.
(AFP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Gunbattles and
attacks killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens as Pakistan's
political crisis descended into violence between rival parties over
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's suspension of the chief justice.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Waves reaching 36
feet high thrashed France's Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean,
leaving two fishermen missing and flooding homes and hotels.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 12, Russia said that
it could not accept elements of a draft UN resolution on Kosovo
worked out by the US and EU nations, maintaining its strong
opposition to a Western-backed plan for the Serbian province's
independence.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, An unmanned
Russian cargo ship carrying 2.5 tons of supplies, equipment and
gifts blasted off en route to the international space station.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, The UN top
humanitarian official made a landmark visit to Mogadishu, but the
trip was disrupted by an explosion that killed four people near the
UN compound. John Holmes said he had come to push the government to
allow humanitarian aid to reach its people.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, A South Korean
cargo vessel sank after colliding with a Chinese freighter in heavy
fog in waters off northeast China. 16 crew were on board the
3,800-ton Golden Rose when it sank. The crew of the Chinese ship,
the 4,800-ton JinSheng, were unharmed and returned safely to Dalian.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 12, Taiwanese Premier
Su Tseng-chang resigned, days after he was defeated in the ruling
party's presidential primary.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, In the Turkish
port city of Izmir a bicycle bomb exploded in a market, killing one
and injuring 14 people on the eve of a planned mass anti-government
rally.
(Reuters, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Yemen said it was
recalling its ambassadors to Iran and Libya over what it sees as
their support for Shi'ite Muslim rebels involved in bloody clashes
with government forces. The government of Sunni-dominated Yemen
accused the rebels of seeking to oust its secular administration and
install Islamist rule.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 13, President Bush
made a pilgrimage to the site of the Jamestown settlement in
Virginia to mark the 400th anniversary of its founding.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2007 May 13, The US said it is
willing to talk to Iran if discussions deal only with Iraq, where
the Bush administration says Tehran is undermining the Baghdad
government and exporting deadly roadside bombs. Iran's foreign
ministry spokesman said that Tehran has agreed to a formal request
from the US to talk about security in Iraq. Vice President Dick
Cheney held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak toward the
end of a regional tour, focusing on ways to stem chaos in Iraq and
on Iran's impact on security in the Gulf.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, A mother humpback
whale and her calf were spotted in the Sacramento River. They
reached close to Sacramento before turning around back to SF Bay as
thousands watched media marked their wayward progress. On May 29 the
pair reached SF Bay and the next day were spotted outside the Golden
Gate.
(SFC, 5/31/07, p.B1)
2007 May 13, In Afghanistan 9
policemen lost their lives in fresh attacks. Pakistani and Afghan
forces exchanged fire at their rugged border in their most serious
skirmish in years. Pakistan claimed it killed six Afghan soldiers,
but Afghanistan said just two Afghan civilians were killed.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, Al Qaeda-linked
Algerian rebels facing stepped up assaults by the army set off a
bomb killing three soldiers including an officer east of Algiers.
(Reuters, 5/14/07)
2007 May 13, Australia’s PM
John Howard said the Australian government has banned the country's
cricket team from touring Zimbabwe in September because he does not
want to support the regime of a "grubby dictator."
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, Canada won
hockey's world championship with a 4-2 victory over Finland.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2007 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
held an inaugural mass for the 5th conference of bishops from Latin
America and the Caribbean. This brought together 166 bishops to
discuss the church's situation in the region, home to nearly half of
the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.47)(AFP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, German
pharmaceutical giant Merck KGaA announced that it had signed an
agreement to sell its generic drugs division to the US group Mylan
Laboratories for 4.9 billion euros (6.6 billion dollars).
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, Icelandic PM Geir
Haarde's centre-right Independence Party came out on top in weekend
general elections but it was unclear if his coalition government
will stay in power.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, Iran confirmed
that it has detained Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American
academic. A hardline newspaper accused her of spying for the United
States and Israel and trying to start a revolution inside Iran.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, A suicide truck
bomber crashed into the offices of a Kurdish political party,
killing at least 50 people, including the police chief, and wounding
scores. Another bombing at a market in Baghdad killing at least 17
people and wounding 46. Iraqi gunmen drove into the Diyala capital
of Baqouba, pulled two handcuffed men out of the trunk and shot them
to death, one in view of a bustling market and the other near a
movie theater. Three other civilians also were killed
execution-style in a market in the city center. Five civilians were
killed execution style on the streets of Baquoba by gunmen who
appeared to be accusing them of collaborating with the US-led
coalition. Gunmen apparently disguised as Iraqi soldiers broke into
the house of a Sunni family at the Shiite-dominated al-Wihda
district, killing two men and wounding four others, included a
6-year-old child. In all at least 126 people were killed.
(AP, 5/13/07)(AP, 5/14/07)(SFC, 5/14/07, p.A1)
2007 May 13, A Jamaican
newspaper reported that Scotland Yard investigators have concluded
that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and
was not strangled as local police have said.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, Nigeria's central
labor union called for a two-day mass protest against last month's
elections, which have been roundly criticized by both local and
foreign observers for fraud. In southern Nigeria at least 30 people
were killed when three vehicles burst into flames after colliding on
a road.
(AFP, 5/13/07)(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 13, Pro-government and
opposition groups blamed each other for Pakistan's worst political
violence in years, as new riots broke out and the toll from street
battles in Karachi rose to 41 dead and over 150 wounded.
(AP, 5/13/07)(WSJ, 5/14/07, p.A1)
2007 May 13, Fighting between
Palestinian faction of Hamas and Fatah left 4 people dead in the
Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 5/14/07, p.A7)
2007 May 13, A Serbian
ultranationalist resigned as parliament speaker after only five days
in the post, averting immediate fears that the country was returning
to its warmongering past.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 13, Tamil Tiger rebels
attacked a group of Sri Lankan soldiers who had crossed into
insurgent territory in the north, sparking a battle that left 7
guerrillas and a soldier dead.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 13, One of
Switzerland's central bankers said further increases in Swiss
interest rates are still on the cards, while also praising the
management of the euro currency.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 13, A Syrian court
sentenced four pro-democracy campaigners, including one of Syria's
most respected writers, to prison terms as part of President's
Bashar Assad's latest crack down on dissent.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 13, Hundreds of
thousands of Turks streamed into this port city of Izmir in an
enormous show of opposition to the pro-Islamic ruling party, saying
it threatened to destroy the country's modern foundations.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 14, Pres. Bush ordered
up new rules aimed at increasing automobile fuel efficiency and the
use of alternative fuels.
(WSJ, 5/15/07, p.A1)
2007 May 14, The trial of
suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla opened in Miami. Padilla
and two co-defendants were convicted in August, 2007, of terrorism
conspiracy; Padilla was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
(AP, 5/14/08)
2007 May 14, The cost of
first-class US letters went up 2 cents to 41 cents.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Endemol, the
brains behind reality television shows like "Big Brother", fell into
the hands of a consortium led by Italy's Mediaset which is looking
to branch out of the saturated Italian television market.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Charles Y. Lazarus
(b.1914), the last of four generations to run the iconic Federated
Dept. store in Columbus, Ohio, died in Columbus.
(WSJ, 5/19/07,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Lazarus)
2007 May 14, Algerian troops,
stepping up assaults on al Qaeda's north African wing after suicide
bombings last month, killed 13 Islamist fighters east of Algiers.
(Reuters, 5/15/07)
2007 May 14, An Australian
teenager was awarded record damages including a lifetime income
after a court found that his life had been ruined by bullying at
primary school. Australian authorities said they want to shoot more
than 3,000 kangaroos on the fringes of Canberra, noting the animals
were growing in population and eating through the grassy habitats of
endangered species.
(AFP, 5/14/07)(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Pope Benedict XVI
returned to Rome after telling Brazilians a growing rich-poor gap is
to be lamented, but that the solution isn’t Marxism.
(WSJ, 5/15/07, p.A1)
2007 May 14, In the Central
African Republic the president's office said several former armed
rebels have surrendered to the authorities over the past few days in
the troubled north.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, A Chinese rocket
blasted a Nigerian communications satellite into orbit, marking an
expansion of China's commercial launching services for foreign space
hardware. The NIGCOMSAT-1 ceased functioning on November 11, 2008,
due to a power failure.
(AP, 5/14/07)(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 May 14, In Colombia
judicial authorities ordered the arrest of 20 politicians and
business leaders, including five congressmen, on criminal conspiracy
charges for signing a 2001 pact with illegal right-wing militias. In
the biggest shake-up in years of the security forces, Colombia's
police chief and the head of police intelligence were forced to
retire as the government alleged that police illegally tapped calls
of opposition political figures, journalists and members of the
government for the past two years.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 14, Gangs torched
houses and fought in East Timor, injuring around 14 people, as
violence broke out following the nation's presidential elections.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 14, EU foreign
ministers gave the green light for a 40-million euro aid package to
the African Union peacekeeping force in the troubled Sudanese
province of Darfur.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, EU foreign
ministers decided to drop a visa ban against four Uzbek officials,
while extending other sanctions against the Central Asian nation
imposed after a crackdown on an uprising in 2005.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, German-based
DaimlerChrysler said it will sell almost all of money-losing
Chrysler to Cerberus, a private equity firm, for $7.4 billion,
backing out of a troubled 1998 takeover aimed at creating a global
automotive powerhouse. John Snow, former US treasury secretary,
served as chairman of Cerberus.
(AP, 5/14/07)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.67)
2007 May 14, In India Dr.
Binayak Sen (b.1950), a human rights activist, was arrested for
conspiring with Naxalites in Chhattisgarh state. He was charged with
carrying messages to the Maoist insurgents.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen)(Econ,
5/31/08, p.48)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.41)
2007 May 14, In western India a
gas tanker, truck and bus collided, sparking a fire that engulfed
the three vehicles and killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Iraqi and US
forces also exchanged fire with gunmen near Youssifiyah during the
house-to-house search operation for 3 missing American soldiers,
killing two suspected insurgents and injuring four others. Gunmen
opened fire on a police checkpoint in Baqouba killing three
policemen and two civilians. Mortar rounds struck an outdoor market
in Baghdad killing 3 people. In Suwayrah police dragged two
unidentified, bullet-riddled bodies of a man and a women in their
40s from the Tigris River. A roadside bomb near the southern city of
Basra also killed one Danish soldier and wounded five. 2 US soldiers
on a foot patrol southeast of Baghdad were shot to death. Five US
troops were killed in attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas,
while another soldier died of non-combat related causes.
(AP, 5/14/07)(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Lebanon's prime
minister asked the UN Security Council to impose an international
tribunal to prosecute suspects in the assassination of former
premier Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Malaysia’s PM
Badawi hosted Singapore’s Premier Lee Hsein Lloong for a 2-day talk
on economic cooperation.
(WSJ, 5/14/07, p.A8)
2007 May 14, In Mexico City
gunmen fatally shot Jose Nemesio Lugo, Mexico’s new federal
narcotics intelligence chief, as he was on his way to work at the
Attorney General's Office.
(AP, 5/14/07)(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 14, Nearly 60 former
heads of state, including three ex-American presidents, demanded
that Myanmar's military regime release Nobel peace laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi from house arrest.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, In southern
Nigeria's Rivers State unidentified gunmen snatched a Nigerian
working for Italian oil giant Agip.
(AFP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, In Pakistan
militants opened fire on a group of US, Afghan and Pakistani
military officials meeting near the Afghan border, killing one
American and a Pakistani soldier. In 2011 it was reported that a
Pakistani soldier had opened fire with an automatic rifle, pumping
multiple rounds from just 5 or 10 yards away into American officer,
Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr., (36) killing him almost instantly.
Separately Karachi storefronts were shuttered and the streets of the
commercial hub emptied of cars on as residents angry over a weekend
of deadly political violence honored a general strike called amid
growing discontent over President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's ouster of
the chief justice.
(AP, 5/14/07)(http://tinyurl.com/3hyzgoo)
2007 May 14, The Palestinian
interior minister resigned, accusing Hamas and Fatah leaders of
thwarting his efforts to halt new violence that is threatening the
survival of the Palestinian coalition government.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Filipinos braved
the threat of violence to choose local and congressional
representatives in elections. Wahab Akbar, governor of Basilan, was
elected congressman from Basilan. His 1st wife, Jum, was elected to
become governor of Basilan. His 2nd wife Cherrylyn was already mayor
of Isabela City.
(AP, 5/14/07)(SSFC, 9/9/07, p.F1)
2007 May 14, In South Africa
deputies and experts attending the Pan African Parliament called for
Western countries to help reverse the environmental damage to the
continent that they had helped create.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, In Russia 10
people were found dead after a fire swept through a cafe in Orsk
near the border with Kazakhstan. Prosecutors indicated they suspect
arson.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, Taiwanese
President Chen Shui-bian named his sixth premier in seven years amid
paralysis in the island's relations with rival China and gridlock in
its deeply divided legislature. The World Health Organization
rejected Taiwan's bid for membership after Chinese officials accused
the island of trying to strengthen its claim to sovereignty.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 14, In Tunisia Sfax
port officials said the Tunisian coastguard had rescued 35 African
would-be immigrants who were trying to sail to Italy from the Libyan
coast. More than 1,000 people have landed on Spanish or Italian
territory since May 10.
(AFP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 15, Kenny Chesney
collected his third consecutive entertainer of the year trophy from
the Academy of Country Music.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2007 May 15, Pres. Bush tapped
Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as a new White House War Czar. At least 5
four-star generals had turned the offer down.
(SFC, 5/16/07, p.A7)
2007 May 15, The US military
said former Guantanamo detainees have organized a jailbreak in
Afghanistan, kidnapped Chinese engineers and taken leadership
positions with the Taliban. In southern Afghanistan at least 11
suspected Taliban and possibly dozens more were killed by airstrikes
on Taliban compounds in the Zhari district of Kandahar province.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Associated Press
reported that many VA officials who got hefty bonuses last year sat
on the boards that recommended the payments.
(WSJ, 5/16/07, p.A1)
2007 May 15, Voters in southern
Oregon’s Jackson County defeated a property tax measure to prop up
the county’s 15 public libraries.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A5)
2007 May 15, Reuters agreed to
a $17.2 billion takeover by Thomson of Canada that would vault the
combined entity ahead of Bloomberg to become the world's largest
financial data and news provider.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Tyco Int’l. said
it has agreed to pay almost $3 billion to settle class-action suits
brought by investors in the largest payment ever by a company in
such a suit.
(SFC, 5/16/07, p.C1)
2007 May 15, The Rev. Jerry
Falwell (73), the television minister whose 1979 founding of the
Moral Majority galvanized American religious conservatives into a
political force, died.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Karen Hess (88),
culinary historian and author, died in NYC. Her books included “The
Taste of America” (1977), which sounded an alarm for more healthful
eating.
(SFC, 5/22/07, p.B5)
2007 May 15, Argentine
commuters in Buenos Aires enraged by delays in evening train service
set fire to parts of a railroad station, looted nearby shops and
clashed with riot police.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil will push to improve working
conditions for sugarcane cutters who harvest most of the cane that
is turned into ethanol for the nation's booming biofuel industry. A
jury voted 5-2 to convict rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura of
masterminding the shooting of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang, an American
nun and rain forest defender on Feb. 12, 2005, in a case seen as an
important test of justice in the largely lawless Amazon region. This
ruling was overturned in 2008 after the man who confessed to
shooting Stang recanted earlier testimony, insisting that he'd acted
alone. Gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales was sentenced to 28 years in
prison. In 2009 Para state's top court reversed the 2008 not-guilty
verdict for Vitalmiro Moura on a technicality.
(AP, 5/15/07)(AP, 4/7/09)
2007 May 15, PM Bertie Ahern
became the first Irish leader to address the joint houses of the
British Parliament.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2007 May 15, In Denmark
hundreds of black-clad youths clashed with police in Copenhagen,
barricading streets and setting fire to cars to protest the
demolition of a building in the free-wheeling Christiania district.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Mohammed Sayed
Saber (35). an Egyptian accused of spying for Israel praised the
Jewish state for its advanced technology and claimed documents he
passed on were so outdated they posed no threat to Egypt's security.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, In India
separatist rebels fatally shot six migrant workers in northeastern
Assam state. At the heart of the violence is simmering resentment by
Assam's indigenous people, most of whom are ethnically closer to
people in Myanmar and China than India, against the federal
government in New Delhi, some 1,000 miles to the west, and ethnic
Indians who have migrated to the state over the centuries.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 15, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Gulf Arab neighbors to send experts to
inspect his country's nuclear power plant, in an apparent effort to
ease fears over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, In Iraq’s Diyala
province about 50 suspected insurgents attacked a village north of
Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 14. Two bombs hidden in
plastic bags exploded in shops in central Baghdad, killing at least
seven people and wounding 17. A parked car bomb exploded near a
market in a Shiite enclave northeast of the capital, killing at
least 32 people and wounding 50. Hospital officials and wounded
victims said chlorine gas may have been used in the attack, but
police denied that.
(AP, 5/15/07)(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 15, A top Mexican
anti-drug official said the US must do more to stop weapons from
being smuggled into the hands of drug traffickers who are using them
to kill Mexican soldiers and police.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Royal Dutch Shell
Plc. said protestors have occupied an oil facility in southern
Nigeria forcing daily production cuts of 170,000 barrels per day.
(AFP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, In Pakistan a
suicide bomber with a warning to spies for America taped to his leg
attacked a crowded restaurant in Peshawar near the Afghan border,
killing at least 25 people days after a relative of the Taliban's
slain commander was arrested there.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Hamas gunmen
ambushed rival Fatah forces near a key crossing along the Israeli
border, killing eight people in the deadliest battle yet in three
days of factional fighting.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, International
observers of elections in the Philippines said they witnessed
threats and vote-buying inside some southern precincts, and police
said two more people were killed in violence related to the voting.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Russia's top AIDS
specialist said Russia's AIDS epidemic is worsening with as many as
1.3 million people infected with HIV as the virus spreads further
into the heterosexual population.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Serbia's
parliament approved a new pro-democracy government, overcoming
efforts by anti-Western ultranationalists to derail the vote and
force new elections.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 15, A Spanish
anesthesiologist with hepatitis C was sentenced to prison for
infecting 275 people with the virus by injecting them with morphine
from the same needles he used to feed his own addiction. Juan Maeso
(65) was sentenced to 1,933 years in prison. The most he can serve
under Spanish law is 20 years.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, Venezuela’s health
minister said Venezuela will impose a limited smoking ban in bars
and restaurants but has no plans to halt the production of
cigarettes and tobacco.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 15, In Vietnam Tran
Quoc Hien, a trade union organizer and member of Bloc 8406, became
the 6th democracy campaigner to be imprisoned within a week.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.45)
2007 May 15, In Zimbabwe a
spokesman said dozens of doctors at four of the largest state
hospitals have gone on strike to demand higher pay.
(AFP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 16, Anti-war Democrats
in the US Senate failed in an attempt to cut off funds for the Iraq
war.
(AP, 5/16/08)
2007 May 16, British PM Tony
Blair paid a farewell visit to President Bush at the White House.
(AP, 5/16/08)
2007 May 16, Paul Wolfowitz
began to negotiate the terms under which he would resign from the
World Bank.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A3)
2007 May 16, The DJIA rose
103.69 to a record 13,487.53. Nasdaq rose 22.13 to 2,547.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.C1)
2007 May 16, The journal Nature
said that a bird count had found common US species, like robins,
crows and bluebirds, in sharp decline due to West Nile virus. A US
Geological survey in June found that populations of 20 common
American bird species have dropped by half in the last 40 years.
(WSJ, 5/17/07, p.A1)(SFC, 6/15/07, p.A11)
2007 May 16, In Algeria bombs
killed a police officer and wounded five other people on the eve of
parliamentary elections, prompting fears of renewed Islamist
extremism.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Gen. Sir Richard
Dannatt, British army chief of staff, announced that Prince Harry
would not go to Iraq because of "specific threats" to his life that
would expose the prince and his fellow soldiers to unacceptable
risk. The prince did end up serving in Afghanistan for 10 weeks,
until word of his deployment got out.
(AP, 5/17/07)(AP, 5/16/08)
2007 May 16, In Canada some
3,200 track workers at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. began a
national strike over failed talks on wages and other issues.
(Reuters, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Zheng Xiaoyu,
China's former top drug regulator, went on trial accused of taking
bribes to approve untested medicine, including an antibiotic that
killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the
market. Zheng was fired in 2005 on charges he took up to $780,000 in
bribes to approve medicine that had not been tested to ensure its
safety. He was expelled earlier this year from the ruling Communist
Party.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In northern
Colombia Diana Patricia Pena (36) was abducted by armed men with her
husband, Roland Erik Larson (68), at their farm. Pena soon escaped
but Larson was still missing.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 16, Following a
six-decade wait, Estonia's 3,000-strong Jewish community inaugurated
its new and only synagogue in Tallinn in the presence of top Israeli
dignitaries.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Nicolas Sarkozy
took office as France's president.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In northwestern
Haiti gunmen killed journalist Alix Joseph (38), shooting him 11
times outside his fiancé’s house.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 16, Indian company
United Spirits bought Scottish liquor maker Whyte and Mackay for
more than one billion dollars, emphasizing India's growing economic
clout abroad.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In southern Iraq
clashes broke out in the mostly Shiite city of Nasiriyah, when a
militia fought with police there after they arrested two wanted
militia members, police said. Nine Iraqis were killed and 75
wounded. At least nine apparent mortar rounds slammed into the
US-controlled Green Zone, wounding at least six people, the second
such attack in as many days.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, The Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Council
Meeting in Paris approved a decision to open accession discussions
with Israel.
(Econ, 4/5/08, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/2h2frt)
2007 May 16, An Israeli
helicopter launched missiles at a Hamas command center in the
southern Gaza Strip, after Hamas fired rocket barrages into Israel
in an apparent attempt to draw Israel into increasingly violent
Palestinian infighting. At least 19 people were killed in factional
fighting between Fatah and Hamas.
(AP, 5/16/07)(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A12)
2007 May 16, Japanese officials
said the landlocked nation of Laos has agreed to join the
International Whaling Commission at Japan's request and is highly
likely to support Tokyo's high-profile pro-whaling campaign.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Kazakhstan's
President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed limited political reforms in
the oil-rich country he has headed since the Soviet era, including
shortening the presidential term from seven years to five and
strengthening the powers of parliament.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In Mexico over 40
armed men abducted and killed 4 police officers south of the Arizona
border.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A3)
2007 May 16, Thomas Frank
White, a US businessman, was convicted of raping a teenage boy and
sentenced to more than 7 years in jail in Mexico. White, who founded
the brokerage firm Thomas White & Co. in 1978, was arrested in
Thailand in 2003 at the behest of Mexican officials and later
extradited.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Nigerian militants
used dynamite to blow up a home of vice president-elect Goodluck
Jonathan, killing two police officers.
(AFP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected pro-Taliban militants firing mortars and machine
guns attacked a police checkpoint, and at least five civilians were
killed in the ensuing gunbattle.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, Scottish National
Party leader Alex Salmond was elected to become first minister of
the devolved Edinburgh parliament, after the pro-independence
party's historic election victory this month.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, In Somalia a
roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying African Union peacekeepers,
killing four Ugandan peacekeepers in one of the deadliest attacks on
the troops since they arrived in March.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 16, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend its peacekeeping mission in
Congo until the end of the year while calling for a timetable to
gradually withdraw the nearly 18,000-member force.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 17, President Bush and
retiring British PM Tony Blair held a joint news conference at the
White House, during which Blair allowed not a single regret about
the Iraq war alliance.
(AP, 5/17/08)
2007 May 17, The US White House
and key lawmakers agreed on a sweeping immigration plan to grant
legal status to millions of people in the country unlawfully.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, US lawmakers
branded China and Russia the world's two biggest copyright thieves.
(Reuters, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, US Navy lawyer Lt.
Cmdr. Matthew Diaz (41) was convicted in military court of
communicating secret information that could be used to injure the
US. Diaz had given a human rights attorney the names of 550
Guantanamo Bay detainees.
(SFC, 5/18/07, p.A7)
2007 May 17, Paul Wolfowitz
announced that he was stepping down soon as World Bank chief. This
marked yet another blow for US President George W. Bush as his
Republican administration nears its end.
(AFP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, It was reported
that Chris Cohan, owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball
team, faced tax evasion charges by the IRS for potentially abusive
tax shelters used when he sold Sonic Communications in 1998 for $200
million.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A1)
2007 May 17, In Oakland, Ca., a
mother and daughter were kidnapped and tortured by men associated
with Your Black Muslim Bakery. Yusuf Bey IV, the group’s leader,
believed the women could reveal where a local drug dealer kept his
money. In October Richard Lewis (23), aka Rakeem Kahlil Bey, was
arrested for his role in the kidnap-torture. On April 7, 2010, Lewis
was convicted of kidnapping, carjacking and torture.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.B1)(SFC, 4/8/10, p.C3)
2007 May 17, The journal
"Science" reported that Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a crucial
"carbon sink" into which 15 percent of the world's excess carbon
dioxide flows, is reaching saturation and soon may be unable to
absorb more , a deeply troubling development.
(AFP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, In southern
Afghanistan 2 coordinated bomb blasts killed seven people, including
three police responding to the first explosion. In western
Afghanistan airstrikes in Farah province targeted a convoy of
suspected Taliban militants who had left a meeting, killing 14 and
wounding 10. In Kandahar a suicide car bomber rammed a government
convoy, killing three bystanders and wounding Information and
Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram.
(AP, 5/17/07)(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 17, Algerians, shaken
by al-Qaida-claimed suicide bombings and dealing with a tough
economy, slowly trickled to vote in legislative elections under
tight police security.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, In Argentina
leftist union members shut down the Buenos Aires subway system with
a one-day strike, causing huge traffic jams as commuters drove,
packed buses or struggled to hail taxis.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Greyhound Canada
suspended passenger and parcel service in Western Canada because of
a labor disruption.
(Reuters, 5/18/07)
2007 May 17, A Colombian
warlord, accused of spearheading civilian massacres, claimed that
some US companies who buy Colombia's bananas had made regular
payments to his illegal right-wing militias.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Estonia's defense
minister said that the massive cyber attacks that have crippled the
high-tech country's Web sites are a threat to national security, and
that it's possible the Russian government was behind them.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.65)(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, The World Bank
said that it and the European Commission and six other donors have
committed $780 million to support basic services and transparency in
Ethiopia.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, French Pres.
Nicolas Sarkozy named Francois Fillon (53), a Gaullist former social
affairs minister, to be his prime minister.
(SFC, 5/18/07, p.A3)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.56)
2007 May 17, Across Iraq at
least 58 Iraqis were killed or found dead in bombings, shootings and
mortar attacks. They included 42 bullet-riddled bodies of apparent
victims of so-called sectarian death squads. Three American soldiers
were killed and another was wounded in a roadside bombing south of
Baghdad. Mortar rounds hit a US Air Force base north of Baghdad,
destroying one helicopter and damaging nine others.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Israeli aircraft
struck a Hamas command center, a trailer housing bodyguards and two
vehicles, citing the firing by militants of more than 50 rockets at
the Israeli border town of Sderot over three days.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, In central Japan a
man went on a shooting rampage in his home, killing a policeman,
wounding three other people, including his son and daughter, and
taking his wife hostage.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, The first trains
since 1953 traversed the Korean DMZ in a peace gesture.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A1)
2007 May 17, Mexican police
chased the remnants of a criminal assault force through the
mountains of Sonora near the Arizona border after kidnappings and
gunbattles that left at least 22 people dead.
(AP, 5/17/07)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.45)
2007 May 17, Moroccan police
clashed with student protestors from Western Sahara demanding an end
to Rabat's control over the disputed region.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Nicaraguan said it
has re-established formal diplomatic relations with North Korea and
rejected criticism of the Asian country's nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, In Nigeria labor
leaders called a two-day nationwide strike coinciding with the May
29 inauguration of the new government to protest what they said was
a fraudulent election.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Russia filed a
suit against the Bank of New York for $22.5 billion for its role in
a money laundering scheme that was broken up by US authorities in
1999.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A3)
2007 May 17, Russian Orthodox
leaders signed a pact to heal an 80-year schism between the church
in Russia and an offshoot, the Church Abroad, set up following the
Bolshevik Revolution. At least 10 of 145 Church Abroad parishes in
the US opposed the canonical union. Most of the New York-based
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) agreed to unite with
the Patriarchate of Moscow.
(AP, 5/17/07)(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.A12)(Econ,
10/18/08, p.69)
2007 May 17, In Sri Lanka said
security forces had shot dead at least 20 Tamil Tiger rebels in
northern Sri Lanka in a fresh outbreak of fighting.
(AFP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, In Ukraine Petro
Balabuyev (75), a lead designer of the world's largest aircraft, the
An-225, died.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 17, Analysts warned
that a new pricing law approved by Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe, as inflation exceeded 3,700%, could worsen rather than
relieve widespread shortages and price rises.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 18, The White House
and Congress failed to strike a deal after exchanging competing
offers on an Iraq war spending bill that Democrats said should set a
date for US troops to leave.
(AP, 5/18/08)
2007 May 18, US federal
prosecutors asked a judge to immediately freeze the assets of former
Qwest Communications International Inc. Chief Executive Joseph
Nacchio, who was convicted last month of making $52 million from
insider trading.
(Reuters, 5/20/07)
2007 May 18, In New Jersey a
second rainstorm in three days soaked a forest fire and raised hopes
that it could be brought under full control by day's end. New Jersey
Air National Guard officials said one of their F-16s dropped a flare
into the tinder-dry Pinelands during a training mission May 15,
possibly starting the blaze.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, Deep-sea explorers
of Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration said they have mined
what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing
home 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins from an
undisclosed shipwreck off England. The estimated value was $500
million.
(AP, 5/18/07)(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 18, Microsoft agreed
to buy online-ad specialist aQuantive for $6 billion, the largest
acquisition in Microsoft’s history.
(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 18, Roy De Forest
(77), prominent SF Bay Area painter, died.
(SFC, 5/23/07, p.B7)
2007 May 18, The Taliban said
it had arrested a close aide to the rebel movement's slain commander
Mullah Dadullah for treachery that led to his killing. Soldiers from
the Afghan army and a coalition led by the US killed 67 Taliban in
an ambush in the eastern province of Paktia, near the border with
Pakistan.
(AFP, 5/18/07)(AFP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 18, Algeria’s Interior
Ministry announced that the National Liberation Front party, which
has dominated Algerian political life since independence in 1962,
kept its leading position in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, A group of 88
Burundians who have lived as refugees in neighboring Tanzania for up
to 35 years became the first of some 8,500 to head to the US for a
new life.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 18, UN officials said
rebel leaders in the Central African Republic have agreed to begin
sending several hundred child soldiers home to their families.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, China took steps
to let its currency appreciate faster against the dollar and to cool
its sizzling economy ahead of what are expected to contentious talks
in Washington over Beijing's soaring trade surplus.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, President Alvaro
Uribe lashed out at US lawmakers for treating Colombia like a
"pariah" by refusing to pass a trade agreement amid a scandal
linking his government to murderous right-wing paramilitaries.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, In Ethiopia 3
Swedish citizens were released after spending five months in jail.
The three were among dozens of foreigners detained earlier this year
as terror suspects.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 18, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy named his first Cabinet, radically revamping the
government, which included seven women among its 15 members. Bernard
Kouchner, former UN administrator for Kosovo and co-founder of the
Nobel Prize-winning aid group Doctors Without Borders, was named
foreign minister.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, Haitian President
Rene Preval declared a "war without end" against corruption, calling
crooked state officials traitors who rob the deeply impoverished
nation of vital investment and jobs.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, In India a bomb
attack at the 17th-century Mecca Majid, the main mosque in
Hyderabad, killed 13 people. Two other unexploded bombs were found
and defused by police. Ensuing clashes with police left five more
dead. A serial killer who has been leaving headless torsos outside
the Indian capital's jail for more than a year, allegedly in revenge
for wrongful imprisonment, struck again. This was the fourth time
since December 2005 that a torso had been left in a sack outside the
Tihar Jail.
(AP, 5/18/07)(AP, 5/19/07)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)
2007 May 18, About 50 suspected
insurgents attacked a US base in the center of Baqouba, sparking a
battle with US soldiers and helicopters that left at least six
militants dead. In Baghdad two Iraqi journalists working for ABC
News were slain as they drove home from work. A suicide car bomber
hit a police patrol in the Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar,
killing three officers and wounding two. In Kirkuk drive-by shooters
killed an Iraqi army officer as he was heading to work. A 24-hour
curfew remained in place in Mosul for a third day. It was imposed
after insurgents used five suicide vehicle bombs, mortars and small
arms fire to destroy two bridges and attack a police station and a
jail where suspected insurgents were being held. The attacks killed
15 insurgents, 10 Iraqi policemen, one Iraqi soldier and one
civilian. US forces on a raid in northern Baghdad killed Azhar
al-Dulaimi, a Shiite militant believed to have masterminded a brazen
January attack in Karbala that led to the capture and killing of
four US soldiers. 7 US soldiers died in Iraq; 3 were killed when
their vehicle was bit by a bomb northeast of Baghdad, one in the
western province of Anbar, one by small arms fire south of the
capital and two by a roadside bomb and small arms fire in
northwestern Baghdad.
(AP, 5/18/07)(AFP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 18, Israel pounded
more Hamas targets with airstrikes for a 2nd day, killing four
Palestinians. 10 people have died with dozens wounded as it stepped
deeper into fighting between the Islamic militants and the rival
Fatah fighters of President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, In Japan a former
gangster surrendered after a shooting rampage at his home that left
one policeman dead and three other people, including his son and
daughter, injured.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, Jordan's King
Abdullah II made a new attempt to rally Mideast peace efforts as he
hosted politicians and business leaders at the World Economic Forum.
Politicians attending the forum warned of a bleak future for the
Mideast if its explosive tensions are not resolved.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, Kazakhstan's
veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev was in effect declared
president-for-life in a move condemned by the nation's opposition as
undemocratic.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, In the Netherlands
a 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a
Rotterdam zoo, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing
panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Islamic militancy was increasing
across Pakistan and said tough measures were needed to counter it,
as religious students from a pro-Taliban mosque abducted four police
officers. Musharraf said that he would not allow his two primary
political opponents to come back to Pakistan before elections,
slated for this year. Dozens of gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying 8
government officials and kidnapped them in North Waziristan. Saud
Memon (44), owner of the shed and land outside Karachi where the
body of Daniel Pearl was found, died. Memon was found lying
unconscious outside his house on April 28.
(AP, 5/19/07)(SFC, 5/19/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/21/07,
p.A6)
2007 May 18, In southern Peru a
backpack containing dynamite and nails exploded during a celebration
in a market in Juliaca, killing six people and wounding 48.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 18, A powerful bomb
ripped through a teeming bus terminal in the violence-prone southern
Philippines, killing a 5-year-old boy and injuring about three dozen
other people.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 18, In Russia EU
leaders criticized Russia's human rights record, and were faulted in
return, at the end of a summit that produced no formal agreements
but helped illustrate the widening political chasm between Moscow
and the West. Russia barred activists, including chess grandmaster
Kasparov, from protests near the Volga summit.
(AP, 5/18/07)(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 18, The UN accused
Sudan government forces of direct involvement in recent
machine-gunning of Darfur villages that left at least 100 dead.
(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 19, Curlin nipped
Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense to win the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2007 May 19, In San Francisco
Scott Chris Thomas attacked Loren Schaller (15) with a knife at a
Twin Peaks bakery. In 2010 a jury convicted Schaller (29) of
attempted murder and mayhem. On Aug 5 Thomas was sentenced to at
least 26 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/3/10, p.C2)(SFC, 8/6/10, p.C2)
2007 May 19, In northern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker detonated himself next to German
soldiers shopping in a crowded market in Kunduz, killing 3 German
soldiers and 6 Afghan civilians with 16 people wounded. A district
police chief and a bodyguard were killed in a bomb blast in the
eastern province of Nangarhar.
(AFP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Algerian official
news reported that security forces had dismantled a suspected
support network linked to twin terror bombings last month in the
capital that killed 30 people.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, Two local health
workers were kidnapped for ransom in the Central African Republic
(CAR), prompting UN concerns that worsening security was hampering
aid work there.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 19, China’s state
media said an outbreak of a viral disease common in children has
sickened almost 900 people in eastern China but the outbreak has
been contained. The outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease began
in late April in the city of Linyi in Shandong province. In southern
China thousands of farmers rioted at a government office in Shabi
township, Guangxi region, after authorities imposed heavy fines on
families that had more children than allowed under the country's
family planning policy.
(AP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 19, The ruler of Dubai
launched a $10 billion foundation to provide scholarships and
promote research in the Middle East, saying the region has neglected
education despite its oil wealth.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, Police arrested 14
members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood as part of Egypt's ongoing
campaign against the country's strongest opposition group.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, In Germany G8
finance ministers from the world's richest nations sought ways to
improve financial management in Africa and were asked to scold China
for lending too freely to African countries.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Gunmen wearing
Iraqi army uniforms entered a village east of Baghdad, rousted
families from their homes and opened fire on the men, killing 15 men
and one woman. Shiite militiamen from the Mahdi Army traded gunfire
with Iraqi soldiers in southwestern Baghdad's Baiyaa district,
killing one of the soldiers. In Tikrit police received the bodies of
seven men killed in clashes the night before in Samarra. Outgoing
British PM Tony Blair arrived in Baghdad on a farewell visit, and
three mortar shells or rockets slammed into the Green Zone where he
met with Iraq's leaders. One US soldier died from a roadside bomb
south of Baghdad. Six American soldiers and their translator died in
a bombing in western Baghdad. Another US soldier was killed and two
were wounded when a blast struck their vehicle near Diwaniyah. At
least one US soldier was killed and four wounded as insurgents
attacked the searchers for 3 missing comrades with guns, mortars and
bombs.
(AP, 5/19/07)(AFP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, Japan's state and
navy police raided a Japanese naval academy over an alleged leak of
sensitive warship technology data shared between Japan and the US.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Assailants shot
dead a police commander in a wealthy Monterrey suburb, the latest in
a wave of killings of law enforcement officials across Mexico.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, In southern
Nigeria gunmen dynamited the front gate of a residential compound
and kidnapped three Indians in an attack that left one Nigerian
dead.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, In Islamabad
hardline clerics holding four Pakistani police at a mosque won the
release of four extremists after a tense day-long stand-off between
armed police and baton-wielding students.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, In Gaza
negotiators from the rival Hamas and Fatah movements reached a new
cease-fire deal.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Romanians voted on
whether to impeach President Traian Basescu, who has been accused of
violating the constitution but remains popular among the public.
Basescu, suspended on grounds he abused power, easily survived a
referendum on his impeachment, with partial results indicating about
three-fourths of the votes supporting the leader.
(AP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, German Gref,
Russia’s Economy Minister, told reporters that Russia will not allow
indebted state companies to default. It was reported that more than
a half-dozen journalists with the Russian News Service, have
resigned to protest the new pro-Kremlin management's policy that at
least 50 percent of coverage must be positive.
(Reuters, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Miroslav Deronjic
(52), Bosnian Serb war criminal, died in a hospital in Sweden.
Deronjic, the top authority in the eastern Bosnian city of Bratunac
during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, was convicted of ordering a 1992
attack on a Bosnian village in which 65 civilians were killed. He
had been serving a 10-year sentence for war crimes.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 19, Tens of thousands
of Venezuelans marched to support a TV station aligned with
opponents of President Hugo Chavez, whose government plans to kick
the channel off the air next week by not renewing its license.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 20, President Bush
welcomed NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to his
Crawford, Texas, ranch, to review strategy on a flurry of issues.
(AP, 5/20/08)
2007 May 20, It was reported
that the US continued to pay Pakistan some $1 billion a year in
reimbursements for military counterterrorism efforts along the
Afghan border. Over the last 5 years Pakistan has received $5.6
billion. Payments averaged $80 million a month.
(SSFC, 5/20/07, p.A6)
2007 May 20, In Idaho law
enforcement officers stormed a church in Moscow where Jason Hamilton
(36) went after wounding three in a courthouse ambush where he faced
mental evaluation. Hamilton killed his wife at home and sexton Paul
Bauer at the church before taking his own life. An officer who was
shot responding to a gunman spraying bullets at a courthouse died of
his injuries.
(AP, 5/20/07)(SFC, 5/21/07, p.A5)(SFC, 5/22/07,
p.A3)
2007 May 20, San Francisco’s
96th annual Bay to Breakers race drew some 60,000 runners. Joe
Spinale (53) died of a heart attack after crossing the finish line.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.B1)(SFC, 5/22/07, p.B2)
2007 May 20, Alltel Corp., the
fifth-biggest US wireless company and owner of the nation's largest
geographic network, announced that it had signed an agreement to be
acquired by TPG Capital, formerly Texas Pacific Group, and GS
Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs in a deal worth
$27.5 billion.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 20, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber on foot detonated himself in a crowded
market just after a US convoy drove by, killing at least 14 people
and wounding 31. Suspected insurgents ambushed a US-led coalition
and Afghan patrol, sparking a battle and airstrikes that killed 25
suspected insurgents in Helmand province. A suicide bomber walked
into a crowded market in the eastern city of Gardez and blew himself
up, killing 14 people and wounding 31. In eastern Nangarhar
province, a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in the district of
Dara-I-Nur, killing two policemen and wounding seven others. A
British soldier died of wounds from an accident at a British
military base in Sangin.
(AP, 5/20/07)(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 20, Confessed
Australian al-Qaida supporter David Hicks was transferred to a
maximum security prison in his hometown after spending more than
five years at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Fiona Dawson,
managing director of the Mars snack food business in Britain,
apologized for a widely mocked decision to use animal products in
chocolate bars and said in future its candy would be suitable for
vegetarians.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, An exit poll
showed that Bulgaria's ruling Socialist party won the country's
first elections for the European Parliament with 23.9% of votes,
despite voter frustration with rampant corruption and poverty.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, China’s state
press said that pollution and the excessive use of chemicals in
foodstuffs are sending national cancer rates soaring. 20 Chinese
women were killed and 4 injured when a 3-wheeled tractor overturned
on a mountain road in northern Liaoning province.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Jose Ramos-Horta
was sworn in as East Timor's president as violence erupted in the
capital between rival groups, leaving one person dead.
(AFP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Guram Sharadze
(67), the leader of a Georgian opposition movement, was gunned down
on a street in a central part of the capital, Tbilisi.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, In Germany
engineering concern Siemens said Peter Loescher, from US
pharmaceutical giant Merck, will take over as chief executive from
July 1.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Hungary’s PM
Ferenc Gyurcsany said that the justice minister resigned and the
national and Budapest police chiefs were dismissed in an effort to
restore public confidence in the force after cases accusing officers
of rape, corruption and theft.
(AP, 5/21/07)(Econ, 6/2/07, p.51)
2007 May 20, A suicide bomber
exploded a tanker truck near an Iraqi police checkpoint outside a
market west of Baghdad, killing at least two officers and injuring
nine people. A bomb planted under a parked car exploded in the
central Baghdad neighborhood of Bab al-Sharji, near the Zahraa
Shiite mosque. The blast killed two civilians, wounded 10. A mortar
shell landed in a commercial area in central Baghdad, killing one
person and wounding three.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Israeli Vice
Premier Shimon Peres said his government would offer a
counterproposal to an Arab peace initiative to resolve the conflict
with Palestinians. Israeli warplanes fired missiles into a car
carrying Hamas militants and a load of weapons, killing 3 people,
and also demolished arms factories of 2 Palestinian militant groups.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, In Kenya 6 men
were beheaded over the weekend in villages on the outskirts of
Nairobi. This came weeks after members of the Mungiki sect fought
with the police over control of minibus terminals, where they have
been extorting money from drivers. 7 people were soon arrested in
connection with the beheadings.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 20, Kuwait broke ranks
with the US dollar and decided to track a basket of currencies. It
was estimated that the dollar still accounted for 70% of the basket.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.75)(http://tinyurl.com/2wojz3)
2007 May 20, Lebanese tanks
pounded a militant group's headquarters in the Nahr al-Bared
Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli after the northern city's
worst clashes in two decades killed 13 soldiers and 17 militants.
The raid that triggered the clashes was part of a police search for
suspects in a bank robbery a day earlier in Amyoun, a town southeast
of Tripoli. Gunmen of the radical jihadist faction known as Fatah
al-Islam made off with $125,000 in cash in the robbery. The siege
lasted 106 days leaving 47 civilians, 167 Lebanese soldiers and some
287 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 5/20/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.47)(Econ, 5/10/08,
p.57)
2007 May 20, Police in
Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara arrested three leading human rights
campaigners following weeks of crackdowns against students and
activists in the territory.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 20, Officials said
Nigeria's largest state has sued US drug firm Pfizer for allegedly
using 200 children as "guinea pigs" for a drug test in 1996 that led
to multiple deaths and deformities. In 2010 a leaked WikiLeaks cable
said Pfizer hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption
against Nigeria’s former attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to
persuade him to drop legal action over the company’s experimental
antibiotic, Trovan.
(AFP, 5/20/07)(SSFC, 12/12/10, p.A4)
2007 May 20, In Pakistan
hardline clerics said that they had released two policemen held
hostage at an Islamabad mosque, after a deal was struck with
authorities to free 4 extremists.
(AFP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Hundreds of
demonstrators gathered outside the Moscow’s main broadcast facility
to protest what they called lies and censorship on TV stations that
are either controlled by the state or under its influence.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, A bomb detonated
in Mogadishu near the mayor's vehicle convoy, leaving at least two
civilians dead. His bodyguards shot and killed a suspected insurgent
who had been in a tree near the explosion.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Sri Lanka's
government claimed to have killed more than 500 rebels in the past
four months and lost 44 of its own soldiers in fierce fighting that
has completely shattered the island nation's peace process.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, In southern
Thailand suspected Muslim insurgents shot and killed two Buddhist
civilians and wounded a third, while a bomb wounded 11 people,
including five policemen.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Thousands of
flag-waving Turks demonstrated in the Black Sea port city of Samsun
against the Islamic-rooted government, which they fear is
undermining Turkey's secular system.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 20, Vietnam elected a
new National Assembly. Vietnam's communist party won more than 91%
of seats in elections for the new national assembly, which will
consist of 493 members.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.45)(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 21, US Democratic
presidential hopeful Joseph Biden called for US troops to help quell
the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, drawing a strong rebuke from
Sudan's UN envoy.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, A Chinese
delegation led by Vice Premier Wu Yi arrived in the United States
for two days of talks that will spotlight tensions over US trade
deficits with the Asian export giant. A Chinese state fund that is
buying a $3 billion stake in US private equity firm Blackstone Group
LP wants to avoid political backlashes when it makes other
investments abroad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Bill Richardson,
Gov. of New Mexico, officially joined the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, The US Supreme
Court ruled that parents don't need to hire a lawyer to sue public
school districts over their children's special education needs.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2007 May 21, The US Food and
Drug Administration issued a safety alert for the diabetes drug
Avandia, marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, which disputed a report saying
it was linked to a greater risk of heart attack. A doctor in
Maryland had linked Avandia to congestive heart failure in 2000, but
GlaxoSmithKline rejected her warning and tried to stop her from
talking about it with other doctors and hospitals.
(AP, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 11/19/08, p.B6)
2007 May 21, Florida set its
2008 presidential primary for January 29.
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, It was reported
that California’s spending trends would have the prison budget
overtake spending on state universities in five years.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, Afghanistan's
lower house of parliament voted to oust an outspoken female lawmaker
who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid
Karzai's US-backed government. Malalai Joya (29) had compared
parliament to a stable full of animals in a recent TV interview. A
parliament rule known as Article 70 forbids lawmakers from
criticizing one another.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Mining giant Rio
Tinto and energy powerhouse BP announced plans for a $1.5 billion
coal-fired power project in Australia which would capture carbon
dioxide to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, The presidents of
Belarus and Iran sought to cement ties that the Belarusian leader
called "a strategic partnership." Belarus will develop an oil field
in Iran under an agreement announced by President Alexander
Lukashenko during a visit by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Greenwich,
England, a spectacular fire heavily damaged the clipper ship Cutty
Sark, one of London's proudest relics of the 19th century tea trade
with China designed to be the fastest ship of its day. Cutty Sark
left London on its first voyage on Feb. 16, 1870, proceeding around
Cape Hope to Shanghai 3 1/2 months later. The ship made only eight
voyages to China in the tea trade, as steam ships replaced sail on
the high seas.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Chile Pres.
Michelle Bachelet apologized for failing to fix her capital's public
bus system and promised to raise education spending by hundreds of
millions of dollars.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Ethiopian troops
backing Somalia's fragile government killed one person and wounded
another after their convoy was targeted by a land mine in Mogadishu.
Two Ethiopian rebel groups, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), said they have killed 157
troops in the east of the country this month.
(AP, 5/21/07)(AFP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Indar Jit Rikhye
(86), Indian peacekeeper, died. In 1970 he set up the Int’l. Peace
Academy in NYC to train military officers and diplomats in simulated
conflicts.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.99)(www.ipacademy.org/our-work)
2007 May 21, Iran charged Haleh
Esfandiari, a jailed Iranian-American academic, with setting up a
network to overthrow the Islamic establishment, the government
announced. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the
Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held
at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Gunmen in two cars
attacked a minibus outside Hibhib, Diyala Province, killing 7
passengers, including a child. In western Baghdad, a roadside bomb
exploded near a group of Iraqi soldiers patrolling the
Sunni-dominated Adil neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing three
of the soldiers and injuring two. The Iraqi newspaper Azzaman
reported that one of its reporters, Ali Khalil (22), was kidnapped
while leaving a relative's house in the increasingly volatile Baiyaa
neighborhood of Baghdad and found dead several hours later. Two
gunmen killed two police officers as they walked by the police
station in Muqdadiyah. In Basra gunmen killed one police officer and
wounding another in an attack on their patrol. A British soldier and
a civilian driver were killed when a supply convoy was attacked in
the center of Basra.
(AP, 5/21/07)(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Israel pushed
ahead with its campaign against Palestinian rocket squads, pounding
the Gaza Strip with new airstrikes that killed five militants. A
rocket from Gaza killed an Israeli woman.
(AP, 5/21/07)(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, Japanese Emperor
Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Sweden, kicking off a 10-day
tour of Europe that will take in the three Baltic nations and
Britain, where they have faced protests in the past.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Kazakhstan's Pres.
Nazarbayev (66) approved a constitutional amendment that waives
presidential term limits and allows him to seek the top post
indefinitely.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.42)
2007 May 21, Lebanese troops
pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery and tank fire for
a second day, raising huge palls of smoke as they battled a militant
group suspected of ties to al-Qaida in the worst eruption of
violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Norway said it
would make its first transfer of direct aid to the Palestinians' new
government, more than two months after the Nordic country broke with
most Western nations by recognizing the Hamas-led coalition.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Pakistan
radical Islamist students kidnapped three policemen in Islamabad,
creating a second tense police hostage stand-off.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Paraguayan
President Nicanor Duarte and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met
in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion, and vowed to boost legitimate trade
and to strengthen cross-border cooperation in fighting smuggling in
the Triple Border.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Polish doctors
launched a nationwide open-ended strike, demanding a pay raise amid
complaints that the health system is underfunded and medical
professionals are overworked.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, In northern Sri
Lanka 6 people were killed during deepening fighting between
government soldiers and separatist rebels.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Tanzania the
appeals court of the UN-backed Rwandan genocide tribunal upheld a
life sentence for Mika Muhimana (57), convicted on multiple counts
of rape and murder. Muhimana, a Hutu, was accused of involvement in
the rape of nearly 30 women from the minority Tutsi tribe during
Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 22, The US and China
opened a new round of high-level economic talks with the Bush
administration pushing for concrete results and China saying efforts
to politicize trade disagreements would be a mistake.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, Two-time Olympic
gold medalist speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno and his professional
dance partner, Julianne Hough, won ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."
(AP, 5/22/08)
2007 May 22, Silas Rondeau,
Brazil's mines and energy minister, resigned amid accusations he was
bribed by a construction company that obtained contracts to provide
electricity to poor rural areas in a program championed by the
nation's first working class president.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 22, Prosecutors in
London accused Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent, of murder
in the radioactive poisoning of fellow ex-operative Alexander
Litvinenko and sought his extradition from Russia. The Russian
prosecutor-general's office said it will not turn over Lugovoi to
British authorities.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen met with junta head Senior General Than Shwe in military-ruled
Myanmar, as the two nations moved to improve tourism links.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, The International
Criminal Court prosecutor announced a war crimes investigation into
hundreds of rapes and other violations in the Central African
Republic in 2002 and 2003. The UN condemned the capture of two aid
workers in the north-west of the CAR, saying the worsening security
was hampering its humanitarian work in the country.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, Guatemala ratified
the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions, an international
adoption treaty, committing to bring adoptions under government
regulation and make sure babies are not bought or stolen.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 22, In India streets
were deserted and shops closed across the northern state of Punjab
after Sikh leaders called a general strike in the wake of a clashes
with a quasi-religious sect that have left one person dead. The
Akali Dal, the Sikh’s main political party, encouraged protests
against the Dera Sacha Sauda, a powerful group that had supported
Congress in state assembly elections.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 7/7/07, p.43)
2007 May 22, Iran jumped
gasoline prices 25% in a new blow to consumers already disgruntled
over high inflation, and the government said it will begin rationing
fuel in two weeks. By November inflation was running at 16%.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.56)
2007 May 22, A car bomb
exploded at an outdoor market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing
25 people and wounding at least 60. Gunmen in two cars drove through
the nearby Khadra neighborhood and ambushed a civilian car carrying
three plainclothes police from the major crimes unit, killing two
and wounding the third. A police officer was killed when a roadside
bomb exploded next to a police patrol driving through eastern
Baghdad. Gunmen disguised as soldiers set up a fake checkpoint and
stopped a minibus bringing college students to the Shiite
neighborhood of Sadr City. The militants killed 8 of the students
and wounded three others. At another fake checkpoint near Baqouba
gunmen killed six people from one family, a woman, her 5-year-old
son and four men and stole their car. 2 mortar shells slammed into a
teacher's college affiliated with Baghdad University, killing three
students and injuring seven. In the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a
sniper shot two civilians, killing one and wounding the other. At
least 100 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide. They included
33 people found shot execution-style, presumably by sectarian death
squads, and their bodies scattered across Baghdad. US soldiers and
two Marines were killed in separate attacks. A US soldiers was
killed in a roadside bomb attack near Tikrit.
(AP, 5/22/07)(AP, 5/23/07)(Reuters, 5/25/07)
2007 May 22, Israeli aircraft
struck two camps used by the Islamic militant group Hamas, a day
after a Palestinian rocket attack killed an Israeli woman. Officials
suggested even Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas
could be a target.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, In Lebanon a
convoy of UN relief supplies was hit in renewed fighting as it tried
to enter the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared. At least 15
civilians were left dead or wounded. Lebanon asked the US for $280
million in military assistance.
(AP, 5/22/07)(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.A1)
2007 May 22, The UN's top
refugee official arrived in Nepal for a visit aimed at resolving the
fate of around 100,000 refugees from Bhutan stuck in Nepal for 16
years.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, Pakistani security
forces backed by helicopter gunships attacked a militant training
camp near the Afghan border, killing at least four suspected
militants.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, The Philippine
elections commission suspended the vote count from last week's polls
in southern Maguindanao province amid allegations of massive
cheating by pro-government supporters.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 22, South African
lawmakers passed amended legislation to broaden the definition of
rape in a country with sky-high rates of sex crimes and HIV/AIDS.
The heaviest snowfalls in 20 years blocked major highways, as a
severe cold snap tightened its grip on South Africa. At least 17
deaths, mostly in Eastern Cape province, were blamed on the cold
weather.
(AP, 5/22/07)(AFP, 5/22/07)(SFC, 5/26/07, p.B6)
2007 May 22, Guven Akkus (28),
a suicide bomber, carried out an attack that killed six people and
injured dozens in Ankara, using methods similar to those of a
Kurdish rebel group. Akkus had spent two years in prison for hanging
illegal posters and resisting police.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, President Bush,
speaking at the US Coast Guard commencement, portrayed the Iraq war
as a battle between the US and al-Qaida and contended that Osama bin
Laden was setting up a terrorist cell in Iraq to strike targets in
America.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2007 May 23, Jordin Sparks (17)
of Glendale, Ariz., was crowned the newest and youngest "American
Idol."
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, The California
Energy Commission announced rules that barred municipal utilities
from signing new contracts with coal-fired power plants. Coal
generated about 20% of the state’s electricity.
(SFC, 5/28/07, p.A17)
2007 May 23, A conservation
group said dozens of European mammals faced extinction unless
immediate measures are taken to protect them. 35 of the continent’s
231 mammal species fell into the threatened category.
(SFC, 5/23/07, p.A7)
2007 May 23, A bomb in northern
Afghanistan killed a Finnish soldier and an Afghan civilian, while a
suicide attacker in Kabul killed two people, including a policeman.
Two operations in southern Afghanistan killed 18 suspected
militants, including seven "foreigners," while six people died when
a stash of ammunition exploded in the east.
(AP, 5/23/07)(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, Australian PM John
Howard and his Greek counterpart Kostas Karamanlis sealed a deal
which concluded a decades-long debate over pensions for one of the
world's largest expatriate Greek communities.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Belarus lawmakers
backed legislation stripping hundreds of thousands of disabled and
retired people and students of social benefits and other state
payments.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The High Court in
London upheld a ruling letting families return to their Indian Ocean
island homes, from where they were forced out 30 years ago to make
way for a US military base. The Court of Appeal backed a High
Court ruling in May last year that allowed the families to return to
the Chagos Islands, except for Diego Garcia, a launchpad for US
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, China said it was
investigating reports that toothpaste containing a potentially
deadly chemical had been exported to Central America.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Colombia announced
capital controls on some foreign investments to try to curb the
soaring peso, which has made greater gains against the dollar this
year than any other currency.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The BBC reported
that Pakistani UN peacekeepers charged with disarming Congolese
militia instead engaged in gold and weapons trafficking with militia
members. The Pakistani unit in question deployed to Mongwalu in
April 2005.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 27, The inaugural
sermon was held at Mega Frater, Central America's biggest church.
The new center of the Fraternidad Cristiana, a Neo-Pentecostal
church based in the Guatemalan City, includes an auditorium that
seats 12,500, a seven-story parking tower topped with a helipad and
a day-care center for 3,000 kids.
(www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=Guatemala)
2007 May 23, An Iraqi
intelligence officer alleged in a published report that 70% percent
of insurgents fighting in Iraq come from Gulf countries via Syria
where they are provided with forged passports. A suicide bomber
walked into a packed market café in the town of
Mandali, and blew himself up, killing 15 people and wounding
20 others. A suicide bomber (17) blew himself up in the house of two
brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al Qaida in
the Anbar province, killing 10 people, including the men, their
wives and their children. A parked car bomb exploded in a parking
lot in Jbala, killing three civilians and wounding 15 others. Gunmen
drove into a commercial area in central Baghdad and opened fire on
shops, killing four civilians and injuring 14 others. US-led forces
discovered a cache of Iranian money and bomb-making equipment during
a raid in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. Two
suspected militants were killed in the raid and 19 others detained.
At least 104 people were killed in sectarian violence or found dead,
including 32 who died in suicide bombings. US authorities examined a
body found in a river south of Baghdad and identified it as Pfc.
Joseph Anzack Jr., one of three US soldiers seized in an ambush on
May 12. 2 US soldiers were killed during combat operations in Anbar
province.
(AP, 5/23/07)(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 May 23, Japan passed a law
to fund the reorganization of US forces in Japan and help move
thousands of Marines from the country's south to the US territory of
Guam. Fire broke out at a farm in northern Japan, killing about
2,000 pigs.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In Lebanon
hundreds of Palestinian civilians carrying their belongings in
plastic bags trickled out of a besieged refugee camp, taking
advantage of a truce in fighting that mostly held overnight.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In western Mexico
a tractor-trailer loaded with sand smashed into a toll booth and
rebounded into other vehicles, setting off a blaze that killed 10
people.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, Philippine
President Gloria Arroyo said she welcomed a greater global role by
Japan as she discussed a stalled free trade agreement in Tokyo.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Romania's
suspended President Traian Basescu was reinstated after he won a
referendum on his removal from office.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In Serbia Slobodan
Milosevic's paramilitary commander and 11 other men were convicted
and sentenced in the assassination of Serbia's first democratically
elected prime minister, Zoran Djindjic.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, In northern Syria
14 people were killed and 20 injured when an Iraqi bus overturned on
the Raqqa-Aleppo highway about 250 miles north of Damascus.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 23, In southern
Thailand 7 people including two teenagers were killed, while 11
others were injured in a spate of bombings by suspected separatist
rebels.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, The UN human
rights commissioner said that Burundi has agreed to set up a
tribunal to try people suspected of genocide and war crimes during
its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 23, Yuri Chernogayev,
an Uzbek reporter for German broadcaster, said he faces up to 10
years in prison after being accused of defaming President Islam
Karimov.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 24, The US Congress
passed a spending bill, providing $95 billion for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Pres. Bush signed the bill the next day.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 24, Pres. Bush
nominated James Holsinger, a cardiologist from Kentucky, as the new
US surgeon general.
(www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070524-2.html)
2007 May 24, The Alabama
Legislature passed a resolution that expressed profound regret for
the state’s role in slavery. Gov Bob Riley was expected to sign it.
In recent months Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia made formal
apologies.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A3)
2007 May 24, In Oakland, Ca.,
C.C. Myers led the completion of repair work on I-580, 26 days after
a portion of the MacArthur Maze collapsed following a gasoline
tanker crash and fire.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 24, Ohio death row
inmate Christopher Newton was executed by injection; it took him 16
minutes to die, more than twice the usual amount of time, once
chemicals began flowing into his veins, which the execution team had
had trouble locating.
(AP, 5/24/08)
2007 May 24, Ancestry.com
unveiled over 90 million US war records that dated back to 1607.
(SFC, 5/29/07, p.C5)
2007 May 24, Energy Brands Inc.
agreed to a $4.1 billion takeover by Coca-Cola.
(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.A3)
2007 May 24, In Afghanistan
Sayed Gulab, a suspect with "extensive connections" with other
senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Nangarhar and Pakistan, was
detained and held in a coalition facility.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 24, Britain's Court of
Appeal upheld a $95 million award to the ex-wife of insurance tycoon
John Charman (54), the largest judgment ever in a contested divorce
in England and Wales. Jenny Bailey (45), a female councilor who was
born a man and fathered two children, was sworn in as Britain's
first transsexual mayor. Bailey, a Liberal Democrat, became the
civic leader of the Cambridge City Council.
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In southern China
residents of Bobai county angrily accused authorities of forcing
women to have abortions and vandalizing homes in a brutal campaign
to enforce birth-control policies. Government "work teams" had
raided homes, carried out mass arrests and levied crippling fines
across Guangxi, a sprawling region near the Vietnam border.
Communist Party officials in Shanghai convened a congress to install
a new generation of leaders following a corruption scandal that
toppled the city's top leader. 2 days of heavy rainstorms in
southwest China triggered flash floods and mudslides killed 21
people and left 11 missing.
(AFP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Egypt approved the
formation of a new liberal political party headed by a former member
of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, A car bomb
targeting a funeral procession in the turbulent city of Fallujah
killed at least 26 people. The funeral was being held for Alaa
Zuwaid (60), a restaurant owner who was part of a tribe that had
formed an alliance with other tribal leaders against al-Qaida.
Zuwaid was killed earlier Thursday in the day unknown militants shot
him in front of his house. In Sulaiman Bek, 75 miles south of
Kirkuk, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police convoy and killed six
police officers. A suicide bomber detonated a bomb aboard a minibus
driving through Baghdad, killing three civilians and injuring eight
others. 5 US soldiers were killed in four separate attacks across
Iraq, most of them by roadside bombs.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Reuters, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In Ireland voters
began casting their ballots in an election that analysts say is
likely to return PM Bertie Ahern to power, but with new, left-wing
partners in government. An exit poll gave his Fianna Fail party a
surprisingly strong lead in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, Israeli troops in
the West Bank rounded up a Palestinian Cabinet minister and 32 other
Hamas leaders in the West Bank before dawn, pressing forward with an
offensive against the Islamic militant group.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Japan's prime
minister proposed cutting world greenhouse gas emissions in half by
2050 as part of a new global warming pact for all countries,
including top polluters United States and China.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Japanese Emperor
Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Estonia's seaside capital on
their first-ever visit to a former Soviet republic.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In Lebanon
sporadic gunfire erupted inside the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp where
Islamic militants are holed up after refusing an ultimatum by
Lebanon's defense minister to surrender or face a military
onslaught. Lebanon's leader vowed to uproot the fighters. The family
of Shaker Youssef al-Absi, the Palestinian who heads the shadowy
militant group blamed for this week's violence in Lebanon, said he
is not a terrorist but a nationalist who seeks an end to Israel's
occupation of Palestinian lands.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Nigeria's powerful
oil unions began a strike at its state-owned oil company and
threatened to target exports in hopes of reversing the sale of
government refineries.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In Pakistan
thousands of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's opponents
demonstrated in several, the first street protests since a burst of
political violence deepened a crisis clouding his plans to stay in
power.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, A Peruvian
government flight serving as a link between isolated jungle
communities disappeared in the country's northeastern rain forest
with 20 people on board. 7 survivors were rescued the next day.
(AP, 5/25/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 24, A methane
explosion tore through a coal mine in southern Siberia, killing 38
miners and injuring seven others. One worker died days later raising
the toll to 39.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 24, Somali police shot
and killed two civilians after attackers hurled a hand grenade at a
police station.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, In South Africa's
Eastern Cape province 9 children were among 14 people killed in a
multiple-vehicle crash.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 24, In northern Sri
Lanka a flotilla of rebel boats launched a deadly raid on a navy
camp, hours before a bomb exploded near an army bus in the capital
killing one soldier and wounding six people. Tigers claimed to have
killed 32 sailors. Government troops killed 12 suspected Tamil Tiger
rebels in the northern Vavuniya district.
(AP, 5/24/07)(AFP, 5/25/07)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.24)
2007 May 24, In Switzerland an
arson fire gutted the interior of Hekhal Haness Synagogue, Geneva's
largest synagogue.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 24, Hundreds of
thousands of Syrians thronged Damascus to support a second
seven-year term for President Bashar Assad.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, The head of the UN
nuclear agency said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three
to eight years from being able to make nuclear weapons and he urged
the US and other powers to pursue talks with the Islamic country.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 24, Zimbabwe police
slapped a new ban on political rallies and demonstrations in parts
of the capital Harare, citing a recent spate of "disturbances."
(AFP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 25, President Bush
signed a bill to pay for military operations in Iraq that did not
contain a timetable for troop withdrawals.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2007 May 25, The US filed a
complaint at the World Trade Organization against India, saying its
duties on alcoholic beverages and other imports violate global trade
rules.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Atlanta attorney
Andrew Speaker, infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis, was
quarantined by the federal government after returning from his
European wedding and honeymoon.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2007 May 25, Miami police said
Francisco Oliveira (29), a handyman delivering drugs, shot and
critically wounded Fabio Alonso Salgado (aka Estefano), a prominent
Latin music songwriter and producer, inside a waterfront mansion.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 25, In central Texas
two days of storms and flooding left 5 people dead and one missing.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, US and British
researchers reported that stem cells taken from the umbilical cords
of newborns can be engineered to produce insulin and may someday be
used to treat diabetes.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, Coca-Cola said it
would buy Glaceau, an American maker of vitamin enhanced water, for
$4.1 billion. This was Coke’s largest acquisition to date.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.78)
2007 May 25, Charles Nelson
Reilly (76), actor, died. In 1962 he appeared on Broadway as Bud
Frump in the original Broadway production of "How to Succeed in
Business Without Really Trying." The role won Reilly a Tony Award.
He later became known for his ribald appearances on the "Tonight
Show" and various game shows.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 25, In southern
Afghanistan a NATO soldier from Canada was killed and two other NATO
soldiers were wounded in overnight attacks by Taliban fighters. 7
Taliban fighters, including two local commanders, were killed in a
joint coalition-Afghan operation in Gereshk district of southern
Helmand province.
(AFP, 5/25/07)(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, Radovan Stankovic,
a convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal, escaped from custody while
being transported to a hospital in eastern Bosnia after complaining
of feeling ill.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, British
authorities said 4 people in north Wales have tested positive for a
mild strain of bird flu, linked to the H7N2 low pathogenic avian
influenza found in chickens.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, In Burundi 61
countries and international organizations promised 656 million
dollars (488 million euros) during a donors' roundtable in the
capital Bujumbura. The World Bank considers Burundi, where 70% of
the population lives below the poverty line, the world's
third-poorest nation.
(AFP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Costa Rica health
officials said they have seized more than 350 tubes of Chinese-made
toothpaste tainted with a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes
sold elsewhere in the world.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, In Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, China and the African Union launched a 150-million-dollar
project to build a new conference centre for the cash-strapped
continental body.
(AFP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, German lawmakers
passed a ban on smoking on public transport and in federal
buildings, including the parliament. It still needs approval from
the upper house of parliament, where the government also has a
majority.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in
months, delivering a fiery anti-American sermon to thousands of
followers and demanding US troops leave Iraq. Gunmen in a speeding
car shot and killed a police officer as he was leaving his house in
the Shiite-dominated al-Wihda district, 20 miles south of Baghdad.
In al-Wijaihiya, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, a gunbattle
between residents of a Sunni village and their rivals in a
neighboring Shiite village, killed two people and injured five
others. 6 mortar rounds hit houses in western Baghdad, killing one
person. The notorious leader of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the
city of Basra was killed in a shootout as British and Iraq troops
tried to arrest him. Wissam al-Waili (23), also known as Abu Qadir,
was shot and killed along with his brother and two aides.
(AP, 5/25/07)(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, A "garbage crisis"
in Naples dominated news in Italy. For weeks local and national
authorities have tried to end a stalemate over mountains of rubbish
rotting on the streets for lack of adequate landfill sites.
(Reuters, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Abdullah
el-Faisal, a Muslim cleric named by the British government as a key
influence on one of four men who carried out the deadly London
transport bombings in 2005, was deported to Jamaica after being
released from prison.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, In Mexico 2
members of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a Marxist guerrilla
group, disappeared. A week later the group blamed the government and
called for their safe return and warned of dire consequences. In
July the group began blowing up natural gas pipelines. Attacks took
place on July 6,10 and Sep 10.
(WSJ, 11/14/07, p.A1)
2007 May 25, Myanmar's military
government extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi by another year.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, In southern
Nigeria gunmen kidnapped a group of foreign oil workers, including
three Americans and four Britons.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Pakistani police
busted a gang trading in kidneys and arrested eight people,
including five doctors.
(AFP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, Russia's lower
house of parliament gave preliminary backing to a new wide-ranging
restrictions on smoking in public. In southern Russia a brawl
between hundreds of Caucasus migrants and local Russians, all armed
with metal rods, baseball bats and knives, killed an ethnic Chechen
in Stravropol.
(AP, 5/26/07)(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, In South Africa
tens of thousands of nurses, teachers and other public service
workers took to the streets to press their demands for a 12 percent
pay increase.
(AP, 5/25/07)
2007 May 25, Turkey's president
vetoed a newly passed constitutional amendment that would have
allowed the people, and not Parliament, to elect the new president.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 25, Kurdish guerrillas
bombed and derailed a Syria-bound train from Iran near the town of
Genc in Turkey’s southeastern Bingol province. Turkish authorities
later seized weapons hidden among construction materials found on
the train following the attack.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 26, In Washington, DC,
some 100 supporters of Syria’s largest exile opposition group, the
National Salvation Front, gathered outside the Damascus embassy to
protest against the government of Pres. Assad.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 26, In southern
Afghanistan an explosion during a fight with Taliban militants
killed a British soldier. US-led coalition and Afghan forces
detained a Taliban commander and two suspected al-Qaida militants in
the east. In Kandahar 3 policemen and a civilian passer-by were
wounded in a suicide attack. Gen. Mohammad Doud said Afghan forces
have eradicated some 64,250 acres of poppies this year compared with
39,000 acres last year. Officials expected from 407,715 acres to
482,000 acres of poppies to be cultivated this year.
(AP, 5/26/07)(AFP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, In northeast China
a restaurant fire killed 11 staff and diners and injured 16 others.
The fire started in the kitchen and raged through the popular
three-story Baixinglou restaurant in Liaoning province's Chaoyang
city.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 26, In southern Greece
a flash flood swept away a group of hikers alongside the Lousios
River, killing at least five people.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 26, In India a bomb
exploded in a busy market in northeast Assam state, killing 7 people
and injuring 18.
(Reuters, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, An Iranian
official said that Iran, embroiled in a row with Washington over its
nuclear program, has increased the amount of its oil export earnings
in currencies other than US dollars to about 70%.
(Reuters, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Iraqi PM Nouri
al-Maliki, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and American Cmdr. Gen. David
Petraeus flew to Iraq's blistering western desert in a rare joint
outing to highlight gains there in the fight against insurgents.
American forces raided Sadr City stronghold and killed five
suspected militia fighters in air strikes. In Basra 5 Mahdi Army
fighters were killed and 15 wounded. The US military reported the
deaths of 8 US troops.
(AP, 5/26/07)(AP, 5/27/07)(AP, 5/26/08)
2007 May 26, Israel fired
missiles at five Hamas targets minutes apart, killing five people
just hours after Gaza militants floated the idea of halting rocket
fire on Israeli border towns if the 10-day-old air campaign ends. In
the West Bank, Israeli troops arrested Cabinet minister Wasfi
Kabaha, confiscating his computer and many of his documents. Also in
the West Bank, Palestinian police ambushed Adbel Razik (26), the
leader of the violent Fatah offshoot the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades,
as he emerged from his home. A grenade blew up in his hand, and he
later died of his wounds.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his son-in-law, diplomat Rakhat Aliyev,
after Aliyev challenged the Kazakh leader by declaring he intended
to run for the presidency.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, The newly
installed Dutch government said some 25,000 asylum-seekers whose
applications for refuge were rejected will be allowed to stay,
reversing the previous administration's hardline immigration policy.
The amnesty will apply to asylum-seekers who arrived before April 1,
2001 and were found not to qualify but who remained in the country
anyway.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Nigeria's oil
unions said they have suspended a two-day-old strike after the
government met their demands over the proposed sale of two
state-owned oil refineries.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, In northwestern
Pakistan a roadside bomb exploded near a military convoy, killing at
least two soldiers and wounding seven others.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Egyptian
Lieutenant Colonel Ihab Ahmed, a UN peacekeeper, died after he was
shot during a robbery at his residence in El Fasher. Ahmed, part of
a small group of reinforcements sent to Darfur, became the UN's
first casualty since its arrival in the region.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, In Turkey
thousands of flag-waving protesters filled streets in Denizli,
accusing the government of trying to impose Islamic values on the
country's Western way of life.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, In Ukraine several
thousand interior troops streamed to Kiev, strengthening President
Viktor Yushchenko's hand in a bitter dispute with the nation's prime
minister that stoked up fears of violence.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Tens of thousands
of Venezuelans took to the streets chanting "Freedom, Freedom!" to
protest President Hugo Chavez's decision not to renew the broadcast
license of the country's most-watched TV station, an outlet for the
opposition.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 26, Zimbabwe riot
police arrested more than 200 opposition activists and officials
during a meeting they were holding at their party headquarters in
Harare.
(Reuters, 5/26/07)
2007 May 27, Dario Franchitti
won a rain-abbreviated Indy 500.
(AP, 5/27/08)
2007 May 27, SF held its annual
Carnival parade in the Mission district.
(SFC, 5/28/07, p.D2)
2007 May 27, Gretchen Wyler
(75), a veteran Broadway actress who enjoyed a second career on
television and was a leading animal rights activist, died in
Camarillo, Calif.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, The Taliban
released 3 Afghan aid workers, who were kidnapped with two French
colleagues nearly two months ago. The Taliban launched a new
operation targeting government and foreign forces in Afghanistan. A
roadside bomb killed three Afghan security guards working for the
coalition in the east. Taliban militants ambushed US-led coalition
and Afghan forces escorting supply trucks in southern Afghanistan,
sparking a 10-hour battle the coalition said killed an estimated two
dozen militants. Villagers said 7 civilians also died.
(AP, 5/27/07)(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, Edward Behr (81),
a noted British foreign correspondent and writer who penned books on
history, good eating and his career as a journalist, died in Paris.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, In eastern Congo
Rwandan rebels attacked villagers with machetes, spears and hammers,
killing 17, wounding 28 and taking up to a dozen hostages.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, Iraqi and US
troops raided Baghdad's Sadr City slum, targeting Shiite insurgent
cells there for a second day. British forces in the south killed
three Shiite militants in overnight fighting. Iraqi and US forces
freed 42 kidnapped Iraqis, some of whom had been hung from ceilings
and tortured for months, in a raid on an al-Qaida hideout north of
Baghdad. In Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers
resigned and handed over their weapons. They cited their fears of
being targeted by Mahdi Army militants. Gunmen in two cars threw
concussion grenades at a popular market in northern Baghdad and then
opened fire at shoppers, killing one person and injuring 8 others.
Later, the same gunmen ambushed a minibus, killing the driver,
stealing the vehicle and abducting six passengers. Gunmen shot up
the car of Lt. Col. Hiyis al-Jubouri, a police commander in the
northern Salahuddin province, killing him and another police
officer. Gunmen attacked a group of farmers in the al-Nahrawan
district, 10 miles east of Baghdad, killing two and injuring nine.
(AP, 5/27/07)(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, PM Ehud Olmert
promised more attacks on the Hamas militant group after a
Palestinian rocket attack killed an Israeli man in southern Israel.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, Kuwait's
government announced that it is moving the country's weekend to
Friday and Saturday instead of Thursday and Friday effective Sep 1.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, A Libyan court
acquitted 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medic of charges of
slandering policemen by protesting that their confessions had been
extracted under torture.
(AFP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, In southern Mexico
assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles shot dead six family
members, including three children, as they ambushed a minivan on a
country road.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, Christian Mungiu,
a Romanian director, won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for his
“3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which looked at abortion during the communist
era. Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a film on the inequities of America’s
health system, also featured at Cannes.
(WSJ, 5/29/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.32)
2007 May 27, Russian police
detained gay protesters calling for the right to hold a Gay Pride
parade in central Moscow while nationalists shouting "death to
homosexuals" punched and kicked the demonstrators.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, A Rwandan genocide
court handed a 19-year prison sentence to Francois-Xavier Byuma, a
member of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defence of Human
Rights, for participating in the country's 1994 mass murder.
(AFP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, Spain's rival
Socialists and conservatives fought to a virtual tie in local
elections, highlighting the deep divisions in the country a year
before national elections. The opposition People’s Party (PP) led by
Mariano Rajoy won 35.6% vs. 34.9% for the Socialists.
(AP, 5/27/07)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.59)
2007 May 27, Syrian President
Bashar Assad cast his vote at a polling station as part of a one-day
public referendum to endorse him for a second term and bolster his
autocratic rule. Assad won another seven years in office, getting
97% of the vote in a nationwide referendum in which he was the only
candidate.
(AP, 5/27/07)(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 27, In southern
Thailand 6 bombs ripped through a key commercial district, wounding
10 people.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, Floods in eastern
Turkey killed 10 people including six children aged between 18
months and 12.
(AFP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 27, Ukraine's feuding
president and prime minister agreed to hold an early parliamentary
election on Sept. 30, defusing a crisis that threatened to escalate
into violence when the president sent troops streaming toward the
capital.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 27, Zimbabwean police
freed the bulk of 200 youth opposition activists arrested in a raid
on their party headquarters.
(AFP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 28, Astronomers on
teams from UC Berkeley and Australia reported the discovery of 28
new planets in the Milky Way.
(SFC, 5/29/07, p.A1)
2007 May 28, In Alaska
officials from 75 nations began talks critical to whale conservation
amid pressure, notably from Japan, to lift a 20-year ban on
commercial whale hunting.
(AFP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, In Petersburg,
Ky., the new Creation Museum opened with displays touting the
beginning of time at 4004BC. Founder Ken Ham raised $27 million to
build it. Answers in Genesis (AIG), owned and ran the museum and
expected 250,000 yearly visitors paying $9.95 to $19.95 for tickets.
In 2011 AIG planned to open an related theme park called Ark
Encounter.
(SFC, 5/31/07,
p.A2)(www.creationmuseum.org/)(Econ, 1/1/11, p.27)
2007 May 28, In northern
Afghanistan a demonstration against a governor left at least seven
dead and 31 injured after gunfire broke out between police and
protesters. A suicide bomber targeted foreigners in a four-wheel
drive vehicle, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding two others
in Kunduz. It was reported that truck drivers in Afghanistan had
more problems with police demanding bribes that with the Taliban.
(AP, 5/28/07)(SFC, 5/28/07, p.A10)
2007 May 28, Police found a
cocaine laboratory in the southern Bolivian jungle capable of
producing 245 pounds of the drug daily, one of the largest drug labs
ever discovered there. Satellite photos taken by the US Drug
Enforcement Agency revealed the location of the lab.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 28, In Brazil Pres.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unveiled a program to provide cheap birth
control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, Britain’s public
health minister said beer, wine and hard liquor packaging in Britain
will carry warning labels next year detailing how many units of
alcohol each drink contains as well as recommended safe drinking
levels.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, A blast ripped
through a crowd in Ethiopia's volatile Somali region, killing 6
people and setting off a stampede that saw up to six more die. The
attack happened as hundreds of people were gathered at the stadium
in Jijiga town's Revolutionary Square for a ceremony marking the
overthrow of Ethiopia's former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. In
2008 an Ethiopian court sentenced to death 8 alleged members of the
Ogaden National Liberation Force (ONLF) for the attack.
(Reuters, 5/28/07)(AFP, 5/22/08)
2007 May 28, Officials said
heavy storms, landslides, flash floods and lightning have killed at
least 23 people in Europe and Turkey.
(Reuters, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, Joerg Immendorff
(b.1945), German artist, died. He was best known for his
“Café Deutschland” series begun in 1978.
(SFC, 5/29/07, p.B3)
2007 May 28, In northwest Iran
7 Revolutionary Guard members and five militants were killed in
clashes with armed insurgents.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 28, The US and Iran
broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze with a four-hour meeting about
Iraqi security. The American envoy said there was broad policy
agreement, but that Iran must stop arming and financing militants
who are attacking US and Iraqi forces. The Iranian ambassador later
said the two sides would meet again in less than a month.
Abdul-Rahman al-Essawi, an Iraqi journalist, was shot to death along
with his wife, son, parents and three other relatives. A suicide car
bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad, killing
at least 21 people and damaging a Sunni shrine. In central Baghdad a
battle raged after insurgents hijacked two buses and kidnapped at
least 15 passengers. At least 3 policemen were killed. A roadside
bomb killed 2 people and injured 9 when it detonated under a parked
car in the central Baghdad district of Bab al-Muadham. Another 2
people were killed and 6 were wounded after two mortar rounds
slammed into a street in Karrada, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood in
downtown Baghdad. 36 people were killed across Baghdad in a wave of
attacks. Another 33 bullet-riddled bodies were dead, tortured and
abandoned in different parts of the capital. 10 American soldiers
were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash in Diyala
province.
(AP, 5/28/07)(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 28, Japan's
agriculture minister died after hanging himself just hours before he
was to face questioning in a political scandal.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, Kazakh authorities
issued an international arrest warrant for the powerful son-in-law
of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who faces abduction charges and
has publicly criticized the longtime leader.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 28, In Mexico City
Riyo Mori, a 20-year-old dancer from Japan who hopes to someday open
an international dance school, was crowned Miss Universe 2007.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, In Pakistan a
court sentenced a same-sex couple to three years in jail on perjury
charges, prompting the defendants to ask the president for help. The
case of Shumail Raj, who was born female but had two operations to
remove her breasts and uterus 16 years ago, and Shahzina Tariq has
made waves by raising issues of homosexuality and transsexuality
that are taboo in this conservative Muslim society. Pakistani police
killed four pro-Taliban militants in a gun battle in the
northwestern town of Bannu. Hours later unidentified gunmen shot
dead a military commander on the outskirts of the northwestern town
of Tank. A suicide attacker rammed his bomb-laden vehicle into a
military convoy in Pakistan, killing two soldiers and wounding
eight.
(AP, 5/28/07)(AFP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 28, Spain arrested 2
Algerians and 14 Moroccans, on suspicion of recruiting volunteers to
fight in Iraq and other countries.
(AP, 5/28/07)(SFC, 5/29/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/29/07,
p.A1)
2007 May 28, In Sri Lanka a
Tiger roadside bomb in Colombo killed 7 soldiers and civilians.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.24)
2007 May 28, In southern
Thailand a bomb in a market in Kolomudo killed four Buddhists,
including two children.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 May 28, RCTV, Venezuela's
oldest private television station, was pushed off the air as
President Hugo Chavez's government replaced the popular
opposition-aligned network with a new state-funded channel. Police
fired tear gas and plastic bullets into a crowd of thousands
protesting the decision by President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 5/28/07)(AP, 5/29/07)(Econ, 6/2/07, p.14)
2007 May 29, President Bush
ordered new US economic sanctions to pressure Sudan's government to
halt the bloodshed in Darfur.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, President Bush's
environmental adviser said the US rejects the EU's all-encompassing
target on reduction of carbon emissions. The US and Australia ruled
out a regional carbon trading scheme before the meeting officially
opened in the northern city of Darwin, saying it was too early to
impose uniform targets on APEC nations. APEC members already account
for 60% of global energy demand and their needs are expected to
almost double by 2030. Fidel Castro lambasted President Bush for
opposing the EU's goal for an agreement on carbon emissions at next
week's Group of Eight summit.
(AFP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, The US officials
confirmed that immigration visa fees would rise by an average of 66%
effective July 30.
(SFC, 5/30/07, p.A3)
2007 May 29, Andrew Speaker
(31), a lawyer from Atlanta with a rare and dangerous form of
tuberculosis, ignored doctors' advice and took two trans-Atlantic
flights, leading to the first US government-ordered quarantine since
1963. Italian officials said they were tracing the movements of
Speaker, who honeymooned in Rome for two days despite being told to
turn himself in to health authorities.
(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)(Reuters, 6/1/07)
2007 May 29, Cindy Sheehan, the
soldier's mother who had galvanized an anti-war movement with her
monthlong protest outside President Bush's ranch, announced her
"resignation" as the public face of the movement.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2007 May 29, At Fort Campbell,
Kentucky, two children died in an early morning fire at a soldier's
housing unit on the Army post. In 2008 Army wife Billi Jo Smallwood
(35) was accused of setting her apartment on fire in a botched
attempt to collect on her husband's $400,000 insurance policy when
he survived and her two children died instead.
(www.topix.com/forum/city/louisville-tn/TLELGAU2D0M0I5V1T)(AP,
11/22/08)
2007 May 29, In Hudson Oaks,
Texas, Gilberta Estrada (25) was found hanged by suicide along with
3 of her 4 children. An 9-month-old infant survived her noose.
(SFC, 5/30/07, p.A8)
2007 May 29, Bangladeshi
authorities revived two graft cases against former premier Sheikh
Hasina Wajed. Security forces arrested 4 former government
ministers, 2 mayors and a top businessman as the military-backed
emergency government stepped up an anti-corruption drive.
(AFP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Brazilian Senate
President Renan Calheiros said that he won't resign over accusations
he accepted payoffs from one of the country's top construction
companies.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Zheng Xiaoyu,
China's former top drug regulator, was sentenced to death in an
unusually harsh punishment for taking bribes to approve substandard
medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, China said it will
not be tied to targets on cutting carbon emissions as Europe and
Asia failed to agree at a 40-nation meeting on how to fight global
warming.
(AFP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, The roof of a
newly built house in Wulanji, a northern Chinese village in Inner
Mongolia, collapsed during a celebration for its completion, killing
16 people and injuring another 29.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Egypt's parliament
voted to expel an MP and nephew of late President Anwar Sadat, after
he was declared bankrupt.
(AFP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Ethiopia began
counting its population, a daunting task in a country where asking
personal questions is considered socially taboo.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, European and Asian
foreign ministers meeting in Germany agreed to set a 2009 deadline
to complete negotiations on a new international climate change pact
to limit greenhouse gases.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In India clashes
between police and thousands of people demanding government aid in
the northern state of Rajasthan left at least 13 people dead.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, In Indonesia a
teenage girl died of bird flu, taking the death toll in the nation
worst hit by the virus to 79.
(AFP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 29, Iran's judiciary
spokesman said US academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other
Iranian-Americans have been "formally charged" with endangering
national security and espionage.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In Iraq 5 British
men were pulled out of a Finance Ministry office by about 40 heavily
armed men in police uniforms in broad daylight and driven in a
convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City. Management
consultant Peter Moore and four of his security guards were seized.
In 2008 a Shiite militia that claimed responsibility for the
kidnapping said a hostage named Jason had committed suicide on May
25. Two other British hostages, Jason Swindlehurst (38) and Jason
Creswell (39) were returned to England in June, 2009. (Moore was
released on Dec 30, 2009.) Two car bombers hit neighborhoods on
opposite sides of the Tigris River, killing 40 people and wounding
more than 100 others. 3 German computer consultants were kidnapped
from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office in Baghdad. Gunmen in Samarra
set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted
more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and
members of two tribes that had banded together against local
insurgents. Col. Hamid Ibrahim al-Jazaa, a Sunni police chief
praised by US forces for clearing his city of insurgents, was
arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption
and crimes against the Iraqi people. Al-Jazaa, his brother and 14
bodyguards were taken into custody in the city of Hit. One US
soldier died of wounds from a roadside bomb attack northwest of
Baghdad.
(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)(AP,
7/20/08)(AP, 7/29/09)(AP, 12/30/09)
2007 May 29, In Japan an
executive allegedly involved in a bid-rigging scam that has been
linked to the suicide of the agriculture minister leaped to his
death.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Lebanon’s army
clashed with al-Qaida-linked Islamic fighters in a Palestinian
refugee camp, breaking a weeklong truce.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Libya said it will
sign a 900 million dollar exploration deal with energy giant BP,
which plans to return after a 33 year absence. British PM Tony Blair
arrived in Libya and welcomed improved relations as oil companies
from both countries signed a major deal.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In Nicaragua US
embassy confirmed that an American woman, Lemon E. Groves (49), had
died of injuries suffered when she was attacked in her home in the
Nicaraguan city of Grenada last week.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Umaru Yar'Adua
(56), a former governor hand-picked by departing President Olusegun
Obasanjo, was sworn in as president in Nigeria’s first transfer of
power from one elected government to another. Gun battles between
rival gangs in Nigeria's southern oil-producing state of Rivers
erupted in violence linked to a change of governor, killing 15
people.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Russia pledged to
write off an additional $500 million of African debt. Russia
test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is
capable of carrying multiple independent warheads. President
Vladimir Putin warned that US plans for an anti-missile shield in
Europe would turn the region into a "powder keg."
(Reuters, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, In Sri Lanka
troops and police stepped up security in Colombo after two bomb
blasts by suspected Tiger rebels within 24 hours killed 11 people.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Sweden said it
plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, bettering the
EU's proposal to cut emissions by at least 20%.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Senior Thai judges
began deliberating on whether to dissolve the kingdom's two main
political parties as thousands of troops were put on alert amid
security fears ahead of the court verdict.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, State media said
Zimbabwe will put 40,000 more people on life saving anti-retroviral
drugs by the end of the year despite an economic crisis.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 30, US President
George W. Bush officially nominated Robert Zoellick, the former US
deputy secretary of state, to be new World Bank president,
describing him as a "committed internationalist."
(Reuters, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Robert Alan
Soloway (27), described as one of the world's most prolific
spammers, was arrested in Seattle, Wa. Federal authorities said
computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount
of junk e-mail.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Microsoft
introduced a computer designed like a table with a touch-screen
called Surface. It was aimed for use in hotels and casinos.
(WSJ, 5/30/07, p.B1)
2007 May 30, Motorola announced
plans to cut 7,500 jobs and reduce costs by $1 billion through the
end of this year and next. The company also announced that a
shareholder proposal to have a say on executive pay passed by 51.8%.
(WSJ, 5/31/07, p.A3)
2007 May 30, Global banking
giant HSBC donated 50 million pounds (73.5 million euros, 98.8
million dollars) to set up a "green task force" to tackle climate
change worldwide. HSBC teamed up with The Climate Group, Earthwatch
Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF to
provide conservation managers and policy makers with the latest
research.
(AFP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Mark Harris
(b.1922 as Mark Harris Finkelstein), American author, died in
Goleta, Ca. His 13 novels and 5 nonfiction books included “Bang The
Drum Slowly” (1956), a baseball novel that he adopted for the 1973
movie of the same name.
(SFC, 6/1/07, p.B9)
2007 May 30, A Saudi Arabian
detainee died at Guantanamo Bay prison and the US military said he
apparently committed suicide.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Afghan and US-led
coalition forces clashed with Taliban militants in eastern
Afghanistan, leaving six suspected insurgents dead and one wounded.
A roadside bomb killed four policemen and wounded another in the
southern province of Uruzgan. A CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot
down by Taliban militants in an attack that killed everyone on
board, five US soldiers, a Canadian and a Briton. In western Farah
province, insurgents attacked the Pusht Rod district, and ensuing
clashes with police left 10 militants dead and 15 wounded.
(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Afghanistan and
Pakistan agreed to increase cooperation after meeting with Group of
Eight foreign ministers amid concerns that enmity between the
neighbors is helping the Taliban inflict mounting losses on NATO
troops and Afghan civilians.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Ontario and
California leaders said they will work together to develop new stem
cell therapies to help conquer cancer, and will cooperate on curbing
greenhouse gas emission.
(Reuters, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, In the northwest
corner of Central African Republic soldiers set fire to hundreds of
houses in retaliation for the killing of a local official by
unidentified gunmen. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that
about 420 children die each week, and that escalating conflict
between the CAR government and rebel groups has forced some 212,000
people to flee their homes in recent years.
(AFP, 6/4/07)
2007 May 30, Chinese stocks
plunged after the government raised a tax on share trades, trying to
cool a market boom amid growing concerns about a possible bubble.
The stamp tax was tripled to 0.3%. The port city of Xiamen announced
a decision to temporarily suspend construction of a petrochemical
plant after nearly a million text messages were sent protesting its
construction.
(AP, 5/30/07)(WSJ, 5/31/07, p.A8)(Econ, 6/2/07,
p.82)
2007 May 30, Cuba agreed to buy
$118 million in US food products ranging from pork and corn to
soybeans and Spam, and said it was negotiating deals that could
bring the total to nearly $150 million.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Officials said one
of the world's largest slums, a filthy shantytown in western India,
will be razed and replaced with free homes for Mumbai's poor in a
multi-billion dollar project by a private developer.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Indonesian marines
shot and killed five people on Java island during a violent protest
over a plot of land allegedly owned by the force.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Iranian troops
killed 10 militants in ongoing clashes in the country's northwest,
near the border with Turkey.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Hundreds of Iraqi
and US troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad's Sadr City slum and
conducted a series of raids after five British citizens were
abducted from a nearby government building. 2 civilians were killed
and four others injured in crossfire from gunbattles that broke out
in one of the raids. Several mortar rounds apparently targeting an
American military base in Fallujah missed their mark and landed
instead on a courthouse and in a residential neighborhood, killing 9
civilians and wounding 15 others. A police commander's convoy was
struck by a roadside bomb in Hamzah, south of Baghdad, killing two
guards and injuring two others. Gunmen in 3 cars ambushed 3 soldiers
who had stopped to drink orange juice in the center of Karbala, and
stole the nearly $396,000 in salaries they were transporting to
their unit. In Amarah gunmen mowed down Nazar Abdul-Wahid (33), an
Iraqi journalist, as he stood on a city street. Over 25 people were
killed across Iraq and the bodies of 25 men, all shot to death, were
found in different parts of Baghdad. 3 US soldiers were killed in a
roadside bombings in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)(SFC, 5/31/07,
p.A12)(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 May 30, A group of
internationally renowned Israeli authors and university presidents
demanded that Israel grant Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip
free movement to superior universities in the West Bank.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Medical officials
in Kyrgyzstan confirmed that PM Almazbek Atambayev was poisoned
after receiving death threats but said they have not yet identified
the toxin.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, A UN resolution
gave the Lebanese parliament a last chance to establish a tribunal
to prosecute the killers of former PM Rafik Hariri. If it doesn't
act by June 10, the UN decision will automatically "enter into
force." A military judge filed terrorism charges against 20
suspected members of an Islamic militant group fighting Lebanese
troops at a Palestinian refugee camp.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Malaysia's top
civil court rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a
Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious
freedom in this moderate Islamic country. A three-judge Federal
Court panel ruled by a 2-1 majority that only the Islamic Shariah
Court has the power to allow her to remove the word "Islam" from the
religion category on her government identity card. Judge Richard
Malanjum, the only non-Muslim on the panel, sided with Lina Joy,
saying it was "unreasonable" to ask her to turn to the Shariah Court
because she could face criminal prosecution there.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Moroccans were
able to access the video sharing Web site YouTube for the first time
since access was blocked last week.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Nepal some
10,000 Bhutanese refugees demonstrated at the India-Nepal border,
where a day earlier Indian troops had opened fire, killing one
refugee.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, It was reported
that coffee shops licensed to sell marijuana in the southern
Dutch city of Maastricht will begin fingerprinting customers and
scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules
governing such sales.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In southern
Nigeria 4 American oil workers abducted three weeks ago were
released.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Pakistan a
court sentenced Younis Masih (29), a Christian, to death under
Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Masih was arrested in Sep 2005 on the
outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore after residents told police
he made derogatory remarks against Islam and Muhammad. Masih has
said that dozens of Muslims had thrashed him on Sept. 10, 2005, when
he asked them not to sing loudly because his nephew had died, and
his body was still lying at home.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 30, Senegalese
President Abdoulaye Wade, host of the Islamic Development Bank’s
annual meeting, spoke on behalf of the bank’s launch of a $10
billion fund to combat poverty in developing Muslim nations in
Africa and other parts of the world. Saudi Arabia pledged to
contribute $1 billion, Kuwait $300 million, Iran $100 million and
Senegal $10 million.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Outgoing British
PM Tony Blair arrived in the small west African nation of Sierra
Leone on the second leg of a three-nation African tour.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Somalia
Ethiopian troops shot and killed five bystanders after a land mine
exploded as their convoy passed through the center of a western
Somali town.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, Two senior
officials with Thailand's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party were found
guilty of election fraud in a ruling that could doom the political
powerhouse founded by ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra. A court
disbanded the political party of Shinawatra, barring him and 110
party executives from politics for five years due to election law
violations.
(AFP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 May 30, Turkish police
captured 11 suspected al-Qaida militants who allegedly were planning
to stage terrorist attacks in Istanbul.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 30, In Venezuela a top
opponent of President Hugo Chavez demanded the release of jailed
protesters as university students poured into the streets for a
third day to protest the removal of a leading opposition TV station
from the air.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, President Bush,
under international pressure to take tough action against global
warming, called for a world summit to set a long-term global
strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, In a breach of
security, detailed plans for the new US Embassy under construction
in Baghdad appeared on the Web site of the architectural firm that
was contracted to design the massive facility.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, Former Presidents
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush attended the
dedication of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 May 31, The US and Russia
agreed to put nuclear radiation monitors at all of Russia’s int’l.
border crossings by 2011.
(WSJ, 6/1/07, p.A1)
2007 May 31, New Hampshire Gov.
John Lynch si