Timeline 2008 (C) July-September
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2008 Jul 1, An Alabama jury found Glaxo and Novartis guilty of drug-price fraud and ordered them to pay $114 million.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 1, Nicholas T. Sheley (28) was arrested in Granite City, Ill., following a manhunt that extended into Missouri. The ex-convict was suspected in eight recent grisly slayings. He was suspected of killing, among others, a 93-year-old man, a toddler and a couple whose blood-soaked dogs were found roaming a motel parking lot.
(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 7/11/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 1, Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee retailer, said it would close another 500 stores in America and reduce its work force by about 7%. The closure of 100 stores had been announced earlier this year. 70% of the stores to close were opened after 2005.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.74)
2008 Jul 1, In California the 11-day old Basin Complex Fire in the Los Padres National Forest threatened the Esalen Institute in Big Sur.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Robert E. Boni (b.1928), writer and former chief executive of Armco (1985-1989), died. In 1993 a partnership between Armco and Kawasaki led to the formation of AK Steel Holding Corp.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 1, Clay Felker (b.1925), founder of the New York magazine (1968) and New West magazine (1976), died in his New York home. From 1994 he taught at UC Berkeley for over a decade.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 1, In Afghanistan 4 police officers died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb as they went to reinforce a checkpost that had come under attack in southern Uruzgan province. The US-led force said it helped Afghan security forces kill "several" insurgents in the province and a young girl was also killed in the fighting. Five Taliban militants died in a clash in southern Zabul province. Another rebel was killed in southwestern Nimroz province. Official figures showed June was the deadliest month for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban and the second in a row in which casualties exceeded those in Iraq.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, The African Union, meeting in Egypt, announced that it was extending the mandate of its force in Somalia for another six months but urged the UN to take over the peacekeeping mission. The African leaders also called for dialogue between Zimbabwe's political foes and a national unity government following President Robert Mugabe's widely discredited reelection.
(AFP, 7/1/08)(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Josef Branis (66) fatally shot four relatives in two houses in the Vienna suburb of Strasshof after being evicted from his sister's Vienna apartment. He was arrested in August after being on the run for weeks.
(AP, 1/27/09)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25495397/)
2008 Jul 1, In China a man armed with a knife stormed a police station in Shanghai, stabbing officers inside and killing 6 officers. On September 1 Yang Jia (28) was sentenced to death for the knife attack. In northwest China 18 miners were killed in a mine-shaft collapse at the state-owned Huisen Liangshuijing Coal Mine in Shaanxi province. Yang Jia was executed on Nov 26.
(AP, 7/1/08)(AP, 7/2/08)(AP, 9/1/08)(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Jul 1, Gao Wenyuan, the regional Grassland Work Office's director, told Xinhua News that Inner Mongolia in north China is mobilizing 33,000 people, including 1,100 technical staff, to wipeout a plague of locusts in the past two weeks.
(http://english.gov.cn/2008-07/01/content_1032452.htm)
2008 Jul 1, France took over the rotating presidency of the European Union with high-level meetings and a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, French officials said the asbestos-contaminated aircraft carrier Clemenceau, which was towed half-way across the globe in a failed bid to have it dismantled, will be broken up by Able UK in Britain. The ship was decommissioned in 1997.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient, caved in to pressure from the German government to stop supplying Zimbabwe with special blank paper money. Zimbabwe required new notes every few weeks as the inflation rate pushed well over one million percent.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 1, Iranian state radio said that at least 25 people were killed and 16 injured in a bus accident near Tehran.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Iraq militants killed seven people in a series of attacks in Iraq's eastern Diyala province, and a local official said government crackdowns against Sunni extremists elsewhere in the country were driving them back to the area. Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Iraq, said it was unlikely that the country would be able to hold provincial elections by the beginning of October as planned because lawmakers had failed to approve a new election law.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Israel closed its cargo crossings with the Gaza Strip after accusing Palestinian militants of firing a rocket at southern Israel in violation of a shaky truce. The Israeli military said its radar detected a rocket launched from Gaza the previous evening that struck near the communal farm of Mefalsim.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Kingston, Jamaica, 39 young American missionaries, from the Georgia-based Adventures in Missions, were robbed by two gunmen who broke into a Salvation Army school for the blind where they were volunteering.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Muslim majority Indian-held Kashmir authorities reversed a controversial plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine as Muslim and Hindu protesters held massive rallies across the region assailing the state government for its handling of the politically sensitive issue.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim vowed to seize power from a "corrupt" government at a rally of some 15,000 supporters as he fights back against new sodomy accusations.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Mexico videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a US adviser created an uproar, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Mongolia thousands of people staged a violent protest in the capital as they voiced outrage over what they claimed were rigged elections, forcing police to fire gunshots.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Myanmar a ferry named "Myo Pa Pa Tun" sank in the Yway river in the cyclone-battered Irrawaddy delta, killing 38 people. 44 others were rescued.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 1, A smoking ban went into effect in cafes, restaurants and bars across the Netherlands, as the country joins a growing list of European countries to tighten rules on tobacco use in public places. Smoking marijuana in the Netherlands' infamous "coffee shops" is still permitted under the new law, as long the drug is not mixed with tobacco.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, The Nigerian Senate passed a resolution barring the anti-graft agency EFCC and other security agents from arresting witnesses who appear before parliament. The lawmakers passed the resolution following the arrests of an Austrian contractor and two former ministers on the floor of the Senate shortly after testifying before a parliamentary hearing on the aviation sector.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Pakistani forces destroyed a major militant compound in the Khyber tribal region. The site served as key headquarters for the banned Lashkar-e-Islam.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 1, Panama's Supreme Court overturned a presidential pardon of four Cuban emigres accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro, including former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles. The court ruled that 180 pardons granted in 2004 by outgoing President Mireya Moscoso, including those the four Cubans, were unconstitutional.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Officials said Maoist rebels in the southern Philippines killed two soldiers in a public market and torched a cellular phone tower as the latest flare-up in the 40-year-old insurgency showed no sign of abating.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Sri Lanka fighting erupted in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions bordering the rebels' de facto state in the north. The fighting in Vavuniya killed 16 rebels and one soldier, while in the nearby Welioya region, 11 rebels and one soldier died.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Thailand’s deputy prime minister said the Thai government has suspended its decision to support Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the Thai border declared a world landmark. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 2, The US lifted a moratorium on applications to build solar power plants on public lands in 6 Western states.
(WSJ, 7/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, In Vermont the body of a missing girl (12), whose uncle (Michael Jacques) allegedly planned to force her into a sex ring the day she disappeared, was found in Randolph, not far from his house.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In California Hans Florine (44) and Yuji Hirayama (39) broke a World Record for the fastest climb up the Nose of El Capitan (2:43:33) in Yosemite National Park. On Oct 12 they broke the record again with a time of 2:37:5. On Nov 6, 2010, climbers Dean Potter and Sean Leary broke the record with a time of 2:36:45.
(SFC, 7/3/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/13/08, p.A1)(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, In central Afghanistan a roadside blast killed five Afghan soldiers in Logar province. Gunfire brought down a US UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in the same province, but no US personnel were hurt. In the northwest Afghan and international troops killed 25 Taliban after militants ambushed an Afghan patrol in Muqur district.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, President Alexander Lukashenko said he acceded to Western and opposition demands for greater democracy ahead of elections.
(WSJ, 7/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, The British government said police have arrested more than 500 suspects in a crackdown on human trafficking in the sex trade. Police made 528 arrests in the operation, codenamed Pentameter 2, after raiding 822 premises, of which 157 were massage parlors and 582 houses and flats. The operation began in October and involved 55 police forces.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (kidnapped in 2002), three US military contractors (captured in 2003), and 10 other hostages in a helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired. In 2009 Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves authored "Out of Captivity," a memoir of their 5 ½ year captivity by Colombia's leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/2/08)(AP, 2/26/09)
2008 Jul 2, Deutsche Bank acquired the Dutch corporate banking arm of ABN AMRO from Fortis, a Benelux bank, for $1.1 billion in cash.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.83)
2008 Jul 2, In India an estimated four million truckers went on strike to press for uniform diesel prices and to protest against an increase in taxes.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Iraqi security forces arrested two locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as part of their crackdown against Shiite militias in the southern city of Amarah. Police said Abdul-Jabar Wahid Humaidi, head of the provincial council in Maysan, where Amarah is the capital, and Fadhil Niama, head of the council's security committee, were suspected of supporting Shiite militias. A string of mortar shells hit the residential area of al-Amil in western Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding eight others. In eastern Diyala province, US-allied Sunnis killed two al-Qaida terrorists south of Baqouba.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Israel Hussam Dwayat (30), a Palestinian man from Arab east Jerusalem plowed, an enormous construction vehicle into cars, buses and pedestrians on a busy street, killing at least 3 people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers. Palestinian witnesses said an angry crowd in the Gaza Strip has stormed a border crossing with Egypt throwing rocks at Egyptian troops.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi pledged to end the garbage crisis in Naples and the surrounding area by the end of July.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Japan and Middle Eastern leaders agreed on a project to bring thousands of badly needed jobs to the West Bank, voicing hope it would lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Kashmir the Indian army said 11 Muslim rebels and an Indian soldier have been killed in two days of fierce fighting in a district bordering the Pakistani part of the disputed state.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Stanley Ho, casino entrepreneur in Macao, agreed to sell a 25% stake from some $500 million in his SJM Holdings, which owned 19 or Macao’s 29 casinos.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.75)
2008 Jul 2, In Mexico 4 decapitated bodies were found on a street in Culiacan, blocks away from their severed heads. Four gunmen were killed hours later, after opening fire on federal police patrolling Culiacan, a center for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. Under attack, police shot back at the home where the gunmen were holed up, killing the four assailants and capturing two others.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, The Moroccan news agency said 35 alleged recruiters for Al-Qaeda operations in Algeria and Iraq were arrested by police in Morocco, where they were also accused of planning attacks. The suspects allegedly belong to a Salafist group, Salafiya Jihadiya.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, The Nigerian government charged two former aviation ministers with misusing a $165-million fund set up to improve air safety after three airplane accidents.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In South Korea tens of thousands of auto workers went on strike to oppose the government's lifting of a ban on US beef imports.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Sri Lanka a series of battles between government forces and Tamil Tiger fighters on the front lines of the civil war killed 26 rebels. The fighting took place throughout the day, killing two rebels in the Vavuniya area, 12 in Mannar and 12 in Welioya. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan disputed those figures, saying three of his fighters and 11 soldiers were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected an African Union decision to keep South Africa's president alone in charge of efforts to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis. The European Commission insisted that Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be named at the head of any new government. South African President Thabo Mbeki rejected the EU position.
(AP, 7/2/08)(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 3, Phillip Bennett, the former chief executive of Refco, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for fleecing investors of more than $2.4 billion in a fraud that destroyed the world's largest independent commodities broker.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Larry Harmon (83) wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died of congestive heart failure.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, US employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Vodafone Group PLC said it planned to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom Co. for $900 million.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 3, In Afghanistan gunmen lobbed a grenade and sprayed a police checkpoint with gunfire in the southern Kandahar province, killing eight officers. A roadside blast next to a police vehicle in central Ghazni province killed two officers and wounded five others. In eastern Paktika province, Afghan and foreign troops killed seven suspected militants during a clash near the Pakistan border. Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tons of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AFP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 3, Top Bolivian and US officials sought to heal their nations' strained relations in their first meeting since a raucous protest outside the American embassy sent the US ambassador back to Washington for security consultations.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, The Cypriot parliament approved the European Union treaty, making Cyprus the 20th EU member to ratify the document aimed at streamlining decision-making in the bloc.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, In El Salvador a bus carrying members of an evangelical church was swept off a bridge in San Salvador. 29 bodies were recovered the next day.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 3, Lydia Lassen-Berge (69), a former prostitute dubbed the "Black Widow" by the German press, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of four wealthy but frail elderly male companions. Siegmund Schlufter (53), her accomplice, was sentenced to 12 years in jail for carrying out the killings.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Indonesia a police source said that a group of 10 suspected Muslim militants detained in raids on Sumatra island by Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit was plotting to attack Western targets. The raids followed the capture of a suspected militant after a tip-off by authorities in Singapore.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, It was reported that Italian authorities have started fingerprinting tens of thousands of Gypsies living in nomad camps across the country, brushing aside accusations of racism by human rights advocates and international organizations. The Interior Ministry said prints will only be taken from people who do not have a valid Italian or EU document.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In the southern Philippines suspected communist guerrillas launched a series of attacks, lobbing a grenade that killed three people and raiding a police station and a gold mining company.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In southeastern Slovenia two canoes were crushed running over a dam. The next day divers pulled seven bodies out of the Sava River and fought strong currents to search for five other people still missing.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, South Korea's president called for an end to a long-running dispute over American beef imports, saying it was time for the nation to concentrate instead on overcoming its economic difficulties.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles in Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya killed 32 rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, A group of around 200 Zimbabweans gathered outside the US embassy in Harare, pleading for political asylum and food after being displaced in recent election violence.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 4, In California 27 major fires were considered active. These included the Basin Complex Fire in Los Padres National Forest where over 68,700 acres were scorched and the Indians Fire in Monterey County with 81,300 acres consumed.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 4, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early morning gunfire killed 2 men and 2 women on the city’s north side.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 4, Jesse Helms (b.1921), former 5-term US Senator from North Carolina, died in Raleigh, NC. Helms had switched to the Republican Party in 1970 and was elected to the Senate in 1972, the first Republican from North Carolina in the 20th century. The conservative senator earned the title “Senator No" as a leading crusader against communism, liberalism, tax increases, abortion, homosexuality, affirmative action and court-ordered busing to desegregate schools.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 4, Evelyn Keyes (b.1916), American film star, died in Montecito, Ca. Her 3 former husbands included director John Huston, director Charles Vidor and jazz musician Artie Shaw. Her nearly 50 films included a role as the younger sister of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind" (1939). Her memoir “Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister" was published in 1977.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)(WSJ, 2/21/09, p.W8)
2008 Jul 4, In southern Afghanistan gunmen assassinated parliament member and former military commander Habibullah Jan. In Helmand province a roadside bomb militants were planting detonated prematurely, killing 10 Taliban. 22 civilians were killed in air strikes in the Waygal district, including a woman and a child. A spokesman for the US-led coalition said the airstrikes in Nuristan province hit militants who earlier attacked a US military base with mortars. Several militants were killed during an operation in Ghazni province. More than 20 militants were killed and wounded during a battle with NATO-backed Afghan forces in Kunar province.
(AP, 7/5/08)(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Austria 9 people, including a prominent executive who fled to France in an attempt to elude justice, were convicted of criminal charges in a major Austrian bank fraud case linked to the 2005 collapse of New York-based commodities brokerage Refco Inc. Vienna Federal Court Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner found the defendants responsible for euro1.4 billion (US$1.9 billion) in losses at BAWAG, Austria's No. 4 bank.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Belarus about 50 people were wounded by a home-made bomb that sprayed nuts and bolts into a crowd at an open-air concert in Minsk attended by long-time ruler President Alexander Lukashenko.
(Reuters, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, China and Taiwan launched regular direct flights for the first time in nearly six decades, ushering in what Beijing called a "new start" in their tense and testy relations.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Colombia's military found more than a ton of explosives in a house in a rural area outside the capital.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 4, Ecuador's constitutional assembly pardoned hundreds of jailed convicts, low-level drug couriers known as "mules." An estimated 1,200 prisoners may be eligible for pardon.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 4, India's coalition government underwent a major shake-up with the dominant Congress party pushing on with a controversial nuclear deal with the US and ditching left-wing allies. In eastern India at least six people were killed and 20 injured in a stampede at a popular Hindu religious festival in Orissa state’s Puri district. Truck drivers called off their strike after the government agreed to roll back rising road tolls.
(AFP, 7/4/08)(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 4, State television said Iran delivered its response to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program. It did not say what the response was.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Basra, Iraq, gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated Sheik Salim al-Dirraji, an official of Iraq's biggest Shiite party.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 4, Japan announced it will provide $50 million in new emergency food aid to help developing countries cope with the impact of soaring food prices.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Fierce fighting raged in India's portion of Kashmir, killing five army soldiers and a suspected Muslim rebel near the de facto border with Pakistan.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In New Zealand morning rush-hour traffic slowed to a crawl in most cities as truckers snarled highways and streets with thousands of vehicles to protest higher road taxes.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Nigeria hundreds of soldiers, who served as UN peacekeepers in Liberia, went on the rampage in southwestern Akure in protest against the military authorities' refusal to pay their allowance. On April 27, 2009, a Nigerian court-martial sentenced 27 former UN peacekeepers to life in prison after they were convicted of mutiny following their protests. On Aug 29 the army commuted the life sentences to 7 years.
(AP, 7/5/08)(AP, 4/28/09)(AFP, 8/29/09)
2008 Jul 4, North Korea said it will not take further steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the US and its other negotiating partners award fuel oil and political benefits promised under an aid-for-disarmament deal.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Pakistan a bomb exploded on a busy street in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing a 4-year old girl and wounding 11 other people.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Poland rejected a US offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing a "missile shield" on Polish soil but PM Donald Tusk said Poland remains open for further talks with Washington.
(Reuters, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Sri Lanka soldiers took control of Michael Base in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu district after three days of fighting. Other battles in Vavuniya killed 18 rebels and wounded three soldiers. Fighting in Mannar, Jaffna and Welioya left 15 rebels dead and one soldier wounded.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 4, Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis unless they acknowledge his victory in the one-man presidential election. Botswana's government urged its neighbors not to recognize Mugabe's re-election as it reiterated calls for Zimbabwe to be suspended from a regional bloc.
(AFP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 5, Kent Couch (48), a gas station owner, flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles across the Oregon desert, landing in a field in Idaho. He used his trusty BB gun to help him return to Earth.
(AP, 7/6/08)(www.couchballoons.com/)
2008 Jul 5, In Afghanistan a clash killed seven Taliban and two police in Helmand province. Five other officers were wounded during the fight in Nawa district. A Canadian military medic was killed when an explosive device detonated in the Panjwayi District.
(AP, 7/6/08)(Reuters, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 5, Argentina's lower house of Congress approved a package of grain-export taxes that have sparked nationwide farm protests and food shortages.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, A small boat packed with at least 148 illegal immigrants from Africa landed on a beach in the Canary Islands.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern China an apparent blast at a coal mine killed 21 workers at the Wujiu coal mine outside Datong city in Shanxi province. In central China a four-story building under construction in a suburb of Wuhan city collapsed and killed eight people.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, Dagestan's Interior Ministry says three policemen were wounded when a bomb went off near their vehicle in the town of Khasavyurt.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern India flooding, house collapses and lightning strikes from heavy rains killed at least 14 people, raising the reported death toll in the annual monsoon season to 79.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Ingushetia a police officer was killed and another was injured when their armored vehicle came under grenade fire.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, An Iranian government spokesman says the country's nuclear program remains unchanged, indicating that Tehran has no plans to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium, reached a Canadian port to complete a secret US operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans. In Iraq one American soldier died of a non-combat cause.
(AP, 7/6/08)(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern Japan more than 1,000 people marched to protest an upcoming summit of the G8 industrialized countries. Police arrested four protesters after a brief scuffle.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Kashmir thousands of protesters clashed with police in Srinagar over allegations that government forces set fire to Jenab Sahib, a local Muslim shrine.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Macedonia’s leading party said PM Nikola Gruevski has agreed to form a coalition government with the main ethnic Albanian party to aim at getting its NATO and EU bids back on track.
(Reuters, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Nigerian officials said radioactive materials in abandoned mining fields in central Nigeria's Plateau state pose a serious health hazard to two million people. Police said Nigeria has deployed troops in the remote southeastern state of Ebonyi after 14 people were killed and scores of buildings destroyed in clashes between rival groups feuding over land.
(AP, 7/5/08)(Reuters, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry insisted that its nuclear proliferation case was closed, a day after the disgraced architect of its atomic program claimed the army under President Pervez Musharraf helped spread the technology to North Korea in 2000. A government official said Pakistani security forces have eased an operation against insurgents in a tribal region near the border with Afghanistan as local elders try to negotiate peace with a militant leader.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, South Korean police said about 50,000 people protested in Seoul against a US beef import deal and the policies of the new president, whose government has faced weeks of street rallies.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Sri Lanka clashes were reported in several villages in Vavuniya district where 12 rebels were killed. 3 rebels were killed in Mannar and 4 rebels and a soldier were killed in Welioya.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, In southern Thailand suspected insurgents shot up a bustling cafe, killing three customers and injuring four others.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern Yemen an explosion at the main post office building of Saada killed at least five people.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Afghanistan the chief government official in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar province said villagers reported that as many as 27 people walking in a group toward a wedding were killed in a bombing. Up to 10 others were wounded. The US-led coalition said an airstrike killed or wounded 20 militants in Nangarhar. An official investigation later found that the US-led air strikes struck a wedding and killed 47 Afghan civilians.
(AP, 7/6/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Iraq a car bomb in northern Baghdad killed six people and injured 14 others, including three policemen. Ali Abdul Ridha al-Badri, the head of an awakening council in Iskandariyah, and was killed by a bomb attached to his car after meeting with US forces. A roadside bomb in Diyala province killed a high-ranking member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan along with 7 others. 2 civilians were killed in Baquba when police clashed with members of the Awakening Councils.
(AP, 7/6/08)(SFC, 7/7/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 6, Israel re-opened its border crossings with the Gaza Strip after closing them because of Palestinian rocket fire.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In northern Mexico a plane carrying a load of auto parts crashed s it was trying to land, killing the pilot and severely injuring the co-pilot.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, Myanmar's state-run newspaper said the overwhelming election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi's party in 1990 has been nullified by the approval of a military-backed constitution and her National League for Democracy party should prepare for a new vote in 2010.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Pakistan a two-story apartment building collapsed in the port city of Karachi, killing eight people, including a toddler. A suicide attacker detonated explosives near a police station in Islamabad, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Somalia gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Mogadishu, killing one of the country’s senior UN officials.
(SFC, 7/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 6, South Korea said it was implementing a multi-stage contingency plan aimed at reducing energy consumption before the skyrocketing oil prices push Asia's fourth-largest economy into a full-fledged crisis.
(Reuters, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel position in their northern stronghold.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, The United Arab Emirates canceled all its Iraqi debt and moved to restore a full diplomatic mission in Baghdad by naming a new ambassador.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 7, Tropical storm Bertha strengthened to become the first hurricane of the Atlantic season.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Bruce Conner (b.1933), SF-based artist, died. His collages and prints looked back to classics of surrealism. His work was later said to look like a bridge between the Beat generation and postmodernism.
(http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006353.html)(SFC, 7/8/08, p.B5)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.E3)
2008 Jul 7, In Afghanistan a car bomb detonated by a suicide bomber ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, killing 41 people in the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.
(AP, 7/7/08)(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Austria’s ruling coalition crumbled and new elections were expected as early as September. The left-right alliance broke up after 18 months in office.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A12)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.63)
2008 Jul 7, In central Bangladesh 2 passenger buses collided head-on, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, The Church of England's ruling body voted its support for women to become bishops without giving traditionalist supporters of male-only priesthood the concessions they had sought.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In China Diana O'Brien (22), a Canadian model, was found murdered in her Shanghai apartment. On Jul 11 police arrested Chen Jun (18), who confessed to killing the woman during a robbery.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Colombia a rose-laden US cargo plane headed for Miami crashed before dawn near Bogota, killing a father and son in their home on the ground. It was the second time in six weeks that a Boeing 747 flown by Ypsilanti, Michigan-based Kalitta Air has crashed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Congo (DRC) unidentified gunmen ambushed a vehicle belonging to the World Wildlife Fund in Virunga national Park, killing two people and wounding three others.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 7, Police in East Timor's capital fired tear gas to disperse students protesting a plan by lawmakers to buy themselves new cars with state funds.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Egypt smugglers killed a police officer during a shootout on the border with Israel.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, A court in Equatorial Guinea convicted former British officer Simon Mann on of being the key player in a failed 2004 coup plot in this Central African nation and sentenced him to 34 years and four months in prison.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, European Union nations gave their backing to a French-drafted pact calling for tightening immigration and asylum rules across the 27-nation bloc.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Germany war crimes suspect Callixte Mbarushimana, a former UN employee wanted for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, was arrested in Frankfurt.
(AFP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Germany’s Fresenius SE said it has agreed to buy US generic drug maker APP Pharmaceuticals for $3.7 billion in cash in a deal that will give the health care company more opportunities in the North American market for drugs administered intravenously.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, PM al-Maliki said Iraq has proposed a short-term memorandum of understanding with the US rather than trying to hammer through a formal agreement on the presence of US forces. A roadside bomb near a dress shop in Baqouba killed a woman and injured 14 others.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus, shutting down a girls' school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity. Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell at a border crossing with the Gaza Strip. Israel's military said it had begun digging up the bodies of Lebanese fighters after the government struck a deal with Hezbollah guerrillas to swap five living prisoners and dozens of bodies for two Israeli soldiers captured in 2006.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Israeli Lt. Col. Omri Borberg was caught on video holding the arm of Ashraf Abu Rahmeh while he was shot in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet in the West Bank village of Naalin. On Jan 27, 2011, an Israeli military court sentenced two soldiers, convicted in the close-range shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man, but spared them jail time.
(AP, 1/27/11)(http://tinyurl.com/45ufwxq)
2008 Jul 7, In Italy transport workers went on strike, forcing the cancellation of thousands of bus, tram and subway lines and snarling traffic across the country.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Japan G8 leaders raised the prospect of more sanctions against Zimbabwe unless quick progress is made to end a political crisis after a violent election that extended President Robert Mugabe's 28-year rule. The G8 met with seven African leaders at its annual summit. African leaders urged the Group of Eight nations to tackle spiking oil and food prices. Japan included 5 “outreach" countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) for brief discussions with the G8.
(Reuters, 7/7/08)(AFP, 7/7/08)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.33)
2008 Jul 7, In Indian Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister said he was stepping down following protests over the government’s handling of the transfer of government land to the Shiri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running the revered Hindu shrine.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 7, Mexican police found six charred bodies on a Tijuana street following a bloody weekend that left 14 people dead.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Pakistan a total of seven small blasts left 43 people wounded in the commercial capital of Karachi.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Serbia's parliament approved a new government that includes a pro-Western group and the political party of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, The South African Reserve Bank said 5 million coins featuring a smiling Nelson Mandela will go into circulation on July 18, the former president's 90th birthday.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Sudan's parliament approved a new electoral law, a crucial step towards scheduled national elections and a democratic transition laid out in peace arrangements after a 21-year civil war.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A report from a US Senate Homeland Security investigations subcommittee said sellers of medical supplies collected as much as $93 million in fraudulent Medicare claims based on prescriptions from doctors who were actually dead.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 8, Boeing announced a deal with SkyHook Int’l., a private Canadian firm, to develop a heavy lift rotorcraft capable of carrying 4o tons.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.76)
2008 Jul 8, In California the Butte Lightning Complex Fire destroyed 41 homes overnight in and around Paradise. The next day 10,000 people were evacuated from the area.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 8, T. Boone Pickens, energy baron, announced his “Pickens Plan" for installing wind turbines in parts of four Texas Panhandle counties. The plans were scrapped in 2009 due to lack of transmission lines.
(AP, 7/7/09)
2008 Jul 8, John Templeton (b.1912), legendary mutual fund manager, died in Nassau. His Templeton Growth Fund in 1954 was among the first to invest in companies outside the US. In 1972 he started the Templeton Prize, which made its first award to Mother Teresa in 1973.
(WSJ, 7/9/08, p.C17)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
2008 Jul 8, Abkhazia's leader Sergei Bagapsh rejected a US proposal to deploy an international police force there.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb blast killed one NATO soldier and wounded four others. a provincial police chief said five insurgents and two policemen died during a clash in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Brazilian police arrested a former Sao Paulo mayor and two prominent financiers in a case that grew out of an influence-peddling scandal involving senior government officials.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, A Chinese court jailed Xiong Zhengliang, a former anti-graft prosecutor for life, for torturing a suspect to death. His superior was sentenced to seven years in prison for trying to cover up the case. Liang Jiping, a deputy director of the county's electricity bureau, was detained in May 2007 on suspicion of taking bribes. Liang died on June 1, 2007, after being held in custody for nearly five days and in three separate places.
(Reuters, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Chinese police killed five Muslims who were planning a "holy war" in the latest alleged terror threat ahead of the Beijing Olympics. The five were shot dead when police raided their hide-out in Urumqi.
(AFP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, The United States and the Czech Republic signed a treaty in Prague allowing Washington to build part of a missile defense shield in the central European state despite opposition from its former Cold War master Russia.
(Reuters, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Ecuador's government seized 3 television stations and 195 businesses, owned by the Isaias family, to collect debts stemming from the 1998 failure of Filanbanco, owned by Roberto and William Isaias. The economy minister resigned just hours before the takeover.
(AP, 7/9/08)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.48)
2008 Jul 8, The EU formally invited Slovakia to join the euro zone on Jan. 1, 2009.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG said it will cut 16,750 jobs, or 4.2 percent of its global work force, to streamline operations and slice nearly $2 billion in costs in the face of a slowing economy.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A German cargo ship held captive for 41 days off the coast of Somalia was released and all aboard were safe and unharmed. A Somali official said the pirates received a ransom of $750,000. The Lehmann Timber was one of two ships hijacked on May 30 off the Horn of Africa.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Tillman Thomas, former political detainee, returned his party to power in Grenada after 13 years in opposition. The apparent win by the National Democratic Congress was a stunning setback for PM Keith Mitchell's conservative New National Party, which was seeking an unprecedented 4th consecutive term in legislative elections.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Indian PM Manmohan Singh's communist allies withdrew their support for his four-year-old coalition government to protest the government's plan to push forward with a controversial nuclear deal with the United States. The government had gained new support from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and submitted a draft request to the IAEA for a required safeguards accord on July 9.
(AP, 7/8/08)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.50)
2008 Jul 8, At Developing Eight summit of Islamic nations, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, the leaders of Indonesia and Malaysia called for boosting world food production and finding a permanent solution to skyrocketing oil prices, saying the twin problems have become "grave threats" to the world economy.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Iraq's national security adviser said his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of US-led forces.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired a mortar shell into Israel in another violation of a shaky truce.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Japan G8 leaders endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. The G8 also agreed to impose targeted sanctions against leading Zimbabwean officials after a violent election last month that extended President Robert Mugabe's 28-year rule.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Amos Kimunya, Kenya’s finance minister, was forced to resign following the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel to Libyans, without taking bids and advertising the sale. The hotel had been confiscated from Kamlesh Paul Pattni, a businessman alleged to have paid hundreds of millions to individuals close to former Pres. Daniel arap Moi, for the export of gold and diamonds that did not exist.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.60)
2008 Jul 8, The Mexican government said UNESCO has added a Monarch butterfly reserve in southern Mexico to its list of World Heritage sites.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, State-media said Myanmar's military regime has approved visas for more than 1,500 international aid workers to help victims of Cyclone Nargis, with half of them involved in relief operations in storm-hit regions.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In northwest Pakistan unknown assailants fired on a vehicle carrying tribal police forces, killing four and wounding seven.
(AP, 7/808)
2008 Jul 8, In Russia’s Caucasus region the Interior Ministry of Kabardino-Balkaria province said unidentified gunmen had riddled the police car with bullets in the village of Baksan. 3 police officers were killed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A human rights group said domestic workers in Saudi Arabia often suffer abuse that in some cases amounts to slavery, as well as sexual violence and lashings for spurious allegations of theft or witchcraft.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Sudan about two hundred gunmen on horseback and in SUVs ambushed peacekeepers from a joint UN-African Union force in the Darfur region. Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, were killed in fierce gunbattles that lasted more than two hours.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Sudan's army spokesman claimed Ethiopian forces had attacked a police base 17 kilometers (11 miles) inside Sudanese territory, killing 19 people, including one police officer. Ethiopia denied the accusations.
(AFP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, In eastern Turkey Kurdish guerrillas kidnapped three German tourists on a climbing expedition. The Germans were released on July 20.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 9, A grand jury in Anchorage indicted Sen. John Cowdery, an Alaska legislator, on bribery and conspiracy counts in a federal investigation of corruption that already has led to convictions against three former state lawmakers. Federal prosecutors allege that Cowdery conspired with executives of oil field services company VECO Corp. to bribe another unnamed state senator for votes to support oil and gas legislation.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, The California state Board of Education voted to make algebra mandatory in the eighth grade beginning in 2011, in order to bring the state into compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind program.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 9, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed legislation approving a compact by 8 states surrounding the Great Lakes. Michigan was last of the 8 states to approve the agreement, which outlaws diversions of Great lakes water from natural drainage basins with rare exceptions.
(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 9, In western Pennsylvania the bodies of 22-year-old Ashley Guarino, her 2-year-old daughter Dreux and 11-month-old son Orlando Jr. were found by relatives. Orlando Maurice Guarino (38) was arrested the next day and charged with the murders of his wife and children.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 9, It was announced that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council had purchased a 90% stake in NYC’s Chrysler Building for $800 million.
(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.C3)
2008 Jul 9, US electronic games publisher Activision under Bobby Kotick closed its merger with the gaming arm of Vivendi, a French media conglomerate, in a deal valued at $18.8 billion.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard)
2008 Jul 9, In northwestern Afghanistan a group of villagers used a machine gun, sticks and stones to kill two Taliban militants and chase 10 others away. NATO-led forces in central Logar province killed a Taliban militant involved with suicide bombing networks. 9 British soldiers were injured in Helmand province when an Apache helicopter opened fire after mistaking them for the enemy.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, China convicted and then executed two ethnic Uighur men and imprisoned another 15 for alleged terrorist links in the western region of Xinjiang.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 9, German investigators carried out raids on 600 homes in Austria, Switzerland and Germany seeking chemicals used to produce an illicit date-rape drug.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Grenada Tillman Thomas, former political detainee, was sworn in as the new prime minister.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, Iran test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles during war games that officials said aimed to show the country can retaliate against any US and Israeli attack.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 8 civilians in an attack on a military convoy in Mosul. A bomb in Fallujah killed four police officers and one civilian. A bomb killed a US soldier in Samarra. In total bombs and bullets killed 20 Iraqis.
(AP, 7/9/08)(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 9, In Ingushetia police said three officers have been killed and four kidnapped in separate attacks.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, An Israel-Hamas truce has boiled down to a simple trade-off: For a day of calm, Israel adds five truckloads of cows and 200 tons of cement to the barest basics it ships to Gaza, but rocket fire from the territory reseals the border for a day.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Italy police in Naples arrested 44 suspected mobsters in a crackdown on drug trafficking. The latest raids led to the confiscation of apartments, cars, motorcycles, farmland and companies worth nearly $480 million.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Japan G8 leaders reiterated their commitment for doubling aid to Africa by 2010 and instituted new accountability procedures to ensure that wealthy countries fulfill their promises of aid there. They also agreed to combat global warming but developing nations declined o endorse emissions targets.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A7)(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 9, In northern Lebanon heavy fighting erupted between government supporters and Hezbollah's allies, killing at least 4 people and shattering a truce that lasted just two weeks.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, Tribal elders and Pakistani authorities struck a deal aimed at bringing peace to a militant-infested northwest region where a paramilitary offensive has tried to flush out insurgents. Police captured Rafiuddin, an aide to top commander Baitullah Mehsud, along with four associates they traveled in a vehicle through the town of Hangu in the South Waziristan region.
(AP, 7/9/08)(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Peru tens of thousands of union workers took to the streets across the country to protest rising food and fuel prices they blame on the free market policies of President Alan Garcia.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, A Spanish patrol boat rescued 33 people and recovered one body from the boat off the coast of southern Almeria province. 15 African migrants, most of them small children, died of hunger, thirst or exposure as they drifted across the Mediterranean on the small, overcrowded boat.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Istanbul, Turkey, men armed with pistols and shotguns attacked a police guard post outside the US consulate, sparking a gunbattle that left 3 attackers and 3 officers dead.
(AP, 7/9/08)(Reuters, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Pres. Bush signed a bill that overhauls government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that help the US spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 10, The American Medical Association issued a formal apology for more than a century of discriminatory policies that excluded blacks from participating in a group long considered the voice of US doctors.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Rocky Aoki (69), founder of the Benihana steakhouse chain, died in New York from complications of cancer. Aoki was also a wrestler and avid balloonist.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroaki_Aoki)
2008 Jul 10, Officials said a decade-long drought in Australia's most important crop-growing region is worsening and there is little hope for relief from either saving rains or a new government conservation plan.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Britons voted in a by-election triggered when David Davis, a top opposition MP, quit in protest at government plans to increase the period police can hold terror suspects before charging them.
(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Salman Rushdie's novel "Midnight's Children" was named as the greatest Booker Prize winner ever, scooping a special "best of the best" award for the second time.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In China migrant workers began a 3-day riot in Kanmen town in coastal Zhejiang province. Three hundred military police arrived on July 13 and 30 migrant workers have been detained. A Hong Kong-based rights group said the unrest was centered around a migrant worker who was beaten by a security guard while trying to get a temporary residence permit.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 10, The European Parliament called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged the authorities to stop it.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, European Union lawmakers called for tougher EU sanctions against Zimbabwe, including putting businessmen who finance Pres. Mugabe's regime on a visa ban list.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In France four people were found shot dead near the southwestern city of Toulouse. A fifth victim died later in hospital.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, Indonesia executed Ahmad Suradji (57), a man convicted of killing 42 women and girls in a series of ritual slayings he believed would give him magical powers.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Indonesia Asnawi Sandri, a 38-year-old father of two, died in the hospital, days after he came down with symptoms of bird flu. This raised the unofficial toll in the world's hardest hit nation to 111 in three years.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iran test-fired more long-range missiles overnight in a second round of exercises meant to show that the country can defend itself against any attack by the US or Israel.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iraq's Oil Ministry said that it is close to signing contracts to build two new oil refineries in southern Iraq. Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader to visit Iraq in nearly 20 years.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Israeli troops shot and killed a teenage Palestinian militant along the country's border with Gaza. Soldiers thought he was armed but, after inspecting the body, found that he was not. In the fourth day of operations in the city of Nablus, Israel closed a clinic and TV station, and raided a mosque.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In northern Mexico, 6 bullet-ridden bodies were found inside the auto body shop in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, and three more bodies were found on the street just outside the business. A police investigator was found shot to death in his truck near Culiacan's police headquarters.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Nigeria's main militant group said it would resume attacks in the country's oil-rich river delta region because of Britain's recent pledge to back the government in the conflict there. UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari resigned as chairman of a planned peace summit for the oil-rich Niger Delta following opposition from regional leaders.
(AP, 7/10/08)(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, North Korea returned to international talks on its nuclear activities after a nine-month break, in what host China hailed as a potential turning point in the disarmament process.
(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Pakistan six mortar rounds appeared to have targeted a military post in Angore Adda in South Waziristan, seriously wounding six Pakistani troops, lightly wounding two other troops and also injuring two civilians in a nearby market.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 10, A Palestinian health official said a tunnel used to smuggle goods across the Gaza-Egypt border has collapsed, killing two Palestinians.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, The Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's secret services, reported that the head of the embassy's trade and investment section, Christopher Bowers, was believed to be a senior British intelligence officer.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, Somali insurgents killed at least two people in an overnight attack on an army base 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of the government headquarters in Baidoa.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Turkey authorities detained four suspects in connection with the July 9 attack on the US consulate in Istanbul which left 3 policemen and 3 assailants dead.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Uzbekistan a fire at a Soviet-era military base spread to an ammunition depot, igniting a series of powerful explosions that killed three people and injured 21 others.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 11, US banking regulators seized IndyMac Bancorp Inc., Pasadena-based mortgage lender, after withdrawals by panicked depositors led to the second-largest banking failure in US history. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said that their finances were sufficiently sound to withstand the housing crisis as government officials scrambled to restore confidence in the country's two largest mortgage finance companies.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 11, Gregg Bergersen (51), a former US Defense Department analyst, was sentenced in Virginia to 57 months in prison for passing classified information about Taiwan to a Chinese government agent.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Apple introduced its next generation iPhone in 22 countries. Unprecedented demand caused initial service problems.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 11, Oil prices touched $147 a barrel before beginning a decline.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.70)
2008 Jul 11, Dr. Michael DeBakey (b.1908), the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon, died. He pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients. He was among the first to link lung cancer to smoking in a medical journal article in 1939.
(AP, 7/12/08)(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 11, In San Francisco Armando Estrada (30) of Rodeo, Ca., was shot and killed at 20th and Mission streets. In 2009 Jonathan Cruz-Ramirez and Guillermo Herrera, alleged members of the MS-13 street gang, were charged with the murder.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A12)(www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=91505)
2008 Jul 11, In Australia the official program for the Catholic church's World Youth Day began, but was partly overshadowed by the launch of an investigation into sexual abuse allegations against a disgraced priest. Thousands of pilgrims converged on Sydney as it braced for the weekend arrival of Pope Benedict.
(AFP, 7/11/08)(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to support East Timor during talks in Dili with Timorese leaders including President Jose Ramos-Horta.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Cambodia Khim Sam Bo (47), a journalist working for a pro-opposition newspaper, was killed along with his son (19) in a drive-by shooting in Phnom Phen. A gunman on a motorcycle shot five times at the victims as they were leaving a sports stadium on a motorcycle.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Officials said the bodies of four Africans have been found in a small boat packed with migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands. It was the third such tragedy in a week.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, President Raul Castro warned Cubans to prepare for a "realistic" brand of communism that is economically viable and does away with excessive state subsidies designed to promote equality on the island.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, The Czech Republic’s Industry and Trade Ministry announced that Russia has reduced its oil shipments to the country without providing an explanation. The cutback was announced three days after the nation signed a military agreement with Washington that the Kremlin strongly opposes. Russia later said the supplies dropped because 2 Russian firms had decided to refine more crude at home.
(AP, 7/11/08)(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 11, Ethiopia's Ogadeni rebels accused the regime in Addis Ababa of deliberately blocking international aid to their war-wracked and drought-stricken region.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Iraq the US military detained nine people suspected of involvement in the al-Qaida in Iraq group in raids in Baghdad and the cities of Beiji and Mosul.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Israeli police revealed stinging new allegations against PM Ehud Olmert, accusing him of pocketing tens of thousands of dollars by deceiving multiple sources into paying for the same trips abroad. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian gunman who opened fire in the early morning on an Israeli civilian driving in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, International donors pledged more than half of the euro1.5 billion ($2.36 billion) in aid requested by Kosovo to build up its infrastructure and democratic institutions.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Lebanon's PM Fuad Saniora announced a new national unity Cabinet in which Hezbollah and its allies have veto power over government decisions.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A fishing boat, carrying eight Taiwanese, one Chinese and six crew members from Madagascar, sank after reporting engine problems.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 11, In the Netherlands health authorities announced a Dutch woman, infected during a holiday to Uganda by the contagious Marburg virus, had died overnight. The Marburg virus is similar to Ebola and causes heavy bleeding. About 100 people who may have had contact with the woman were under surveillance.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A senior military official said the Nigerian navy has arrested 15 Filipinos after intercepting a vessel carrying a significant quantity of stolen crude oil off the coast of the Niger Delta. Gunboats intercepted the MV Lina Panama in the waters off Brass, home to a major oil export terminal in the southern state of Bayelsa. One security source said the vessel was thought to be carrying tens of thousands of tons of stolen oil.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, A North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean woman tourist (53) at a mountain resort in the communist North, prompting the South to suspend the high-profile tour program. Park Wang-ja had strayed a half-mile into a fenced off military area and was shot twice from behind.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Serbia a bus carrying Polish tourists overturned north of Belgrade, killing six people and injuring nearly 40.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Somali troops shot and killed 7 civilians in southern Mogadishu after accusing them of being part of an Islamic insurgency.
(SFC, 7/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 11, In southern Sri Lanka suspected rebel gunmen ambushed a crowded passenger bus as it traveled down a small rural road. The attack killed a boy and three women and wounded 25 others. Clashes broke out in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya regions surrounding the rebel stronghold killed 17 rebels.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Thai prosecutors filed new corruption charges against ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra for alleged abuse of authority to benefit his family business.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A Turkish news agency reported that army troops clashed with Kurdish rebels in the southeast and that 10 of the rebels were killed.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, The UN commemorated World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
2008 Jul 11, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe mended relations after months of sniping that threatened trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change said a total of 113 MDC supporters have now been killed in politically-related violence. Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition held a second day of talks in South Africa. A UN Security Council bid to pass sanctions against Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was vetoed by Russia and China.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, Les Crane, pioneer talk radio and TV host, died in Marin, California. In 1964 he hosted the “The Les Crane Show," a late night TV talk show on ABC that ran for 4 months.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 12, Bobby Murcer (62), former Yankee baseball player and broadcaster, died from a malignant brain tumor in Oklahoma City. The only person to play with Mantle and Mattingly, the popular Murcer hit .277 with 252 home runs and 1,043 RBIs in 17 seasons with the Yankees, San Francisco and the Chicago Cubs. He made the All-Star team in both leagues and won a Gold Glove.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Tony Snow (53), a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush's press secretary, died of colon cancer.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In central Afghanistan Taliban militants executed two women just outside Ghazni city after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a US base. A soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion in northern Afghanistan. NATO troops killed Bismullah Akhund, an insurgent leader in Helmand's Naw Zad district.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 12, NATO said a recent border clash that wounded several Pakistani and Afghan security personnel was sparked by insurgents in Afghanistan who fired at targets in both countries, apparently to stoke cross-border tensions.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, The Arab League said it will hold crisis talks on Sudan after reports the International Criminal Court may seek Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's arrest, amid fears for peace efforts in Darfur. It would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state. The African Union said that plans by the ICC could jeopardize peace efforts in Darfur.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, Ethiopia said it has arrested eight "Eritrean-trained" rebels suspected of carrying out bombings that rocked the capital Addis Ababa and killed eight people earlier this year.
(Reuters, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, French President Nicolas Sarkozy met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, kicking off a round of diplomacy with Middle East leaders ahead of an EU-Mediterranean summit. Sarkozy said that Syria and Lebanon will open embassies in each other's countries for the first time. Syria's leader cautioned there was still work to be done before that could happen.
(AP, 7/12/08)(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, In Jakarta, Indonesia, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged cooperation on biofuels during talks in a bid to take advantage of surging oil prices.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In western Nepal about 500 riot policemen took senior officers hostage in a revolt over ill treatment and poor food. They released their captives and surrendered after a two-day standoff.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 12, In Nigeria a truck drivers strike to protest soaring fuel prices entered its 2nd day. At least 17 people died at a prayer meeting in rural Nigeria after apparently breathing noxious fumes from their power generator while asleep. Their bodies were discovered on July 15.
(AFP, 7/12/08)(Reuters, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 12, North Korea agreed to completely disable its main nuclear facilities by the end of October and to allow thorough site inspections to verify that all necessary steps had been taken as the latest round of six-nation disarmament talks concluded in Beijing.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In northwestern Pakistan at least 13 paramilitary forces and three militants were killed in an ambush and shootout when militants attacked a Frontier Constabulary convoy in the Zargari area of Hangu district. Provincial police in Hangu arrested half a dozen Taliban including Rafiuddin, a lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud. The militants in response captured 29-49 hostages.
(AP, 7/13/08)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 12, In Sri Lanka 18 rebels and a soldier were killed in Mannar district; 7 rebels and a soldier were killed in Vavuniya and six guerrillas died in Welioya. Each side often exaggerates the casualties and damage inflicted on its enemy while underreporting its own losses.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Pope Benedict XVI left Rome on a flight to Australia for a 10-day pilgrimage. The Pope said he will use his visit to Australia to apologize for sexual abuse by priests and to examine how the Church can "prevent, heal and reconcile".
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, President Hugo Chavez said that he is expanding his Venezuela's Petrocaribe oil-supply pact to include Guatemala.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Thousands of Venezuelans protested in the capital demanding that the Supreme Court overturn a "blacklist" blocking key opponents of President Hugo Chavez from running in upcoming elections.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 13, The US Securities and Exchange Commission said it would immediately conduct investigations aimed at preventing the intentional spreading of false information intended to manipulate securities prices. the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department announced steps to brace slumping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 13, Terry Childs (43), a San Francisco computer engineer, was arrested on felony charges for allegedly plotting to hijack the city’s computer system. Childs, who continue to draw his $127,735 annual salary, refused to provide passwords to the network system and was held in lieu of a $5 million bail. Mayor Newsom met with Childs on July 21, who provided system code. Cisco engineers had the system back under control by July 22. On April 27, 2010, Childs was convicted of felony computer tampering. On April 27, 2010, a Superior Court jury concluded that his crime cost the city over $200,000, making him eligible for a maximum state sentence of 5 years. On Aug 6, 2010, Childs was sentenced to 4 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million. Hi conviction was upheld in 2013.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B1)(SFC, 7/23/08, p.B1)(SFC, 4/28/10, p.C1)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.C2)(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.C2C3)
2008 Jul 13, Belgian-based brewer InBev announced it will buy Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion.
(http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/703682.html)
2008 Jul 13, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol killing 24 people in Uruzgan province. A two-day battle sparked by an insurgent attack killed at least 40 militants in Helmand province. A NATO soldier died in a roadside blast in Helmand province. In Kunar province, fighting erupted when militants attacked a NATO security force outpost. In eastern Logar province gunmen kidnapped parliament member Abdul Wali and his driver. Well-armed militants got inside a remote military outpost in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar. 9 American soldiers were killed in the deadliest assault on US forces in Afghanistan in three years. In 2010 the US Army reversed a decision to punish three officers for command failures that led to the deadly firefight. In 2014 Sgt. Matthew Pitts was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Wanat.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)(AP, 6/23/10)(AFP, 7/21/14)
2008 Jul 13, Algeria’s government newspaper El Moudjhaid said a consortium of British-based oil services company Petrofac and Indonesian engineering company IKPT provisionally won a contract to build an LNG plant in western Mediterranean port of Arzew.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Sydney, after a stop in Darwin, for one of the largest Christian gatherings on Earth, starting a visit set to be marked by his apology for sexual abuse by priests in Australia.
(AFP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the Mediterranean Sea to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th century as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean. 43 nations, including Israel and Arab states, pledged to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction at the close of a summit to launch an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean aimed at securing peace across the restive region.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 13, Iranian state TV said the country is exploring a newly discovered oil field believed to contain more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Iraq gunmen attacked a soccer game near Duluiya killing a police officer and a Sunni Muslim allied with the US against al-Qaida. A roadside bomb in Fallujah killed 4 police officers. A bomb hit a truck near Baquba. The driver and his assistant died of their wounds at a nearby hospital. Some 70 women graduated in the first Daughters of Iraq, a group of female security volunteers.
(SFC, 7/14/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 13, Thousands of Japanese rallied against the permanent basing of the nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier near Tokyo, saying a recent onboard fire made it unsafe.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Indian Kashmir 10 people were hurt when police had to fire shots in the air and use tear gas to disperse a crowd that was attacking pro-India politicians.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Mexico gunmen opened fire on four cars on a busy street in Guamuchil, killing eight people. Among the victims were a girl (11), two 17-year-old boys and two women aged 18 and 19. On July 16 Mexico's government offered a reward of nearly US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of the gunmen.
(AP, 7/14/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Poland Bronislaw Geremek (76), former foreign minister (1997-2000), died in a car accident near Lubien. He was an icon in the struggle against communist rule and a founding member of the Solidarity trade union.
(AFP, 7/13/08)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.98)
2008 Jul 13, In Sierra Leone a passenger plane loaded with 1,540 pounds of cocaine was found abandoned at the main airport.
(SFC, 7/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Jul 13, A World Food Program contractor was gunned down in Somalia, the 5th agency worker to be killed this year.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)(www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-07-15-somalia_N.htm)
2008 Jul 13, In Sudan thousands of protesters chanting "Down, Down USA!" rallied in Khartoum after reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may seek the arrest of Sudan's president for alleged war crimes. A stampede among crowds of people attending a military graduation ceremony killed 17 people at the al-Merriekh Stadium in Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum. The dead were mostly women and children with 3 dozen others injured.
(Reuters, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Pres. Bush lifted the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling, however Congress has renewed its ban on drilling every year since 1981 and top Democrats said it will do so again this year.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 14, David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, defended the newest satirical cover of the magazine by cartoonist Barry Blitt, which depicted Sen. Barack Obama in Muslim garb and his wife as an Afro-sporting gun packer.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 14, Thousands of Univ. of California workers faced suspension and other disciplinary action for walking off their jobs despite a judge’s ruling barring them from doing so. The employees had been without a contract since January.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 14, In Pennsylvania Luis Ramirez (25), an illegal Mexican migrant worker, died in Shenandoah after being beaten by white youths. 4 young men were charged and found responsible for the fight, but most of the federal charges against them were dropped. Local police were later accused of tampering with evidence and witnesses or lying to the FBI. In 2010 Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky were convicted for a federal hate crime. In 2011 former police chief Matthew Nestor was found guilty of falsifying his police report, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. Officer William Moyer was found guilty of lying to the FBI but was acquitted of four other counts. Officer Jason Hayes, who's engaged to the mother of one of Ramirez's attackers, was acquitted of both charges against him. In all, the jury convicted on two of nine counts. On Feb 23, 2011, Donchak and Piekarsky were sentenced to nine years each in prison for roles in the death of Ramirez.
(www.maldef.org/luis_ramirez_petition/)(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A6)(AP, 1/27/11)(Reuters, 2/24/11)
2008 Jul 14, In eastern Afghanistan seven insurgents were killed in fighting in Wanat, Nuristan province, where 9 US soldiers were killed a day earlier. An "Arab terrorist" was captured during the operation.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, Britain vowed to increase pressure on Zimbabwe's leaders by pushing for tougher EU sanctions and hunting down their assets around the world, after failing to secure bolstered UN action.
(AF, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Three British Muslim men pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause explosions, part of a plan prosecutors say would have involved smuggling liquid bombs onto airliners with the intention of blowing them up mid-flight.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, At Britain’s Farnborough International Airshow Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, said it had agreed to buy 45 Boeing passenger jets worth 9.4 billion dollars (5.9 billion euros).
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, A Chinese migrant worker at the Shuangqiao Garden Plaza in Wenshan county killed one person and stabbed nine others after discovering his savings of 2,600 yuan ($380) had been swapped for counterfeit notes while he visited a prostitute.
(Reuters, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 14, An explosion at a mine in northern Hebei province killed 34 miners and a rescue worker. In November, 2009, officials at the mine were charge with moving dead bodies, destroying evidence and paying journalists 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) not to report the explosion. In 2010 a journalist was sentenced to 16 years in prison for taking bribes to help cover up the disaster, which took place just 3 weeks before the Beijing Olympics.
(www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/asia/01mine.html?_r=1)(AP, 1/6/10)
2008 Jul 14, Greek police said 9 British women faced prostitution charges after being arrested at the weekend for taking part in an oral sex competition in the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos. Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged in the incident, which took place at Laganas beach.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Police in the Adriatic city of Pescara arrested Otttaviano Del Turco, the governor of Italy's Abruzzo region, in a health care corruption investigation. Prosecutors said at least 35 people are being investigated.
(AP, 7/14/08)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.60)
2008 Jul 14, Malaysian police locked down Parliament with roadblocks and massive security to prevent opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and his supporters from attending a key debate.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Mexico commander Gerardo Valdes, the head of kidnapping and organized crime investigations in the border state of Coahuila, was seized by at least six men when he was driving in Saltillo. An unidentified man called police and said that Valdes had been grabbed by the Juarez Cartel.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Peru a new law went into effect allowing couples who agree upon alimony, child custody and division of assets to seek divorce from a qualified notary or municipality.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, Russia agreed to write off $242 million in Tajikistan debt and take control of the Okno mountaintop station, operational since 2004. It was designed to track satellites and even fragments of space debris.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, South Korea said it will recall its ambassador from Japan over a rekindled debate about disputed islands between the countries, as the new Seoul government seeks to lift its sagging popularity at home with an appeal to nationalism.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spain's biggest bank, Santander, said it had reached agreement to buy British lender Alliance and Leicester in an all-share deal worth 1.26 billion pounds (1.57 billion euros) as it continues its push into the British market.
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spanish construction giant Martinsa-Fadesa announced in a filing with Spanish stock market regulators that it is seeking protection from creditors.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation. The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Turkey prosecutors indicted 86 secular Turks, including high-ranking ex-military officials, on terrorism charges for their alleged involvement in plots to topple the Islamic-rooted government. They were suspected of being part of Ergenekon, an ultra-nationalist gang bent on overthrowing the AKP government.
(AP, 7/14/08)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.34)
2008 Jul 14, In Vietnam Dayana Mendoza, Miss Venezuela, was crowned Miss Universe 2008 in a contest marked by the spectacle of Miss USA falling down during the evening gown competition for the second year in a row.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 15, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the fragile economy is facing "numerous difficulties" including persistent strains in financial markets, rising joblessness and housing problems — despite the Fed's aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, The SEC said it would immediately move to curb improper short selling in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as those of 17 financial firms. The move would be effective July 21 and expire after 30 days. The SEC also planned to consider extending the requirements to all stocks traded in the US.
(WSJ, 7/16/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 15, Mei Ling Chen (46) of Taiwan was arrested in Sunnyvale, Ca., after customs inspectors at SF Int’l. Airport found $380,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a package of dried seafood.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.B11)
2008 Jul 15, Robin Long (25), a US Army deserter who had fled to Canada in 2005, was deported from British Columbia back to the US.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, General Motors Corp. said it will lay off salaried workers, cut truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the US market.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Volkswagen announced that it would build a $1 billion car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., and expected to open it as soon as 2011.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C10)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFdSOp19gU)
2008 Jul 15, It was reported that Hawaii’s Oahu island planned to export some 100,000 tons of trash a year to the mainland. At current rates its 200-acre municipal landfill would reach capacity in 15 years. Expanded recycling and a new boiler were also in the works.
(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 15, In California 2 vehicles collided on a bridge and fell into the Delta-Mendota Canal near Westley. 6 farm workers and a septic truck driver died.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B3)(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
2008 Jul 15, Gee Gee Engesser (b.19126), animal trainer and “Blond Bombshell" of the circus, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 15, In Pennsylvania Betty Schirmer (56) was killed in an apparent car accident. In 2010 her husband, Pastor Arthur Burton Schirmer, was charged with killing her and staging the car accident. The charge also prompted an investigation into the suspicious death of his 1st wife, Jewel Schirmer, in 1999.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)(www.delmarvanow.com/article/20100914/NEWS01/100914005)
2008 Jul 15, In southwestern Afghanistan air strikes against extremist rebels killed 4 women and 5 children as well as several insurgents. NATO pulled soldiers out of the outpost in Wanat village in northeastern Kunar province, which militants had breached killing 9 US soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of Argentine farmers and government supporters staged dueling protests ahead of a Senate vote on a package of grain-export taxes that generated months of bitter farm strikes.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Australia the world's biggest Christian festival opened with a spectacular harbor-side mass for up to 150,000 pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney headed by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Belgium PM Yves Leterme offered King Albert the resignation of his government after he acknowledged he would not make a deadline for a constitutional reform deal despite months of talks. He offered to resign after realizing it would be impossible to resolve deep divisions over increased autonomy for French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tropical Storm Bertha headed back out over open ocean and away from the US mainland after it battered Bermuda, knocking out electricity to thousands on the Atlantic tourist island. Bertha entered its 13th day becoming the longest-lived July tropical storm in history.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, China voiced concern over an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of genocide in the African country's war-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Croatia adopted a law that allows Sunday shopping only over the summer and Christmas holidays. It goes into effect January 1. The law also allows stores in gas, bus and train stations to open on Sundays year-round, along with those in hospitals. Bakeries, newsstands and flower shops are also exempt from the ban.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, The EU agreed to an emergency aid package for its fishing industry to cope with fuel prices.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 15, In eastern India at least 20 members of a wedding party were killed when the jeep carrying them plunged into a roadside canal outside Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Indonesia's president acknowledged that his country carried out gross human rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 break for independence, but stopped short of offering a full apology and said no one would be prosecuted.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of army recruits at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, where devastating attacks persist despite security improvements elsewhere. At least 28 people died. In western Mosul, a bomb near an Iraqi police station killed four Iraqi civilians. Half an hour later, one Iraqi police officer and seven civilians died in a suicide car bombing in the east of the city. Three other bombs in Mosul wounded 15 people. The US military said it had captured the Iranian-trained leader of an explosives cell in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Israel's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal to trade a Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead. Israeli troops arrested three Hamas council members in a dawn raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses and residents said a total of 12 Hamas members were arrested.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Italy a judge in Venice indicted Saber Fadhil Hussein for plotting a terrorist attack on US bases in Iraq using ultra-light aircraft.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, Fishermen across Japan went on a massive one-day strike to protest skyrocketing fuel prices, the latest blow to the country's foundering fishing industry.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Malaysian police issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in connection with a sodomy accusation by a male former aide.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In South Korea Won Jeong-hwa (34) was arrested and later confessed that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea's intelligence agency. On Oct 15 she was sentenced to five years in prison for spying.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, A plan for a referendum on self-determination in Spain's northern Basque Country became law in the region, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government in Madrid which has termed the poll illegal.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Sri Lanka fighting reportedly killed a total of 51 rebels and a soldier.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Switzerland Hannibal Kadhafi (32), the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested along with his wife Aline at a luxury hotel in Geneva after the servants, a Moroccan and a Tunisian, alleged they had been abused by the couple. The 2-day detention led to reprisals by Libya. Days after Hannibal Kadhafi’s arrest, Swiss businessmen Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani were detained in Libya on alleged visa violations. The servants later dropped their legal complaints after receiving some compensation. In November, 2009, Goeldi and Hamdani were handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli. Libya then announced that they would go on trial on accusations of tax evasion and violating residency laws.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 11/9/09)(AP, 11/12/09)
2008 Jul 15, Taiwan indicted 5 former ministers, who had served under former Pres. Chen Shui-bian, on corruption charges relating to misuse of special expense accounts.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)
2008 Jul 15, Turkey’s military said aircraft and artillery units had shelled rebel positions in Sirnak province, killing 22 rebels.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 16, The United States signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade, Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, The US Postal Service released a series of stamps honoring black cinema.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.E3)
2008 Jul 16, California state educators said 24% of the state’s high school students had dropped out of school during the 2006-2007 school year.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 16, Jo Stafford (b.1917), pop star singer during the 1940s and 1950s, died in Los Angeles. Her songs included “You Belong To Me," a big hit in 1952.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 16, The governor of Kandahar said eight militants were killed during an operation in the southern province's Khakrez district in the past two days. A regional Taliban commander, Mullah Mahmoud, who controlled about 250 fighters, was among those killed. Several militants were killed in the Nahr Surkh district of Helmand. Coalition and Afghan security forces uncovered and destroyed a large weapons cache in northern Jawzjan province.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Thousands of British local government employees began a two-day strike over pay. Unions expected more than half a million workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to join the walkout that began after midnight.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Anglican bishops from around the world gathered in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference, with the 10-yearly meeting set to be dominated by deep splits over the roles of women and homosexuals.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Cambodia assembled its troops near the Thai border in the second day of alleged incursions by Thai soldiers amid tensions over disputed border land near a historic temple.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, The government of China’s Gansu province told the Ministry of Health about an unusual surge of kidney stones among infants who had all drunk the same brand of milk.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.57)
2008 Jul 16, In Egypt a truck ploughed into traffic at a closed level crossing, pushing a bus, truck and several cars into the path of a passenger train. Four people died from their injuries overnight bringing the total number of dead to 41.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In France the first stone was laid at the Louvre's new Arts of Islam gallery, the first major modern architectural addition to the museum since its famed glass pyramid was built in the 1980s.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In eastern India at least 20 special commando police officers were killed when their vehicle struck a land mine planted by communist rebels in Orissa state.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Coalition forces handed the Iraqi government control of a province south of Baghdad, reflecting security improvements across the country. US and Polish forces operated in the mostly Shiite province of Qadisiyah, the tenth of 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi authority. A car bomb killed at least 7 children and 11 other people in the northern city of Tal Afar. 90 people also were injured in the blast at a popular outdoor market. A car bomb killed two civilians in Mosul.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of two Israeli soldiers and Israel freed 5 Lebanese militants, including Samir Kantar, who killed a 4-year-old girl and her father in 1979.
(AP, 7/16/08)(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 16, An Italian parliamentary panel gave initial approval to a plan to fingerprint everyone in the country, a move that could defuse criticism over a mandatory program to fingerprint Gypsies.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Malaysian police arrested opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on suspicion that he sodomized a male aide, pre-empting his voluntary appearance at the police headquarters to answer the allegation. He was interrogated for more than eight hours and made to sleep on a "cold cement" floor in a holding cell before being released the next day.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Mexico's navy seized a homemade submarine carrying a drug shipment off the Pacific coast and arrested its four-man crew.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Nigeria about 30 armed men in speedboats attacked a navy vessel that was guarding key oil facilities in southern Rivers state. Three militants, a naval serviceman and a civilian were killed. MEND said it was not involved.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In southwestern Pakistan a roadside bomb wounded seven security personnel and two passers-by. In the northwest a military operation began to expel insurgents from Zargari. 10 militants were killed and five troops wounded.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 16, The Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front reached a deal to create an ancestral homeland for 3 million Muslims.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 16, Gold production was severely disrupted in parts of South Africa as thousands of mineworkers downed tools to protest rising living costs.
(AFP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In South Korea former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee saw the suspension of his prison sentence in a tax-evasion conviction, a move that confirmed South Koreans' view that tycoons are immune from jail.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Spain King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia kicked off an interfaith conference in Madrid, an effort to bring Muslims, Christians and Jews closer together amid a world that often puts the three faiths at odds.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Sri Lankan soldiers captured a key naval base used by the Tamil Tiger rebels in the northern part of the country. Fighting in the north killed 24 rebels and 3 soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Sudan a peacekeeper with the United Nations-African Union was shot and killed in Darfur. The peacekeeper, believed to be a Nigerian company commander, died while on patrol near a peacekeeping camp.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Turkey’s military said 11 Kurdish rebels were killed in an ongoing operation in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Turkey Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Kurd, was allegedly killed by his father for besmirching the family honor. In 2011 the film “Zenne Dancer," based on his story, won 5 awards at the Golden Orange Film Festival.
(Econ, 10/22/11, p.64)(http://ahmetyildizismyfamily.blogspot.com/)
2008 Jul 16, Zimbabwe’s central bank's governor said the annual rate of inflation, already the highest in the world, has hit a new record level of 2.2 million percent.
(AFP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 17, Kay Ryan (b.1945) of Fairfax, Ca., was named the 16th poet laureate of the US. She was selected by James Billington, the Librarian of Congress.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 17, The US Treasury moved to freeze assets of four Algerians it said were leaders of an al Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for deadly bombings in Algeria last month.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, The US government lifted a salmonella warning on tomatoes, but still warned caution on fresh jalapeno and serrano peppers.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 17, It was reported that the US debt amounted to $455,000 per household. By September the national debt reached $10 trillion and obliged the national debt clock in New York’s Times Square to move its dollar sign to make room.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.A10)(Econ, 10/9/10, SR p.6)
2008 Jul 17, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), led a global day of action targeting KKR-owned sites in 25 countries, calling for an end to favorable tax treatment of private equity.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.70)
2008 Jul 17, California became the first US state to approve green building standards.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 17, In western Afghanistan US Special Forces and Afghan troops called in airstrikes during a raid on a militant cell, killing 15 insurgents while freeing 15 hostages in Herat province. Taliban militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for NATO forces in Zabul. A following gunbattle killed an Afghan security worker and wounded five.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman once identified as a possible al-Qaida associate, was arrested by Afghan police, who found recipes for explosives and descriptions of New York landmarks in her handbag. [see Aug 5]
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A5)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Jul 17, Algeria and Germany wound up two days of talks in Algiers with a call for more economic cooperation between the two countries.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, In Algeria a truck and a bus collided on one of the main highways in the Relizane region killing 7 people with 28 seriously injured.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Argentina's Senate narrowly rejected a grain-export tax package, a government-backed proposal that has led to nationwide farm strikes and regional food shortages.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, In Sidney, Australia, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a stinging attack on pop culture, consumerism and "false idols" to 150,000 mainly teenaged Catholic pilgrims gathered for World Youth Day.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Belgium's King Albert II refused to accept the resignation of the prime minister and his government, calling on key officials to redouble efforts to resolve a longtime disagreement over more self-rule for the country's Dutch and French speakers.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, A new company of Chinese engineers deployed to Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur, boosting the number of UN-led peacekeeping troops to 8,000.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Wikimania 2008 opened in to Alexandria, Egypt, for a 3-day tradecraft meeting. The gathering of online encyclopedia creators drew some 650 Wikipedians from 45 countries.
(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W1)(http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
2008 Jul 17, In Amman, Jordan, a gunman shot and wounded six people near a Roman amphitheater. He shot himself in the head as he was chased by police, and was in critical condition. A police official identified the assailant as Thaer al-Weheidi (19), a resident of Baqaa camp, the largest of 11 Palestinian refugee settlements in Jordan. Al-Weheidi died on July 22.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 17, Kuwait's official news agency says the tiny Gulf country has named an ambassador to Iraq for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Macedonia's main opposition party walked out of parliament after its deputy leader was arrested and charged in a corruption probe.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Six prominent members of Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC met this day with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega according to Nicaragua’s La Prensa newspaper. The members of the guerrilla organization arrived in Nicaragua in a Cessna airplane from Venezuela. Both Ortega and Venezuela denied the newspaper report.
(http://colombiareports.com/2008/07/23/ortega-met-with-farc-delegation-says-la-prensa/)
2008 Jul 17, Nigerian villagers blew up a key crude oil supply pipeline operated by Agip, the Nigerian subsidiary of Italian group Eni, cutting production.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Violent protests erupted at Pakistan's main stock market as growing economic and political uncertainty pushed Pakistani shares to a new 18-month low.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, A survey team member said a Russian government audit has revealed that up to 50,000 pieces are missing from the country’s museums, everything from Pre-Revolutionary medals and weapons to precious works of art.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Sri Lankan air force jets bombed a group of ethnic Tamil rebels. Troops attacked rebel bunkers along the front lines in the Vavuniya area, killing 10 Tamil Tiger fighters. Fighting in the area also killed four soldiers, while a fifth soldier was missing in action. Fighting in Welioya killed nine rebels and one soldier, while another rebel was killed in Jaffna.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, An official of the Swiss bank UBS announced that it was halting its offshore banking services for US citizens after it came under scathing criticism for facilitating massive tax evasion.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, An organization claiming to represent groups involved in southern Thailand's Muslim insurgency announced it will end all violence in the region as of July 14. Former army commander and Defense Minister Chetta Thanajaro said the organization that made the announcement represented 11 different underground groups operating in southern Thailand.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Venezuela's ruling party pledged to seek to reform the nation's constitution to let President Hugo Chavez seek indefinite re-election.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, The Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" opened and set a single-day box office record by taking in $66.4 million.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Nebraska’s new safe-haven law went into effect allowing parents to abandon unwanted children, under age 19, at state-licensed hospitals with no questions asked. The law was later amended after parents and guardians, some from out of state, dropped off children as old as 17.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 18, New Hampshire decided to accept an offer from Venezuela of free heating oil for the state’s poor.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 18, In Houston, Texas, one of the nation's largest mobile cranes collapsed at LyondellBasell refinery, killing four workers. An additional 7 workers were injured when the crane collapsed during routine maintenance at the chemical plant.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Afghanistan a roadside blast the Nava district of Helmand province. Three guards were killed and four wounded. 2 French aid workers were taken from their guest house in the early hours in the central province of Day Kundi, one of the poorest areas of Afghanistan. On August 2 Action Against Hunger said the aid workers had been released.
(AP, 7/18/08)(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Algeria the government of Mali and ethnic Tuareg rebels reached a truce agreement in dangerous northern Mali. One faction of the Tuareg group refused to sign the deal, saying it did not do enough to help the Tuaregs.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 18, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez canceled a widely protested farm export tax hike following months of protest and a stunning rejection by the Senate. She issued a resolution reducing the export taxes to their previous level.
(AP, 7/18/08)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.43)
2008 Jul 18, In Australia Pope Benedict XVI warned Christian leaders that the push to unite Christian churches was at a "critical juncture" and called on people of all religions to join together against violence.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, A border clash triggered by a smuggling attempt left two Bangladeshi troops dead and one Indian soldier seriously wounded.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, Bhutan adopted a new constitution following three years of work.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Bhutan)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.65)
2008 Jul 18, In Brazil police said at least eight alleged drug traffickers were killed during a raid in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, A report of the European Union Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) was leaked to the media. According the report, which was sent to Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Plugchieva two weeks ago, businessman Lyudmil Stoykov, who sponsored the president's election campaign, and his associate Mario Nikolov, who is a sponsor of Parvanov's Bulgarian Socialist Party, were involved in large-scale abuses of EU funds.
(http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6452879.html)
2008 Jul 18, Cuba’s Communist officials decreed that private farmers and cooperatives can use up to 100 acres (40 hectares) of idle government land, as President Raul Castro works to revive the floundering agricultural sector.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Iraq two suspected insurgents, linked to the June 26 suicide attack, were captured in a near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080801/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)
2008 Jul 18, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said investigators had arrested six men in June and July suspected of trying to set up an al-Qaida-linked terror network, including one who wanted to shoot down President Bush's helicopter.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, Suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade at a crowded bus terminal in the Indian portion of Kashmir, wounding 35 people, including seven children.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Mexico's president replaced a 1791 time capsule discovered atop Mexico City's cathedral with a new one containing messages from golf star Lorena Ochoa, novelist Carlos Fuentes and a boy genius.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In northwestern Pakistan, at least 10 Taliban died in fierce fighting between two rival militant groups. The Taliban threatened to begin executing hostages captured on July 12 unless the government releases their comrades.
(AP, 7/19/08)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 18, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said Sudan President Omar al-Beshir has agreed to restore relations with Chad, more than two months after Khartoum severed ties accusing Ndjamena of backing Darfur rebels.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Singapore Peter Lloyd (41), a TV reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was charged with trafficking about one gram of methamphetamine to a Singaporean for 100 Singapore dollars (73.5 US) at a hotel early this month.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain, a spokesman said police in the southern city of Seville have been left red-faced after more than 100 kilos of drugs were stolen from police headquarters and replaced with talcum powder.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain a Saudi-organized conference of the world's great religions called for an international agreement to combat terrorism, "a universal phenomenon that requires unified international efforts."
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, South Africa’s Pres. Thabo Mbeki announced plans to work with the UN and African Union as he attempts to mediate a settlement in Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 18, Sri Lankan warplanes carried out air raids over the rebel-controlled northern region of Mullaittivu, targeting a Tiger logistics base. The military said fighting in the northern Vavuniya district left nine rebels killed. 7 insurgents were killed along the Welioya front, while 3 more were killed in Jaffna. Angry protesters halted trains and clashed with policemen in Colombo as authorities began demolishing their homes, saying they were unauthorized constructions that encroached on government lands.
(AFP, 7/18/08)(AP, 7/18/08)(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Tropical Storm Kalmaegi wreaked havoc across Taiwan, leaving at least 19 people dead and seven missing.
(AFP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 18, Thailand sent more military reinforcements to a disputed part of the Cambodian border, after the tense four-day standoff nearly erupted into gunfire during the night.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Tunisia 2 officials and three others were convicted of plotting terror attacks and to overthrow the government.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 18, In southeastern Turkey 10 members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in clashes with Turkish military forces.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama started a campaign-season tour of combat zones and foreign capitals, visiting with US forces in Kuwait and then Afghanistan — the scene of a war he says deserves more attention and more troops. Afghan troops clashed with Taliban insurgents in Zabul province attacking a supply convoy for NATO troops, killing nine militants. Roadside bombs in Kandahar province killed a NATO soldier in a separate convoy and four policemen. In Helmand province militants attacked a police checkpoint and in the ensuing gunfight three Taliban fighters were killed. NATO forces accidentally killed at least four civilians in eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 7/19/08)(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, The Arab League criticized the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying diplomacy should be given a priority to solve the conflict in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Sidney, Australia, Pope Benedict apologized directly for the first time for sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, but victims groups said they wanted action and not words.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, Brazilian actress and comedian Dercy Goncalves (101), known for her vulgar wit and scandalous behavior, died in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Bogota the presidents of Brazil and Colombia vowed to boost trade and investment between their nations ahead of crucial world trade talks next week.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Czech police said a 21-year-old British man, wanted for child sex and pornography offences in Britain, has been detained in a Prague suburb where he had been in hiding for two years.
(AFP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Germany more than 1.5 million revelers danced through the streets of Dortmund at the annual Love Parade techno music festival.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Geneva a decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled, with Iran stonewalling Washington and 5 other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc ended a nearly yearlong boycott of the Shiite-led government in another step toward healing the sectarian rifts that once brought almost daily bloodshed. In Baghdad British PM Gordon Brown said plans are being made to scale back troops, but refused to consider an "artificial timetable" for withdrawing Britain's remaining 4,000 soldiers.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Kashmir at least 10 Indian soldiers were killed and 14 others injured when their bus was hit by an improvised explosive device in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AFP, 7/19/08)(SSFC, 7/20/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 19, In Lebanon the Jund al-Sham group, which follows the extremist ideology of al-Qaida, clashed with members of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement. Two other Palestinian militants were killed in the clash.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, While visiting Buenos Aires Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said his country is ready to conduct talks with the US about hosting elements of a missile defense system.
(UPI, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Nepal lawmakers failed to elect the country's first president and end weeks of political deadlock. No candidate won the 298 votes necessary. A bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a river in central Nepal killing 14 passengers and leaving many missing.
(AFP, 7/19/08)(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Pakistan paramilitary forces stumbled on 2 training camps near Dera Bugti in Baluchistan province. 6 troops and an unknown number of ethnic Baluch insurgents died in fighting that began when militants fired on patrolling security forces.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 19, Mullah Rahim, the most senior Taliban leader in Afghanistan's Helmand province, gave himself up to Pakistani officials.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Sri Lanka soldiers killed 11 rebels in Vavuniya while five rebels died in the nearby Mannar district. A soldier was killed by a sniper's bullet in Mannar.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected. 9 policemen were killed in international military air strikes called in when police and troops clashed after mistaking each other for Taliban. International soldiers had moved into a district in Farah province without informing police, who thought they were militants. 3 children were killed in the southern province of Helmand when a bomb blew up a minivan. One NATO soldier was killed in Khost province. A precision missile strike by British aircraft killed Abdul Rasaq, a Taliban leader who led fighters in the Musa Qala area of Helmand province.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AFP, 7/20/08)(SFC, 7/21/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 20, In Australia Pope Benedict XVI said a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In central Bolivia a Venezuelan military helicopter often used to transport Bolivian President Evo Morales crashed. Four Venezuelan military personnel and a Bolivian officer were reported killed.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, Beijing started its most drastic pollution-control plan, restricting car use and limiting factory emissions in a last-minute push to clear smog-choked skies for the August Olympics.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Well over a million Colombians, clad in white and shouting "No more kidnapping," marked their independence day with marches and concerts demanding freedom for hostages still held by leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern India a packed bus collided with a truck in Uttar Pradesh state, killing at least 17 people and wounding 35 others.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Iraq a new airport opened in Najaf in what the prime minister said was a key step in the reconstruction of a country devastated by war. The government said an oil refinery in Iraq's western desert has resumed production. American soldiers killed two armed relatives of a provincial governor during a raid in Salahuddin province against al-Qaida in Iraq. 2 private security contractors were killed in a car bombing in Mosul. 8 Iraqis were injured in the blast.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Israel British PM Gordon Brown, on his first official visit as prime minister, said that economic development was key to bringing peace to the Middle East. Brown demanded that Israel cease settlement construction and promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Barack Obama made a brief stop in Kuwait, a key US ally. The delegation met with the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior officials.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Lebanon Shehadeh Jawhar, military commander of the Jund al-Sham group, died from wounds in the previous day’s clash with members of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Morocco's police seized more than 10 tons of drugs during raids in the north of the country and along its coasts.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Pakistan five militants died in a failed assault on the Tora Warai military fort near Hangu. The army said security forces had killed 15 militants and detained 60 others, in the first major action against insurgents under Pakistan's new government.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern Spain 4 bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria, after warning calls from the Basque separatist group ETA. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Sri Lankan government forces captured a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the north after a 48-hour battle that left at least 15 rebels dead. Air force jets destroyed six rebel boats.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, A state newspaper reported that Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries.
(Reuters, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 21, The US FDA issued an advisory for consumers to avoid eating uncooked jalapeno peppers after it found a jalapeno grown in Mexico in a Texas border town warehouse that tested positive with the same strain of salmonella that was earlier associated with tomatoes.
(SFC, 7/22/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 21, The war crimes trial of Salim Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver, began at Guantanamo. The judge barred evidence obtained in Afghanistan, citing coercive conditions.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, Brocade Communications said it will pay nearly $3 billion for Foundry Networks, founded in 1996. Both Silicon Valley firms companies competed with Cisco Systems.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.B8)
2008 Jul 21, A US B-52 bomber that was due to fly in a Liberation Day parade in the US territory of Guam crashed into the Pacific Ocean soon after take-off. All of the bomber's six-man crew were killed.
(AFP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 21, Sid Craig (b.1932), co-founder of the Jenny Craig chain of diet centers (1983), died. Craig founded Jenny Craig, named after his wife, in Australia and expanded to the US in 1985. The company went public in 1992. In 2006 Nestle SA bought the operation.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 21, In Sidney Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Australians who were sexually abused as children by priests, ending a pilgrimage to the country with a gesture of contrition and concern over a scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Eric Dowling (b.1915), former English POW, died. He was nicknamed "Digger" for helping excavate tunnels used in the breakout from a World War II German prison camp that became known as the "Great Escape." Dowling played a key role in planning the march 24, 1944, escape by 76 prisoners from Stalag Luft III prison near Sagan in eastern Germany — now Zagan, Poland.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Jul 21, Talks between Cambodia and Thailand to resolve a military stand-off on their joint border ended without a solution.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, In Chechnya the bullet-riddled bodies of three officers, who had been guarding an Interior Ministry trailer, were found on a collective farm. The assailants made off with the officers' guns.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, China and Russia signed an agreement that demarcated their 2,700 mile border ending a long running border dispute.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, In China 2 people were killed in explosions aboard two public buses in Kunming city, Yunnan province. On Dec 24 Li Yan reportedly confessed to his role in the bombings as he lay on his death bed after trying to plant another bomb. 20 miners escaped or were rescued from a flooded coal mine in southern China but six have died and 30 remain trapped.
(AFP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/22/08)(SFC, 12/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 21, Egyptian police arrested 39 members of the country's largest opposition group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood during a raid on a camp north of Cairo. The men, aged 18 to 35, said they were only on vacation. Egyptian authorities shut down the Cairo office of an Iranian TV network, as the two nations spar over "Assassination of a Pharaoh," a film that justifies the killing of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic militants.
(AP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 21, President Nicolas Sarkozy's risky bid to rewrite France's political rules with sweeping constitutional changes worked, but just barely, with both houses of parliament meeting in special session to pass the measures by a single vote. The reform gives parliament greater power but also adds a new privileges to France's already strong presidency, notably allowing the chief of state to address together the two houses of congress. However, it limits the president to two five-year terms.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Rakhat Aliyev, the ex-son-in-law of Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev, accused the president of diverting billions in state assets and other corruption.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, An aid agency said Kenyan armed forces are preventing aid workers from helping homeless, hungry families caught between a brutal militia and an army crackdown.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, A UN-led report said Myanmar needs at least $1 billion over the next three years to put the survivors of Cyclone Nargis back on their feet, in the first comprehensive assessment of damage caused by the disaster that killed more than 84,000 people.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Lawmakers in Nepal voted in the Himalayan nation's first post-royal president, but their rejection of a candidate backed by the Maoists was likely to lead to more political deadlock. Ram Baran Yadav, who was supported by the centrist Nepali Congress party, won 308 out of 590 votes cast in Nepal's constitutional assembly.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, A Pakistani court barred the disgraced architect of Pakistan's atomic weapons program from speaking about nuclear proliferation, less than three weeks after he implicated the army in the sharing of nuclear technology with North Korea. Intelligence officials in Quetta said at least 30 insurgents, including three rebel commanders, had been killed. Suspected Islamic militants shot dead a pro-government tribal chief and wounded three other people in an attack on the outskirts of Khar near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/21/08)(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Pakistan’s Geo TV broadcasted a recent interview with Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed, a senior al-Qaida leader. He urged Pakistanis to help Afghans fight US-led coalition forces and condemned President Pervez Musharraf for arresting Arab and Afghan fighters and handing them over to Washington.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, Radovan Karadzic (63), the wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was arrested in a Belgrade suburb. A judge ordered his transfer to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, In Singapore the 10 members of ASEAN adopted a common charter that included a list of 15 purposes.
(www.aseansec.org/21806.htm)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.52)
2008 Jul 21, In Sri Lanka 44 rebels and two government soldiers were killed in fighting.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, The African Union urged the UN Security Council to put on hold the International Criminal Court's move to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche offered 43.7 billion dollars to acquire the remaining shares in US subsidiary Genentech, the bio-tech pioneer underpinning its dominance of the cancer treatment market.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Vietnam raised its fuel prices by 31%.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A13)
2008 Jul 21, In Zimbabwe mediator South African Pres. Thabo Mbeki oversaw a ceremony in Harare at which Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed an agreement for negotiations to bring the country out of political chaos in their first meeting in a decade.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., the 4th largest US bank, lost $8.86 billion in the 2nd quarter, and said it was slashing its dividend and cutting 6,350 jobs after losses tied to mortgages soared.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, California reported 63,061 foreclosures during the 2nd 3 months of this year.
(SFC, 7/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 22, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB685 giving state pet owners the right to set up a legally enforceable trust to care for their animals. The bill was sponsored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo).
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/5uppps)
2008 Jul 22, Dolly was upgraded to hurricane status as it headed toward the US-Mexican border.
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 22, Estelle Getty (b.1923), the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," died. The diminutive stage and TV actress had spent 40 years struggling for success before landing the role of a lifetime in 1985.
(AP, 7/22/08)(SFC, 7/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 22, US-led coalition and Afghan troops for a 2nd day clashed with and called in airstrikes on Taliban militants in western Afghanistan, killing and wounding more than 25 insurgents. In Kabul a suicide bomber on foot detonated himself next to the walls of the city's historic Babur Gardens, a popular public park, wounding three civilians. In central Wardak province, US-led coalition forces killed "several militants" while hunting for a Taliban leader said to have been behind an attack that killed three American troops and their interpreter last month. Militants attacked a British patrol in Kajaki district of Helmand province. The soldier was initially wounded and later died. A civilian vehicle struck a mine in Khost province, killing four people and wounding three. The dead included a 2-year-old and a woman. In southern Helmand province, Afghan troops killed five insurgents in a clash. A policeman and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the encounter. Gunmen killed the spokesman for the governor of Paktika province, Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar, and wounded his wife, his brother and his mother.
(AP, 7/22/08)(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys took over the Islamist opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), which operates in exile in Eritrea.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 22, India’s BJP opposition was defeated in a confidence vote and charged the ruling Congress Party-led coalition of offering bribes in exchange for abstentions in the vote.
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 22, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks aimed at strengthening economic ties between the two countries.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, In Mexico a measure took effect eliminating jail times for illegal immigrants caught in Mexico.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Nepal's Maoists said they would not form the Himalayan nation's first post-royal government after the defeat of their candidate for president, setting off a new political crisis.
(AFP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Palestinian rammed a construction truck into three cars and a bus near the Jerusalem hotel where Barack Obama is supposed to stay, injuring four people before an Israeli civilian shot and killed the attacker.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Spanish police dismantled the most active cell of the armed Basque separatist group ETA with the detention of nine suspected members of the group. Among those captured was Arkaitz Goikoetxea, the leader of the "Vizcaya" cell which Spanish authorities suspect was behind most of the attacks carried out by ETA since it called off a ceasefire in June 2007.
(AFP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, The Tamil Tiger rebels announced they would observe a unilateral 10-day cease-fire as a goodwill gesture during a regional summit to be held later this month. An airstrike deep inside the rebels' de facto state killed 22 members of the Black Tigers, the group's suicide force.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 23, Bill Gates, former boss of Microsoft, joined Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of NYC, in announcing a combined $500 million package to stamp out smoking.
(www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-23-smoking_N.htm)
2008 Jul 23, It was reported that Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena, winner of a 1976 wine tasting event in France, was being purchased by Cos d’Estournel of Bordeaux, France.
(SFC, 7/23/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 23, In Louisiana an oil tanker and an oil barge collided near New Orleans creating a 12-mile oil slick and closing almost 100 miles of the Mississippi River. Over 400,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the river.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 23, Google unveiled a new service dubbed “Knol," an Internet encyclopedia, in which contributing authors would share in ad revenue.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.C4)
2008 Jul 23, Two environmental groups estimated that cement kilns in the US annually released mercury compounds totaling some 23,000 pounds. Two of the worst emitters were located in northern California in Cupertino and Davenport.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 23, In Afghanistan militants killed a district police chief in the eastern Nangarhar province after striking his convoy with a roadside bomb. Police clashed with Taliban fighters in Uruzgan province, killing three militants.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, The African Union said it was incapable of stabilizing the situation in Somalia and urged the UN take over peacekeeping operations in the lawless Horn of Africa country.
(Reuters, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Australia announced an extra $29 million in aid for survivors of Myanmar's May cyclone, but pressed its recalcitrant military junta to democratize quickly and respect human rights.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, The European Commission froze almost euro500 million ($800 million) in aid to Bulgaria, citing corruption, organized crime, severe spending irregularities and alleged vote-buying in a country that only joined the EU last year.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Democratic Republic of Congo at least 45 people were killed and another 100 were missing after a boat sank on a remote stretch of the Ubangi river.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, France passed a new law to let companies negotiate longer working hours with union representatives, all but squelching the 35-hour week.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.61)
2008 Jul 23, Iraq's Kurdish government has denounced a draft law paving the way for US-backed provincial elections and urged the presidential council to reject it. The 18-year-old son of the chief editor of a US-sponsored newspaper was shot to death as an American patrol passed nearby in the northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 7/23/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama donned a Jewish skullcap at Israel's Holocaust memorial and vowed to preserve America's close ties with Israel in a dramatic visit to the Holy Land in which he also promised the Palestinians to push vigorously to win them a state.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Hurricane Dolly toppled trees and sent billboards flying in the Mexican city of Matamoros, and authorities south of the US border warned of possible flooding. Dolly also hit south Texas, but by evening it had weakened to a tropical storm.
(AP, 7/24/08)(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 23, Opposition lawmakers walked out of a Mongolian parliamentary session before they were to be sworn in, saying they refused to participate because last month's election was fraudulent.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Nigeria's main militant group threatened to destroy the nation's major oil pipelines within 30 days to counter allegations it had struck a $12 million deal with the government to protect them.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, An international rights group pressed Pakistan's new government to quickly investigate the disappearance of hundreds of people allegedly rounded up by security agencies as part of the anti-terror campaign.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Sri Lanka government forces killed 25 rebels in battles in the Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Welioya regions along the front lines.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Sudan government planes bombed Karbala, a Darfur village, while Pres. Bashir was addressing cheering crowds in the nearby city of el-Fasher. according to a rebel faction 3 people were killed and 8 injured.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, Turkish warplanes bombed 13 Kurdish rebel targets in the Zab region of northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 23, Venezuela signed over three more oil fields to a joint venture with Belarus, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declaring that the two nations were strongly united in their resistance to "US imperialism" and Washington's "lackeys."
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 24, The US confirmed that it planned to shift 230 million dollars in aid to Pakistan from counter-terrorism programs to upgrading the country's F-16 fighter jets.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued banking giant UBS for fraud, accusing the company of marketing tens of billions of dollars of auction-rate securities as safe even when they knew the investments were in trouble.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, The US CDC reported that at least 1,013 people had died between 2005 and 2007 a street version of the painkiller fentanyl. Many deaths were likely unreported.
(WSJ, 7/25/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 24, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Ford Motor Co. posted the worst quarterly performance in its history, losing $8.67 billion in the second quarter.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, It was reported that the sabal palm, the Florida’s state tree, was under attack by a microscopic killer and had scientists stumped.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 24, In southern Afghanistan insurgents attacked an Afghan military convoy in Zabul province and 35 militants were killed after the army called for assistance from the US-led coalition. A British army dog handler was fatally shot by insurgents.
(AP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, Hundreds of Anglican bishops from around the world were among 1,500 people who marched through central London calling for urgent action to tackle global poverty.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Max Mosley (68), motor racing chief and son of Britain's 1930s Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, won 60,000 pounds ($119,100) in damages at London's High Court from the News of the World newspaper for breaching his privacy by reporting details of a German-themed sex session with five prostitutes.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 24, Ten insurgents and two Cameroonian soldiers were killed in a rebel attack in the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. The rebels, who call themselves the Niger Delta Defense and Security Council, oppose Cameroon's ownership of the West African peninsula, which is also claimed by Nigeria.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Ecuador a special assembly approved a new 444-article draft constitution granting its leftist president broad powers, including the ability to dissolve Congress and set monetary policy, and freeing him to run for office through 2017.
(AP, 7/25/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.40)
2008 Jul 24, French PM Francois Fillon said a 15% cut in military manpower and base closings will save billions of dollars. The military ranks will be cut by 54,000.
(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 24, French giant automaker Renault said it will cut about 5,000 jobs in Europe among measures to reduce costs by 10 percent as it prepares for a sharp and possibly rocky downturn.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Germany US presidential candidate Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as climate and energy issues at Germany's chancellery. Obama stood before an enormous crowd in Berlin and summoned Europeans and Americans to work together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it."
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In northern Baghdad gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on two different awakening council checkpoints in the Azamiyah neighborhood killing three of its guards and leaving another wounded. A female suicide bomber blew herself up near US-allied Sunni Arab fighters walking in a crowded area of Baqouba, killing at least eight of the guards and wounding 24 other people.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Iraq was told it's not welcome to the Beijing Olympics because of a political feud in Baghdad that angered the games' guardians and exiled a country that arrived to a roaring ovation at the opening ceremony four years ago.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, An Israeli official said a key committee has approved construction of the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank in a decade. The news infuriated Palestinians, who said the decision could cripple peace efforts.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Indian Kashmir a suspected Islamic militant threw a hand grenade at a group of migrant laborers, killing a woman and her four children in one of two attacks that claimed a total of nine lives.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Libya said it will halt fuel supplies to key oil client Switzerland in the latest reprisal for last week's brief detention in Geneva of a son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Mexico state prison chief Salvador Barreno was shot and killed as he drove in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. His bodyguard was also killed. 3 other men died in a separate shooting minutes later.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Nigeria a petrol tanker burst into flames main in the main city of Lagos, killing at least 12 people and leaving several others with severe burns. 5 eastern European oil workers were abducted from a Swedish boat in the Niger delta. The 5 Russian oil workers were released on July 26.
(AFP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/26/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 24, In southern Norway a group of men armed with bats and iron bars attacked a center for political asylum-seekers, leaving more than 20 people injured.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In the southern Philippines a homemade bomb ripped through a commuter bus, wounding 27 people. In North Cotabato province communist rebels attacked a banana farm associated with Dole Foods Co. and a land mine hit a security vehicle rushing to intervene, killing one and wounding three others.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Singapore North Korea's reclusive communist regime, long seen as a nuclear threat to the region, signed a nonaggression pact with Southeast Asia, in a largely symbolic move. The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) with the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) came into force in 1976, requires signatories to renounce the use or threat of force and calls for the peaceful settlement of conflicts.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In South Africa talks began in earnest on resolving Zimbabwe's political crisis after President Robert Mugabe gave his senior lieutenants the final go-ahead to negotiate power-sharing with the opposition.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Sri Lankan forces battled rebel gunmen deep inside the nation's northern jungles, killing 25 guerrilla fighters and seizing new territory. Battles in other parts of the war zone killed 13 rebels and three soldiers.
(AP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Suriname a boy (12) stabbed and killed a 9-year-old girl in front of her classmates and teacher at a rural elementary school.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, President George W. Bush signed an order expanding US sanctions against the "illegitimate" Zimbabwe government of President Robert Mugabe.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, US regulators took over two banks and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, US Federal regulators formally approved the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., the nation's only two satellite radio operators. The companies first applied for permission to combine in March 2007.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning trans fat in restaurants and food facilities, making California the first state to do so. The law takes effect in two stages: Jan 1, 2010 and Jan 1, 2011.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/27/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 25, Texas nurse Chere Lyn Tomayko, wanted by the FBI for international parental kidnapping, was awarded refugee status in Costa Rica and cannot be extradited to the US. In December 1996, a US judge gave joint custody of a daughter, Alexandria Camille Cyprian, to Tomayko and her ex-boyfriend Robert Cyprian, with the condition that Alexandria live in Tarrant County, Texas. Tomayko said she moved to Costa Rica because she had been physically abused by Cyprian.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Harriet Burns (b.1928), the 1st woman hired to work as a designer for Walt Disney Imagineering (1955), died in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 25, Harvey Houtkin (b.1948), self-proclaimed father of day trading, died in San Diego. He had opened All-Tech Direct Inc. in Suffern, NY, in 1988 and traded on the Small Order Execution System. He was suspended from trading in 2001.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.A7)(www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080801-9999-1n1sharp.html)
2008 Jul 25, Randy Pausch (47), a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist, died at his home in Virginia. His "last lecture" in September 2007, about facing terminal cancer, has become an Internet sensation and a best-selling book.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In southern Afghanistan a Danish soldier died in a roadside bomb attack. The death brings the number of Danish troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 15. 3 Taliban militants died in a fight with police in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Goiania, Brazil, Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Santos stabbed to death and dismembered Cara Marie Burke (17), a British citizen, while high on crack cocaine. In 2009 Santos was sentenced to 19 years for the killing and two more for hiding the body.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2008 Jul 25, British PM Gordon Brown suffered another serious blow to his leadership after Scottish nationalists won a longtime Labour seat in Glasgow.
(AFP, 7/25/08)(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 25, In Colombia police arrested Sen. Carlos Garcia, the head of one of Colombia's main governing parties, for alleged ties with far-right paramilitaries.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Estonia urged the EU to take stronger action against Somali pirates attacking cargo ships bound for Europe, after an Estonian sailor was held hostage for 41 days.
(AFP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, The EU and South Africa began their first-ever summit in the French city of Bordeaux. Brussels solidly backed Pretoria's mediating role in Zimbabwe as the only way of ending ruinous political chaos.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, US presidential hopeful Barack Obama met with Pres. Sarkozy during a short stop in Paris.
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 25, German semi-conductor group Infineon posted a sharp quarterly loss and announced the loss of 3,000 jobs.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, India's high-technology capital Bangalore was rocked by 8 bomb blasts. One woman was killed and over 150 wounded.
(AFP, 7/25/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.44)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 25, A bomb exploded outside a Gaza City cafe and another went off outside the home of a Hamas lawmaker. One person was killed. A mysterious beachside blast killed 3 Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. 2 more Hamas activists died the next day.
(AP, 7/25/08)(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Lebanon clashes between Sunni Muslim gunmen and the Alawite broke out at dawn when a hand grenade was thrown toward a Sunni area. Fighting left one person dead.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Energy companies in the three Baltic states and Poland agreed to set up a joint venture to develop a nuclear power plant in Lithuania.
(Reuters 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Nigeria two oil workers, one Nigerian and one Filipino, were kidnapped in the Niger delta.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, In northwestern Pakistan militants blew up a girls school and 10 shops in 2 separate areas of the Swat valley. There were no casualties.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, A bomb exploded outside a Gaza City cafe and another went off outside the home of a Hamas lawmaker. One person was killed. A mysterious beachside blast killed 3 Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. 2 more Hamas activists died the next day.
(AP, 7/25/08)(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, Somalia's new hard-line opposition leader, promised to pacify his shattered country through Islamic law, warning UN peacekeepers they will face attack if they deploy and support the government.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, sounded the alarm about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of the lawless nation.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Sri Lanka heavy fighting between Sri Lankan government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels along the front lines of their civil war killed 62 rebels and eight soldiers.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Sudan threatened to expel peacekeepers from Darfur if President Omar al-Beshir is indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In eastern Yemen a suicide car bomber rammed a vehicle into the Interior Ministry's headquarters, killing a policeman and injuring eight others.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, A UN official said as much as 25 percent of cyclone relief aid in Myanmar is being lost because of the military government's foreign exchange system.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 26, In southern Afghanistan NATO-led soldiers killed four civilians after opening fire on a car that did not stop at a checkpoint.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, US presidential hopeful Barack Obama met PM Gordon Brown in London, focusing on key foreign policy issues facing both countries, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama also met with Tory leader David Cameron and Middle East envoy Tony Blair.
(AFP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, Brazil's Embraer (EMBR3.SA), the world's third-biggest commercial jet maker, said it would invest 148 million euros in two new plants in Portugal -- its first industrial units in Europe that will make wings and tailpieces for exports.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In southern Haiti at least 29 people were killed when a large truck carrying people and merchandise collided with three pickups east of Cavailon.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, In western India at least 51 people were killed and 161 wounded when 19 bombs went off in several crowded neighborhoods of Ahmadabad, Gujarat state.
(AP, 7/26/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.44)
2008 Jul 26, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Lebanon three more people were killed in the second day of sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in northern Lebanon, bringing the total to 9 with 42 wounded.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Nigeria unidentified men in a speed boat seized eight foreign oil workers at gunpoint in the Niger delta. They were released later in the day.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Pakistan 3 soldiers and at least 12 suspected insurgents were killed in fighting after the militants ambushed a convoy in the Dera Bugti district of Baluchistan province.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, Hamas security arrested dozens of supporters of the rival Fatah group, hurled grenades at the home of a Fatah leader and set up checkpoints across Gaza following the previous day’s beachside blast that killed five Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. Masked Hamas gunmen nabbed Sawah Abu Saif (42), a Palestinian cameraman for German TV, from his Gaza home, during a mass weekend roundup of alleged activists of the rival Fatah movement. He was tortured and released on July 31.
(AP, 7/26/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 26, South Korea’s government said days of torrential rains have led to the deaths of seven people and left six others missing.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Spain Maria Remedios Garcia Albert (57) was arrested in San Lorenzo de el Escorial on suspicion of belonging to Colombia's FARC rebel group.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, In northern Sri Lanka 12 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed by security forces in fresh clashes in the Wanni region.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 26, Sudan’s army attacked a rebel police post in North Darfur, killing four troops, before conducting search operations in nearby villages according the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM). Sudan's army initially denied the report. On July 29 Khartoum said rebels of Minni Arcua Minnawi's Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) attacked a convoy on that road and the police responded, killing four of them and injuring two.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Knoxville, Tennessee, Jim D. Adkisson (58) entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's performance and killed 2 people. In 2009 Adkisson pleaded guilty to killing 2 people and wounding 6 others because he hated the church’s liberal politics.
(AP, 7/28/08)(SFC, 7/28/08, p.A2)(SFC, 2/10/09, p.A7)
2008 Jul 27, In Afghanistan some 50 to 70 insurgents were killed when helicopter gunships and ground fighting repulsed an attack by about 100 rebels in the Spera district of Khost province near the Pakistan border. 2 Policemen were killed in the attack. Elsewhere in Khost province, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent of security guards, killing one of them and injuring six more. NATO troops killed two children in southern Afghanistan by opening fire on a car that they feared was about to attack their convoy.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(WSJ, 7/28/08, p.A10)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Antigua newlyweds Benjamin and Catherine Mullany, both 31, were attacked inside their cottage at the Cocos Hotel resort in the island's southwest. Both were shot in the head. Catherine was killed. A comatose Benjamin was flown back to Britain where he was pronounced dead on August 3. On August 18 a 20-year old man and 17-year-old male were taken to a magistrate court in St. John's and were charged with murder, robbery and receiving stolen goods. The trial of Avie Howell and Kaniel Martin began June 1, 2011.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 6/2/11)
2008 Jul 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen's party claimed it won a sweeping victory in polls overshadowed by a military standoff with Thailand. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the electoral register.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.45)
2008 Jul 27, In Egypt Youssef Chahine (1926), filmmaker, died in Cairo. His 28 films included “The Blazing Sun" (1954) with Omar Sharif. His 1994 film “The Emigrant," about the Old Testament figure of Joseph, was denounced by militant Islamists and banned.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 27, Iran hanged 29 people at dawn after they had been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Iraq gunmen hiding in reeds in Madain, a Sunni town south of Baghdad, killed seven Shiite pilgrims as they were marching to a shrine in the capital for a major holiday.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank town of Hebron. Troops exchanged gunfire with the man (25) for 12 hours before bulldozing the structure.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Mexico City residents voted against the president's proposal to give private companies a bigger role in the country's state-run oil industry in a nonbinding referendum.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, Ram Baran Yadav, Nepal's first president, appealed for rival parties in the newly-republican nation to form a consensus government and end weeks of political deadlock, in his maiden address to the people.
(AFP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Spain's National Court jailed seven people on charges of belonging to a militant cell of the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Sri Lanka at least 16 different battles broke out in the Welioya and Vavuniya regions, some of them sparked by government attacks on the rebels' bunker lines. The rebels also carried out at least five roadside bombings against troops. The violence killed 18 rebels and four soldiers.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Istanbul, Turkey, bomb blasts killed 17 people in a crowded square in the residential neighborhood of Gungoren. 5 of the dead were children. Turkish warplanes bombed 12 Kurdish rebel targets on Mount Qandil in northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/28/08)(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Floods in western Ukraine killed 22 people, including 4 children, and 5 in neighboring Romania after 5 days of nonstop rain. A senior government official described them as the worst in a century. Heavy rain in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers to overflow. The flooding affected more than 40,000 houses and led to the evacuation of some 20,000 people.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez, during his weekly TV program "Alo Presidente", made some sharp criticisms of various government officials, calling on them to fight against bureaucracy and corruption. He then brought to the attention of the audience the book, "Reformism or Revolution" by Alan Woods (b.1944), a Welsh Trotskyist.
(www.marxist.com/alan-woods-speaking-tour-in-venezuela/)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.44)
2008 Jul 28, Pres. Bush met with Pakistan’s new PM Yousaf Raza Gilani at the White House and they agreed to battle terrorists in Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 28, A senior Bush administration official said the budget deficit for this year will set a record in dollar terms, approaching $490 billion.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan unveiled their White Knight Two, the mothership of SpaceShip Two, at the Mohave Air & Space Port in California. Spaceship Two, the passenger rocket, was being built for Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which hoped to soon carry passengers into space.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 28, The propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft, owned by QinetiQ Group PLC, began a flight over the Arizona desert and continued for an unofficial record of 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in 2001. The 66 pound- (30 kilogram-) plane was launched by hand and flown by autopilot and via satellite.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Jul 28, Police in Alabama arrested Anthony Hopkins (37), a part-time evangelist, after finding a body in his home freezer. Police believed it was the body of his wife, Arletha Hopkins, who had not been heard of for 3 years.
(www.wsbtv.com/news/17043437/detail.html)
2008 Jul 28, US-led coalition troops killed several militants during a raid in central Afghanistan, while a suspected bomb maker and his family died in an accidental blast in Kunar province.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Hernan Arbizu, former JPMorgan Chase & Co private banking executive, was arrested in Argentina following an indictment on charges of embezzling about $5.4 million. He fled to Argentina before being fired in June.
(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Tarek bin Laden signed a deal with Djibouti to build Noor City, the first of a hundred “Cities of Light" that the Saudi Binladen Group planned around the world. Plans called for the city to have 2.5 million people by 2025 and 4.5 million for its Yemeni twin.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.50)(www.railpage.com.au/f-p1093077.htm)
2008 Jul 28, In England hijackers made off with boxes of blank British passports worth a fortune on the black market in a raid on a delivery van in the Manchester suburb of Oldham. British policed later said the passports were "very secure" as they contained a micro-chip which had not been activated.
(AFP, 7/29/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 28, Antoine Wendo Kolosoy (aka Papa Wendo, b.1925), Congolese riverboat mechanic, boxer and rumba singer, died at age 82. He cut his first records in 1947 for Olympia, a Belgian label.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.84)
2008 Jul 28, Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim (30) was found stabbed and her throat slashed in Dubai. On August 8 Egypt banned news coverage of the brutal slaying following media reports in other papers that said a wealthy Egyptian businessman ordered 3 men to carry out the killing. On Sep 2 Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon, was arrested in the death Tamim. He was accused of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her. On May 21, 2009, Moustafa was sentenced to death for ordering Tamim’s death. Former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death. In 2010 Moustafa was spared the death penalty after a retrial changed his original death sentence to 15 years in prison.
(www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=21342)(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 9/28/10)
2008 Jul 28, Pierre Beres (b.1913), king of the French booksellers, died.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.B3)
2008 Jul 28, In Iraq 3 female suicide bombers blew their explosive vests in the middle of pilgrims in Baghdad, moments after a roadside bomb attack, killing at least 32 people and wounding 102. In Kirkuk 25 people were killed and 185 wounded when a blast tore through a crowd of Kurds protesting a draft provincial elections law. A roadside bomb attack killed four civilians near Balad Ruz.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, In central Japan 4 people died after being swept away in torrential rains that caused floods and mudslides and prompted an evacuation order for 50,000 people.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, In Nepal protesters blocked traffic and held demonstrations to protest the decision by Paramananda Jha, the newly elected vice president, to take his oath of office in Hindi, which is not recognized as an official language.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, Militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta said they had blown up two major oil pipelines belonging to Royal Dutch Shell, forcing the firm to halt some production and helping push world oil prices higher.
(Reuters, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, A suspected US missile strike on a Pakistani madrassa killed six people, including foreigners. Pakistani security officials said Al-Qaeda chemical weapons expert Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar (54) was believed to have been killed in the US missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal district. The Egyptian, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a five-million-US-dollar bounty on his head and allegedly ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. In Kohat a bomb rigged to a bicycle killed a teenage boy and wounded 12 policemen. Pakistani Taliban militants shot dead three intelligence officials near Mingora, the main town in Swat. The Taliban later confirmed that al-Masri had been killed along with 3 other commanders.
(Reuters, 7/28/08)(AFP, 7/28/08)(AP, 7/28/08)(AFP, 7/29/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Jul 28, In the Philippines a packed commuter bus strayed into an oncoming lane and crashed head-on into another bus on a highway south of Manila, killing at least 11 people and injuring 29 others.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Navanethem Pillay, a judge from South Africa, was confirmed as the new UN chief of human rights.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 29, Pres. Bush signed a bill freezing the assets of political and military leaders in Myanmar and banning the importation of rubies and jade from Myanmar to the US. The legislation also gave incentives to Chevron to divest its natural gas program there. The US Treasury announced financial sanctions on 10 companies suspected of being owned by Myanmar’s government.
(SFC, 7/30/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 29, The US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee voted to triple America’s non-military assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.39)
2008 Jul 29, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (84), the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, was indicted for making false statements concerning gifts he received from an oil-services firm.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Maryland police raided the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing an unopened package containing 32 pounds of marijuana. The couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Jul 29, New York’s Gov. David Paterson delivered a special address on the state’s deteriorating fiscal condition. His new budget placed the state’s deficit at $6.4 billion.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.36)
2008 Jul 29, The SF Board of Directors voted 8-3 to ban the sale of tobacco products at most pharmacies in the city.
(SFC, 7/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 29, Department store chain Mervyns LLC filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest in a series of merchants stumbling in the harsh retail environment and another blow to the nation’s struggling malls. In August Mervyn’s sued its former private equity owners saying they stripped the department store chain of its valuable real estate and then nearly doubled its rent effectively pushing the California-based company into bankruptcy.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25918757/)(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 29, Starbucks said it will close more than two-thirds of its 84 stores in Australia by the end of the week under a cost-cutting plan that will put almost 700 people out of work.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Luther Davis (b.1916), Tony-winning playwright and screenwriter, died in the Bronx. His plays included “Kismet" (1954). In 1978 he turned Kismet into a new show titled “Timbuktu!"
(www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/theater/02davis.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
2008 Jul 29, US Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins died of an apparent overdoes of Tylenol at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against Ivins in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. Ivins, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide. On Feb 19, 2010, the FBI formally closed his case concluding that Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 2/20/10)(SFC, 2/16/11, p.A6)
2008 Jul 29, In Afghanistan a roadside blast that apparently targeted an Afghan senator mediating a land dispute in eastern Paktia province killed 3 policemen and wounded 3 others. In Logar province militants attacked a police van, killing two officers, then taking the vehicle. A British soldier was killed in Helmand.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, The Bosnian war crimes court convicted seven Bosnian Serbs of genocide in the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and handed down prison sentences ranging from 38 to 42 years. Four others were acquitted. Milenko Trifunovic, Brano Dzinic and Aleksandar Radovanovic received the 42-year sentences, while Milos Stupar, Slobodan Jakovljevic and Branislav Medan each got 40 years and Petar Mitrovic received 38 years.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In central Brazil the torso of Cara Marie Burke, 17, from London, was found in a suitcase in Goiania. She had been stabbed to death by Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho dos Santos (20) over the weekend in his apartment. Santos was arrested on July 31 and confessed. Reports said he was a cocaine user.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Britain a Sikh teenager won a High Court discrimination case against a school which banned her from classes after she refused to remove a religious bangle.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said the US military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington's 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Hundreds of armed former soldiers from Haiti's disbanded army stormed an old barracks and civilian prison to demand the force be reinstated.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, India’s central Reserve Bank raised its key lending rate an unexpected half per cent to 9%, a 7-year high.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C2)
2008 Jul 29, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded fire across the heavily armed Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight and into the day in what the Indian army called the worst violation of a 2003 cease-fire agreement between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, US and Iraqi forces launched a new operation aimed at clearing al-Qaida in Iraq from the volatile Diyala province, considered the last major insurgent safe haven near the capital.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, The International Olympic Committee agreed to allow Iraq to participate in the Beijing games, reversing itself after Baghdad pledged to ensure the independence of its national Olympics.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Israeli gunfire killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy during a confrontation between troops and stone-throwers in a West Bank village.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Mexico a family of six was found dead in their home in western Jalisco state, allegedly targeted by kidnappers aided by corrupt cops. Four victims, including two children, were shot in the head. A teenage boy's throat was slashed. His mother was asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Jul 29, Pakistani Taliban militants killed 3 soldiers, including an army captain, and kidnapped 30 security forces from a police station in the northwestern Swat Valley.
(AFP, 7/29/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 29, A huge blast rocked a training base run by the Islamic militant Hamas in southern Gaza, injuring at least five members of the group.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Russian news said 2 small, manned submarines reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake. The "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" submersibles descended 1.05 miles (1,680 meters) to the bottom of the vast Siberian lake.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Russian proxies in South Ossetia started shelling pro-Georgian villages there.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.78)
2008 Jul 29, A UN court trying the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide said that its mandate had been extended by a year until 2009.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Talks in South Africa on Zimbabwe's political crisis broke up with no power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and his bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai in sight.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Sri Lanka 21 Tamil Tigers and 4 soldiers were slain in clashes in the northern Wanni region.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Tonga’s King George Tupou V announced he was ceding most of his executive powers to the democratically elected parliament.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.C5)
2008 Jul 29, Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish rebels in Iraq's north, killing a group of guerrillas gathered at a mountain cave.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, WTO Director-General announced on that the latest negotiations for a much-delayed trade liberalization deal under the so-called Doha Round had broken down after nine days due to unresolved differences. The deadlock centered on a row between the US and India over special tariff measures to protect poor farmers from surging imports or price falls.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, President Bush signed a massive housing bill intended to provide mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners and stabilize financial markets. Bush also signed an executive order updating the authority of the national intelligence director.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 30, President George W. Bush signed legislation repealing a rule that prevented HIV-infected immigrants, students and tourists from receiving US visas without special waivers. Bush also signed an act reauthorizing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It will provide $39 billion to be spent on AIDS over the next 5 years, up from $15 billion for the past 5 years.
(AP, 8/5/08)(www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids/)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.75)
2008 Jul 30, The NY Times reported that a top Central Intelligence Agency official has traveled to Islamabad and confronted senior officials with evidence of ties between Pakistan's spy agency and militants operating in that country's tribal areas.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, US federal health officials said the salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and in a sample from a batch of serrano peppers at a Mexican farm in Nuevo Leon. Mexico's Agriculture Department rejected the FDA's conclusion saying "The farm unit in question ended its harvest more than a month ago, so the sample they say they have lacks scientific validity" because the sample "was taken recently from a tank holding rain water that was not used in production."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In SF Mayor Gavin Newsom signed into law a $6.5 billion city budget.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 30, Nicholas Corozzo (68), New York City mob captain, pleaded guilty to racketeering and 2 murders in 1996. In 2009 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/cz7tj8)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A10)
2008 Jul 30, In Afghanistan Insurgents and a roadside blast killed five Afghan policemen.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Aborigines won traditional ownership rights over a large stretch of coastline in northern Australia, in a landmark ruling lawyers said could set a precedent in other parts of the country.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a UN jail cell after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Media watchdog Ofcom fined the BBC 400,000 pounds, the largest financial penalty it has ever issued against the public broadcaster, for misleading the public through fake quizzes and competitions.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Canada Tim McLean (22), sleeping on a Greyhound bus was killed and decapitated by his seatmate, Vince Weiguang Li (40), as the bus rolled across the Canadian Prairies in Manitoba. On march 5, 2009, a judge ruled that Li would not be judged criminally responsible due to mental illness.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 3/5/09)
2008 Jul 30, A human rights group said Chinese authorities have sent Liu Shaokun to a labor camp for a year. He had posted pictures of collapsed schools on the Internet and was detained last June for allegedly “seriously disturbing social order." And disrupting post-quake reconstruction efforts.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 30, The UN Security Council voted to end an 8-year-long peacekeeping mission between Eritrea and Ethiopia despite continuing tensions, a move that the United Nations' chief has warned could lead to a new war.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Germany's highest court partially overturned bans on smoking in bars, ruling that states must either ban smoking in all restaurants and pubs or offer exceptions for single-room establishments.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In the troubled Russian republic of Ingushetia a car bomb exploded outside the regional police headquarters morning, killing at least two police.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nearly 50,000 Iraqi police and soldiers were involved in a US-backed operation against al-Qaida in Iraq in one of its last major strongholds near the capital. A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing at least one Iraqi soldier and wounding seven other people.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert announced he would step down after his Kadima Party's leadership race in September, called because of a series of corruption allegations against him.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Lebanon gunmen attacked a Lebanese military post in the country's east, killing one soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Mexican police captured Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian cartel operative who represented Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel in dealings with Mexico's Beltran Leyva gang. He had escaped from a Colombian prison in 2001 and was wanted on drug charges in the US.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 30, Morocco's King Mohammed VI condemned Algeria's continuing closure of their common border, despite repeated calls by Rabat for it to be reopened. Algiers has set a global settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara as a precondition for reopening the border, which it closed in 1994 after Morocco claimed Algerian secret service agents were behind an Islamist extremist attack in Marrakesh.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nigerian security officials said rival militant factions in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta have clashed in an apparent turf war, killing at least four people.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, The UN said hunger in North Korea is at its worst since the 1990s, prompting the resumption of emergency UN food shipments after a two-year hiatus.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Pakistan fierce fighting erupted in the restive Swat valley, killing 25 militants and four soldiers and undermining the government's strategy of offering peace deals to pro-Taliban insurgents. Sher Ali, an insurgent commander known as Mullah Toor, was killed in the fighting.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, The papal nuncio said Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo (57) has received unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, ending a dispute over his priestly status.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Alexander Tsygankov, a Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last November, was freed, hours before Russian PM Vladimir Putin was due to host the country's prime minister.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Saudi Arabia's Islamic religious police banned the sale dogs and cats as pets, as well as walking them in public due to “the rising of phenomenon of men using cats and dogs to make passes at women and pester families" as well as "violating proper behavior in public squares and malls."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Sri Lankan war planes bombed a suspected Tiger base in the north. The army launched a wave of attacks against Tamil Tiger separatists in the north, sparking battles that killed 24 rebels and one soldier.
(AFP, 7/30/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Turkey’s high court narrowly voted against disbanding the ruling Justice and Development Party, but cut off millions of dollars in state aid to the Islamic-oriented party.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, Zimbabwe’s reserve bank said it will drop 10 zeros from its hyper-inflated currency — turning 10 billion dollars into one. President Robert Mugabe threatened a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the country's economic and political unraveling. Inflation this summer reached an absurd 231 million percent.
(AP, 7/30/08)(Econ, 4/27/13, p.71)
2008 Jul 31, The US Congress approved legislation that will allow the State Department to settle all remaining lawsuits against Libya by US terrorism victims.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered the layoffs of thousands of state workers along with steep pay cuts for most other state employees to ease the state’s budget gap of $17.2 billion.
(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 31, A US Virgin Islands hospital fired four board members after a US government audit found alleged financial mismanagement and the use of taxpayer money to fund lucrative pay packages for top administrators.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm on cybersecurity, split from Booz & Co., in order to focus on the public sector. Booz & Co. continued focused on the private sector. Their non-compete agreement expired in August, 2011.
(Econ, 7/16/11, p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton)
2008 Jul 31, Exxon Mobil Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any US corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Scientists reported that Phoenix spacecraft robot has confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Ivan Miranda (14) was killed in the SF Excelsior district in a gang motivated attack. Rony Aguilera (17), an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was charged in the sword attack. Aguilera had veen arrested in 2007 in an assault case, but was not referred to federal authorities under a recently discarded city sanctuary ordnance. In 2009 Walter Chinchilla-Linar (23) and Cesar Alvarado (19), alleged members of MS-13 street gang, were charged with the stabbing death of Miranda.
(SFC, 11/14/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A12)
2008 Jul 31, In Wisconsin a gunman opened fire on a group of young adults from Michigan killing 3, aged 17-19, along the Menominee riverbank in the town of Niagara. The next day police arrested Scott J. Johnson (38). He had a raped a woman near the same site the evening before the murders. In 2009 Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 8/2/08)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2008 Jul 31, A small jet crashed while preparing to land at Degner Regional Airport in Minnesota killing 8 people including several casino and construction executives.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 31, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched the Amazon Fund to provide grants to projects intended to stop the Amazon rainforest from shrinking.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.37)
2008 Jul 31, Haitian lawmakers ratified Michele Pierre-Louis to be the country's prime minister, ending more than three months of political bickering and deadlock in Parliament.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 31, At least 36 Hindu pilgrims from Nepal were killed when their bus plunged into a river in the mountainous northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
(AFP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, In Iraq a suicide car bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a police station near the northern city of Mosul, killing three policemen and wounding four. A judge died of wounds suffered in an attack the day before in Mosul. Insurgents clashed with US-allied Sunni Arab fighters and killed one of them near the village of al-Waib, south of Baqouba.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, A mortar shell hit a house in the Swat valley where Pakistani security forces are battling Islamic militants, killing a family of seven. Another 10 civilians died in fighting in the region. Militants torched a nearby girls school.
(AP, 7/31/08)(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the release of all Hamas activists detained in recent days by his security forces.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev said that he had signed an anticorruption plan and that he was serious about clamping down on graft.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 31, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned a ban on doctors telling parents the gender of unborn babies, saying the country has grown out of a preference for sons and that the restriction violates parents' right to know.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Sri Lanka’s army troops crossed into Kilinochchi district, where the rebels' de facto capital is located, in fighting for the first time in 11 years.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Jul 31, Sudanese courts sentenced another 22 alleged Darfur rebels to death over an unprecedented attack on the capital last May in which more than 222 people were killed.
(AFP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, In Thailand the wife of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra was found guilty of evading millions of dollars in taxes and sentenced to three years in prison, dealing a staggering blow to a man who was once one of the richest and most powerful in Thailand.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Turkey’s Deputy PM Cemil Cicek signaled the government would not push for a fresh round of legislation to lift the head scarf ban.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Fourteen of the UN security council's 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 1828 to extend the mandate of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) for one year from this day, when it had been set to expire. The United States abstained in the vote because language added to the resolution noting concern that any indictment of Beshir might jeopardize the Darfur peace process.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 31, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez said his government will nationalize Banco de Venezuela, the local unit of the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul, In Alaska Gov. Palin’s chief of staff told Walter Monegan, the state public safety commissioner, that he was being fired because the governor wanted “to go in a different direction." Monegan, hired by Palin shortly after she took office in 2006, said his firing was connected to his failure to remove Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother-in-law, from the state police force.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul, Alexandra Carmichael and Daniel Reda launched CureTogether to help the people they knew and the millions they didn’t who live in daily chronic pain.
(Econ, 3/3/12, TQ p.22)(http://curetogether.com/blog/about/)
2008 Jul, Sofiane Hadarbache, a former Guantanamo inmate, was sent back to Algeria. He was picked up by US forces outside of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in 2001 and sent to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held through July 2008. On Nov 4, 2010, an Algerian court acquitted Hadarbache of charges that included belonging to a terrorist group operating abroad and counterfeiting.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2008 Jul, Mubadala Development, an investment arm of Abu Dhabi, announced that it intended to become a major shareholder in GE.
(Econ, 9/20/08, SR p.24)
2008 Jul, Fifty-five thousand jobs were lost in Canada this month, the biggest number since February 1991, principally the result of a struggling private sector in the country's central provinces.
(Reuters, 8/8/08)
2008 Jul, In China the founder of a company involved in commodities futures trading allegedly fled to the US with millions of dollars of customers’ money.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.40)
2008 Jul, Kadisiya became the 10th of 18 Iraqi provinces to come under Iraqi command.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.48)
2008 Jul, Japan for the first time exported more to China this month than to America. Japan’s public sector debt stood at 170% of GDP, the highest among the big rich economies.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.87)
2008 Jul, Religious leaders meeting in Norway unveiled a plan for a code of conduct for holy sites on which all governments could agree.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.60)(www.arcworld.org/news.asp?pageID=254)
2008 Jul, In the Ukraine a 16th-century Caravaggio painting, "The Taking of Christ, or the Kiss of Judas," was stolen from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in Odessa. It was valued at several million euros. In 2010 Berlin recovered the painting and arrested four members of an international gang of art thieves as they tried to sell it to an interested buyer.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2008 Jul, In Venezuela inflation was running at 32%.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.47)
2008 Aug 1, US Federal and state regulators closed First Priority Bank of Bradenton, Florida, the 8th US bank to fail this year. It would be acquired by SunTrustBanks Inc.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A3)(www.fpbank.com/)
2008 Aug 1, In eastern Afghanistan 4 NATO soldiers were killed in a bomb blast in Kunar province. Another soldier was killed in a separate explosion in Khost province. More than a dozen" rebels were killed in ground fighting and air strikes after attacking an Afghan and US-led coalition patrol in the southern province of Uruzgan. Several more were killed in the southwestern province of Farah after their hideout was discovered. Three other militants linked to Taliban, one of them a doctor, were killed when a bomb they were planting exploded in eastern Khost province. Islamic rebels captured six policemen following a brief firefight in Khost province.
(AFP, 8/1/08)(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said it received correspondence from Guinea President Lansana Conte "purporting to rescind the Simandou Mining Concession." Just before his death on Dec 22 Conte signed rights to mine the northern half of the Simandou Mining Concession to Israeli businessman Benny Steinmetz for $160m, who in turn soon sold a 51% stake to Brazil’s Vale for $2.5 billion.
(AFP, 8/3/08)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.57)(Econ, 12/6/14, p.78)
2008 Aug 1, China’s broad anti-monopoly law, promulgated in August, 2007, went into effect. It became informally referred to as its economic constitution.
(www.iflr.com/Article/2017768/Anti-Monopoly-Law.html)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.68)
2008 Aug 1, In southern Egypt 12 people were killed and 16 others wounded when two speeding passenger buses rammed into a truck.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, A German farmer who lost both his arms in an accident was successfully fitted with two new limbs in what is believed to be the first complete double arm transplant.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In southern India at least 32 people have died after several coaches of the Gautami Express train caught fire.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In Iraq a roadside bomb attack has killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded two others in northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, The body of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a prominent businessman, was found in the trunk of a car in Mexico City. He had been kidnapped in June. The kidnap and murder prompted a wave of anti-crime protests across the nation. In September police detained five suspects including Sergio Ortiz, a former agent of a now-disbanded city detective force, who led the "Flower Gang" responsible for kidnapping Marti in June. In July, 2009, Jose Montiel (34) and Noe Robles (31) were arrested for the kidnapping. They were believed to be members of a Mexico City gang responsible for at least 23 abductions.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 7/18/09)
2008 Aug 1, In northwestern Pakistan about 35 militants kidnapped 2 policemen on the outskirts of Khar.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, Hamas forces seized about 15 leaders of Fatah in Gaza, upping the stakes in a week of tit-for-tat arrests between the bitter Palestinian rivals. Fatah said more than 200 of its men have been seized over the past week. Five Palestinians died and 18 were wounded in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border after Egyptian troops blew up the entrance.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, Leonid Nevzlin, a top manager of the now defunct YUKOS business empire, was sentenced by a Russian court to life in prison for ordering a series of high profile murders, a verdict he dismissed as the result of a show trial organized by the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In Sri Lanka new fighting between government forces and the rebels across the country's embattled northern region killed 38 rebels and 14 soldiers.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, A sniper assassinated Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, a senior Syrian general close to President Bashar Assad, at a beach resort in the northern port city of Tartous.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 1, An African Union (AU) peacekeeper from Uganda was killed when a roadside bomb struck his convoy in the capital Mogadishu.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, King George Tupou V was crowned King of Tonga. His elaborate 5-day coronation cost some $2.5 million.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.42)(SFC, 3/20/12, p.C5)
2008 Aug 1, In central Turkey a three-story girls dormitory collapsed, killing at least 18 students and setting off a search for a half dozen people believed to be under the rubble in Balcilar. A gas leak from kitchen pipes caused the powerful explosion, leaving another 27 people injured. 3 dormitory administrators were charged on August 3 with "causing death through negligence."
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 1, The UN atomic watchdog's board of governors unanimously approved an inspections agreement with India that is key to finalizing a US-India nuclear deal.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 2, The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said that due to new tracking methods 40% more people are infected by the HIV virus than was previously believed.
(SSFC, 8/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, In Santa Cruz, Ca., 2 firebombs exploded outside the homes of 2 UC Santa Cruz biologists. They were similar to some used in the past by animal rights activists.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, Peter W. Rodman (b.1943), lawyer, government official and foreign policy expert, died. His book “Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush" was published in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rodman)(WSJ, 1/12/09, p.A11)
2008 Aug 2, In Afghanistan a suspected rebel bomb struck a minibus carrying a newly married couple, killing the bride and groom and 11 wedding guests.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Perez Celis (b.1939), a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor, died in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, Geoff Ballard (b.1932), founder of Ballard Power and advocate for fuel cells, died in Vancouver, Canada. In 1999 he had started General Hydrogen to explore ways to manufacture and market hydrogen as a fuel. Plug Power bought General Hydrogen in 2007 for $10 million.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 2, In China Zhang Jinfu (43), a farmer, killed six and injured one in a stabbing spree in the Hubei province village of Xuyang.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, China’s Sanlu Group, a dairy product producer, told Fronterra, a New Zealand company that owns 43% of Sanlu, that there was problem with milk powder.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.57)
2008 Aug 2, Saad Eddin Ibrahim (69), an exiled Egyptian human rights activist who also holds US nationality, was sentenced in abstentia to two years in prison for defaming Egypt. He was accused him of defaming the country after a series of articles and speeches on citizenship and democracy in which he criticized the Egyptian regime. Ibrahim, who founded the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies, was sentenced in 2001 to seven years for "tarnishing Egypt's reputation," before being freed on appeal after spending 10 months behind bars.
(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Overnight fighting that included sniper and mortar fire between Georgian forces and separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region left six people dead and 13 wounded.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In northern India 40 farm laborers died after a truck carrying them home from the fields plunged into a river near Ghoomsa in Bihar state.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, More than 1,000 Sunni Arabs and Turkomen staged a demonstration to protest calls by Kurds to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their autonomous region as Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to defuse tension over the disputed city. The U.S. military said it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year, more than in all of 2007, as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons. A roadside bomb in Baghdad killed one member of the US-allied Sunni fighters and wounded two others. An American soldier died and another was injured in a vehicle accident southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Nigeria gunmen seized 2 French oil workers from a bar in Onne near the oil hub of Port Harcourt. The 2 were released on Sep 5.
(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan a bomb exploded at a bridge, killing at least nine security forces in the Swat valley, where Pakistani troops are battling Islamic militants.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan 22 climbers, mostly foreigners, reached the summit of K-2, the world's second-highest mountain, but an ice avalanche struck them during their descent. At least 11 of the mountaineers were killed.
(AP, 8/3/08)(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 2, Hamas security forces battled fighters in a tribal stronghold where they say suspects in a deadly bombing last week were hiding. Three Hamas men were killed, along with six Fatah supporters, and nearly 90 were wounded. Some 180 Fatah supporters fled into Israel from a deadly Hamas crackdown.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Sri Lanka a two-day summit of leaders of the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), opened amid extraordinary security. Leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the summit. Government troops captured rebel-held Vellankulam village in Mannar, the last rebel stronghold in the area. Fresh fighting between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger separatists killed 14 rebels and two soldiers across the embattled northern region.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Some 19,000 runners participated in the 31st annual SF Marathon. Chad Worthen (34) of Sacramento won with a time of 2:31:52. Lauren Gustafson of Millbrae won among the women with a time of 2:52:33.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 3, In Gearhart, Oregon, a small plane crashed into a seaside house killing 2 people aboard and 2 children in the vacation home.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, Lou Teicher (b.1924), pianist, died in North Carolina. He was half of the popular piano duo Ferrante & Teicher whose movie themes and love songs earned them wide popularity in the 1960s. Together they recorded some 150 albums.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 3, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a US-led coalition vehicle, killing one service member and wounding another on the outskirts of Kabul. Afghan and NATO troops targeted a group of Taliban fighters in Helmand province, killing 17 militants and wounding six others. Four police were killed separately in a militant ambush in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 8/3/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Algeria 21 people, six of them policemen, were injured in a suicide car bomb attack in the town of Tizi Ouzou in Algeria's Kabylie region.
(AFP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Cambodia said that Thai soldiers are occupying a second temple site on their border in an escalation of an ongoing armed standoff that nearly led to clashes between the neighbors last month.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Canada a small plane crashed on Vancouver Island. Two survivors were pulled from the wreckage but five other people on the aircraft died.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Greece Athanassios Arvanitis (31) beheaded his girlfriend and her dog on the island of Santorini and then escaped in a patrol car. Police shot him 5 times as he ran over 2 women on a motorcycle before being caught.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, Hundreds of Honduran squatters angry over a land dispute attacked the home of Henry Sorto, a local police official. Five employees and six of Osorto's family members were burned, shot and hacked to death with machetes.
(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 3, In northern India 145 people, including many women and children, were killed when pilgrims stampeded at a Hindu temple. The devotees were attending a 9-day religious festival at the Naina Devi Temple in the Bilaspur district of the Himachal Pradesh state.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Indonesia a top health official said a factory worker had died of bird flu west of Jakarta, bringing the death toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 112.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Iraq a truck bomb exploded during rush hour on a busy street in northern Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about two dozen. A roadside bomb killed six people, including three Iraqi soldiers, and wounded 13 others south of Baghdad. In Tarmiyah a clash between US-allied fighters and civilians killed one civilian and wounded 10 others.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Israeli and Palestinian officials said most of the 180 Fatah supporters, who had fled into Israel, would be sent back into the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, The breakaway republic of South Ossetia began sending hundreds of children across the border to its Russian ally amid increasing violence between the republic and Georgian government forces.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b.1918), Russian Nobel literature laureate (1970), died of heart failure in his Moscow home. His books, which included “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1962) and "Gulag Archipelago" (1973), chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps. In 1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West Germany for refusing to keep silent about his country's past.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W12)
2008 Aug 3, In Scotland the Int’l. Primatological Society Congress opened a 6-day conference. On August 5 scientists released a report saying the nearly half of the world’s 634 types of primates are in danger of becoming extinct due to human activity.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, In Senegal former US president Bill Clinton wound up a four-nation Africa tour aimed at combating HIV/AIDS in Dakar, praising France for its financial support through the agency Unitaid.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Somalia a bomb hidden under a pile of garbage killed at least 20 people, half of them women who were sweeping the street in Mogadishu.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Sri Lanka the South Asian summit ended. Tensions between India and Pakistan overshadowed the summit, but the two nuclear-armed rivals vowed to work together and save a tenuous peace process. A draft summit declaration called for collective action to combat "all forms of terrorist violence" that was threatening their "peace, stability and security." The leaders also agreed to implement a regional trade pact, signed in 1995 but never fully implemented. Troops repulsed an attempt by Tamil rebels to retake a recently captured guerrilla stronghold in heavy fighting that killed 21 rebels and three soldiers. Thirteen rebels and three soldiers were killed in other clashes in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya regions.
(AFP, 8/3/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says 24 Sukhoi fighter jets have been delivered to Venezuela, and are ready to defend his country from "imperialist" aggressions.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, Zimbabwe's rival parties resumed power-sharing talks, a day ahead of the expiry of a deadline to conclude discussions to end a ruinous political crisis.
(AFP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 4, President George W. Bush signed into law legislation paving the way for Libya to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate US victims of bombing attacks that Washington blames on Tripoli.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Alaska sued the US government saying its listing of polar bears as a threatened species will hurt oil exploration and tourism.
(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A1)(www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49694/story.htm)
2008 Aug 4, In SF Mayor Newsom signed into law stringent green building codes for new construction and renovations of existing structures in the city.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 4, In Afghanistan a pair of Taliban fighters died when a mine they were planting exploded prematurely in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. Police killed five Taliban fighters after the militants ambushed a police patrol in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district.
(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, Bangladesh held local elections that observers hailed as a success. A fire swept through a five-story building in a crowded section of the capital, Dhaka, killing at least 10 people and injuring five others.
(AFP, 8/5/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.42)
2008 Aug 4, In Chile Alberto Achacaz Walakial, one of the last surviving members of the nomadic Kaweskar tribe, died of blood poisoning. Government documents listed Achacaz's age at 79, but some believe he was close to 90. The tribe once plied the waters off Chile's Patagonian coast. Experts estimate that only about a dozen full-blooded Kaweskars, or Alacalufes, survive and the group appears destined to disappear in the near future as there are no women of fertile age left. Since the arrival of the first Europeans, Chile has lost five of its original 14 indigenous tribes to disease, displacement or the overuse of their natural resources.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, In western China 2 Uighur men rammed a truck into a clutch of jogging policemen and tossed explosives, killing 17 officers, in an attack in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, just days before the Beijing Olympics. The 2 men were sentenced to death on Dec 17.
(AP, 8/4/08)(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A11)(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Aug 4, Ecuador's government said it would seize a family business group's stock shares in 58 companies to help recover debts generated by the collapse of the family's former bank. The action came a little less than a month after authorities seized 200 businesses linked to the family of William and Roberto Isaias, who fled to the US in 2000 shortly after their bank collapsed.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, India announced an additional $450 million in aid for development projects in Afghanistan. PM Singh met with Afghan Pres. Karzai in New Delhi and both countries pledged to fight terrorism.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 4, Indian officials pledged to stop Hindus from imposing an economic blockade on the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley as tensions heightened with the deaths of protesters. Police opened fire at hundreds of stone-throwing Hindu protesters angry over a government decision to not transfer land to a Hindu shrine, killing two people. A Muslim protester was also killed by a tear gas shell.
(AFP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 4, In Iran journalist Yaghoob Mirnehad was executed in the city of Zahedan after being sentenced to death earlier this year. Iran accused Mirnehad of being involved in the armed Jundallah group, which operates along the Iranian-Pakistani border. The Jundallah group, or God's Brigade, has launched attacks against Iranian soldiers and police in the area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a key crossing point for narcotics.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, Iraqi officials reported that at least nine Iraqis died in a separate series of bombings. 2 American soldiers were killed and one was wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad that also killed 2 Iraqis.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Israel's defense minister said a group of around 150 Fatah fighters who fled to Israel from the Gaza Strip will be allowed to relocate to the West Bank because they face "immediate danger" from Gaza's Hamas rulers.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Italy’s Defense Ministry deployed some 3,000 soldiers in cities across the country as part of government measures to fight street crime.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Jordanian military court sentenced 12 men to up to five years in jail for planning to join Iraq's insurgency and carry out attacks against US and Iraqi forces. The five men who received the longest jail terms were at large and tried in absentia.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A shootout between Mexican police and smugglers driving a truck carrying illegal immigrants left 2 people dead near Agua Dulce.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Nigerian presidential panel on oil and gas sector reform recommended that the state oil company be transformed into an "independent limited liability company."
(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, In Pakistan a remote-controlled bomb explosion struck a military convoy and wounded eight soldiers in South Waziristan. Militants torched four girls' schools, a health office and a forestry office. A senior officer said that over the past week 94 Islamist militants were killed and 14 soldiers lost in fighting in the northwestern Swat valley. At least 25 civilians and eight policemen were also killed in the fighting. Brigadier Zia Bodla said the army planned a major operation against the insurgents.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, The Philippine Supreme Court, acting on a petition by Christian politicians, blocked the signing of a key accord granting an expanded southern homeland to minority Muslims as part of a deal to end decades of bloody Islamic rebellion.
(AP, 8/4/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.41)
2008 Aug 4, In Venezuela changes in areas from the military to small business loans were pushed through by the president in 26 laws released in the official gazette. Chavez approved them on the final day of an 18-month period during which lawmakers had granted him special legislative powers.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 5, President Bush got a mixed reception in South Korea at the start of his three-nation Asian trip. About 30,000 people gathered in front of Seoul City Hall for an afternoon Christian prayer service supporting Bush's trip. As evening approached police fired water cannons at an estimated 20,000 anti-Bush protesters gathered nearby.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US Energy Department said that even if no new reactors are built, getting rid of the country's nuclear waste will cost $96.2 billion and require a major expansion of the planned Nevada waste dump beyond limits imposed by Congress.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US government charged 11 people with stealing tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from major retailers including TJX Cos Inc, in one of the largest reported identity-theft incidents on record.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US General Accounting Office predicted Iraq could finish the year with as much as a $79 billion cumulative budget surplus due to the influx of oil revenues. The GAO estimated that Iraqi oil revenues from 2005 through the end of this year will amount to at least $156 billion.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 5, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman once identified as a possible al-Qaida associate, was extradited from Afghanistan and arraigned in New York on charges that she tried to kill US agents and military officers. Siddiqui was educated at Brandeis and MIT and fled to Pakistan after 9/11 because of anti-Muslim sentiment. She and her children dropped out of sight in March 2003, after 9/11 mastermind Khalid sheikh Mohammed mentioned her name during an interrogation. She was arrested by Afghan police on July 17, who found recipes for explosives and descriptions of New York landmarks in her handbag. Siddiqui is the wife of Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was believed to be the chief planner of the Sep 11, 2001, attacks.
(SFC, 8/6/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A7)(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 5, Texas executed Jose Medellin (33) for the 1993 rape and killing of two teenage girls in Houston. Mexico protested the execution, which took place despite a world court ruling for a new hearing, and expressed concern for the rights of other Mexicans detained in the US. On Jan 19, 2009, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the US defied its order when authorities in Texas last year executed a Mexican convicted of rape and murder.
(AP, 8/6/08)(AP, 1/19/09)
2008 Aug 5, John A. "Junior" Gotti (44) was arrested at his Long Island home on charges linking him to three New York murders. In 1999 Junior Gotti pleaded guilty to racketeering crimes including bribery, extortion, gambling and fraud. He was sentenced to 77 months in prison and was released in 2005.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The Chinese Embassy in Washington revoked the visa of Joey Cheek, 2006 Olympic gold medalist, effectively barring the speedskating champion from the 2008 Olympics. Cheek had co-founded Team Darfur, an organization of athletes attempting to draw attention to human rights violations in Darfur.
(SFC, 8/6/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 5, In California 9 firefighters were killed and 4 injured when their helicopter crashed after battling a blaze in Trinity County. Investigators in 2010 concluded that lax federal oversight and Carson Helicopter’s decision to underestimate the craft’s weight led to the crash.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/10, p.C7)
2008 Aug 5, A magnitude 6.0 earthquake rocked the western Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Gansu, killing one person and injuring 23 near the site of May's devastating quake that killed at least 70,000 people.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Wildlife researchers said they have discovered some 125,000 western lowland gorillas deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo.
(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 5, The EU said it will give Haiti $4.6 million to help pay for food in the world's poorest country.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Iran Ali Kordan was narrowly approved as the new interior minister. An honorary Oxford degree that he cited was soon disclosed as a fake.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 5, It was reported that Muqtada al-Sadr planned to reorganize his Mahdi Army militia into a social services organization. Gunmen killed Sheik Ibrahim al-Karbouli, a senior leader of a US-allied Sunni group, and six of his guards in an ambush in Youssifiyah. Police also discovered the bodies of three awakening council members who were abducted several days ago. Roadside bombings also killed another person and wounded a dozen, in a second consecutive day of bombings in the capital.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Japan 4 people were missing after being washed away by a surge of sewage water while working in a manhole in downtown Tokyo.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Montenegro 4 Michigan residents were among 12 ethnic Albanians convicted of plotting a rebellion to carve out a homeland within the tiny Balkan republic.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Officials in Pakistan said floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have destroyed thousands of homes and caused at least 27 deaths in the last 24 hours.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Rwanda formally accused senior French officials of involvement in its 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Serbia's war crimes prosecutor's office indicted Branko Grujic and Branko Popovic in the 1992 killing of about 700 Muslims in eastern Bosnia. The killings took place near the town of Zvornik on the border with Bosnia.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Turkey an oil pipeline that has allowed the West to tap the rich fields of Azerbaijan, bypassing Iran and Russia, was set on fire. A Kurdish rebel organization later admitted sabotaging the pipeline.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 5, The UN said heavy rains and storms have led to some of the worst floods in 40 years in parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania since July 22, causing great damage to homes, infrastructure and farmland. In Ukraine, 34 people have been killed in the west of the country along the Dnestr and Prut rivers; in Moldova, three people are reported to have drowned in the capital Chisinau; in Romania five people have been killed.
(AFP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that a list barring hundreds of candidates suspected of corruption from running in elections is constitutional, despite complaints that it singles out opponents of President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 6, President George W. Bush flew into Bangkok on the latest leg of a pre-Olympics Asian tour, although his focus in Thailand is mainly on the "outpost of tyranny" junta in neighboring Myanmar.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, The US said it will protest to China over its decision to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, an activist on the African region of Darfur where China is accused of failing to help end the crisis. Speedskater Cheek is co-founder of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes campaigning to draw world attention to the humanitarian crisis there.
(Reuters, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict in the war crimes trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life. Hamdan was convicted of supporting terrorism but acquitted of conspiracy to commit attacks. The next day the US military jury sentenced Hamdan to 5 1/2 years in prison, including five years and a month already served at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 8/6/08)(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.A1)(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 6, A Bulgarian court declared the Kremikovtzi steel plant to be insolvent. Ukrainian billionaire Kostyantin Zhevago and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal SA competed to take over the plant operations following the insolvency proceedings.
(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 6, Officials said Cambodia's genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than $300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, China announced changes to its foreign exchange rules to address surging growth in its hard currency reserves.
(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.C12)
2008 Aug 6, France accused Rwanda of making "unacceptable accusations" by alleging Paris played an active role in the 1994 genocide, but said it was still determined to mend damaged ties with Kigali.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, In Indian Kashmir a Hindu protester was shot dead in army firing as Premier Manmohan Singh was due to hold talks with political parties in a bid to defuse tensions in the region.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Israel released five Palestinian teenagers from jail as part of a prisoner exchange agreement made with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia last month.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Army officers in Mauritania, upset with government overtures toward Islamic hard-liners, staged a coup overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in more than 20 years. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was held at his palace in Nouakchott by presidential guard soldiers, led by Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Arab-dominated Mauritania, with a population of 3.4 million, has been wracked by more than 10 coups or attempted coups since independence from France in 1960.
(AP, 8/6/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 6, In Nepal a contest to choose the next "Miss Nepal," slated August 7, was cancelled after Maoist female lawmakers denounced the beauty pageant.
(AFP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf abruptly canceled then reinstated his trip to the Olympic Games as local media reported that the ruling coalition had agreed on steps to remove him. 9 militants including Ali Bakht, a top-ranking militant, were killed and many injured during a search and cordon operation conducted by security forces in the Kabal district of the Swat valley. Two insurgents died when the explosive device they were planting in a female educational institution exploded prematurely in Kabal sub-district. 3 civilians died in the various parts of the Swat district when stray mortar rounds hit their houses. An attack on a Pakistani military checkpost by some 200 pro-Taliban militants triggered intense fighting that killed 25 insurgents and two paramilitary soldiers near the Afghan border.
(AFP, 8/6/08)(http://tinyurl.com/6bwtwo)(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 6, Thousands protested in South Africa as workers disrupted gold mining and other major industries in a national strike over price hikes rattling the continent's economic powerhouse.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou declassified documents allegedly implicating his predecessor Chen Shui-bian in a high-profile embezzlement case.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Riot police used tear gas as they blocked hundreds of Venezuelans protesting what they call new moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 6, Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC called on their supporters to end political violence in the country. A newspaper reported that President Robert Mugabe would have amnesty from prosecution and a ceremonial role in government under a draft settlement to resolve the country's crisis.
(Reuters, 8/6/08)(AFP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 7, A US federal judge ruled that American Indian plaintiffs were entitled to $455 million, a fraction of the $47 billion they sought in a year trial for alleged losses on royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 7, A federal judge ordered Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to jail for violating the terms of his bond in his perjury case, a decision the judge said he would have made for any "John Six-Pack" defendant before him.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Arizona an SUV packed with suspected illegal immigrants flipped over southeast of Phoenix killing at least 9 people. There were 19 people in the vehicle.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 7, In northern California the Muir Heritage Land Trust said it will pay $1.8 million for 423 acres in Franklin Canyon, ending a long-standing land fight.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 7, Afghan and coalition forces killed at least four militants in Nahr Surkh district of Helmand province. In central Afghanistan US-led coalition forces "inadvertently" killed four women and a child during a clash that killed several militants.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Algeria 18 people were reported dead from a crash between a van and a bus near the city of Mascara, and 25 were reported injured. Three men who were in critical condition subsequently died.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, It was reported that two subsidiaries of government-owned Dubai World have acquired a 20% stake in Canada’s circus operator Cirque du Soleil. In May the circus had agreed to perform on Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island, for 15 years starting in 2011.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 7, It was reported that the Dubai-based Al Yousuf Group has invested $10 million in Zap, a Santa Rosa, Ca., firm that makes electric cars.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.C1)
2008 Aug 7, In Thailand first lady Laura Bush, meeting with refugees who fled a brutal campaign by Myanmar's military junta, urged China and other countries to join the US in imposing sanctions against the country.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, The US Olympic team chose Lopez Lomong, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, to carry the flag at the Olympic opening ceremony, throwing the spotlight on China's much-criticized policy on Darfur.
(AFP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, A new US Embassy report released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry said the USS Houston submarine was already leaking during nine earlier port calls in Japan and the amount of radiation leaked was larger than initially reported. It "has been steadily leaking a small amount" of radiation from June 2006 to July 2008 when it entered a drydock in Hawaii.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Critics of China's human rights record made sure they were not forgotten, a day before the grand opening of the Beijing Olympics, with protest actions the world over and in China itself. Thousands of Tibetan exiles demonstrated in Nepal and India.
(AFP, 8/7/08)(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Heavy shelling overnight in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia wounded at least 21 people. Cyber attacks from Russia began to target Georgian government Web sites. An organization known as the Russian Business Network was the leading suspect in the attacks. Georgia’s Pres. Saakashvili ordered the shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/7/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A9)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.49)
2008 Aug 7, Sheik Salah al-Obeidi said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops but may lift the order if a planned Iraq-US security agreement lacks a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces. A roadside bomb killed eight Bedouins, including three women and two children, on a remote desert highway west of Nasiriyah frequently used by US and Iraqi troops. Gunmen killed a senior member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, Mahmoud Younis Fathi, and a colleague as they were driving to work in the northern city of Mosul. Elsewhere in Mosul, three Iraqi policemen were killed when a booby-trapped wooden cart exploded after they arrived to collect a body that had been left on the street beside it.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Japan accepted over 200 Indonesian nurses into the country, an unprecedented move as Tokyo struggles to quell a labor shortage triggered by sinking fertility rates.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Maldives Pres. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom signed and adopted a new constitution that allows multiparty elections and other democratic reforms after decades of authoritarian rule. Under the constitution Islam is the only religion its people can legally practice.
(AP, 8/7/08)(AFP, 6/5/12)
2008 Aug 7, Pakistan's ruling coalition announced plans to seek the impeachment of Pres. Pervez Musharraf, alleging the US-backed former general had "eroded the trust of the nation" during his eight years in power. Musharraf cancelled his trip to the Olympics in Beijing.
(AP, 8/7/08)(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 7, A device exploded on a beach in Sochi, a Black Sea Russian resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, killing two people and wounding three.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Sri Lanka army troops attacked and captured a rebel bunker in Welioya, where separate clashes killed 15 rebels and four soldiers. In nearby Vavuniya district, fighting killed two rebels and wounded two soldiers.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Turkey a series of explosions at a municipal government building in Istanbul slightly injured three people. Shells from a mortar-like mechanism were fired from a cemetery near a municipal government building.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 8, John Edwards, former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate, admitted that he had an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a film producer, in 2006 but denied fathering a daughter with her.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rielle_Hunter)(AP, 8/9/08)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.34)
2008 Aug 8, Struggling home finance giant Fannie Mae reported a massive second quarter loss of 2.3 billion dollars, more than three times analysts' estimates.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, UBS AG agreed to buy back $19 billion in auction rate securities improperly sold as higher-rate equivalents for super-safe money market funds.
(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 8, Joseph Bennett (43) of Canada tried to drive 58 bags containing 275,000 Ecstasy pills, estimated at $6.5 million in street value, into Port Huron, Michigan. In 2009 a federal judge in Detroit sentenced him to 7½ years in prison.
(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/koa934)
2008 Aug 8, Nebraska Beef, an Omaha meat packer, recalled 1.2 million pounds of beef after products were linked to illnesses in 12 states. In July the company had recalled over 5 million pounds of beef due to an outbreak of E. coli in 7 states.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 8, In Texas a charter bus carrying Vietnamese worshippers on a pilgrimage ran off a highway overpass north of Dallas and plunged onto a roadway below. 15 people were killed and 40 injured. In 2014 Angel de la Torre, the owner of the Houston bus company charged after the crash that killed 17 passengers, avoided prison after a federal judge sentenced him to three years of probation in a plea agreement.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 10/29/14)
2008 Aug 8, In western Afghanistan a coalition service member died in a roadside blast. About 20 Taliban fighters were killed in a battle with Afghan and US-led forces near a key military supply route in the western Bala Buluk district. An Afghan child was killed and two injured by militants who attacked alliance troops in northeastern Kunar province.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Algeria 12 armed Islamists, including a number of individuals considered among the leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, were killed overnight by the army in an ambush near Beni Douala, near Tizi Ouzou.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 8, Australian Customs and police said they had seized 4.4 tons of ecstasy tablets worth nearly 400 million dollars, describing it as the biggest haul of the illicit drug anywhere in the world. Police said the seizure of the drugs, which were concealed in tins of tomato shipped to Australia from Italy, had resulted in the arrests of 21 people across the country beginning in pre-dawn raids.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Bolivia said it has reached an agreement in principle to purchase the local operations of energy company Royal Dutch Shell PLC as part of President Evo Morales' nationalization push.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, President Bush blended carefully calibrated political messages for China and Russia with enthusiasm for his nation's athletes as he became the first US president to attend an Olympics abroad.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Beijing, China, the 29th Olympic Games, costing an estimated 40 billion dollars and shrouded by political controversies, burst into life with a spectacular opening ceremony. The official slogan for the games this year was “One world, one dream." Actress activist Mia Farrow began Web-casting her own "Darfur Olympics" from a refugee camp on the barren Sudan-Chad border, aiming to shame China into using its influence with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict. Construction before the games forced more than 1m people from their homes.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/7/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.28)(Econ, 7/30/16, p.68)
2008 Aug 8, In the Czech Republic an international express train crashed into a collapsed bridge, killing at least six people and injuring dozens.
(Reuters, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, The EU tightened trade sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for not committing to a long-standing demand of the international community that it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Georgian troops launched a major military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia, prompting a furious response from Russia, which sent tanks into the region. The convoy was expected to reach the provincial capital by evening. Georgia said it shot down two Russian combat planes. Separatist officials in South Ossetia said 15 civilians had been killed in fighting overnight. Georgia later acknowledged that it used M85 cluster munition near the Roki tunnel that connects South Ossetia with Russia, while Russia denied use of cluster bombs.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 8, Guinea Bissau's army announced it had arrested rear admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchute, the head of the navy, over an attempted coup.
(AFP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, Anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered most of his followers to disarm but said he will maintain an elite fighting unit to resist the Americans in Iraq. Ashraf al-Yas (19) talked his way through a police checkpoint, drove his vehicle into a crowded farmers market and detonated his explosives. He killed 28 people and injured 72 in Tal Afar. A roadside bombing in Baghdad killed an American soldier and wounded 2 others.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A19)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Nigeria police arrested the head of a federal agency charged with developing Nigeria's impoverished southern oil region after allegations the man spent millions of dollars on a witch doctor in hopes vanquishing a rival.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Pakistan at least seven Pakistani troops and 30 militants were reported killed in two days of clashes at Loisam and its surrounding areas in the Bajaur tribal district. Insurgents stormed a police post in Buner and killed 8 police officers.
(AFP, 8/8/08)(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 8, In Sri Lanka artillery shells fired by the army hit a hospital overnight killing an 18-month-old baby and wounding 16 people. Infantry clashes in the north killed 31 rebels and four soldiers.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, began initial tests.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider)
2008 Aug 8, In Turkey Mehmet Dursun Uygurturkoglu (35) doused himself with gasoline and set himself alight during a protest by ethnic Uighurs outside the Chinese Embassy. Other demonstrators jumped on the man and quickly extinguished the flames with a blanket.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Researchers said at least 38 Warao Indians have died in remote villages in Venezuela since June 2007. Medical experts suspected an outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 9, In SF the 10th annual Gumball 3000 Rally, an 8-day, 3,000 mile trip across the West Coast, North Korea and China, began with a parade that included some 100 participants who had apparently paid the $120,000 entrance fee.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 9, Bernie Mac (50), the actor and comedian, died in Chicago. He had teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Mahmoud Darwish (67), a Palestinian poet, died, died in Houston, Texas. His poetry eloquently told of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting. His 1973 work “Journal of an Ordinary Grief" was translated to English in 2010.
(AP, 8/10/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.75)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.103)
2008 Aug 9, In Afghanistan airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul killed 11 people, some of whom were believed to be civilians.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Algeria a suicide car bomb attack on security forces killed at least eight people and injured 19 others in the coastal town of Zemmouri el Bahri, east of Algiers, the second such blast this month.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, AU spokesman El-Ghassim Wane said the African Union has frozen Mauritania's membership in the wake of a coup in the country.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeast England Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, were found murdered with serious head injuries in Newcastle.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Burkina Faso heavy rains caused a mudslide at an illegal gold mine that killed at least 31 people.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 9, Tang Yongming (47), a knife-wielding Chinese man, attacked two relatives of a coach for the US Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing Todd Bachman (62) and injuring his wife on the first day of the Olympics. Yongming then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles from the main Olympics site.
(AP, 8/9/08)(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A12)
2008 Aug 9, Georgia, the third largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, said it's pulling out its 2,000-strong contingent from Iraq to join the fighting in the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Separatist forces in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia launched air and artillery strikes to drive Georgian troops from their bridgehead in the region. The Abkhazian move was prompted by Georgia's military action to regain control over another breakaway province, South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeastern Guatemala robbers armed with machetes hacked a US tourist to death and seriously wounded his wife in an attack aboard the couple's sailboat on Lake Izabal.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In India an official said monsoon rains had crumpled homes and triggered flash floods in southern India, killing 18 people. Floods, mudslides, house collapses and lightning strikes have killed at least 184 people across the country so far this year.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Iraq a bodyguard who works for Youth and Sports minister Jassim Mohammed Ja'afar was gunned down outside his home near the city of Kirkuk. Unidentified gunmen shot dead a 50-year-old woman outside her home in the al-Maamoun district in Mosul.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and bombed Georgian towns in a major escalation of the conflict that has left scores of civilians dead and wounded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been killed, with the death toll rising. Russian military aircraft bombed the Georgian town of Gori. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili proposed a cease-fire. As part of his proposal, Georgian troops were pulled out of Tskhinvali and had been ordered to stop responding to Russian shelling.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Sri Lanka air force fighter jets pounded a Tamil Tiger supply base and an intelligence operation center deep in rebel-held Mullaitivu district. Separately, helicopter gunships overnight hit a radio center operated by the Sea Tigers. Scattered battles in Vavuniya killed 16 rebels and one soldier while three rebels died in Mullaitivu. Separate clashes killed five insurgents in Welioya and Jaffna.
(AP, 8/9/08)(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, Syria said it would bar UN nuclear investigators from revisiting a site bombed by Israeli jets on suspicion it was a secretly built atomic reactor.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Disaster officials said landslides and floods killed at least 101 people in northern Vietnam, covering the homes of some victims as they slept in their beds.
(AP, 8/10/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 10, Shelley Malil (43), comic film and TV actor, stabbed his girlfriend more than 20 times in San Diego County. On Aug 13 he was charged with attempted murder.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 10, Isaac Hayes (b.1942), singer, died in Memphis. The baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner laid the groundwork for disco. His 1971 "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, In Afghanistan five civilians died when their vehicle struck a freshly planted mine close to an Afghan military base in Zhari district in southern Kandahar province. Australia's Defense Department said that its troops had captured Mullah Bari Ghul, the Taliban's senior leader in the central province of Uruzgan during a targeted operation last week. 8 civilians held hostage by Taliban militants were killed in an air strike by US-led troops during a battle that also left 25 rebel fighters dead in southern Uruzgan province.
(AP, 8/10/08)(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, In southern Australia some 5,000 people rallied to protest the dwindling water levels of the Murray River, claiming the loss was causing an environmental disaster.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Voters in Bolivia vigorously endorsed President Evo Morales in a recall referendum he devised to try to break a political stalemate and revive his leftist crusade, partial unofficial results showed. More than 62 percent of voters ratified the mandate.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, In Canada explosions at a propane facility in Toronto forced thousands to evacuate. One firefighter died at the scene. A riot broke out and an officer was shot in the leg in a north Montreal neighborhood where a Honduran teenager (18) was shot and killed by police a day earlier.
(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A3)(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 10, In northwest China bombings and fierce clashes took place between police and attackers, the second outbreak of deadly violence there in under a week. Two women were among a squad of assailants accused of killing 12 people when they hurled homemade bombs at government buildings and police.
(AFP, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, Welshwoman Nicole Cooke handed Britain their first gold of the Beijing Olympic Games when she won the women's cycling road race.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Japan's Masato Uchishiba has won his second straight Olympic gold medal, pinning France's Benjamin Darbelet just seconds into their final match in the men's 66-kilogram division and bringing Japan its first judo gold of the Beijing Games.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Georgian troops retreated from the breakaway province of South Ossetia and their government pressed for a truce, overwhelmed by Russian firepower as the conflict threatened to set off a wider war. Georgia said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Aug 9. It also claimed to have captured two Russian pilots, who were shown on Georgian television. Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, In southern India 40 villagers riding on a truck were swept away by a flooded river and feared dead. Monsoon rains have claimed at least 59 lives in the past three days.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the US must provide a "very clear timeline" to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to stay beyond this year. A series of bombs struck Iraqi security forces and commuters in the Baghdad area, killing at least seven people and wounding 25 others. A female suicide bomber killed a US soldier and at least four Iraqis in a complex attack in Tarmiyah. An Iraqi police official said 17 Iraqis were killed in the Tarmiyah attack, including 3 members of the Awakening Council.
(Reuters, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 10, Pakistani forces bombed dozens of houses in Bajur, a tribal region near the Afghan border, amid reports that days of clashes have killed at least 100 insurgents and nine paramilitary troops. Pakistani forces pulled out of Bajur after 3 days of fighting. A Taliban spokesman said as many as 100 Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed. Officials acknowledged that 55 were missing.
(AP, 8/10/08)(SSFC, 8/11/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 10, In the Philippines nearly 3,000 troops and police launched an attack after guerrillas defied an ultimatum to withdraw from five towns in North Cotabato province.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, South African President Thabo Mbeki spent more than eight hours in talks with Zimbabwe's president and opposition leaders to try to resolve a deadly political dispute.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Sri Lankan soldiers launched a pre-dawn attack on Tamil separatists in the embattled north, killing 15 rebels, while other battles in the region left 24 rebels and one soldier dead, said the military.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 11, President George W. Bush said he used talks with China's leaders during the Beijing Olympics to press them to use their influence with Sudan to help end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
(Reuters, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger sued state Controller John Chiang for refusing to follow the governor’s order to slash pay for thousands of state workers during the budget impasse.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 11, Federal prosecutors in NYC charged Joseph Shereshevsky and Steven Byers, partners in Chicago-based WexTrust Capital, with raising over $250 million through a Ponzi scheme, mainly from Orthodox Jews.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 11, Jurors in Stockton, Ca., convicted William Choyce (54) for the murders of 3 prostitutes. He was serving time in state prison for rape when DNA evidence linked him to the murders dating back to 1988.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.B12)
2008 Aug 11, George Furth (b.1932), writer and actor, died in Santa Monica. He wrote the book for “Company," a 1971 Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. As an actor he appeared in over 85 films and TV show episodes.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 11, Don Helms (81), steel guitarist, died in Nashville. Helms had played on over 100 Hank Williams songs.
(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 11, An Afghan police officer was killed and two others were injured in a roadside bomb explosion on the southeastern outskirts of Kabul. 3 civilians were killed and 15 people were wounded, including three NATO troops, when a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a NATO military convoy in Kabul. In the northern province of Maimana meanwhile a Latvian ISAF soldier was killed and three others wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Fred Sinowatz (b. 1929) former Chancellor of Austria (1983 to 1986), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
2008 Aug 11, In Belarus Emmanuel Zeltser, an American lawyer, was sentenced to 3 years in prison after being convicted at a closed trial for commercial espionage and using false documents. He is an expert on organized crime and money laundering. The US raised protests over his detention and concerns about his health in custody. Zeltser (55) was released on June 30, 2009, following a presidential pardon.
(AP, 8/12/08)(AP, 7/1/09)
2008 Aug 11, Brazil's environment minister said he granted a license for the Santo Antonio hydroelectric dam but attached stringent conditions to protect Amazon Indian reservations and nature preserves. The dam is expected to cost 9.5 billion reals (US$5.9 billion) and go online in 2012. The dam is one of two planned for the Madeira river in the Amazon state of Rondonia.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, In China the US remained third in the medals table at the end of the third day of Olympic competition with three gold medals behind hosts China with nine after the completion of 34 events, and South Korea with four. Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to ever win a solo gold medal at the Olympic Games after winning the men's 10m air rifle title.
(AP, 8/11/08)(www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/14/olympicgames.shooting)
2008 Aug 11, Swarms of Russian jets launched new raids on Georgian territory and Georgia faced the threat of a second front of fighting as Russia demanded that Georgia disarm troops near the breakaway province of Abkhazia.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Indian troops shot dead Sheikh Abdul Aziz (52), a prominent Kashmiri separatist leader, and three other protesters. The shooting came as Indian security forces tried to prevent about 100,000 Muslims from marching towards the de facto border with Pakistan.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, The Iraqi government said it has halted military operations in Diyala province for a week to give insurgents time to surrender. A female suicide bomber (15) struck a market checkpoint in the provincial capital of Baqouba, killing at least one policeman and wounding 14 other people. Another bomb exploded in the Wijaihiyah area, about 12 miles east of Baqouba, killing 5 Iraqi women. A bomb stuck under a car exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing the driver and wounding two other people.
(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 11, Mauritania's ousted PM Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef defiantly refused to recognize the African country's ruling military junta, after he was freed from house arrest under international pressure.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 11, In Acapulco, Mexico, gunmen traveling in a sport utility vehicle fired at a hardware store killing a girl (14) and a man (35).
(AP, 8/12/08)(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402108,00.html)
2008 Aug 11, Pakistani forces trained gunfire and dropped bombs on Islamic militants in and around the main town of a tribal region next to the Afghan border, forcing thousands of residents to flee. The bodies of two men beheaded by militants were found about 12 miles north of Khar along with a note accusing them of spying for US and Pakistani authorities. In Peshawar an explosion killed one man and wounded another apparently as they were planting a bomb near a private clinic.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Philippine attack aircraft and artillery bombed Muslim rebel positions for a second day, raising fears of a humanitarian disaster in North Cotabato province with nearly 130,000 refugees forced to flee. Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked a town on the island of Basilan, around 200 km (125 miles) southwest of where the main fighting was taking place, and disrupted voting in local elections there.
(Reuters, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Thailand's Supreme Court issued arrest warrants for ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife after they failed to appear at a hearing on corruption charges and fled to London, saying they could not get justice in their homeland.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, A roadside bomb exploded in eastern Turkey, killing nine soldiers who were on their way back from an operation against Kurdish rebels.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Two Yemeni security officers and five suspected al-Qaida militants died in a gunbattle in Tarim, a southern Yemeni town.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 12, Two-thirds of US corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, The US Navy agreed to restrict loud sonar blasts from anti-submarine vessels in large areas of the world’s oceans to protect whales and other vulnerable creatures.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 12, In California state and federal officials celebrated the official transfer of 3,300 acres from the US Army to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, which will oversee the redevelopment of the 28,000-acre base on Monterey Bay.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, Chicago’s archdiocese agreed to pay over $12.6 million to settle suits by 16 people who accused priests of sex abuse. This brought the total thus far $65 million for some 250 claims over the last 30 years.
(WSJ, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, It was reported that Akron inventor Charlie Grispin, chief technical officer of PolyFlow Corp., had developed a new process to recycle plastic and that a demonstration plant in Akron showed how the process broke all manner of plastics into their base chemicals.
(http://tinyurl.com/6xfw5s)(www.polyflowcorp.com/)
2008 Aug 12, Michael Baxandall (74), Wales-born renowned UC Berkeley art historian, died. His books included “Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy" (1972).
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B5)(www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/13716/mcms.html)
2008 Aug 12, Donald Erb (b.1927), avant garde composer, died in Ohio. His work included “Reconnaissance," one of the first chamber works for live synthesizer and acoustic instruments. It premiered in 1967 with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog on the synthesizer.
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 12, Dorothy Wiltse Collins (b.1923), star pitcher in women’s professional baseball in the 1940s, died in Fort Wayne, Indiana from a stroke. Pitching for six seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created in 1943 to provide home front entertainment while many major leaguers were off to war, Collins dazzled opposing batters. The All-American league went out of business after the 1954 season.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dottie_Wiltse_Collins)
2008 Aug 12, Tesco, the biggest British retailer, announced plans to open wholesale grocery stores in India that will supply goods to hypermarkets owned by Indian conglomerate Tata Group.
(AFP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Cambodia's genocide tribunal formally indicted Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), a former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving the way for a historic trial.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Knife-wielding assailants attacked a road checkpoint in China's troubled far west, killing three guards and raising the death toll to 31 from a surge in violence coinciding with the Beijing Olympics. A bus accident in western China killed 24 students and parents.
(AP, 8/12/08)(WSJ, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, In the Dominican Republic former Pan American Games wrestling medalist Wilson Santiago Rojas (31) was shot to death when he tried to prevent his cousin from being robbed inside a Santo Domingo electronics store.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 12, Security forces in Gambia arrested Rear Adm. Bubo Na Tchuto, the suspected leader of an alleged plot to topple the government in nearby Guinea-Bissau.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Georgia's Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili said his government will declare that its breakaway regions are occupied territories and will designate Russian peacekeepers as occupying forces. Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, after five days of air and land attacks sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed. A Dutch television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes bombed the central Georgian city of Gori. Russia later counted 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia. Rights activists later said fewer than 100 civilians were killed in South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.43)(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, Indian security forces shot dead 15 Muslim demonstrators in Kashmir amid a wave of anger against New Delhi's control over the disputed region.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.33)
2008 Aug 12, A male suicide bomber, dressed as a woman, struck an Iraqi army convoy carrying senior officials in Baqouba, killing at least two people. US soldiers over the last 24 hours captured nine suspected militants linked to what the military called an Iranian-backed group known as the Hezbollah Brigades in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 8/12/08)(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 12, The Lebanese parliament overwhelmingly approved the country's national unity Cabinet after a five-day debate on a controversial policy that upholds Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Nigerian militants claimed they had destroyed a pipeline supplying gas to a key oil refinery in southern Rivers state.
(AFP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, A roadside bomb destroyed an air force truck on a bridge in Pakistan's volatile northwest and killed up to 14 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it "an open war" and retaliation for recent military operations in the region. A suspected American missile strike targeting an alleged militant gathering point killed at least nine people, including foreigners near Angore Adda in the South Waziristan. Two intelligence officials said between 22 and 25 people died, including Arabs, Turkmen and Pakistani militants.
(AP, 8/12/08)(AP, 8/13/08)(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 12, Muslim guerrillas began withdrawing from several occupied southern Philippine villages following fierce fighting with government troops that has displaced nearly 160,000 civilians during harvest time.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Somali pirates hijacked the Thor Star, a Thai cargo ship with 28 crew members onboard.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 12, South Korea announced sweeping pardons for some of the country’s most powerful businessmen, including Lee Myung-bak, the head of leading carmaker Hyundai Motor, saying they were needed to help revive a troubled economy. 341,863 others were also pardoned as South Korea celebrated liberation from Japanese colonialism.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.46)(http://articles.latimes.com/2008/08/12/business/fi-skpardons12)
2008 Aug 12, Spanish officials said local police acting on a tip-off from US authorities have seized 1.4 tons of cocaine and arrested eight South American suspects, 6 from Colombia and 2 from Venezuela.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Sudan's army began a massive operation to wipe out rebel bases in Darfur's far north. The army attacked with more than 200 vehicles in Wadi Atron, near the Sudanese-Libyan border and took control of areas which had for years been under the control of rebels who want more autonomy for the region. North Darfur is part of Sudan's oil Block 12A operated by a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian company al-Qahtani. Chinese companies dominate Sudan's budding oil sector which produces more than 500,000 barrels per day of crude.
(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 12, Venezuela raised the regulated prices of foods ranging from bread to beef by up to 50 percent and removed price controls from other goods in a bid to ease sporadic shortages in supermarkets.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 13, In California prison receiver Clark Kelso asked a federal judge to seize $8 billion from the state’s treasury over the next 5 years to build 7 medical facilities for inmates throughout the state.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 13, In Little Rock, Ark., Timothy Dale Johnson (50), described as a loner, drove more than 30 miles to Arkansas' Democratic Party headquarters and fatally shot its chairman, Bill Gwatney, hours after losing his job. Johnson was later shot dead by officers.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Michael Phelps swam into history as the winningest Olympic athlete ever with his 10th and 11th career gold medals, and 5 world records in 5 events at the Beijing Games.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that at least 150 fuel tanks, managed by the US Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA), needed inspection for leaks. It was estimated that some 500,000 fuel storage tanks, both private and publicly owned, were leaking.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that the red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans, was rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean. The maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes was swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on the ecologically delicate region.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A6)(www.sanluisobispo.com/health/story/438289.html)
2008 Aug 13, Jack Weil (107), patriarch of western clothing, died. He created the western style shirt which sold after 1946 through his Denver-based company Rockmount Ranch Wear.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.82)
2008 Aug 13, Stuart Cary Welch (b.1928), American teacher and collector of Indian and Islamic art, died while traveling in Japan.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Cary_Welch)
2008 Aug 13, In Afghanistan militants brandishing assault rifles ambushed a US relief organization's vehicle, killing three aid workers and their Afghan driver and leaving their white SUV riddled with hundreds of bullets. The three women killed in Logar province worked for the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC). In southern Afghanistan militants began launching attacks on a coalition patrol. Over 3 dozen militants were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 8/13/08)(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 13, Argentine senators approved a bill declaring obesity and other eating disorders diseases covered by the nation's public and private health care programs.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Bolivia and Libya agreed to establish diplomatic relations and join efforts to develop the nations' energy resources.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Scientists from Britain’s University of Reading unveiled Gordon, a neuron-powered machine, whose grey matter was stitched together from cultured rat neurons.
(AFP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, A Chinese team beat the United States and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics, amid allegations that at least one member, He Kexin, of the Chinese team was under age.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Henri Cartan (b.1904), French mathematician, died in Paris. In 1956 he and Samuel Eilenberg wrote a fundamental textbook on homological algebra.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 13, Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori then thrust deep into Georgian territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war. Georgia said that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins. EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will spend at least $400 million in 2008 on restoring South Ossetia's battered capital Tskhinvali.
(AP, 8/13/08)(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, The Indian army said that it was investigating UN allegations its troops had engaged in sexual abuse while on peacekeeping duties in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A five-story building in a crowded residential neighborhood of Mumbai, India's main financial city, collapsed after monsoon rains, killing at least 20 people.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northwest Iran three Kurdish separatists and one Iranian soldier were killed in a shootout.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, A suicide truck bomber targeted the mayor of a town near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, while another car bomb struck civilians elsewhere in northern Iraq. A bomb in a parked car struck a local market in the Qayara area south of the northern city of Mosul, killing at least two people and wounding five.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Riots erupted across Indian-controlled Kashmir as Muslims mourned 15 people killed in a day of bloody violence, as the protests spread to other parts of India. Indian police say they have issued orders to shoot protesters defying a curfew in the town of Kishtwar in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northern Lebanese city a bomb ripped through a bus during morning rush hour in Tripoli, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, raising fears that an al-Qaida-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks against the military.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Mexico a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office said 6 federal agents have been arrested on suspicion of passing information to a group of powerful drug lords.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Nigerian officials said flocks of quelea birds have invaded farmlands in northern Borno state, destroying crops that were due for harvest in two months' time.
(AFP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Lahore, Pakistan, a bomber struck outside a mosque just before midnight as Pakistanis poured into the streets to celebrate the nation's 61st anniversary of its independence from Britain. 8 people were killed and 18 wounded.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, An alleged assault by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (b.1955) reportedly took place on a young model (20) on a yacht on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. An investigating magistrate on the resort island closed the case in 2010 on grounds of insufficient evidence. In 2011 Spain reopened a rape probe after tests done by a forensic lab found semen in the woman and traces of a sedative called nordazepam.
(AP, 9/14/11)
2008 Aug 13, South African President Thabo Mbeki left Zimbabwe after failing to secure a power-sharing deal between its main rivals during marathon talks, adding to doubts over chances of an agreement.
(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles across the front lines in the 25-year-old civil war killed 14 ethnic Tamil rebels and two government soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, The US and Poland struck a deal to install a missile defense facility in the ex-communist state.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, In the Virgin Islands 2 former government officials faced prison after being found guilty of running a million-dollar bribery and kickback scheme. Dean Plaskett, former commissioner of the islands' planning and natural resources department, was sentenced to nine years in prison. Marc Biggs, former commissioner of the property and procurement office, will serve seven years.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, The US Mint planned to issue the Jackson dollar coin, the 7th of its presidential dollar series.
(www.wsmv.com/money/17190311/detail.html?rss=nash&psp=news#-)
2008 Aug 14, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia of Spain said they had signed an agreement to cooperate over flights between North America and Europe to help them overcome soaring fuel costs.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Scientists reported that the number of oxygen-starved "dead zones" in coastal waters around the world has roughly doubled every decade since the 1960s, killing fish, crabs and massive amounts of marine life at the base of the food chain.
(SFC, 8/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 14, Afghan police pulled back from posts in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province after two weeks of clashes with militants. The Taliban claimed to have taken over that district. An explosion targeting a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killed 3 members of the US-led coalition. Afghan and foreign troops clashed with insurgents in the Shwak district of eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 8/15/08)(SFC, 8/15/08, p.A11)(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 14, A colonel in the Algerian army and another soldier were killed in a bomb attack in the Jijel region.
(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 14, Australian police arrested a Catholic priest (65) and charged him with 30 counts of sexual assault related to abuse allegations dating back three decades.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Chile’s central bank said it is boosting its lending rate to 7.75%, warning that additional adjustments will likely be necessary to ensure inflation meets its 3 percent target in the next two years. Annual inflation reached 9.5% in July, Chile's highest rate since 1994.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, A bomb exploded during a crowded street fair in northwestern Colombia, killing seven people and wounding 17.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Georgian and Russian troops faced off at a checkpoint outside the key city of Gori, calling an already shaky cease-fire into question. An American official said Russia appears to be sabotaging airfields and other military infrastructure as its forces pull back. The Russian General Prosecutor's office said it has formally opened a genocide probe into Georgian treatment of South Ossetians. For its part, Georgia this week filed a suit against Russia in the International Court of Justice, alleging murder, rape and mass expulsions in both provinces.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, India’s cabinet approved a 21% average wage increase for federal-government employees to be backdated to January 2006. In southern India at least nine schoolchildren and two adults were killed after a speeding school bus plunged into a river outside Mangalore.
(WSJ, 8/14/08, p.A8)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, In Iraq 2 roadside bombs went off in separate Baghdad locations, killing one policeman and wounding 17 people, including 14 Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. Gunmen shot dead an off-duty policeman and army soldier in separate incidents in the northern city of Mosul. A female suicide bomber blew herself up in Iskandariyah. The US military said 18 people were killed in the attack, but Iraqi police in the area gave a higher death toll of 26. An American Marine was killed during a small-arms fire attack west of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, A senior US military intelligence officer said Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi troops.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets of Kashmir, demanding independence from India hours after archival Pakistan called on the United Nations to stop what it characterized as gross human rights violations in the divided Himalayan region. Police shot dead another protester, bringing the death toll from days of rioting to 22 as security was boosted on the eve of India's Independence Day celebrations.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AFP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Libya and the United States settled all outstanding lawsuits by American victims of terrorism, clearing the way for the full restoration of diplomatic relations.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Military leaders in Mauritania named former EU ambassador Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf as prime minister.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 14, Nigeria relinquished control of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon despite fears the handover will provoke attacks from local armed groups who oppose it.
(Reuters, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani said in an Independence Day speech that the country must defeat extremism to survive. Officials said some 135,000 residents have fled a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan to escape clashes between troops and Taliban militants that have left scores dead.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AFP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, In Sri Lanka government jets hit a series of Tamil Tiger targets in the Mullaittivu region in support of troops fighting on the ground. Fighting between the two sides killed 27 rebels and two government soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Syria agreed to a longtime Lebanese demand to negotiate the demarcation of their border a day after the countries said they would establish full diplomatic relations for the first time.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian's admitted that he broke the law by not truthfully declaring campaign donations he received, and said that his wife sent an unspecified amount of money abroad.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 15, Cookie retailer Mrs. Fields Famous Brands LLC said it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to help restructure its business.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Texas store clerk Mindy Daffern (46) was abducted in the north Texas town of Scotland. Wallace Bowman Jr. (30) was identified by a security camera and led investigators to her body the next day.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A3)(www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=8854535)
2008 Aug 15, Leroy Sievers (b.1955), broadcast journalist, died of cancer. He was a former executive producer of ABC’s “Nightline" and commented on his disease on National Public Radio (NPR).
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 15, Jerry Wexler (b.1917), record producer, died. From 1953-1975 he worked for NYC-based Atlantic Records and helped build the firm into a rhythm and blues powerhouse. As a reported for Billboard magazine he coined the term “rhythm and blues."
(WSJ, 8/16/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 15, Afghan security forces withdrew from Nawa district in eastern Ghazni province after days of fighting with Taliban, allowing the rebels to move in and capture the area. In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb and small arms fire killed 2 soldiers serving under the separate NATO-led force. Taliban insurgents attacked police checkpoints in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province, sparking clashes that killed 23 militants.
(AFP, 8/15/08)(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A6)(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Canada employees at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlet won an arbitrator-imposed contract, becoming the giant retailer's only location in North America with a collective agreement in place.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Chad a court sentenced former President Hissene Habre and 11 rebels to death. Habre was awaiting trial in Senegal for torture and murder.
(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 15, In Beijing 2 positive dope tests by Asian athletes overshadowed Singapore's first medal in 48 years and a podium for Malaysia with a North Korean shooter and a Vietnamese gymnast exposed as cheats.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Xinhua News said a bus veered off the road and plunged into a ravine in central China, killing 15 people.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, About 20 people, including Italian tourists, were killed when two buses collided head-on in the Dominican Republic.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Iraqi security forces began taking over checkpoints near the Iranian border previously manned by Georgian troops before they redeployed home following recent fighting with Russia. A roadside bomb struck a minibus beginning the trip in eastern Baghdad morning, killing at least one passenger and wounding 10 others. A passenger van packed with explosives blew up at a bus station in Balad, north of Baghdad. 9 people were killed and 40 wounded.
(AP, 8/15/08)(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, Russian troops allowed some humanitarian supplies into Georgia’s city of Gori but kept up their blockade of the strategically located city, raising doubts about Russia's intentions. Relief planes swooped into Tbilisi with tons of supplies for the estimated 100,000 people uprooted by the fighting. An international rights group said it has evidence that Russian warplanes dropped cluster bombs in civilian areas in Georgia.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, In India's part of Kashmir tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets again, ignoring a plea by the country's prime minister for an end to weeks of violence that has left 34 people dead.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Officials said Nepal's lawmakers have voted in Prachanda, the leader of the former Maoist rebels, as the Himalayan country's new prime minister.
(AFP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Twelve Nigerian militants and a naval officer were killed in a gunbattle near a Royal Dutch Shell natural gas plant in the oil-producing Niger Delta.
(Reuters, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, Coalition government officials said Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is ready to resign rather than face impeachment, but is seeking immunity from prosecution and agreement on a safe place to live. President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman rejected reports that the embattled Pakistani leader was set to resign. Pakistan's interior ministry chief said that over 460 Islamic militants and 22 soldiers have been killed in more than a week of fighting in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)(AFP, 8/15/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Leftist ex-bishop Fernando Lugo was inaugurated as Paraguay's president, ending six decades of one-party rule in a key step in the poor South American nation's democratic transformation.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Peruvians flooded the streets to protest the slow pace of reconstruction a year after a magnitude-8.0 earthquake left tens of thousands homeless.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, In the Philippines at least 15 hitchhikers were killed and 14 others injured when the truck they were riding in plunged into a ravine outside Monkayo township in the southern gold mining area on Diwalawal mountain.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, South African authorities closed camps that have housed thousands of foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence, in a move that has drawn concern they could face more attacks when they return home.
(AFP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, International aid groups said tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes in northern Sri Lanka in recent weeks as the military ramped up its offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels' heartland.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 16, Afghan and foreign troops clashed with militants in a mountainous area of Zabul province, killing 7 militants. In Kandahar province a roadside blast killed 10 police officers on patrol. In eastern Paktika province police clashed with militants in the Shwak district, killing 4 insurgents. In Helmand province British troops accidentally killed 4 civilians during an operation against Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 8/17/08)(WSJ, 8/18/08, p.A9)(Reuters, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin, considered in the West to be the ex-Soviet state's most prominent political prisoner, was released. Kozulin was one of two opposition candidates to run against Lukashenko in a 2006 election and was jailed for 5 1/2 years for helping stage mass protests against the official result declaring the president the winner by a landslide.
(Reuters, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dorival Caymmi (b.1914), Brazilian composer, died. He had composed over 100 songs and catapulted to fame when Carmen Miranda performed one of his songs in 1938.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong standoff between Thailand and Cambodia appeared to be ending as both sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Carol Huynh, whose parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada's first gold of the Olympics in the women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt of Jamaica was crowned the world's fastest man when he raced to victory in the Olympic men's 100 meters final in a world record time of 9.69 sec.
(AP, 8/16/08)(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Authorities in the Central African Republic gave the green light for a leading rebel group headed by a former defense minister to form a political party. Both the rebel group and the new NAP party are headed by former defense minister Jean-Jacques Demafouth, currently in exile in France.
(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez promised to boost agricultural production and warned of dire economic times as he was sworn in for a third term.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tropical Storm Fay lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rains and floods that killed at least 18 people including at least 14 people in Haiti, feared to have died aboard a bus that tried to cross a flooded river.
(AP, 8/17/08)(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In India police arrested the alleged leader of the July Ahmadabad bombings. Mufti Abu Bashir was arrested in the northern Indian city of Lucknow.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tens of thousands of Muslims marched in India's portion of Kashmir in honor of a prominent separatist leader killed in a recent wave of violence that has rocked the volatile Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, On Indonesia's Sumatra island at least nine people have died and dozens were injured when a slow-moving passenger train hit a parked freight locomotive.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Russian forces pulled back from the center of a town not far from Georgia's capital after Russia's president signed a cease-fire deal. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later suggested there would be no immediate broader withdrawal. Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia had taken over 13 villages in Georgia and a power plant. Russian troops blew up a key railroad bridge linking the Caucasus to the Black Sea coast.
(AP, 8/16/08)(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb exploded as Shiite pilgrims were boarding minibuses in Baghdad, killing at least 3 people, in a third straight day of attacks on travelers heading to a religious ceremony in Karbala. Iraqi police and hospital employees said six people were killed and 11 injured. The US military put the toll at three dead and eight injured.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Mexico gunmen killed 13 people at a family party in the border state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A man used Semtex in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against Northern Ireland police officers, the first attack using the deadly explosive since paramilitary groups agreed to hand in their weapons.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 16, A top ruling party official gave Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf a two-day deadline to quit or face impeachment proceedings.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Rwanda Jozefina Zaninka (75), a woman who lost nearly all her family in the 1994 genocide, was murdered, in the latest of several killings of survivors of the slaughter. Some 167 survivors of the genocide have been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In South Africa a regional summit of southern African leaders opened with Zimbabwe's crisis high on the agenda, and with the country's main political rivals in attendance.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Sri Lanka a series of raging battles across the northern war zone killed 27 Tamil Tiger fighters and seven government troops. Soldiers took control of a rebel training base in Andankulam in the Welioya region after Tamil Tiger fighters fled the area.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In San Mateo, Ca., the final race was held at Bay Meadows after nearly 74 years of horse racing.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 17, Dave Freeman (47), co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die" (1999), a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home in Venice, Ca.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Afghanistan 32 Taliban fighters died during a four-hour battle in Zabul province. 9 private security guards also died in the attack on a NATO convoy. About 7,000 police launched a massive security operation in Kabul as the country prepared to celebrate independence day.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In eastern Algeria rebels linked to al Qaeda had killed eight policemen, three soldiers and a civilian in successive ambushes. 4 Islamist militants were killed in the attack.
(AFP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 17, Two small planes collided in midair and crashed near Coventry in central England, killing five people.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Beijing Michael Phelps won his 8th gold medal as team mate Jason Lezak brought it home for a world record in the 400-meter medley relay.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Iraq Farooq al-Obeidi, deputy head of a group of US-allied Sunni fighters, was killed by a suicide bomber, dressed in a woman’s robe, along with at least 9 other people in the Azamiyah neighborhood of northern Baghdad.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A6)(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 17, Israel's Cabinet approved the release of some 200 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In the southern Philippines Muslim guerrillas killed four soldiers and four militiamen in an ambush of a military convoy.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, The Kremlin promised to start withdrawing combat troops from Georgia on August 18, as Western pressure mounted on Russia to quit the ex-Soviet republic.
(AFP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, Southern African countries launched a regional trade zone at a Johannesburg summit that aims to eliminate import tariffs, with plans for a common currency by 2018. Eleven of the 14 countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will participate in the free trade area, including Zimbabwe. Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi planned to join at a later date due to weak economies.
(AFP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, A Sudanese court sentenced to death a top Darfur rebel and seven others, bringing to 38 the number condemned to hang over an unprecedented attack on Khartoum that killed more than 222 people.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 18, US and Liberian officials said US Peace Corps volunteers will return to Liberia for the first time since civil war broke out in this West African nation nearly two decades ago.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, California’s supreme court barred doctors from denying medical care to gays and lesbians based on religious beliefs.
(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 18, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomb blew up outside Camp Salerno, a US military base in Khost, killing 12 civilian laborers, as the country marked Independence Day. A mine blew up a police vehicle in the province of Nangarhar and killed two policemen. About 100 insurgents ambushed a group of French paratroopers, killing 10 soldiers in an area outside the capital known as a militant stronghold. An Afghan official said insurgents kidnapped four of the soldiers and later killed them. 13 militants were reported killed [see Oct 15, 2009].
(AFP, 8/18/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(Econ, 8/34/08, p.34)
2008 Aug 18, Argentina announced its first nationwide gay-rights measure: granting same-sex couples the right to claim their deceased partners' pensions.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, In southeastern Bangladesh chunks of earth loosened by heavy rains buried several hillside thatched huts, killing five people and injuring seven.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In Britain Philip Thompson (27), a pedophile who acted as a "librarian" for a global Internet child abuse ring, was jailed after one of the biggest undercover police investigations into online abuse.
(Reuters, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, State media reported that Chinese authorities have not approved any of the 77 applications they received from people who wanted to hold protests during the Beijing Olympics.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In northeast China a gas explosion tore through a coal mine, leaving 24 workers trapped.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Equatorial Guinea's exiled opposition leader Severo Moto was released from a Spanish jail four months after he was detained for allegedly trying to send weapons to the oil-rich African nation.
(AFP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In southern Iraq masked gunmen ambushed a bus carrying electoral officials south of Basra, killing two and seriously wounding a third. A suicide bombing killed 7 policemen in Ramadi.
(AP, 8/18/08)(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 18, Tens of thousands of Muslims waving green and black protest flags gathered in Indian Kashmir's main city for a march to UN offices demanding freedom from India and intervention by the world body.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, The river Kosi, a tributary to the Ganges, burst an embankment on the Nepali side of the border with India and flowed into a channel it had abandoned a century earlier. Water flooded into Bihar state and displaced over 3 million people.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.51)
2008 Aug 18, Mexican soldiers rescued 25 Central Americans kidnapped in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. One man was arrested in the raid in Tierra Blanca.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, Mexico’s Cemex SAB rejected Venezuela’s bid for the company’s assets in Venezuela. At midnight oil workers and Venezuelan soldiers occupied Cemex facilities around the country.
(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 18, The leader of Nepal's Maoists, Prachanda, was sworn in as prime minister, finalizing his transformation from warlord to the country's most powerful politician.
(AFP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Niger's Tuareg rebel leader Aghaly ag Alambo said his fighters would lay down their guns and, together with neighboring Mali's Tuareg rebellion, submit to mediation by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced that he will resign, just days ahead of impeachment in parliament over attempts by the US-backed leader to impose authoritarian rule on his turbulent nation.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Peru's government declared a state of emergency in remote jungle regions where Indian groups are blocking highways and oil and gas installations to protest a law that makes it easier to sell their lands.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, In the southern Philippines separatists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked several towns and villages on Mindanao and killed 38 people.
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.A9)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 18, Heads of state and other dignitaries from African countries and Turkey started an economic cooperation summit in Istanbul.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Russia said its military began to withdraw from the conflict zone in Georgia, but left unclear exactly where troops and tanks will operate under the cease-fire that ended days of fighting in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 19, A US federal grand jury handed down a new indictment against Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, charging him with four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with alleged campaign finance violations.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, US scientists said they have devised a way to grow large quantities of blood in the laboratory using human embryonic stem cells.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 19, LeRoi Moore (46), versatile saxophonist, died of complications from injuries he suffered in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His signature staccato fused jazz and funk overtones onto the eclectic sound of the Dave Matthews Band.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, In Afghanistan a team of suicide bombers tried unsuccessfully to storm a US base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. NATO said 3 suicide bombers detonated their vests and 3 more were shot dead and that 7 attackers in total were killed.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, A suicide car bomb attack east of Algiers killed 43 people and wounded 45. The attack targeted a paramilitary gendarmerie training school at Issers. Most of the dead were young men aged between 18 and 20.
(Reuters, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, Aabid Khan (23), a Briton who recruited Islamist extremists online to stage holy war worldwide, including Britain's youngest terrorism convict, was jailed for 12 years. Sultan Muhammad (23), one of his accomplices, received a 10-year term.
(Reuters, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, In Bolivia leaders in 5 opposition controlled states proclaimed a general strike. They sought greater autonomy and a larger share of royalties from local oil and gas.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.A14)
2008 Aug 19, Iraqi troops raided local government offices in the volatile Diyala province, arresting two people, including a university president. They then advanced to the provincial governor's office where exchanged fire with the government forces, prompting a gunfight that killed the governor's secretary, Abbas al-Tamimi, and injured four guards. Iraqi troops detained the son of a prominent Sunni leader during a raid in Baghdad.
(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, The Dutch Navy and a squad of US Coast Guard raiders seized 4.6 tons (4,200 kilograms) of cocaine from a Panamanian-flagged freighter that had set sail from Venezuela. The freighter was boarded on Aug 17 and it took 36 hours of searching to find the drugs.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 19, The 39th annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) opened in Niue. Members at the 2-day forum agreed to threaten Fiji with suspension unless elections are held as scheduled by March 2009.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.34)(www.forumsec.org/event.cfm?cmd=list&sd=200808)
2008 Aug 19, Pakistan's ruling coalition met to discuss a replacement for President Pervez Musharraf. A suicide bomber killed 23 people at a hospital in a northwestern town in the first attack since Musharraf stepped down. 5 soldiers and 13 Taliban militants died in clashes in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
(AFP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, A Palestinian rocket attack on southern Israel violated a truce and led Israel to close its cargo crossings with the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Russian soldiers took 20 Georgian troops prisoner at a key port in western Georgia and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States after taking part in earlier US-Georgian military exercises. Georgia and Russia exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, Armed pirates seized the MT Bunga Melati Dua, a Malaysian palm oil tanker with 39 crew, off the coast of Somalia, the fourth hijacking in a month.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul urged Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, during talks at a summit of African leaders, to act responsibly and to end the suffering in the devastated Darfur region. A suicide bombing wounded 13 policemen outside the southern city of Mersin.
(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Vietnamese authorities freed British glam rocker Paul Gadd, aka Gary Glitter, after nearly three years in prison on child molestation charges, then moved immediately to deport him.
(AP, 8/19/08)(Econ, 8/36/08, p.36)
2008 Aug 19, Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa (b.1948) died in France. He had been hospitalized at a French military hospital since suffering a stroke in June.
(AP, 8/19/08)(SFC, 8/20/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 20, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal to build a US missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. The deal included an American Patriot anti-aircraft and anti-missile battery in Poland.
(AP, 8/20/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 20, In Alabama five men were found killed, execution style in Shelby County. The killings were soon identified as a retaliation hit over drug money with ties to Mexico's notorious Gulf Cartel.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2008 Aug 20, Stephanie Tubbs Jones (b.1949), Ohio’s first black congresswoman, died in Cleveland following a brain hemorrhage. She was first elected in 1998.
(SFC, 8/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 20, Gene Upshaw (b.1945), former NFL Hall of Famer and union leader, died near lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 20, In eastern Afghanistan the US-led coalition killed more than 30 insurgents in a battle whose fighters were said to be responsible for an attack that killed 10 French troops earlier this week. 3 Polish soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the central province of Ghazni. 3 Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/21/08)(Reuters, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 20, In eastern Algeria 2 car bomb attacks killed at least 11 people in Bouira with at least 31 people wounded. This followed a suicide bomber who killed 43 people a day earlier.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Bangladesh prosecutors formally lodged new charges against ex-premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed over her alleged role in a 130-million-dollar defense deal with Russia.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, In Beijing Rohullah Nikpai of Afghanistan won a bronze medal in taekwondo. This was Afghanistan’s first Olympic medal ever.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/news/story?id=3544339)
2008 Aug 20, Hua Guofeng (b.1921), who succeeded Mao Zedong as chairman of China's ruling Communist Party and briefly ruled the country (1976), died in Beijing.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, The Red Cross revised its emergency appeal for Ethiopia to five million euros (7.9 million dollars) as the situation in the drought-hit south of the country got worse.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, International and domestic flights were disrupted across India as thousands of airport employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua named new military chiefs dropping nearly all appointees he inherited from his predecessor. MEND, the most prominent armed group in Nigeria's volatile oil-rich Niger Delta, accused the military of carrying out extra-judicial executions of 22 captured insurgents in the region. The insurgents had been captured the previous day.
(AFP, 8/21/08)(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Pakistan’s security officials said missiles fired from Afghanistan hit a militant hideout in Pakistan's tribal belt, killing at least eight people including some foreign extremists.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Panama’s President Martin Torrijos signed an executive order creating a new intelligence agency and a border police force to combat growing drug crimes. This prompted concerns of a return to its militarized past.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 20, Abdurahman Macapaar (aka Commander Bravo) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Muslim rebel commander behind deadly raids in the southern Philippines, declared an "all-out war" against the government, saying his fighters were willing to die in battle.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Five people were killed as Typhoon Nuri slammed into the northern Philippines, triggering heavy rain and warnings of possible storm surges.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, A top Russian general said 64 of the country's soldiers were killed and 323 wounded in this month's fighting with Georgia. Russia informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, a day after the military alliance urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia. Georgia later reported that 170 of its soldiers were killed in the war.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 20, Serbian publisher BeoBook said it has withdrawn a controversial book by American writer Sherry Jones because of protests from the local Islamic community. The book "Jewel of Medina" is about Aisha, one of the Prophet Muhammad's wives.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, A Spanair MD-82 bound for the Canary Islands caught fire while trying to make an emergency landing just after departing from Madrid airport leaving 153 people dead. This was the nation's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years. The toll rose to 154 on Aug 23 leaving 18 survivors. In 2010 authorities investigating the crash of Spanair flight 5022 discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(Reuters, 8/23/08)(http://tinyurl.com/2azr8zj)
2008 Aug 20, Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB and Swiss chip-maker STMicroelectronics NV unveiled plans to create a 50-50 joint venture that will make a key component known as chipsets for mobile phones.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, In Turkey Sudan's indicted president denied that his regime is orchestrating genocide in the troubled western region of Darfur, and offered hope for an end to the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair elections next year.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 21, David Walker, recently with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), was the subject of the film documentary I.O.U.S.A. The film focused on America’s financial condition and that it is a lot worse than advertised, as the US debt rose to $9.5 trillion. It was produced by Sarah Gibson, Christine O'Malley; directed by Patrick Creadon; written by Patrick Creadon, Christine O'Malley; music by Peter Golub; distributed by Roadside Attractions.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.68)(http://tinyurl.com/4t3r2g)
2008 Aug 21, The US government said it will allow producers of fresh iceberg lettuce and spinach to use irradiation to control food-borne pathogens and extend shelf life.
(SFC, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 21, Forbes magazine reported that Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej (80) is the world's richest royal sovereign with a fortune estimated at 35 billion dollars, and oil-rich Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (60) of Abu Dhabi is far back at No. 2 with 23 billion.
(AFP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Intel showed off a wireless electric power system at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco. Analysts said it could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In the US Virgin Islands a judge imposed a life sentence on Daniel Castillo, convicted of strangling Laquina Hennis, a 12-year-old girl, last year.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Tropical Storm Fay forced the evacuation of more Florida residents as it made landfall for a 3rd time this week.
(WSJ, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 21, British PM Gordon Brown visited Kabul after meeting with British troops in Helmand province. Brown pledged more support for Afghanistan including 120 million dollars towards a development fund that would include paying teachers' salaries and 17 million dollars for a radio station in Helmand. 11 militants reportedly died in a clash in the south. Afghan and international troops clashed with militants in Khas in Uruzgan province, killing 11 militants.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Britain's government confirmed that a contractor lost a memory device containing information on every prison inmate in England and Wales.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Greek police announced the arrest of Vassilis Paleokostas, the country's most wanted man, while tracking down the alleged kidnappers of industrialist Giorgos Mylonas, who was freed in June after his family paid a ransom.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Monsoon rains pummeled northern India, bringing dozens of buildings crashing down and killing 74 people. The deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh state, bringing this monsoon season's death toll to more than 300 people across India.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said they agree that timetables should be set for the withdrawal of US troops. A key part of the US-Iraqi draft agreement envisions the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq's cities by next June 30. The US military released an Iraqi television cameraman for the Reuters news agency and other news organizations without charges after 26 days in detention.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said he will no longer be involved in politics, defying in a surprise announcement long-held expectations he was preparing to succeed his father.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Mexico Pres. Calderon, congressional leaders, all state governors and a bevy of others signed a “National Agreement for Security."
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 21, A Montenegrin court ordered three US citizens and seven other ethnic Albanians back to prison after convicting them of plotting a rebellion to establish an Albanian autonomous region within the Adriatic country.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Pakistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the country’s main defense industry complex in Wah, killing at least 67 people with 102 wounded.
(Reuters, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Russian forces blocked the only land entrance to Georgia's main port city, a day before Russia promised to complete a troop pullout from its ex-Soviet neighbor.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Armed pirates hijacked a Japanese chemical tanker with 19 crew, an Iranian bulk carrier with 29 crew, and a German cargo ship with a crew of 9 off Somalia's coast.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Sri Lanka helicopter gunships attacked a rebel fortification in the northern district of Vavuniya. 21 rebels and two soldiers died in fighting.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, The Outside Lands rock festival opened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to a capacity crowd of some 60,000. Altogether some 150,000 attended the 3-day event.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A1)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.E1)
2008 Aug 22, Florida state officials said 7 people have been killed over the five days that Tropical Storm Fay has been pounding the state with torrential rain and powerful winds.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 22, In North Las Vegas, Nevada, an experimental aircraft crashed into a house killing the pilot of the Velocity 173 RG and 2 people in the home.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 22, US-led troops attacked a compound where Taliban leaders were meeting in western Afghanistan, and reportedly killed 30 militants. An Afghan human rights group said that at least 78 people were killed, including women and children, in the joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Herat province. In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a US coalition service member. An investigation later found that more than 90 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the coalition air strikes in Herat. Officials later said the US-led attack was based on misleading information by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil. On Sep 2 the US-led coalition said that its investigation into the controversial missile strike, thought to have killed 90 civilians, had found that only seven non-combatants died. After video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced, the US said it would send a one-star general to investigate the strike.
(AP, 8/22/08)(AFP, 8/24/08)(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A1)(AFP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Aug 22, Brazil extradited Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia to the United States to face racketeering charges.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Aon Corp., the world's biggest insurance broker, said it has agreed to buy Britain's Benfield Group Ltd. for almost $1.6 billion in cash.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Canadian health officials said 3 people in Ontario have died in a food poisoning outbreak that may be linked to listeria bacteria in sandwich meat from one of the country's largest meat processors.
(Reuters, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Two Beijing grandmothers remained defiant and in good spirits despite being sentenced to one year of reeducation through labor for applying to protest during the Olympics.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Hong Kong issued its highest storm warning in five years as Typhoon Nuri brought hurricane-force winds and heavy rain, halting trade on financial markets and shutting down most of the city.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Supporters of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr said Iraqi troops have raided an al-Sadr stronghold, killing one of his guards and arresting another.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Japanese scientists said they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth, opening another way to study deadly diseases without the ethical controversy of using embryos.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, In Indian Kashmir hundreds of thousands of Muslims marched in Srinagar in the largest protest against Indian rule in over a decade. Police estimated the crowd at 275,000.
(AP, 8/22/08)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 22, Mexican police captured a man believed to be Ruben Rios Estrada, a key gunman for the Arellano-Felix cocaine cartel, at the Caliente racetrack casino in Tijuana after a chase through the city streets. Another suspected gang member also was arrested. The bullet-riddled body of Jesus Blanco Cano (40) was found at a ranch near Villa Ahumada in Chihuahua state. He had just been on the job for one day as police chief of Villa Ahumada.
(AP, 8/23/08)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 22, Peru’s congress voted to repeal two laws facilitating the sale of Indian lands that had generated protests by dozens of tribes in the Amazon rain forest. The laws had been passed by presidential decree in May to promote private investment.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.37)
2008 Aug 22, A Russian armored column moved away from a base in western Georgia and Russian forces also were leaving the key central city of Gori, the day that Russia's president had said a pullback would be complete.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, In Somalia fighting between the Islamic militia and a clan militia killed 10 people in the southern port of Kismayo. Witnesses said a radical Islamic militia controlled most of Somalia's third-largest city after three days of fighting in which some 70 people died.
(AP, 8/22/08)(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 22, Sri Lankan troops captured two strategic towns from Tamil Tigers as they closed in on the rebels' political capital. With the fall of Thunukkai and Uyilankulam, the military was just 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) south of Kilinochchi.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 23, Democrats coalesced around Barack Obama's selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden (b.1942) as his running mate while Republicans quickly seized on the Delaware senator's past criticism of the presidential candidate's inexperience.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Utah a small plane crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Canyonlands Field airport. All 10 aboard, including 9 employees of a Cedar City dermatology company, who traveled to remote areas to provide medical treatments.
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 23, Dr. Thomas Weller (b.1915) co-winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Medicine, died in Massachusetts. He shared the Nobel Prize with 2 co-workers for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1954/)(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.56)
2008 Aug 23, Azizabad villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers who tried to give them food and clothes. The soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically wounded. This was the village in Herat province where the day before a US-Afghan operation took place leaving many civilians dead.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Public health officials in Canada said they have linked a deadly bacterial outbreak to recalled meat products from Maple Leaf Foods. At least 12 people died out of 26 confirmed cases of food poisoning.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Beijing Angel Matos, a Cuban taekwondo athlete, and his coach Leudis Gonzalez were banned for life after Matos kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The US military released Ahmed Nouri Raziak (38), a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, without charges after detaining him for nearly three months. Gunmen in Basra killed Haider al-Saymari (38), a Shiite cleric and outspoken critic of sectarian militias, in an ambush on a car that also carried his wife, mother and sister, who were not harmed.
(AP, 8/23/08)(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Italy a gang of men badly beat a Dutch couple and raped the woman while they camped in an isolated field outside Rome during a cycling tour of Europe. The attackers also stole some US$2,200. Two Romanian men were soon arrested.
(AP, 8/23/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 23, Environmental experts said Nigeria and South Africa are the main emitters of greenhouse gases in Africa, accounting for almost 90 percent of the emissions in the continent.
(AFP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Pakistani troops pounded Islamic militants in the volatile northwest, killing 37 in retaliation for suicide attacks that have put pressure on the new government to counter a growing extremist threat. 2 soldiers were killed. A civilian and her four children were killed when security forces fired a mortar that accidentally hit a home in Khar, near the Afghan border. A car packed with explosives rammed into a police station in Swat, a former tourist destination, killing six officers and injuring several others. A roadside bomb in the nearby village of Bari Kot killed one civilian and injured four.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians. Israel said it would permit the boats to dock in Gaza after determining the activists did not pose a security threat. The group delivered a symbolic shipment of hearing aids and balloons.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The Philippine government said at least 48 soldiers and civilians and scores of Muslim rebels have been killed in the southern Philippines in a week of fighting triggered by the collapse of a peace deal. Muslim rebels urged the Philippine government to halt a military offensive they say threatens a years-long peace process and escalates violence in the archipelago's troubled south.
(Reuters, 8/23/08)(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, A top Russian general said his country's forces will keep patrolling the key Georgian Black Sea port of Poti even though it lies outside the areas where Russia claims it has the right to station soldiers in Georgia.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Pirates fired on a Japanese-operated cargo ship off Somalia and attempted to board the vessel but failed to seize it.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Somalia 2 Western reporters were kidnapped near Mogadishu. The next day the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) named them as Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian reporter based in Baghdad but freelancing for French television and Canada's Global National News, and Nigel Brennan, a freelance Australian photojournalist. Both were released after 15 months and arrived in Kenya on Nov 25, 2009. Brennan’s family mortgaged their house to raise his ransom.
(Reuters, 8/24/08)(AP, 11/26/09)(Econ, 3/16/13, p.61)
2008 Aug 23, Sri Lanka staged local elections under tight security as troops pushed deeper into Tamil Tiger territory, closing in on the rebel capital in the war-ravaged north. The defense ministry said a total of 28 rebels and two soldiers were killed in clashes over the last 24 hours across the island's north.
(AFP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, left Paris on a flight bound for New Delhi after concluding a 12-day visit that fuelled tensions between Paris and Beijing.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, A Tunisian court convicted 13 Islamic militants on charges linked to plots to carry out attacks in the north African country. 6 more were convicted on Aug 26 for establishing a military camp in Tunisia's northeastern Kef region designed to train fighters to be sent to Iraq.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 24, The US Democratic national convention’s credentials committee ruled to give full voting rights to delegates from Michigan and Florida, despite their defying party rules and holding their primaries early.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 24, In New Mexico 8 inmates escaped from a county jail in Clovis. 3 were captured the next day and 5 remained at large.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, Taliban militants attacked a patrol of US-led coalition troops in northern Afghanistan, while insurgents came under fire by NATO aircraft after attacking an Afghan army outpost in the south. At least 10 militants were killed in the fighting. In eastern Kunar province, a civilian Mi-8 supply helicopter contracted by NATO-led troops crashed shortly after takeoff, killing one person on board and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, Algerian security forces killed 10 Islamist rebels in a security operation southwest of the capital.
(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Bolivia a truck plunged off a cliff high in the Andes killing 21 people with 53 left injured.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, In London some 40,000 people, including record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps, gathered to celebrate 2012 host London taking over from Beijing as the Olympic city.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The Beijing Olympics, played out against a background of political intrigue and featuring 16 days of compelling and controversial action, drew to a spectacular close. China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The US won 36 gold medals and Russia came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold. Cuba took home 24 medals, but only 2 gold.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 24, Kenya took home 14 medals from the Beijing Olympics, 5 of them gold.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.55)
2008 Aug 24, A wall of snow in the Mont Blanc range of the French Alps buried 3 Swiss and 5 Austrian climbers.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Guatemala a Cessna Caravan carrying humanitarian workers crashed about 60 miles east of Guatemala City killing 10 people, including five Americans. At least 2 people survived. The plane was headed to a village in the area of El Estor to build homes for CHOICE Humanitarian, a group based in West Jordan, Utah.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, The USS McFaul, a US Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid, anchored at the Georgian port of Batumi, sending a strong signal of support to an embattled ally as Russian forces built up around two separatist regions. In central Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine and blamed the explosion on departing Russian forces.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India about 40,000 protesters surrounded the Tata Motors factory slated to produce the Nano, the world's cheapest car, alleging land for the site was forcibly taken from local farmers. A day earlier Ratan Tata, whose Tata Motors is India's top vehicle-maker, warned he would move the plant out of the state if the demonstrations kept up, although his company has already invested 350 million dollars in the project.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a hard-line Hindu leader, was killed in the eastern state of Orissa. His death triggered violence between Hindus and Christians that left dozens dead. Right-wing Hindu groups blamed Christians for killing, but a month later Maoist rebels say they had murdered the Hindu leader.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Aug 24, Iran's official news agency said the country has begun designing its second light-water nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Baghdad, back-to-back roadside bombs targeting a police patrol killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded 20, including six police officers. A bomb in a pile of hay killed 3 farmers southeast of Baghdad. Three separate attacks in Diyala province killed 9 people. A suicide bomber struck west of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people. Raina, a teenage Iraqi girl (b.1993) wearing a vest packed with explosives, was captured on video as she turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in Baquba. The US military announced the arrest of Salim Abdallah Ashur Shujayri (aka Abu Uthman), a Baghdad leader of al-Qaida in Iraq believed to have planned the 2006 abduction of US journalist Jill Carroll.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A8)(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kashmir soldiers and police fired at Muslim protesters demanding an end to Indian rule killing one person, as authorities arrested top separatist leaders in a bid to quash unrest that has left at least 37 people dead since June.
(AP, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kyrgyzstan a Boeing 737 passenger jet carrying 90 people to Iran crashed near Bishkek’s Manas Int’l. Airport. At least 65 people were killed.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Niger dozens of land mines accidentally exploded during a ceremony in which a group of former rebels were handing over arms, killing one person and wounding about 40 including the regional governor.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The "Benue", a Nigerian ship with eight crew members, was hijacked. It was owned by service and repair firm West African Offshore Ltd (WAO).
(AFP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, Pakistan rejected a ceasefire offered by Taliban militants in the tribal belt near the Afghan border as troops in the last 24 hours killed seven rebel fighters. Officials said that Taliban militants in the area had slit the throat of a 35-year-old man after accusing him of spying for US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Somalia the Shabab, the former military wing of the Islamic courts, and local clan factions took control of the southern port of Kismayo. Muktar Robow, a Shabab commander, wanted to merge with al-Qaeda.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.56)
2008 Aug 24, In Sri Lanka soldiers reportedly killed 12 Tamil separatists in fighting along the front lines dividing government territory from the rebels de facto state.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, The US Democratic Convention opened in the Pepsi Center of Denver, Colorado, where Sen. Edward Kennedy passed the party’s crown to Barack Obama.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 25, US immigration agents uncovered some 350 suspected undocumented workers in a raid on the Howard Industries electrical equipment plant in Laurel, Mississippi.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 25, The Afghan cabinet demanded the renegotiation of agreements regulating the presence of the international community in Afghanistan after more than 90 civilians were killed in US-led air strikes.
(AFP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, The Danish central bank said it has taken over Roskilde Bank, the nation's 10th largest bank. The 124-year-old institution had been struggling amid global financial turmoil and mounting losses on mortgage loans as housing prices fell in Denmark.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Honduran Pres. Manuel Zelaya signed adherence to the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a trade alliance created in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba as a regional alternative to trade agreements with the US.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 25, In India authorities struggled to get aid to more than 1 million people stranded by floods in northern Bihar state. A Bihar official described the situation as a catastrophe. Bunty (whose real name was Om Prakash), the notorious gang leader who terrorized New Delhi from astride a motorcycle, died in a pre-dawn shootout with police. A Roman Catholic nun was raped by a Hindu mob in Orissa state. On Oct 24 she said that she will not cooperate with local police, alleging that they stood by idly during the attack. In Jan, 2009, police charged 10 men with gang raping the Catholic nun.
(AP, 8/25/08)(AP, 8/26/08)(AP, 10/24/08)(AP, 1/29/09)
2008 Aug 25, Iranian state TV said the country has launched production of a domestically built submarine capable of firing missiles and torpedoes. Two other submarines, which began production in 2005, have been delivered to Iran's navy.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Israel freed nearly 200 jailed Palestinians, including a militant mastermind from the 1970s, in a goodwill gesture just hours before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to begin her latest peace mission to the region.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Former PM Nawaz Sharif said he is withdrawing his party from Pakistan's ruling coalition because it has failed to restore judges ousted by ex-President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan banned the Taliban, toughening its stance after the Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for deadly suicide bombings against one of its most sensitive military installations. 8 people were killed in a pre-dawn rocket-and-bomb strike on the home of provincial lawmaker Waqar Ahmed Khan in Swat. A Geneva prosecutor dropped money laundering charges against Asif Ali Zardari, head of the Pakistan People’s Party.
(AP, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A15)
2008 Aug 25, A 41-year-old Lockheed Martin C-130 military cargo plane crashed in the waters off the southern Philippines. Two Philippine Air Force pilots and 7 crewmen were feared dead.
(AFP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 25, In Puerto Rico US federal agents arrested 59 alleged members of a drug trafficking ring in coordinated raids in a number of small towns, where some housing projects were under siege by gangsters. Home to nearly 4 million people, Puerto Rico’s homicide rate was more than three times the US national average. Authorities said drug trafficking was behind the majority of the killings.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Russia's parliament voted unanimously to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ex-Soviet Moldova against repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back control of Transdniestria, a pro-Moscow breakaway region.
(AP, 8/25/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, In northern Sri Lanka a series of gunbattles between government forces and the Tamil Tigers killed 15 rebels and seven soldiers.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 25, Deadly clashes broke out when Sudanese security forces thrust into Kalma, one of the largest camps for displaced people in South Darfur, leaving at least 33 and as many as 70 people dead.
(AFP, 8/25/08)(AP, 8/26/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 25, Zimbabwe's opposition won the vote for speaker of the first parliament since disputed elections in March, claiming votes even from the ruling party of autocratic President Robert Mugabe amid stalled talks over sharing power.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 26, The Pentagon said two men were cleared for release to Algeria from Guantanamo, Cuba, where about 260 detainees remained.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In the 2nd day of the Democratic Convention in Denver Sen. Hillary Clinton endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the US presidential nomination.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a measure for a statewide bullet train system to be placed on the November ballot.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he expected raids on medical pot clubs that sell for big profits in the Bay Area. He had recently issued guidelines on sales of medical marijuana and state officials over the weekend raided a club in Los Angeles County.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 26, An Ohio jury convicted Andrew Siemaszko, a former nuclear plant engineer, of hiding information in 2001 about reactor corrosion at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie. Siemaszko’s attorney’s said the plant’s owner set him up as a scapegoat because he spoke out about safety concerns.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, A UN team in Herat, Afghanistan, said it found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in US-led air strikes last week. Aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 78 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others. Kazuya Ito (31), a Japanese aid worker, was kidnapped at gunpoint with his driver near Jalalabad. Ito was found killed the next day. A group of Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint in Nad Ali district of Helmand province, sparking a clash that killed 18 militants. An air strike killed 30 Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan close to the border with Pakistan.
(AP, 8/26/08)(AP, 8/27/08)(Reuters, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Brazil asked the WTO for the right to impose $4 billion in annual sanctions against US goods and services to penalize the US for handing out illegal cotton subsidies.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 26, In Brazil Olavo Egydio Setubal (b.1923), industrialist and former mayor of Sao Paulo, died. His industrial and financial empire, which grew up from a metal shop, included Banco Itau Holding Financiera SA, Brazil’s 2nd largest bank.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29439734)(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 26, In southwest China explosions ripped through a chemical plant, killing at least 11 people, injuring dozens and forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Dubai a fire in a building packed with foreign laborers killed 11 people. 10 of the victims were Indian.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Hurricane Gustav hit Haiti and triggered flooding and landslides that killed 15 people before weakening to a tropical storm.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 26, In India Christians clashed with Hindu mobs who attacked churches, and eight people died in the violence in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, a region known for deadly religious fighting.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Andhra Chiranjeevi (53), Indian film star, launched his People’s Rule Party (Prajarajyam) in southern Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.43)
2008 Aug 26, In Iraq a suicide bomber attacked police recruits in Jalula in Diyala province killing 28 people and wounding 25. A bomb planted in a parked car killed 5 people and wounded 8, including three policemen, in the city of Tikrit.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 26, Israel ordered the Gaza Strip's border crossings closed after militants violated a cease-fire by launching two rockets the previous evening, bringing to 46 the number of rockets launched by militants since the truce began.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim won a "landslide" victory in a by-election to return him to parliament, and said he was on track to oust a weakened government. The Malays National Organization (UMNO) and its allies had ruled since independence in 1957.
(AFP, 8/26/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.39)
2008 Aug 26, A Maltese fishing trawler rescued the migrants. Authorities said the survivors first told the fishermen that 10 people were missing, but later said as many as 70 people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan made the sea voyage with them.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Mexico 3 decapitated bodies were found in an empty lot on the eastern outskirts of Tijuana. The bodies had messages written on their backs in permanent marker saying they worked for "the weakened 'engineer,'" a nickname for Francisco Sanchez Arellano, a top lieutenant in Tijuana's powerful Arellano Felix drug cartel. A day earlier 2 bodies were found in Tijuana, one with the head placed on the upper back.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 26, North Korea said it has suspended work on disabling its nuclear facilities as of August 14 and is considering restoration of the Yongbyon reactor that can make material for atomic bombs, accusing the US of violating a disarmament deal by failing to delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Pakistan an explosion on the outskirts of Islamabad killed at least seven people and wounded 20. Around midnight 75-100 militants attacked the Tiarza Fort in South Waziristan. The attack was repulsed with 11 militants killed.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 26, Russia formally recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian territories at the heart of its war with Georgia, heightening tensions with the West as the US dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a port city still patrolled by Russian troops. In a direct challenge to Russia, the US announced it intends to deliver humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Georgian port city of Poti, which Russian troops still control through checkpoints on the city's outskirts.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Sri Lanka ground battles in the northern regions of Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Welioya killed 27 rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Thailand thousands of anti-government demonstrators pushed into the Thai prime minister's office compound and rallied outside several ministries. A violent masked mob from the same protest group forced a state-run TV station off the air.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, Zimbabwe's opposition heckled Robert Mugabe in an unprecedented show of defiance when the president opened parliament with traditional pomp and his familiar denunciations of the West.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Colorado Democrats officially made Barack Obama their presidential nominee and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., their vice presidential nominee, following speeches by former Pres. Bill Clinton and Sen John Kerry, the Democrat’s 2004 presidential candidate. Obama made a surprise late visit to the convention, following Biden’s acceptance speech, to praise his wife, his former rival, and former President Bill Clinton for going to bat for him.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Honolulu Marcus Eriksen and fellow eco-mariner Joel Paschal celebrated the end of their 2,600-mile voyage on what they call the JUNK raft. They had spent three months crossing the Pacific on a raft made of plastic bottles to raise awareness of ocean debris. Research suggested that every square kilometer of the ocean has an average of 13,000 pieces of plastic floating in it. The floating portion was thought to make up only 15% of marine litter.
(AP, 8/28/08)(Econ, 2/28/09, SR p.9)
2008 Aug 27, US scientists said they have transformed ordinary pancreas cells in living mice into a rarer type of cell that churns out insulin opening possibilities for future treatment of disease.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.D3)
2008 Aug 27, In Afghanistan a German soldier was killed and another three injured in a roadside bomb attack in Kunduz province. Germany counted some 3,300 soldiers as part of the international force in Afghanistan. US-led coalition troops clashed and called in airstrikes against militants in Kunduz province, killing more than a dozen insurgents. In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a US coalition soldier on a patrol. In the Nad Ali area of Helmand province, a fight between police and militants killed 14 insurgents. More than a dozen militants were killed after they attacked a coalition base in Shaheed Hasas district of the southern Uruzgan province. Two Afghan guards also died during the attack. About a dozen militants were killed during a raid by coalition troops in eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 27, The first outbreak of violence in China's western region of Xinjiang since a pair of high-profile attacks during the Olympics left 2 Chinese policemen dead and 7 more wounded. In north China 9 miners in Hebei province became trapped underground after the illegal mine they worked in collapsed. Police were only informed 2 days later. All 9 were feared dead.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 27, China and Iraq signed a $3 billion deal revising a prewar agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field. On Sep 2 Iraq’s Cabinet approved the deal with China National Petroleum Corp.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Aug 27, The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized democracies condemned Russia for its actions in Georgia, underlining the country's growing estrangement from the West.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, A US military ship docked at the southern Georgian port of Batumi. Meanwhile, Russia's missile cruiser, the Aurora, and two missile boats, anchored at the port of Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia. The moves by both sides underscored an escalating standoff between Moscow and the West over this small Caucasus nation devastated by war with Russia.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Indian police were ordered to shoot on sight to end Hindu-Christian clashes. Parts of eastern Orissa state have been rocked by Hindu-Christian clashes since Aug 23, when a hardline Hindu holy leader and four other people were shot dead by unknown assailants.
(AFP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, American forces arrested Ali al-Lami, a top Iraqi Shiite government official, as he stepped off a plane at Baghdad's airport. The US said the man arrested was a leader of Iranian-backed militias and was behind a bombing that killed 10 people on June 24, including four Americans. An American soldier died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing a day earlier in northeast Baghdad.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Indian-administered Kashmir police traded fire with militants allegedly holding 8 people hostage, including 6 children, in a building in Jammu. 3 soldiers and 3 civilians died in the violence. The militants had illegally crossed into Indian Kashmir from Pakistan a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, Abie Nathan (81), the peace activist who made a dramatic solo flight to Egypt in a rattletrap single-engine plane (1966) and later founded the groundbreaking "Voice of Peace" radio station, died in Tel Aviv.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep a peacekeeping force in Lebanon for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Mexico a 38-year-old man from Oregon was arrested in San Jose del Cabo following a fight at an apartment complex. He died in jail hours later. On Aug 31 six Mexican officers placed under house arrest on suspicion of homicide.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Pakistan security forces clashed with militants across the wild tribal belt, trading fire with insurgents in a health center and repelling a major assault on an outpost in a region known as an al-Qaida safe haven. Officials claimed as many as 49 insurgents died as the fighting spread to South Waziristan.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 27, In Spain tens of thousands of people from around the world hurled tons of ripe tomatoes at each other in the annual food fight in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Thailand issued arrest warrants for protest leaders besieging the main government complex, as authorities scrambled to find a peaceful end to the administration's most serious challenge yet.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Zimbabwe's opposition said it will not join any new government with President Robert Mugabe until power-sharing talks are concluded, after the 84-year-old declared he would name his own cabinet.
(AFP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Denver Sen. Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention and accepted the nomination for president of the US.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, The US-backed coalition said a four-day battle that began with an ambush on a joint US-Afghan patrol in southern Afghanistan has killed more than 100 militants. A dozen militants were killed in a gunbattle with coalition forces in Paktika province.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, An Argentine court convicted two former generals for the murder of a senator during the country's seven-year military dictatorship and sentenced them to life in prison. Retired Gens. Antonio Bussi and Luciano Menendez were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Sen. Guillermo Vargas Aignasse, who disappeared March 24, 1976, the day of a military coup.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Brazilian authorities said more than 200 oil-slicked penguins had washed up dead over the last 4 days on the beaches of Florianopolis, a popular Brazilian island resort, and that they are searching for a cause.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Grant Wilkinson (34) was jailed for life for running Britain’s biggest-ever gun factory which converted dozens of replica submachine guns into deadly weapons used in nine gangland murders. He legally bought 90 replica Mac-10s in 2004, saying they were for use on the set of the James Bond film "Casino Royale" and paying 55,000 pounds in cash.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, State media reported that Chinese government auditors have uncovered the misuse of millions of dollars in disaster assistance as part of an embezzlement probe spanning 10 central government departments.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Government forces fought Tutsi rebels in the fiercest clashes for months in eastern Congo, threatening a struggling peace process.
(Reuters, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, It was reported that Cuba had notified at least 2 foreign governments that it could not meet debt payments.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 28, In Greenland local police said dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast in what could be a case of poaching. A scientific expedition from New Zealand discovered the carcasses as they sailed along the coastline about two weeks ago.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, In India Hindu mobs ransacked a church and clashed with Christian villagers in eastern Orissa state. Hindu mobs had already destroyed over a dozen churches following the murder of a Hindu leader in Kahdhamal.
(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 28, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr released a statement saying his largely disbanded Mahdi Army militia would extend its cease-fire "until further notice." An American soldier died of wounds he received after coming under fire while patrolling northern Baghdad a day earlier.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Indian Kashmir Government forces ended a hostage crisis in the mainly Hindu city of Jammu when they killed the last of three rebels believed to have seized eight people. 2 hostages died in the gunbattle.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Iran’s Junior trade minister Mohammadali Zeyghami said Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology with Nigeria to help the energy-starved west African powerhouse boost electricity generation.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Tropical Storm Gustav bore down on Jamaica after leaving 67 people dead on Hispaniola, including 59 in Haiti and 8 in the Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 8/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 28, In Lebanon attackers opened fire on a military helicopter, killing a Lebanese army officer and forcing the craft to make an emergency landing. The next day Hezbollah handed over a man suspected of firing on the helicopter.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Libya announced an amnesty for more than 3,000 prisoners, including Europeans and Africans, to mark the 39th anniversary of Moamer Kadhafi's rule.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Mexico's Supreme Court upheld the capital's abortion law, setting a precedent for the rest of the country that could inspire other Latin American cities. Twelve decapitated bodies bearing signs of torture were found in eastern Mexico and authorities were still looking for the heads. 11 of the bodies were found in a suburb of Merida, a 12th in Buctzotz, 70 km to the northeast.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Nigeria Rashid Ladoja, ex-governor of Oyo state (2000-2007), was arrested for embezzling some 16 million dollars (11 million euros).
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, A bomb near the city of Bannu blew a bus carrying Pakistani police and government workers off a high bridge, killing at least 11, as fighting between security forces and extremists flared across the country's northwest.
(AP, 8/28/08)(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 28, A Russian military spokesman said Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile, designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defense systems, from its Plesetsk launch site. The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russian forces turned over 12 Georgian soldiers on the border of Abkhazia. Georgia's foreign minister said ethnic Georgians were being cleared from their homes in South Ossetia. A joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization denounced the use of force and called for respect for every country's territorial integrity. Mikhail Mindzayev, the interior minister of South Ossetia, said an unmanned Georgian spy plane was shot down over South Ossetia by local forces.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin said 19 US poultry producers will be barred from exporting their products to Russia. He said the unnamed American producers had ignored warnings from Russian inspectors who examined poultry companies last year and that another 29 producers would receive warnings.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, John McCain, on his 72nd birthday, tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (44) to be his vice presidential running mate.
(AP, 8/29/08)(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, US banking regulators shut down Integrity Bancshares Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., and sold all deposits to Regions Financial Corp. of Birmingham, Ala. This marked the 10th US bank to fail this year.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 29, In SF the 4-day Slow Food Nation opened at the Civic Center Plaza and continued at Fort Mason, where tickets to the Taste Pavilion sold for $65. The Slow Food movement had begun in Italy in 1986.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.A1)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 29, In Oklahoma a train slammed into a propane tanker truck triggering an explosion that killed 2 people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, Tropical Storm Gustav drenched Jamaica, killing at least 4 people, and rolled over the Cayman Islands with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines, setting off alarm from Cuba to New Orleans, and at gas pumps across the US.
(AP, 8/29/08)(AP, 8/30/08)(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 29, A Georgian Foreign Ministry official says Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in Georgia.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, Chinese police investigating a spate of attacks this month in western Xinjiang province shot dead six suspects and arrested three others near Kashgar.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, French neurosurgeons said they had successfully treated brain tumors through ultra-keyhole surgery, using a tiny fiber-optic laser to destroy cancerous cells.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, In India Tata Motors suspended work on its new plant in Mumbai, West Bengal, due to ongoing demonstrations in support of local farmers who say they were forced off their land to make way for the plant.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 29, A gunmen killed a member of a local US-allied Sunni group and his family in the village of Withah, Diyala province. His father, mother and an infant were also killed in the attack, which was in coordination with an assault on a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint that wounded one Iraqi soldier.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, Central Japan was hit by heavy rains and flooding forcing the evacuation of over a million people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, Fighter jets bombed Taliban hide-outs in Pakistan's Swat Valley while troops pushed into militant territory on the ground, killing at least 40 insurgents in a 24-hour siege.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, The San Juan Star, Puerto Rico's Pulitzer Prize-winning English-language newspaper, closed. The owner blamed the union for not agreeing to benefit cuts and layoffs to offset declining revenue.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, Pirates, believed to be Somali, hijacked the Malaysian MT Bunga Melati 5 tanker and its 41 crew members off Yemen's coast in the Gulf of Aden. It was the second tanker owned by MISC Berhard to be hijacked in the gulf in the last 10 days.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, In Sri Lanka renewed fighting in the embattled north killed 18 rebels and 5 soldiers.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, In Zimbabwe power-sharing talks over a unity government resumed as Mugabe's government made good on a promise to allow aid agencies to resume operations. Mugabe announced cash awards for Zimbabwe’s Olympic winners. He called Kirsty Coventry, who won three silvers and a gold at the Beijing games, Zimbabwe's "golden girl" and gave her $100,000.
(AP, 8/29/08)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In Black Rock City, Nevada, the 40-foot Burning Man was set aflame. This year’s festival, themed the American Dream, was marked by a 10-story steel frame tower built by union workers of recycled materials. The annual guidebook reached 77 pages.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 30, Raymond L. Danner, American restaurateur, died at his home in Nashville, Tenn. In 1959 he had acquired his first Shoney’s franchise from founder Alex Schoenbaum. By his retirement in 1987 he had built Shoney’s Inc. into 1,600 restaurant outlet.
(WSJ, 9/13/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 30, Brazilian officials said Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months, the first such increase in three years, as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, Gustav swelled to a fearsome Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph (195 kph) as it shrieked toward the heartland of Cuba's cigar industry on a track to hit the US Gulf Coast, three years after Hurricane Katrina. 78 people were already left dead in the Caribbean.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, China’s tallest building, the 101-story, 1,614-foot Shanghai World Financial Center, opened 14 years after Minoru Mori, its Japanese developer, began the $1.13 billion project. The family owned Mori Building Co. owned 70% of the project.
(SFC, 8/29/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 30, A 6.1 earthquake hit southwest China's Sichuan province, killing least 36 people and turning tens of thousands of homes into rubble and cracked reservoirs.
(Reuters, 8/30/08)(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 30, Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing more than 2,500 people to leave the Hamas-controlled territory and about 1,000 to enter in a goodwill gesture before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan begins.
(AP, 8/30/08)(Reuters, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, The UN says Russian soldiers are telling thousands of refugees in Georgia who want to return to their homes that their security can't be guaranteed. All hoped to return to villages that are in the "security zones" that Russia has claimed for itself. Russian PM Vladimir Putin urged the EU to ignore calls to punish Moscow over the Georgia conflict as Tbilisi appealed for targeted punishment of the Russian leadership.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In India, officials said more than 300,000 people, trapped in India's worst floods in 50 years, have been rescued but that nearly double that number remained stranded without food or water. In eastern India 12 policemen were killed in a landmine blast triggered by suspected Maoist rebels.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, The US military said more than 11,000 Iraqis have been released from American detention centers this year, leaving some 19,700 still in custody.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi met in Libya to sign a "friendship pact." Italy agreed to pay Libya US$5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943. A provision stated that the parties commit themselves "not to resort to threatening or using violence."
(Reuters, 8/30/08)(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 2/27/11)
2008 Aug 30, Hundreds of thousands of frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones, marched across the country to demand government action against a relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts. Hours before the protests, the severed heads of two women were found near the attorney general's offices in the city of Durango.
(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 30, Gilberto Rincon Gallardo (69), a former socialist presidential candidate who gained respect in Mexico for defending the rights of the disabled, gays and other marginalized groups, died in Mexico City.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, Nigeria's main militant group claimed that it killed at least 29 military personnel in three separate attacks across the restive southern oil region. The group reported that six of its own fighters were also killed in the clashes.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In Pakistan a blast ripped through a home in Wana, a main town in the South Waziristan tribal region, killing at least five militants.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, A bomb blast blamed on separatist Tamil Tigers wounded 45 people in Colombo. A clash killed three soldiers and a rebel in Anuradhapura district. Rebels said that a shell fired by government forces hit a shelter for civilians displaced by fighting in Kilinochchi, killing five people and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, Thai PM Samak Sundaravej vowed not to quit in the face of intensifying protests aimed at toppling his seven-month-old government.
(Reuters, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 31, John McCain, GOP presidential nominee, directed party officials to drastically scale back plans for their convention, set to begin Sep 1 in St. Paul, Minn., and refocus efforts on helping potential victims of Hurricane Gustav.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 31, Estimates from distributor Warner Brothers said "The Dark Knight" had become the second movie in Hollywood history to top $500 million at the domestic box office, raising its total to $502.4 million. "Titanic," the biggest modern blockbuster, remained No. 1 on the domestic charts with $600.8 million.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, SF closed vehicle traffic to 4.5 miles of its waterfront streets for the city’s first Sunday Streets day encouraging thousands to come out for the 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. event.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 31, Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Allianz, a Germany-based insurer, sold Dresdner, a German bank, to Commerzbank for $14.2 billion.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.88)
2008 Aug 31, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon promised to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, Pakistan said it will suspend its military operations against insurgents in a tribal region along the Afghan border in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Pakistani Taliban said they will continue attacks during Ramadan. A missile fired from an unmanned aircraft hit a house in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing six people including a woman and a young girl.
(AP, 8/31/08)(Reuters, 8/31/08)(AFP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel's idea of an interim peace agreement at a summit, insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo said Paraguay will reverse its historic support for Taiwan (since 1957) at the upcoming UN General Assembly, and also is reconsidering its relations with communist regimes. In return for Paraguay's 51 years of support, Taiwan has sent millions of dollars to the impoverished country for low-income housing, agricultural development and scholarships.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will follow the recognition of Georgia's breakaway provinces with agreements on economic and military aid.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Police arrested Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru web site, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province. Police whisked Yevloyev away in a car and later dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head. Yevloyev died in a hospital shortly afterward.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, In South Africa strong winds fanned runaway fires across the country killing at least 16 people, including two children.
(AFP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said troops killed 12 rebels in the north, while three soldiers also died in combat.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Thailand's Parliament convened an emergency session at the request of the country's prime minister, who acknowledged that his administration cannot control spiraling anti-government protests.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Venezuela rejected US requests to resume cooperation in the war on drugs, saying it has made progress despite an alleged fourfold-gain in the amount of Colombian cocaine now passing through its territory.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Zimbabwe's rival parties returned home from talks in South Africa with no sign of a power-sharing deal to resolve the country's bitter political crisis.
(AFP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug, In San Francisco Andre Helton and Isiah Turner were found shot to death in a parked car near the Univ. of San Francisco.
(SFC, 6/11/18, p.D1)
2008 Aug, The population of North Carolina stood at nearly 9 million people, up from 8 million in 2000.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.31)
2008 Aug, Utah began a trial 4-day work week for about 17,000 of the state's 24,000 executive-branch employees. Closing state offices on Fridays was supposed to cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions. The program led to an increase in volunteer activities. In Sep, 2011, the 4-day week program ended after less money was saved than hoped and complaints from residents about not having access to services on Fridays.
(AP, 7/11/09)(http://tinyurl.com/3ks2a9b)
2008 Aug, Samantha Orobator (20), a British citizen, was arrested in Laos and charged with trying to smuggle 1.5 pounds (680 grams) of heroin in her luggage. In 2009 a government spokesman said she will not face the death penalty because the law bans executing expectant convicts.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2008 Aug, Cambodia leased agricultural land to Kuwaiti investors following mutual prime ministerial visits.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Latvia stood at 17%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.53)
2008 Aug, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly suffered a stroke.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Pakistan was running at an annual rate of 25%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.46)
2008 Aug, Puerto Rico passed an animal protection law, nearly a year after authorities charged the owner and two employees of a private animal control company with taking away dozens of pet dogs and some cats from public housing projects and throwing them off a bridge.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2008 Aug, In Puerto Rico FBI agents and police officers launched the late-night raid in the city of Carolina to free a Dominican man. Police say kidnappers were holding him in the trunk of a car and demanding $650,000 in ransom. A Puerto Rican policeman was killed by “friendly fire" during the gunbattle with kidnappers. In 2009 authorities charged FBI agent Jared Hewitt with negligent homicide for shooting 12-year police veteran Orlando Gonzalez Ortiz.
(AP, 8/7/09)
2008 Aug, In South Africa Sydney Maree (52), former US track star, was convicted and sentenced earlier this month in Pretoria to 10 years, five of them suspended, for stealing about 1 million rand from a government agency he headed in 2003.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Sri Lanka reached an annual rate close to 30%. The 25-year average annual inflation rate was 12%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.44)
2008 Aug, St. Vincent and Iran established ties after PM Gonsalves visited Iran for a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, an organization of 120 developing nations. St. Vincent later announced that it would receive US$7 million in aid from Iran. A portion of that will go toward construction of a US$200 million international airport.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Aug, The Baganda people of Uganda numbered about 5 million of the country’s 31 million people.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.57)
2008 Aug, In Vietnam several people were arrested after they knocked down a section of the wall surrounding a parcel of land once owned by Thai Ha Church and set up an altar and a statue of the Virgin Mary. 7 of the defendants received suspended sentences ranging from 12 to 15 months, and another received a warning. They all got two years of probation.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2008 Sep 1, The GOP convention opened at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in an abbreviated session due to Hurricane Gustav. Alaska’s Gov. Palin, GOP candidate for the vice-presidency, disclosed that her daughter, Bristol (17), is 5 months pregnant. Over 250 demonstrators were arrested as splinter groups smashed department store and police car windows. On March 11, 2009, Levi Johnson (19) announced he and Bristol Palin had decided to end their relationship.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.A1,5)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A4)(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A6)
2008 Sep 1, Hurricane Gustav smashed into the Gulf coast as a Category 2 storm with 110-mph winds just southwest of New Orleans, where levees held as waves splashed over. Some 750,000 people were left without power in Louisiana. It was later estimated that the storm caused at least $372 in damage to crops.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.A1)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.36)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.34)
2008 Sep 1, Roz Savage arrived in Waikiki, Ha., after rowing 99 days from SF, Ca. The English-born woman hoped to become the first woman to row alone across the Pacific Ocean with the goal of raising awareness of the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 1, In Fairfield, Ca., councilman Matt Garcia (21) was critically wounded outside a friend’s house. He was declared brain dead the next day. There were no suspects and police had no idea why he was shot. Garcia was taken off life support on Sep 5. On Sep 13 police announced the arrest of 2 suspects. On Sep 16 murder charges were filed against Henry Don Williams (32), who remained at large. On Sep 18 murder charges were filed against Gene Allen Combs (45). Police released Nicole Stewart (33), who was pregnant by Williams and remained a witness. Garcia appeared to be the innocent victim of an attempt to collect drug debts. On May 28, 2010, Williams was convicted of first degree murder. On Aug 30 Williams was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 9/3/08, p.A1)(SFC, 9/6/08, p.B3)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B1)(SFC, 9/19/08, p.B6)(SFC, 5/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.C2)
2008 Sep 1, In Nevada an air tanker being used to drop retardant on a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada crashed after taking off for its last flight of the day, killing all three crew members.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Jerry Reed (71), US singer and actor, died of complications from emphysema. He became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit."
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents, further inflaming tensions over the killings of civilians by troops from the US and other countries. The US military said US-led coalition and Afghan troops killed more than 220 suspected Taliban militants in strikes in southern Afghanistan last week.
(AP, 9/1/08)(Reuters, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Australian actor Michael Pate (b.1920) died of respiratory failure. He had appeared in more than 50 films and was a regular guest star on American TV shows in the 1950s and 60s.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Brazil's Pres. Lula da Silva suspended the entire leadership of Abin, the nation’s intelligence agency, after it was accused of tapping the phones of the Supreme Court chief and members of Congress.
(AP, 9/2/08)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A14)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.45)
2008 Sep 1, Thomas Bata (93), the Czech-born industrialist who headed the global shoe empire bearing his family's name from the 1940s to the 1980s, died in Toronto. The company's headquarters were moved to Toronto under Bata's leadership when the family's Czech factories were nationalized by the communists. The company returned to the Czech Republic in 1989 after the end of communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, In China the 128-meter Spring Temple Buddha, the tallest statue in the world, was completed in Henan province. Construction had begun in 1997.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Temple_Buddha)(Econ, 6/27/15, p.36)
2008 Sep 1, In China a new tax on gas guzzling cars took effect in an effort to reduce fuel consumption and fight pollution. In June the tax on fuel was increased by almost 20%.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.54)
2008 Sep 1, In Colombia a car bomb has exploded in front of the palace of justice in Cali, killing at least four people and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In east Democratic Republic of Congo a humanitarian plane carrying 17 passengers and crew crashed into a mountain with no sign of survivors.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, The top UN aid official John Holmes called for greater international efforts to help millions of Ethiopians suffering from a severe drought.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Hundreds of thousands of Georgians joined together in anti-Russian protests.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.32)
2008 Sep 1, The US military handed over control of once brutally violent Anbar province to Iraqi forces, marking a major milestone in America's plan to eventually send its troops home.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Most of the Muslim Mideast began the first day of Ramadan, but Iraqi Shiites, some Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of fasting on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Japan's chronically unpopular PM Yasuo Fukuda (72), suddenly announced his resignation after less than a year in office, throwing the world's second-largest economy into political confusion.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In Myanmar Saw Myint Than, a magazine journalist, was arrested on a charge of violating the Electronics Law, which regulates all forms of electronic communication and carries a maximum five-year prison term. He was freed on Oct 20 after police determined he had not provided information to The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based Web site run by Myanmar exiles.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Sep 1, North Korea began reassembling its Yongbyon reactor that can make material for atomic bombs in violation of US conditions for improved diplomatic relations. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported the restart on Sep 3 citing sources in Beijing close to six-party nuclear talks on North Korean.
(Reuters, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 1, Pakistani officials said that their forces had killed some 560 Pakistani and foreign fighters and thwarted a push to make Bajur into a militant fortress. Pakistan’s government opened an investigation into the killings of five women who tried to choose their own husbands, after a provincial lawmaker defended their deaths as a "centuries-old tradition."
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In the southern Philippines a homemade bomb exploded at a bus terminal, killing four people and injuring more than a dozen in Digos city in Davao del Sur province.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, A Spanish judge began gathering information about people who disappeared during Spain's civil war and subsequent dictatorship, seeking to produce a reliable list of victims slain away from the battlefield during the vicious fight between left and right.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said 33 rebels and four of its own troops were killed in fighting across the north of the island. It said 49 guerrillas and 11 soldiers were also wounded in the fighting. Government troops marched into Mallavi, a key LTTE bastion.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, A US-Vietnam adoption agreement expired with the two sides unable to resolve disagreements over fraud and corruption, disappointing hundreds of prospective parents who will have to seek children elsewhere.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Zimbabwe's main opposition called on regional powers to pressure President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party to be more flexible in power-sharing talks.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 2, Pres. Bush delivered a 6-minute televised speech to GOP delegates in St. Paul, Minn., as the convention returned to its pre-hurricane schedule.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 2, Google’s new Web browser, named Chrome, became available for download.
(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, New Orleans residents were blocked from returning home due to damage from Hurricane Gustav, but Mayor Nagin said they would be allowed back on Sep 4.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, In Oakland, Ca., police arrested 3 men involved in a spate of takeover robberies at East Bay restaurants and small businesses.
(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, In SF, Ca., Mark Guardado (45), president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, was shot and killed during a fight in the Mission District. Christopher Ablett (37) of Modesto, a member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, was later identified as a suspect in the killing. Ablett surrendered to police in Oklahoma on Oct. 4. On Feb 22, 2012, Ablett was convicted of murdering Guardado.
(SFC, 9/4/08, p.B1)(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B1)(SFC, 10/7/08, p.B3)(SFC, 2/24/12, p.C4)
2008 Sep 2, In Washington state a shooting rampage in Skagit County left 6 people dead. The suspect, Isaac Zamora (28), was described as a person with a mental illness. He turned himself in at the sheriff’s office in Mount Vernon. Mental health experts later found Zamora to be incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 9/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A7)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 2, In Afghanistan 22 Taliban were killed in a clash in Zabul province's Naw Bahar district. 7 Arab fighters were among the dead. Another 10 militants died in clashes with Afghan and foreign troops in Nad Ali district of Helmand province. NATO troops in Operation Oqab Tsuka (Eagle’s summit) delivered a Chinese-built turbine for the power station at Kajaki. Taliban insurgents opened fire on a patrol of Australian, US and Afghan troops, as it returned to base. More than a dozen coalition troops were wounded; none died. In 2009 Australian trooper Mark Donaldson was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military honor in the British Commonwealth, for his efforts to protect the wounded during the attack.
(AP, 9/3/08)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.64)(AP, 1/16/09)
2008 Sep 2, Argentina’s Pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner promised to repay $6.7 billion that Argentina owed to the Paris Club of 19 foreign governments following its 2001 default, It will use part of its $47 billion in foreign currency reserves to pay the debts. The government still refused to negotiate with private holders of $20 billion of its bonds, who held out against the 2005 debt restructuring.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A12)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.45)
2008 Sep 2, Australia's central bank cut interest rates for the first time in over six-and-a-half years, pushing them down 25 basis points to 7% amid signs of cooling economic growth.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, In Australia Brian Spillane, a 65-year-old ex-priest, was arrested and charged in Sydney with 60 counts relating to alleged sexual assaults against eight people. Spillane was originally charged in May with 33 child sex offenses against five people as a result of a police investigation into allegations of abuse in the 1980s at St. Stanislaus in the city of Bathurst.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Bolivia and Iran pledged cooperation and signed energy pacts, rebuffing US concerns over improved ties.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, The British government slashed stamp duty, meaning homes worth up to 175,000 pounds would be exempt from the land sales tax for the next year in a move aimed at reenergizing the housing market.
(AFP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, The Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness opened in Accra, Ghana, for a 3-day meeting. It aimed to record how much progress had been relative to the Paris 2005 declaration for making aid work better and targets set for 2010.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.69)(www.climate-l.org/2008/09/third-high-leve.html)
2008 Sep 2, Iran sentenced four female activists to six months in prison for writings demanding equality for women. Sweden had awarded a human rights prize to Parvin Ardalan, one of the activists, earlier this year.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 2, Iraq’s Cabinet approved an oil deal, signed August 27, with China National Petroleum Corp. An American soldier died of non-combat related causes in Baghdad. Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi freelance photographer working for Reuters, was detained during a raid on his home in the town of Mahmoudiya. A US military spokesman said Jassam was detained because he was "assessed to be a threat" to Iraq and coalition forces. Jassam was released after 17 months in detention.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/3/08)(AP, 2/10/10)
2008 Sep 2, In Mozambique 2 days of fires killed at least 32 people and injured hundreds more in blazes which devoured large swathes of arable land. The fires also displaced thousands and ravaged around 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) in the three central provinces of Manica, Sofala and Zambezia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 2, Pakistani Taliban militants said they had kidnapped two Chinese telecoms engineers and their entourage and would soon issue a list of demands. The engineers went missing along with their local driver and a security guard four days ago near the Afghan border where they had been checking an installation.
(AFP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, In Russia's troubled North Caucasus journalist Telman Alishaev was shot in Dagestan. Islamic TV reporter Telman Alishaev died at a hospital in Makhachkala the next day. Journalist Miloslav Bitokov was left with a fractured skull after a beating in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkariya. Police and co-workers said the two men were likely targeted for their work.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma signed-off on legislation to fight corruption, then fulfilled his obligations by handing over a declaration of his assets. Abdul Tejan-Cole, head of the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission, had introduced a system whereby every public official must declare his or her assets.
(AFP, 9/2/08)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.51)
2008 Sep 2, South Africa signed an energy agreement with oil-rich Venezuela as President Hugo Chavez arrived on his first state visit. Political, trade and economic relations were on the agenda with President Thabo Mbeki.
(AFP, 9/2/08)(AFP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Sri Lanka's government said it had dealt a major blow to Tamil rebels by capturing the key northern town and guerrilla bastion of Mallavi after heavy fighting that left dozens dead. Government forces pounded rebel defenses with airstrikes, helicopter attacks and ground assaults as heavy fighting across northern Sri Lanka killed 47 Tamil Tiger fighters and left 13 soldiers dead or missing. A rebel affiliated Web site claimed the Tamil Tigers had killed as many as 75 government soldiers in the recent fighting.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Thailand's prime minister declared a state of emergency in the capital Bangkok after a week of political tension exploded into violent street clashes between supporters and opponents of the government that left one person dead.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, Ukraine lawmakers loyal to PM Yulia Tymoshenko sided with opposition parties to pass a law weakening presidential powers and boosting those of the prime minister.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In St. Paul, Minn., Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials. Palin seduced many on television who had spent days doubting her VP candidacy.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Albert J. Stanley (65), former Halliburton executive, pleaded guilty in Houston to orchestrating over $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials from 1995-2004 for the construction of liquefied natural gas facilities. The bribes began when Stanley worked for M.W. Kellogg, a unit of Dresser Industries that was acquired by Halliburton in 1998, when Dick Cheney served as CEO. Stanley also pleaded guilty to taking $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consortium of construction firms involved in the LNG contracts between 1992-2003. Stanley was sentenced to 7 years in prison and ordered to repay Halliburton $10.8 million.
(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 3, Coca-Cola Co. announced a bid to acquire China Huiyuan Juice Group in a $2.4 billion.
(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 3, In Pasadena, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Dannette Gillespie (38) orchestrated her daughter (15) and Vanessa Anne Ocampo (19) in the robbery and killing of Eugene Palma (75), which netted them $15. On Sep 7 all three were charged with murder.
(www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/mother_of_the_year_dannette_gi.php)
2008 Sep 3, US Vice President Dick Cheney assured Azerbaijan of America's "abiding interest" in the region's stability. It was the first stop on a tour of three ex-Soviet republics that are wary of Russia's intentions after its war with Georgia last month.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, A US Navy ship loaded with humanitarian aid steamed through the Dardanelles on its way to Georgia, as the Bush administration prepared to roll out a $1 billion economic aid package for the ex-Soviet republic.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Australia police arrested a 66-year-old Catholic brother in connection with their probe into St. Stanislaus and a 63-year-old former teacher of another religious school in Bathurst that is also under investigation.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3-2008 Sep 4, In China’s Hunan province, thousands of people demonstrated and clashed with police in Jishou about a property company they said cheated them of their money. News of the protests did not become public until after the Olympics.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.52)
2008 Sep 3, Cyprus' rival Greek and Turkish leaders, Demetris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat, started new peace talks and said they hoped for a deal soon aimed at reuniting an island divided by war 34 years ago.
(AP, 9/3/08)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.68)
2008 Sep 3, In Dagestan journalist Abdullah Alishayev died one day after he was attacked by armed gunmen.
(http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/03/russia.journalist/index.html)
2008 Sep 3, A helicopter carrying foreign contractors crashed into an oil platform off the coast of Dubai, killing all seven people on board and halting production in one of the emirate's four offshore oil fields.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, An Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia, making it the 10th vessel to be hijacked in the area since July 20.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Ethiopia an explosion rocked a bar in Addis Ababa, killing 4 people. 2 more died the next day.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Tropical Storm Hanna drenched flood-plagued Haiti, adding to the miseries of a country that has lost more than 100 lives to mudslides and flooding since mid-August.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, A friendly fire shootout between Iraqi security forces and American soldiers killed six Iraqis in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving US-led or NATO forces killed several civilians. Women and children were among at least 20 people reportedly killed in the attack in Musa Nika village in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/3/08)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 3, In Somalia mortar shells slammed into Mogadishu as insurgents vowed to intensify attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. At least 4 people were killed.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Spanish authorities found 13 bodies and 46 survivors on a packed migrant boat near one of Spain's Canary Islands.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Sri Lanka fighter jets bombed two rebel boats off the northeast coast in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu, destroying one and causing heavy damage to the other.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, French President Nicolas Sarkozy encouraged Syria to pursue face-to-face peace talks with Israel during his first trip to the Arab nation, a visit also aimed at undercutting Iranian influence in Damascus.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Swiss prosecutors said police have broken up an Internet child pornography ring operating in at least four European countries where men exchanged details about their contacts with young girls. In all investigators said they had identified 600 people in Germany, 40 in Austria, 13 in Switzerland and four in Liechtenstein using the forum.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Ukraine's Pres. Yushchenko ordered the creation of a new governing coalition and threatened fresh elections, accusing his rival prime minister and opposition parties of attempting a "constitutional coup."
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 4, The musical “Fela!" premiered off-Broadway at 37 Arts Theatre B in New York City. It was based on the work of Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Fela (1938-1997). In 2010 the show won 3 Tony awards.
(SFC, 8/3/11, p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fela!)
2008 Sep 4, In St. Paul, Minn., John McCain claimed the GOP presidential nomination portraying himself as a maverick warrior and agent of change.
(AP, 9/5/08)(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 4, Jack Abramoff (49), once powerful DC lobbyist, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for his part in a political corruption scandal. He had already spent 2 years in prison for a fraudulent casino boat deal in Florida. On Sep 10 a federal judge shaved 2 years from his Florida sentence guaranteeing the Abramoff will serve no more that 4 additional years. Abramoff was released from jail in June 2010.
(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A4)(SFC, 9/11/08, p.A7)(SFC, 6/23/10, p.A6)
2008 Sep 4, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (38) pleaded guilty to a pair of felony obstruction charges in a sex-and-misconduct scandal and will step down after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city. Kilpatrick’s sentence included 4 months behind bars, a $1 million fine and forfeiture of his license to practice law.
(AP, 9/4/08)(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 4, A US coast Guard helicopter went down off Oahu, Ha., killing 4 crew members.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 4, Albanian artist Saimir Strati in Tirana glued 229,764 corks of various shapes and colors over a plastic banner measuring 12.94 meters by 7.1 meters to make the art piece "Romeo with a crown of grapes playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun". He worked 14 hours a day for 28 days to complete his project.
(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Ethiopia unveiled its famed Axum Obelisk after more than three years of work to re-erect the 150-ton stela plundered by fascist Italy 70 years ago and returned only in 2005.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Tropical Storm Hanna roared along the edge of the Bahamas ahead of a possible hurricane hit on the Carolinas, leaving behind at least 137 dead in Haiti.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, In northeast China 24 people were killed and six injured in a coal mine gas explosion, that left 3 miners trapped.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Georgia US Vice President Dick Cheney condemned Russia for what he called an "illegitimate, unilateral attempt" to redraw this US ally's borders by force.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, German ministers agreed to update data protection laws for the digital age in the wake of scandals showing how easily personal details can be bought on the Internet.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Some 20 Greek anarchists stormed a supermarket in Thesaaloniki and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices.
(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, The US military arrested an Iraqi cameraman and three of his family members during a raid on their home in Baghdad. Omar Husham (28) was arrested in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Pakistan’s Parliament passed resolutions condemning an American-led attack in Pakistani territory after the government summoned the US ambassador to protest the unusually bold raid that officials say killed at least 15 people. Four Islamist militants were killed and five wounded in a missile attack by a suspected US drone in the village of Char Khel in North Waziristan near Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/4/08)(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Middle East envoy Tony Blair toured a Palestinian aluminum factory in Beit Iba and was told it runs at one-third capacity because of Israeli import restrictions. He promised he'll take it up with Israeli authorities.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Moscow officials said BP PLC and its billionaire Russian partners in the joint venture TNK-BP have agreed on a deal that forces out its embattled CEO and signals an end to a bitter struggle for control of the Russian-British company.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Russian troops killed 5 suspected Muslim rebels in Dagestan.
(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 4, Spanish police arrested Vallejo-Guarin (47), a suspected Colombian drug trafficker, listed among the most wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 4, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced that his country has handed over proposals for peace with Israel to Turkish mediators and would wait for Israel's response before holding any face-to-face negotiations.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Teachers in Zimbabwe's public schools went on strike to press for higher pay, despite a pay rise for civil servants announced by the government.
(AFP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 5, US bank regulators shut down Silver State Bank, saying the Nevada bank failed because of losses on soured loans, mainly in commercial real estate and land development. It was the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, In SF Western artist Thom Ross displayed 100 wooden Indians on horseback on the same stretch of Ocean Beach that was used in a 1902 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show featuring live Indians on horseback.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 5, In Berkeley, Ca., arborists began removed trees in preparation for a $124 million UC athletic training center. 4 protesters continued a 21-month-old protest in a lone redwood.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 5, In Lancaster, Ca., a road was paved, at the request of Honda’s Santa Monica advertising agency, with grooves so that passing cars would hear a rendition of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. On Sep 23, following complaints and safety concerns the road was repaved.
(WSJ, 10/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 5, Robert Giroux (b.1914), NYC publisher (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux), died in New Jersey. He had joined Farrar as editor in chief and was made a full partner in 1964.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 5, In western Afghanistan an overnight raid in Farah province killed six militants and two civilians.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Angolans voted for the first time in 16 years in a parliamentary election expected to extend the ruling party's hold of more than three decades in the oil-rich African nation. A new quota required 30% of the candidates to be women.
(AP, 9/5/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.76)
2008 Sep 5, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia's governor general, the first woman to act as the British queen's representative Down Under. Morris Iemma (47), the embattled premier of Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, was forced to resign after his party withdrew support for him over a dramatic reshuffle of his cabinet.
(AP, 9/5/08)(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Bolivia protesters stormed a small airport and blocked major highways across eastern Bolivia in a standoff over central government reforms designed to empower the nation’s indigenous majority.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Canada joined the US and EU in imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe's authoritarian regime headed by President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, EU nations called for an international probe to find out which country should shoulder responsibility for starting the conflict between Georgia and Russia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Rosetta, the European deep space probe launched in 2004, completed a flyby of the Steins asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 5, The flagship of the US Navy's Mediterranean fleet anchored outside the key Georgian port of Poti, bringing in tons of humanitarian aid to a port still partially occupied by hundreds of Russian troops.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, The Iraqi government reacted sharply to published allegations that the US spied on Iraq's PM Maliki, warning that future ties with the United States could be in jeopardy if the report were true. An explosion in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour killed six bodyguards of ex-Iraqi deputy prime minister and former Pentagon favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, who escaped the suicide car bomb attack on his convoy.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, An Israeli defense official said Israel has allowed Palestinian security forces in the West Bank to receive a shipment of about 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of bullets in a step aimed at bolstering the moderate Palestinian government there. The weapons shipment reached the Palestinians through Jordan about one week ago.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Mila Schoen (b.1916), an Italian designer of elegant, impeccably tailored clothes, died at her villa in northern Italy.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Japan right-leaning former Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced that he will run for ruling party president in a move that would put him on track to take over as Japan's next prime minister.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, once reviled as a "mad dog" by President Reagan, on a historic visit which she said proved that Washington had no permanent enemies. John Foster Dulles was the last US Secretary of State to visit Tripoli, in May 1953.
(Reuters, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, Malaysia said it is dispatching three navy vessels to the Gulf of Aden to protect its merchant ships following a sharp surge in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Mexico two 18th century paintings, "The Adoration of the Three Kings" and "The Birth of the Virgin," were stolen from the Santa Matilde church in Pachuca, the capital of central Hidalgo state. In February, 2010, they were found in an art gallery in Tlaquepaque, a town near the city of Guadalajara, where they were on sale for $35,000.
(AP, 2/26/10)
2008 Sep 5, The political party of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged Myanmar's military government to ensure her well-being as she continued to refuse food deliveries to protest her detention.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Nigeria said it has set up a 40-member technical committee on peace talks to end the crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Pakistan's Supreme Court reinstated three judges ousted by Pervez Musharraf, cementing political divisions in the country a day before it elects a new president. An explosion possibly caused by a missile strike killed five suspected foreign militants near the Afghan border in North Waziristan.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to try to reach a final status peace agreement with Israel by the end of the year, but he admitted the goal, set by US President George W. Bush, might not be achieved.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Poland police detained Krzysztof B. (45), in the eastern city of Siedlce, after his wife and daughter came forward with the allegations that he had imprisoned and raped his daughter (21) for 6 years fathering 2 children, who were put up for adoption.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Sri Lankan soldiers captured three Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers and killed 24 guerrillas in fighting across the island's restive north.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, Taiwan newspapers said authorities in central Taiwan have turned off the red light at the county's last legal brothel after the death of its pimp aged 87. Prostitution has been illegal in Taiwan since 1997. Licensing of new brothels stopped in 1974, but isolated illegal brothels can be found all over the island. Brothels licensed prior to 1974 were allowed to keep operating.
(Reuters, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 5, Togo’s PM Komla Mally unexpectedly resigned after less than a year in office. He had been accused of lacking initiative and of being ineffective.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 5, In Kiev US Vice President Dick Cheney pledged US support for Ukraine following last month's war between neighboring Russia and Georgia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 6, The $500 million GeoEye-1, a super-sharp Earth-imaging satellite, was launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast. GeoEye Inc. said that in black-and-white mode, the satellite can distinguish objects on the Earth's surface as small as 16 inches.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 6, Tropical Storm Hanna blew hard and dumped rain in eastern North Carolina and Virginia, but caused little damage beyond isolated flooding and power outages as it quickly headed north toward New England.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Martinez, Ca., Jose Felix Sandoval, in search of his estranged wife, killed her cousin and a police sergeant, before he was fatally shot by police officers.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 6, The 45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) overcame fierce obstacles and approved a landmark US plan to engage in atomic trade with India, a deal that reverses more than three decades of American policy. The plan still needs backing from US Congress.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomb attack by a fake beggar inside a regional prosecutor's office and a shoot-out between police and Taliban militants killed 15 people.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Angolan election officials extended voting by a day in the capital, but said the logistical problems that marred the first balloting in 16 years were confined to Luanda.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Thousands of Armenians lined the streets of the Yerevan to protest the first-ever visit by a Turkish leader and to demand that Turkey acknowledge the World War I massacres of Armenian civilians as genocide.
(www.interfax.com/3/425662/news.aspx)
2008 Sep 6, Cuba politely declined a US offer to send a disaster assessment team to the island after Hurricane Gustav, saying it would rather Washington suspend restrictions on travel and the sale of food and other materials it needs to recover.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Egypt massive boulders fell from the towering Muqattam cliffs onto a shanty town outside Cairo and buried dozens of homes. The death toll rose on a daily basis and reached 103 on Sep 19. According to residents, there could be up to 500 people buried under the hundreds of tons of rock that fell. In 2010 a court convicted the Cairo deputy governor for the rock slide that killed 119 people and sentenced him to five years in prison. The court found Mahmoud Yassin and seven lesser officials guilty of manslaughter.
(AP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(AP, 5/26/10)
2008 Sep 6, In Greece the body of Amphithea Tanida (36) was found wrapped in sheets in a bathroom in her parents' villa at Amarynthos on Evia. Masami Tanida (77), a retired Japanese diplomat, and his wife Maria (67) were arrested the next day and charged with murdering their daughter.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Iraq a suicide car bomber blasted an outdoor market in northern Tal Afar city, killing six people and wounding 54. Kurdish security forces raided a house in Irbil province, killed a suspected member of an al-Qaida front group and captured a 17-year-old girl wearing an explosives vest.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Yahoo! Japan announced support for victimized users whose Yahoo IDs were used illegally. The company admitted that its online auction site suffered a huge security breach and agreed to reimburse users who had been charged fees relating to fraudulent transactions.
(http://blog.trendmicro.com/caution-needed-jp-yahoo-auctions-site-phished/)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.76)
2008 Sep 6, In Indian Kashmir thousands of angry people took to the streets to denounce the killing of a protester by government troops, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas shells at Muslim demonstrators chanting anti-India slogans.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, became Pakistan's new president after winning a landslide election victory in separate votes in the federal and provincial assemblies. Overnight clashes left 24 people killed after residents of a village in the volatile northwest foiled a militant kidnap attempt, then were attacked. An explosives-packed pickup truck blew up at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing 37 people.
(AP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/7/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.55)
2008 Sep 6-2008 Sep 7, In the southern Philippines 6 people were killed after a landslide triggered by heavy rains buried houses in the village of Masara. Another landslide the next day killed 5 more people there. At least 16 people were left missing.
(AFP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Sri Lanka air force helicopters bombed rebel bunkers in the rebel-held Mullaittivu district to support advancing ground troops.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Sudanese forces launched ground and air attacks on two rebel bases in North Darfur, killing an unknown number of people.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Swaziland King Mswati III celebrated his 40th birthday and the nation’s 40th year of independence in a lavish extravaganza officially estimated at $2.5 million, but widely believed to have cost 5 times more. Mswati remained Africa’s last absolute monarch and lived a luxurious lifestyle with his 13 wives. Some 70% of the population of 1 million lived below the poverty line and nearly 40% of adults were infected with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 6, Hurricane Ike barreled toward the Turks and Caicos as a powerful Category 3 storm, prompting an exodus of tourists and locals from the normally idyllic Atlantic island chain.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 7, At the MTV Video Music Awards on the show's 25th anniversary, the network threw its full support behind Britney Spears' comeback. Spears won a leading three awards, including video of the year for "Piece of Me."
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans to take control of troubled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace the companies’ chief executives. This would effectively wipe out shareholders' interest in the publicly traded companies. 27% of the nation’s 8,500 banks lost a combined $10-15 billion from holdings in preferred shares in Fannie and Freddie.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)(WSJ, 9/8/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 7, In Afghanistan 2 suicide attackers detonated bombs inside the police headquarters in Kandahar city, killing six policemen. In southern Afghanistan a Canadian soldier was killed and seven wounded when their armored vehicle struck an explosive device while on patrol.
(AP, 9/7/08)(Reuters, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, The conservation group WWF said Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing. Queensland state last week revealed that 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, a figure WWF said would have resulted in the deaths of two million mammals.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In London an urgent inquiry was underway after a disc containing the personal details of 5,000 justice staff went missing in yet another embarrassing data loss blunder. Private contractor EDS told the Prison Service in July that the hard drive had gone astray. The missing disc was last seen in July 2007.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper called an election for October 14 in a bid to strengthen his grip on power after 2-1/2 years in charge of a minority Conservative Party government.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In China a flood swamped the mine in Yuzhou city of Henan province trapping 23 people.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In Haiti at least 58 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept the impoverished Caribbean nation. Officials also found three more bodies from a previous storm, raising Haiti's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas and threatened the Florida Keys on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm.
(AP, 9/7/08)(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, Hong Kong's pro-democracy politicians lost several legislative seats in elections, but held onto their veto power over major legislation as they push for greater political freedoms in the Chinese territory. Democratic parties won 23 of 60 legislative seats in the voting, down from their previous 26.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, Italy's foreign minister, after meeting US Vice President Dick Cheney, said the EU wants to work closely with the United States in resolving the Georgian crisis.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, Pakistan’s reserves in the 1st week of September fell to $5.5 billion, enough to cover just two months of imports. Reserves as of last November were about $14 billion.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.48)
2008 Sep 7, South Korean police arrested four people over the theft of data on 11 million customers of a local oil refiner in what is being called the country's largest-ever data leak.
(AFP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7-2008 Sep 8, Spanish police said immigrants went on a rampage in the southern Spanish town of Roquetas de Mar overnight, setting fire to homes and cars and throwing stones at police, after a Senegalese man (28) was stabbed to death in an apparent dispute over drugs. The Rampage continued for a 2nd night.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, A Darfur rebel group says it has successfully repelled a government assault in North Darfur, but the Sudanese government denies it carried out any operations in the area.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In the Virgin Islands US federal agent William Clark (33) intervened in a couple's drunken fight outside his apartment and shot Marcus Sukow to death. Clark was charged with murder and faced trial. In 2010 the case was dismissed on a technicality: that proper procedure was not followed in identifying Sukow's body to the medical examiner.
(AP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/28/10)
2008 Sep 7, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said his party would rather withdraw from power-sharing talks than sign an unsatisfactory deal and challenged President Robert Mugabe to call a new poll.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 8, The US stock of Lehman Brothers, led by Dick Fuld, began to get pummeled. By Sep 10 shares were down by almost half their value.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 8, In Berkeley, Ca., university officials cut off the food and water supply to 4 protesters who continued a 21-month-old protest in a lone redwood.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 8, In Oakland, Ca., authorities said 3 school district custodians had been arrested for stealing electronic equipment from the district.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B3)
2008 Sep 8, A roadside blast in southern Afghanistan killed six civilians.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said Australia will not sell uranium to India unless it signs a key non-proliferation pact, despite a decision by nuclear supplier nations to end a ban on trading with New Delhi.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In London 3 of 8 British Muslims with ties to Pakistan were found guilty of conspiracy to murder in a terrorist bombing campaign, but jurors failed to reach a verdict on whether they plotted to blow up multiple trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks. Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain were convicted of trying to make a bomb out of hydrogen peroxide.
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.63)
2008 Sep 8, In northern China a landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 277 people, with 10 missing and presumed dead in Shanxi province's Xiangfen county. In 2009 a Chinese court jailed 12 officials for the collapse of an illegal mining dump that triggered the landslide.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 6/28/09)
2008 Sep 8, Deadly Hurricane Ike roared across Cuba, blowing buildings to rubble and sending waves surging over homes. Some 900,000 Cubans evacuated from its path, which forecasters said could take it to Louisiana or Texas later this week.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pressed Moscow to honor its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia, while Russian soldiers prevented international aid convoys from visiting Georgian villages in a tense zone around the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Pres. Medvedev and Sarkozy revised the EU-brokered deal to end the fighting between Russia and Georgia. Medvedev said 200 EU monitors would deploy to regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month. After that, Russian troops would pull out of those regions by Oct. 11 to a line that preceded last month's fighting.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Legal sources said the Church of Scientology is to be tried for fraud, and seven of its members for illegally prescribing drugs, in the latest clash between French officials and the controversial religion.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Lebanon rival groups signed an agreement to end sectarian violence that has killed and wounded scores in the past three months in the northern city of Tripoli.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Miners in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho found one of the world's largest diamonds, a near-flawless white gem weighing nearly 500 carats.
(Reuters, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 8, Nepal's Maoist-led government vowed to end slave-like conditions for around 150,000 bonded laborers in the far west of the country who have been paying off debt for generations. Nepal officially abolished all forms of slavery in 2001, but the Haliya system, which traps people in a cycle of debt, lived on in remote areas.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Pakistan missiles fired from 2 US drone aircraft hit a seminary and houses associated with a Taliban commander in North Waziristan, killing at least 21 people, including both militants, women and children. Neither Jalaluddin Haqqani nor his son, Sirajuddin, were present, but four mid-level Al-Qaeda operatives were among the dead.
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A9)(WSJ, 9/9/08, p.A16)(AFP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, In Berkeley, Ca., the last 4 protesters in a lone redwood voluntarily climbed down. The struggle to protect 42 trees from being felled for a sports training center had begun on December 1, 2006. UC later sought as much as $10,000 from each of the tree sitters for attorney fees.
(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A1)(SFC, 9/22/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 9, San Antonio, Texas, unveiled a deal that will make it the first US city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel.
(Reuters, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, O3B Networks Ltd., founded by Greg Wyler (38), announced plans to launch as many as 16 satellites that could provide Internet service to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Latin America by 2010 at a cost of some $650 million.
(WSJ, 9/9/08, p.B1)(www.o3bnetworks.com/)
2008 Sep 9, Angola's former rebel movement and main opposition party UNITA faced up to a crushing electoral defeat in a landmark peacetime poll in which it won only 10.4% of the vote. The ruling left-wing MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which has been in power for over three decades, had nearly 82 percent of the votes.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, The 27-member EU stopped short of offering Ukraine membership during an EU-Ukraine summit hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But the two sides began work on an "association accord," a step that offers closer political and economic ties and in the past has been designed to prepare nations for eventual membership.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, An Italian study showed a new way to test for cervical cancer is more accurate than a pap smear and identified more dangerous lesions.
(Reuters, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, A NATO bomb missed its target by more than 1 1/2 miles and hit a house, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding 10 at a time of rising tension between the Afghan government and international troops over the use of airstrikes.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Hurricane Ike roared south of Havana, Cuba, after tearing across the island nation, ravaging homes, killing at least four people and forcing 1.2 million to evacuate.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, The Iraqi oil ministry said Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a gas joint venture with Iraq worth up to four billion dollars, becoming the first Western oil major to gain access to the violence-wracked country's vast energy reserves.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Morocco said it would start vaccinating all livestock after the outbreak of Peste des Petits Ruminants, a deadly viral disease, ahead of the Eid festival when millions of animals are sacrificed.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta hijacked a vessel with five expatriate and eight Nigerian oil workers on board. Robin Hughes from St Margaret's Bay, Kent, was among 27 oil workers kidnapped by militants when their vessel was hijacked. Hughes (59) was freed on April 19, 2009.
(AFP, 9/10/08)(AFP, 4/20/09)
2008 Sep 9, North Korea held a military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding, but leader Kim Jong Il (66) was missing. Media later reported that Kim Jong Il had brain surgery after a stroke last month and could have partial paralysis on one side.
(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A3)(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 9, OPEC ministers decided to scale back production by some 520,000 barrels a day in the face of falling oil prices and slowing demand. Hours earlier Russia proposed extensive cooperation with OPEC.
(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 9, Asif Ali Zardari. the widower of assassinated former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, took office as the country's new president, facing immediate pressure to crack down on Islamic militants and address daunting economic problems. Zardari and Afghan Pres. Karzai hosted a joint news conference and declared that they stand together against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
(AP, 9/9/08)(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 9, Russia said it will station 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, announcing an imposing long-term presence less than a day after agreeing to pull forces back from areas surrounding the provinces.
(AP, 9/9/08)(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 9, Serbian lawmakers ratified a pre-membership agreement with the EU and an oil and gas deal with Russia after months of heated debate over the direction of the country's policies.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, A gunman killed an outspoken Somali lawmaker in the provincial town of Baidoa, the latest in a series of attacks in the lawless African nation.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, Thailand's PM Samak was forced to resign along with his Cabinet after a court ruled that he had violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows while in office. The Cabinet will remain in a caretaker position until a new administration is installed.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Tamil Tiger rebels launched an air and ground assault on a military complex in northern Sri Lanka. 5 women were among 10 suicide bombers that struck the Vavuniya military complex, 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Colombo. At least 15 people were killed in the attack. The UN announced it was withdrawing its aid workers from Sri Lanka's embattled north ahead of a major military drive, as Colombo claimed its first downing of a rebel aircraft.
(AP, 9/9/08)(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 9, Togo’s Health Ministry said an outbreak of bird flu has been confirmed for the first time since last year.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, An internal government report said US Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington, who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands, had sex and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they were conducting official business.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 10, The US Pentagon cancelled the $40 billion competition for new aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force, delaying the competition to a new administration, and giving a reprieve to Boeing.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 10, The US Treasury Dept. accused Iran’s national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, of helping the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The proliferator designation, designed to stop companies from doing business in the US, further block the carrier’s ability to move money through US banks.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 10, A regulatory filing revealed that Carlos Slim, Mexican businessman, and his family had purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.78)
2008 Sep 10, Hurricane Ike barreled across the warm, energizing waters of the Gulf of Mexico on its way toward the Texas coast after crashing through Cuba's tobacco country and toppling aging Havana buildings. Ike had already killed at least 80 people in the Caribbean.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Frank Mundus (1925), the legendary shark fisherman said to have inspired the Captain Quint character in the movie "Jaws," died in Honolulu.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.102)
2008 Sep 10, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales said that he is expelling the US ambassador for allegedly inciting violent opposition protests.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said he accepts a reduction of Turkey's military contingent but that his side will still need security guarantees from Ankara as part of a deal to unite the divided island.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Georgian police officer was killed by gunfire that came from the direction of a Russian checkpoint near separatist South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai. Iranian state television reported that seven people were killed and 40 others were injured.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Two bombs exploded an hour apart in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least two people and wounding 15 others, including women and children. Health officials said cholera has killed two people in a province south of Baghdad, indicating that water quality and sanitation remain poor in a country that has endured years of war.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Israeli defense officials say the government has told all businessmen involved in military sales to Georgia to immediately cease visits to the former Soviet republic. The officials said the directive was decided upon this week because Israel is concerned about damage to its relations with Russia.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In northern Israel a military helicopter crashed at sundown and burst into flames killing two crew members.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Lebanon Druse Sheik Saleh Aridi died in his village of Baissour in the hills east of Beirut, after a bomb planted under his car was detonated by remote control as he drove away from his home. The country's first political assassination in months threatened efforts to reconcile its divided factions.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 10, Ahmad Ismail, a member of Malaysia's ruling party, was suspended for three years for "stoking racial tensions" with incendiary comments about ethnic Chinese that shook the governing coalition.
(AFP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Dutch court dismissed a bid by Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to hold the Netherlands liable for its troops' failure to protect the so-called safe haven.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Pirates hijacked a South Korean bulk carrier with 22 crew off Somalia's coast but were thwarted in a separate attempt to seize a Greek ship. The crew and vessel were released on Oct 16 with no comment on ransom.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Sep 10, Officials said at least 89 people have died in wildfires sweeping through Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, An unmanned Russian cargo ship blasted off successfully carrying supplies, equipment and gifts for the international space station.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Sri Lanka air force jets attacked a rebel intelligence base in the north, stepping up a punishing wave of airstrikes a day after Tamil Tiger fighters launched a surprise attack on a military base. UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed international concern for tens of thousands civilians trapped in Sri Lanka's north as government forces prepared for a major showdown with Tamil separatists.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Geneva the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle collider, passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe. On Sep 19 it started leaking helium and had to be turned off. The technical problems delayed for at least two months the quest for scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the origins of all matter.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.96)
2008 Sep 10, Ruedi Rymann (75), a farmer and cheesemaker and renowned yodeler, died at his home in Giswil, Switzerland. In 2007 Viewers of a Swiss television series devoted to popular national music voted Rymann’s “Dr Schacher Seppli" as the greatest Swiss hit of all.
(SFC, 10/9/08, p.B8)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmsy6wA-T0o)
2008 Sep 11, Pres. Bush attended the dedication of a new memorial at the Pentagon in honor of 9/11 attacks in 2001. In NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a ceremony attended by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 11, Bert Langerwerf (b.1944), Dutch born lizard breeder, died. In 1988 he moved to Alabama and established his Agama International Herpetocultural Institute, which grew to become the world’s biggest lizard-breeding facility.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 11, The US expelled Bolivia’s ambassador following Bolivia’s expulsion of the American ambassador for allegedly aiding the opposition. The Peace Corps pulled all 113 of its volunteers out of Bolivia for alleged security reasons.
(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Javier Sanchez Perfino (30) pleaded guilty in San Diego to running a smuggling organization from 2003 to 2006, which at its peak smuggled 60-80 people per day and charging $1,500 per person. The operation ran through a live bombing range in southeastern California.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B12)
2008 Sep 11, In Afghanistan 10 militants were killed by US-led coalition troops north of Kabul. 2 US soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan. An insurgent attack on a compound in eastern Afghanistan killed a US soldier and another was killed by an explosive, making 2008 the deadliest for American forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
(AP, 9/11/08)(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, In Bolivia’s Pando state anti-government protesters fought backers of President Evo Morales in the pro-autonomy east with clubs, machetes and guns, killing at least eight people and injuring 20. Seven more bodies were recovered the next day farther from the highway. The bodies of three more marchers were later discovered, raising the death toll to 18. Lowland opposition leaders, guarding their region's frontier capitalism and more Euro-centric heritage, said they lost two of their own in the pitched battle. Protesters near Yacuiba closed gas valves, resulting in a gas leak and explosion that interrupted gas exports at a cost of $8-10 million a day.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/28/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 11, In Brazil Daniel Dantas, businessman, found $300 million of his money frozen by the courts under accusations of laundering public money and offering bribes. His fortune was estimated at over $1 billion. On Dec 2 Dantas was convicted of trying to bribe police officers. He was fined $5 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but appealed the conviction.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.82)(Econ, 12/6/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 11, James Ashley Nasmyth (b.1918), English oil journalist, died. In 1979 he launched Argus Telex, the first daily oil market report.
(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4827314.ece)(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.A16)
2008 Sep 11, Chile’s Senate unanimously passed a bill submitted by President Michelle Bachelet that bans whale hunting off the country’s 3,400 mile (5,500 km) coast.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, In Santiago, Chile. clashes erupted as protesters erected burning barricades and attacked police with firearms and rocks on the 35th anniversary of the 1973 bloody military coup.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, China’s Sanlu Group announced a nationwide recall of 700 tons of milk powder.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.58)
2008 Sep 11, Amnesty Int’l. reported that Egyptian security forces have killed at least 28 immigrants leaving Egypt for Israel, since the first killing in the summer of 2007.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 11, A Paris court convicted Didier Bourguet, a former UN employee, for the rape of young Africans during his postings in Central African Republic and Congo. Bourguet was sentenced to nine years in prison for having committed about 20 rapes of teenage girls between 1998 and 2004 during his postings as a mechanic for the UN.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Israeli divers found a red suitcase containing a small skull, bones and clothes, which police said may belong to Rose Pizem, a 4-year-old French girl missing since May, whose grandfather is jailed in the slaying.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Japan said it was ending an air mission in Iraq, wrapping up a military deployment which was historic for the pacifist nation but deeply unpopular among the public.
(AFP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Nepalese officials said Tibetan exiles living in Kathmandu illegally are to be deported in a bid to curb anti-China protests threatening Nepal's ties with its giant neighbor.
(AFP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, New Zealand cut its benchmark interest rate half a point to 7.5% in a bid to engineer a quick recovery from a widely expected recession.
(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 11, Pakistan's PM Yousaf Raza Gilani backed a harsh rebuke of the US by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Muslim nation's military chief. This was in response to news that President Bush during the summer had secretly approved US military raids inside Pakistan against alleged terrorist targets.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan (79), Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official, issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content. On Sep 14 he adjusted his comments saying owners who broadcast immoral content should be brought to trial and sentenced to death if other penalties do not deter them.
(AP, 9/12/08)(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 11, Sri Lankan troops killed 37 Tiger rebels during fresh fighting across the island's north.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, Venezuela interrogated military officers named in recordings of an apparent plan to kill President Hugo Chavez, in what may the firmest evidence in years of a barracks plot to oust him. Chavez ordered the US ambassador to leave Venezuela within 72 hours, accusing the diplomat of conspiring against his government and saying he would also withdraw his own envoy from Washington immediately.
(AP, 9/12/08)(Reuters, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, President Robert Mugabe and the opposition reached an accord in which they will wield equal power in a unity government aimed at ending Zimbabwe's protracted political crisis and economic meltdown. One source said Mugabe will chair the cabinet, while Morgan Tsvangirai takes charge of a national security council which consists of 31 cabinet ministers.
(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, Zimbabwe's health minister said a cholera outbreak in a Harare suburb has killed at least 11 people.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 12, The US accused Rodriguez Chacin and 2 other top aides to Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez of helping Colombian guerrillas traffic cocaine and procure weapons for FARC. Chacin had just resigned on Sep 8 from Venezuela’s Interior Ministry.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 12, The SF Opera said it had received a commitment from board chairman John A. Gunn (64) and wife Cynthia Fry Gunn for a gift of $40 million. John Gunn served as chairman and CEO of Dodge and Cox Investment Managers.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 12, In southern California a commuter train smashed head-on into a freight train killing at least 25 people in the deadliest US passenger train accident in 15 years. Officials the next day attributed the accident to failure of the passenger train engineer to stop at a red light. It was later found that engineer Robert Sanchez, who died in the crash, had sent a text message 22 seconds before the crash.
(AP, 9/13/08)(Reuters, 9/13/08)(WSJ, 10/2/08, p.A11)
2008 Sep 12, David Foster Wallace (b.1962), the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead in his home in Claremont, Ca. In 2012 D.T. Max authored “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace."
(AP, 9/13/08)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B7)(SSFC, 9/2/12, p.F1)
2008 Sep 12, Taliban militants attacked a logistics convoy in western Afghanistan, sparking a clash that killed 10 insurgents and five Afghan guards. Afghan police said they had arrested three suspects accused of giving the US military false information that led to the August 22 bombardment of the village of Azizabad.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, Bolivian President Evo Morales decreed a state of siege and sent troops to the eastern province of Pando where at least 16 people were killed in street battles between pro- and anti-government activists. Another 2 people were killed at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, British and French firefighters extinguished a 1,000-degree inferno in the Channel Tunnel but tens of thousands of travelers faced more delay as they waited for the undersea link to reopen.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Shops throughout China pulled a milk powder, suspected sickening babies, from shelves in the latest safety scandal to rock the country's food industry. Investigators soon detained 19 people and were questioning 78 to find out how melamine was added to milk supplied to Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer. On Sep 15 Zhang Zhenling, vice president of Sanlu Group, read a letter of apology at a news briefing in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, where the corporation is based. China later reported that more than 6,000 babies had fallen ill and three died after drinking contaminated milk powder. Consumer complaints to Sanlu Group regarding its baby milk formula had begun as early as last December. By the end of the year 6 children had died and tens of thousands were made ill from milk powder tainted with melamine.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/13/08)(AFP, 9/15/08)(AFP, 9/17/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A12)(Econ, 5/25/13, p.67)
2008 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI urged France to take Christianity into account despite its secular tradition, saying on his first visit there as pontiff that church and state should be open to each other.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Tens of thousands of Muslims joined pro-independence rallies across Indian-controlled Kashmir, leading to scattered clashes with police that left at least two protesters dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Mexican police found the bodies of 24 men with their hands bound and shot to death execution-style outside the capital. On Nov 27 prosecutors charged a municipal police commander and an alleged drug cartel member with homicide in the September massacre.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Sep 12, In Pakistan a US Predator drone fired 2 missiles at a home in the village of Tolkhel, North Waziristan, killing at least 12 people.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 12, Poland's last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, and seven other Soviet-era officials went on trial over the declaration of martial law more than a quarter of a century ago. The 1981 decision led to the deaths of dozens of people and the jailing of hundreds more.
(Reuters, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Russia’s Itar-Tass news reported that Syria’s Tartous port is being renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A14)
2008 Sep 12, A South African judge ruled that prosecutors were wrong to charge ANC President Jacob Zuma with corruption, effectively clearing way for the 66-year-old former freedom fighter to become the country's next president.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, The Sudanese government army and Janjaweed militias launched new attacks in a mountainous area of south Darfur according to rebel claims made the next day. UN boss Ban Ki-moon welcomed the establishment of an Arab League panel led by Qatar that will work with the African Union and United Nations to sponsor peace talks in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AFP, 9/12/08)(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 12, Samak Sundaravej ended his bid to return to power as Thailand's prime minister, after a revolt within the ruling party torpedoed his re-election in parliament.
(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 13, Hurricane Ike ravaged the Texas coast with 110 mph winds, flooding thousands of homes and businesses, shattering windows in Houston's skyscrapers and knocking out power to millions of people. Ike left at least 37 people dead in Texas, including 5 on Galveston Island, and 35 more dead across 10 states. Galveston later requested $2.2 billion in disaster relief. This amounted to about $36,000 per resident. Officials later estimated that damages from Ike could exceed $50 billion.
(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A6)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A8)(SFC, 9/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/08, p.A2)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.34)
2008 Sep 13, In San Francisco Tong Van Le left his store in Bernal Heights and headed home to Novato where 5 men, who had followed him, shot him dead with a high-powered rifle. They had allegedly been told to get rid of Tong Le by Larry Blay Jr. (19), who was in jail on charges of robbing the Nasser Market on Crescent Ave. Sep 13. With no witness the case against Blay was dismissed in October. In June, 2009, an indictment accused Blay and 4 of the 5 defendants of murder and conspiracy.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B1)(SFC, 7/29/09, p.D3)
2008 Sep 13, The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced Stanley Falkow (74), Stanford microbiologist, was the winner of a $300,000 Lasker award for Special Achievement in medical Science. His work helped to explain how pathogens cause human diseases.
(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 13, In Afghanistan Mohammad Jan Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province and a former cabinet minister, was killed with 3 others in a bomb attack near Kabul claimed by Taliban rebels and condemned by President Hamid Karzai. A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Helmand province. Taliban militants in Ghazni province ambushed and killed 4 police. 3 more were wounded and died the next day.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/14/08)(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, A fiery bus crash in China's Sichuan province killed 51 people.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, Hundreds of Russian forces packed up and withdrew from positions in western Georgia. A Georgian official said Russia had met a deadline for a partial pullout a month after the war between the two former Soviet republics. A Georgian policeman at a post near Abkhazia was killed by gunfire that came from the direction of a position where Abkhazian and Russian forces have been based. Some 1,200 Russian servicemen still remained at 19 checkpoints and other positions, 12 outside South Ossetia and seven outside Abkhazia.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, In India a coordinated series of bombings struck crowded shopping areas across New Delhi, killing 21 people with over 100 wounded. 5 bombs exploded and 3 were defused. India blamed a group with ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba. A Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility for the explosions.
(AFP, 9/14/08)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 13, Bombs and shootings killed at least 16 people in Iraq, including four employees of an Iraqi television station. They were abducted in Mosul while filming a program about the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. At night in western Baghdad a bomb exploded in the car of Fuad Ali Hussein, killing him and his deputy and two bodyguards. Hussein was head of a neighborhood awakening council.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, Nepalese police said at least six people have been killed in southern Nepal in rampages by wild elephants in the last two days.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, A MEND statement said the armed forces of Nigeria had begun a full scale aerial and marine offensive on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) positions and neighboring Ijaw communities in Rivers state.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, At least 24 Islamic militants were killed in fierce fighting with Pakistani government troops hunting Taliban fighters across Bajaur near the Afghan border.
(AGFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, A Palestinian stabbed a 9-year-old Israeli boy in a West Bank settlement outpost, setting off clashes that left injured six Palestinians. Israeli troops fatally shot Hassan Hmeid (16), a Palestinian teenager during a clash near Bethlehem. Witnesses said the troops opened fire when a patrol entered Tekoa and were pelted with a hail of stones thrown by local young people.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers accused the government of planning a genocidal campaign against Tamils as UN agencies pulled out of rebel-held regions in the island's north. Violence in the last 24 hours killed eight Tiger rebels and two troops.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, In Sudan an army spokesman said troops had entered the North Darfur area to arrest armed bandits.
(Reuters, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, Typhoon Sinlaku lashed Taiwan with powerful winds and heavy rains, disrupting flights and train services as well as celebrations for a major holiday.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 14, The Denver Broncos won 39-38 following a 2-point conversion after a mistaken call by NFL referee Ed Hochuli gave them the ball in the last minute of the game.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 14, California legislators said they had reached a spending compromise, potentially ending a record-breaking budget impasse.
(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 14, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked a convoy carrying Afghan doctors working for the UN, killing two doctors and their driver. They were on a mission to monitor efforts to vaccinate children against polio. 6 children died in central Ghazni after ordnance they were playing with exploded. An Afghan interpreter working for the US military was shot dead as he stepped out of his home.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Western Australia's 4 people died in a helicopter crash in the Bungle Bungle National Park of the remote Kimberly region.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Archaeologist Georgi Kitov (b.1943), an expert on the treasure-rich Thracian culture of antiquity, died of a heart attack while excavating a temple in central Bulgaria.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 14, In eastern Congo a riot ensued following accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft. 13 people were left dead.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 14, Roadside bombs killed five Iraqi policemen and injured eight others north of Baghdad. An American soldier in Iraq died of causes unrelated to combat.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, France's ecology minister said the government is considering a "picnic tax" on disposable dishes to encourage people to use reusable plates and cups instead.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Mexico's military seized US$26.2 million in cash believed to belong to members of the Sinaloa drug cartel. This was the 2nd biggest seizure since March 2007, when police seized US$207 million linked to a trafficking ring for pseudoephedrine.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 14, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant group in Nigeria's southern oil region, declared a state of war after two days of clashes with government forces, launching reprisal raids and raising the specter of more conflict in Africa's biggest oil producer.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Pakistani security forces killed 16 suspected militants and wounded 25 on in the Bajur tribal region, the latest round of a military offensive with no end in sight.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Aeroflot Flight 821, traveling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm, crashed near residential buildings as it was preparing to land, killing all 88 people aboard, including 21 foreign nationals. A Russian investigator said the crash of the Boeing-737-500 was most likely caused by engine failure.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Somalia at least six people, including an African Union (AU) peacekeeper, were killed Sunday in two separate incidents in Mogadishu.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Sudan Minni Minnawi, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction turned presidential advisor after signing the peace deal with Khartoum, said his forces had came under attack at their base at Kolge in the east Jebel Marra region.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Typhoon Sinlaku pounded Taiwan with fierce winds and torrential rains, leaving at least 11 people dead.
(AP, 9/14/08)(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 14, A Turkish ferry carrying some 100 people sank in the Sea of Marmara, killing at least one person. At least 23 more were missing.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Lehman Brothers, burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition after attempts to rescue the 158-year-old firm failed. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction. In 2009 Lawrence G. McDonald and Patrick Robinson authored “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers." With over $600 billion in assets Lehman was America’s largest and most complex corporate failure.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/12/09, p.91)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.86)
2008 Sep 15, Oil prices plunged to a seven-month low as the Gulf Coast energy infrastructure appeared relatively unharmed after Hurricane Ike and traders bet that Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy could ignite a massive liquidation of commodities. Oil closed at $95.71, its first close below $100 since March 4.
(AP, 9/15/08)(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 15, Hewlett-Packard said it will cut 24,600 jobs as part of its plan to integrate Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS).
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 15, An Australian jury found Abdul Benbrika (48), a Muslim cleric, and five of his followers guilty of planning to stage a "violent jihad" in Melbourne in 2005 to force Australian troops out of Iraq. A 7th man was convicted the next day. In 2009 Benbrika was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison.
(Reuters, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)(AP, 2/3/09)
2008 Sep 15, South American presidents agreed to work urgently to prevent a political collapse in Bolivia, where the government said it would charge a rebellious governor with genocide for allegedly ordering the machine-gunning of peasants.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, According to a new UN report Brazilian police carried out a "significant proportion" of the 48,000 murders that swept Brazil last year, casting doubt on the government's ability to curtail drug violence and reign in vigilante militias.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, In London the sale of pickled sharks, butterfly paintings and other pieces by Damien Hirst (43), the provocative British artist, raised some US$127 million. The sale continued the next day. Total sales reached $199 million. In 2009 his total auction sales shrunk to $19 million. Hirst had taken over Sotheby’s London headquarters for his two-day show “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever."
(AP, 9/16/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.73)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.99)(Econ, 4/15/17, p.72)
2008 Sep 15, Richard Wright (65), a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, died. Pink Floyd's spokesman, Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist, said Wright died after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. The band released a series of commercially and critically successful albums including 1973's "Dark Side of the Moon," which has sold more than 40 million copies.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, China’s central bank cut interest rates for the first time in over 6 years. Its benchmark one year lending rate will fall .27% to 7.2% effective Sep 16.
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 15, Cuba said hurricanes Gustav and Ike together delivered the worst hurricane-related blow in Cuba's storm-battered history, causing "around US$5 billion" in collective damage.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Egypt a speeding truck collided with a tourist bus in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, killing 12 people and injuring 33.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Europe's major central banks moved quickly to calm markets, pumping billions of euros and pounds into the financial system to shore up confidence in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy filing in the United States.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, French troops stormed a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates, killing one, capturing six others and freeing their two French hostages, who had been held since Sep 2.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Indonesia at least 23 people were killed in a stampede as they crowded an alley to receive $4.25 in cash handouts for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
(AFP, 9/15/08)(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A20)
2008 Sep 15, A new International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran has repeatedly blocked a UN investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and the probe is now deadlocked.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, A suicide bomber blew herself up among police officers who were celebrating the release of a comrade from US custody, killing at least 22 people. Separate bombings in Iraq killed 13 other people. A member of a Sunni group allied with US forces was killed by a bomb stuck to his car in a mainly Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Mauritania suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 12 soldiers. The terror group had promised to avenge the country’s recent coup.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 15, Mexican police and soldiers quelled a riot at a Tijuana prison that left 4 inmates dead and at least 31 prisoners and officials injured.
(AP, 9/16/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Oaxaca, Mexico, Omar Yoguez Singu (32) allegedly had consensual sex with Marcella Grace Eiler (20) of Eugene, Oregon. He then killed her with a machete after an argument. Her badly decomposed body was found Sep 24 in a shack 80 miles south of Oaxaca City. Friends of Singu beat him up after he confessed to the crime and on Sep 24 turned him over to police.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 15, Hundreds of disco workers protested in Kathmandu against a government crackdown on "nude dancing" in its bid to improve the deteriorating law and order.
(Reuters, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Nigerian militants attacked a Shell-operated oil facility, killing two and forcing the evacuation of nearly 100 staff, in a third day of fighting with security forces in the Niger Delta. Police in northern Nigeria arrested a Muslim preacher who claims 86 wives and 107 children, charging him with breaking Islamic laws governing marriage.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships and fighter jets killed 15 suspected militants as security forces advanced on Taliban strongholds near the Afghan border.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Rwandan voters went to the polls for parliamentary elections contested only by movements allied to the ruling party of Pres. Paul Kagame. His Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) won 42 of 53 contested seats in a proclaimed turnout of 98.5%.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)
2008 Sep 15, In Somalia an African Union peacekeeper was killed in a roadside bomb explosion in Mogadishu, the 2nd AU member to be killed in there in as many days.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Darfur rebels said they were fighting back against attacking government troops for a fourth day, the latest in a series of battles in Sudan's war-torn western region.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Thailand's ruling party chose the brother-in-law of ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra as its nominee to become the next prime minister, immediately drawing opposition from anti-government protesters and dozens of its own members.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, President Robert Mugabe relaxed his iron hold on Zimbabwe for the first time in nearly three decades of one-man rule, forced by escalating economic chaos into sharing power with his bitter political rivals. PM Morgan Tsvangirai used his first platform as head of government to call on Zimbabwe's rival political parties to work together to "unite" the country.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AFP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 16, Urgently trying to keep cash flowing amid a Wall Street meltdown, the Federal Reserve pumped another $70 billion into the nation's financial system to help ease credit stresses. Late in the day the Federal Reserve agreed to a 2-year $85 billion loan to insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake in the form of warrants called equity participation notes. Central banks in the US, Europe and Japan pumped tens of billions into their banking systems to keep money flowing.
(AP, 9/16/08)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 16, The United States pledged 1.8 million dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge court, making its first donation to the UN-backed genocide tribunal aimed at trying regime leaders.
(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger promised to veto a state budget approved by lawmakers just hours earlier.
(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 16, Local media reported that a Florida judge has deemed unconstitutional a law banning baggy pants that show off the wearer's underwear.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Texas the torn apart body of Brandon McClelland (24), a black man, was found on a rural road near Paris. He had crossed the border to Oklahoma the previous evening with friends Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley (27) to buy beer. In 2009 murder charges were dropped against Finley and Crostley due to lack of evidence.
(SFC, 10/25/08, p.A5)(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A6)
2008 Sep 16, James Crumley (1939), American novelist, died in Missoula, Montana. His books included “The Last Good Kiss" (1978). The opening line of that book has been widely called the best in crime fiction.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Crumley)
2008 Sep 16, In Bolivia government soldiers arrested Pando state Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez on suspicion of directing the recent massacre of government supporters.
(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 16, The US declared Bolivia to be “non-compliant" in the war on drugs, a step that implicated an end of American aid.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.52)
2008 Sep 16, Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of China dairy giant Sanlu Group, was fired from her posts in the wake of the tainted milk powder scandal.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/16/content_10041638.htm)
2008 Sep 16, Costa Rica Security Minister Janina del Vecchio said that a 70-foot (20-meter) submarine-type vessel was intercepted by the US Navy in international waters near Costa Rica.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, Georgia’s government said intercepted mobile phone calls show that Russian tanks and troops invaded before Georgia unleashed its offensive against South Ossetia, pressing its claim that Russia was the aggressor in the war last month.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Honduras said it will welcome a new US ambassador after a one-week delay meant to show support for Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with Washington.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, A Japanese researcher said he has taught a beluga whale to "talk" by using sounds to identify three different objects, offering hope that humans may one day be able to hold conversations with sea mammals.
(Reuters, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Iraq a bicycle laden with explosives exploded near a military truck in a market north of Baghdad, killing 2 civilians and wounding 19. Gen. Ray Odierno took over as the top American commander of the Iraq conflict.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Malawi withdrew its recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), proclaimed by the Polisario Front in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. SADR was declared in 1976 by the Polisario Front, a rebel movement that wants independence for Western Sahara. The guerilla war against Rabat's forces ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Mexico explosions at an Independence Day celebration killed 7 people and injured 101 in the city of Morelia. Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy said organized crime was responsible.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, A Buddhist monk slashed his throat in a suicide attempt at Myanmar's most sacred temple, the scene of several pro-democracy protests that erupted a year ago. A trustee of the Shwedagon temple said the monk became desperate after running out of money to pay for medical care.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Nigeria militants destroyed the Orubiri flow station operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company in Rivers state. The next day MEND said it killed all the soldiers on guard at the facility and took their weapons.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg said Norway will give Brazil US$1 billion by 2015 to preserve the Amazon rain forest, as long as Latin America's largest nation keeps trying to stop deforestation.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Pakistan's military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border. Security forces backed by air support again pounded suspected militant hideouts in a northwest Pakistan tribal region, killing eight alleged insurgents.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Hamas police waged a fierce gunbattle against members of a heavily armed Palestinian clan in a crowded neighborhood. A night of clashes left 11 people dead including an infant, and at least 40 wounded.
(AP, 9/16/08)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A11)
2008 Sep 16, Thailand's ruling People's Power Party announced that it has reconciled with a renegade faction, clearing a hurdle toward the selection of Somchai Wongsawat as a consensus candidate for prime minister.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Ukraine's pro-Western coalition collapsed, paving the way for complicated coalition talks or yet another early parliamentary election.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 17, The Bush administration released $100 million in disaster relief to West coast salmon fisherman, $70 million less that was approved by Congress. About $63 million will go to California, $25 million to Oregon and $12 million to Washington state.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 17, US federal prosecutors unsealed charges against alleged members of a global network procuring potentially sensitive electronic components for Iran. 8 companies and 8 people, including Iranian, Malaysian and British nationals, were charged with violating a US embargo that restricts certain goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 17, The US Coast Guard intercepted a submarine-like vessel carrying 7 tons of cocaine about 400 miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border. The Coast Guard sank the vessel after determining it was too unstable to be towed to port.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 17, The US non-profit “Do Something" group launched an IPO to raise $8 million. The 15-year-old organization promoted volunteerism among American teenagers.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.72)
2008 Sep 17, Gold prices rose $70 to close at $850.50, its biggest one-day price jump ever.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.C3)
2008 Sep 17, In SF the large “Wall Drawing #935" and “Wall Drawing #936," conceived by Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) and painted by his assistants in 1999, were painted over at the SF Museum of Modern Art. The museum retained the sole right for their reproduction.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.E1)
2008 Sep 17, Philip Morris International said that it succeeded in its tender offer to acquire Canada's No. 2 cigarette maker Rothmans Inc.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A roadside blast in eastern Afghanistan killed four US coalition soldiers and an Afghan. In Kabul US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed "personal regret" for recent US airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians, and pledged more accurate targeting in future. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said years of under-investment in defense by European countries was to blame for a critical shortage of international forces in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Barclays PLC said it may pick up some of Lehman Brothers assets and employees in Europe and Asia, on top of the British bank's deal to acquire key U.S. operations from the failed investment bank.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A packed "Bird's Nest" National stadium witnessed the formal end of the Beijing Paralympic Games, bringing down the curtain on a glittering 12-day sports extravaganza.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A German court convicted 3 Turkish men of siphoning $25 million from the Deniz Feneri charity, which raised fund to ostensibly help needy Muslims.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 17, In northern Lebanon a gunfight between two rival Christian groups has left two people dead and three wounded.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A second riot in three days at an infamous Tijuana prison left close to 2 dozen people dead and 12 injured. 2 American inmates were among the dead. Inmates at La Mesa prison rioted again because they have not been given food or water since Sep 14, when a separate riot led to the deaths of at least three inmates.
(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, Armed Nigerian militants, who have declared an "oil war" in the restive south of the country, claimed to have blown up a major pipeline in their latest attack on oil installations in the region. A spokesman for Nigeria's state oil company said that militant attacks are now cutting the country's daily oil production by about 1 million barrels a day, 40 percent of what the country produced before the militant campaign began three years ago.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A CIA missile strike in South Waziristan killed 6 people as US Adm. Mike Mullen assured Pakistan’s leaders that the US respects Pakistan’s sovereignty.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 17, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed friendship treaties with Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and promised them the backing of Russia's armed forces.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Thai lawmakers turned to Somchai Wongsawat, the brother-in-law of deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra, to be the new prime minister, setting up a showdown with protesters determined to tear down his political legacy.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko said she would not resign as required following the collapse of the country's ruling pro-Western coalition.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Suspected militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the US Embassy in the Yemeni capital. The coordinated attack killed 17 people, including six assailants. The dead included Susan Elbaneh (18), a US citizen from Lackawanna, N.Y., who was recently wed in Yemen in an arranged marriage, along with her Yemeni husband as they stood outside the embassy.
(AP, 9/17/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe a government-controlled newspaper said key aspects of the new power-sharing deal won't go in effect until next month, adding to concerns that President Robert Mugabe's agreement to cede some power for the first time in 28 years will founder.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 18, Central banks around the world poured in $180 billion in extra liquidity to calm markets made jittery by the mayhem on Wall Street. An SEC measure took effect making short sellers and their broker dealers deliver securities by the close of business on the settlement date, three days after the sale. The Bush administration asked lawmakers for the power to rescue banks by buying distressed assets. Pres. Bush said “markets are adjusting" as he defended the government’s recent moves.
(AP, 9/18/08)(Reuters, 9/18/08)(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, A non-profit Internet rights group filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush and others in his administration for the "massively illegal" surveillance of emails and telephone calls without court warrants.
(AFP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, California’s budget standoff ended as Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders struck a deal on a $104 billion budget after 80 days of stalemate.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, In south Berkeley, Ca., drug dealers Kevin Antoine Parker (42) and Kelvin Earl Davis (26) were shot and killed. In 2011 Oakland gang member Desmen Lankford was convicted of the shooting and faced life in prison.
(SFC, 9/15/11, p.C3)
2008 Sep 18, Chicago Mayor Richard Daly unveiled an aggressive plan to reduce heat-trapping gases. The plan included changing building codes to promote energy efficiency and solar panels at municipal properties as well as alternative fueling stations.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 18, In Minnesota the new Interstate 35W bridge opened. The old span over the Mississippi River had collapsed on August 1, 2007. The new $234 million St. Anthony Falls Bridge was embedded with an early warning system consisting of hundreds of sensors.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.6)
2008 Sep 18, In southern Afghanistan NATO-led troops killed an ally of President Hamid Karzai during an overnight gunbattle. The Afghan president said the death resulted from a "misunderstanding between foreign and local forces." Ruzi Khan Barakzai, the former police chief of Uruzgan province and a tribal leader and militia commander, were killed outside the provincial capital of Tirin Kot. Taliban militants killed two policemen and wounded three others after attacking their checkpoint in the eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Australia’s PM Kevin Rudd said the west's relations with Russia are at a turning point after its intervention in Georgia and a pact to sell Australian uranium to Moscow is in the balance.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, HBOS, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, agreed under government pressure to be taken over by Lloyds TSB.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.90)
2008 Sep 18, China announced plans to buy shares and take other measures to support the nation’s plummeting stock market.
(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 18, The Bank of China announced that it would take a 20% stake in the French arm of LCF Rothschild, its first investment in a euro-zone bank.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 18, In Iraq an explosives-laden car parked at a bus station in the southern city of Nasiriyah killed two people and wounded one. 7 American soldiers were killed in southern Iraq when their helicopter crashed as it was flying into the country from Kuwait.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Tzipi Livni (50), Israel's foreign minister, eked out a victory in a surprisingly tight race to replace PM Ehud Olmert as the head of the governing party, putting her in a strong position to become the country's first female leader in 34 years.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, In Italy 6 immigrants from Ghana, Togo and Liberia were slain by automatic gunfire as they stood outside a store that sold ethnic goods in Castel Volturno, a town north of Naples.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 18, MEND militants in southern Nigeria, as part of their "oil war," claimed to have destroyed a major oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the fifth attack on the company in less than a week.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, In northwest Pakistan militants briefly seized 300 boys at a school. The incident ended with the deaths of 2 suicide bombers. No children were harmed.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 18, Peru’s Pres. Alan Garcia led a deputation of half his cabinet and over 200 business leaders to see Brazil’s Pres. da Silva.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.44)
2008 Sep 18, Russia ordered its main stock exchanges closed for a second day as President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled an expanded $120 billion rescue package and called for pouring 500 billion rubles ($20 billion) into blue-chip shares in an effort to stabilize them.
(AP, 9/18/08)(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 18, Rwanda became the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, according to provisional results announced at the close of a four-day legislative vote.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, Armed pirates hijacked a Greek ship with 25 crew members off Somalia, bringing to 55 the number of reported attacks in the lawless sea lane of the African region.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Sri Lanka's military said it was moving closer to the headquarters of the Tamil Tigers. Naval forces fought a ferocious sea battle with Tamil Tiger separatists off Sri Lanka's northwestern coast, sinking 10 boats. Tamil Tiger separatists and government forces fought intense battles across the embattled northern region, killing at least 62 rebels and eight soldiers according to military officials. The Tamil Tigers, meanwhile, said they repelled a government offensive in Kilinochchi, killing 25 soldiers.
(AFP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, Rebels said Sudanese aircraft bombed Darfur rebel positions in the latest offensive in the war-torn region, with the UN reporting wounded government troops in the area.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, A senior Yemen security official said at least 25 militants with suspected links to al-Qaida have been arrested in the last 24 hours in connection with the deadly attack on the US Embassy in San’a.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 19, A global recovery in markets took place after the US took steps to limit damage from a seize-up in world credit markets following the forced private sale or government takeover in recent days. The Bank of England offered to lend an additional 22 billion pounds (40 billion dollars) to financial institutions struggling to obtain funds amid a worldwide squeeze on credit.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, US federal securities regulators, in an effort to boost investor confidence in the face of a market crisis, took the dramatic step of temporarily banning the trading practice of short selling financial stocks. The rules were soon adjusted to allow bona fide market making and hedging activity. The SEC eased buyback rules allowing corporations to purchase in one day up to 100% of the average daily trading volume of their stock.
(AP, 9/19/08)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A9,B1)
2008 Sep 19, Ken Cockrel Jr. was sworn in as the city's new mayor, vaulted into office by a sex scandal that destroyed the reign of Kwame Kilpatrick and threw Detroit's government into chaos for months.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Nebraska at least 86 workers were fired at the JBS Swift & Co. Grand Island meat packing plant after they walked off their jobs amid a dispute over Ramadan prayers.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 19, Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people just before midnight.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, In western Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a US-led coalition convoy killing one coalition soldier.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 19, PM Kevin Rudd announced that Australia will launch a multi-million dollar international carbon capture and storage institute to fight global warming.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Hammaad Munshi (18), said by prosecutors to be the youngest Briton to be convicted of a terrorism offence, was jailed for two years. He was found guilty last month of being part of a cell that spread extremist propaganda and provided practical guides on how to make poisons and suicide vests.
(Reuters, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, David Heiss (21), German office worker, stabbed Matthew Pyke (20) 86 times in an attack in Nottingham. He had met Pyke and Joanna Witton, Pyke’s girlfriend, on a war games website, and flew to England after the couple made disparaging remarks about him. On May 11, 2009, Heiss was sentenced to life in prison.
(http://news.cnet.com/technically-incorrect/?keyword=David+Heiss)(AFP, 5/11/09)
2008 Sep 19, Masked kidnappers in Egypt seized 19 hostages including German, Italian and Romanian tourists in a remote desert area near the Sudanese and Libyan borders. The kidnappers demanded $15 million in ransom. On Sep 29 Egyptian and Sudanese forces rescued the captives near the Sudanese-Chadian border.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 19, Haiti said its system of agriculture has been destroyed by the last 4 tropical storms, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. The storms killed 425 people in less than a month. On Oct 3 authorities said the official death toll from four storms that ravaged Haiti this summer nearly doubled to 793 people.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A10)(AP, 10/3/08)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.45)
2008 Sep 19, Indian police in New Delhi battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house, killing two and arresting one before 2 others escaped. They were believed to be members of the Indian Mujahedeen, the group responsible for the Sep 13 serial bombings in New Delhi.
(AP, 9/19/08)(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 19, Seven Iraqis were killed in a raid by American troops backed by attack aircraft targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. Those killed in the Sunni town of Adwar included four suspected insurgents and three women. Iraqi officials and neighbors said the family had no connection to the insurgency. Gunmen killed Sheik Oday Ali Abbas al-Ajrish, a cleric loyal to US foe Muqtada al-Sadr, in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 9/19/08)(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Italy hundreds of African immigrants took their anger over the alleged mafia killing of six Africans to the streets, hurling rocks and smashing windows in Castel Volturno.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, Alitalia cancelled flights and regulators said they might soon ground the troubled flag-carrier as it hurtles toward bankruptcy after the failure of another rescue plan.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Japan's agriculture minister resigned in a widening scandal over rice contaminated with mold and pesticide that was sold as food for thousands of people, including schoolchildren and nursing home patients.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In central Nepal a bus rolled off a mountain highway and crashed into a river, killing at least 14 people and injuring 25 others.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Nigerian militants destroyed another major oil pipeline in the Niger Delta after a week of the most intense attacks against Africa's biggest oil and gas industry for years.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, North Korea said it is making "thorough preparations" to restart its nuclear reactor, accusing the United States of failing to fulfill its obligations under an international disarmament-for-aid agreement.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Quetta, Pakistan, a bomb exploded at a religious school run by a pro-Taliban Islamist party, killing five people and wounding 10 more. A witness claimed it was caused by a suicide bomber intercepted at the main gate. Unknown gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on a police patrol vehicle in Quetta, killing one officer and wounding one policeman and a passer-by.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Russia said it will boost its defense budget next year by more than a quarter to a post-Soviet high of $50 billion. Russian stock exchanges halted trading after stocks shot higher, rebounding off a two-day closure amid a financial crisis as the government rushed through emergency measures that included more money for banks and purchases of shares to stem plunging prices. Trading resumed later in the day.
(AP, 9/19/08)(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 19, Singapore banned all dairy imports from China and the European Union demanded answers from Beijing as the baby formula scandal, which left 4 babies dead and over 6 thousand infants ill across China, spread to liquid milk.
(Reuters, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, South Korea said it will completely withdraw its remaining troops from Iraq by December, ending five years of military deployment.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Spain approved a decree under which it will pay jobless immigrants to go home, more evidence of how its once-booming economy has quickly gone bust.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Ben Stocking (49), an Associated Press reporter in Vietnam, was punched, choked and hit over the head with a camera by police who detained him for a short while as he covered a Catholic prayer vigil at the site of the former Vatican Embassy in Hanoi. The city had started to clear the site after announcing a day earlier that it planned to use the land for a public library and park.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) again failed to break a deadlock over forming a cabinet after reaching a power-sharing deal.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 20, Arkansas State Police troopers raided the 15-acre complex of evangelist Tony Alamo (74), searching for evidence of child pornography. FBI Agents arrested Alamo five days later in Flagstaff, Ariz. Alamo later pleaded not guilty to a 10-count federal indictment.
(AP, 7/10/09)
2008 Sep 20, The California Coastal Commission sponsored its annual coastal cleanup. Some 55,634 volunteers collected over 742 thousand pounds of debris.
(SSFC, 9/21/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 20, In Washington state Shawn Roe (36) killed police officer Kristine Fairbanks (51) during a traffic stop. He has also killed Richard Ziegler (59), a retired California corrections employee, whose pickup he was driving. Roe was killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 20, A soldier from the US-led coalition and two Afghan civilians were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in southern Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said he will cease all dialogue with Western countries if they fail to recognize the ex-Soviet state's parliamentary election.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, In southern China a fire and subsequent stampede at the Dance King nightclub in Shenzhen killed 44 people and left 88 injured. In 2010 two bosses of the club were sentenced to 15½ years in prison. Club general manager Lu Jinghuang was ordered jailed for three years. 14 other club managers received jail terms ranging up to six years. In Hubei province a migrant worker stabbed 12 people, seriously inuring 2 of them in Shiyan city.
(AFP, 9/21/08)(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)(AP, 3/31/10)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that Muslims in France, about 8% of the population, were estimated to make up over half the prison population.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 20, German police cancelled an anti-Islamic congress planned for today in Cologne after leftist opponents of the rally clashed with its right-wing backers.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Indian officials said thousands of people have been evacuated and at least were 7 swept away in eastern Orissa state after 4 rivers burst their banks and inundated scores of villages. Uttar Pradesh state, meanwhile, reeled under torrential rains which killed at least 16 people and toppled trees and houses.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that Mexican officers and prison guards in Michoacan state can now get special deals on houses and financing through a pilot program designed to keep them out of the pockets of organized crime.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, President Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan will not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants. He also called for an end to the president's powers to dissolve the assembly and dismiss the government, and pledged to tackle Pakistan's economic problems. A suicide bomber and a roadside bomb struck two military convoys in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan killing four soldiers and four civilians.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, A suspected car bomb caused a huge explosion at the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. The death toll soon grew to 54 with some 270 injured, including the Czech ambassador and 3 Americans. The next day Pakistan blamed Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants for the massive suicide truck bombing.
(AP, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 20, A Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers who said they saw him light a firebomb near a Jewish settlement. Suhayeb Saleh was later identified by his parents, who said he was 14 years old. Egypt opened its Gaza border terminal to allow passage of students and medical patients for 2 days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, South African President Thabo Mbeki agreed to resign after the ruling party ordered him to step down, a move that could heighten turmoil in Africa's economic powerhouse. A Sep 19 ruling threw out corruption charges against Zuma it appeared Mbeki and his justice minister had colluded with prosecutors against Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC. Mbeki indignantly denied this.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, The Thai government said floods have killed 14 people and sickened more than 53,000 others, including many who contracted waterborne ailments. The 14 people were swept away by flash floods that hit 36 of Thailand's 76 provinces over the past nine days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 21, At the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards HBO led with 26 trophies.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, The US Federal Reserve said it had granted a request by the country's last two major investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to change their status to bank holding companies.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Oracle’s 5-day OpenWorld customer conference opened in SF with some 43,000 people attending.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 21, NYC police arrested more than a dozen people for stealing pieces of Yankee Stadium during the 85-year-old ballpark's final game.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 21, Wallace N. Rasmussen (b.1914), former head of Beatrice Foods (1976-1979), died at his home in Nashville, Tenn.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 21, The UN said guns fell silent across much of Afghanistan for the 26th anniversary of the International Day of Peace that saw pledges by the US, NATO, the Afghan government and the Taliban to halt attacks. Taliban militants attacked a security company guarding a road construction crew in the southern province of Ghazni, killing two guards. In southwestern Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants kidnapped about 156 civilian laborers who were traveling in three buses in the Bala Buluk area.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AFP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, Egypt's foreign ministry said an illegal migrant boat carrying 83 Egyptians headed for Europe has gone missing off the coast of Greece after leaving Egypt 3 days ago.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Hermann Simm, a middle ranking civil servant in Estonia’s defense ministry, was arrested along with his wife and charged with spying for an unnamed foreign power. He had set up and run a system for handling top secret documents from NATO allies and handled security clearances for Estonian officials in the military, security and intelligence services.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.68)
2008 Sep 21, Hong Kong authorities said they found traces of melamine in a batch of Chinese-made Nestle commercial milk. The next day they forced Nestle to recall the milk line.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A22)
2008 Sep 21, Iraqi interior ministry Brig. Adel Abbas was killed along with his driver in a drive-by shooting in western Baghdad. A finance ministry director was seriously wounded when a bomb exploded in his car, also in western Baghdad. An American soldier was killed when his patrol came under small-arms fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert, crippled by a series of corruption investigations, announced he would resign, clearing the way for his foreign minister to try to succeed him as Israel's next leader.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, In southern Nigeria MEND declared a ceasefire following a week of attacks on oil industry targets.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two US helicopters that crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan. The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing.
(www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1479095)
2008 Sep 21, Pirates in speedboats hijacked a Greek bulk carrier with 19 crew members off eastern Somalia. On Dec 8 Somali pirates freed the 19-man crew and MV Captain Stephanos, the Greek-owned and Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Sep 21, Somali refugees abandoned by smugglers in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden were rescued. They had drifted for 18 days, and at least 52 died before the group was rescued off the Yemeni coast. Seventy-one people survived the journey.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 21, In northeast Spain suspected Basque separatists threw petrol bombs at a police station in Ondorroa to lure officers outside before detonating a car bomb, which injured 10 people. The attack came only hours after a car bomb exploded in the regional capital of Vitoria. Nobody was injured. Authorities suspected ETA.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, In western Turkey 13 newborn, premature babies died over the weekend at Izmir's Tepecik hospital. In August, investigators looking into the deaths of 27 newborns at an Ankara hospital concluded that a staff shortage had increased the risk of infection. Tainted IV treatment was later suspected.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 22, Group of Seven (G7) nations welcomed the $700 billion US markets bailout plan and said they were prepared to step up international cooperation to protect the world's financial and banking system.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The price of oil jumped $16.37 to $120.92 per barrel, its biggest single-day gain ever, as the dollar posted its worst single-day percentage drop. During this final day for the October contract, oil had soared to as high as $130 per barrel.
(SFC, 9/23/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.C2)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.90)
2008 Sep 22, Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan's largest brokerage, reached a deal to buy the Asian operations of bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in a deal valued at around $225 million.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, It was reported that SanDisk, a maker of flash memory, was teaming with 4 top music labels to roll out a new music medium based on its microSD cards, which would feature pre-loaded albums and additional content and compete with the declining CD market.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 22, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a district chief and a police chief in Kandahar province. An Afghan journalist detained for 11 months at the US military base at Bagram alleged that his captors kicked him, forced him to stand barefoot in the snow and didn't allow him to sleep for days. Jawed Ahmad (21), who worked primarily for CTV, a Canadian television network, was handed over to Afghan authorities on Sep 21.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, in Australia 400 sheep died in a road accident, prompting animal rights activists to repeat their call for an end to the long distance transportation of livestock for slaughter.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, In southern Brazil 5 hooded gunmen killed 15 people on an alleged drug trafficker's ranch. The suspected trafficker and two of his sons were among the 15 dead.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The number of Chinese infants sick in hospital after drinking tainted milk formula doubled to nearly 13,000 and the country's top quality regulator resigned in the latest blight on the "made-in-China" brand.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The UN appealed for $460 million to feed some 10 million Ethiopians hit by drought and high food prices. In southeastern Ethiopia two expatriate staff for French aid group Medecins du Monde were kidnapped in the rebellious Ogaden region.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, Georgian forces shot down a Russian drone near the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, The death toll from heavy monsoon rains and flooding across India reached 119 in the past three days.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Iraq and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a deal to establish a joint venture that will tap natural gas in southern Iraq. A mortar round apparently aimed at an Iraqi military base missed its target and slammed into a house in northwestern Baghdad, killing one man and wounding four others. A car bomb struck a mainly Shiite area in central Baghdad. Police said two men and a woman were killed and seven people wounded. In Mosul a bomb hidden under trash killed at least 5 children playing soccer.
(AP, 9/22/08)(SFC, 9/23/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 22, A driver plowed a BMW into a group of soldiers at a busy intersection near Jerusalem's Old City, injuring 13 of them before he was shot to death. The driver was a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who apparently acted alone.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Brash conservative Taro Aso easily won the presidency of Japan's struggling ruling party, virtually ensuring his election as prime minister later this week amid political and economic turmoil.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Mozambique's former interior minister Almerino Manhenje was arrested in connection with the disappearance of millions of dollars during his time in office. He served as home affairs minister in the Joaquim Chissano administration between 1996 and 2005.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, North Korea asked the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) to remove seals and surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Pakistan gunmen kidnapped Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's ambassador-designate, and killed his driver in the main northwestern city of Peshawar. Farahi was released on Nov 13, 2010.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 11/14/10)
2008 Sep 22, In the Philippines 16 gold miners went into shafts during a typhoon that rapidly flooded the tunnels in Benguet province. 2 bodies were retrieved on Sep 25, 3 miners were rescued on Sep 29, 3 more on Sep 30, and 3 more on Oct 1. Two bodies were recovered on Oct 2 and one miner remained missing. The last of the miners was rescued on Oct 3. He was then arrested by police, who had a warrant for his arrest on unrelated theft and robbery charges.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)(AP, 10/1/08)(AP, 10/2/08)(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Somalia mortar rounds slammed into a market in Mogadishu, killing up to 30 people including children and overwhelming hospitals with dozens of wounded in the worst fighting in months.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In South Africa ANC members of parliament said the ruling African National Congress will name party deputy head Kgalema Motlanthe as South Africa's caretaker leader after the ousting of President Thabo Mbeki. His resignation will take effect Sep 25.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In northern Spain a car bomb killed a soldier in the third attack in just over 24 hours by the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Sri Lanka some 26 Tamil Tigers were killed in ground fighting across the across the embattled regions of Weli Oya, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya, where troops were trying to wrest control of the rebel capital of Kilinochchi.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, Unicef said Ugandan rebels kidnapped 90 children in eastern Congo and that fighting has forced 100,000 people to flee the area.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, The Bush administration urgently pressed Congress in public and private to move quickly on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry as Democratic and Republican lawmakers vented their anger over a crisis that pushed the nation's economy to the brink. Congress and treasury secretary Hank Paulson appeared to have worked out the general outlines of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
(AP, 9/23/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.81)
2008 Sep 23, The US said it has given Ethiopia 151 million dollars to boost its health and education services.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a $144.5 billion spending plan. The state budget was a record 85 days late.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, Ronald Dominique, suspected of killing as many as 23 men in southern Louisiana over 10 years, pleaded guilty to killing 8 men. He was sentenced to serve 8 consecutive sentences of life in prison.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 23, Chrysler LLC disclosed that it had lost $400 million so far this year just hours after it unveiled prototypes of 3 new electric cars.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 23, Goldman Sachs said it will get a $5 billion infusion from Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway Inc., giving Berkshire roughly 10% of Goldman.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, Google and T-Mobile unveiled the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the Google’s Android operating system.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 23, In China Li Shiming, a corrupt and rapacious local Communist Party secretary in Shanxi province, was murdered by Zhang Xuping (18). Shiming had Zhang expelled from school in 2003 following the imprisonment of his mother, who had protested along with others the confiscation of land by Shiming.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.38)
2008 Sep 23, Ecuador expelled a leading Brazilian construction firm sending in troops to seize projects worth $800 million. Pres. Correa was battling with the Odebrecht firm over a dam which the government said was badly built.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A24)
2008 Sep 23, In western Finland Matti Juhani Saari (22), whose violent YouTube postings made police bring him in for questioning, opened fire at his trade school, killing 8 women and 2 men before shooting himself.
(AP, 9/23/08)(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Iran's President Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Two bombs apparently targeting Iraqi security forces struck different areas in Baghdad, killing at least one civilian and wounding seven others. US soldiers accidentally killed Jassim al-Garrout, a US-allied Sunni group leader in Siniyah.
(AP, 9/23/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 23, Japan’s Nomura Holdings said it will buy the European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking operations of Lehman Brothers for an undisclosed sum.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, The international organization Transparency International reported that, among 30 member states of the European Union (EU) and other countries of Western Europe, only Romania and Bulgaria encounter worse situation than Lithuania according to the corruption perceptions index.
(www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=5411)
2008 Sep 23, Mexico said it plans to search 10 percent of all vehicles entering the country from the United States in an effort to curb arms smuggling.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner, journalist Win Tin, was freed after 19 years behind bars and vowed to continue his struggle to achieve democracy in the military-ruled country. Altogether Myanmar freed 9,002 prisoners. Win Htein (64), a former aide to Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was re-arrested less than 24 hours after being freed by the military government in the mass amnesty.
(AP, 9/23/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A4)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 23, Pakistani officials said security forces, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery, have killed more than 60 insurgents in the northwest tribal regions in offensives aimed at denying al-Qaida and Taliban militants safe havens.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, The bodies of 2 Palestinian smugglers were pulled from a tunnel that collapsed along the Gaza-Egypt border. 3 more bodies were removed the next day. The five were bringing contraband goods from Egypt into Gaza when an explosion collapsed the tunnel. Three smugglers survived and were arrested on the Egyptian side.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Portugal's Socialist government began the roll-out of 500,000 ultra-cheap laptops for school children in a program that the government said could be extended to Venezuela. While the Magellan computer will be assembled in Portugal by a company called JP Sa Couto, it is based on Intel's Classmate PC, a cheap computer that has been adopted in various formats in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia.
(Reuters, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Heavy fighting between Somali insurgents and African Union forces erupted in southern Mogadishu, leaving at least seven civilians dead.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, South Africa's finance minister resigned along with most leading Cabinet members but tried to reassure a shaken business community and stock market by saying he was willing to serve the country's new administration.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in China to hold talks with his counterpart Hu Jintao and sign a deal for combat aircraft in a visit likely to irk the US. Chavez said Venezuela and China agreed to jointly build 2 oil refineries, one in each country.
(AP, 9/23/08)(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A25)
2008 Sep 24, Pres. Bush went on national TV to support the economic bailout plan.
(WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 24, A US federal appeals court ruled Ivory Coast plantation workers, who claimed they were sterilized by a US-made pesticide, cannot sue the manufacturers and distributors of the chemical in the US, because they can’t show that the companies intended them harm. Some 700 workers accused US companies of genocide for marketing DBCP abroad after the pesticide was banned in the US.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.B3)
2008 Sep 24, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger began signing bills including legislation that bans text messaging while driving and a law that forbids companies that do business with the state from having investments in Sudan.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 24, In California a mercury spill at Searles Valley Minerals in San Bernardino County released some 90 pounds during a demolition project. Another 90 pounds was released in a 2nd spill at the site on Oct 10.
(SSFC, 2/8/09, p.A21)
2008 Sep 24, In NYC police Lt. Michael Pigott ordered a fellow officer to fire a taser at Imam Morales, who had threatened to kill himself and stood naked on a window ledge. Morales fell about 10 feet and died. A distraught Pigott committed suicide on Oct 2.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 24, Google introduced a $10 million project to reward 5 winners in an Internet competition for an idea making the world a better place.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 24, Oracle unveiled a joint project with Hewlett Packard for a storage server for data warehousing: the HP Oracle Database Machine.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 24, In Afghanistan a bomb blast in the capital has wounded Kabul's chief criminal investigator. Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal was investigating the overnight killing of three officers at the checkpoint in Kabul's western outskirts when a blast struck his team. A remote-controlled bomb struck a police vehicle in Spin Boldak district, killing two officers.
(AP, 9/24/08)(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, Britain pledged 26.9 million pounds for drought-hit Ethiopia, where some 9.6 million people are in need of emergency food aid.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Typhoon Hagupit plowed into south China, killing at least 13 people, closing schools, canceling flights, uprooting trees and bringing down billboards in several cities. Torrential rain isolated more than 20,000 people in an area of southwest China still recovering from a devastating earthquake in May. Flash floods and landslides unleashed by heavy rains killed at least 16 people in Sichuan province.
(Reuters, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 24, The European Union warned that Iran is nearing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, French power provider EDF said it has agreed to acquire British Energy Group PLC for about $23.2 billion in cash in a deal that would create a powerhouse in nuclear energy.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Iraq's parliament overwhelmingly approved a provincial elections law, overcoming months of deadlock and giving a boost to US-backed national reconciliation efforts. An ambush against Iraqi forces raiding Othmaniyah, a Sunni village northeast of Baghdad killed 35, most of them commandos sent to the area as part of a US-backed military crackdown. A suicide bomber killed a US soldier in Diyala province.
(AP, 9/24/08)(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, Taro Aso (68), former foreign minister and flamboyant conservative of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), took charge as Japan's new prime minister, pledging to work for a "cheerful" nation by reviving an economy in the doldrums.
(AP, 9/24/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.53)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 24, In Morocco at least 12 people were killed and 43 injured when a bus overturned in the southern province of Taroudannt.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, In Nicaragua Russia's ambassador to Managua said that his country will replace the Nicaraguan army's aging weaponry.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, North Korea barred UN nuclear inspectors from its main nuclear reactor and within a week plans to reactivate the plant that once provided the plutonium for its atomic test explosion.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, The Pakistani army said it found the wreckage of a suspected US spy plane near the Afghan border, but denied claims that it had been shot down. A suicide bomber killed an 11-year-old girl and wounded 11 troops in the frontier city of Quetta. Security forces killed 20 militants in the Bajur border region.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Ruslan Yamadayev (46), a former Russian lawmaker and brother of a Chechen warlord, was assassinated as he was stopped at a traffic light just outside the British Embassy in Moscow.
(AP, 9/25/08)(www.newstin.com/rel/us/en-010-005544799)
2008 Sep 24, Sudanese forces were laying siege to a remote desert hideout where bandits held 19 people captive, including European tourists, but said they did not plan to storm the area. Negotiations were continuing with the kidnappers, who have reportedly demanded a ransom of up to 15 million dollars.
(AFP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced Simeon Nchamihigo, Rwanda’s former deputy prosecutor, to life in prison for his role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 25, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc., and then sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. WaMu, founded in 1889, became the largest bank to fail by far in the country's history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse the $40 billion of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, In Oakland, Ca., the dedication ceremony for the new Cathedral of Christ the Light took place at the northwest tip of Lake Merritt.
(SFC, 9/26/08, p.B6)
2008 Sep 25, Dinwiddie Lampton Jr. (b.1914), former head of American Life and Accident Insurance Co. of Kentucky, died.
(WSJ, 10/11/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 25, In Afghanistan a bomb targeted a bus full of police trainers in Kandahar city, killing a civilian passerby. The bomb missed the bus. The bullet-riddled bodies of four police officers were found dumped in Ghazni province.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 25, Britain unveiled its new biometric identity card which the government says will be vital in fighting illegal immigration and terrorism, while critics call it an expensive attack on civil liberties.
(Reuters, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, China successfully launched a three-man crew into space to carry out the country's first spacewalk, beginning the nation's most challenging space mission since it first sent a person into space in 2003. The Shenzhou VII spacecraft was launched on a Long March II-F rocket in western Inner Mongolia.
(AP, 9/25/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.60)
2008 Sep 25, The Czech counterintelligence service said Russian spies operating in the Czech Republic have tried to increase public opposition to a planned US missile defense facility. Most Czechs oppose the base, according to recent polls. The Czech Republic's government has approved the missile defense treaty, but it still requires the approval of the Czech parliament, where it faces strong opposition.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, The EU banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk as tainted dairy products linked to the deaths of four babies turned up in candy and other Chinese-made goods that were quickly pulled from stores worldwide. More than a dozen countries have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products as melamine was found in milk products from 22 Chinese dairy companies.
(AP, 9/25/08)(SFC, 9/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 25, A joint statement said India's PM Singh met with Pakistan's Pres. Zardari at the UN in New York and they agreed to boost a faltering peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, In India about 50 Christians armed with knives, sticks and stones hacked a Hindu man to death in the eastern state of Orissa in the latest outburst of sectarian violence that has left 27 people dead. In a 2nd incident about 500 Hindus attacked and burned about 50 Christian homes and two prayer halls in Beherasahi village.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Iraq's Health Ministry reported that a total of 327 cholera cases had been confirmed in central and southern Iraq since an outbreak of the disease last month. A roadside bomb killed an American soldier south of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, A pipe bomb exploded outside the home of a prominent Israeli scholar and outspoken critic of Jewish West Bank settlements, lightly wounding him in what police suspect was an attack by Jewish extremists.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, Mexican federal prosecutors in Apatzingan, a drug stronghold in the western state of Michoacan, arrested three drug gang members accused of throwing grenades into crowds of Independence Day revelers. They belonged to a group of infamous Gulf Cartel hit men known as the Zetas.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 25, In southeastern Mexico storms flooded hundreds of people out of their homes and caused the death of a woman and 4 children whose car plunged into a swollen irrigation ditch in Nanchital, Veracruz state.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Pirates seized the 530-foot, Ukrainian cargo vessel, MV Faina, with 21 people aboard off eastern Somalia. Russia's navy soon sent a warship to Somalia's coast a day after pirates seized the Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 tanks, ammunition and 3 Russian crew members. The ITAR-Tass news agency said the military equipment had been sold to Kenya. It was later reported that the arms were destined for southern Sudan and that Kenya’s cooperation would be rewarded in the future with cheap oil. The shipped was released on Feb 5, 2009, following a ransom of $3.2 million. Viktor Pinchuk, A top Ukrainian businessman, paid the "lion's share" of the ransom.
(AP, 9/26/08)(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A5)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.49)(AP, 2/5/09)(AP, 3/3/09)
2008 Sep 25, South Africa's parliament elected Kgalema Motlanthe, former trade unionist, freedom fighter deputy leader of the ruling ANC, as interim president of a country gripped by the worst political crisis since the end of apartheid. He was expected to step aside after elections next year, when Jacob Zuma was expected to become president. Motlanthe, within hours of taking office, won instant praise by announcing that Manto Tshabalala-Msimang would be removed as health minister and given a lesser post in his office. She had promoted nutritional supplements instead of conventional medicine for people with HIV.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, In Sri Lanka fighting in Kilinochchi left at least 24 Tamil Tiger soldiers dead, with two killed on the government side. Troops also killed nine rebels in separate attacks along the northern front of Vavuniya and Weli Oya.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Turkish warplanes bombarded Kurdish rebel territory in northern Iraq, damaging a school and wounding three people.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Typhoon Hagupit hit northern Vietnam. Floods triggered by the storm left at least 41 people dead and at least $65 million in damages.
(AP, 9/27/08)(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 25, Zimbabwe's central bank chief said nearly 600 shops had been licensed to sell goods in foreign currency to fight the world's highest inflation rate and critical shortages of basic goods.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 26, Barack Obama and John McCain shared a stage in their first of three presidential debates. It primarily focused on foreign policy.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, The Utah legislature adjourned after addressing a $354 million budget deficit in a 2-day special session, primarily through a three percent across-the-board cut in state agency spending, while preserving a $500 million reserve fund to address a potential future shortfall.
(www.statescape.com/SessionUpdates/SessionUpdates.asp)
2008 Sep 26, Marian McQuade (b.1917), lobbyist for the elderly and National Grandparents Day, died. Her efforts led Pres. Carter to designate the holiday in 1979. She got West Virginia to be the first state to create a Grandparents Day in 1974.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 26, Paul Newman (b.1925), the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as the anti-hero of such films as "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Color of Money," died after a long battle with cancer at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeting a militia commander killed five people, and wounded seven others in eastern Khost province. Three policemen were killed in Ghazni province when militants linked to Taliban attacked their patrol. Troops backed by gunship helicopters killed five Taliban-linked militants in Ghazni province. Taliban militants released 118 Afghan laborers.
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, In eastern Indonesia a packed ferry caught fire and sank between two coastal villages in the Maluku islands, killing at least eight people.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Pakistan said that its troops had killed 1,000 Islamist militants in a month-long offensive in the Bajaur region in which 27 soldiers died. Five top Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders were among those killed. Police raided a militant hideout in Karachi, triggering a shootout during which three suicide bombers blew themselves up. The body of a man held in handcuffs was found in the rubble. The prisoner in the rubble was identified as a wealthy supplier of fuel and goods to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A bomb blast caused a train to derail in eastern Punjab province, killing 6 people including 3 children.
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, In the Philippines three soldiers were killed after they tripped landmines planted near a New People's Army camp outside Lingig township in Surigao del Sur province. Informants reported that eight guerrillas had been killed since Sep 24 when army soldiers overran a rebel camp.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to create an upgraded nuclear deterrence system for Russia by 2020, including a space defense system and new nuclear submarines.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, Somali pirates hijacked the Liberian-flagged oil tanker MV Genius, a Greek-owned ship with 19 crew. The MV Genius was ransomed and released on Nov 21.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Sep 26, In Sri Lanka at least 52 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy fighting between troops and the guerrillas just outside the insurgents' northern capital. Fighting along the northern region of Weli Oya and Jaffna left eight rebels and two soldiers dead.
(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Turkmenistan's highest legislative body unanimously approved a new constitution that increased the president's powers but also broadened the role of parliament.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 27, Taliban militants released the last 30 of approximately 150 Afghan laborers they had abducted for almost a week after suspecting the workers of being Afghan soldiers. 118 were released a day earlier. 3 had been released earlier in the week due to illness.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, According to an estimate by the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), up to A$12 billion ($10 billion) in illicit drug money could be flowing out of Australia every year.
(Reuters, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Mission commander Zhai Zhigang floated, a Chinese astronaut, performed the nation's first-ever spacewalk, the latest milestone in an ambitious program that is increasingly rivaling the United States and Russia in its rapid expansion. Fellow astronaut Liu Boming also emerged briefly from the capsule to hand Zhai a Chinese flag that he waved for an exterior camera filming the event. The third crew member, Jing Haipeng, monitored the Shenzhou 7 from inside the re-entry module.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, It was reported that the elephant population in Congo’s Virunga National Park had dropped to under 200, mostly due to poaching. In 1964 there were an estimated 2,900. In 2006 the number had dropped to 400.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.62)
2008 Sep 27, In India one child was killed and 18 people were wounded in a bomb attack in a crowded shopping area in New Delhi. A young boy was killed instantly when he picked up a bag containing the bomb to return it to suspects who fled the market before the explosion. A 2nd man died the next day from his injuries.
(AFP, 9/27/08)(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 27, The UN Security Council unanimously approved a new resolution reaffirming previous sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program and offering Tehran incentives to do so.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Iraqi police fatally shot Riya Qahtan, a Kurdish politician, in Diyala province, a killing that underlines the growing tensions between Kurds and Arabs in parts of the north. The US military arrested five Iranian-backed Shiite extremists, in 3 separate locations in eastern Baghdad. accused in recent rocket attacks on Iraqi and American forces. The extremists were suspected of links to the Hezbollah Brigades, a Shiite extremist group that the US believes is backed by Iran.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, The AIDS virus was reported to afflict some 5.5 million of South Africa’s 49 million population.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.19)
2008 Sep 27, The population of Seoul, South Korea, was reported to be about 23 million.
(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.3)
2008 Sep 27, Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a rebel base in Kilinochchi district. The government it said was used to train suicide bombers. The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said the bombs fell on a civilian town, killing one person and injuring two, including a child. Clashes between government soldiers and rebels left 17 dead in the country's war-ravaged north.
(AFP, 9/27/08)(AFP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 27, In Damascus, Syria, a car packed with explosives detonated on a crowded residential street, killing 17 people and wounding more than a dozen others.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, A Ukrainian ship, sailing under a North Korean flag, sank in the Black Sea and all crew members were missing. the 5,000-ton Tolstoy was carrying a cargo of scrap metal to the Turkish port of Nemrut.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader and designated prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai said it was "urgent" the country form a new government to ensure food supplies and prevent starvation.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 28, Congressional leaders and the Bush administration agreed on the main elements of a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry, paving the way for swift enactment of the largest government intervention in markets since the Great Depression.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In San Francisco hundreds of thousands gathered for the 25th Folsom Street Fair, the world’s biggest celebration of leather, bondage and sexual fetish.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 28, Space Explorations Technologies (SpaceX) successfully launched its 2-stage Falcon 1 rocket into orbit with a dummy payload. The South Pacific launch was its 4th attempt following 3 earlier failures.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 28, In Maryland a medical helicopter crashed and killed 4 of 5 people on board.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 28, In Afghanistan two gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed Malalai Kakar (41), a high-ranking woman police official in Kandahar city. A suicide bomber killed three police and three civilians in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. An Afghan police official said a US-led coalition killed three civilians in an operation apparently targeting a suicide bomb cell in eastern Afghanistan. That claim was disputed by the coalition, which said its troops killed two al-Qaida militants. A NATO soldier and an Afghan policeman were killed in a row that erupted after a bomb strike. Gunmen opened fire on the head of a provincial council, near his home in Kandahar city. Mohammad Hashim Granai survived, but 4 of his bodyguards were killed.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Algeria a suspected suicide bombing killed three people and wounded six in a village east of Algiers.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, Austrians voted in parliamentary elections that analysts say could bolster the standing of the country's far-right and give the main ruling parties their worst results in years. The rightist Freedom Party (18%) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (11%), capitalized on voter discontent and got a combined 29%. The voting age had recently been lowered to 16.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.16, 56)
2008 Sep 28, Belarussians voted in parliamentary elections that could determine whether President Alexander Lukashenko's regime warms to the West or moves deeper into Russia's orbit. Loyalists of Lukashenko won every seat in the parliamentary polls that observers said failed Western standards and had the opposition crying foul.
(AFP, 9/28/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, The governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg took partial control of struggling bank Fortis NV.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In England Frank McGarahan (45), a top Barclays executive, was beaten to death by a group of youths in Norwich as he tried to stop them attacking a homeless man.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, Konstantin Pavlov (b.1933), Bulgarian poet and screenwriter, died. He was among the few Bulgarian intellectuals who dared to assert their professional independence during the 1945-89 communist regime. Some of his most popular volumes of poetry are "Sweet Agony" (1991), "The Murder of the Sleeping Man" (1992) and "A Long Time Ago..." (1998).
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, Three Chinese astronauts made a jubilant return to Earth after successfully completing the country's first-ever spacewalk, an event the premier said was "a stride forward" in China's space history.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, Ecuadoreans voted on a new constitution that would significantly broaden leftist President Rafael Correa's powers and let him run for two more consecutive terms. Correa's avowed quest for an "equitable, just" Ecuador won a major boost as voters approved a new constitution that will help the leftist president consolidate power and enable him to run for two more consecutive terms. The new constitution conferred on ecosystems “the inalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve." The new constitution also imposed a 12-month deadline for approving new regulatory measures.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.68)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.44)
2008 Sep 28, In Ethiopia 4 people were killed and 22 injured in an explosion in eastern Somali province. Police the next day said a suspect had confessed to being a member of the Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya operating in the region.
(AFP, 9/28/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Germany Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia broke the marathon world record for the second straight year, becoming the first man to run the distance in under two hours and four minutes. He clocked 2:03.59 in winning his third straight Berlin Marathon, breaking the mark of 2:04.26 he set last year over the same flat course.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Iraq 3 explosions in Baghdad killed at least 31 people.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A19)
2008 Sep 28, An Israeli official said the US had installed an advanced American radar system in the Negev Desert.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 28, In Pakistan suspected militants seized a Polish engineer and killed his Pakistani driver, guard and assistant in the northwestern city of Attock. A government official in Bajur said militants attacked security forces in three places overnight. He said the troops repulsed each attack, killing 11 fighters.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Sri Lanka a suicide attack in Vavuniya killed one civilian and left 8 wounded. A soldier died form wounds the next day. Troops captured part of a strategic road in Kilinochchi district after a seven-hour battle that killed seven rebels and one soldier. Attacks on rebel bunkers and other scattered fighting killed 11 rebels in the Welioya, Jaffna and Vavuniya districts. Two other rebels were killed in a brief clash in Ampara in the east, which the government ousted the rebels from last year.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, Sudanese forces engaged a group of kidnappers in a gunbattle in northwest Sudan who had been sent out to get gas and food. Six kidnappers were killed in the fight, and two captured. The two told the authorities where the rest of the kidnappers and their captives were hiding. The kidnappers were believed to be armed desert tribesmen. Kidnappers released the 19-member European tour group, abducted on Sep 19, into one car near the Sudanese-Chadian border. The group drove some 200 miles before encountering Egyptian special forces and returning safely to Cairo.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, President Hugo Chavez said that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy, a move likely to raise US concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, The US House of Representatives rejected the Bush administration’s $700 billion emergency rescue plan. Democrats voted 140 to 90 in favor, while Republicans voted 133-65 against the plan. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 777.68 points, its biggest single-day fall ever, easily beating the 684 points it lost on the first day of trading after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Crude oil futures closed down $10.52 in their biggest decline since Jan 17, 1991, when the US opened strategic oil reserves during the first Gulf war.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.C8)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.30)
2008 Sep 29, The US Federal Reserve with the help of the ECB, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan agreed to lend banks a further $620 billion.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.73)
2008 Sep 29, Kyle Dustin Foggo (53), former executive director of the CIA, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government. His guilty plea to a single charge wiped out 27 additional counts. The case was linked to the corruption scandal involving Randy Cunningham, former Republican congressman from San Diego. In 2009 Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
(SFC, 9/30/08, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/09, p.A5)
2008 Sep 29, Kelsey Peterson (26), a former 6th grade math teacher in Nebraska, was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison for having sex with a 13-year-old boy student beginning in Nov, 2006. In 2009 Peterson was sentenced to 8-10 years after pleading guilty to 2 state counts of 1st-degree sexual assault of a minor.
(SFC, 10/2/08, p.A6)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A5)
2008 Sep 29, Citigroup bought the operations of Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp. for $2.2 billion in stock and assumed $42 billion in losses on the bank’s risky $312 billion loan portfolio, in exchange for the FDIC backstopping losses beyond that. Citigroup agreed to give the FDIC $12 billion in preferred stock. Wachovia shares fell 8.20 to close at $1.80. Wachovia’s new 48-story headquarters in Charlotte, NC, was still under construction.
(AFP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.C6)
2008 Sep 29, Scientists reported that NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has discovered evidence of past water at its Martian landing site and spotted falling snow for the first time. Soil experiments revealed the presence of two minerals known to be formed in liquid water. Scientists identified the minerals as calcium carbonate, found in limestone and chalk, and sheet silicate.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, US warships and helicopters surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands." The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan, not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. Somali pirates demanded a $20 million ransom.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 29, In Afghanistan a bomb struck a vehicle killed two civilians and wounding two others in rural eastern Paktika province. Taliban attacked a police outpost in Ghazni province overnight and killed two policemen, taking one away with them. International forces bombed a Taliban group in Ghazni and killed five rebels.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Opposition activists in Belarus called for the US and EU not to recognize the results of parliamentary elections swept by supporters of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who had promised the vote would meet international standards.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Brazilian officials said the Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Britain seized control of mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley. Germany organized a credit lifeline for blue-chip commercial real estate lender Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, while Iceland's government took over Glitnir bank, the country's third largest.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, British candy maker Cadbury said it is recalling 11 types of Chinese-made chocolates found to contain melamine, as police in northern China raided a network accused of adding the banned chemical to milk.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, The parliament of the Central African Republic (CAR) adopted an amnesty law aimed at laying the foundations for a process of "inclusive political dialogue" between the government and rebels.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, China kicked off its National Day celebrations.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Typhoon Jangmi roared toward eastern China after lashing Taiwan with torrential rains and powerful winds that killed two people and injured more than 30.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Georgia almost 300 monitors from 22 EU nations were in place to oversee Russia's promised troop withdrawal from the large swaths it has occupied since the August war.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Two bombs exploded in separate towns in western India in crowded markets packed with Muslim shoppers, killing six people and wounding 45 others.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual population figures to mark the New Year. It said 7.34 million people live in Israel, including 5.54 million Jews, or 75 percent of the population. There are 1.48 million Arabs, about 20 percent, and 315,000 members of other groups. This year the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, began at sundown and coincided with Eid el-Fitr, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ said it would take a 21% stake in Morgan Stanley at a cost of $9 billion.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/30/content_10134094.htm)
2008 Sep 29, In northern Lebanon a car bomb exploded near a military bus carrying troops going to work, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others. Two more people died from their wounds the next day, raising the total death toll to seven.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Mexico the bodies of 11 men and one woman, some with their tongues cut out, were found dumped in an empty lot next to a Tijuana elementary school, an hour before children were scheduled to arrive. A message nearby, written on a white piece of cardboard, read: "This is going to happen to all of those who are with 'The Engineer' for being blabbermouths." Minutes later four other bodies were found in another empty lot in Tijuana. Two other bodies were discovered the day before in a lot next to a factory.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Pakistan appointed Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha as new head of its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, amid US accusations that the military spy organization secretly backs Taliban rebels on the Afghan border.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Somali Islamist insurgents attacked government forces and African Union peacekeepers overnight in Mogadishu. At least four people were killed in the clashes. Somalia pirates released Malaysia’s palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati 2, two days after its first vessel was released.
(AP, 9/30/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, South Korea said its state run Korea Gas Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom to import gas from Russia for 30 years starting in 2015 as part of a $102 billion bilateral gas and chemical deal.
(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 29, Suspected Tamil separatists set off a bomb in a parking lot in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, wounding three people.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Sudan a helicopter contracted to UN-led peacekeepers crashed in the Darfur region, killing two people with two more feared dead.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, UNESCO accept a proposal to launch a prize for achievement in life sciences paid for and named after Pres. Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.16)(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0016/001629/162938e.pdf)
2008 Sep 29, Zimbabwe's central bank introduced 10,000- and 20,000-dollar bank notes to ease a cash crunch in the country struggling to cope with the world's highest inflation rate.
(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 30, President Bush warned that failing to pass a financial rescue plan would bring severe consequences to the US economy. "Congress must act," he declared in an appeal that John McCain and Barack Obama echoed.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, A new US law took effect as part of the 2008 Farm Bill requiring food retailers to label or display the country of origin for meat, produce and certain kinds of nuts.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 30, The Cayman Islands announced plans to scuttle a decommissioned US Navy ship to create an underwater attraction for scuba divers and snorkelers.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, In the Dominican Republic a Hummer truck registered to New York Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos struck pedestrians Josefina Minaya Martinez (38) and Angely Fana (29). They died later at a hospital. An arrest warrant for Burgos was issued on Oct 3.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 30, Bank rescues spread in Europe and some investors expressed faith that the US Congress would eventually pass a $700 billion bailout plan for the financial sector.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Former Nepalese Gurkha soldiers won a legal test case on their bid for the right to settle in Britain.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, China’s state media reported that police in northern China have arrested 27 people in their probe into tainted milk that has sickened 53,000 children and tarnished China's reputation abroad.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Zhou Yongjun (41), former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, was seized and secretly imprisoned as he sought to re-enter China to visit his parents. When he tried to return to China in 1998, he was sentenced to three years of "re-education through labor" and returned to the United States in 2002. In May 2009 he was charged with fraud.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/p6mcno)
2008 Sep 30, A French court ended a long legal battle between Bernard Tapie (b.1943) and the Crédit Lyonnais bank. Crédit Lyonnais had allegedly defrauded Tapie in 1993 and 1994 when it sold Adidas on his behalf to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, apparently by arranging a larger sale with Dreyfus without Tapie's knowledge. The court awarded 405 million euros to Tapie. This decision was partially overturned on 9 October 2006 by the Court of Cassation. In 2011 a French court ordered an investigation into IMF chief Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister at the time of the settlement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Tapie)(SFC, 8/5/11, p.A2)
2008 Sep 30, In western India thousands of pilgrims panicked by false rumors of a bomb stampeded at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur, killing at least 224 people in the crush to escape.
(AP, 9/30/08)(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Sep 30, An American soldier was killed by small-arms fire in northern Baghdad, one of only eight US deaths during fighting in September. At least 159 Iraqi police, soldiers and Sunni armed guards who have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq were killed in September. At least 503 Iraqis were killed in September, a more than 50 percent drop compared with 1,023 reported last September.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Ingushetia a suicide bomber attacked the motorcade of Ruslan Meiriyev, the top police official. Meiriyev was unhurt, but a bystander was killed along with the attacker.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2008 Sep 30, In Ireland Brian Cowen, the Fianna Fail prime minister, decided to guarantee all bank deposits in Ireland. By late 2010 the bill for this reached almost a third of GDP.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.103)
2008 Sep 30, Italian police arrested scores of suspected mobsters, including three top fugitives believed linked to the gangland-style slaying of six African immigrants near Naples.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico 20 heavily armed men in Sinaloa state stole five small planes that the army had seized in anti-drug operations. Officials on Oct 3 said the planes were found on a ranch in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, a hotbed of drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/1/08)(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico Ramiro Guillen Tapia (65), leader of a farmers' group seeking government mediation in a dispute over 620 acres (250 hectares) of land in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, set himself on fire. Tapia died the next day with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, A late night missile strike by a suspected US drone killed at least six people in a Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, Alexander Lebedev, a Russian billionaire said he is teaming up with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to form a new political party that will challenge the country's recent steps away from democracy.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Tropical Storm Mekkhala slammed into Vietnam's central coast before moving to Laos later the same day. At least 8 people were killed with 8 more missing.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Sep, US scientists warned that the potential link between mobile telephones and brain cancer could be similar to the link between lung cancer and smoking -- something tobacco companies took 50 years to recognize. A 2008 study by Swedish cancer specialist Lennart Hardell found that frequent cell phone users are twice as likely to develop a benign tumor on the auditory nerves of the ear most used with the handset, compared to the other ear.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep, From Algeria Andrew Warren, a CIA station chief and a convert to Islam, was sent back to the United States after two women came forward with charges of rape after lacing their drinks with a drug.
(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A4)
2008 Sep, The City Council of Myrtle Beach, SC, adopted a series of anti-motorcycle rally laws to discourage bikers from their annual May rallies.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A9)
2008 Sep, In China hepatitis C infections were discovered after a patient who had received a transfusion during an operation in Pingtang tested positive for the disease. In 2009 police detained the director of the hospital, where at least 64 people were infected with the potentially deadly liver disease after receiving transfusions from blood collected illegally.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2008 Sep, Egypt’s overall inflation rate stood at about 23%. The average wage was under $100 per months and some 2.6 million people were unable to cover their basic food needs.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.31)
2008 Sep, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to swap Israeli near the Gaza Strip and West Bank in exchange for settlement blocs in the West Bank. The Palestinians did not respond to the proposal, submitted at a time when Olmert's ability to negotiate a peace deal was compromised by corruption allegations that eventually forced him to step down. Talks broke down after Israel's war against Gaza militants and never resumed.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2008 Sep, Rwanda’s population at this time was about 10 million.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)
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2008 Jul 1, An Alabama jury found Glaxo and Novartis guilty of drug-price fraud and ordered them to pay $114 million.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 1, Nicholas T. Sheley (28) was arrested in Granite City, Ill., following a manhunt that extended into Missouri. The ex-convict was suspected in eight recent grisly slayings. He was suspected of killing, among others, a 93-year-old man, a toddler and a couple whose blood-soaked dogs were found roaming a motel parking lot.
(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 7/11/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 1, Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee retailer, said it would close another 500 stores in America and reduce its work force by about 7%. The closure of 100 stores had been announced earlier this year. 70% of the stores to close were opened after 2005.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.74)
2008 Jul 1, In California the 11-day old Basin Complex Fire in the Los Padres National Forest threatened the Esalen Institute in Big Sur.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Robert E. Boni (b.1928), writer and former chief executive of Armco (1985-1989), died. In 1993 a partnership between Armco and Kawasaki led to the formation of AK Steel Holding Corp.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 1, Clay Felker (b.1925), founder of the New York magazine (1968) and New West magazine (1976), died in his New York home. From 1994 he taught at UC Berkeley for over a decade.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 1, In Afghanistan 4 police officers died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb as they went to reinforce a checkpost that had come under attack in southern Uruzgan province. The US-led force said it helped Afghan security forces kill "several" insurgents in the province and a young girl was also killed in the fighting. Five Taliban militants died in a clash in southern Zabul province. Another rebel was killed in southwestern Nimroz province. Official figures showed June was the deadliest month for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban and the second in a row in which casualties exceeded those in Iraq.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, The African Union, meeting in Egypt, announced that it was extending the mandate of its force in Somalia for another six months but urged the UN to take over the peacekeeping mission. The African leaders also called for dialogue between Zimbabwe's political foes and a national unity government following President Robert Mugabe's widely discredited reelection.
(AFP, 7/1/08)(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Josef Branis (66) fatally shot four relatives in two houses in the Vienna suburb of Strasshof after being evicted from his sister's Vienna apartment. He was arrested in August after being on the run for weeks.
(AP, 1/27/09)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25495397/)
2008 Jul 1, In China a man armed with a knife stormed a police station in Shanghai, stabbing officers inside and killing 6 officers. On September 1 Yang Jia (28) was sentenced to death for the knife attack. In northwest China 18 miners were killed in a mine-shaft collapse at the state-owned Huisen Liangshuijing Coal Mine in Shaanxi province. Yang Jia was executed on Nov 26.
(AP, 7/1/08)(AP, 7/2/08)(AP, 9/1/08)(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Jul 1, Gao Wenyuan, the regional Grassland Work Office's director, told Xinhua News that Inner Mongolia in north China is mobilizing 33,000 people, including 1,100 technical staff, to wipeout a plague of locusts in the past two weeks.
(http://english.gov.cn/2008-07/01/content_1032452.htm)
2008 Jul 1, France took over the rotating presidency of the European Union with high-level meetings and a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, French officials said the asbestos-contaminated aircraft carrier Clemenceau, which was towed half-way across the globe in a failed bid to have it dismantled, will be broken up by Able UK in Britain. The ship was decommissioned in 1997.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient, caved in to pressure from the German government to stop supplying Zimbabwe with special blank paper money. Zimbabwe required new notes every few weeks as the inflation rate pushed well over one million percent.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 1, Iranian state radio said that at least 25 people were killed and 16 injured in a bus accident near Tehran.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Iraq militants killed seven people in a series of attacks in Iraq's eastern Diyala province, and a local official said government crackdowns against Sunni extremists elsewhere in the country were driving them back to the area. Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Iraq, said it was unlikely that the country would be able to hold provincial elections by the beginning of October as planned because lawmakers had failed to approve a new election law.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Israel closed its cargo crossings with the Gaza Strip after accusing Palestinian militants of firing a rocket at southern Israel in violation of a shaky truce. The Israeli military said its radar detected a rocket launched from Gaza the previous evening that struck near the communal farm of Mefalsim.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Kingston, Jamaica, 39 young American missionaries, from the Georgia-based Adventures in Missions, were robbed by two gunmen who broke into a Salvation Army school for the blind where they were volunteering.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Muslim majority Indian-held Kashmir authorities reversed a controversial plan to transfer land to a Hindu shrine as Muslim and Hindu protesters held massive rallies across the region assailing the state government for its handling of the politically sensitive issue.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim vowed to seize power from a "corrupt" government at a rally of some 15,000 supporters as he fights back against new sodomy accusations.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Mexico videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a US adviser created an uproar, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Mongolia thousands of people staged a violent protest in the capital as they voiced outrage over what they claimed were rigged elections, forcing police to fire gunshots.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Myanmar a ferry named "Myo Pa Pa Tun" sank in the Yway river in the cyclone-battered Irrawaddy delta, killing 38 people. 44 others were rescued.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 1, A smoking ban went into effect in cafes, restaurants and bars across the Netherlands, as the country joins a growing list of European countries to tighten rules on tobacco use in public places. Smoking marijuana in the Netherlands' infamous "coffee shops" is still permitted under the new law, as long the drug is not mixed with tobacco.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, The Nigerian Senate passed a resolution barring the anti-graft agency EFCC and other security agents from arresting witnesses who appear before parliament. The lawmakers passed the resolution following the arrests of an Austrian contractor and two former ministers on the floor of the Senate shortly after testifying before a parliamentary hearing on the aviation sector.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Pakistani forces destroyed a major militant compound in the Khyber tribal region. The site served as key headquarters for the banned Lashkar-e-Islam.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 1, Panama's Supreme Court overturned a presidential pardon of four Cuban emigres accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro, including former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles. The court ruled that 180 pardons granted in 2004 by outgoing President Mireya Moscoso, including those the four Cubans, were unconstitutional.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Officials said Maoist rebels in the southern Philippines killed two soldiers in a public market and torched a cellular phone tower as the latest flare-up in the 40-year-old insurgency showed no sign of abating.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Sri Lanka fighting erupted in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions bordering the rebels' de facto state in the north. The fighting in Vavuniya killed 16 rebels and one soldier, while in the nearby Welioya region, 11 rebels and one soldier died.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 1, Thailand’s deputy prime minister said the Thai government has suspended its decision to support Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the Thai border declared a world landmark. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 2, The US lifted a moratorium on applications to build solar power plants on public lands in 6 Western states.
(WSJ, 7/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, In Vermont the body of a missing girl (12), whose uncle (Michael Jacques) allegedly planned to force her into a sex ring the day she disappeared, was found in Randolph, not far from his house.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In California Hans Florine (44) and Yuji Hirayama (39) broke a World Record for the fastest climb up the Nose of El Capitan (2:43:33) in Yosemite National Park. On Oct 12 they broke the record again with a time of 2:37:5. On Nov 6, 2010, climbers Dean Potter and Sean Leary broke the record with a time of 2:36:45.
(SFC, 7/3/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/13/08, p.A1)(SFC, 11/15/10, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, In central Afghanistan a roadside blast killed five Afghan soldiers in Logar province. Gunfire brought down a US UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in the same province, but no US personnel were hurt. In the northwest Afghan and international troops killed 25 Taliban after militants ambushed an Afghan patrol in Muqur district.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, President Alexander Lukashenko said he acceded to Western and opposition demands for greater democracy ahead of elections.
(WSJ, 7/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 2, The British government said police have arrested more than 500 suspects in a crackdown on human trafficking in the sex trade. Police made 528 arrests in the operation, codenamed Pentameter 2, after raiding 822 premises, of which 157 were massage parlors and 582 houses and flats. The operation began in October and involved 55 police forces.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (kidnapped in 2002), three US military contractors (captured in 2003), and 10 other hostages in a helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired. In 2009 Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves authored "Out of Captivity," a memoir of their 5 ½ year captivity by Colombia's leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/2/08)(AP, 2/26/09)
2008 Jul 2, Deutsche Bank acquired the Dutch corporate banking arm of ABN AMRO from Fortis, a Benelux bank, for $1.1 billion in cash.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.83)
2008 Jul 2, In India an estimated four million truckers went on strike to press for uniform diesel prices and to protest against an increase in taxes.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Iraqi security forces arrested two locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as part of their crackdown against Shiite militias in the southern city of Amarah. Police said Abdul-Jabar Wahid Humaidi, head of the provincial council in Maysan, where Amarah is the capital, and Fadhil Niama, head of the council's security committee, were suspected of supporting Shiite militias. A string of mortar shells hit the residential area of al-Amil in western Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding eight others. In eastern Diyala province, US-allied Sunnis killed two al-Qaida terrorists south of Baqouba.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Israel Hussam Dwayat (30), a Palestinian man from Arab east Jerusalem plowed, an enormous construction vehicle into cars, buses and pedestrians on a busy street, killing at least 3 people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers. Palestinian witnesses said an angry crowd in the Gaza Strip has stormed a border crossing with Egypt throwing rocks at Egyptian troops.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi pledged to end the garbage crisis in Naples and the surrounding area by the end of July.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Japan and Middle Eastern leaders agreed on a project to bring thousands of badly needed jobs to the West Bank, voicing hope it would lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Kashmir the Indian army said 11 Muslim rebels and an Indian soldier have been killed in two days of fierce fighting in a district bordering the Pakistani part of the disputed state.
(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, Stanley Ho, casino entrepreneur in Macao, agreed to sell a 25% stake from some $500 million in his SJM Holdings, which owned 19 or Macao’s 29 casinos.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.75)
2008 Jul 2, In Mexico 4 decapitated bodies were found on a street in Culiacan, blocks away from their severed heads. Four gunmen were killed hours later, after opening fire on federal police patrolling Culiacan, a center for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. Under attack, police shot back at the home where the gunmen were holed up, killing the four assailants and capturing two others.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, The Moroccan news agency said 35 alleged recruiters for Al-Qaeda operations in Algeria and Iraq were arrested by police in Morocco, where they were also accused of planning attacks. The suspects allegedly belong to a Salafist group, Salafiya Jihadiya.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, The Nigerian government charged two former aviation ministers with misusing a $165-million fund set up to improve air safety after three airplane accidents.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In South Korea tens of thousands of auto workers went on strike to oppose the government's lifting of a ban on US beef imports.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Sri Lanka a series of battles between government forces and Tamil Tiger fighters on the front lines of the civil war killed 26 rebels. The fighting took place throughout the day, killing two rebels in the Vavuniya area, 12 in Mannar and 12 in Welioya. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan disputed those figures, saying three of his fighters and 11 soldiers were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 2, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected an African Union decision to keep South Africa's president alone in charge of efforts to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis. The European Commission insisted that Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should be named at the head of any new government. South African President Thabo Mbeki rejected the EU position.
(AP, 7/2/08)(AFP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 3, Phillip Bennett, the former chief executive of Refco, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for fleecing investors of more than $2.4 billion in a fraud that destroyed the world's largest independent commodities broker.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Larry Harmon (83) wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died of congestive heart failure.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, US employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Vodafone Group PLC said it planned to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom Co. for $900 million.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 3, In Afghanistan gunmen lobbed a grenade and sprayed a police checkpoint with gunfire in the southern Kandahar province, killing eight officers. A roadside blast next to a police vehicle in central Ghazni province killed two officers and wounded five others. In eastern Paktika province, Afghan and foreign troops killed seven suspected militants during a clash near the Pakistan border. Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tons of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AFP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 3, Top Bolivian and US officials sought to heal their nations' strained relations in their first meeting since a raucous protest outside the American embassy sent the US ambassador back to Washington for security consultations.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, The Cypriot parliament approved the European Union treaty, making Cyprus the 20th EU member to ratify the document aimed at streamlining decision-making in the bloc.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, In El Salvador a bus carrying members of an evangelical church was swept off a bridge in San Salvador. 29 bodies were recovered the next day.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 3, Lydia Lassen-Berge (69), a former prostitute dubbed the "Black Widow" by the German press, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of four wealthy but frail elderly male companions. Siegmund Schlufter (53), her accomplice, was sentenced to 12 years in jail for carrying out the killings.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Indonesia a police source said that a group of 10 suspected Muslim militants detained in raids on Sumatra island by Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit was plotting to attack Western targets. The raids followed the capture of a suspected militant after a tip-off by authorities in Singapore.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, It was reported that Italian authorities have started fingerprinting tens of thousands of Gypsies living in nomad camps across the country, brushing aside accusations of racism by human rights advocates and international organizations. The Interior Ministry said prints will only be taken from people who do not have a valid Italian or EU document.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In the southern Philippines suspected communist guerrillas launched a series of attacks, lobbing a grenade that killed three people and raiding a police station and a gold mining company.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In southeastern Slovenia two canoes were crushed running over a dam. The next day divers pulled seven bodies out of the Sava River and fought strong currents to search for five other people still missing.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, South Korea's president called for an end to a long-running dispute over American beef imports, saying it was time for the nation to concentrate instead on overcoming its economic difficulties.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles in Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya killed 32 rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, A group of around 200 Zimbabweans gathered outside the US embassy in Harare, pleading for political asylum and food after being displaced in recent election violence.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 4, In California 27 major fires were considered active. These included the Basin Complex Fire in Los Padres National Forest where over 68,700 acres were scorched and the Indians Fire in Monterey County with 81,300 acres consumed.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 4, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, early morning gunfire killed 2 men and 2 women on the city’s north side.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 4, Jesse Helms (b.1921), former 5-term US Senator from North Carolina, died in Raleigh, NC. Helms had switched to the Republican Party in 1970 and was elected to the Senate in 1972, the first Republican from North Carolina in the 20th century. The conservative senator earned the title “Senator No" as a leading crusader against communism, liberalism, tax increases, abortion, homosexuality, affirmative action and court-ordered busing to desegregate schools.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 4, Evelyn Keyes (b.1916), American film star, died in Montecito, Ca. Her 3 former husbands included director John Huston, director Charles Vidor and jazz musician Artie Shaw. Her nearly 50 films included a role as the younger sister of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind" (1939). Her memoir “Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister" was published in 1977.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)(WSJ, 2/21/09, p.W8)
2008 Jul 4, In southern Afghanistan gunmen assassinated parliament member and former military commander Habibullah Jan. In Helmand province a roadside bomb militants were planting detonated prematurely, killing 10 Taliban. 22 civilians were killed in air strikes in the Waygal district, including a woman and a child. A spokesman for the US-led coalition said the airstrikes in Nuristan province hit militants who earlier attacked a US military base with mortars. Several militants were killed during an operation in Ghazni province. More than 20 militants were killed and wounded during a battle with NATO-backed Afghan forces in Kunar province.
(AP, 7/5/08)(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Austria 9 people, including a prominent executive who fled to France in an attempt to elude justice, were convicted of criminal charges in a major Austrian bank fraud case linked to the 2005 collapse of New York-based commodities brokerage Refco Inc. Vienna Federal Court Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner found the defendants responsible for euro1.4 billion (US$1.9 billion) in losses at BAWAG, Austria's No. 4 bank.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Belarus about 50 people were wounded by a home-made bomb that sprayed nuts and bolts into a crowd at an open-air concert in Minsk attended by long-time ruler President Alexander Lukashenko.
(Reuters, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, China and Taiwan launched regular direct flights for the first time in nearly six decades, ushering in what Beijing called a "new start" in their tense and testy relations.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Colombia's military found more than a ton of explosives in a house in a rural area outside the capital.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 4, Ecuador's constitutional assembly pardoned hundreds of jailed convicts, low-level drug couriers known as "mules." An estimated 1,200 prisoners may be eligible for pardon.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 4, India's coalition government underwent a major shake-up with the dominant Congress party pushing on with a controversial nuclear deal with the US and ditching left-wing allies. In eastern India at least six people were killed and 20 injured in a stampede at a popular Hindu religious festival in Orissa state’s Puri district. Truck drivers called off their strike after the government agreed to roll back rising road tolls.
(AFP, 7/4/08)(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 4, State television said Iran delivered its response to an international offer of incentives for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a central part of its nuclear program. It did not say what the response was.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Basra, Iraq, gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated Sheik Salim al-Dirraji, an official of Iraq's biggest Shiite party.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 4, Japan announced it will provide $50 million in new emergency food aid to help developing countries cope with the impact of soaring food prices.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Fierce fighting raged in India's portion of Kashmir, killing five army soldiers and a suspected Muslim rebel near the de facto border with Pakistan.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In New Zealand morning rush-hour traffic slowed to a crawl in most cities as truckers snarled highways and streets with thousands of vehicles to protest higher road taxes.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Nigeria hundreds of soldiers, who served as UN peacekeepers in Liberia, went on the rampage in southwestern Akure in protest against the military authorities' refusal to pay their allowance. On April 27, 2009, a Nigerian court-martial sentenced 27 former UN peacekeepers to life in prison after they were convicted of mutiny following their protests. On Aug 29 the army commuted the life sentences to 7 years.
(AP, 7/5/08)(AP, 4/28/09)(AFP, 8/29/09)
2008 Jul 4, North Korea said it will not take further steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the US and its other negotiating partners award fuel oil and political benefits promised under an aid-for-disarmament deal.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Pakistan a bomb exploded on a busy street in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing a 4-year old girl and wounding 11 other people.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, Poland rejected a US offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing a "missile shield" on Polish soil but PM Donald Tusk said Poland remains open for further talks with Washington.
(Reuters, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 4, In Sri Lanka soldiers took control of Michael Base in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu district after three days of fighting. Other battles in Vavuniya killed 18 rebels and wounded three soldiers. Fighting in Mannar, Jaffna and Welioya left 15 rebels dead and one soldier wounded.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 4, Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis unless they acknowledge his victory in the one-man presidential election. Botswana's government urged its neighbors not to recognize Mugabe's re-election as it reiterated calls for Zimbabwe to be suspended from a regional bloc.
(AFP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 5, Kent Couch (48), a gas station owner, flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles across the Oregon desert, landing in a field in Idaho. He used his trusty BB gun to help him return to Earth.
(AP, 7/6/08)(www.couchballoons.com/)
2008 Jul 5, In Afghanistan a clash killed seven Taliban and two police in Helmand province. Five other officers were wounded during the fight in Nawa district. A Canadian military medic was killed when an explosive device detonated in the Panjwayi District.
(AP, 7/6/08)(Reuters, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 5, Argentina's lower house of Congress approved a package of grain-export taxes that have sparked nationwide farm protests and food shortages.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, A small boat packed with at least 148 illegal immigrants from Africa landed on a beach in the Canary Islands.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern China an apparent blast at a coal mine killed 21 workers at the Wujiu coal mine outside Datong city in Shanxi province. In central China a four-story building under construction in a suburb of Wuhan city collapsed and killed eight people.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, Dagestan's Interior Ministry says three policemen were wounded when a bomb went off near their vehicle in the town of Khasavyurt.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern India flooding, house collapses and lightning strikes from heavy rains killed at least 14 people, raising the reported death toll in the annual monsoon season to 79.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Ingushetia a police officer was killed and another was injured when their armored vehicle came under grenade fire.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, An Iranian government spokesman says the country's nuclear program remains unchanged, indicating that Tehran has no plans to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium, reached a Canadian port to complete a secret US operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans. In Iraq one American soldier died of a non-combat cause.
(AP, 7/6/08)(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern Japan more than 1,000 people marched to protest an upcoming summit of the G8 industrialized countries. Police arrested four protesters after a brief scuffle.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Kashmir thousands of protesters clashed with police in Srinagar over allegations that government forces set fire to Jenab Sahib, a local Muslim shrine.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Macedonia’s leading party said PM Nikola Gruevski has agreed to form a coalition government with the main ethnic Albanian party to aim at getting its NATO and EU bids back on track.
(Reuters, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Nigerian officials said radioactive materials in abandoned mining fields in central Nigeria's Plateau state pose a serious health hazard to two million people. Police said Nigeria has deployed troops in the remote southeastern state of Ebonyi after 14 people were killed and scores of buildings destroyed in clashes between rival groups feuding over land.
(AP, 7/5/08)(Reuters, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry insisted that its nuclear proliferation case was closed, a day after the disgraced architect of its atomic program claimed the army under President Pervez Musharraf helped spread the technology to North Korea in 2000. A government official said Pakistani security forces have eased an operation against insurgents in a tribal region near the border with Afghanistan as local elders try to negotiate peace with a militant leader.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, South Korean police said about 50,000 people protested in Seoul against a US beef import deal and the policies of the new president, whose government has faced weeks of street rallies.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In Sri Lanka clashes were reported in several villages in Vavuniya district where 12 rebels were killed. 3 rebels were killed in Mannar and 4 rebels and a soldier were killed in Welioya.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 5, In southern Thailand suspected insurgents shot up a bustling cafe, killing three customers and injuring four others.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 5, In northern Yemen an explosion at the main post office building of Saada killed at least five people.
(AP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Afghanistan the chief government official in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar province said villagers reported that as many as 27 people walking in a group toward a wedding were killed in a bombing. Up to 10 others were wounded. The US-led coalition said an airstrike killed or wounded 20 militants in Nangarhar. An official investigation later found that the US-led air strikes struck a wedding and killed 47 Afghan civilians.
(AP, 7/6/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Iraq a car bomb in northern Baghdad killed six people and injured 14 others, including three policemen. Ali Abdul Ridha al-Badri, the head of an awakening council in Iskandariyah, and was killed by a bomb attached to his car after meeting with US forces. A roadside bomb in Diyala province killed a high-ranking member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan along with 7 others. 2 civilians were killed in Baquba when police clashed with members of the Awakening Councils.
(AP, 7/6/08)(SFC, 7/7/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 6, Israel re-opened its border crossings with the Gaza Strip after closing them because of Palestinian rocket fire.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In northern Mexico a plane carrying a load of auto parts crashed s it was trying to land, killing the pilot and severely injuring the co-pilot.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, Myanmar's state-run newspaper said the overwhelming election victory by Aung San Suu Kyi's party in 1990 has been nullified by the approval of a military-backed constitution and her National League for Democracy party should prepare for a new vote in 2010.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Pakistan a two-story apartment building collapsed in the port city of Karachi, killing eight people, including a toddler. A suicide attacker detonated explosives near a police station in Islamabad, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, In Somalia gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Mogadishu, killing one of the country’s senior UN officials.
(SFC, 7/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 6, South Korea said it was implementing a multi-stage contingency plan aimed at reducing energy consumption before the skyrocketing oil prices push Asia's fourth-largest economy into a full-fledged crisis.
(Reuters, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel position in their northern stronghold.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 6, The United Arab Emirates canceled all its Iraqi debt and moved to restore a full diplomatic mission in Baghdad by naming a new ambassador.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 7, Tropical storm Bertha strengthened to become the first hurricane of the Atlantic season.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Bruce Conner (b.1933), SF-based artist, died. His collages and prints looked back to classics of surrealism. His work was later said to look like a bridge between the Beat generation and postmodernism.
(http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006353.html)(SFC, 7/8/08, p.B5)(SFC, 5/4/09, p.E3)
2008 Jul 7, In Afghanistan a car bomb detonated by a suicide bomber ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, killing 41 people in the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.
(AP, 7/7/08)(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Austria’s ruling coalition crumbled and new elections were expected as early as September. The left-right alliance broke up after 18 months in office.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A12)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.63)
2008 Jul 7, In central Bangladesh 2 passenger buses collided head-on, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, The Church of England's ruling body voted its support for women to become bishops without giving traditionalist supporters of male-only priesthood the concessions they had sought.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In China Diana O'Brien (22), a Canadian model, was found murdered in her Shanghai apartment. On Jul 11 police arrested Chen Jun (18), who confessed to killing the woman during a robbery.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Colombia a rose-laden US cargo plane headed for Miami crashed before dawn near Bogota, killing a father and son in their home on the ground. It was the second time in six weeks that a Boeing 747 flown by Ypsilanti, Michigan-based Kalitta Air has crashed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Congo (DRC) unidentified gunmen ambushed a vehicle belonging to the World Wildlife Fund in Virunga national Park, killing two people and wounding three others.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 7, Police in East Timor's capital fired tear gas to disperse students protesting a plan by lawmakers to buy themselves new cars with state funds.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Egypt smugglers killed a police officer during a shootout on the border with Israel.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, A court in Equatorial Guinea convicted former British officer Simon Mann on of being the key player in a failed 2004 coup plot in this Central African nation and sentenced him to 34 years and four months in prison.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, European Union nations gave their backing to a French-drafted pact calling for tightening immigration and asylum rules across the 27-nation bloc.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Germany war crimes suspect Callixte Mbarushimana, a former UN employee wanted for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, was arrested in Frankfurt.
(AFP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Germany’s Fresenius SE said it has agreed to buy US generic drug maker APP Pharmaceuticals for $3.7 billion in cash in a deal that will give the health care company more opportunities in the North American market for drugs administered intravenously.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, PM al-Maliki said Iraq has proposed a short-term memorandum of understanding with the US rather than trying to hammer through a formal agreement on the presence of US forces. A roadside bomb near a dress shop in Baqouba killed a woman and injured 14 others.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus, shutting down a girls' school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity. Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell at a border crossing with the Gaza Strip. Israel's military said it had begun digging up the bodies of Lebanese fighters after the government struck a deal with Hezbollah guerrillas to swap five living prisoners and dozens of bodies for two Israeli soldiers captured in 2006.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Israeli Lt. Col. Omri Borberg was caught on video holding the arm of Ashraf Abu Rahmeh while he was shot in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet in the West Bank village of Naalin. On Jan 27, 2011, an Israeli military court sentenced two soldiers, convicted in the close-range shooting of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man, but spared them jail time.
(AP, 1/27/11)(http://tinyurl.com/45ufwxq)
2008 Jul 7, In Italy transport workers went on strike, forcing the cancellation of thousands of bus, tram and subway lines and snarling traffic across the country.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Japan G8 leaders raised the prospect of more sanctions against Zimbabwe unless quick progress is made to end a political crisis after a violent election that extended President Robert Mugabe's 28-year rule. The G8 met with seven African leaders at its annual summit. African leaders urged the Group of Eight nations to tackle spiking oil and food prices. Japan included 5 “outreach" countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) for brief discussions with the G8.
(Reuters, 7/7/08)(AFP, 7/7/08)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.33)
2008 Jul 7, In Indian Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister said he was stepping down following protests over the government’s handling of the transfer of government land to the Shiri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running the revered Hindu shrine.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 7, Mexican police found six charred bodies on a Tijuana street following a bloody weekend that left 14 people dead.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Pakistan a total of seven small blasts left 43 people wounded in the commercial capital of Karachi.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, Serbia's parliament approved a new government that includes a pro-Western group and the political party of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 7, The South African Reserve Bank said 5 million coins featuring a smiling Nelson Mandela will go into circulation on July 18, the former president's 90th birthday.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, Sudan's parliament approved a new electoral law, a crucial step towards scheduled national elections and a democratic transition laid out in peace arrangements after a 21-year civil war.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A report from a US Senate Homeland Security investigations subcommittee said sellers of medical supplies collected as much as $93 million in fraudulent Medicare claims based on prescriptions from doctors who were actually dead.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 8, Boeing announced a deal with SkyHook Int’l., a private Canadian firm, to develop a heavy lift rotorcraft capable of carrying 4o tons.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.76)
2008 Jul 8, In California the Butte Lightning Complex Fire destroyed 41 homes overnight in and around Paradise. The next day 10,000 people were evacuated from the area.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 8, T. Boone Pickens, energy baron, announced his “Pickens Plan" for installing wind turbines in parts of four Texas Panhandle counties. The plans were scrapped in 2009 due to lack of transmission lines.
(AP, 7/7/09)
2008 Jul 8, John Templeton (b.1912), legendary mutual fund manager, died in Nassau. His Templeton Growth Fund in 1954 was among the first to invest in companies outside the US. In 1972 he started the Templeton Prize, which made its first award to Mother Teresa in 1973.
(WSJ, 7/9/08, p.C17)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
2008 Jul 8, Abkhazia's leader Sergei Bagapsh rejected a US proposal to deploy an international police force there.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb blast killed one NATO soldier and wounded four others. a provincial police chief said five insurgents and two policemen died during a clash in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Brazilian police arrested a former Sao Paulo mayor and two prominent financiers in a case that grew out of an influence-peddling scandal involving senior government officials.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, A Chinese court jailed Xiong Zhengliang, a former anti-graft prosecutor for life, for torturing a suspect to death. His superior was sentenced to seven years in prison for trying to cover up the case. Liang Jiping, a deputy director of the county's electricity bureau, was detained in May 2007 on suspicion of taking bribes. Liang died on June 1, 2007, after being held in custody for nearly five days and in three separate places.
(Reuters, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Chinese police killed five Muslims who were planning a "holy war" in the latest alleged terror threat ahead of the Beijing Olympics. The five were shot dead when police raided their hide-out in Urumqi.
(AFP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, The United States and the Czech Republic signed a treaty in Prague allowing Washington to build part of a missile defense shield in the central European state despite opposition from its former Cold War master Russia.
(Reuters, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Ecuador's government seized 3 television stations and 195 businesses, owned by the Isaias family, to collect debts stemming from the 1998 failure of Filanbanco, owned by Roberto and William Isaias. The economy minister resigned just hours before the takeover.
(AP, 7/9/08)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.48)
2008 Jul 8, The EU formally invited Slovakia to join the euro zone on Jan. 1, 2009.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG said it will cut 16,750 jobs, or 4.2 percent of its global work force, to streamline operations and slice nearly $2 billion in costs in the face of a slowing economy.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A German cargo ship held captive for 41 days off the coast of Somalia was released and all aboard were safe and unharmed. A Somali official said the pirates received a ransom of $750,000. The Lehmann Timber was one of two ships hijacked on May 30 off the Horn of Africa.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Tillman Thomas, former political detainee, returned his party to power in Grenada after 13 years in opposition. The apparent win by the National Democratic Congress was a stunning setback for PM Keith Mitchell's conservative New National Party, which was seeking an unprecedented 4th consecutive term in legislative elections.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Indian PM Manmohan Singh's communist allies withdrew their support for his four-year-old coalition government to protest the government's plan to push forward with a controversial nuclear deal with the United States. The government had gained new support from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and submitted a draft request to the IAEA for a required safeguards accord on July 9.
(AP, 7/8/08)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.50)
2008 Jul 8, At Developing Eight summit of Islamic nations, meeting in Kuala Lumpur, the leaders of Indonesia and Malaysia called for boosting world food production and finding a permanent solution to skyrocketing oil prices, saying the twin problems have become "grave threats" to the world economy.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Iraq's national security adviser said his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of US-led forces.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired a mortar shell into Israel in another violation of a shaky truce.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Japan G8 leaders endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. The G8 also agreed to impose targeted sanctions against leading Zimbabwean officials after a violent election last month that extended President Robert Mugabe's 28-year rule.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, Amos Kimunya, Kenya’s finance minister, was forced to resign following the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel to Libyans, without taking bids and advertising the sale. The hotel had been confiscated from Kamlesh Paul Pattni, a businessman alleged to have paid hundreds of millions to individuals close to former Pres. Daniel arap Moi, for the export of gold and diamonds that did not exist.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.60)
2008 Jul 8, The Mexican government said UNESCO has added a Monarch butterfly reserve in southern Mexico to its list of World Heritage sites.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, State-media said Myanmar's military regime has approved visas for more than 1,500 international aid workers to help victims of Cyclone Nargis, with half of them involved in relief operations in storm-hit regions.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In northwest Pakistan unknown assailants fired on a vehicle carrying tribal police forces, killing four and wounding seven.
(AP, 7/808)
2008 Jul 8, In Russia’s Caucasus region the Interior Ministry of Kabardino-Balkaria province said unidentified gunmen had riddled the police car with bullets in the village of Baksan. 3 police officers were killed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, A human rights group said domestic workers in Saudi Arabia often suffer abuse that in some cases amounts to slavery, as well as sexual violence and lashings for spurious allegations of theft or witchcraft.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Sudan about two hundred gunmen on horseback and in SUVs ambushed peacekeepers from a joint UN-African Union force in the Darfur region. Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, were killed in fierce gunbattles that lasted more than two hours.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Sudan's army spokesman claimed Ethiopian forces had attacked a police base 17 kilometers (11 miles) inside Sudanese territory, killing 19 people, including one police officer. Ethiopia denied the accusations.
(AFP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, In eastern Turkey Kurdish guerrillas kidnapped three German tourists on a climbing expedition. The Germans were released on July 20.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 9, A grand jury in Anchorage indicted Sen. John Cowdery, an Alaska legislator, on bribery and conspiracy counts in a federal investigation of corruption that already has led to convictions against three former state lawmakers. Federal prosecutors allege that Cowdery conspired with executives of oil field services company VECO Corp. to bribe another unnamed state senator for votes to support oil and gas legislation.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, The California state Board of Education voted to make algebra mandatory in the eighth grade beginning in 2011, in order to bring the state into compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind program.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 9, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed legislation approving a compact by 8 states surrounding the Great Lakes. Michigan was last of the 8 states to approve the agreement, which outlaws diversions of Great lakes water from natural drainage basins with rare exceptions.
(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 9, In western Pennsylvania the bodies of 22-year-old Ashley Guarino, her 2-year-old daughter Dreux and 11-month-old son Orlando Jr. were found by relatives. Orlando Maurice Guarino (38) was arrested the next day and charged with the murders of his wife and children.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 9, It was announced that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council had purchased a 90% stake in NYC’s Chrysler Building for $800 million.
(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.C3)
2008 Jul 9, US electronic games publisher Activision under Bobby Kotick closed its merger with the gaming arm of Vivendi, a French media conglomerate, in a deal valued at $18.8 billion.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard)
2008 Jul 9, In northwestern Afghanistan a group of villagers used a machine gun, sticks and stones to kill two Taliban militants and chase 10 others away. NATO-led forces in central Logar province killed a Taliban militant involved with suicide bombing networks. 9 British soldiers were injured in Helmand province when an Apache helicopter opened fire after mistaking them for the enemy.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, China convicted and then executed two ethnic Uighur men and imprisoned another 15 for alleged terrorist links in the western region of Xinjiang.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 9, German investigators carried out raids on 600 homes in Austria, Switzerland and Germany seeking chemicals used to produce an illicit date-rape drug.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Grenada Tillman Thomas, former political detainee, was sworn in as the new prime minister.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, Iran test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles during war games that officials said aimed to show the country can retaliate against any US and Israeli attack.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Iraq a suicide bomber killed 8 civilians in an attack on a military convoy in Mosul. A bomb in Fallujah killed four police officers and one civilian. A bomb killed a US soldier in Samarra. In total bombs and bullets killed 20 Iraqis.
(AP, 7/9/08)(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 9, In Ingushetia police said three officers have been killed and four kidnapped in separate attacks.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, An Israel-Hamas truce has boiled down to a simple trade-off: For a day of calm, Israel adds five truckloads of cows and 200 tons of cement to the barest basics it ships to Gaza, but rocket fire from the territory reseals the border for a day.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Italy police in Naples arrested 44 suspected mobsters in a crackdown on drug trafficking. The latest raids led to the confiscation of apartments, cars, motorcycles, farmland and companies worth nearly $480 million.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Japan G8 leaders reiterated their commitment for doubling aid to Africa by 2010 and instituted new accountability procedures to ensure that wealthy countries fulfill their promises of aid there. They also agreed to combat global warming but developing nations declined o endorse emissions targets.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A7)(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 9, In northern Lebanon heavy fighting erupted between government supporters and Hezbollah's allies, killing at least 4 people and shattering a truce that lasted just two weeks.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, Tribal elders and Pakistani authorities struck a deal aimed at bringing peace to a militant-infested northwest region where a paramilitary offensive has tried to flush out insurgents. Police captured Rafiuddin, an aide to top commander Baitullah Mehsud, along with four associates they traveled in a vehicle through the town of Hangu in the South Waziristan region.
(AP, 7/9/08)(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Peru tens of thousands of union workers took to the streets across the country to protest rising food and fuel prices they blame on the free market policies of President Alan Garcia.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 9, A Spanish patrol boat rescued 33 people and recovered one body from the boat off the coast of southern Almeria province. 15 African migrants, most of them small children, died of hunger, thirst or exposure as they drifted across the Mediterranean on the small, overcrowded boat.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 9, In Istanbul, Turkey, men armed with pistols and shotguns attacked a police guard post outside the US consulate, sparking a gunbattle that left 3 attackers and 3 officers dead.
(AP, 7/9/08)(Reuters, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Pres. Bush signed a bill that overhauls government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that help the US spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases.
(SFC, 7/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 10, The American Medical Association issued a formal apology for more than a century of discriminatory policies that excluded blacks from participating in a group long considered the voice of US doctors.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Rocky Aoki (69), founder of the Benihana steakhouse chain, died in New York from complications of cancer. Aoki was also a wrestler and avid balloonist.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroaki_Aoki)
2008 Jul 10, Officials said a decade-long drought in Australia's most important crop-growing region is worsening and there is little hope for relief from either saving rains or a new government conservation plan.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Britons voted in a by-election triggered when David Davis, a top opposition MP, quit in protest at government plans to increase the period police can hold terror suspects before charging them.
(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Salman Rushdie's novel "Midnight's Children" was named as the greatest Booker Prize winner ever, scooping a special "best of the best" award for the second time.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In China migrant workers began a 3-day riot in Kanmen town in coastal Zhejiang province. Three hundred military police arrived on July 13 and 30 migrant workers have been detained. A Hong Kong-based rights group said the unrest was centered around a migrant worker who was beaten by a security guard while trying to get a temporary residence permit.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 10, The European Parliament called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged the authorities to stop it.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, European Union lawmakers called for tougher EU sanctions against Zimbabwe, including putting businessmen who finance Pres. Mugabe's regime on a visa ban list.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In France four people were found shot dead near the southwestern city of Toulouse. A fifth victim died later in hospital.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, Indonesia executed Ahmad Suradji (57), a man convicted of killing 42 women and girls in a series of ritual slayings he believed would give him magical powers.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Indonesia Asnawi Sandri, a 38-year-old father of two, died in the hospital, days after he came down with symptoms of bird flu. This raised the unofficial toll in the world's hardest hit nation to 111 in three years.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iran test-fired more long-range missiles overnight in a second round of exercises meant to show that the country can defend itself against any attack by the US or Israel.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iraq's Oil Ministry said that it is close to signing contracts to build two new oil refineries in southern Iraq. Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader to visit Iraq in nearly 20 years.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Israeli troops shot and killed a teenage Palestinian militant along the country's border with Gaza. Soldiers thought he was armed but, after inspecting the body, found that he was not. In the fourth day of operations in the city of Nablus, Israel closed a clinic and TV station, and raided a mosque.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In northern Mexico, 6 bullet-ridden bodies were found inside the auto body shop in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, and three more bodies were found on the street just outside the business. A police investigator was found shot to death in his truck near Culiacan's police headquarters.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Nigeria's main militant group said it would resume attacks in the country's oil-rich river delta region because of Britain's recent pledge to back the government in the conflict there. UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari resigned as chairman of a planned peace summit for the oil-rich Niger Delta following opposition from regional leaders.
(AP, 7/10/08)(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, North Korea returned to international talks on its nuclear activities after a nine-month break, in what host China hailed as a potential turning point in the disarmament process.
(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Pakistan six mortar rounds appeared to have targeted a military post in Angore Adda in South Waziristan, seriously wounding six Pakistani troops, lightly wounding two other troops and also injuring two civilians in a nearby market.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 10, A Palestinian health official said a tunnel used to smuggle goods across the Gaza-Egypt border has collapsed, killing two Palestinians.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, The Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's secret services, reported that the head of the embassy's trade and investment section, Christopher Bowers, was believed to be a senior British intelligence officer.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 10, Somali insurgents killed at least two people in an overnight attack on an army base 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of the government headquarters in Baidoa.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Turkey authorities detained four suspects in connection with the July 9 attack on the US consulate in Istanbul which left 3 policemen and 3 assailants dead.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, In Uzbekistan a fire at a Soviet-era military base spread to an ammunition depot, igniting a series of powerful explosions that killed three people and injured 21 others.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 11, US banking regulators seized IndyMac Bancorp Inc., Pasadena-based mortgage lender, after withdrawals by panicked depositors led to the second-largest banking failure in US history. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said that their finances were sufficiently sound to withstand the housing crisis as government officials scrambled to restore confidence in the country's two largest mortgage finance companies.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 11, Gregg Bergersen (51), a former US Defense Department analyst, was sentenced in Virginia to 57 months in prison for passing classified information about Taiwan to a Chinese government agent.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Apple introduced its next generation iPhone in 22 countries. Unprecedented demand caused initial service problems.
(SFC, 7/12/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 11, Oil prices touched $147 a barrel before beginning a decline.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.70)
2008 Jul 11, Dr. Michael DeBakey (b.1908), the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon, died. He pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients. He was among the first to link lung cancer to smoking in a medical journal article in 1939.
(AP, 7/12/08)(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 11, In San Francisco Armando Estrada (30) of Rodeo, Ca., was shot and killed at 20th and Mission streets. In 2009 Jonathan Cruz-Ramirez and Guillermo Herrera, alleged members of the MS-13 street gang, were charged with the murder.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A12)(www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=91505)
2008 Jul 11, In Australia the official program for the Catholic church's World Youth Day began, but was partly overshadowed by the launch of an investigation into sexual abuse allegations against a disgraced priest. Thousands of pilgrims converged on Sydney as it braced for the weekend arrival of Pope Benedict.
(AFP, 7/11/08)(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to support East Timor during talks in Dili with Timorese leaders including President Jose Ramos-Horta.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Cambodia Khim Sam Bo (47), a journalist working for a pro-opposition newspaper, was killed along with his son (19) in a drive-by shooting in Phnom Phen. A gunman on a motorcycle shot five times at the victims as they were leaving a sports stadium on a motorcycle.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Officials said the bodies of four Africans have been found in a small boat packed with migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands. It was the third such tragedy in a week.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, President Raul Castro warned Cubans to prepare for a "realistic" brand of communism that is economically viable and does away with excessive state subsidies designed to promote equality on the island.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, The Czech Republic’s Industry and Trade Ministry announced that Russia has reduced its oil shipments to the country without providing an explanation. The cutback was announced three days after the nation signed a military agreement with Washington that the Kremlin strongly opposes. Russia later said the supplies dropped because 2 Russian firms had decided to refine more crude at home.
(AP, 7/11/08)(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 11, Ethiopia's Ogadeni rebels accused the regime in Addis Ababa of deliberately blocking international aid to their war-wracked and drought-stricken region.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Iraq the US military detained nine people suspected of involvement in the al-Qaida in Iraq group in raids in Baghdad and the cities of Beiji and Mosul.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Israeli police revealed stinging new allegations against PM Ehud Olmert, accusing him of pocketing tens of thousands of dollars by deceiving multiple sources into paying for the same trips abroad. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian gunman who opened fire in the early morning on an Israeli civilian driving in the West Bank.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, International donors pledged more than half of the euro1.5 billion ($2.36 billion) in aid requested by Kosovo to build up its infrastructure and democratic institutions.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Lebanon's PM Fuad Saniora announced a new national unity Cabinet in which Hezbollah and its allies have veto power over government decisions.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A fishing boat, carrying eight Taiwanese, one Chinese and six crew members from Madagascar, sank after reporting engine problems.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 11, In the Netherlands health authorities announced a Dutch woman, infected during a holiday to Uganda by the contagious Marburg virus, had died overnight. The Marburg virus is similar to Ebola and causes heavy bleeding. About 100 people who may have had contact with the woman were under surveillance.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A senior military official said the Nigerian navy has arrested 15 Filipinos after intercepting a vessel carrying a significant quantity of stolen crude oil off the coast of the Niger Delta. Gunboats intercepted the MV Lina Panama in the waters off Brass, home to a major oil export terminal in the southern state of Bayelsa. One security source said the vessel was thought to be carrying tens of thousands of tons of stolen oil.
(Reuters, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, A North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean woman tourist (53) at a mountain resort in the communist North, prompting the South to suspend the high-profile tour program. Park Wang-ja had strayed a half-mile into a fenced off military area and was shot twice from behind.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Serbia a bus carrying Polish tourists overturned north of Belgrade, killing six people and injuring nearly 40.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Somali troops shot and killed 7 civilians in southern Mogadishu after accusing them of being part of an Islamic insurgency.
(SFC, 7/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 11, In southern Sri Lanka suspected rebel gunmen ambushed a crowded passenger bus as it traveled down a small rural road. The attack killed a boy and three women and wounded 25 others. Clashes broke out in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya regions surrounding the rebel stronghold killed 17 rebels.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 11, Thai prosecutors filed new corruption charges against ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra for alleged abuse of authority to benefit his family business.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, A Turkish news agency reported that army troops clashed with Kurdish rebels in the southeast and that 10 of the rebels were killed.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, The UN commemorated World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
2008 Jul 11, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe mended relations after months of sniping that threatened trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 11, Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change said a total of 113 MDC supporters have now been killed in politically-related violence. Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition held a second day of talks in South Africa. A UN Security Council bid to pass sanctions against Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was vetoed by Russia and China.
(AP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/11/08)(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, Les Crane, pioneer talk radio and TV host, died in Marin, California. In 1964 he hosted the “The Les Crane Show," a late night TV talk show on ABC that ran for 4 months.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 12, Bobby Murcer (62), former Yankee baseball player and broadcaster, died from a malignant brain tumor in Oklahoma City. The only person to play with Mantle and Mattingly, the popular Murcer hit .277 with 252 home runs and 1,043 RBIs in 17 seasons with the Yankees, San Francisco and the Chicago Cubs. He made the All-Star team in both leagues and won a Gold Glove.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Tony Snow (53), a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush's press secretary, died of colon cancer.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In central Afghanistan Taliban militants executed two women just outside Ghazni city after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a US base. A soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion in northern Afghanistan. NATO troops killed Bismullah Akhund, an insurgent leader in Helmand's Naw Zad district.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 12, NATO said a recent border clash that wounded several Pakistani and Afghan security personnel was sparked by insurgents in Afghanistan who fired at targets in both countries, apparently to stoke cross-border tensions.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, The Arab League said it will hold crisis talks on Sudan after reports the International Criminal Court may seek Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's arrest, amid fears for peace efforts in Darfur. It would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state. The African Union said that plans by the ICC could jeopardize peace efforts in Darfur.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, Ethiopia said it has arrested eight "Eritrean-trained" rebels suspected of carrying out bombings that rocked the capital Addis Ababa and killed eight people earlier this year.
(Reuters, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, French President Nicolas Sarkozy met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, kicking off a round of diplomacy with Middle East leaders ahead of an EU-Mediterranean summit. Sarkozy said that Syria and Lebanon will open embassies in each other's countries for the first time. Syria's leader cautioned there was still work to be done before that could happen.
(AP, 7/12/08)(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, In Jakarta, Indonesia, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged cooperation on biofuels during talks in a bid to take advantage of surging oil prices.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In western Nepal about 500 riot policemen took senior officers hostage in a revolt over ill treatment and poor food. They released their captives and surrendered after a two-day standoff.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 12, In Nigeria a truck drivers strike to protest soaring fuel prices entered its 2nd day. At least 17 people died at a prayer meeting in rural Nigeria after apparently breathing noxious fumes from their power generator while asleep. Their bodies were discovered on July 15.
(AFP, 7/12/08)(Reuters, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 12, North Korea agreed to completely disable its main nuclear facilities by the end of October and to allow thorough site inspections to verify that all necessary steps had been taken as the latest round of six-nation disarmament talks concluded in Beijing.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, In northwestern Pakistan at least 13 paramilitary forces and three militants were killed in an ambush and shootout when militants attacked a Frontier Constabulary convoy in the Zargari area of Hangu district. Provincial police in Hangu arrested half a dozen Taliban including Rafiuddin, a lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud. The militants in response captured 29-49 hostages.
(AP, 7/13/08)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 12, In Sri Lanka 18 rebels and a soldier were killed in Mannar district; 7 rebels and a soldier were killed in Vavuniya and six guerrillas died in Welioya. Each side often exaggerates the casualties and damage inflicted on its enemy while underreporting its own losses.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Pope Benedict XVI left Rome on a flight to Australia for a 10-day pilgrimage. The Pope said he will use his visit to Australia to apologize for sexual abuse by priests and to examine how the Church can "prevent, heal and reconcile".
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 12, President Hugo Chavez said that he is expanding his Venezuela's Petrocaribe oil-supply pact to include Guatemala.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 12, Thousands of Venezuelans protested in the capital demanding that the Supreme Court overturn a "blacklist" blocking key opponents of President Hugo Chavez from running in upcoming elections.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 13, The US Securities and Exchange Commission said it would immediately conduct investigations aimed at preventing the intentional spreading of false information intended to manipulate securities prices. the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department announced steps to brace slumping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 13, Terry Childs (43), a San Francisco computer engineer, was arrested on felony charges for allegedly plotting to hijack the city’s computer system. Childs, who continue to draw his $127,735 annual salary, refused to provide passwords to the network system and was held in lieu of a $5 million bail. Mayor Newsom met with Childs on July 21, who provided system code. Cisco engineers had the system back under control by July 22. On April 27, 2010, Childs was convicted of felony computer tampering. On April 27, 2010, a Superior Court jury concluded that his crime cost the city over $200,000, making him eligible for a maximum state sentence of 5 years. On Aug 6, 2010, Childs was sentenced to 4 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million. Hi conviction was upheld in 2013.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B1)(SFC, 7/23/08, p.B1)(SFC, 4/28/10, p.C1)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.C2)(SSFC, 10/27/13, p.C2C3)
2008 Jul 13, Belgian-based brewer InBev announced it will buy Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion.
(http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/703682.html)
2008 Jul 13, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol killing 24 people in Uruzgan province. A two-day battle sparked by an insurgent attack killed at least 40 militants in Helmand province. A NATO soldier died in a roadside blast in Helmand province. In Kunar province, fighting erupted when militants attacked a NATO security force outpost. In eastern Logar province gunmen kidnapped parliament member Abdul Wali and his driver. Well-armed militants got inside a remote military outpost in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar. 9 American soldiers were killed in the deadliest assault on US forces in Afghanistan in three years. In 2010 the US Army reversed a decision to punish three officers for command failures that led to the deadly firefight. In 2014 Sgt. Matthew Pitts was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Wanat.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)(AP, 6/23/10)(AFP, 7/21/14)
2008 Jul 13, Algeria’s government newspaper El Moudjhaid said a consortium of British-based oil services company Petrofac and Indonesian engineering company IKPT provisionally won a contract to build an LNG plant in western Mediterranean port of Arzew.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Sydney, after a stop in Darwin, for one of the largest Christian gatherings on Earth, starting a visit set to be marked by his apology for sexual abuse by priests in Australia.
(AFP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the Mediterranean Sea to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th century as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean. 43 nations, including Israel and Arab states, pledged to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction at the close of a summit to launch an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean aimed at securing peace across the restive region.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 13, Iranian state TV said the country is exploring a newly discovered oil field believed to contain more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Iraq gunmen attacked a soccer game near Duluiya killing a police officer and a Sunni Muslim allied with the US against al-Qaida. A roadside bomb in Fallujah killed 4 police officers. A bomb hit a truck near Baquba. The driver and his assistant died of their wounds at a nearby hospital. Some 70 women graduated in the first Daughters of Iraq, a group of female security volunteers.
(SFC, 7/14/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 13, Thousands of Japanese rallied against the permanent basing of the nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier near Tokyo, saying a recent onboard fire made it unsafe.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Indian Kashmir 10 people were hurt when police had to fire shots in the air and use tear gas to disperse a crowd that was attacking pro-India politicians.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Mexico gunmen opened fire on four cars on a busy street in Guamuchil, killing eight people. Among the victims were a girl (11), two 17-year-old boys and two women aged 18 and 19. On July 16 Mexico's government offered a reward of nearly US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of the gunmen.
(AP, 7/14/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Poland Bronislaw Geremek (76), former foreign minister (1997-2000), died in a car accident near Lubien. He was an icon in the struggle against communist rule and a founding member of the Solidarity trade union.
(AFP, 7/13/08)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.98)
2008 Jul 13, In Sierra Leone a passenger plane loaded with 1,540 pounds of cocaine was found abandoned at the main airport.
(SFC, 7/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Jul 13, A World Food Program contractor was gunned down in Somalia, the 5th agency worker to be killed this year.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)(www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-07-15-somalia_N.htm)
2008 Jul 13, In Sudan thousands of protesters chanting "Down, Down USA!" rallied in Khartoum after reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may seek the arrest of Sudan's president for alleged war crimes. A stampede among crowds of people attending a military graduation ceremony killed 17 people at the al-Merriekh Stadium in Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum. The dead were mostly women and children with 3 dozen others injured.
(Reuters, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Pres. Bush lifted the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling, however Congress has renewed its ban on drilling every year since 1981 and top Democrats said it will do so again this year.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 14, David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, defended the newest satirical cover of the magazine by cartoonist Barry Blitt, which depicted Sen. Barack Obama in Muslim garb and his wife as an Afro-sporting gun packer.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 14, Thousands of Univ. of California workers faced suspension and other disciplinary action for walking off their jobs despite a judge’s ruling barring them from doing so. The employees had been without a contract since January.
(SFC, 7/15/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 14, In Pennsylvania Luis Ramirez (25), an illegal Mexican migrant worker, died in Shenandoah after being beaten by white youths. 4 young men were charged and found responsible for the fight, but most of the federal charges against them were dropped. Local police were later accused of tampering with evidence and witnesses or lying to the FBI. In 2010 Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky were convicted for a federal hate crime. In 2011 former police chief Matthew Nestor was found guilty of falsifying his police report, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. Officer William Moyer was found guilty of lying to the FBI but was acquitted of four other counts. Officer Jason Hayes, who's engaged to the mother of one of Ramirez's attackers, was acquitted of both charges against him. In all, the jury convicted on two of nine counts. On Feb 23, 2011, Donchak and Piekarsky were sentenced to nine years each in prison for roles in the death of Ramirez.
(www.maldef.org/luis_ramirez_petition/)(SFC, 10/15/10, p.A6)(AP, 1/27/11)(Reuters, 2/24/11)
2008 Jul 14, In eastern Afghanistan seven insurgents were killed in fighting in Wanat, Nuristan province, where 9 US soldiers were killed a day earlier. An "Arab terrorist" was captured during the operation.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, Britain vowed to increase pressure on Zimbabwe's leaders by pushing for tougher EU sanctions and hunting down their assets around the world, after failing to secure bolstered UN action.
(AF, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Three British Muslim men pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause explosions, part of a plan prosecutors say would have involved smuggling liquid bombs onto airliners with the intention of blowing them up mid-flight.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, At Britain’s Farnborough International Airshow Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, said it had agreed to buy 45 Boeing passenger jets worth 9.4 billion dollars (5.9 billion euros).
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, A Chinese migrant worker at the Shuangqiao Garden Plaza in Wenshan county killed one person and stabbed nine others after discovering his savings of 2,600 yuan ($380) had been swapped for counterfeit notes while he visited a prostitute.
(Reuters, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 14, An explosion at a mine in northern Hebei province killed 34 miners and a rescue worker. In November, 2009, officials at the mine were charge with moving dead bodies, destroying evidence and paying journalists 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) not to report the explosion. In 2010 a journalist was sentenced to 16 years in prison for taking bribes to help cover up the disaster, which took place just 3 weeks before the Beijing Olympics.
(www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/asia/01mine.html?_r=1)(AP, 1/6/10)
2008 Jul 14, Greek police said 9 British women faced prostitution charges after being arrested at the weekend for taking part in an oral sex competition in the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos. Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged in the incident, which took place at Laganas beach.
(Reuters, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Police in the Adriatic city of Pescara arrested Otttaviano Del Turco, the governor of Italy's Abruzzo region, in a health care corruption investigation. Prosecutors said at least 35 people are being investigated.
(AP, 7/14/08)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.60)
2008 Jul 14, Malaysian police locked down Parliament with roadblocks and massive security to prevent opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and his supporters from attending a key debate.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Mexico commander Gerardo Valdes, the head of kidnapping and organized crime investigations in the border state of Coahuila, was seized by at least six men when he was driving in Saltillo. An unidentified man called police and said that Valdes had been grabbed by the Juarez Cartel.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Peru a new law went into effect allowing couples who agree upon alimony, child custody and division of assets to seek divorce from a qualified notary or municipality.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, Russia agreed to write off $242 million in Tajikistan debt and take control of the Okno mountaintop station, operational since 2004. It was designed to track satellites and even fragments of space debris.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, South Korea said it will recall its ambassador from Japan over a rekindled debate about disputed islands between the countries, as the new Seoul government seeks to lift its sagging popularity at home with an appeal to nationalism.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spain's biggest bank, Santander, said it had reached agreement to buy British lender Alliance and Leicester in an all-share deal worth 1.26 billion pounds (1.57 billion euros) as it continues its push into the British market.
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spanish construction giant Martinsa-Fadesa announced in a filing with Spanish stock market regulators that it is seeking protection from creditors.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 14, The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation. The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Turkey prosecutors indicted 86 secular Turks, including high-ranking ex-military officials, on terrorism charges for their alleged involvement in plots to topple the Islamic-rooted government. They were suspected of being part of Ergenekon, an ultra-nationalist gang bent on overthrowing the AKP government.
(AP, 7/14/08)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.34)
2008 Jul 14, In Vietnam Dayana Mendoza, Miss Venezuela, was crowned Miss Universe 2008 in a contest marked by the spectacle of Miss USA falling down during the evening gown competition for the second year in a row.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 15, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the fragile economy is facing "numerous difficulties" including persistent strains in financial markets, rising joblessness and housing problems — despite the Fed's aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, The SEC said it would immediately move to curb improper short selling in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as those of 17 financial firms. The move would be effective July 21 and expire after 30 days. The SEC also planned to consider extending the requirements to all stocks traded in the US.
(WSJ, 7/16/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 15, Mei Ling Chen (46) of Taiwan was arrested in Sunnyvale, Ca., after customs inspectors at SF Int’l. Airport found $380,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a package of dried seafood.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.B11)
2008 Jul 15, Robin Long (25), a US Army deserter who had fled to Canada in 2005, was deported from British Columbia back to the US.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, General Motors Corp. said it will lay off salaried workers, cut truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the US market.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Volkswagen announced that it would build a $1 billion car plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., and expected to open it as soon as 2011.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C10)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFdSOp19gU)
2008 Jul 15, It was reported that Hawaii’s Oahu island planned to export some 100,000 tons of trash a year to the mainland. At current rates its 200-acre municipal landfill would reach capacity in 15 years. Expanded recycling and a new boiler were also in the works.
(WSJ, 7/15/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 15, In California 2 vehicles collided on a bridge and fell into the Delta-Mendota Canal near Westley. 6 farm workers and a septic truck driver died.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B3)(SFC, 7/17/08, p.B2)
2008 Jul 15, Gee Gee Engesser (b.19126), animal trainer and “Blond Bombshell" of the circus, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 15, In Pennsylvania Betty Schirmer (56) was killed in an apparent car accident. In 2010 her husband, Pastor Arthur Burton Schirmer, was charged with killing her and staging the car accident. The charge also prompted an investigation into the suspicious death of his 1st wife, Jewel Schirmer, in 1999.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)(www.delmarvanow.com/article/20100914/NEWS01/100914005)
2008 Jul 15, In southwestern Afghanistan air strikes against extremist rebels killed 4 women and 5 children as well as several insurgents. NATO pulled soldiers out of the outpost in Wanat village in northeastern Kunar province, which militants had breached killing 9 US soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tens of thousands of Argentine farmers and government supporters staged dueling protests ahead of a Senate vote on a package of grain-export taxes that generated months of bitter farm strikes.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Australia the world's biggest Christian festival opened with a spectacular harbor-side mass for up to 150,000 pilgrims taking part in World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney headed by Pope Benedict XVI.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Belgium PM Yves Leterme offered King Albert the resignation of his government after he acknowledged he would not make a deadline for a constitutional reform deal despite months of talks. He offered to resign after realizing it would be impossible to resolve deep divisions over increased autonomy for French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Tropical Storm Bertha headed back out over open ocean and away from the US mainland after it battered Bermuda, knocking out electricity to thousands on the Atlantic tourist island. Bertha entered its 13th day becoming the longest-lived July tropical storm in history.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, China voiced concern over an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of genocide in the African country's war-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Croatia adopted a law that allows Sunday shopping only over the summer and Christmas holidays. It goes into effect January 1. The law also allows stores in gas, bus and train stations to open on Sundays year-round, along with those in hospitals. Bakeries, newsstands and flower shops are also exempt from the ban.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, The EU agreed to an emergency aid package for its fishing industry to cope with fuel prices.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 15, In eastern India at least 20 members of a wedding party were killed when the jeep carrying them plunged into a roadside canal outside Patna, the capital of Bihar state.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Indonesia's president acknowledged that his country carried out gross human rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 break for independence, but stopped short of offering a full apology and said no one would be prosecuted.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Iraq 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of army recruits at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, where devastating attacks persist despite security improvements elsewhere. At least 28 people died. In western Mosul, a bomb near an Iraqi police station killed four Iraqi civilians. Half an hour later, one Iraqi police officer and seven civilians died in a suicide car bombing in the east of the city. Three other bombs in Mosul wounded 15 people. The US military said it had captured the Iranian-trained leader of an explosives cell in Baghdad.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Israel's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal to trade a Lebanese militant convicted of killing three people for two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas and believed to be dead. Israeli troops arrested three Hamas council members in a dawn raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Witnesses and residents said a total of 12 Hamas members were arrested.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Italy a judge in Venice indicted Saber Fadhil Hussein for plotting a terrorist attack on US bases in Iraq using ultra-light aircraft.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A9)
2008 Jul 15, Fishermen across Japan went on a massive one-day strike to protest skyrocketing fuel prices, the latest blow to the country's foundering fishing industry.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, Malaysian police issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in connection with a sodomy accusation by a male former aide.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In South Korea Won Jeong-hwa (34) was arrested and later confessed that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea's intelligence agency. On Oct 15 she was sentenced to five years in prison for spying.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, A plan for a referendum on self-determination in Spain's northern Basque Country became law in the region, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government in Madrid which has termed the poll illegal.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Sri Lanka fighting reportedly killed a total of 51 rebels and a soldier.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Switzerland Hannibal Kadhafi (32), the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested along with his wife Aline at a luxury hotel in Geneva after the servants, a Moroccan and a Tunisian, alleged they had been abused by the couple. The 2-day detention led to reprisals by Libya. Days after Hannibal Kadhafi’s arrest, Swiss businessmen Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani were detained in Libya on alleged visa violations. The servants later dropped their legal complaints after receiving some compensation. In November, 2009, Goeldi and Hamdani were handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli. Libya then announced that they would go on trial on accusations of tax evasion and violating residency laws.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 11/9/09)(AP, 11/12/09)
2008 Jul 15, Taiwan indicted 5 former ministers, who had served under former Pres. Chen Shui-bian, on corruption charges relating to misuse of special expense accounts.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.A15)
2008 Jul 15, Turkey’s military said aircraft and artillery units had shelled rebel positions in Sirnak province, killing 22 rebels.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 16, The United States signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade, Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, The US Postal Service released a series of stamps honoring black cinema.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.E3)
2008 Jul 16, California state educators said 24% of the state’s high school students had dropped out of school during the 2006-2007 school year.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 16, Jo Stafford (b.1917), pop star singer during the 1940s and 1950s, died in Los Angeles. Her songs included “You Belong To Me," a big hit in 1952.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 16, The governor of Kandahar said eight militants were killed during an operation in the southern province's Khakrez district in the past two days. A regional Taliban commander, Mullah Mahmoud, who controlled about 250 fighters, was among those killed. Several militants were killed in the Nahr Surkh district of Helmand. Coalition and Afghan security forces uncovered and destroyed a large weapons cache in northern Jawzjan province.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Thousands of British local government employees began a two-day strike over pay. Unions expected more than half a million workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to join the walkout that began after midnight.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Anglican bishops from around the world gathered in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference, with the 10-yearly meeting set to be dominated by deep splits over the roles of women and homosexuals.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Cambodia assembled its troops near the Thai border in the second day of alleged incursions by Thai soldiers amid tensions over disputed border land near a historic temple.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, The government of China’s Gansu province told the Ministry of Health about an unusual surge of kidney stones among infants who had all drunk the same brand of milk.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.57)
2008 Jul 16, In Egypt a truck ploughed into traffic at a closed level crossing, pushing a bus, truck and several cars into the path of a passenger train. Four people died from their injuries overnight bringing the total number of dead to 41.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In France the first stone was laid at the Louvre's new Arts of Islam gallery, the first major modern architectural addition to the museum since its famed glass pyramid was built in the 1980s.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In eastern India at least 20 special commando police officers were killed when their vehicle struck a land mine planted by communist rebels in Orissa state.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Coalition forces handed the Iraqi government control of a province south of Baghdad, reflecting security improvements across the country. US and Polish forces operated in the mostly Shiite province of Qadisiyah, the tenth of 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi authority. A car bomb killed at least 7 children and 11 other people in the northern city of Tal Afar. 90 people also were injured in the blast at a popular outdoor market. A car bomb killed two civilians in Mosul.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of two Israeli soldiers and Israel freed 5 Lebanese militants, including Samir Kantar, who killed a 4-year-old girl and her father in 1979.
(AP, 7/16/08)(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 16, An Italian parliamentary panel gave initial approval to a plan to fingerprint everyone in the country, a move that could defuse criticism over a mandatory program to fingerprint Gypsies.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Malaysian police arrested opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on suspicion that he sodomized a male aide, pre-empting his voluntary appearance at the police headquarters to answer the allegation. He was interrogated for more than eight hours and made to sleep on a "cold cement" floor in a holding cell before being released the next day.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Mexico's navy seized a homemade submarine carrying a drug shipment off the Pacific coast and arrested its four-man crew.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Nigeria about 30 armed men in speedboats attacked a navy vessel that was guarding key oil facilities in southern Rivers state. Three militants, a naval serviceman and a civilian were killed. MEND said it was not involved.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In southwestern Pakistan a roadside bomb wounded seven security personnel and two passers-by. In the northwest a military operation began to expel insurgents from Zargari. 10 militants were killed and five troops wounded.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 16, The Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front reached a deal to create an ancestral homeland for 3 million Muslims.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 16, Gold production was severely disrupted in parts of South Africa as thousands of mineworkers downed tools to protest rising living costs.
(AFP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In South Korea former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee saw the suspension of his prison sentence in a tax-evasion conviction, a move that confirmed South Koreans' view that tycoons are immune from jail.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Spain King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia kicked off an interfaith conference in Madrid, an effort to bring Muslims, Christians and Jews closer together amid a world that often puts the three faiths at odds.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Sri Lankan soldiers captured a key naval base used by the Tamil Tiger rebels in the northern part of the country. Fighting in the north killed 24 rebels and 3 soldiers.
(AP, 7/16/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Sudan a peacekeeper with the United Nations-African Union was shot and killed in Darfur. The peacekeeper, believed to be a Nigerian company commander, died while on patrol near a peacekeeping camp.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, Turkey’s military said 11 Kurdish rebels were killed in an ongoing operation in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Turkey Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Kurd, was allegedly killed by his father for besmirching the family honor. In 2011 the film “Zenne Dancer," based on his story, won 5 awards at the Golden Orange Film Festival.
(Econ, 10/22/11, p.64)(http://ahmetyildizismyfamily.blogspot.com/)
2008 Jul 16, Zimbabwe’s central bank's governor said the annual rate of inflation, already the highest in the world, has hit a new record level of 2.2 million percent.
(AFP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 17, Kay Ryan (b.1945) of Fairfax, Ca., was named the 16th poet laureate of the US. She was selected by James Billington, the Librarian of Congress.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 17, The US Treasury moved to freeze assets of four Algerians it said were leaders of an al Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for deadly bombings in Algeria last month.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, The US government lifted a salmonella warning on tomatoes, but still warned caution on fresh jalapeno and serrano peppers.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 17, It was reported that the US debt amounted to $455,000 per household. By September the national debt reached $10 trillion and obliged the national debt clock in New York’s Times Square to move its dollar sign to make room.
(SFC, 7/17/08, p.A10)(Econ, 10/9/10, SR p.6)
2008 Jul 17, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), led a global day of action targeting KKR-owned sites in 25 countries, calling for an end to favorable tax treatment of private equity.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.70)
2008 Jul 17, California became the first US state to approve green building standards.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 17, In western Afghanistan US Special Forces and Afghan troops called in airstrikes during a raid on a militant cell, killing 15 insurgents while freeing 15 hostages in Herat province. Taliban militants attacked a convoy carrying supplies for NATO forces in Zabul. A following gunbattle killed an Afghan security worker and wounded five.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman once identified as a possible al-Qaida associate, was arrested by Afghan police, who found recipes for explosives and descriptions of New York landmarks in her handbag. [see Aug 5]
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A5)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Jul 17, Algeria and Germany wound up two days of talks in Algiers with a call for more economic cooperation between the two countries.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, In Algeria a truck and a bus collided on one of the main highways in the Relizane region killing 7 people with 28 seriously injured.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Argentina's Senate narrowly rejected a grain-export tax package, a government-backed proposal that has led to nationwide farm strikes and regional food shortages.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, In Sidney, Australia, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a stinging attack on pop culture, consumerism and "false idols" to 150,000 mainly teenaged Catholic pilgrims gathered for World Youth Day.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Belgium's King Albert II refused to accept the resignation of the prime minister and his government, calling on key officials to redouble efforts to resolve a longtime disagreement over more self-rule for the country's Dutch and French speakers.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, A new company of Chinese engineers deployed to Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur, boosting the number of UN-led peacekeeping troops to 8,000.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Wikimania 2008 opened in to Alexandria, Egypt, for a 3-day tradecraft meeting. The gathering of online encyclopedia creators drew some 650 Wikipedians from 45 countries.
(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W1)(http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
2008 Jul 17, In Amman, Jordan, a gunman shot and wounded six people near a Roman amphitheater. He shot himself in the head as he was chased by police, and was in critical condition. A police official identified the assailant as Thaer al-Weheidi (19), a resident of Baqaa camp, the largest of 11 Palestinian refugee settlements in Jordan. Al-Weheidi died on July 22.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 17, Kuwait's official news agency says the tiny Gulf country has named an ambassador to Iraq for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Macedonia's main opposition party walked out of parliament after its deputy leader was arrested and charged in a corruption probe.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Six prominent members of Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC met this day with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega according to Nicaragua’s La Prensa newspaper. The members of the guerrilla organization arrived in Nicaragua in a Cessna airplane from Venezuela. Both Ortega and Venezuela denied the newspaper report.
(http://colombiareports.com/2008/07/23/ortega-met-with-farc-delegation-says-la-prensa/)
2008 Jul 17, Nigerian villagers blew up a key crude oil supply pipeline operated by Agip, the Nigerian subsidiary of Italian group Eni, cutting production.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Violent protests erupted at Pakistan's main stock market as growing economic and political uncertainty pushed Pakistani shares to a new 18-month low.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, A survey team member said a Russian government audit has revealed that up to 50,000 pieces are missing from the country’s museums, everything from Pre-Revolutionary medals and weapons to precious works of art.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, Sri Lankan air force jets bombed a group of ethnic Tamil rebels. Troops attacked rebel bunkers along the front lines in the Vavuniya area, killing 10 Tamil Tiger fighters. Fighting in the area also killed four soldiers, while a fifth soldier was missing in action. Fighting in Welioya killed nine rebels and one soldier, while another rebel was killed in Jaffna.
(AP, 7/17/08)(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, An official of the Swiss bank UBS announced that it was halting its offshore banking services for US citizens after it came under scathing criticism for facilitating massive tax evasion.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 17, An organization claiming to represent groups involved in southern Thailand's Muslim insurgency announced it will end all violence in the region as of July 14. Former army commander and Defense Minister Chetta Thanajaro said the organization that made the announcement represented 11 different underground groups operating in southern Thailand.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 17, Venezuela's ruling party pledged to seek to reform the nation's constitution to let President Hugo Chavez seek indefinite re-election.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, The Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" opened and set a single-day box office record by taking in $66.4 million.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Nebraska’s new safe-haven law went into effect allowing parents to abandon unwanted children, under age 19, at state-licensed hospitals with no questions asked. The law was later amended after parents and guardians, some from out of state, dropped off children as old as 17.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 18, New Hampshire decided to accept an offer from Venezuela of free heating oil for the state’s poor.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 18, In Houston, Texas, one of the nation's largest mobile cranes collapsed at LyondellBasell refinery, killing four workers. An additional 7 workers were injured when the crane collapsed during routine maintenance at the chemical plant.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Afghanistan a roadside blast the Nava district of Helmand province. Three guards were killed and four wounded. 2 French aid workers were taken from their guest house in the early hours in the central province of Day Kundi, one of the poorest areas of Afghanistan. On August 2 Action Against Hunger said the aid workers had been released.
(AP, 7/18/08)(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Algeria the government of Mali and ethnic Tuareg rebels reached a truce agreement in dangerous northern Mali. One faction of the Tuareg group refused to sign the deal, saying it did not do enough to help the Tuaregs.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 18, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez canceled a widely protested farm export tax hike following months of protest and a stunning rejection by the Senate. She issued a resolution reducing the export taxes to their previous level.
(AP, 7/18/08)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.43)
2008 Jul 18, In Australia Pope Benedict XVI warned Christian leaders that the push to unite Christian churches was at a "critical juncture" and called on people of all religions to join together against violence.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, A border clash triggered by a smuggling attempt left two Bangladeshi troops dead and one Indian soldier seriously wounded.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, Bhutan adopted a new constitution following three years of work.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Bhutan)(Econ, 11/9/13, p.65)
2008 Jul 18, In Brazil police said at least eight alleged drug traffickers were killed during a raid in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, A report of the European Union Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) was leaked to the media. According the report, which was sent to Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Plugchieva two weeks ago, businessman Lyudmil Stoykov, who sponsored the president's election campaign, and his associate Mario Nikolov, who is a sponsor of Parvanov's Bulgarian Socialist Party, were involved in large-scale abuses of EU funds.
(http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6452879.html)
2008 Jul 18, Cuba’s Communist officials decreed that private farmers and cooperatives can use up to 100 acres (40 hectares) of idle government land, as President Raul Castro works to revive the floundering agricultural sector.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Iraq two suspected insurgents, linked to the June 26 suicide attack, were captured in a near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080801/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)
2008 Jul 18, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said investigators had arrested six men in June and July suspected of trying to set up an al-Qaida-linked terror network, including one who wanted to shoot down President Bush's helicopter.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, Suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade at a crowded bus terminal in the Indian portion of Kashmir, wounding 35 people, including seven children.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Mexico's president replaced a 1791 time capsule discovered atop Mexico City's cathedral with a new one containing messages from golf star Lorena Ochoa, novelist Carlos Fuentes and a boy genius.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, In northwestern Pakistan, at least 10 Taliban died in fierce fighting between two rival militant groups. The Taliban threatened to begin executing hostages captured on July 12 unless the government releases their comrades.
(AP, 7/19/08)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 18, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said Sudan President Omar al-Beshir has agreed to restore relations with Chad, more than two months after Khartoum severed ties accusing Ndjamena of backing Darfur rebels.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Singapore Peter Lloyd (41), a TV reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was charged with trafficking about one gram of methamphetamine to a Singaporean for 100 Singapore dollars (73.5 US) at a hotel early this month.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain, a spokesman said police in the southern city of Seville have been left red-faced after more than 100 kilos of drugs were stolen from police headquarters and replaced with talcum powder.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain a Saudi-organized conference of the world's great religions called for an international agreement to combat terrorism, "a universal phenomenon that requires unified international efforts."
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, South Africa’s Pres. Thabo Mbeki announced plans to work with the UN and African Union as he attempts to mediate a settlement in Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 18, Sri Lankan warplanes carried out air raids over the rebel-controlled northern region of Mullaittivu, targeting a Tiger logistics base. The military said fighting in the northern Vavuniya district left nine rebels killed. 7 insurgents were killed along the Welioya front, while 3 more were killed in Jaffna. Angry protesters halted trains and clashed with policemen in Colombo as authorities began demolishing their homes, saying they were unauthorized constructions that encroached on government lands.
(AFP, 7/18/08)(AP, 7/18/08)(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 18, Tropical Storm Kalmaegi wreaked havoc across Taiwan, leaving at least 19 people dead and seven missing.
(AFP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 18, Thailand sent more military reinforcements to a disputed part of the Cambodian border, after the tense four-day standoff nearly erupted into gunfire during the night.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Tunisia 2 officials and three others were convicted of plotting terror attacks and to overthrow the government.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 18, In southeastern Turkey 10 members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in clashes with Turkish military forces.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama started a campaign-season tour of combat zones and foreign capitals, visiting with US forces in Kuwait and then Afghanistan — the scene of a war he says deserves more attention and more troops. Afghan troops clashed with Taliban insurgents in Zabul province attacking a supply convoy for NATO troops, killing nine militants. Roadside bombs in Kandahar province killed a NATO soldier in a separate convoy and four policemen. In Helmand province militants attacked a police checkpoint and in the ensuing gunfight three Taliban fighters were killed. NATO forces accidentally killed at least four civilians in eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 7/19/08)(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, The Arab League criticized the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying diplomacy should be given a priority to solve the conflict in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Sidney, Australia, Pope Benedict apologized directly for the first time for sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, but victims groups said they wanted action and not words.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, Brazilian actress and comedian Dercy Goncalves (101), known for her vulgar wit and scandalous behavior, died in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Bogota the presidents of Brazil and Colombia vowed to boost trade and investment between their nations ahead of crucial world trade talks next week.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Czech police said a 21-year-old British man, wanted for child sex and pornography offences in Britain, has been detained in a Prague suburb where he had been in hiding for two years.
(AFP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Germany more than 1.5 million revelers danced through the streets of Dortmund at the annual Love Parade techno music festival.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Geneva a decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled, with Iran stonewalling Washington and 5 other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc ended a nearly yearlong boycott of the Shiite-led government in another step toward healing the sectarian rifts that once brought almost daily bloodshed. In Baghdad British PM Gordon Brown said plans are being made to scale back troops, but refused to consider an "artificial timetable" for withdrawing Britain's remaining 4,000 soldiers.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Kashmir at least 10 Indian soldiers were killed and 14 others injured when their bus was hit by an improvised explosive device in the disputed Himalayan region.
(AFP, 7/19/08)(SSFC, 7/20/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 19, In Lebanon the Jund al-Sham group, which follows the extremist ideology of al-Qaida, clashed with members of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement. Two other Palestinian militants were killed in the clash.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, While visiting Buenos Aires Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said his country is ready to conduct talks with the US about hosting elements of a missile defense system.
(UPI, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Nepal lawmakers failed to elect the country's first president and end weeks of political deadlock. No candidate won the 298 votes necessary. A bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a river in central Nepal killing 14 passengers and leaving many missing.
(AFP, 7/19/08)(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Pakistan paramilitary forces stumbled on 2 training camps near Dera Bugti in Baluchistan province. 6 troops and an unknown number of ethnic Baluch insurgents died in fighting that began when militants fired on patrolling security forces.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 19, Mullah Rahim, the most senior Taliban leader in Afghanistan's Helmand province, gave himself up to Pakistani officials.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 19, In Sri Lanka soldiers killed 11 rebels in Vavuniya while five rebels died in the nearby Mannar district. A soldier was killed by a sniper's bullet in Mannar.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected. 9 policemen were killed in international military air strikes called in when police and troops clashed after mistaking each other for Taliban. International soldiers had moved into a district in Farah province without informing police, who thought they were militants. 3 children were killed in the southern province of Helmand when a bomb blew up a minivan. One NATO soldier was killed in Khost province. A precision missile strike by British aircraft killed Abdul Rasaq, a Taliban leader who led fighters in the Musa Qala area of Helmand province.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AFP, 7/20/08)(SFC, 7/21/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 20, In Australia Pope Benedict XVI said a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In central Bolivia a Venezuelan military helicopter often used to transport Bolivian President Evo Morales crashed. Four Venezuelan military personnel and a Bolivian officer were reported killed.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, Beijing started its most drastic pollution-control plan, restricting car use and limiting factory emissions in a last-minute push to clear smog-choked skies for the August Olympics.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Well over a million Colombians, clad in white and shouting "No more kidnapping," marked their independence day with marches and concerts demanding freedom for hostages still held by leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern India a packed bus collided with a truck in Uttar Pradesh state, killing at least 17 people and wounding 35 others.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said Iran has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Iraq a new airport opened in Najaf in what the prime minister said was a key step in the reconstruction of a country devastated by war. The government said an oil refinery in Iraq's western desert has resumed production. American soldiers killed two armed relatives of a provincial governor during a raid in Salahuddin province against al-Qaida in Iraq. 2 private security contractors were killed in a car bombing in Mosul. 8 Iraqis were injured in the blast.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Israel British PM Gordon Brown, on his first official visit as prime minister, said that economic development was key to bringing peace to the Middle East. Brown demanded that Israel cease settlement construction and promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Barack Obama made a brief stop in Kuwait, a key US ally. The delegation met with the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior officials.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Lebanon Shehadeh Jawhar, military commander of the Jund al-Sham group, died from wounds in the previous day’s clash with members of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Morocco's police seized more than 10 tons of drugs during raids in the north of the country and along its coasts.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Pakistan five militants died in a failed assault on the Tora Warai military fort near Hangu. The army said security forces had killed 15 militants and detained 60 others, in the first major action against insurgents under Pakistan's new government.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern Spain 4 bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria, after warning calls from the Basque separatist group ETA. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Sri Lankan government forces captured a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the north after a 48-hour battle that left at least 15 rebels dead. Air force jets destroyed six rebel boats.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, A state newspaper reported that Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries.
(Reuters, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 21, The US FDA issued an advisory for consumers to avoid eating uncooked jalapeno peppers after it found a jalapeno grown in Mexico in a Texas border town warehouse that tested positive with the same strain of salmonella that was earlier associated with tomatoes.
(SFC, 7/22/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 21, The war crimes trial of Salim Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver, began at Guantanamo. The judge barred evidence obtained in Afghanistan, citing coercive conditions.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, Brocade Communications said it will pay nearly $3 billion for Foundry Networks, founded in 1996. Both Silicon Valley firms companies competed with Cisco Systems.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.B8)
2008 Jul 21, A US B-52 bomber that was due to fly in a Liberation Day parade in the US territory of Guam crashed into the Pacific Ocean soon after take-off. All of the bomber's six-man crew were killed.
(AFP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 21, Sid Craig (b.1932), co-founder of the Jenny Craig chain of diet centers (1983), died. Craig founded Jenny Craig, named after his wife, in Australia and expanded to the US in 1985. The company went public in 1992. In 2006 Nestle SA bought the operation.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 21, In Sidney Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Australians who were sexually abused as children by priests, ending a pilgrimage to the country with a gesture of contrition and concern over a scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Eric Dowling (b.1915), former English POW, died. He was nicknamed "Digger" for helping excavate tunnels used in the breakout from a World War II German prison camp that became known as the "Great Escape." Dowling played a key role in planning the march 24, 1944, escape by 76 prisoners from Stalag Luft III prison near Sagan in eastern Germany — now Zagan, Poland.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Jul 21, Talks between Cambodia and Thailand to resolve a military stand-off on their joint border ended without a solution.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, In Chechnya the bullet-riddled bodies of three officers, who had been guarding an Interior Ministry trailer, were found on a collective farm. The assailants made off with the officers' guns.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, China and Russia signed an agreement that demarcated their 2,700 mile border ending a long running border dispute.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, In China 2 people were killed in explosions aboard two public buses in Kunming city, Yunnan province. On Dec 24 Li Yan reportedly confessed to his role in the bombings as he lay on his death bed after trying to plant another bomb. 20 miners escaped or were rescued from a flooded coal mine in southern China but six have died and 30 remain trapped.
(AFP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/22/08)(SFC, 12/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 21, Egyptian police arrested 39 members of the country's largest opposition group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood during a raid on a camp north of Cairo. The men, aged 18 to 35, said they were only on vacation. Egyptian authorities shut down the Cairo office of an Iranian TV network, as the two nations spar over "Assassination of a Pharaoh," a film that justifies the killing of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic militants.
(AP, 7/21/08)(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 21, President Nicolas Sarkozy's risky bid to rewrite France's political rules with sweeping constitutional changes worked, but just barely, with both houses of parliament meeting in special session to pass the measures by a single vote. The reform gives parliament greater power but also adds a new privileges to France's already strong presidency, notably allowing the chief of state to address together the two houses of congress. However, it limits the president to two five-year terms.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Rakhat Aliyev, the ex-son-in-law of Kazakhstan Pres. Nazarbayev, accused the president of diverting billions in state assets and other corruption.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 21, An aid agency said Kenyan armed forces are preventing aid workers from helping homeless, hungry families caught between a brutal militia and an army crackdown.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, A UN-led report said Myanmar needs at least $1 billion over the next three years to put the survivors of Cyclone Nargis back on their feet, in the first comprehensive assessment of damage caused by the disaster that killed more than 84,000 people.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Lawmakers in Nepal voted in the Himalayan nation's first post-royal president, but their rejection of a candidate backed by the Maoists was likely to lead to more political deadlock. Ram Baran Yadav, who was supported by the centrist Nepali Congress party, won 308 out of 590 votes cast in Nepal's constitutional assembly.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, A Pakistani court barred the disgraced architect of Pakistan's atomic weapons program from speaking about nuclear proliferation, less than three weeks after he implicated the army in the sharing of nuclear technology with North Korea. Intelligence officials in Quetta said at least 30 insurgents, including three rebel commanders, had been killed. Suspected Islamic militants shot dead a pro-government tribal chief and wounded three other people in an attack on the outskirts of Khar near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/21/08)(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Pakistan’s Geo TV broadcasted a recent interview with Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed, a senior al-Qaida leader. He urged Pakistanis to help Afghans fight US-led coalition forces and condemned President Pervez Musharraf for arresting Arab and Afghan fighters and handing them over to Washington.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, Radovan Karadzic (63), the wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was arrested in a Belgrade suburb. A judge ordered his transfer to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, In Singapore the 10 members of ASEAN adopted a common charter that included a list of 15 purposes.
(www.aseansec.org/21806.htm)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.52)
2008 Jul 21, In Sri Lanka 44 rebels and two government soldiers were killed in fighting.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 21, The African Union urged the UN Security Council to put on hold the International Criminal Court's move to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche offered 43.7 billion dollars to acquire the remaining shares in US subsidiary Genentech, the bio-tech pioneer underpinning its dominance of the cancer treatment market.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 21, Vietnam raised its fuel prices by 31%.
(WSJ, 7/22/08, p.A13)
2008 Jul 21, In Zimbabwe mediator South African Pres. Thabo Mbeki oversaw a ceremony in Harare at which Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed an agreement for negotiations to bring the country out of political chaos in their first meeting in a decade.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., the 4th largest US bank, lost $8.86 billion in the 2nd quarter, and said it was slashing its dividend and cutting 6,350 jobs after losses tied to mortgages soared.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, California reported 63,061 foreclosures during the 2nd 3 months of this year.
(SFC, 7/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 22, California Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB685 giving state pet owners the right to set up a legally enforceable trust to care for their animals. The bill was sponsored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo).
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/5uppps)
2008 Jul 22, Dolly was upgraded to hurricane status as it headed toward the US-Mexican border.
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 22, Estelle Getty (b.1923), the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," died. The diminutive stage and TV actress had spent 40 years struggling for success before landing the role of a lifetime in 1985.
(AP, 7/22/08)(SFC, 7/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 22, US-led coalition and Afghan troops for a 2nd day clashed with and called in airstrikes on Taliban militants in western Afghanistan, killing and wounding more than 25 insurgents. In Kabul a suicide bomber on foot detonated himself next to the walls of the city's historic Babur Gardens, a popular public park, wounding three civilians. In central Wardak province, US-led coalition forces killed "several militants" while hunting for a Taliban leader said to have been behind an attack that killed three American troops and their interpreter last month. Militants attacked a British patrol in Kajaki district of Helmand province. The soldier was initially wounded and later died. A civilian vehicle struck a mine in Khost province, killing four people and wounding three. The dead included a 2-year-old and a woman. In southern Helmand province, Afghan troops killed five insurgents in a clash. A policeman and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the encounter. Gunmen killed the spokesman for the governor of Paktika province, Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar, and wounded his wife, his brother and his mother.
(AP, 7/22/08)(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys took over the Islamist opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), which operates in exile in Eritrea.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 22, India’s BJP opposition was defeated in a confidence vote and charged the ruling Congress Party-led coalition of offering bribes in exchange for abstentions in the vote.
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 22, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks aimed at strengthening economic ties between the two countries.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, In Mexico a measure took effect eliminating jail times for illegal immigrants caught in Mexico.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Nepal's Maoists said they would not form the Himalayan nation's first post-royal government after the defeat of their candidate for president, setting off a new political crisis.
(AFP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Palestinian rammed a construction truck into three cars and a bus near the Jerusalem hotel where Barack Obama is supposed to stay, injuring four people before an Israeli civilian shot and killed the attacker.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Spanish police dismantled the most active cell of the armed Basque separatist group ETA with the detention of nine suspected members of the group. Among those captured was Arkaitz Goikoetxea, the leader of the "Vizcaya" cell which Spanish authorities suspect was behind most of the attacks carried out by ETA since it called off a ceasefire in June 2007.
(AFP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, The Tamil Tiger rebels announced they would observe a unilateral 10-day cease-fire as a goodwill gesture during a regional summit to be held later this month. An airstrike deep inside the rebels' de facto state killed 22 members of the Black Tigers, the group's suicide force.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 23, Bill Gates, former boss of Microsoft, joined Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of NYC, in announcing a combined $500 million package to stamp out smoking.
(www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-07-23-smoking_N.htm)
2008 Jul 23, It was reported that Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena, winner of a 1976 wine tasting event in France, was being purchased by Cos d’Estournel of Bordeaux, France.
(SFC, 7/23/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 23, In Louisiana an oil tanker and an oil barge collided near New Orleans creating a 12-mile oil slick and closing almost 100 miles of the Mississippi River. Over 400,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the river.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 23, Google unveiled a new service dubbed “Knol," an Internet encyclopedia, in which contributing authors would share in ad revenue.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.C4)
2008 Jul 23, Two environmental groups estimated that cement kilns in the US annually released mercury compounds totaling some 23,000 pounds. Two of the worst emitters were located in northern California in Cupertino and Davenport.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 23, In Afghanistan militants killed a district police chief in the eastern Nangarhar province after striking his convoy with a roadside bomb. Police clashed with Taliban fighters in Uruzgan province, killing three militants.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, The African Union said it was incapable of stabilizing the situation in Somalia and urged the UN take over peacekeeping operations in the lawless Horn of Africa country.
(Reuters, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Australia announced an extra $29 million in aid for survivors of Myanmar's May cyclone, but pressed its recalcitrant military junta to democratize quickly and respect human rights.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, The European Commission froze almost euro500 million ($800 million) in aid to Bulgaria, citing corruption, organized crime, severe spending irregularities and alleged vote-buying in a country that only joined the EU last year.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Democratic Republic of Congo at least 45 people were killed and another 100 were missing after a boat sank on a remote stretch of the Ubangi river.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, France passed a new law to let companies negotiate longer working hours with union representatives, all but squelching the 35-hour week.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.61)
2008 Jul 23, Iraq's Kurdish government has denounced a draft law paving the way for US-backed provincial elections and urged the presidential council to reject it. The 18-year-old son of the chief editor of a US-sponsored newspaper was shot to death as an American patrol passed nearby in the northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 7/23/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama donned a Jewish skullcap at Israel's Holocaust memorial and vowed to preserve America's close ties with Israel in a dramatic visit to the Holy Land in which he also promised the Palestinians to push vigorously to win them a state.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Hurricane Dolly toppled trees and sent billboards flying in the Mexican city of Matamoros, and authorities south of the US border warned of possible flooding. Dolly also hit south Texas, but by evening it had weakened to a tropical storm.
(AP, 7/24/08)(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 23, Opposition lawmakers walked out of a Mongolian parliamentary session before they were to be sworn in, saying they refused to participate because last month's election was fraudulent.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Nigeria's main militant group threatened to destroy the nation's major oil pipelines within 30 days to counter allegations it had struck a $12 million deal with the government to protect them.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, An international rights group pressed Pakistan's new government to quickly investigate the disappearance of hundreds of people allegedly rounded up by security agencies as part of the anti-terror campaign.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Sri Lanka government forces killed 25 rebels in battles in the Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Welioya regions along the front lines.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Sudan government planes bombed Karbala, a Darfur village, while Pres. Bashir was addressing cheering crowds in the nearby city of el-Fasher. according to a rebel faction 3 people were killed and 8 injured.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 23, Turkish warplanes bombed 13 Kurdish rebel targets in the Zab region of northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 23, Venezuela signed over three more oil fields to a joint venture with Belarus, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declaring that the two nations were strongly united in their resistance to "US imperialism" and Washington's "lackeys."
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 24, The US confirmed that it planned to shift 230 million dollars in aid to Pakistan from counter-terrorism programs to upgrading the country's F-16 fighter jets.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued banking giant UBS for fraud, accusing the company of marketing tens of billions of dollars of auction-rate securities as safe even when they knew the investments were in trouble.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, The US CDC reported that at least 1,013 people had died between 2005 and 2007 a street version of the painkiller fentanyl. Many deaths were likely unreported.
(WSJ, 7/25/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 24, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Ford Motor Co. posted the worst quarterly performance in its history, losing $8.67 billion in the second quarter.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, It was reported that the sabal palm, the Florida’s state tree, was under attack by a microscopic killer and had scientists stumped.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 24, In southern Afghanistan insurgents attacked an Afghan military convoy in Zabul province and 35 militants were killed after the army called for assistance from the US-led coalition. A British army dog handler was fatally shot by insurgents.
(AP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, Hundreds of Anglican bishops from around the world were among 1,500 people who marched through central London calling for urgent action to tackle global poverty.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Max Mosley (68), motor racing chief and son of Britain's 1930s Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, won 60,000 pounds ($119,100) in damages at London's High Court from the News of the World newspaper for breaching his privacy by reporting details of a German-themed sex session with five prostitutes.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 24, Ten insurgents and two Cameroonian soldiers were killed in a rebel attack in the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. The rebels, who call themselves the Niger Delta Defense and Security Council, oppose Cameroon's ownership of the West African peninsula, which is also claimed by Nigeria.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Ecuador a special assembly approved a new 444-article draft constitution granting its leftist president broad powers, including the ability to dissolve Congress and set monetary policy, and freeing him to run for office through 2017.
(AP, 7/25/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.40)
2008 Jul 24, French PM Francois Fillon said a 15% cut in military manpower and base closings will save billions of dollars. The military ranks will be cut by 54,000.
(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 24, French giant automaker Renault said it will cut about 5,000 jobs in Europe among measures to reduce costs by 10 percent as it prepares for a sharp and possibly rocky downturn.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Germany US presidential candidate Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as climate and energy issues at Germany's chancellery. Obama stood before an enormous crowd in Berlin and summoned Europeans and Americans to work together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it."
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In northern Baghdad gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on two different awakening council checkpoints in the Azamiyah neighborhood killing three of its guards and leaving another wounded. A female suicide bomber blew herself up near US-allied Sunni Arab fighters walking in a crowded area of Baqouba, killing at least eight of the guards and wounding 24 other people.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Iraq was told it's not welcome to the Beijing Olympics because of a political feud in Baghdad that angered the games' guardians and exiled a country that arrived to a roaring ovation at the opening ceremony four years ago.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, An Israeli official said a key committee has approved construction of the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank in a decade. The news infuriated Palestinians, who said the decision could cripple peace efforts.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Indian Kashmir a suspected Islamic militant threw a hand grenade at a group of migrant laborers, killing a woman and her four children in one of two attacks that claimed a total of nine lives.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Libya said it will halt fuel supplies to key oil client Switzerland in the latest reprisal for last week's brief detention in Geneva of a son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Mexico state prison chief Salvador Barreno was shot and killed as he drove in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. His bodyguard was also killed. 3 other men died in a separate shooting minutes later.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Nigeria a petrol tanker burst into flames main in the main city of Lagos, killing at least 12 people and leaving several others with severe burns. 5 eastern European oil workers were abducted from a Swedish boat in the Niger delta. The 5 Russian oil workers were released on July 26.
(AFP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/26/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 24, In southern Norway a group of men armed with bats and iron bars attacked a center for political asylum-seekers, leaving more than 20 people injured.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In the southern Philippines a homemade bomb ripped through a commuter bus, wounding 27 people. In North Cotabato province communist rebels attacked a banana farm associated with Dole Foods Co. and a land mine hit a security vehicle rushing to intervene, killing one and wounding three others.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Singapore North Korea's reclusive communist regime, long seen as a nuclear threat to the region, signed a nonaggression pact with Southeast Asia, in a largely symbolic move. The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) with the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) came into force in 1976, requires signatories to renounce the use or threat of force and calls for the peaceful settlement of conflicts.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, In South Africa talks began in earnest on resolving Zimbabwe's political crisis after President Robert Mugabe gave his senior lieutenants the final go-ahead to negotiate power-sharing with the opposition.
(AP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 24, Sri Lankan forces battled rebel gunmen deep inside the nation's northern jungles, killing 25 guerrilla fighters and seizing new territory. Battles in other parts of the war zone killed 13 rebels and three soldiers.
(AP, 7/24/08)(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 24, In Suriname a boy (12) stabbed and killed a 9-year-old girl in front of her classmates and teacher at a rural elementary school.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, President George W. Bush signed an order expanding US sanctions against the "illegitimate" Zimbabwe government of President Robert Mugabe.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, US regulators took over two banks and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California.
(Reuters, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, US Federal regulators formally approved the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., the nation's only two satellite radio operators. The companies first applied for permission to combine in March 2007.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning trans fat in restaurants and food facilities, making California the first state to do so. The law takes effect in two stages: Jan 1, 2010 and Jan 1, 2011.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/27/08, p.C1)
2008 Jul 25, Texas nurse Chere Lyn Tomayko, wanted by the FBI for international parental kidnapping, was awarded refugee status in Costa Rica and cannot be extradited to the US. In December 1996, a US judge gave joint custody of a daughter, Alexandria Camille Cyprian, to Tomayko and her ex-boyfriend Robert Cyprian, with the condition that Alexandria live in Tarrant County, Texas. Tomayko said she moved to Costa Rica because she had been physically abused by Cyprian.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Harriet Burns (b.1928), the 1st woman hired to work as a designer for Walt Disney Imagineering (1955), died in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 25, Harvey Houtkin (b.1948), self-proclaimed father of day trading, died in San Diego. He had opened All-Tech Direct Inc. in Suffern, NY, in 1988 and traded on the Small Order Execution System. He was suspended from trading in 2001.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.A7)(www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080801-9999-1n1sharp.html)
2008 Jul 25, Randy Pausch (47), a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist, died at his home in Virginia. His "last lecture" in September 2007, about facing terminal cancer, has become an Internet sensation and a best-selling book.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In southern Afghanistan a Danish soldier died in a roadside bomb attack. The death brings the number of Danish troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 15. 3 Taliban militants died in a fight with police in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Goiania, Brazil, Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Santos stabbed to death and dismembered Cara Marie Burke (17), a British citizen, while high on crack cocaine. In 2009 Santos was sentenced to 19 years for the killing and two more for hiding the body.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2008 Jul 25, British PM Gordon Brown suffered another serious blow to his leadership after Scottish nationalists won a longtime Labour seat in Glasgow.
(AFP, 7/25/08)(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 25, In Colombia police arrested Sen. Carlos Garcia, the head of one of Colombia's main governing parties, for alleged ties with far-right paramilitaries.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Estonia urged the EU to take stronger action against Somali pirates attacking cargo ships bound for Europe, after an Estonian sailor was held hostage for 41 days.
(AFP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, The EU and South Africa began their first-ever summit in the French city of Bordeaux. Brussels solidly backed Pretoria's mediating role in Zimbabwe as the only way of ending ruinous political chaos.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, US presidential hopeful Barack Obama met with Pres. Sarkozy during a short stop in Paris.
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 25, German semi-conductor group Infineon posted a sharp quarterly loss and announced the loss of 3,000 jobs.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, India's high-technology capital Bangalore was rocked by 8 bomb blasts. One woman was killed and over 150 wounded.
(AFP, 7/25/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.44)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 25, A bomb exploded outside a Gaza City cafe and another went off outside the home of a Hamas lawmaker. One person was killed. A mysterious beachside blast killed 3 Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. 2 more Hamas activists died the next day.
(AP, 7/25/08)(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Lebanon clashes between Sunni Muslim gunmen and the Alawite broke out at dawn when a hand grenade was thrown toward a Sunni area. Fighting left one person dead.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Energy companies in the three Baltic states and Poland agreed to set up a joint venture to develop a nuclear power plant in Lithuania.
(Reuters 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Nigeria two oil workers, one Nigerian and one Filipino, were kidnapped in the Niger delta.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, In northwestern Pakistan militants blew up a girls school and 10 shops in 2 separate areas of the Swat valley. There were no casualties.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, A bomb exploded outside a Gaza City cafe and another went off outside the home of a Hamas lawmaker. One person was killed. A mysterious beachside blast killed 3 Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. 2 more Hamas activists died the next day.
(AP, 7/25/08)(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, Somalia's new hard-line opposition leader, promised to pacify his shattered country through Islamic law, warning UN peacekeepers they will face attack if they deploy and support the government.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, sounded the alarm about rampant illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off the coast of the lawless nation.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Sri Lanka heavy fighting between Sri Lankan government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels along the front lines of their civil war killed 62 rebels and eight soldiers.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 25, Sudan threatened to expel peacekeepers from Darfur if President Omar al-Beshir is indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, In eastern Yemen a suicide car bomber rammed a vehicle into the Interior Ministry's headquarters, killing a policeman and injuring eight others.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, A UN official said as much as 25 percent of cyclone relief aid in Myanmar is being lost because of the military government's foreign exchange system.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 26, In southern Afghanistan NATO-led soldiers killed four civilians after opening fire on a car that did not stop at a checkpoint.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, US presidential hopeful Barack Obama met PM Gordon Brown in London, focusing on key foreign policy issues facing both countries, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama also met with Tory leader David Cameron and Middle East envoy Tony Blair.
(AFP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, Brazil's Embraer (EMBR3.SA), the world's third-biggest commercial jet maker, said it would invest 148 million euros in two new plants in Portugal -- its first industrial units in Europe that will make wings and tailpieces for exports.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In southern Haiti at least 29 people were killed when a large truck carrying people and merchandise collided with three pickups east of Cavailon.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, In western India at least 51 people were killed and 161 wounded when 19 bombs went off in several crowded neighborhoods of Ahmadabad, Gujarat state.
(AP, 7/26/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.44)
2008 Jul 26, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Lebanon three more people were killed in the second day of sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in northern Lebanon, bringing the total to 9 with 42 wounded.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Nigeria unidentified men in a speed boat seized eight foreign oil workers at gunpoint in the Niger delta. They were released later in the day.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Pakistan 3 soldiers and at least 12 suspected insurgents were killed in fighting after the militants ambushed a convoy in the Dera Bugti district of Baluchistan province.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, Hamas security arrested dozens of supporters of the rival Fatah group, hurled grenades at the home of a Fatah leader and set up checkpoints across Gaza following the previous day’s beachside blast that killed five Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl. Masked Hamas gunmen nabbed Sawah Abu Saif (42), a Palestinian cameraman for German TV, from his Gaza home, during a mass weekend roundup of alleged activists of the rival Fatah movement. He was tortured and released on July 31.
(AP, 7/26/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 26, South Korea’s government said days of torrential rains have led to the deaths of seven people and left six others missing.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Spain Maria Remedios Garcia Albert (57) was arrested in San Lorenzo de el Escorial on suspicion of belonging to Colombia's FARC rebel group.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 26, In northern Sri Lanka 12 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed by security forces in fresh clashes in the Wanni region.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 26, Sudan’s army attacked a rebel police post in North Darfur, killing four troops, before conducting search operations in nearby villages according the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM). Sudan's army initially denied the report. On July 29 Khartoum said rebels of Minni Arcua Minnawi's Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) attacked a convoy on that road and the police responded, killing four of them and injuring two.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Knoxville, Tennessee, Jim D. Adkisson (58) entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's performance and killed 2 people. In 2009 Adkisson pleaded guilty to killing 2 people and wounding 6 others because he hated the church’s liberal politics.
(AP, 7/28/08)(SFC, 7/28/08, p.A2)(SFC, 2/10/09, p.A7)
2008 Jul 27, In Afghanistan some 50 to 70 insurgents were killed when helicopter gunships and ground fighting repulsed an attack by about 100 rebels in the Spera district of Khost province near the Pakistan border. 2 Policemen were killed in the attack. Elsewhere in Khost province, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent of security guards, killing one of them and injuring six more. NATO troops killed two children in southern Afghanistan by opening fire on a car that they feared was about to attack their convoy.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(WSJ, 7/28/08, p.A10)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Antigua newlyweds Benjamin and Catherine Mullany, both 31, were attacked inside their cottage at the Cocos Hotel resort in the island's southwest. Both were shot in the head. Catherine was killed. A comatose Benjamin was flown back to Britain where he was pronounced dead on August 3. On August 18 a 20-year old man and 17-year-old male were taken to a magistrate court in St. John's and were charged with murder, robbery and receiving stolen goods. The trial of Avie Howell and Kaniel Martin began June 1, 2011.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 6/2/11)
2008 Jul 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen's party claimed it won a sweeping victory in polls overshadowed by a military standoff with Thailand. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the electoral register.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.45)
2008 Jul 27, In Egypt Youssef Chahine (1926), filmmaker, died in Cairo. His 28 films included “The Blazing Sun" (1954) with Omar Sharif. His 1994 film “The Emigrant," about the Old Testament figure of Joseph, was denounced by militant Islamists and banned.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 27, Iran hanged 29 people at dawn after they had been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and other crimes.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Iraq gunmen hiding in reeds in Madain, a Sunni town south of Baghdad, killed seven Shiite pilgrims as they were marching to a shrine in the capital for a major holiday.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank town of Hebron. Troops exchanged gunfire with the man (25) for 12 hours before bulldozing the structure.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Mexico City residents voted against the president's proposal to give private companies a bigger role in the country's state-run oil industry in a nonbinding referendum.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, Ram Baran Yadav, Nepal's first president, appealed for rival parties in the newly-republican nation to form a consensus government and end weeks of political deadlock, in his maiden address to the people.
(AFP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Spain's National Court jailed seven people on charges of belonging to a militant cell of the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Sri Lanka at least 16 different battles broke out in the Welioya and Vavuniya regions, some of them sparked by government attacks on the rebels' bunker lines. The rebels also carried out at least five roadside bombings against troops. The violence killed 18 rebels and four soldiers.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, In Istanbul, Turkey, bomb blasts killed 17 people in a crowded square in the residential neighborhood of Gungoren. 5 of the dead were children. Turkish warplanes bombed 12 Kurdish rebel targets on Mount Qandil in northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/28/08)(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Floods in western Ukraine killed 22 people, including 4 children, and 5 in neighboring Romania after 5 days of nonstop rain. A senior government official described them as the worst in a century. Heavy rain in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers to overflow. The flooding affected more than 40,000 houses and led to the evacuation of some 20,000 people.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 27, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez, during his weekly TV program "Alo Presidente", made some sharp criticisms of various government officials, calling on them to fight against bureaucracy and corruption. He then brought to the attention of the audience the book, "Reformism or Revolution" by Alan Woods (b.1944), a Welsh Trotskyist.
(www.marxist.com/alan-woods-speaking-tour-in-venezuela/)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.44)
2008 Jul 28, Pres. Bush met with Pakistan’s new PM Yousaf Raza Gilani at the White House and they agreed to battle terrorists in Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 28, A senior Bush administration official said the budget deficit for this year will set a record in dollar terms, approaching $490 billion.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan unveiled their White Knight Two, the mothership of SpaceShip Two, at the Mohave Air & Space Port in California. Spaceship Two, the passenger rocket, was being built for Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which hoped to soon carry passengers into space.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A5)
2008 Jul 28, The propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft, owned by QinetiQ Group PLC, began a flight over the Arizona desert and continued for an unofficial record of 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in 2001. The 66 pound- (30 kilogram-) plane was launched by hand and flown by autopilot and via satellite.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Jul 28, Police in Alabama arrested Anthony Hopkins (37), a part-time evangelist, after finding a body in his home freezer. Police believed it was the body of his wife, Arletha Hopkins, who had not been heard of for 3 years.
(www.wsbtv.com/news/17043437/detail.html)
2008 Jul 28, US-led coalition troops killed several militants during a raid in central Afghanistan, while a suspected bomb maker and his family died in an accidental blast in Kunar province.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Hernan Arbizu, former JPMorgan Chase & Co private banking executive, was arrested in Argentina following an indictment on charges of embezzling about $5.4 million. He fled to Argentina before being fired in June.
(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Tarek bin Laden signed a deal with Djibouti to build Noor City, the first of a hundred “Cities of Light" that the Saudi Binladen Group planned around the world. Plans called for the city to have 2.5 million people by 2025 and 4.5 million for its Yemeni twin.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.50)(www.railpage.com.au/f-p1093077.htm)
2008 Jul 28, In England hijackers made off with boxes of blank British passports worth a fortune on the black market in a raid on a delivery van in the Manchester suburb of Oldham. British policed later said the passports were "very secure" as they contained a micro-chip which had not been activated.
(AFP, 7/29/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 28, Antoine Wendo Kolosoy (aka Papa Wendo, b.1925), Congolese riverboat mechanic, boxer and rumba singer, died at age 82. He cut his first records in 1947 for Olympia, a Belgian label.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.84)
2008 Jul 28, Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim (30) was found stabbed and her throat slashed in Dubai. On August 8 Egypt banned news coverage of the brutal slaying following media reports in other papers that said a wealthy Egyptian businessman ordered 3 men to carry out the killing. On Sep 2 Hisham Talaat Moustafa, an Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon, was arrested in the death Tamim. He was accused of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her. On May 21, 2009, Moustafa was sentenced to death for ordering Tamim’s death. Former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death. In 2010 Moustafa was spared the death penalty after a retrial changed his original death sentence to 15 years in prison.
(www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=21342)(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 5/21/09)(AP, 9/28/10)
2008 Jul 28, Pierre Beres (b.1913), king of the French booksellers, died.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.B3)
2008 Jul 28, In Iraq 3 female suicide bombers blew their explosive vests in the middle of pilgrims in Baghdad, moments after a roadside bomb attack, killing at least 32 people and wounding 102. In Kirkuk 25 people were killed and 185 wounded when a blast tore through a crowd of Kurds protesting a draft provincial elections law. A roadside bomb attack killed four civilians near Balad Ruz.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, In central Japan 4 people died after being swept away in torrential rains that caused floods and mudslides and prompted an evacuation order for 50,000 people.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, In Nepal protesters blocked traffic and held demonstrations to protest the decision by Paramananda Jha, the newly elected vice president, to take his oath of office in Hindi, which is not recognized as an official language.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, Militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta said they had blown up two major oil pipelines belonging to Royal Dutch Shell, forcing the firm to halt some production and helping push world oil prices higher.
(Reuters, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 28, A suspected US missile strike on a Pakistani madrassa killed six people, including foreigners. Pakistani security officials said Al-Qaeda chemical weapons expert Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar (54) was believed to have been killed in the US missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal district. The Egyptian, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a five-million-US-dollar bounty on his head and allegedly ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. In Kohat a bomb rigged to a bicycle killed a teenage boy and wounded 12 policemen. Pakistani Taliban militants shot dead three intelligence officials near Mingora, the main town in Swat. The Taliban later confirmed that al-Masri had been killed along with 3 other commanders.
(Reuters, 7/28/08)(AFP, 7/28/08)(AP, 7/28/08)(AFP, 7/29/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Jul 28, In the Philippines a packed commuter bus strayed into an oncoming lane and crashed head-on into another bus on a highway south of Manila, killing at least 11 people and injuring 29 others.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 28, Navanethem Pillay, a judge from South Africa, was confirmed as the new UN chief of human rights.
(SFC, 7/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 29, Pres. Bush signed a bill freezing the assets of political and military leaders in Myanmar and banning the importation of rubies and jade from Myanmar to the US. The legislation also gave incentives to Chevron to divest its natural gas program there. The US Treasury announced financial sanctions on 10 companies suspected of being owned by Myanmar’s government.
(SFC, 7/30/08, p.A4)
2008 Jul 29, The US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee voted to triple America’s non-military assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.39)
2008 Jul 29, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (84), the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, was indicted for making false statements concerning gifts he received from an oil-services firm.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Maryland police raided the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing an unopened package containing 32 pounds of marijuana. The couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Jul 29, New York’s Gov. David Paterson delivered a special address on the state’s deteriorating fiscal condition. His new budget placed the state’s deficit at $6.4 billion.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.36)
2008 Jul 29, The SF Board of Directors voted 8-3 to ban the sale of tobacco products at most pharmacies in the city.
(SFC, 7/30/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 29, Department store chain Mervyns LLC filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest in a series of merchants stumbling in the harsh retail environment and another blow to the nation’s struggling malls. In August Mervyn’s sued its former private equity owners saying they stripped the department store chain of its valuable real estate and then nearly doubled its rent effectively pushing the California-based company into bankruptcy.
(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25918757/)(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 29, Starbucks said it will close more than two-thirds of its 84 stores in Australia by the end of the week under a cost-cutting plan that will put almost 700 people out of work.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Luther Davis (b.1916), Tony-winning playwright and screenwriter, died in the Bronx. His plays included “Kismet" (1954). In 1978 he turned Kismet into a new show titled “Timbuktu!"
(www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/theater/02davis.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
2008 Jul 29, US Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins died of an apparent overdoes of Tylenol at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against Ivins in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. Ivins, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide. On Feb 19, 2010, the FBI formally closed his case concluding that Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 2/20/10)(SFC, 2/16/11, p.A6)
2008 Jul 29, In Afghanistan a roadside blast that apparently targeted an Afghan senator mediating a land dispute in eastern Paktia province killed 3 policemen and wounded 3 others. In Logar province militants attacked a police van, killing two officers, then taking the vehicle. A British soldier was killed in Helmand.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, The Bosnian war crimes court convicted seven Bosnian Serbs of genocide in the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and handed down prison sentences ranging from 38 to 42 years. Four others were acquitted. Milenko Trifunovic, Brano Dzinic and Aleksandar Radovanovic received the 42-year sentences, while Milos Stupar, Slobodan Jakovljevic and Branislav Medan each got 40 years and Petar Mitrovic received 38 years.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In central Brazil the torso of Cara Marie Burke, 17, from London, was found in a suitcase in Goiania. She had been stabbed to death by Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho dos Santos (20) over the weekend in his apartment. Santos was arrested on July 31 and confessed. Reports said he was a cocaine user.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Britain a Sikh teenager won a High Court discrimination case against a school which banned her from classes after she refused to remove a religious bangle.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said the US military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington's 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Hundreds of armed former soldiers from Haiti's disbanded army stormed an old barracks and civilian prison to demand the force be reinstated.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, India’s central Reserve Bank raised its key lending rate an unexpected half per cent to 9%, a 7-year high.
(WSJ, 7/30/08, p.C2)
2008 Jul 29, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded fire across the heavily armed Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight and into the day in what the Indian army called the worst violation of a 2003 cease-fire agreement between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, US and Iraqi forces launched a new operation aimed at clearing al-Qaida in Iraq from the volatile Diyala province, considered the last major insurgent safe haven near the capital.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, The International Olympic Committee agreed to allow Iraq to participate in the Beijing games, reversing itself after Baghdad pledged to ensure the independence of its national Olympics.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Israeli gunfire killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy during a confrontation between troops and stone-throwers in a West Bank village.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Mexico a family of six was found dead in their home in western Jalisco state, allegedly targeted by kidnappers aided by corrupt cops. Four victims, including two children, were shot in the head. A teenage boy's throat was slashed. His mother was asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Jul 29, Pakistani Taliban militants killed 3 soldiers, including an army captain, and kidnapped 30 security forces from a police station in the northwestern Swat Valley.
(AFP, 7/29/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 29, A huge blast rocked a training base run by the Islamic militant Hamas in southern Gaza, injuring at least five members of the group.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Russian news said 2 small, manned submarines reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake. The "Mir-1" and "Mir-2" submersibles descended 1.05 miles (1,680 meters) to the bottom of the vast Siberian lake.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Russian proxies in South Ossetia started shelling pro-Georgian villages there.
(Econ, 1/23/10, p.78)
2008 Jul 29, A UN court trying the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide said that its mandate had been extended by a year until 2009.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, Talks in South Africa on Zimbabwe's political crisis broke up with no power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and his bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai in sight.
(AFP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Sri Lanka 21 Tamil Tigers and 4 soldiers were slain in clashes in the northern Wanni region.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 29, Tonga’s King George Tupou V announced he was ceding most of his executive powers to the democratically elected parliament.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.C5)
2008 Jul 29, Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish rebels in Iraq's north, killing a group of guerrillas gathered at a mountain cave.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 29, WTO Director-General announced on that the latest negotiations for a much-delayed trade liberalization deal under the so-called Doha Round had broken down after nine days due to unresolved differences. The deadlock centered on a row between the US and India over special tariff measures to protect poor farmers from surging imports or price falls.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, President Bush signed a massive housing bill intended to provide mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners and stabilize financial markets. Bush also signed an executive order updating the authority of the national intelligence director.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 30, President George W. Bush signed legislation repealing a rule that prevented HIV-infected immigrants, students and tourists from receiving US visas without special waivers. Bush also signed an act reauthorizing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It will provide $39 billion to be spent on AIDS over the next 5 years, up from $15 billion for the past 5 years.
(AP, 8/5/08)(www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids/)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.75)
2008 Jul 30, The NY Times reported that a top Central Intelligence Agency official has traveled to Islamabad and confronted senior officials with evidence of ties between Pakistan's spy agency and militants operating in that country's tribal areas.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, US federal health officials said the salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and in a sample from a batch of serrano peppers at a Mexican farm in Nuevo Leon. Mexico's Agriculture Department rejected the FDA's conclusion saying "The farm unit in question ended its harvest more than a month ago, so the sample they say they have lacks scientific validity" because the sample "was taken recently from a tank holding rain water that was not used in production."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In SF Mayor Gavin Newsom signed into law a $6.5 billion city budget.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.B1)
2008 Jul 30, Nicholas Corozzo (68), New York City mob captain, pleaded guilty to racketeering and 2 murders in 1996. In 2009 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/cz7tj8)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A10)
2008 Jul 30, In Afghanistan Insurgents and a roadside blast killed five Afghan policemen.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Aborigines won traditional ownership rights over a large stretch of coastline in northern Australia, in a landmark ruling lawyers said could set a precedent in other parts of the country.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a UN jail cell after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Media watchdog Ofcom fined the BBC 400,000 pounds, the largest financial penalty it has ever issued against the public broadcaster, for misleading the public through fake quizzes and competitions.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Canada Tim McLean (22), sleeping on a Greyhound bus was killed and decapitated by his seatmate, Vince Weiguang Li (40), as the bus rolled across the Canadian Prairies in Manitoba. On march 5, 2009, a judge ruled that Li would not be judged criminally responsible due to mental illness.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 3/5/09)
2008 Jul 30, A human rights group said Chinese authorities have sent Liu Shaokun to a labor camp for a year. He had posted pictures of collapsed schools on the Internet and was detained last June for allegedly “seriously disturbing social order." And disrupting post-quake reconstruction efforts.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 30, The UN Security Council voted to end an 8-year-long peacekeeping mission between Eritrea and Ethiopia despite continuing tensions, a move that the United Nations' chief has warned could lead to a new war.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Germany's highest court partially overturned bans on smoking in bars, ruling that states must either ban smoking in all restaurants and pubs or offer exceptions for single-room establishments.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In the troubled Russian republic of Ingushetia a car bomb exploded outside the regional police headquarters morning, killing at least two police.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nearly 50,000 Iraqi police and soldiers were involved in a US-backed operation against al-Qaida in Iraq in one of its last major strongholds near the capital. A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing at least one Iraqi soldier and wounding seven other people.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert announced he would step down after his Kadima Party's leadership race in September, called because of a series of corruption allegations against him.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Lebanon gunmen attacked a Lebanese military post in the country's east, killing one soldier and wounding another.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Mexican police captured Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian cartel operative who represented Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel in dealings with Mexico's Beltran Leyva gang. He had escaped from a Colombian prison in 2001 and was wanted on drug charges in the US.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 30, Morocco's King Mohammed VI condemned Algeria's continuing closure of their common border, despite repeated calls by Rabat for it to be reopened. Algiers has set a global settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara as a precondition for reopening the border, which it closed in 1994 after Morocco claimed Algerian secret service agents were behind an Islamist extremist attack in Marrakesh.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, Nigerian security officials said rival militant factions in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta have clashed in an apparent turf war, killing at least four people.
(Reuters, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, The UN said hunger in North Korea is at its worst since the 1990s, prompting the resumption of emergency UN food shipments after a two-year hiatus.
(AFP, 7/30/08)
2008 Jul 30, In Pakistan fierce fighting erupted in the restive Swat valley, killing 25 militants and four soldiers and undermining the government's strategy of offering peace deals to pro-Taliban insurgents. Sher Ali, an insurgent commander known as Mullah Toor, was killed in the fighting.
(AP, 7/30/08)(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, The papal nuncio said Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo (57) has received unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, ending a dispute over his priestly status.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Alexander Tsygankov, a Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last November, was freed, hours before Russian PM Vladimir Putin was due to host the country's prime minister.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Saudi Arabia's Islamic religious police banned the sale dogs and cats as pets, as well as walking them in public due to “the rising of phenomenon of men using cats and dogs to make passes at women and pester families" as well as "violating proper behavior in public squares and malls."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Sri Lankan war planes bombed a suspected Tiger base in the north. The army launched a wave of attacks against Tamil Tiger separatists in the north, sparking battles that killed 24 rebels and one soldier.
(AFP, 7/30/08)(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 30, Turkey’s high court narrowly voted against disbanding the ruling Justice and Development Party, but cut off millions of dollars in state aid to the Islamic-oriented party.
(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 30, Zimbabwe’s reserve bank said it will drop 10 zeros from its hyper-inflated currency — turning 10 billion dollars into one. President Robert Mugabe threatened a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the country's economic and political unraveling. Inflation this summer reached an absurd 231 million percent.
(AP, 7/30/08)(Econ, 4/27/13, p.71)
2008 Jul 31, The US Congress approved legislation that will allow the State Department to settle all remaining lawsuits against Libya by US terrorism victims.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered the layoffs of thousands of state workers along with steep pay cuts for most other state employees to ease the state’s budget gap of $17.2 billion.
(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 31, A US Virgin Islands hospital fired four board members after a US government audit found alleged financial mismanagement and the use of taxpayer money to fund lucrative pay packages for top administrators.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm on cybersecurity, split from Booz & Co., in order to focus on the public sector. Booz & Co. continued focused on the private sector. Their non-compete agreement expired in August, 2011.
(Econ, 7/16/11, p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton)
2008 Jul 31, Exxon Mobil Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any US corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Scientists reported that Phoenix spacecraft robot has confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Ivan Miranda (14) was killed in the SF Excelsior district in a gang motivated attack. Rony Aguilera (17), an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was charged in the sword attack. Aguilera had veen arrested in 2007 in an assault case, but was not referred to federal authorities under a recently discarded city sanctuary ordnance. In 2009 Walter Chinchilla-Linar (23) and Cesar Alvarado (19), alleged members of MS-13 street gang, were charged with the stabbing death of Miranda.
(SFC, 11/14/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A12)
2008 Jul 31, In Wisconsin a gunman opened fire on a group of young adults from Michigan killing 3, aged 17-19, along the Menominee riverbank in the town of Niagara. The next day police arrested Scott J. Johnson (38). He had a raped a woman near the same site the evening before the murders. In 2009 Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 8/2/08)(SFC, 5/22/09, p.A6)
2008 Jul 31, A small jet crashed while preparing to land at Degner Regional Airport in Minnesota killing 8 people including several casino and construction executives.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 31, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched the Amazon Fund to provide grants to projects intended to stop the Amazon rainforest from shrinking.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.37)
2008 Jul 31, Haitian lawmakers ratified Michele Pierre-Louis to be the country's prime minister, ending more than three months of political bickering and deadlock in Parliament.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 31, At least 36 Hindu pilgrims from Nepal were killed when their bus plunged into a river in the mountainous northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
(AFP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, In Iraq a suicide car bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a police station near the northern city of Mosul, killing three policemen and wounding four. A judge died of wounds suffered in an attack the day before in Mosul. Insurgents clashed with US-allied Sunni Arab fighters and killed one of them near the village of al-Waib, south of Baqouba.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, A mortar shell hit a house in the Swat valley where Pakistani security forces are battling Islamic militants, killing a family of seven. Another 10 civilians died in fighting in the region. Militants torched a nearby girls school.
(AP, 7/31/08)(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the release of all Hamas activists detained in recent days by his security forces.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev said that he had signed an anticorruption plan and that he was serious about clamping down on graft.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 31, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned a ban on doctors telling parents the gender of unborn babies, saying the country has grown out of a preference for sons and that the restriction violates parents' right to know.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Sri Lanka’s army troops crossed into Kilinochchi district, where the rebels' de facto capital is located, in fighting for the first time in 11 years.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Jul 31, Sudanese courts sentenced another 22 alleged Darfur rebels to death over an unprecedented attack on the capital last May in which more than 222 people were killed.
(AFP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, In Thailand the wife of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra was found guilty of evading millions of dollars in taxes and sentenced to three years in prison, dealing a staggering blow to a man who was once one of the richest and most powerful in Thailand.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Turkey’s Deputy PM Cemil Cicek signaled the government would not push for a fresh round of legislation to lift the head scarf ban.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Fourteen of the UN security council's 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 1828 to extend the mandate of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) for one year from this day, when it had been set to expire. The United States abstained in the vote because language added to the resolution noting concern that any indictment of Beshir might jeopardize the Darfur peace process.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 31, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez said his government will nationalize Banco de Venezuela, the local unit of the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul, In Alaska Gov. Palin’s chief of staff told Walter Monegan, the state public safety commissioner, that he was being fired because the governor wanted “to go in a different direction." Monegan, hired by Palin shortly after she took office in 2006, said his firing was connected to his failure to remove Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother-in-law, from the state police force.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul, Alexandra Carmichael and Daniel Reda launched CureTogether to help the people they knew and the millions they didn’t who live in daily chronic pain.
(Econ, 3/3/12, TQ p.22)(http://curetogether.com/blog/about/)
2008 Jul, Sofiane Hadarbache, a former Guantanamo inmate, was sent back to Algeria. He was picked up by US forces outside of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in 2001 and sent to the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held through July 2008. On Nov 4, 2010, an Algerian court acquitted Hadarbache of charges that included belonging to a terrorist group operating abroad and counterfeiting.
(AP, 11/5/10)
2008 Jul, Mubadala Development, an investment arm of Abu Dhabi, announced that it intended to become a major shareholder in GE.
(Econ, 9/20/08, SR p.24)
2008 Jul, Fifty-five thousand jobs were lost in Canada this month, the biggest number since February 1991, principally the result of a struggling private sector in the country's central provinces.
(Reuters, 8/8/08)
2008 Jul, In China the founder of a company involved in commodities futures trading allegedly fled to the US with millions of dollars of customers’ money.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.40)
2008 Jul, Kadisiya became the 10th of 18 Iraqi provinces to come under Iraqi command.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.48)
2008 Jul, Japan for the first time exported more to China this month than to America. Japan’s public sector debt stood at 170% of GDP, the highest among the big rich economies.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.87)
2008 Jul, Religious leaders meeting in Norway unveiled a plan for a code of conduct for holy sites on which all governments could agree.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.60)(www.arcworld.org/news.asp?pageID=254)
2008 Jul, In the Ukraine a 16th-century Caravaggio painting, "The Taking of Christ, or the Kiss of Judas," was stolen from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in Odessa. It was valued at several million euros. In 2010 Berlin recovered the painting and arrested four members of an international gang of art thieves as they tried to sell it to an interested buyer.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2008 Jul, In Venezuela inflation was running at 32%.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.47)
2008 Aug 1, US Federal and state regulators closed First Priority Bank of Bradenton, Florida, the 8th US bank to fail this year. It would be acquired by SunTrustBanks Inc.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A3)(www.fpbank.com/)
2008 Aug 1, In eastern Afghanistan 4 NATO soldiers were killed in a bomb blast in Kunar province. Another soldier was killed in a separate explosion in Khost province. More than a dozen" rebels were killed in ground fighting and air strikes after attacking an Afghan and US-led coalition patrol in the southern province of Uruzgan. Several more were killed in the southwestern province of Farah after their hideout was discovered. Three other militants linked to Taliban, one of them a doctor, were killed when a bomb they were planting exploded in eastern Khost province. Islamic rebels captured six policemen following a brief firefight in Khost province.
(AFP, 8/1/08)(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said it received correspondence from Guinea President Lansana Conte "purporting to rescind the Simandou Mining Concession." Just before his death on Dec 22 Conte signed rights to mine the northern half of the Simandou Mining Concession to Israeli businessman Benny Steinmetz for $160m, who in turn soon sold a 51% stake to Brazil’s Vale for $2.5 billion.
(AFP, 8/3/08)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.57)(Econ, 12/6/14, p.78)
2008 Aug 1, China’s broad anti-monopoly law, promulgated in August, 2007, went into effect. It became informally referred to as its economic constitution.
(www.iflr.com/Article/2017768/Anti-Monopoly-Law.html)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.68)
2008 Aug 1, In southern Egypt 12 people were killed and 16 others wounded when two speeding passenger buses rammed into a truck.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, A German farmer who lost both his arms in an accident was successfully fitted with two new limbs in what is believed to be the first complete double arm transplant.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In southern India at least 32 people have died after several coaches of the Gautami Express train caught fire.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In Iraq a roadside bomb attack has killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded two others in northern city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, The body of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a prominent businessman, was found in the trunk of a car in Mexico City. He had been kidnapped in June. The kidnap and murder prompted a wave of anti-crime protests across the nation. In September police detained five suspects including Sergio Ortiz, a former agent of a now-disbanded city detective force, who led the "Flower Gang" responsible for kidnapping Marti in June. In July, 2009, Jose Montiel (34) and Noe Robles (31) were arrested for the kidnapping. They were believed to be members of a Mexico City gang responsible for at least 23 abductions.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 7/18/09)
2008 Aug 1, In northwestern Pakistan about 35 militants kidnapped 2 policemen on the outskirts of Khar.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, Hamas forces seized about 15 leaders of Fatah in Gaza, upping the stakes in a week of tit-for-tat arrests between the bitter Palestinian rivals. Fatah said more than 200 of its men have been seized over the past week. Five Palestinians died and 18 were wounded in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border after Egyptian troops blew up the entrance.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, Leonid Nevzlin, a top manager of the now defunct YUKOS business empire, was sentenced by a Russian court to life in prison for ordering a series of high profile murders, a verdict he dismissed as the result of a show trial organized by the Kremlin.
(Reuters, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, In Sri Lanka new fighting between government forces and the rebels across the country's embattled northern region killed 38 rebels and 14 soldiers.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 1, A sniper assassinated Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, a senior Syrian general close to President Bashar Assad, at a beach resort in the northern port city of Tartous.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 1, An African Union (AU) peacekeeper from Uganda was killed when a roadside bomb struck his convoy in the capital Mogadishu.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 1, King George Tupou V was crowned King of Tonga. His elaborate 5-day coronation cost some $2.5 million.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.42)(SFC, 3/20/12, p.C5)
2008 Aug 1, In central Turkey a three-story girls dormitory collapsed, killing at least 18 students and setting off a search for a half dozen people believed to be under the rubble in Balcilar. A gas leak from kitchen pipes caused the powerful explosion, leaving another 27 people injured. 3 dormitory administrators were charged on August 3 with "causing death through negligence."
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 1, The UN atomic watchdog's board of governors unanimously approved an inspections agreement with India that is key to finalizing a US-India nuclear deal.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 2, The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said that due to new tracking methods 40% more people are infected by the HIV virus than was previously believed.
(SSFC, 8/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, In Santa Cruz, Ca., 2 firebombs exploded outside the homes of 2 UC Santa Cruz biologists. They were similar to some used in the past by animal rights activists.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, Peter W. Rodman (b.1943), lawyer, government official and foreign policy expert, died. His book “Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush" was published in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rodman)(WSJ, 1/12/09, p.A11)
2008 Aug 2, In Afghanistan a suspected rebel bomb struck a minibus carrying a newly married couple, killing the bride and groom and 11 wedding guests.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Perez Celis (b.1939), a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor, died in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, Geoff Ballard (b.1932), founder of Ballard Power and advocate for fuel cells, died in Vancouver, Canada. In 1999 he had started General Hydrogen to explore ways to manufacture and market hydrogen as a fuel. Plug Power bought General Hydrogen in 2007 for $10 million.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 2, In China Zhang Jinfu (43), a farmer, killed six and injured one in a stabbing spree in the Hubei province village of Xuyang.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, China’s Sanlu Group, a dairy product producer, told Fronterra, a New Zealand company that owns 43% of Sanlu, that there was problem with milk powder.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.57)
2008 Aug 2, Saad Eddin Ibrahim (69), an exiled Egyptian human rights activist who also holds US nationality, was sentenced in abstentia to two years in prison for defaming Egypt. He was accused him of defaming the country after a series of articles and speeches on citizenship and democracy in which he criticized the Egyptian regime. Ibrahim, who founded the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies, was sentenced in 2001 to seven years for "tarnishing Egypt's reputation," before being freed on appeal after spending 10 months behind bars.
(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Overnight fighting that included sniper and mortar fire between Georgian forces and separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region left six people dead and 13 wounded.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In northern India 40 farm laborers died after a truck carrying them home from the fields plunged into a river near Ghoomsa in Bihar state.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, More than 1,000 Sunni Arabs and Turkomen staged a demonstration to protest calls by Kurds to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their autonomous region as Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to defuse tension over the disputed city. The U.S. military said it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year, more than in all of 2007, as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons. A roadside bomb in Baghdad killed one member of the US-allied Sunni fighters and wounded two others. An American soldier died and another was injured in a vehicle accident southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Nigeria gunmen seized 2 French oil workers from a bar in Onne near the oil hub of Port Harcourt. The 2 were released on Sep 5.
(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan a bomb exploded at a bridge, killing at least nine security forces in the Swat valley, where Pakistani troops are battling Islamic militants.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan 22 climbers, mostly foreigners, reached the summit of K-2, the world's second-highest mountain, but an ice avalanche struck them during their descent. At least 11 of the mountaineers were killed.
(AP, 8/3/08)(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 2, Hamas security forces battled fighters in a tribal stronghold where they say suspects in a deadly bombing last week were hiding. Three Hamas men were killed, along with six Fatah supporters, and nearly 90 were wounded. Some 180 Fatah supporters fled into Israel from a deadly Hamas crackdown.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Sri Lanka a two-day summit of leaders of the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), opened amid extraordinary security. Leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the summit. Government troops captured rebel-held Vellankulam village in Mannar, the last rebel stronghold in the area. Fresh fighting between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger separatists killed 14 rebels and two soldiers across the embattled northern region.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Some 19,000 runners participated in the 31st annual SF Marathon. Chad Worthen (34) of Sacramento won with a time of 2:31:52. Lauren Gustafson of Millbrae won among the women with a time of 2:52:33.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 3, In Gearhart, Oregon, a small plane crashed into a seaside house killing 2 people aboard and 2 children in the vacation home.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, Lou Teicher (b.1924), pianist, died in North Carolina. He was half of the popular piano duo Ferrante & Teicher whose movie themes and love songs earned them wide popularity in the 1960s. Together they recorded some 150 albums.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 3, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb struck a US-led coalition vehicle, killing one service member and wounding another on the outskirts of Kabul. Afghan and NATO troops targeted a group of Taliban fighters in Helmand province, killing 17 militants and wounding six others. Four police were killed separately in a militant ambush in central Ghazni province.
(AP, 8/3/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Algeria 21 people, six of them policemen, were injured in a suicide car bomb attack in the town of Tizi Ouzou in Algeria's Kabylie region.
(AFP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Cambodia said that Thai soldiers are occupying a second temple site on their border in an escalation of an ongoing armed standoff that nearly led to clashes between the neighbors last month.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Canada a small plane crashed on Vancouver Island. Two survivors were pulled from the wreckage but five other people on the aircraft died.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Greece Athanassios Arvanitis (31) beheaded his girlfriend and her dog on the island of Santorini and then escaped in a patrol car. Police shot him 5 times as he ran over 2 women on a motorcycle before being caught.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, Hundreds of Honduran squatters angry over a land dispute attacked the home of Henry Sorto, a local police official. Five employees and six of Osorto's family members were burned, shot and hacked to death with machetes.
(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 3, In northern India 145 people, including many women and children, were killed when pilgrims stampeded at a Hindu temple. The devotees were attending a 9-day religious festival at the Naina Devi Temple in the Bilaspur district of the Himachal Pradesh state.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Indonesia a top health official said a factory worker had died of bird flu west of Jakarta, bringing the death toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 112.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Iraq a truck bomb exploded during rush hour on a busy street in northern Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about two dozen. A roadside bomb killed six people, including three Iraqi soldiers, and wounded 13 others south of Baghdad. In Tarmiyah a clash between US-allied fighters and civilians killed one civilian and wounded 10 others.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Israeli and Palestinian officials said most of the 180 Fatah supporters, who had fled into Israel, would be sent back into the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, The breakaway republic of South Ossetia began sending hundreds of children across the border to its Russian ally amid increasing violence between the republic and Georgian government forces.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b.1918), Russian Nobel literature laureate (1970), died of heart failure in his Moscow home. His books, which included “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1962) and "Gulag Archipelago" (1973), chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps. In 1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West Germany for refusing to keep silent about his country's past.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W12)
2008 Aug 3, In Scotland the Int’l. Primatological Society Congress opened a 6-day conference. On August 5 scientists released a report saying the nearly half of the world’s 634 types of primates are in danger of becoming extinct due to human activity.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 3, In Senegal former US president Bill Clinton wound up a four-nation Africa tour aimed at combating HIV/AIDS in Dakar, praising France for its financial support through the agency Unitaid.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Somalia a bomb hidden under a pile of garbage killed at least 20 people, half of them women who were sweeping the street in Mogadishu.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 3, In Sri Lanka the South Asian summit ended. Tensions between India and Pakistan overshadowed the summit, but the two nuclear-armed rivals vowed to work together and save a tenuous peace process. A draft summit declaration called for collective action to combat "all forms of terrorist violence" that was threatening their "peace, stability and security." The leaders also agreed to implement a regional trade pact, signed in 1995 but never fully implemented. Troops repulsed an attempt by Tamil rebels to retake a recently captured guerrilla stronghold in heavy fighting that killed 21 rebels and three soldiers. Thirteen rebels and three soldiers were killed in other clashes in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya regions.
(AFP, 8/3/08)(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says 24 Sukhoi fighter jets have been delivered to Venezuela, and are ready to defend his country from "imperialist" aggressions.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 3, Zimbabwe's rival parties resumed power-sharing talks, a day ahead of the expiry of a deadline to conclude discussions to end a ruinous political crisis.
(AFP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 4, President George W. Bush signed into law legislation paving the way for Libya to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate US victims of bombing attacks that Washington blames on Tripoli.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Alaska sued the US government saying its listing of polar bears as a threatened species will hurt oil exploration and tourism.
(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A1)(www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49694/story.htm)
2008 Aug 4, In SF Mayor Newsom signed into law stringent green building codes for new construction and renovations of existing structures in the city.
(SFC, 8/5/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 4, In Afghanistan a pair of Taliban fighters died when a mine they were planting exploded prematurely in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. Police killed five Taliban fighters after the militants ambushed a police patrol in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district.
(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, Bangladesh held local elections that observers hailed as a success. A fire swept through a five-story building in a crowded section of the capital, Dhaka, killing at least 10 people and injuring five others.
(AFP, 8/5/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.42)
2008 Aug 4, In Chile Alberto Achacaz Walakial, one of the last surviving members of the nomadic Kaweskar tribe, died of blood poisoning. Government documents listed Achacaz's age at 79, but some believe he was close to 90. The tribe once plied the waters off Chile's Patagonian coast. Experts estimate that only about a dozen full-blooded Kaweskars, or Alacalufes, survive and the group appears destined to disappear in the near future as there are no women of fertile age left. Since the arrival of the first Europeans, Chile has lost five of its original 14 indigenous tribes to disease, displacement or the overuse of their natural resources.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, In western China 2 Uighur men rammed a truck into a clutch of jogging policemen and tossed explosives, killing 17 officers, in an attack in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, just days before the Beijing Olympics. The 2 men were sentenced to death on Dec 17.
(AP, 8/4/08)(SFC, 8/5/08, p.A11)(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Aug 4, Ecuador's government said it would seize a family business group's stock shares in 58 companies to help recover debts generated by the collapse of the family's former bank. The action came a little less than a month after authorities seized 200 businesses linked to the family of William and Roberto Isaias, who fled to the US in 2000 shortly after their bank collapsed.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, India announced an additional $450 million in aid for development projects in Afghanistan. PM Singh met with Afghan Pres. Karzai in New Delhi and both countries pledged to fight terrorism.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 4, Indian officials pledged to stop Hindus from imposing an economic blockade on the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley as tensions heightened with the deaths of protesters. Police opened fire at hundreds of stone-throwing Hindu protesters angry over a government decision to not transfer land to a Hindu shrine, killing two people. A Muslim protester was also killed by a tear gas shell.
(AFP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 4, In Iran journalist Yaghoob Mirnehad was executed in the city of Zahedan after being sentenced to death earlier this year. Iran accused Mirnehad of being involved in the armed Jundallah group, which operates along the Iranian-Pakistani border. The Jundallah group, or God's Brigade, has launched attacks against Iranian soldiers and police in the area near Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a key crossing point for narcotics.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 4, Iraqi officials reported that at least nine Iraqis died in a separate series of bombings. 2 American soldiers were killed and one was wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad that also killed 2 Iraqis.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Israel's defense minister said a group of around 150 Fatah fighters who fled to Israel from the Gaza Strip will be allowed to relocate to the West Bank because they face "immediate danger" from Gaza's Hamas rulers.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, Italy’s Defense Ministry deployed some 3,000 soldiers in cities across the country as part of government measures to fight street crime.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Jordanian military court sentenced 12 men to up to five years in jail for planning to join Iraq's insurgency and carry out attacks against US and Iraqi forces. The five men who received the longest jail terms were at large and tried in absentia.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A shootout between Mexican police and smugglers driving a truck carrying illegal immigrants left 2 people dead near Agua Dulce.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Nigerian presidential panel on oil and gas sector reform recommended that the state oil company be transformed into an "independent limited liability company."
(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, In Pakistan a remote-controlled bomb explosion struck a military convoy and wounded eight soldiers in South Waziristan. Militants torched four girls' schools, a health office and a forestry office. A senior officer said that over the past week 94 Islamist militants were killed and 14 soldiers lost in fighting in the northwestern Swat valley. At least 25 civilians and eight policemen were also killed in the fighting. Brigadier Zia Bodla said the army planned a major operation against the insurgents.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 4, The Philippine Supreme Court, acting on a petition by Christian politicians, blocked the signing of a key accord granting an expanded southern homeland to minority Muslims as part of a deal to end decades of bloody Islamic rebellion.
(AP, 8/4/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.41)
2008 Aug 4, In Venezuela changes in areas from the military to small business loans were pushed through by the president in 26 laws released in the official gazette. Chavez approved them on the final day of an 18-month period during which lawmakers had granted him special legislative powers.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 5, President Bush got a mixed reception in South Korea at the start of his three-nation Asian trip. About 30,000 people gathered in front of Seoul City Hall for an afternoon Christian prayer service supporting Bush's trip. As evening approached police fired water cannons at an estimated 20,000 anti-Bush protesters gathered nearby.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US Energy Department said that even if no new reactors are built, getting rid of the country's nuclear waste will cost $96.2 billion and require a major expansion of the planned Nevada waste dump beyond limits imposed by Congress.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US government charged 11 people with stealing tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from major retailers including TJX Cos Inc, in one of the largest reported identity-theft incidents on record.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US General Accounting Office predicted Iraq could finish the year with as much as a $79 billion cumulative budget surplus due to the influx of oil revenues. The GAO estimated that Iraqi oil revenues from 2005 through the end of this year will amount to at least $156 billion.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 5, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman once identified as a possible al-Qaida associate, was extradited from Afghanistan and arraigned in New York on charges that she tried to kill US agents and military officers. Siddiqui was educated at Brandeis and MIT and fled to Pakistan after 9/11 because of anti-Muslim sentiment. She and her children dropped out of sight in March 2003, after 9/11 mastermind Khalid sheikh Mohammed mentioned her name during an interrogation. She was arrested by Afghan police on July 17, who found recipes for explosives and descriptions of New York landmarks in her handbag. Siddiqui is the wife of Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was believed to be the chief planner of the Sep 11, 2001, attacks.
(SFC, 8/6/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A7)(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 5, Texas executed Jose Medellin (33) for the 1993 rape and killing of two teenage girls in Houston. Mexico protested the execution, which took place despite a world court ruling for a new hearing, and expressed concern for the rights of other Mexicans detained in the US. On Jan 19, 2009, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the US defied its order when authorities in Texas last year executed a Mexican convicted of rape and murder.
(AP, 8/6/08)(AP, 1/19/09)
2008 Aug 5, John A. "Junior" Gotti (44) was arrested at his Long Island home on charges linking him to three New York murders. In 1999 Junior Gotti pleaded guilty to racketeering crimes including bribery, extortion, gambling and fraud. He was sentenced to 77 months in prison and was released in 2005.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, The Chinese Embassy in Washington revoked the visa of Joey Cheek, 2006 Olympic gold medalist, effectively barring the speedskating champion from the 2008 Olympics. Cheek had co-founded Team Darfur, an organization of athletes attempting to draw attention to human rights violations in Darfur.
(SFC, 8/6/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 5, In California 9 firefighters were killed and 4 injured when their helicopter crashed after battling a blaze in Trinity County. Investigators in 2010 concluded that lax federal oversight and Carson Helicopter’s decision to underestimate the craft’s weight led to the crash.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.A1)(SFC, 12/8/10, p.C7)
2008 Aug 5, A magnitude 6.0 earthquake rocked the western Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Gansu, killing one person and injuring 23 near the site of May's devastating quake that killed at least 70,000 people.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Wildlife researchers said they have discovered some 125,000 western lowland gorillas deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo.
(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 5, The EU said it will give Haiti $4.6 million to help pay for food in the world's poorest country.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Iran Ali Kordan was narrowly approved as the new interior minister. An honorary Oxford degree that he cited was soon disclosed as a fake.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 5, It was reported that Muqtada al-Sadr planned to reorganize his Mahdi Army militia into a social services organization. Gunmen killed Sheik Ibrahim al-Karbouli, a senior leader of a US-allied Sunni group, and six of his guards in an ambush in Youssifiyah. Police also discovered the bodies of three awakening council members who were abducted several days ago. Roadside bombings also killed another person and wounded a dozen, in a second consecutive day of bombings in the capital.
(WSJ, 8/4/08, p.A1)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Japan 4 people were missing after being washed away by a surge of sewage water while working in a manhole in downtown Tokyo.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Montenegro 4 Michigan residents were among 12 ethnic Albanians convicted of plotting a rebellion to carve out a homeland within the tiny Balkan republic.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Officials in Pakistan said floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have destroyed thousands of homes and caused at least 27 deaths in the last 24 hours.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Rwanda formally accused senior French officials of involvement in its 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Serbia's war crimes prosecutor's office indicted Branko Grujic and Branko Popovic in the 1992 killing of about 700 Muslims in eastern Bosnia. The killings took place near the town of Zvornik on the border with Bosnia.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Turkey an oil pipeline that has allowed the West to tap the rich fields of Azerbaijan, bypassing Iran and Russia, was set on fire. A Kurdish rebel organization later admitted sabotaging the pipeline.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 5, The UN said heavy rains and storms have led to some of the worst floods in 40 years in parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania since July 22, causing great damage to homes, infrastructure and farmland. In Ukraine, 34 people have been killed in the west of the country along the Dnestr and Prut rivers; in Moldova, three people are reported to have drowned in the capital Chisinau; in Romania five people have been killed.
(AFP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 5, Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that a list barring hundreds of candidates suspected of corruption from running in elections is constitutional, despite complaints that it singles out opponents of President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 6, President George W. Bush flew into Bangkok on the latest leg of a pre-Olympics Asian tour, although his focus in Thailand is mainly on the "outpost of tyranny" junta in neighboring Myanmar.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, The US said it will protest to China over its decision to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, an activist on the African region of Darfur where China is accused of failing to help end the crisis. Speedskater Cheek is co-founder of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes campaigning to draw world attention to the humanitarian crisis there.
(Reuters, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict in the war crimes trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life. Hamdan was convicted of supporting terrorism but acquitted of conspiracy to commit attacks. The next day the US military jury sentenced Hamdan to 5 1/2 years in prison, including five years and a month already served at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 8/6/08)(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.A1)(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 6, A Bulgarian court declared the Kremikovtzi steel plant to be insolvent. Ukrainian billionaire Kostyantin Zhevago and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal SA competed to take over the plant operations following the insolvency proceedings.
(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 6, Officials said Cambodia's genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than $300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, China announced changes to its foreign exchange rules to address surging growth in its hard currency reserves.
(WSJ, 8/7/08, p.C12)
2008 Aug 6, France accused Rwanda of making "unacceptable accusations" by alleging Paris played an active role in the 1994 genocide, but said it was still determined to mend damaged ties with Kigali.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, In Indian Kashmir a Hindu protester was shot dead in army firing as Premier Manmohan Singh was due to hold talks with political parties in a bid to defuse tensions in the region.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Israel released five Palestinian teenagers from jail as part of a prisoner exchange agreement made with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia last month.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Army officers in Mauritania, upset with government overtures toward Islamic hard-liners, staged a coup overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in more than 20 years. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was held at his palace in Nouakchott by presidential guard soldiers, led by Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Arab-dominated Mauritania, with a population of 3.4 million, has been wracked by more than 10 coups or attempted coups since independence from France in 1960.
(AP, 8/6/08)(Econ, 8/9/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 6, In Nepal a contest to choose the next "Miss Nepal," slated August 7, was cancelled after Maoist female lawmakers denounced the beauty pageant.
(AFP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf abruptly canceled then reinstated his trip to the Olympic Games as local media reported that the ruling coalition had agreed on steps to remove him. 9 militants including Ali Bakht, a top-ranking militant, were killed and many injured during a search and cordon operation conducted by security forces in the Kabal district of the Swat valley. Two insurgents died when the explosive device they were planting in a female educational institution exploded prematurely in Kabal sub-district. 3 civilians died in the various parts of the Swat district when stray mortar rounds hit their houses. An attack on a Pakistani military checkpost by some 200 pro-Taliban militants triggered intense fighting that killed 25 insurgents and two paramilitary soldiers near the Afghan border.
(AFP, 8/6/08)(http://tinyurl.com/6bwtwo)(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 6, Thousands protested in South Africa as workers disrupted gold mining and other major industries in a national strike over price hikes rattling the continent's economic powerhouse.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou declassified documents allegedly implicating his predecessor Chen Shui-bian in a high-profile embezzlement case.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 6, Riot police used tear gas as they blocked hundreds of Venezuelans protesting what they call new moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 6, Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC called on their supporters to end political violence in the country. A newspaper reported that President Robert Mugabe would have amnesty from prosecution and a ceremonial role in government under a draft settlement to resolve the country's crisis.
(Reuters, 8/6/08)(AFP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 7, A US federal judge ruled that American Indian plaintiffs were entitled to $455 million, a fraction of the $47 billion they sought in a year trial for alleged losses on royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 7, A federal judge ordered Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to jail for violating the terms of his bond in his perjury case, a decision the judge said he would have made for any "John Six-Pack" defendant before him.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Arizona an SUV packed with suspected illegal immigrants flipped over southeast of Phoenix killing at least 9 people. There were 19 people in the vehicle.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 7, In northern California the Muir Heritage Land Trust said it will pay $1.8 million for 423 acres in Franklin Canyon, ending a long-standing land fight.
(SFC, 8/8/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 7, Afghan and coalition forces killed at least four militants in Nahr Surkh district of Helmand province. In central Afghanistan US-led coalition forces "inadvertently" killed four women and a child during a clash that killed several militants.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Algeria 18 people were reported dead from a crash between a van and a bus near the city of Mascara, and 25 were reported injured. Three men who were in critical condition subsequently died.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, It was reported that two subsidiaries of government-owned Dubai World have acquired a 20% stake in Canada’s circus operator Cirque du Soleil. In May the circus had agreed to perform on Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island, for 15 years starting in 2011.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 7, It was reported that the Dubai-based Al Yousuf Group has invested $10 million in Zap, a Santa Rosa, Ca., firm that makes electric cars.
(SFC, 8/7/08, p.C1)
2008 Aug 7, In Thailand first lady Laura Bush, meeting with refugees who fled a brutal campaign by Myanmar's military junta, urged China and other countries to join the US in imposing sanctions against the country.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, The US Olympic team chose Lopez Lomong, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, to carry the flag at the Olympic opening ceremony, throwing the spotlight on China's much-criticized policy on Darfur.
(AFP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, A new US Embassy report released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry said the USS Houston submarine was already leaking during nine earlier port calls in Japan and the amount of radiation leaked was larger than initially reported. It "has been steadily leaking a small amount" of radiation from June 2006 to July 2008 when it entered a drydock in Hawaii.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Critics of China's human rights record made sure they were not forgotten, a day before the grand opening of the Beijing Olympics, with protest actions the world over and in China itself. Thousands of Tibetan exiles demonstrated in Nepal and India.
(AFP, 8/7/08)(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Heavy shelling overnight in the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia wounded at least 21 people. Cyber attacks from Russia began to target Georgian government Web sites. An organization known as the Russian Business Network was the leading suspect in the attacks. Georgia’s Pres. Saakashvili ordered the shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/7/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A9)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.49)
2008 Aug 7, Sheik Salah al-Obeidi said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops but may lift the order if a planned Iraq-US security agreement lacks a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces. A roadside bomb killed eight Bedouins, including three women and two children, on a remote desert highway west of Nasiriyah frequently used by US and Iraqi troops. Gunmen killed a senior member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, Mahmoud Younis Fathi, and a colleague as they were driving to work in the northern city of Mosul. Elsewhere in Mosul, three Iraqi policemen were killed when a booby-trapped wooden cart exploded after they arrived to collect a body that had been left on the street beside it.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Japan accepted over 200 Indonesian nurses into the country, an unprecedented move as Tokyo struggles to quell a labor shortage triggered by sinking fertility rates.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, Maldives Pres. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom signed and adopted a new constitution that allows multiparty elections and other democratic reforms after decades of authoritarian rule. Under the constitution Islam is the only religion its people can legally practice.
(AP, 8/7/08)(AFP, 6/5/12)
2008 Aug 7, Pakistan's ruling coalition announced plans to seek the impeachment of Pres. Pervez Musharraf, alleging the US-backed former general had "eroded the trust of the nation" during his eight years in power. Musharraf cancelled his trip to the Olympics in Beijing.
(AP, 8/7/08)(SFC, 8/8/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 7, A device exploded on a beach in Sochi, a Black Sea Russian resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, killing two people and wounding three.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Sri Lanka army troops attacked and captured a rebel bunker in Welioya, where separate clashes killed 15 rebels and four soldiers. In nearby Vavuniya district, fighting killed two rebels and wounded two soldiers.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 7, In Turkey a series of explosions at a municipal government building in Istanbul slightly injured three people. Shells from a mortar-like mechanism were fired from a cemetery near a municipal government building.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 8, John Edwards, former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate, admitted that he had an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, a film producer, in 2006 but denied fathering a daughter with her.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rielle_Hunter)(AP, 8/9/08)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.34)
2008 Aug 8, Struggling home finance giant Fannie Mae reported a massive second quarter loss of 2.3 billion dollars, more than three times analysts' estimates.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, UBS AG agreed to buy back $19 billion in auction rate securities improperly sold as higher-rate equivalents for super-safe money market funds.
(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 8, Joseph Bennett (43) of Canada tried to drive 58 bags containing 275,000 Ecstasy pills, estimated at $6.5 million in street value, into Port Huron, Michigan. In 2009 a federal judge in Detroit sentenced him to 7½ years in prison.
(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A5)(http://tinyurl.com/koa934)
2008 Aug 8, Nebraska Beef, an Omaha meat packer, recalled 1.2 million pounds of beef after products were linked to illnesses in 12 states. In July the company had recalled over 5 million pounds of beef due to an outbreak of E. coli in 7 states.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 8, In Texas a charter bus carrying Vietnamese worshippers on a pilgrimage ran off a highway overpass north of Dallas and plunged onto a roadway below. 15 people were killed and 40 injured. In 2014 Angel de la Torre, the owner of the Houston bus company charged after the crash that killed 17 passengers, avoided prison after a federal judge sentenced him to three years of probation in a plea agreement.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 10/29/14)
2008 Aug 8, In western Afghanistan a coalition service member died in a roadside blast. About 20 Taliban fighters were killed in a battle with Afghan and US-led forces near a key military supply route in the western Bala Buluk district. An Afghan child was killed and two injured by militants who attacked alliance troops in northeastern Kunar province.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Algeria 12 armed Islamists, including a number of individuals considered among the leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, were killed overnight by the army in an ambush near Beni Douala, near Tizi Ouzou.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 8, Australian Customs and police said they had seized 4.4 tons of ecstasy tablets worth nearly 400 million dollars, describing it as the biggest haul of the illicit drug anywhere in the world. Police said the seizure of the drugs, which were concealed in tins of tomato shipped to Australia from Italy, had resulted in the arrests of 21 people across the country beginning in pre-dawn raids.
(AFP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Bolivia said it has reached an agreement in principle to purchase the local operations of energy company Royal Dutch Shell PLC as part of President Evo Morales' nationalization push.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, President Bush blended carefully calibrated political messages for China and Russia with enthusiasm for his nation's athletes as he became the first US president to attend an Olympics abroad.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Beijing, China, the 29th Olympic Games, costing an estimated 40 billion dollars and shrouded by political controversies, burst into life with a spectacular opening ceremony. The official slogan for the games this year was “One world, one dream." Actress activist Mia Farrow began Web-casting her own "Darfur Olympics" from a refugee camp on the barren Sudan-Chad border, aiming to shame China into using its influence with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict. Construction before the games forced more than 1m people from their homes.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/7/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.28)(Econ, 7/30/16, p.68)
2008 Aug 8, In the Czech Republic an international express train crashed into a collapsed bridge, killing at least six people and injuring dozens.
(Reuters, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, The EU tightened trade sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for not committing to a long-standing demand of the international community that it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Georgian troops launched a major military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia, prompting a furious response from Russia, which sent tanks into the region. The convoy was expected to reach the provincial capital by evening. Georgia said it shot down two Russian combat planes. Separatist officials in South Ossetia said 15 civilians had been killed in fighting overnight. Georgia later acknowledged that it used M85 cluster munition near the Roki tunnel that connects South Ossetia with Russia, while Russia denied use of cluster bombs.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 8, Guinea Bissau's army announced it had arrested rear admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchute, the head of the navy, over an attempted coup.
(AFP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, Anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered most of his followers to disarm but said he will maintain an elite fighting unit to resist the Americans in Iraq. Ashraf al-Yas (19) talked his way through a police checkpoint, drove his vehicle into a crowded farmers market and detonated his explosives. He killed 28 people and injured 72 in Tal Afar. A roadside bombing in Baghdad killed an American soldier and wounded 2 others.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A19)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Nigeria police arrested the head of a federal agency charged with developing Nigeria's impoverished southern oil region after allegations the man spent millions of dollars on a witch doctor in hopes vanquishing a rival.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Pakistan at least seven Pakistani troops and 30 militants were reported killed in two days of clashes at Loisam and its surrounding areas in the Bajaur tribal district. Insurgents stormed a police post in Buner and killed 8 police officers.
(AFP, 8/8/08)(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 8, In Sri Lanka artillery shells fired by the army hit a hospital overnight killing an 18-month-old baby and wounding 16 people. Infantry clashes in the north killed 31 rebels and four soldiers.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 8, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, began initial tests.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider)
2008 Aug 8, In Turkey Mehmet Dursun Uygurturkoglu (35) doused himself with gasoline and set himself alight during a protest by ethnic Uighurs outside the Chinese Embassy. Other demonstrators jumped on the man and quickly extinguished the flames with a blanket.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 8, Researchers said at least 38 Warao Indians have died in remote villages in Venezuela since June 2007. Medical experts suspected an outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Aug 9, In SF the 10th annual Gumball 3000 Rally, an 8-day, 3,000 mile trip across the West Coast, North Korea and China, began with a parade that included some 100 participants who had apparently paid the $120,000 entrance fee.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 9, Bernie Mac (50), the actor and comedian, died in Chicago. He had teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Mahmoud Darwish (67), a Palestinian poet, died, died in Houston, Texas. His poetry eloquently told of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting. His 1973 work “Journal of an Ordinary Grief" was translated to English in 2010.
(AP, 8/10/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.75)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.103)
2008 Aug 9, In Afghanistan airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul killed 11 people, some of whom were believed to be civilians.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Algeria a suicide car bomb attack on security forces killed at least eight people and injured 19 others in the coastal town of Zemmouri el Bahri, east of Algiers, the second such blast this month.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, AU spokesman El-Ghassim Wane said the African Union has frozen Mauritania's membership in the wake of a coup in the country.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeast England Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, were found murdered with serious head injuries in Newcastle.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Burkina Faso heavy rains caused a mudslide at an illegal gold mine that killed at least 31 people.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 9, Tang Yongming (47), a knife-wielding Chinese man, attacked two relatives of a coach for the US Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing Todd Bachman (62) and injuring his wife on the first day of the Olympics. Yongming then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles from the main Olympics site.
(AP, 8/9/08)(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A12)
2008 Aug 9, Georgia, the third largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, said it's pulling out its 2,000-strong contingent from Iraq to join the fighting in the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Separatist forces in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia launched air and artillery strikes to drive Georgian troops from their bridgehead in the region. The Abkhazian move was prompted by Georgia's military action to regain control over another breakaway province, South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeastern Guatemala robbers armed with machetes hacked a US tourist to death and seriously wounded his wife in an attack aboard the couple's sailboat on Lake Izabal.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In India an official said monsoon rains had crumpled homes and triggered flash floods in southern India, killing 18 people. Floods, mudslides, house collapses and lightning strikes have killed at least 184 people across the country so far this year.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Iraq a bodyguard who works for Youth and Sports minister Jassim Mohammed Ja'afar was gunned down outside his home near the city of Kirkuk. Unidentified gunmen shot dead a 50-year-old woman outside her home in the al-Maamoun district in Mosul.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and bombed Georgian towns in a major escalation of the conflict that has left scores of civilians dead and wounded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been killed, with the death toll rising. Russian military aircraft bombed the Georgian town of Gori. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili proposed a cease-fire. As part of his proposal, Georgian troops were pulled out of Tskhinvali and had been ordered to stop responding to Russian shelling.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Sri Lanka air force fighter jets pounded a Tamil Tiger supply base and an intelligence operation center deep in rebel-held Mullaitivu district. Separately, helicopter gunships overnight hit a radio center operated by the Sea Tigers. Scattered battles in Vavuniya killed 16 rebels and one soldier while three rebels died in Mullaitivu. Separate clashes killed five insurgents in Welioya and Jaffna.
(AP, 8/9/08)(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, Syria said it would bar UN nuclear investigators from revisiting a site bombed by Israeli jets on suspicion it was a secretly built atomic reactor.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Disaster officials said landslides and floods killed at least 101 people in northern Vietnam, covering the homes of some victims as they slept in their beds.
(AP, 8/10/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 10, Shelley Malil (43), comic film and TV actor, stabbed his girlfriend more than 20 times in San Diego County. On Aug 13 he was charged with attempted murder.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 10, Isaac Hayes (b.1942), singer, died in Memphis. The baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner laid the groundwork for disco. His 1971 "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, In Afghanistan five civilians died when their vehicle struck a freshly planted mine close to an Afghan military base in Zhari district in southern Kandahar province. Australia's Defense Department said that its troops had captured Mullah Bari Ghul, the Taliban's senior leader in the central province of Uruzgan during a targeted operation last week. 8 civilians held hostage by Taliban militants were killed in an air strike by US-led troops during a battle that also left 25 rebel fighters dead in southern Uruzgan province.
(AP, 8/10/08)(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, In southern Australia some 5,000 people rallied to protest the dwindling water levels of the Murray River, claiming the loss was causing an environmental disaster.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Voters in Bolivia vigorously endorsed President Evo Morales in a recall referendum he devised to try to break a political stalemate and revive his leftist crusade, partial unofficial results showed. More than 62 percent of voters ratified the mandate.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, In Canada explosions at a propane facility in Toronto forced thousands to evacuate. One firefighter died at the scene. A riot broke out and an officer was shot in the leg in a north Montreal neighborhood where a Honduran teenager (18) was shot and killed by police a day earlier.
(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A3)(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 10, In northwest China bombings and fierce clashes took place between police and attackers, the second outbreak of deadly violence there in under a week. Two women were among a squad of assailants accused of killing 12 people when they hurled homemade bombs at government buildings and police.
(AFP, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, Welshwoman Nicole Cooke handed Britain their first gold of the Beijing Olympic Games when she won the women's cycling road race.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Japan's Masato Uchishiba has won his second straight Olympic gold medal, pinning France's Benjamin Darbelet just seconds into their final match in the men's 66-kilogram division and bringing Japan its first judo gold of the Beijing Games.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Georgian troops retreated from the breakaway province of South Ossetia and their government pressed for a truce, overwhelmed by Russian firepower as the conflict threatened to set off a wider war. Georgia said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Aug 9. It also claimed to have captured two Russian pilots, who were shown on Georgian television. Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, In southern India 40 villagers riding on a truck were swept away by a flooded river and feared dead. Monsoon rains have claimed at least 59 lives in the past three days.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the US must provide a "very clear timeline" to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to stay beyond this year. A series of bombs struck Iraqi security forces and commuters in the Baghdad area, killing at least seven people and wounding 25 others. A female suicide bomber killed a US soldier and at least four Iraqis in a complex attack in Tarmiyah. An Iraqi police official said 17 Iraqis were killed in the Tarmiyah attack, including 3 members of the Awakening Council.
(Reuters, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/10/08)(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 10, Pakistani forces bombed dozens of houses in Bajur, a tribal region near the Afghan border, amid reports that days of clashes have killed at least 100 insurgents and nine paramilitary troops. Pakistani forces pulled out of Bajur after 3 days of fighting. A Taliban spokesman said as many as 100 Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed. Officials acknowledged that 55 were missing.
(AP, 8/10/08)(SSFC, 8/11/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 10, In the Philippines nearly 3,000 troops and police launched an attack after guerrillas defied an ultimatum to withdraw from five towns in North Cotabato province.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 10, South African President Thabo Mbeki spent more than eight hours in talks with Zimbabwe's president and opposition leaders to try to resolve a deadly political dispute.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 10, Sri Lankan soldiers launched a pre-dawn attack on Tamil separatists in the embattled north, killing 15 rebels, while other battles in the region left 24 rebels and one soldier dead, said the military.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 11, President George W. Bush said he used talks with China's leaders during the Beijing Olympics to press them to use their influence with Sudan to help end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
(Reuters, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger sued state Controller John Chiang for refusing to follow the governor’s order to slash pay for thousands of state workers during the budget impasse.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 11, Federal prosecutors in NYC charged Joseph Shereshevsky and Steven Byers, partners in Chicago-based WexTrust Capital, with raising over $250 million through a Ponzi scheme, mainly from Orthodox Jews.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 11, Jurors in Stockton, Ca., convicted William Choyce (54) for the murders of 3 prostitutes. He was serving time in state prison for rape when DNA evidence linked him to the murders dating back to 1988.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.B12)
2008 Aug 11, George Furth (b.1932), writer and actor, died in Santa Monica. He wrote the book for “Company," a 1971 Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. As an actor he appeared in over 85 films and TV show episodes.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 11, Don Helms (81), steel guitarist, died in Nashville. Helms had played on over 100 Hank Williams songs.
(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 11, An Afghan police officer was killed and two others were injured in a roadside bomb explosion on the southeastern outskirts of Kabul. 3 civilians were killed and 15 people were wounded, including three NATO troops, when a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a NATO military convoy in Kabul. In the northern province of Maimana meanwhile a Latvian ISAF soldier was killed and three others wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Fred Sinowatz (b. 1929) former Chancellor of Austria (1983 to 1986), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
2008 Aug 11, In Belarus Emmanuel Zeltser, an American lawyer, was sentenced to 3 years in prison after being convicted at a closed trial for commercial espionage and using false documents. He is an expert on organized crime and money laundering. The US raised protests over his detention and concerns about his health in custody. Zeltser (55) was released on June 30, 2009, following a presidential pardon.
(AP, 8/12/08)(AP, 7/1/09)
2008 Aug 11, Brazil's environment minister said he granted a license for the Santo Antonio hydroelectric dam but attached stringent conditions to protect Amazon Indian reservations and nature preserves. The dam is expected to cost 9.5 billion reals (US$5.9 billion) and go online in 2012. The dam is one of two planned for the Madeira river in the Amazon state of Rondonia.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, In China the US remained third in the medals table at the end of the third day of Olympic competition with three gold medals behind hosts China with nine after the completion of 34 events, and South Korea with four. Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to ever win a solo gold medal at the Olympic Games after winning the men's 10m air rifle title.
(AP, 8/11/08)(www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/14/olympicgames.shooting)
2008 Aug 11, Swarms of Russian jets launched new raids on Georgian territory and Georgia faced the threat of a second front of fighting as Russia demanded that Georgia disarm troops near the breakaway province of Abkhazia.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Indian troops shot dead Sheikh Abdul Aziz (52), a prominent Kashmiri separatist leader, and three other protesters. The shooting came as Indian security forces tried to prevent about 100,000 Muslims from marching towards the de facto border with Pakistan.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, The Iraqi government said it has halted military operations in Diyala province for a week to give insurgents time to surrender. A female suicide bomber (15) struck a market checkpoint in the provincial capital of Baqouba, killing at least one policeman and wounding 14 other people. Another bomb exploded in the Wijaihiyah area, about 12 miles east of Baqouba, killing 5 Iraqi women. A bomb stuck under a car exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing the driver and wounding two other people.
(AP, 8/11/08)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 11, Mauritania's ousted PM Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef defiantly refused to recognize the African country's ruling military junta, after he was freed from house arrest under international pressure.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 11, In Acapulco, Mexico, gunmen traveling in a sport utility vehicle fired at a hardware store killing a girl (14) and a man (35).
(AP, 8/12/08)(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402108,00.html)
2008 Aug 11, Pakistani forces trained gunfire and dropped bombs on Islamic militants in and around the main town of a tribal region next to the Afghan border, forcing thousands of residents to flee. The bodies of two men beheaded by militants were found about 12 miles north of Khar along with a note accusing them of spying for US and Pakistani authorities. In Peshawar an explosion killed one man and wounded another apparently as they were planting a bomb near a private clinic.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Philippine attack aircraft and artillery bombed Muslim rebel positions for a second day, raising fears of a humanitarian disaster in North Cotabato province with nearly 130,000 refugees forced to flee. Members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked a town on the island of Basilan, around 200 km (125 miles) southwest of where the main fighting was taking place, and disrupted voting in local elections there.
(Reuters, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Thailand's Supreme Court issued arrest warrants for ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife after they failed to appear at a hearing on corruption charges and fled to London, saying they could not get justice in their homeland.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, A roadside bomb exploded in eastern Turkey, killing nine soldiers who were on their way back from an operation against Kurdish rebels.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 11, Two Yemeni security officers and five suspected al-Qaida militants died in a gunbattle in Tarim, a southern Yemeni town.
(AP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 12, Two-thirds of US corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, The US Navy agreed to restrict loud sonar blasts from anti-submarine vessels in large areas of the world’s oceans to protect whales and other vulnerable creatures.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 12, In California state and federal officials celebrated the official transfer of 3,300 acres from the US Army to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, which will oversee the redevelopment of the 28,000-acre base on Monterey Bay.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, Chicago’s archdiocese agreed to pay over $12.6 million to settle suits by 16 people who accused priests of sex abuse. This brought the total thus far $65 million for some 250 claims over the last 30 years.
(WSJ, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, It was reported that Akron inventor Charlie Grispin, chief technical officer of PolyFlow Corp., had developed a new process to recycle plastic and that a demonstration plant in Akron showed how the process broke all manner of plastics into their base chemicals.
(http://tinyurl.com/6xfw5s)(www.polyflowcorp.com/)
2008 Aug 12, Michael Baxandall (74), Wales-born renowned UC Berkeley art historian, died. His books included “Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy" (1972).
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B5)(www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/13716/mcms.html)
2008 Aug 12, Donald Erb (b.1927), avant garde composer, died in Ohio. His work included “Reconnaissance," one of the first chamber works for live synthesizer and acoustic instruments. It premiered in 1967 with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog on the synthesizer.
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 12, Dorothy Wiltse Collins (b.1923), star pitcher in women’s professional baseball in the 1940s, died in Fort Wayne, Indiana from a stroke. Pitching for six seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created in 1943 to provide home front entertainment while many major leaguers were off to war, Collins dazzled opposing batters. The All-American league went out of business after the 1954 season.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dottie_Wiltse_Collins)
2008 Aug 12, Tesco, the biggest British retailer, announced plans to open wholesale grocery stores in India that will supply goods to hypermarkets owned by Indian conglomerate Tata Group.
(AFP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Cambodia's genocide tribunal formally indicted Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), a former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving the way for a historic trial.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Knife-wielding assailants attacked a road checkpoint in China's troubled far west, killing three guards and raising the death toll to 31 from a surge in violence coinciding with the Beijing Olympics. A bus accident in western China killed 24 students and parents.
(AP, 8/12/08)(WSJ, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, In the Dominican Republic former Pan American Games wrestling medalist Wilson Santiago Rojas (31) was shot to death when he tried to prevent his cousin from being robbed inside a Santo Domingo electronics store.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 12, Security forces in Gambia arrested Rear Adm. Bubo Na Tchuto, the suspected leader of an alleged plot to topple the government in nearby Guinea-Bissau.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Georgia's Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili said his government will declare that its breakaway regions are occupied territories and will designate Russian peacekeepers as occupying forces. Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, after five days of air and land attacks sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed. A Dutch television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes bombed the central Georgian city of Gori. Russia later counted 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia. Rights activists later said fewer than 100 civilians were killed in South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.43)(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, Indian security forces shot dead 15 Muslim demonstrators in Kashmir amid a wave of anger against New Delhi's control over the disputed region.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.33)
2008 Aug 12, A male suicide bomber, dressed as a woman, struck an Iraqi army convoy carrying senior officials in Baqouba, killing at least two people. US soldiers over the last 24 hours captured nine suspected militants linked to what the military called an Iranian-backed group known as the Hezbollah Brigades in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 8/12/08)(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 12, The Lebanese parliament overwhelmingly approved the country's national unity Cabinet after a five-day debate on a controversial policy that upholds Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Nigerian militants claimed they had destroyed a pipeline supplying gas to a key oil refinery in southern Rivers state.
(AFP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, A roadside bomb destroyed an air force truck on a bridge in Pakistan's volatile northwest and killed up to 14 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it "an open war" and retaliation for recent military operations in the region. A suspected American missile strike targeting an alleged militant gathering point killed at least nine people, including foreigners near Angore Adda in the South Waziristan. Two intelligence officials said between 22 and 25 people died, including Arabs, Turkmen and Pakistani militants.
(AP, 8/12/08)(AP, 8/13/08)(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 12, Muslim guerrillas began withdrawing from several occupied southern Philippine villages following fierce fighting with government troops that has displaced nearly 160,000 civilians during harvest time.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Somali pirates hijacked the Thor Star, a Thai cargo ship with 28 crew members onboard.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 12, South Korea announced sweeping pardons for some of the country’s most powerful businessmen, including Lee Myung-bak, the head of leading carmaker Hyundai Motor, saying they were needed to help revive a troubled economy. 341,863 others were also pardoned as South Korea celebrated liberation from Japanese colonialism.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.46)(http://articles.latimes.com/2008/08/12/business/fi-skpardons12)
2008 Aug 12, Spanish officials said local police acting on a tip-off from US authorities have seized 1.4 tons of cocaine and arrested eight South American suspects, 6 from Colombia and 2 from Venezuela.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 12, Sudan's army began a massive operation to wipe out rebel bases in Darfur's far north. The army attacked with more than 200 vehicles in Wadi Atron, near the Sudanese-Libyan border and took control of areas which had for years been under the control of rebels who want more autonomy for the region. North Darfur is part of Sudan's oil Block 12A operated by a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian company al-Qahtani. Chinese companies dominate Sudan's budding oil sector which produces more than 500,000 barrels per day of crude.
(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 12, Venezuela raised the regulated prices of foods ranging from bread to beef by up to 50 percent and removed price controls from other goods in a bid to ease sporadic shortages in supermarkets.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 13, In California prison receiver Clark Kelso asked a federal judge to seize $8 billion from the state’s treasury over the next 5 years to build 7 medical facilities for inmates throughout the state.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 13, In Little Rock, Ark., Timothy Dale Johnson (50), described as a loner, drove more than 30 miles to Arkansas' Democratic Party headquarters and fatally shot its chairman, Bill Gwatney, hours after losing his job. Johnson was later shot dead by officers.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Michael Phelps swam into history as the winningest Olympic athlete ever with his 10th and 11th career gold medals, and 5 world records in 5 events at the Beijing Games.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that at least 150 fuel tanks, managed by the US Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA), needed inspection for leaks. It was estimated that some 500,000 fuel storage tanks, both private and publicly owned, were leaking.
(SFC, 8/13/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 13, It was reported that the red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans, was rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean. The maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes was swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on the ecologically delicate region.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.A6)(www.sanluisobispo.com/health/story/438289.html)
2008 Aug 13, Jack Weil (107), patriarch of western clothing, died. He created the western style shirt which sold after 1946 through his Denver-based company Rockmount Ranch Wear.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.82)
2008 Aug 13, Stuart Cary Welch (b.1928), American teacher and collector of Indian and Islamic art, died while traveling in Japan.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Cary_Welch)
2008 Aug 13, In Afghanistan militants brandishing assault rifles ambushed a US relief organization's vehicle, killing three aid workers and their Afghan driver and leaving their white SUV riddled with hundreds of bullets. The three women killed in Logar province worked for the New York-based International Rescue Committee (IRC). In southern Afghanistan militants began launching attacks on a coalition patrol. Over 3 dozen militants were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 8/13/08)(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 13, Argentine senators approved a bill declaring obesity and other eating disorders diseases covered by the nation's public and private health care programs.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Bolivia and Libya agreed to establish diplomatic relations and join efforts to develop the nations' energy resources.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Scientists from Britain’s University of Reading unveiled Gordon, a neuron-powered machine, whose grey matter was stitched together from cultured rat neurons.
(AFP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, A Chinese team beat the United States and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics, amid allegations that at least one member, He Kexin, of the Chinese team was under age.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Henri Cartan (b.1904), French mathematician, died in Paris. In 1956 he and Samuel Eilenberg wrote a fundamental textbook on homological algebra.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 13, Russian tanks rolled into the crossroads city of Gori then thrust deep into Georgian territory, violating the truce designed to end the six-day war. Georgia said that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins. EU foreign ministers agreed in principle to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will spend at least $400 million in 2008 on restoring South Ossetia's battered capital Tskhinvali.
(AP, 8/13/08)(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, The Indian army said that it was investigating UN allegations its troops had engaged in sexual abuse while on peacekeeping duties in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A five-story building in a crowded residential neighborhood of Mumbai, India's main financial city, collapsed after monsoon rains, killing at least 20 people.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northwest Iran three Kurdish separatists and one Iranian soldier were killed in a shootout.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, A suicide truck bomber targeted the mayor of a town near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, while another car bomb struck civilians elsewhere in northern Iraq. A bomb in a parked car struck a local market in the Qayara area south of the northern city of Mosul, killing at least two people and wounding five.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, Riots erupted across Indian-controlled Kashmir as Muslims mourned 15 people killed in a day of bloody violence, as the protests spread to other parts of India. Indian police say they have issued orders to shoot protesters defying a curfew in the town of Kishtwar in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In northern Lebanese city a bomb ripped through a bus during morning rush hour in Tripoli, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, raising fears that an al-Qaida-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks against the military.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Mexico a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office said 6 federal agents have been arrested on suspicion of passing information to a group of powerful drug lords.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, Nigerian officials said flocks of quelea birds have invaded farmlands in northern Borno state, destroying crops that were due for harvest in two months' time.
(AFP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Lahore, Pakistan, a bomber struck outside a mosque just before midnight as Pakistanis poured into the streets to celebrate the nation's 61st anniversary of its independence from Britain. 8 people were killed and 18 wounded.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 13, An alleged assault by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (b.1955) reportedly took place on a young model (20) on a yacht on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. An investigating magistrate on the resort island closed the case in 2010 on grounds of insufficient evidence. In 2011 Spain reopened a rape probe after tests done by a forensic lab found semen in the woman and traces of a sedative called nordazepam.
(AP, 9/14/11)
2008 Aug 13, South African President Thabo Mbeki left Zimbabwe after failing to secure a power-sharing deal between its main rivals during marathon talks, adding to doubts over chances of an agreement.
(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 13, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles across the front lines in the 25-year-old civil war killed 14 ethnic Tamil rebels and two government soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, The US and Poland struck a deal to install a missile defense facility in the ex-communist state.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, In the Virgin Islands 2 former government officials faced prison after being found guilty of running a million-dollar bribery and kickback scheme. Dean Plaskett, former commissioner of the islands' planning and natural resources department, was sentenced to nine years in prison. Marc Biggs, former commissioner of the property and procurement office, will serve seven years.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, The US Mint planned to issue the Jackson dollar coin, the 7th of its presidential dollar series.
(www.wsmv.com/money/17190311/detail.html?rss=nash&psp=news#-)
2008 Aug 14, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia of Spain said they had signed an agreement to cooperate over flights between North America and Europe to help them overcome soaring fuel costs.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Scientists reported that the number of oxygen-starved "dead zones" in coastal waters around the world has roughly doubled every decade since the 1960s, killing fish, crabs and massive amounts of marine life at the base of the food chain.
(SFC, 8/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 14, Afghan police pulled back from posts in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province after two weeks of clashes with militants. The Taliban claimed to have taken over that district. An explosion targeting a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killed 3 members of the US-led coalition. Afghan and foreign troops clashed with insurgents in the Shwak district of eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 8/15/08)(SFC, 8/15/08, p.A11)(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 14, A colonel in the Algerian army and another soldier were killed in a bomb attack in the Jijel region.
(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 14, Australian police arrested a Catholic priest (65) and charged him with 30 counts of sexual assault related to abuse allegations dating back three decades.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Chile’s central bank said it is boosting its lending rate to 7.75%, warning that additional adjustments will likely be necessary to ensure inflation meets its 3 percent target in the next two years. Annual inflation reached 9.5% in July, Chile's highest rate since 1994.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, A bomb exploded during a crowded street fair in northwestern Colombia, killing seven people and wounding 17.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Georgian and Russian troops faced off at a checkpoint outside the key city of Gori, calling an already shaky cease-fire into question. An American official said Russia appears to be sabotaging airfields and other military infrastructure as its forces pull back. The Russian General Prosecutor's office said it has formally opened a genocide probe into Georgian treatment of South Ossetians. For its part, Georgia this week filed a suit against Russia in the International Court of Justice, alleging murder, rape and mass expulsions in both provinces.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, India’s cabinet approved a 21% average wage increase for federal-government employees to be backdated to January 2006. In southern India at least nine schoolchildren and two adults were killed after a speeding school bus plunged into a river outside Mangalore.
(WSJ, 8/14/08, p.A8)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, In Iraq 2 roadside bombs went off in separate Baghdad locations, killing one policeman and wounding 17 people, including 14 Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. Gunmen shot dead an off-duty policeman and army soldier in separate incidents in the northern city of Mosul. A female suicide bomber blew herself up in Iskandariyah. The US military said 18 people were killed in the attack, but Iraqi police in the area gave a higher death toll of 26. An American Marine was killed during a small-arms fire attack west of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, A senior US military intelligence officer said Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi troops.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets of Kashmir, demanding independence from India hours after archival Pakistan called on the United Nations to stop what it characterized as gross human rights violations in the divided Himalayan region. Police shot dead another protester, bringing the death toll from days of rioting to 22 as security was boosted on the eve of India's Independence Day celebrations.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AFP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Libya and the United States settled all outstanding lawsuits by American victims of terrorism, clearing the way for the full restoration of diplomatic relations.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Military leaders in Mauritania named former EU ambassador Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf as prime minister.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 14, Nigeria relinquished control of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon despite fears the handover will provoke attacks from local armed groups who oppose it.
(Reuters, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani said in an Independence Day speech that the country must defeat extremism to survive. Officials said some 135,000 residents have fled a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan to escape clashes between troops and Taliban militants that have left scores dead.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AFP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, In Sri Lanka government jets hit a series of Tamil Tiger targets in the Mullaittivu region in support of troops fighting on the ground. Fighting between the two sides killed 27 rebels and two government soldiers.
(AP, 8/14/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 14, Syria agreed to a longtime Lebanese demand to negotiate the demarcation of their border a day after the countries said they would establish full diplomatic relations for the first time.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 14, Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian's admitted that he broke the law by not truthfully declaring campaign donations he received, and said that his wife sent an unspecified amount of money abroad.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 15, Cookie retailer Mrs. Fields Famous Brands LLC said it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to help restructure its business.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Texas store clerk Mindy Daffern (46) was abducted in the north Texas town of Scotland. Wallace Bowman Jr. (30) was identified by a security camera and led investigators to her body the next day.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A3)(www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=8854535)
2008 Aug 15, Leroy Sievers (b.1955), broadcast journalist, died of cancer. He was a former executive producer of ABC’s “Nightline" and commented on his disease on National Public Radio (NPR).
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 15, Jerry Wexler (b.1917), record producer, died. From 1953-1975 he worked for NYC-based Atlantic Records and helped build the firm into a rhythm and blues powerhouse. As a reported for Billboard magazine he coined the term “rhythm and blues."
(WSJ, 8/16/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 15, Afghan security forces withdrew from Nawa district in eastern Ghazni province after days of fighting with Taliban, allowing the rebels to move in and capture the area. In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb and small arms fire killed 2 soldiers serving under the separate NATO-led force. Taliban insurgents attacked police checkpoints in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province, sparking clashes that killed 23 militants.
(AFP, 8/15/08)(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A6)(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Canada employees at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlet won an arbitrator-imposed contract, becoming the giant retailer's only location in North America with a collective agreement in place.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 15, In Chad a court sentenced former President Hissene Habre and 11 rebels to death. Habre was awaiting trial in Senegal for torture and murder.
(SFC, 8/16/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 15, In Beijing 2 positive dope tests by Asian athletes overshadowed Singapore's first medal in 48 years and a podium for Malaysia with a North Korean shooter and a Vietnamese gymnast exposed as cheats.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Xinhua News said a bus veered off the road and plunged into a ravine in central China, killing 15 people.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, About 20 people, including Italian tourists, were killed when two buses collided head-on in the Dominican Republic.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Iraqi security forces began taking over checkpoints near the Iranian border previously manned by Georgian troops before they redeployed home following recent fighting with Russia. A roadside bomb struck a minibus beginning the trip in eastern Baghdad morning, killing at least one passenger and wounding 10 others. A passenger van packed with explosives blew up at a bus station in Balad, north of Baghdad. 9 people were killed and 40 wounded.
(AP, 8/15/08)(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, Russian troops allowed some humanitarian supplies into Georgia’s city of Gori but kept up their blockade of the strategically located city, raising doubts about Russia's intentions. Relief planes swooped into Tbilisi with tons of supplies for the estimated 100,000 people uprooted by the fighting. An international rights group said it has evidence that Russian warplanes dropped cluster bombs in civilian areas in Georgia.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, In India's part of Kashmir tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets again, ignoring a plea by the country's prime minister for an end to weeks of violence that has left 34 people dead.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Officials said Nepal's lawmakers have voted in Prachanda, the leader of the former Maoist rebels, as the Himalayan country's new prime minister.
(AFP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Twelve Nigerian militants and a naval officer were killed in a gunbattle near a Royal Dutch Shell natural gas plant in the oil-producing Niger Delta.
(Reuters, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, Coalition government officials said Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is ready to resign rather than face impeachment, but is seeking immunity from prosecution and agreement on a safe place to live. President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman rejected reports that the embattled Pakistani leader was set to resign. Pakistan's interior ministry chief said that over 460 Islamic militants and 22 soldiers have been killed in more than a week of fighting in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)(AFP, 8/15/08)(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Leftist ex-bishop Fernando Lugo was inaugurated as Paraguay's president, ending six decades of one-party rule in a key step in the poor South American nation's democratic transformation.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, Peruvians flooded the streets to protest the slow pace of reconstruction a year after a magnitude-8.0 earthquake left tens of thousands homeless.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 15, In the Philippines at least 15 hitchhikers were killed and 14 others injured when the truck they were riding in plunged into a ravine outside Monkayo township in the southern gold mining area on Diwalawal mountain.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, South African authorities closed camps that have housed thousands of foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence, in a move that has drawn concern they could face more attacks when they return home.
(AFP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 15, International aid groups said tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes in northern Sri Lanka in recent weeks as the military ramped up its offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels' heartland.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 16, Afghan and foreign troops clashed with militants in a mountainous area of Zabul province, killing 7 militants. In Kandahar province a roadside blast killed 10 police officers on patrol. In eastern Paktika province police clashed with militants in the Shwak district, killing 4 insurgents. In Helmand province British troops accidentally killed 4 civilians during an operation against Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 8/17/08)(WSJ, 8/18/08, p.A9)(Reuters, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin, considered in the West to be the ex-Soviet state's most prominent political prisoner, was released. Kozulin was one of two opposition candidates to run against Lukashenko in a 2006 election and was jailed for 5 1/2 years for helping stage mass protests against the official result declaring the president the winner by a landslide.
(Reuters, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dorival Caymmi (b.1914), Brazilian composer, died. He had composed over 100 songs and catapulted to fame when Carmen Miranda performed one of his songs in 1938.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong standoff between Thailand and Cambodia appeared to be ending as both sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Carol Huynh, whose parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada's first gold of the Olympics in the women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt of Jamaica was crowned the world's fastest man when he raced to victory in the Olympic men's 100 meters final in a world record time of 9.69 sec.
(AP, 8/16/08)(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Authorities in the Central African Republic gave the green light for a leading rebel group headed by a former defense minister to form a political party. Both the rebel group and the new NAP party are headed by former defense minister Jean-Jacques Demafouth, currently in exile in France.
(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez promised to boost agricultural production and warned of dire economic times as he was sworn in for a third term.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tropical Storm Fay lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rains and floods that killed at least 18 people including at least 14 people in Haiti, feared to have died aboard a bus that tried to cross a flooded river.
(AP, 8/17/08)(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In India police arrested the alleged leader of the July Ahmadabad bombings. Mufti Abu Bashir was arrested in the northern Indian city of Lucknow.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tens of thousands of Muslims marched in India's portion of Kashmir in honor of a prominent separatist leader killed in a recent wave of violence that has rocked the volatile Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, On Indonesia's Sumatra island at least nine people have died and dozens were injured when a slow-moving passenger train hit a parked freight locomotive.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Russian forces pulled back from the center of a town not far from Georgia's capital after Russia's president signed a cease-fire deal. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later suggested there would be no immediate broader withdrawal. Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia had taken over 13 villages in Georgia and a power plant. Russian troops blew up a key railroad bridge linking the Caucasus to the Black Sea coast.
(AP, 8/16/08)(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb exploded as Shiite pilgrims were boarding minibuses in Baghdad, killing at least 3 people, in a third straight day of attacks on travelers heading to a religious ceremony in Karbala. Iraqi police and hospital employees said six people were killed and 11 injured. The US military put the toll at three dead and eight injured.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Mexico gunmen killed 13 people at a family party in the border state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A man used Semtex in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against Northern Ireland police officers, the first attack using the deadly explosive since paramilitary groups agreed to hand in their weapons.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 16, A top ruling party official gave Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf a two-day deadline to quit or face impeachment proceedings.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Rwanda Jozefina Zaninka (75), a woman who lost nearly all her family in the 1994 genocide, was murdered, in the latest of several killings of survivors of the slaughter. Some 167 survivors of the genocide have been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In South Africa a regional summit of southern African leaders opened with Zimbabwe's crisis high on the agenda, and with the country's main political rivals in attendance.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Sri Lanka a series of raging battles across the northern war zone killed 27 Tamil Tiger fighters and seven government troops. Soldiers took control of a rebel training base in Andankulam in the Welioya region after Tamil Tiger fighters fled the area.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In San Mateo, Ca., the final race was held at Bay Meadows after nearly 74 years of horse racing.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 17, Dave Freeman (47), co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die" (1999), a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home in Venice, Ca.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Afghanistan 32 Taliban fighters died during a four-hour battle in Zabul province. 9 private security guards also died in the attack on a NATO convoy. About 7,000 police launched a massive security operation in Kabul as the country prepared to celebrate independence day.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In eastern Algeria rebels linked to al Qaeda had killed eight policemen, three soldiers and a civilian in successive ambushes. 4 Islamist militants were killed in the attack.
(AFP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 17, Two small planes collided in midair and crashed near Coventry in central England, killing five people.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Beijing Michael Phelps won his 8th gold medal as team mate Jason Lezak brought it home for a world record in the 400-meter medley relay.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In Iraq Farooq al-Obeidi, deputy head of a group of US-allied Sunni fighters, was killed by a suicide bomber, dressed in a woman’s robe, along with at least 9 other people in the Azamiyah neighborhood of northern Baghdad.
(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A6)(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 17, Israel's Cabinet approved the release of some 200 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, In the southern Philippines Muslim guerrillas killed four soldiers and four militiamen in an ambush of a military convoy.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, The Kremlin promised to start withdrawing combat troops from Georgia on August 18, as Western pressure mounted on Russia to quit the ex-Soviet republic.
(AFP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, Southern African countries launched a regional trade zone at a Johannesburg summit that aims to eliminate import tariffs, with plans for a common currency by 2018. Eleven of the 14 countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will participate in the free trade area, including Zimbabwe. Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi planned to join at a later date due to weak economies.
(AFP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 17, A Sudanese court sentenced to death a top Darfur rebel and seven others, bringing to 38 the number condemned to hang over an unprecedented attack on Khartoum that killed more than 222 people.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 18, US and Liberian officials said US Peace Corps volunteers will return to Liberia for the first time since civil war broke out in this West African nation nearly two decades ago.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, California’s supreme court barred doctors from denying medical care to gays and lesbians based on religious beliefs.
(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 18, In eastern Afghanistan a suicide car bomb blew up outside Camp Salerno, a US military base in Khost, killing 12 civilian laborers, as the country marked Independence Day. A mine blew up a police vehicle in the province of Nangarhar and killed two policemen. About 100 insurgents ambushed a group of French paratroopers, killing 10 soldiers in an area outside the capital known as a militant stronghold. An Afghan official said insurgents kidnapped four of the soldiers and later killed them. 13 militants were reported killed [see Oct 15, 2009].
(AFP, 8/18/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(Econ, 8/34/08, p.34)
2008 Aug 18, Argentina announced its first nationwide gay-rights measure: granting same-sex couples the right to claim their deceased partners' pensions.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, In southeastern Bangladesh chunks of earth loosened by heavy rains buried several hillside thatched huts, killing five people and injuring seven.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In Britain Philip Thompson (27), a pedophile who acted as a "librarian" for a global Internet child abuse ring, was jailed after one of the biggest undercover police investigations into online abuse.
(Reuters, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, State media reported that Chinese authorities have not approved any of the 77 applications they received from people who wanted to hold protests during the Beijing Olympics.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In northeast China a gas explosion tore through a coal mine, leaving 24 workers trapped.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Equatorial Guinea's exiled opposition leader Severo Moto was released from a Spanish jail four months after he was detained for allegedly trying to send weapons to the oil-rich African nation.
(AFP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, In southern Iraq masked gunmen ambushed a bus carrying electoral officials south of Basra, killing two and seriously wounding a third. A suicide bombing killed 7 policemen in Ramadi.
(AP, 8/18/08)(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 18, Tens of thousands of Muslims waving green and black protest flags gathered in Indian Kashmir's main city for a march to UN offices demanding freedom from India and intervention by the world body.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, The river Kosi, a tributary to the Ganges, burst an embankment on the Nepali side of the border with India and flowed into a channel it had abandoned a century earlier. Water flooded into Bihar state and displaced over 3 million people.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.51)
2008 Aug 18, Mexican soldiers rescued 25 Central Americans kidnapped in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. One man was arrested in the raid in Tierra Blanca.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, Mexico’s Cemex SAB rejected Venezuela’s bid for the company’s assets in Venezuela. At midnight oil workers and Venezuelan soldiers occupied Cemex facilities around the country.
(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 18, The leader of Nepal's Maoists, Prachanda, was sworn in as prime minister, finalizing his transformation from warlord to the country's most powerful politician.
(AFP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Niger's Tuareg rebel leader Aghaly ag Alambo said his fighters would lay down their guns and, together with neighboring Mali's Tuareg rebellion, submit to mediation by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced that he will resign, just days ahead of impeachment in parliament over attempts by the US-backed leader to impose authoritarian rule on his turbulent nation.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Peru's government declared a state of emergency in remote jungle regions where Indian groups are blocking highways and oil and gas installations to protest a law that makes it easier to sell their lands.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, In the southern Philippines separatists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked several towns and villages on Mindanao and killed 38 people.
(SFC, 8/19/08, p.A9)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 18, Heads of state and other dignitaries from African countries and Turkey started an economic cooperation summit in Istanbul.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 18, Russia said its military began to withdraw from the conflict zone in Georgia, but left unclear exactly where troops and tanks will operate under the cease-fire that ended days of fighting in the former Soviet republic.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 19, A US federal grand jury handed down a new indictment against Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, charging him with four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with alleged campaign finance violations.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, US scientists said they have devised a way to grow large quantities of blood in the laboratory using human embryonic stem cells.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 19, LeRoi Moore (46), versatile saxophonist, died of complications from injuries he suffered in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His signature staccato fused jazz and funk overtones onto the eclectic sound of the Dave Matthews Band.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, In Afghanistan a team of suicide bombers tried unsuccessfully to storm a US base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. NATO said 3 suicide bombers detonated their vests and 3 more were shot dead and that 7 attackers in total were killed.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, A suicide car bomb attack east of Algiers killed 43 people and wounded 45. The attack targeted a paramilitary gendarmerie training school at Issers. Most of the dead were young men aged between 18 and 20.
(Reuters, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, Aabid Khan (23), a Briton who recruited Islamist extremists online to stage holy war worldwide, including Britain's youngest terrorism convict, was jailed for 12 years. Sultan Muhammad (23), one of his accomplices, received a 10-year term.
(Reuters, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, In Bolivia leaders in 5 opposition controlled states proclaimed a general strike. They sought greater autonomy and a larger share of royalties from local oil and gas.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.A14)
2008 Aug 19, Iraqi troops raided local government offices in the volatile Diyala province, arresting two people, including a university president. They then advanced to the provincial governor's office where exchanged fire with the government forces, prompting a gunfight that killed the governor's secretary, Abbas al-Tamimi, and injured four guards. Iraqi troops detained the son of a prominent Sunni leader during a raid in Baghdad.
(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, The Dutch Navy and a squad of US Coast Guard raiders seized 4.6 tons (4,200 kilograms) of cocaine from a Panamanian-flagged freighter that had set sail from Venezuela. The freighter was boarded on Aug 17 and it took 36 hours of searching to find the drugs.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 19, The 39th annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) opened in Niue. Members at the 2-day forum agreed to threaten Fiji with suspension unless elections are held as scheduled by March 2009.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.34)(www.forumsec.org/event.cfm?cmd=list&sd=200808)
2008 Aug 19, Pakistan's ruling coalition met to discuss a replacement for President Pervez Musharraf. A suicide bomber killed 23 people at a hospital in a northwestern town in the first attack since Musharraf stepped down. 5 soldiers and 13 Taliban militants died in clashes in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
(AFP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, A Palestinian rocket attack on southern Israel violated a truce and led Israel to close its cargo crossings with the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Russian soldiers took 20 Georgian troops prisoner at a key port in western Georgia and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States after taking part in earlier US-Georgian military exercises. Georgia and Russia exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 19, Armed pirates seized the MT Bunga Melati Dua, a Malaysian palm oil tanker with 39 crew, off the coast of Somalia, the fourth hijacking in a month.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul urged Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, during talks at a summit of African leaders, to act responsibly and to end the suffering in the devastated Darfur region. A suicide bombing wounded 13 policemen outside the southern city of Mersin.
(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 19, Vietnamese authorities freed British glam rocker Paul Gadd, aka Gary Glitter, after nearly three years in prison on child molestation charges, then moved immediately to deport him.
(AP, 8/19/08)(Econ, 8/36/08, p.36)
2008 Aug 19, Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa (b.1948) died in France. He had been hospitalized at a French military hospital since suffering a stroke in June.
(AP, 8/19/08)(SFC, 8/20/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 20, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal to build a US missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. The deal included an American Patriot anti-aircraft and anti-missile battery in Poland.
(AP, 8/20/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 20, In Alabama five men were found killed, execution style in Shelby County. The killings were soon identified as a retaliation hit over drug money with ties to Mexico's notorious Gulf Cartel.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2008 Aug 20, Stephanie Tubbs Jones (b.1949), Ohio’s first black congresswoman, died in Cleveland following a brain hemorrhage. She was first elected in 1998.
(SFC, 8/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 20, Gene Upshaw (b.1945), former NFL Hall of Famer and union leader, died near lake Tahoe.
(SFC, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 20, In eastern Afghanistan the US-led coalition killed more than 30 insurgents in a battle whose fighters were said to be responsible for an attack that killed 10 French troops earlier this week. 3 Polish soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the central province of Ghazni. 3 Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 8/21/08)(Reuters, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 20, In eastern Algeria 2 car bomb attacks killed at least 11 people in Bouira with at least 31 people wounded. This followed a suicide bomber who killed 43 people a day earlier.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Bangladesh prosecutors formally lodged new charges against ex-premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed over her alleged role in a 130-million-dollar defense deal with Russia.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, In Beijing Rohullah Nikpai of Afghanistan won a bronze medal in taekwondo. This was Afghanistan’s first Olympic medal ever.
(http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/news/story?id=3544339)
2008 Aug 20, Hua Guofeng (b.1921), who succeeded Mao Zedong as chairman of China's ruling Communist Party and briefly ruled the country (1976), died in Beijing.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, The Red Cross revised its emergency appeal for Ethiopia to five million euros (7.9 million dollars) as the situation in the drought-hit south of the country got worse.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, International and domestic flights were disrupted across India as thousands of airport employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua named new military chiefs dropping nearly all appointees he inherited from his predecessor. MEND, the most prominent armed group in Nigeria's volatile oil-rich Niger Delta, accused the military of carrying out extra-judicial executions of 22 captured insurgents in the region. The insurgents had been captured the previous day.
(AFP, 8/21/08)(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Pakistan’s security officials said missiles fired from Afghanistan hit a militant hideout in Pakistan's tribal belt, killing at least eight people including some foreign extremists.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Panama’s President Martin Torrijos signed an executive order creating a new intelligence agency and a border police force to combat growing drug crimes. This prompted concerns of a return to its militarized past.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 20, Abdurahman Macapaar (aka Commander Bravo) of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Muslim rebel commander behind deadly raids in the southern Philippines, declared an "all-out war" against the government, saying his fighters were willing to die in battle.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, Five people were killed as Typhoon Nuri slammed into the northern Philippines, triggering heavy rain and warnings of possible storm surges.
(AFP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, A top Russian general said 64 of the country's soldiers were killed and 323 wounded in this month's fighting with Georgia. Russia informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, a day after the military alliance urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia. Georgia later reported that 170 of its soldiers were killed in the war.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 20, Serbian publisher BeoBook said it has withdrawn a controversial book by American writer Sherry Jones because of protests from the local Islamic community. The book "Jewel of Medina" is about Aisha, one of the Prophet Muhammad's wives.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, A Spanair MD-82 bound for the Canary Islands caught fire while trying to make an emergency landing just after departing from Madrid airport leaving 153 people dead. This was the nation's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years. The toll rose to 154 on Aug 23 leaving 18 survivors. In 2010 authorities investigating the crash of Spanair flight 5022 discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(Reuters, 8/23/08)(http://tinyurl.com/2azr8zj)
2008 Aug 20, Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB and Swiss chip-maker STMicroelectronics NV unveiled plans to create a 50-50 joint venture that will make a key component known as chipsets for mobile phones.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 20, In Turkey Sudan's indicted president denied that his regime is orchestrating genocide in the troubled western region of Darfur, and offered hope for an end to the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair elections next year.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 21, David Walker, recently with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), was the subject of the film documentary I.O.U.S.A. The film focused on America’s financial condition and that it is a lot worse than advertised, as the US debt rose to $9.5 trillion. It was produced by Sarah Gibson, Christine O'Malley; directed by Patrick Creadon; written by Patrick Creadon, Christine O'Malley; music by Peter Golub; distributed by Roadside Attractions.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.68)(http://tinyurl.com/4t3r2g)
2008 Aug 21, The US government said it will allow producers of fresh iceberg lettuce and spinach to use irradiation to control food-borne pathogens and extend shelf life.
(SFC, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 21, Forbes magazine reported that Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej (80) is the world's richest royal sovereign with a fortune estimated at 35 billion dollars, and oil-rich Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (60) of Abu Dhabi is far back at No. 2 with 23 billion.
(AFP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Intel showed off a wireless electric power system at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco. Analysts said it could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In the US Virgin Islands a judge imposed a life sentence on Daniel Castillo, convicted of strangling Laquina Hennis, a 12-year-old girl, last year.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Tropical Storm Fay forced the evacuation of more Florida residents as it made landfall for a 3rd time this week.
(WSJ, 8/22/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 21, British PM Gordon Brown visited Kabul after meeting with British troops in Helmand province. Brown pledged more support for Afghanistan including 120 million dollars towards a development fund that would include paying teachers' salaries and 17 million dollars for a radio station in Helmand. 11 militants reportedly died in a clash in the south. Afghan and international troops clashed with militants in Khas in Uruzgan province, killing 11 militants.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Britain's government confirmed that a contractor lost a memory device containing information on every prison inmate in England and Wales.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Greek police announced the arrest of Vassilis Paleokostas, the country's most wanted man, while tracking down the alleged kidnappers of industrialist Giorgos Mylonas, who was freed in June after his family paid a ransom.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Monsoon rains pummeled northern India, bringing dozens of buildings crashing down and killing 74 people. The deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh state, bringing this monsoon season's death toll to more than 300 people across India.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said they agree that timetables should be set for the withdrawal of US troops. A key part of the US-Iraqi draft agreement envisions the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq's cities by next June 30. The US military released an Iraqi television cameraman for the Reuters news agency and other news organizations without charges after 26 days in detention.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said he will no longer be involved in politics, defying in a surprise announcement long-held expectations he was preparing to succeed his father.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Mexico Pres. Calderon, congressional leaders, all state governors and a bevy of others signed a “National Agreement for Security."
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 21, A Montenegrin court ordered three US citizens and seven other ethnic Albanians back to prison after convicting them of plotting a rebellion to establish an Albanian autonomous region within the Adriatic country.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Pakistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the country’s main defense industry complex in Wah, killing at least 67 people with 102 wounded.
(Reuters, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, Russian forces blocked the only land entrance to Georgia's main port city, a day before Russia promised to complete a troop pullout from its ex-Soviet neighbor.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Aug 21, Armed pirates hijacked a Japanese chemical tanker with 19 crew, an Iranian bulk carrier with 29 crew, and a German cargo ship with a crew of 9 off Somalia's coast.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 21, In Sri Lanka helicopter gunships attacked a rebel fortification in the northern district of Vavuniya. 21 rebels and two soldiers died in fighting.
(AP, 8/21/08)(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, The Outside Lands rock festival opened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to a capacity crowd of some 60,000. Altogether some 150,000 attended the 3-day event.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A1)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.E1)
2008 Aug 22, Florida state officials said 7 people have been killed over the five days that Tropical Storm Fay has been pounding the state with torrential rain and powerful winds.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 22, In North Las Vegas, Nevada, an experimental aircraft crashed into a house killing the pilot of the Velocity 173 RG and 2 people in the home.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 22, US-led troops attacked a compound where Taliban leaders were meeting in western Afghanistan, and reportedly killed 30 militants. An Afghan human rights group said that at least 78 people were killed, including women and children, in the joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Herat province. In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a US coalition service member. An investigation later found that more than 90 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the coalition air strikes in Herat. Officials later said the US-led attack was based on misleading information by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil. On Sep 2 the US-led coalition said that its investigation into the controversial missile strike, thought to have killed 90 civilians, had found that only seven non-combatants died. After video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced, the US said it would send a one-star general to investigate the strike.
(AP, 8/22/08)(AFP, 8/24/08)(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A1)(AFP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Aug 22, Brazil extradited Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia to the United States to face racketeering charges.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Aon Corp., the world's biggest insurance broker, said it has agreed to buy Britain's Benfield Group Ltd. for almost $1.6 billion in cash.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Canadian health officials said 3 people in Ontario have died in a food poisoning outbreak that may be linked to listeria bacteria in sandwich meat from one of the country's largest meat processors.
(Reuters, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Two Beijing grandmothers remained defiant and in good spirits despite being sentenced to one year of reeducation through labor for applying to protest during the Olympics.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Hong Kong issued its highest storm warning in five years as Typhoon Nuri brought hurricane-force winds and heavy rain, halting trade on financial markets and shutting down most of the city.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Supporters of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr said Iraqi troops have raided an al-Sadr stronghold, killing one of his guards and arresting another.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, Japanese scientists said they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth, opening another way to study deadly diseases without the ethical controversy of using embryos.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, In Indian Kashmir hundreds of thousands of Muslims marched in Srinagar in the largest protest against Indian rule in over a decade. Police estimated the crowd at 275,000.
(AP, 8/22/08)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 22, Mexican police captured a man believed to be Ruben Rios Estrada, a key gunman for the Arellano-Felix cocaine cartel, at the Caliente racetrack casino in Tijuana after a chase through the city streets. Another suspected gang member also was arrested. The bullet-riddled body of Jesus Blanco Cano (40) was found at a ranch near Villa Ahumada in Chihuahua state. He had just been on the job for one day as police chief of Villa Ahumada.
(AP, 8/23/08)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 22, Peru’s congress voted to repeal two laws facilitating the sale of Indian lands that had generated protests by dozens of tribes in the Amazon rain forest. The laws had been passed by presidential decree in May to promote private investment.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.37)
2008 Aug 22, A Russian armored column moved away from a base in western Georgia and Russian forces also were leaving the key central city of Gori, the day that Russia's president had said a pullback would be complete.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 22, In Somalia fighting between the Islamic militia and a clan militia killed 10 people in the southern port of Kismayo. Witnesses said a radical Islamic militia controlled most of Somalia's third-largest city after three days of fighting in which some 70 people died.
(AP, 8/22/08)(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 22, Sri Lankan troops captured two strategic towns from Tamil Tigers as they closed in on the rebels' political capital. With the fall of Thunukkai and Uyilankulam, the military was just 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) south of Kilinochchi.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 23, Democrats coalesced around Barack Obama's selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden (b.1942) as his running mate while Republicans quickly seized on the Delaware senator's past criticism of the presidential candidate's inexperience.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Utah a small plane crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Canyonlands Field airport. All 10 aboard, including 9 employees of a Cedar City dermatology company, who traveled to remote areas to provide medical treatments.
(SSFC, 8/24/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 23, Dr. Thomas Weller (b.1915) co-winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Medicine, died in Massachusetts. He shared the Nobel Prize with 2 co-workers for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1954/)(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.56)
2008 Aug 23, Azizabad villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers who tried to give them food and clothes. The soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically wounded. This was the village in Herat province where the day before a US-Afghan operation took place leaving many civilians dead.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Public health officials in Canada said they have linked a deadly bacterial outbreak to recalled meat products from Maple Leaf Foods. At least 12 people died out of 26 confirmed cases of food poisoning.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Beijing Angel Matos, a Cuban taekwondo athlete, and his coach Leudis Gonzalez were banned for life after Matos kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The US military released Ahmed Nouri Raziak (38), a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, without charges after detaining him for nearly three months. Gunmen in Basra killed Haider al-Saymari (38), a Shiite cleric and outspoken critic of sectarian militias, in an ambush on a car that also carried his wife, mother and sister, who were not harmed.
(AP, 8/23/08)(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Italy a gang of men badly beat a Dutch couple and raped the woman while they camped in an isolated field outside Rome during a cycling tour of Europe. The attackers also stole some US$2,200. Two Romanian men were soon arrested.
(AP, 8/23/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 23, Environmental experts said Nigeria and South Africa are the main emitters of greenhouse gases in Africa, accounting for almost 90 percent of the emissions in the continent.
(AFP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Pakistani troops pounded Islamic militants in the volatile northwest, killing 37 in retaliation for suicide attacks that have put pressure on the new government to counter a growing extremist threat. 2 soldiers were killed. A civilian and her four children were killed when security forces fired a mortar that accidentally hit a home in Khar, near the Afghan border. A car packed with explosives rammed into a police station in Swat, a former tourist destination, killing six officers and injuring several others. A roadside bomb in the nearby village of Bari Kot killed one civilian and injured four.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians. Israel said it would permit the boats to dock in Gaza after determining the activists did not pose a security threat. The group delivered a symbolic shipment of hearing aids and balloons.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The Philippine government said at least 48 soldiers and civilians and scores of Muslim rebels have been killed in the southern Philippines in a week of fighting triggered by the collapse of a peace deal. Muslim rebels urged the Philippine government to halt a military offensive they say threatens a years-long peace process and escalates violence in the archipelago's troubled south.
(Reuters, 8/23/08)(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, A top Russian general said his country's forces will keep patrolling the key Georgian Black Sea port of Poti even though it lies outside the areas where Russia claims it has the right to station soldiers in Georgia.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Pirates fired on a Japanese-operated cargo ship off Somalia and attempted to board the vessel but failed to seize it.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Somalia 2 Western reporters were kidnapped near Mogadishu. The next day the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) named them as Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian reporter based in Baghdad but freelancing for French television and Canada's Global National News, and Nigel Brennan, a freelance Australian photojournalist. Both were released after 15 months and arrived in Kenya on Nov 25, 2009. Brennan’s family mortgaged their house to raise his ransom.
(Reuters, 8/24/08)(AP, 11/26/09)(Econ, 3/16/13, p.61)
2008 Aug 23, Sri Lanka staged local elections under tight security as troops pushed deeper into Tamil Tiger territory, closing in on the rebel capital in the war-ravaged north. The defense ministry said a total of 28 rebels and two soldiers were killed in clashes over the last 24 hours across the island's north.
(AFP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, left Paris on a flight bound for New Delhi after concluding a 12-day visit that fuelled tensions between Paris and Beijing.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, A Tunisian court convicted 13 Islamic militants on charges linked to plots to carry out attacks in the north African country. 6 more were convicted on Aug 26 for establishing a military camp in Tunisia's northeastern Kef region designed to train fighters to be sent to Iraq.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 24, The US Democratic national convention’s credentials committee ruled to give full voting rights to delegates from Michigan and Florida, despite their defying party rules and holding their primaries early.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 24, In New Mexico 8 inmates escaped from a county jail in Clovis. 3 were captured the next day and 5 remained at large.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, Taliban militants attacked a patrol of US-led coalition troops in northern Afghanistan, while insurgents came under fire by NATO aircraft after attacking an Afghan army outpost in the south. At least 10 militants were killed in the fighting. In eastern Kunar province, a civilian Mi-8 supply helicopter contracted by NATO-led troops crashed shortly after takeoff, killing one person on board and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, Algerian security forces killed 10 Islamist rebels in a security operation southwest of the capital.
(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Bolivia a truck plunged off a cliff high in the Andes killing 21 people with 53 left injured.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 24, In London some 40,000 people, including record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps, gathered to celebrate 2012 host London taking over from Beijing as the Olympic city.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The Beijing Olympics, played out against a background of political intrigue and featuring 16 days of compelling and controversial action, drew to a spectacular close. China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The US won 36 gold medals and Russia came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold. Cuba took home 24 medals, but only 2 gold.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 24, Kenya took home 14 medals from the Beijing Olympics, 5 of them gold.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.55)
2008 Aug 24, A wall of snow in the Mont Blanc range of the French Alps buried 3 Swiss and 5 Austrian climbers.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Guatemala a Cessna Caravan carrying humanitarian workers crashed about 60 miles east of Guatemala City killing 10 people, including five Americans. At least 2 people survived. The plane was headed to a village in the area of El Estor to build homes for CHOICE Humanitarian, a group based in West Jordan, Utah.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, The USS McFaul, a US Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid, anchored at the Georgian port of Batumi, sending a strong signal of support to an embattled ally as Russian forces built up around two separatist regions. In central Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine and blamed the explosion on departing Russian forces.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India about 40,000 protesters surrounded the Tata Motors factory slated to produce the Nano, the world's cheapest car, alleging land for the site was forcibly taken from local farmers. A day earlier Ratan Tata, whose Tata Motors is India's top vehicle-maker, warned he would move the plant out of the state if the demonstrations kept up, although his company has already invested 350 million dollars in the project.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In India Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a hard-line Hindu leader, was killed in the eastern state of Orissa. His death triggered violence between Hindus and Christians that left dozens dead. Right-wing Hindu groups blamed Christians for killing, but a month later Maoist rebels say they had murdered the Hindu leader.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Aug 24, Iran's official news agency said the country has begun designing its second light-water nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Baghdad, back-to-back roadside bombs targeting a police patrol killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded 20, including six police officers. A bomb in a pile of hay killed 3 farmers southeast of Baghdad. Three separate attacks in Diyala province killed 9 people. A suicide bomber struck west of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people. Raina, a teenage Iraqi girl (b.1993) wearing a vest packed with explosives, was captured on video as she turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in Baquba. The US military announced the arrest of Salim Abdallah Ashur Shujayri (aka Abu Uthman), a Baghdad leader of al-Qaida in Iraq believed to have planned the 2006 abduction of US journalist Jill Carroll.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A8)(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kashmir soldiers and police fired at Muslim protesters demanding an end to Indian rule killing one person, as authorities arrested top separatist leaders in a bid to quash unrest that has left at least 37 people dead since June.
(AP, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 24, In Kyrgyzstan a Boeing 737 passenger jet carrying 90 people to Iran crashed near Bishkek’s Manas Int’l. Airport. At least 65 people were killed.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Niger dozens of land mines accidentally exploded during a ceremony in which a group of former rebels were handing over arms, killing one person and wounding about 40 including the regional governor.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, The "Benue", a Nigerian ship with eight crew members, was hijacked. It was owned by service and repair firm West African Offshore Ltd (WAO).
(AFP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 24, Pakistan rejected a ceasefire offered by Taliban militants in the tribal belt near the Afghan border as troops in the last 24 hours killed seven rebel fighters. Officials said that Taliban militants in the area had slit the throat of a 35-year-old man after accusing him of spying for US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 24, In Somalia the Shabab, the former military wing of the Islamic courts, and local clan factions took control of the southern port of Kismayo. Muktar Robow, a Shabab commander, wanted to merge with al-Qaeda.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.56)
2008 Aug 24, In Sri Lanka soldiers reportedly killed 12 Tamil separatists in fighting along the front lines dividing government territory from the rebels de facto state.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, The US Democratic Convention opened in the Pepsi Center of Denver, Colorado, where Sen. Edward Kennedy passed the party’s crown to Barack Obama.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 25, US immigration agents uncovered some 350 suspected undocumented workers in a raid on the Howard Industries electrical equipment plant in Laurel, Mississippi.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 25, The Afghan cabinet demanded the renegotiation of agreements regulating the presence of the international community in Afghanistan after more than 90 civilians were killed in US-led air strikes.
(AFP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, The Danish central bank said it has taken over Roskilde Bank, the nation's 10th largest bank. The 124-year-old institution had been struggling amid global financial turmoil and mounting losses on mortgage loans as housing prices fell in Denmark.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Honduran Pres. Manuel Zelaya signed adherence to the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a trade alliance created in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba as a regional alternative to trade agreements with the US.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 25, In India authorities struggled to get aid to more than 1 million people stranded by floods in northern Bihar state. A Bihar official described the situation as a catastrophe. Bunty (whose real name was Om Prakash), the notorious gang leader who terrorized New Delhi from astride a motorcycle, died in a pre-dawn shootout with police. A Roman Catholic nun was raped by a Hindu mob in Orissa state. On Oct 24 she said that she will not cooperate with local police, alleging that they stood by idly during the attack. In Jan, 2009, police charged 10 men with gang raping the Catholic nun.
(AP, 8/25/08)(AP, 8/26/08)(AP, 10/24/08)(AP, 1/29/09)
2008 Aug 25, Iranian state TV said the country has launched production of a domestically built submarine capable of firing missiles and torpedoes. Two other submarines, which began production in 2005, have been delivered to Iran's navy.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Israel freed nearly 200 jailed Palestinians, including a militant mastermind from the 1970s, in a goodwill gesture just hours before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to begin her latest peace mission to the region.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Former PM Nawaz Sharif said he is withdrawing his party from Pakistan's ruling coalition because it has failed to restore judges ousted by ex-President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan banned the Taliban, toughening its stance after the Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for deadly suicide bombings against one of its most sensitive military installations. 8 people were killed in a pre-dawn rocket-and-bomb strike on the home of provincial lawmaker Waqar Ahmed Khan in Swat. A Geneva prosecutor dropped money laundering charges against Asif Ali Zardari, head of the Pakistan People’s Party.
(AP, 8/25/08)(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A15)
2008 Aug 25, A 41-year-old Lockheed Martin C-130 military cargo plane crashed in the waters off the southern Philippines. Two Philippine Air Force pilots and 7 crewmen were feared dead.
(AFP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 25, In Puerto Rico US federal agents arrested 59 alleged members of a drug trafficking ring in coordinated raids in a number of small towns, where some housing projects were under siege by gangsters. Home to nearly 4 million people, Puerto Rico’s homicide rate was more than three times the US national average. Authorities said drug trafficking was behind the majority of the killings.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, Russia's parliament voted unanimously to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ex-Soviet Moldova against repeating Georgia's mistake of trying to use force to seize back control of Transdniestria, a pro-Moscow breakaway region.
(AP, 8/25/08)(Reuters, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 25, In northern Sri Lanka a series of gunbattles between government forces and the Tamil Tigers killed 15 rebels and seven soldiers.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 25, Deadly clashes broke out when Sudanese security forces thrust into Kalma, one of the largest camps for displaced people in South Darfur, leaving at least 33 and as many as 70 people dead.
(AFP, 8/25/08)(AP, 8/26/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 25, Zimbabwe's opposition won the vote for speaker of the first parliament since disputed elections in March, claiming votes even from the ruling party of autocratic President Robert Mugabe amid stalled talks over sharing power.
(AP, 8/25/08)
2008 Aug 26, The Pentagon said two men were cleared for release to Algeria from Guantanamo, Cuba, where about 260 detainees remained.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In the 2nd day of the Democratic Convention in Denver Sen. Hillary Clinton endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the US presidential nomination.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a measure for a statewide bullet train system to be placed on the November ballot.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he expected raids on medical pot clubs that sell for big profits in the Bay Area. He had recently issued guidelines on sales of medical marijuana and state officials over the weekend raided a club in Los Angeles County.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.B1)
2008 Aug 26, An Ohio jury convicted Andrew Siemaszko, a former nuclear plant engineer, of hiding information in 2001 about reactor corrosion at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie. Siemaszko’s attorney’s said the plant’s owner set him up as a scapegoat because he spoke out about safety concerns.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, A UN team in Herat, Afghanistan, said it found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in US-led air strikes last week. Aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 78 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others. Kazuya Ito (31), a Japanese aid worker, was kidnapped at gunpoint with his driver near Jalalabad. Ito was found killed the next day. A group of Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint in Nad Ali district of Helmand province, sparking a clash that killed 18 militants. An air strike killed 30 Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan close to the border with Pakistan.
(AP, 8/26/08)(AP, 8/27/08)(Reuters, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Brazil asked the WTO for the right to impose $4 billion in annual sanctions against US goods and services to penalize the US for handing out illegal cotton subsidies.
(WSJ, 8/27/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 26, In Brazil Olavo Egydio Setubal (b.1923), industrialist and former mayor of Sao Paulo, died. His industrial and financial empire, which grew up from a metal shop, included Banco Itau Holding Financiera SA, Brazil’s 2nd largest bank.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29439734)(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 26, In southwest China explosions ripped through a chemical plant, killing at least 11 people, injuring dozens and forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Dubai a fire in a building packed with foreign laborers killed 11 people. 10 of the victims were Indian.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Hurricane Gustav hit Haiti and triggered flooding and landslides that killed 15 people before weakening to a tropical storm.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 26, In India Christians clashed with Hindu mobs who attacked churches, and eight people died in the violence in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, a region known for deadly religious fighting.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Andhra Chiranjeevi (53), Indian film star, launched his People’s Rule Party (Prajarajyam) in southern Andhra Pradesh state.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.43)
2008 Aug 26, In Iraq a suicide bomber attacked police recruits in Jalula in Diyala province killing 28 people and wounding 25. A bomb planted in a parked car killed 5 people and wounded 8, including three policemen, in the city of Tikrit.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Aug 26, Israel ordered the Gaza Strip's border crossings closed after militants violated a cease-fire by launching two rockets the previous evening, bringing to 46 the number of rockets launched by militants since the truce began.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim won a "landslide" victory in a by-election to return him to parliament, and said he was on track to oust a weakened government. The Malays National Organization (UMNO) and its allies had ruled since independence in 1957.
(AFP, 8/26/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.39)
2008 Aug 26, A Maltese fishing trawler rescued the migrants. Authorities said the survivors first told the fishermen that 10 people were missing, but later said as many as 70 people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan made the sea voyage with them.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Mexico 3 decapitated bodies were found in an empty lot on the eastern outskirts of Tijuana. The bodies had messages written on their backs in permanent marker saying they worked for "the weakened 'engineer,'" a nickname for Francisco Sanchez Arellano, a top lieutenant in Tijuana's powerful Arellano Felix drug cartel. A day earlier 2 bodies were found in Tijuana, one with the head placed on the upper back.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 26, North Korea said it has suspended work on disabling its nuclear facilities as of August 14 and is considering restoration of the Yongbyon reactor that can make material for atomic bombs, accusing the US of violating a disarmament deal by failing to delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Pakistan an explosion on the outskirts of Islamabad killed at least seven people and wounded 20. Around midnight 75-100 militants attacked the Tiarza Fort in South Waziristan. The attack was repulsed with 11 militants killed.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 26, Russia formally recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian territories at the heart of its war with Georgia, heightening tensions with the West as the US dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a port city still patrolled by Russian troops. In a direct challenge to Russia, the US announced it intends to deliver humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Georgian port city of Poti, which Russian troops still control through checkpoints on the city's outskirts.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Sri Lanka ground battles in the northern regions of Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Welioya killed 27 rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, In Thailand thousands of anti-government demonstrators pushed into the Thai prime minister's office compound and rallied outside several ministries. A violent masked mob from the same protest group forced a state-run TV station off the air.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 26, Zimbabwe's opposition heckled Robert Mugabe in an unprecedented show of defiance when the president opened parliament with traditional pomp and his familiar denunciations of the West.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Colorado Democrats officially made Barack Obama their presidential nominee and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., their vice presidential nominee, following speeches by former Pres. Bill Clinton and Sen John Kerry, the Democrat’s 2004 presidential candidate. Obama made a surprise late visit to the convention, following Biden’s acceptance speech, to praise his wife, his former rival, and former President Bill Clinton for going to bat for him.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Honolulu Marcus Eriksen and fellow eco-mariner Joel Paschal celebrated the end of their 2,600-mile voyage on what they call the JUNK raft. They had spent three months crossing the Pacific on a raft made of plastic bottles to raise awareness of ocean debris. Research suggested that every square kilometer of the ocean has an average of 13,000 pieces of plastic floating in it. The floating portion was thought to make up only 15% of marine litter.
(AP, 8/28/08)(Econ, 2/28/09, SR p.9)
2008 Aug 27, US scientists said they have transformed ordinary pancreas cells in living mice into a rarer type of cell that churns out insulin opening possibilities for future treatment of disease.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.D3)
2008 Aug 27, In Afghanistan a German soldier was killed and another three injured in a roadside bomb attack in Kunduz province. Germany counted some 3,300 soldiers as part of the international force in Afghanistan. US-led coalition troops clashed and called in airstrikes against militants in Kunduz province, killing more than a dozen insurgents. In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a US coalition soldier on a patrol. In the Nad Ali area of Helmand province, a fight between police and militants killed 14 insurgents. More than a dozen militants were killed after they attacked a coalition base in Shaheed Hasas district of the southern Uruzgan province. Two Afghan guards also died during the attack. About a dozen militants were killed during a raid by coalition troops in eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 27, The first outbreak of violence in China's western region of Xinjiang since a pair of high-profile attacks during the Olympics left 2 Chinese policemen dead and 7 more wounded. In north China 9 miners in Hebei province became trapped underground after the illegal mine they worked in collapsed. Police were only informed 2 days later. All 9 were feared dead.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 27, China and Iraq signed a $3 billion deal revising a prewar agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field. On Sep 2 Iraq’s Cabinet approved the deal with China National Petroleum Corp.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Aug 27, The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized democracies condemned Russia for its actions in Georgia, underlining the country's growing estrangement from the West.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, A US military ship docked at the southern Georgian port of Batumi. Meanwhile, Russia's missile cruiser, the Aurora, and two missile boats, anchored at the port of Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia. The moves by both sides underscored an escalating standoff between Moscow and the West over this small Caucasus nation devastated by war with Russia.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Indian police were ordered to shoot on sight to end Hindu-Christian clashes. Parts of eastern Orissa state have been rocked by Hindu-Christian clashes since Aug 23, when a hardline Hindu holy leader and four other people were shot dead by unknown assailants.
(AFP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, American forces arrested Ali al-Lami, a top Iraqi Shiite government official, as he stepped off a plane at Baghdad's airport. The US said the man arrested was a leader of Iranian-backed militias and was behind a bombing that killed 10 people on June 24, including four Americans. An American soldier died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing a day earlier in northeast Baghdad.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Indian-administered Kashmir police traded fire with militants allegedly holding 8 people hostage, including 6 children, in a building in Jammu. 3 soldiers and 3 civilians died in the violence. The militants had illegally crossed into Indian Kashmir from Pakistan a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, Abie Nathan (81), the peace activist who made a dramatic solo flight to Egypt in a rattletrap single-engine plane (1966) and later founded the groundbreaking "Voice of Peace" radio station, died in Tel Aviv.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to keep a peacekeeping force in Lebanon for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Mexico a 38-year-old man from Oregon was arrested in San Jose del Cabo following a fight at an apartment complex. He died in jail hours later. On Aug 31 six Mexican officers placed under house arrest on suspicion of homicide.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Pakistan security forces clashed with militants across the wild tribal belt, trading fire with insurgents in a health center and repelling a major assault on an outpost in a region known as an al-Qaida safe haven. Officials claimed as many as 49 insurgents died as the fighting spread to South Waziristan.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 27, In Spain tens of thousands of people from around the world hurled tons of ripe tomatoes at each other in the annual food fight in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Thailand issued arrest warrants for protest leaders besieging the main government complex, as authorities scrambled to find a peaceful end to the administration's most serious challenge yet.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Zimbabwe's opposition said it will not join any new government with President Robert Mugabe until power-sharing talks are concluded, after the 84-year-old declared he would name his own cabinet.
(AFP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Denver Sen. Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention and accepted the nomination for president of the US.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, The US-backed coalition said a four-day battle that began with an ambush on a joint US-Afghan patrol in southern Afghanistan has killed more than 100 militants. A dozen militants were killed in a gunbattle with coalition forces in Paktika province.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, An Argentine court convicted two former generals for the murder of a senator during the country's seven-year military dictatorship and sentenced them to life in prison. Retired Gens. Antonio Bussi and Luciano Menendez were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Sen. Guillermo Vargas Aignasse, who disappeared March 24, 1976, the day of a military coup.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Brazilian authorities said more than 200 oil-slicked penguins had washed up dead over the last 4 days on the beaches of Florianopolis, a popular Brazilian island resort, and that they are searching for a cause.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Grant Wilkinson (34) was jailed for life for running Britain’s biggest-ever gun factory which converted dozens of replica submachine guns into deadly weapons used in nine gangland murders. He legally bought 90 replica Mac-10s in 2004, saying they were for use on the set of the James Bond film "Casino Royale" and paying 55,000 pounds in cash.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, State media reported that Chinese government auditors have uncovered the misuse of millions of dollars in disaster assistance as part of an embezzlement probe spanning 10 central government departments.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Government forces fought Tutsi rebels in the fiercest clashes for months in eastern Congo, threatening a struggling peace process.
(Reuters, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, It was reported that Cuba had notified at least 2 foreign governments that it could not meet debt payments.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 28, In Greenland local police said dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast in what could be a case of poaching. A scientific expedition from New Zealand discovered the carcasses as they sailed along the coastline about two weeks ago.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, In India Hindu mobs ransacked a church and clashed with Christian villagers in eastern Orissa state. Hindu mobs had already destroyed over a dozen churches following the murder of a Hindu leader in Kahdhamal.
(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 28, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr released a statement saying his largely disbanded Mahdi Army militia would extend its cease-fire "until further notice." An American soldier died of wounds he received after coming under fire while patrolling northern Baghdad a day earlier.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Indian Kashmir Government forces ended a hostage crisis in the mainly Hindu city of Jammu when they killed the last of three rebels believed to have seized eight people. 2 hostages died in the gunbattle.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Iran’s Junior trade minister Mohammadali Zeyghami said Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology with Nigeria to help the energy-starved west African powerhouse boost electricity generation.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Tropical Storm Gustav bore down on Jamaica after leaving 67 people dead on Hispaniola, including 59 in Haiti and 8 in the Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 8/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Aug 28, In Lebanon attackers opened fire on a military helicopter, killing a Lebanese army officer and forcing the craft to make an emergency landing. The next day Hezbollah handed over a man suspected of firing on the helicopter.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, Libya announced an amnesty for more than 3,000 prisoners, including Europeans and Africans, to mark the 39th anniversary of Moamer Kadhafi's rule.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Mexico's Supreme Court upheld the capital's abortion law, setting a precedent for the rest of the country that could inspire other Latin American cities. Twelve decapitated bodies bearing signs of torture were found in eastern Mexico and authorities were still looking for the heads. 11 of the bodies were found in a suburb of Merida, a 12th in Buctzotz, 70 km to the northeast.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, In Nigeria Rashid Ladoja, ex-governor of Oyo state (2000-2007), was arrested for embezzling some 16 million dollars (11 million euros).
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 28, A bomb near the city of Bannu blew a bus carrying Pakistani police and government workers off a high bridge, killing at least 11, as fighting between security forces and extremists flared across the country's northwest.
(AP, 8/28/08)(WSJ, 8/29/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 28, A Russian military spokesman said Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile, designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defense systems, from its Plesetsk launch site. The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russian forces turned over 12 Georgian soldiers on the border of Abkhazia. Georgia's foreign minister said ethnic Georgians were being cleared from their homes in South Ossetia. A joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization denounced the use of force and called for respect for every country's territorial integrity. Mikhail Mindzayev, the interior minister of South Ossetia, said an unmanned Georgian spy plane was shot down over South Ossetia by local forces.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 28, Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin said 19 US poultry producers will be barred from exporting their products to Russia. He said the unnamed American producers had ignored warnings from Russian inspectors who examined poultry companies last year and that another 29 producers would receive warnings.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, John McCain, on his 72nd birthday, tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (44) to be his vice presidential running mate.
(AP, 8/29/08)(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, US banking regulators shut down Integrity Bancshares Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., and sold all deposits to Regions Financial Corp. of Birmingham, Ala. This marked the 10th US bank to fail this year.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 29, In SF the 4-day Slow Food Nation opened at the Civic Center Plaza and continued at Fort Mason, where tickets to the Taste Pavilion sold for $65. The Slow Food movement had begun in Italy in 1986.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.A1)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 29, In Oklahoma a train slammed into a propane tanker truck triggering an explosion that killed 2 people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, Tropical Storm Gustav drenched Jamaica, killing at least 4 people, and rolled over the Cayman Islands with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines, setting off alarm from Cuba to New Orleans, and at gas pumps across the US.
(AP, 8/29/08)(AP, 8/30/08)(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 29, A Georgian Foreign Ministry official says Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in Georgia.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, Chinese police investigating a spate of attacks this month in western Xinjiang province shot dead six suspects and arrested three others near Kashgar.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, French neurosurgeons said they had successfully treated brain tumors through ultra-keyhole surgery, using a tiny fiber-optic laser to destroy cancerous cells.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, In India Tata Motors suspended work on its new plant in Mumbai, West Bengal, due to ongoing demonstrations in support of local farmers who say they were forced off their land to make way for the plant.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A5)
2008 Aug 29, A gunmen killed a member of a local US-allied Sunni group and his family in the village of Withah, Diyala province. His father, mother and an infant were also killed in the attack, which was in coordination with an assault on a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint that wounded one Iraqi soldier.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, Central Japan was hit by heavy rains and flooding forcing the evacuation of over a million people.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 29, Fighter jets bombed Taliban hide-outs in Pakistan's Swat Valley while troops pushed into militant territory on the ground, killing at least 40 insurgents in a 24-hour siege.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, The San Juan Star, Puerto Rico's Pulitzer Prize-winning English-language newspaper, closed. The owner blamed the union for not agreeing to benefit cuts and layoffs to offset declining revenue.
(AP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 29, Pirates, believed to be Somali, hijacked the Malaysian MT Bunga Melati 5 tanker and its 41 crew members off Yemen's coast in the Gulf of Aden. It was the second tanker owned by MISC Berhard to be hijacked in the gulf in the last 10 days.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, In Sri Lanka renewed fighting in the embattled north killed 18 rebels and 5 soldiers.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 29, In Zimbabwe power-sharing talks over a unity government resumed as Mugabe's government made good on a promise to allow aid agencies to resume operations. Mugabe announced cash awards for Zimbabwe’s Olympic winners. He called Kirsty Coventry, who won three silvers and a gold at the Beijing games, Zimbabwe's "golden girl" and gave her $100,000.
(AP, 8/29/08)(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In Black Rock City, Nevada, the 40-foot Burning Man was set aflame. This year’s festival, themed the American Dream, was marked by a 10-story steel frame tower built by union workers of recycled materials. The annual guidebook reached 77 pages.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 30, Raymond L. Danner, American restaurateur, died at his home in Nashville, Tenn. In 1959 he had acquired his first Shoney’s franchise from founder Alex Schoenbaum. By his retirement in 1987 he had built Shoney’s Inc. into 1,600 restaurant outlet.
(WSJ, 9/13/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 30, Brazilian officials said Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months, the first such increase in three years, as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, Gustav swelled to a fearsome Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph (195 kph) as it shrieked toward the heartland of Cuba's cigar industry on a track to hit the US Gulf Coast, three years after Hurricane Katrina. 78 people were already left dead in the Caribbean.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, China’s tallest building, the 101-story, 1,614-foot Shanghai World Financial Center, opened 14 years after Minoru Mori, its Japanese developer, began the $1.13 billion project. The family owned Mori Building Co. owned 70% of the project.
(SFC, 8/29/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.B2)
2008 Aug 30, A 6.1 earthquake hit southwest China's Sichuan province, killing least 36 people and turning tens of thousands of homes into rubble and cracked reservoirs.
(Reuters, 8/30/08)(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 30, Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing more than 2,500 people to leave the Hamas-controlled territory and about 1,000 to enter in a goodwill gesture before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan begins.
(AP, 8/30/08)(Reuters, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, The UN says Russian soldiers are telling thousands of refugees in Georgia who want to return to their homes that their security can't be guaranteed. All hoped to return to villages that are in the "security zones" that Russia has claimed for itself. Russian PM Vladimir Putin urged the EU to ignore calls to punish Moscow over the Georgia conflict as Tbilisi appealed for targeted punishment of the Russian leadership.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In India, officials said more than 300,000 people, trapped in India's worst floods in 50 years, have been rescued but that nearly double that number remained stranded without food or water. In eastern India 12 policemen were killed in a landmine blast triggered by suspected Maoist rebels.
(AP, 8/30/08)(AFP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, The US military said more than 11,000 Iraqis have been released from American detention centers this year, leaving some 19,700 still in custody.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi met in Libya to sign a "friendship pact." Italy agreed to pay Libya US$5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943. A provision stated that the parties commit themselves "not to resort to threatening or using violence."
(Reuters, 8/30/08)(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 2/27/11)
2008 Aug 30, Hundreds of thousands of frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones, marched across the country to demand government action against a relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts. Hours before the protests, the severed heads of two women were found near the attorney general's offices in the city of Durango.
(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 30, Gilberto Rincon Gallardo (69), a former socialist presidential candidate who gained respect in Mexico for defending the rights of the disabled, gays and other marginalized groups, died in Mexico City.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 30, Nigeria's main militant group claimed that it killed at least 29 military personnel in three separate attacks across the restive southern oil region. The group reported that six of its own fighters were also killed in the clashes.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, In Pakistan a blast ripped through a home in Wana, a main town in the South Waziristan tribal region, killing at least five militants.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, A bomb blast blamed on separatist Tamil Tigers wounded 45 people in Colombo. A clash killed three soldiers and a rebel in Anuradhapura district. Rebels said that a shell fired by government forces hit a shelter for civilians displaced by fighting in Kilinochchi, killing five people and wounding three others.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 30, Thai PM Samak Sundaravej vowed not to quit in the face of intensifying protests aimed at toppling his seven-month-old government.
(Reuters, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 31, John McCain, GOP presidential nominee, directed party officials to drastically scale back plans for their convention, set to begin Sep 1 in St. Paul, Minn., and refocus efforts on helping potential victims of Hurricane Gustav.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 31, Estimates from distributor Warner Brothers said "The Dark Knight" had become the second movie in Hollywood history to top $500 million at the domestic box office, raising its total to $502.4 million. "Titanic," the biggest modern blockbuster, remained No. 1 on the domestic charts with $600.8 million.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, SF closed vehicle traffic to 4.5 miles of its waterfront streets for the city’s first Sunday Streets day encouraging thousands to come out for the 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. event.
(SFC, 9/1/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 31, Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Allianz, a Germany-based insurer, sold Dresdner, a German bank, to Commerzbank for $14.2 billion.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.88)
2008 Aug 31, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon promised to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, Pakistan said it will suspend its military operations against insurgents in a tribal region along the Afghan border in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Pakistani Taliban said they will continue attacks during Ramadan. A missile fired from an unmanned aircraft hit a house in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing six people including a woman and a young girl.
(AP, 8/31/08)(Reuters, 8/31/08)(AFP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel's idea of an interim peace agreement at a summit, insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo said Paraguay will reverse its historic support for Taiwan (since 1957) at the upcoming UN General Assembly, and also is reconsidering its relations with communist regimes. In return for Paraguay's 51 years of support, Taiwan has sent millions of dollars to the impoverished country for low-income housing, agricultural development and scholarships.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will follow the recognition of Georgia's breakaway provinces with agreements on economic and military aid.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Police arrested Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru web site, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province. Police whisked Yevloyev away in a car and later dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head. Yevloyev died in a hospital shortly afterward.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, In South Africa strong winds fanned runaway fires across the country killing at least 16 people, including two children.
(AFP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 31, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said troops killed 12 rebels in the north, while three soldiers also died in combat.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Thailand's Parliament convened an emergency session at the request of the country's prime minister, who acknowledged that his administration cannot control spiraling anti-government protests.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Venezuela rejected US requests to resume cooperation in the war on drugs, saying it has made progress despite an alleged fourfold-gain in the amount of Colombian cocaine now passing through its territory.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Zimbabwe's rival parties returned home from talks in South Africa with no sign of a power-sharing deal to resolve the country's bitter political crisis.
(AFP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug, In San Francisco Andre Helton and Isiah Turner were found shot to death in a parked car near the Univ. of San Francisco.
(SFC, 6/11/18, p.D1)
2008 Aug, The population of North Carolina stood at nearly 9 million people, up from 8 million in 2000.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.31)
2008 Aug, Utah began a trial 4-day work week for about 17,000 of the state's 24,000 executive-branch employees. Closing state offices on Fridays was supposed to cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions. The program led to an increase in volunteer activities. In Sep, 2011, the 4-day week program ended after less money was saved than hoped and complaints from residents about not having access to services on Fridays.
(AP, 7/11/09)(http://tinyurl.com/3ks2a9b)
2008 Aug, Samantha Orobator (20), a British citizen, was arrested in Laos and charged with trying to smuggle 1.5 pounds (680 grams) of heroin in her luggage. In 2009 a government spokesman said she will not face the death penalty because the law bans executing expectant convicts.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2008 Aug, Cambodia leased agricultural land to Kuwaiti investors following mutual prime ministerial visits.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Latvia stood at 17%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.53)
2008 Aug, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly suffered a stroke.
(AP, 12/28/11)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Pakistan was running at an annual rate of 25%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.46)
2008 Aug, Puerto Rico passed an animal protection law, nearly a year after authorities charged the owner and two employees of a private animal control company with taking away dozens of pet dogs and some cats from public housing projects and throwing them off a bridge.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2008 Aug, In Puerto Rico FBI agents and police officers launched the late-night raid in the city of Carolina to free a Dominican man. Police say kidnappers were holding him in the trunk of a car and demanding $650,000 in ransom. A Puerto Rican policeman was killed by “friendly fire" during the gunbattle with kidnappers. In 2009 authorities charged FBI agent Jared Hewitt with negligent homicide for shooting 12-year police veteran Orlando Gonzalez Ortiz.
(AP, 8/7/09)
2008 Aug, In South Africa Sydney Maree (52), former US track star, was convicted and sentenced earlier this month in Pretoria to 10 years, five of them suspended, for stealing about 1 million rand from a government agency he headed in 2003.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug, Inflation in Sri Lanka reached an annual rate close to 30%. The 25-year average annual inflation rate was 12%.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.44)
2008 Aug, St. Vincent and Iran established ties after PM Gonsalves visited Iran for a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, an organization of 120 developing nations. St. Vincent later announced that it would receive US$7 million in aid from Iran. A portion of that will go toward construction of a US$200 million international airport.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Aug, The Baganda people of Uganda numbered about 5 million of the country’s 31 million people.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.57)
2008 Aug, In Vietnam several people were arrested after they knocked down a section of the wall surrounding a parcel of land once owned by Thai Ha Church and set up an altar and a statue of the Virgin Mary. 7 of the defendants received suspended sentences ranging from 12 to 15 months, and another received a warning. They all got two years of probation.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2008 Sep 1, The GOP convention opened at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in an abbreviated session due to Hurricane Gustav. Alaska’s Gov. Palin, GOP candidate for the vice-presidency, disclosed that her daughter, Bristol (17), is 5 months pregnant. Over 250 demonstrators were arrested as splinter groups smashed department store and police car windows. On March 11, 2009, Levi Johnson (19) announced he and Bristol Palin had decided to end their relationship.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.A1,5)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A4)(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A6)
2008 Sep 1, Hurricane Gustav smashed into the Gulf coast as a Category 2 storm with 110-mph winds just southwest of New Orleans, where levees held as waves splashed over. Some 750,000 people were left without power in Louisiana. It was later estimated that the storm caused at least $372 in damage to crops.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.A1)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.36)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.34)
2008 Sep 1, Roz Savage arrived in Waikiki, Ha., after rowing 99 days from SF, Ca. The English-born woman hoped to become the first woman to row alone across the Pacific Ocean with the goal of raising awareness of the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 1, In Fairfield, Ca., councilman Matt Garcia (21) was critically wounded outside a friend’s house. He was declared brain dead the next day. There were no suspects and police had no idea why he was shot. Garcia was taken off life support on Sep 5. On Sep 13 police announced the arrest of 2 suspects. On Sep 16 murder charges were filed against Henry Don Williams (32), who remained at large. On Sep 18 murder charges were filed against Gene Allen Combs (45). Police released Nicole Stewart (33), who was pregnant by Williams and remained a witness. Garcia appeared to be the innocent victim of an attempt to collect drug debts. On May 28, 2010, Williams was convicted of first degree murder. On Aug 30 Williams was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 9/3/08, p.A1)(SFC, 9/6/08, p.B3)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B1)(SFC, 9/19/08, p.B6)(SFC, 5/29/10, p.C2)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.C2)
2008 Sep 1, In Nevada an air tanker being used to drop retardant on a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada crashed after taking off for its last flight of the day, killing all three crew members.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Jerry Reed (71), US singer and actor, died of complications from emphysema. He became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit."
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents, further inflaming tensions over the killings of civilians by troops from the US and other countries. The US military said US-led coalition and Afghan troops killed more than 220 suspected Taliban militants in strikes in southern Afghanistan last week.
(AP, 9/1/08)(Reuters, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Australian actor Michael Pate (b.1920) died of respiratory failure. He had appeared in more than 50 films and was a regular guest star on American TV shows in the 1950s and 60s.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Brazil's Pres. Lula da Silva suspended the entire leadership of Abin, the nation’s intelligence agency, after it was accused of tapping the phones of the Supreme Court chief and members of Congress.
(AP, 9/2/08)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A14)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.45)
2008 Sep 1, Thomas Bata (93), the Czech-born industrialist who headed the global shoe empire bearing his family's name from the 1940s to the 1980s, died in Toronto. The company's headquarters were moved to Toronto under Bata's leadership when the family's Czech factories were nationalized by the communists. The company returned to the Czech Republic in 1989 after the end of communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, In China the 128-meter Spring Temple Buddha, the tallest statue in the world, was completed in Henan province. Construction had begun in 1997.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Temple_Buddha)(Econ, 6/27/15, p.36)
2008 Sep 1, In China a new tax on gas guzzling cars took effect in an effort to reduce fuel consumption and fight pollution. In June the tax on fuel was increased by almost 20%.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.54)
2008 Sep 1, In Colombia a car bomb has exploded in front of the palace of justice in Cali, killing at least four people and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In east Democratic Republic of Congo a humanitarian plane carrying 17 passengers and crew crashed into a mountain with no sign of survivors.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, The top UN aid official John Holmes called for greater international efforts to help millions of Ethiopians suffering from a severe drought.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Hundreds of thousands of Georgians joined together in anti-Russian protests.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.32)
2008 Sep 1, The US military handed over control of once brutally violent Anbar province to Iraqi forces, marking a major milestone in America's plan to eventually send its troops home.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Most of the Muslim Mideast began the first day of Ramadan, but Iraqi Shiites, some Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of fasting on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Japan's chronically unpopular PM Yasuo Fukuda (72), suddenly announced his resignation after less than a year in office, throwing the world's second-largest economy into political confusion.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In Myanmar Saw Myint Than, a magazine journalist, was arrested on a charge of violating the Electronics Law, which regulates all forms of electronic communication and carries a maximum five-year prison term. He was freed on Oct 20 after police determined he had not provided information to The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based Web site run by Myanmar exiles.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Sep 1, North Korea began reassembling its Yongbyon reactor that can make material for atomic bombs in violation of US conditions for improved diplomatic relations. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported the restart on Sep 3 citing sources in Beijing close to six-party nuclear talks on North Korean.
(Reuters, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 1, Pakistani officials said that their forces had killed some 560 Pakistani and foreign fighters and thwarted a push to make Bajur into a militant fortress. Pakistan’s government opened an investigation into the killings of five women who tried to choose their own husbands, after a provincial lawmaker defended their deaths as a "centuries-old tradition."
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, In the southern Philippines a homemade bomb exploded at a bus terminal, killing four people and injuring more than a dozen in Digos city in Davao del Sur province.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, A Spanish judge began gathering information about people who disappeared during Spain's civil war and subsequent dictatorship, seeking to produce a reliable list of victims slain away from the battlefield during the vicious fight between left and right.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, Sri Lanka’s defense ministry said 33 rebels and four of its own troops were killed in fighting across the north of the island. It said 49 guerrillas and 11 soldiers were also wounded in the fighting. Government troops marched into Mallavi, a key LTTE bastion.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 1, A US-Vietnam adoption agreement expired with the two sides unable to resolve disagreements over fraud and corruption, disappointing hundreds of prospective parents who will have to seek children elsewhere.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 1, Zimbabwe's main opposition called on regional powers to pressure President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party to be more flexible in power-sharing talks.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 2, Pres. Bush delivered a 6-minute televised speech to GOP delegates in St. Paul, Minn., as the convention returned to its pre-hurricane schedule.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 2, Google’s new Web browser, named Chrome, became available for download.
(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, New Orleans residents were blocked from returning home due to damage from Hurricane Gustav, but Mayor Nagin said they would be allowed back on Sep 4.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, In Oakland, Ca., police arrested 3 men involved in a spate of takeover robberies at East Bay restaurants and small businesses.
(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, In SF, Ca., Mark Guardado (45), president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, was shot and killed during a fight in the Mission District. Christopher Ablett (37) of Modesto, a member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, was later identified as a suspect in the killing. Ablett surrendered to police in Oklahoma on Oct. 4. On Feb 22, 2012, Ablett was convicted of murdering Guardado.
(SFC, 9/4/08, p.B1)(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B1)(SFC, 10/7/08, p.B3)(SFC, 2/24/12, p.C4)
2008 Sep 2, In Washington state a shooting rampage in Skagit County left 6 people dead. The suspect, Isaac Zamora (28), was described as a person with a mental illness. He turned himself in at the sheriff’s office in Mount Vernon. Mental health experts later found Zamora to be incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 9/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A7)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 2, In Afghanistan 22 Taliban were killed in a clash in Zabul province's Naw Bahar district. 7 Arab fighters were among the dead. Another 10 militants died in clashes with Afghan and foreign troops in Nad Ali district of Helmand province. NATO troops in Operation Oqab Tsuka (Eagle’s summit) delivered a Chinese-built turbine for the power station at Kajaki. Taliban insurgents opened fire on a patrol of Australian, US and Afghan troops, as it returned to base. More than a dozen coalition troops were wounded; none died. In 2009 Australian trooper Mark Donaldson was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military honor in the British Commonwealth, for his efforts to protect the wounded during the attack.
(AP, 9/3/08)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.64)(AP, 1/16/09)
2008 Sep 2, Argentina’s Pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner promised to repay $6.7 billion that Argentina owed to the Paris Club of 19 foreign governments following its 2001 default, It will use part of its $47 billion in foreign currency reserves to pay the debts. The government still refused to negotiate with private holders of $20 billion of its bonds, who held out against the 2005 debt restructuring.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A12)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.45)
2008 Sep 2, Australia's central bank cut interest rates for the first time in over six-and-a-half years, pushing them down 25 basis points to 7% amid signs of cooling economic growth.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, In Australia Brian Spillane, a 65-year-old ex-priest, was arrested and charged in Sydney with 60 counts relating to alleged sexual assaults against eight people. Spillane was originally charged in May with 33 child sex offenses against five people as a result of a police investigation into allegations of abuse in the 1980s at St. Stanislaus in the city of Bathurst.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Bolivia and Iran pledged cooperation and signed energy pacts, rebuffing US concerns over improved ties.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 2, The British government slashed stamp duty, meaning homes worth up to 175,000 pounds would be exempt from the land sales tax for the next year in a move aimed at reenergizing the housing market.
(AFP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, The Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness opened in Accra, Ghana, for a 3-day meeting. It aimed to record how much progress had been relative to the Paris 2005 declaration for making aid work better and targets set for 2010.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.69)(www.climate-l.org/2008/09/third-high-leve.html)
2008 Sep 2, Iran sentenced four female activists to six months in prison for writings demanding equality for women. Sweden had awarded a human rights prize to Parvin Ardalan, one of the activists, earlier this year.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 2, Iraq’s Cabinet approved an oil deal, signed August 27, with China National Petroleum Corp. An American soldier died of non-combat related causes in Baghdad. Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi freelance photographer working for Reuters, was detained during a raid on his home in the town of Mahmoudiya. A US military spokesman said Jassam was detained because he was "assessed to be a threat" to Iraq and coalition forces. Jassam was released after 17 months in detention.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/3/08)(AP, 2/10/10)
2008 Sep 2, In Mozambique 2 days of fires killed at least 32 people and injured hundreds more in blazes which devoured large swathes of arable land. The fires also displaced thousands and ravaged around 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) in the three central provinces of Manica, Sofala and Zambezia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 2, Pakistani Taliban militants said they had kidnapped two Chinese telecoms engineers and their entourage and would soon issue a list of demands. The engineers went missing along with their local driver and a security guard four days ago near the Afghan border where they had been checking an installation.
(AFP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, In Russia's troubled North Caucasus journalist Telman Alishaev was shot in Dagestan. Islamic TV reporter Telman Alishaev died at a hospital in Makhachkala the next day. Journalist Miloslav Bitokov was left with a fractured skull after a beating in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkariya. Police and co-workers said the two men were likely targeted for their work.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma signed-off on legislation to fight corruption, then fulfilled his obligations by handing over a declaration of his assets. Abdul Tejan-Cole, head of the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission, had introduced a system whereby every public official must declare his or her assets.
(AFP, 9/2/08)(Econ, 11/21/09, p.51)
2008 Sep 2, South Africa signed an energy agreement with oil-rich Venezuela as President Hugo Chavez arrived on his first state visit. Political, trade and economic relations were on the agenda with President Thabo Mbeki.
(AFP, 9/2/08)(AFP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Sri Lanka's government said it had dealt a major blow to Tamil rebels by capturing the key northern town and guerrilla bastion of Mallavi after heavy fighting that left dozens dead. Government forces pounded rebel defenses with airstrikes, helicopter attacks and ground assaults as heavy fighting across northern Sri Lanka killed 47 Tamil Tiger fighters and left 13 soldiers dead or missing. A rebel affiliated Web site claimed the Tamil Tigers had killed as many as 75 government soldiers in the recent fighting.
(AP, 9/2/08)(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 2, Thailand's prime minister declared a state of emergency in the capital Bangkok after a week of political tension exploded into violent street clashes between supporters and opponents of the government that left one person dead.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, Ukraine lawmakers loyal to PM Yulia Tymoshenko sided with opposition parties to pass a law weakening presidential powers and boosting those of the prime minister.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In St. Paul, Minn., Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials. Palin seduced many on television who had spent days doubting her VP candidacy.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Albert J. Stanley (65), former Halliburton executive, pleaded guilty in Houston to orchestrating over $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials from 1995-2004 for the construction of liquefied natural gas facilities. The bribes began when Stanley worked for M.W. Kellogg, a unit of Dresser Industries that was acquired by Halliburton in 1998, when Dick Cheney served as CEO. Stanley also pleaded guilty to taking $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consortium of construction firms involved in the LNG contracts between 1992-2003. Stanley was sentenced to 7 years in prison and ordered to repay Halliburton $10.8 million.
(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 3, Coca-Cola Co. announced a bid to acquire China Huiyuan Juice Group in a $2.4 billion.
(WSJ, 9/4/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 3, In Pasadena, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Dannette Gillespie (38) orchestrated her daughter (15) and Vanessa Anne Ocampo (19) in the robbery and killing of Eugene Palma (75), which netted them $15. On Sep 7 all three were charged with murder.
(www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/mother_of_the_year_dannette_gi.php)
2008 Sep 3, US Vice President Dick Cheney assured Azerbaijan of America's "abiding interest" in the region's stability. It was the first stop on a tour of three ex-Soviet republics that are wary of Russia's intentions after its war with Georgia last month.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, A US Navy ship loaded with humanitarian aid steamed through the Dardanelles on its way to Georgia, as the Bush administration prepared to roll out a $1 billion economic aid package for the ex-Soviet republic.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Australia police arrested a 66-year-old Catholic brother in connection with their probe into St. Stanislaus and a 63-year-old former teacher of another religious school in Bathurst that is also under investigation.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3-2008 Sep 4, In China’s Hunan province, thousands of people demonstrated and clashed with police in Jishou about a property company they said cheated them of their money. News of the protests did not become public until after the Olympics.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.52)
2008 Sep 3, Cyprus' rival Greek and Turkish leaders, Demetris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat, started new peace talks and said they hoped for a deal soon aimed at reuniting an island divided by war 34 years ago.
(AP, 9/3/08)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.68)
2008 Sep 3, In Dagestan journalist Abdullah Alishayev died one day after he was attacked by armed gunmen.
(http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/03/russia.journalist/index.html)
2008 Sep 3, A helicopter carrying foreign contractors crashed into an oil platform off the coast of Dubai, killing all seven people on board and halting production in one of the emirate's four offshore oil fields.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, An Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia, making it the 10th vessel to be hijacked in the area since July 20.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Ethiopia an explosion rocked a bar in Addis Ababa, killing 4 people. 2 more died the next day.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Tropical Storm Hanna drenched flood-plagued Haiti, adding to the miseries of a country that has lost more than 100 lives to mudslides and flooding since mid-August.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, A friendly fire shootout between Iraqi security forces and American soldiers killed six Iraqis in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving US-led or NATO forces killed several civilians. Women and children were among at least 20 people reportedly killed in the attack in Musa Nika village in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/3/08)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 3, In Somalia mortar shells slammed into Mogadishu as insurgents vowed to intensify attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. At least 4 people were killed.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Spanish authorities found 13 bodies and 46 survivors on a packed migrant boat near one of Spain's Canary Islands.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, In Sri Lanka fighter jets bombed two rebel boats off the northeast coast in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu, destroying one and causing heavy damage to the other.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, French President Nicolas Sarkozy encouraged Syria to pursue face-to-face peace talks with Israel during his first trip to the Arab nation, a visit also aimed at undercutting Iranian influence in Damascus.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 3, Swiss prosecutors said police have broken up an Internet child pornography ring operating in at least four European countries where men exchanged details about their contacts with young girls. In all investigators said they had identified 600 people in Germany, 40 in Austria, 13 in Switzerland and four in Liechtenstein using the forum.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 3, Ukraine's Pres. Yushchenko ordered the creation of a new governing coalition and threatened fresh elections, accusing his rival prime minister and opposition parties of attempting a "constitutional coup."
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 4, The musical “Fela!" premiered off-Broadway at 37 Arts Theatre B in New York City. It was based on the work of Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Fela (1938-1997). In 2010 the show won 3 Tony awards.
(SFC, 8/3/11, p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fela!)
2008 Sep 4, In St. Paul, Minn., John McCain claimed the GOP presidential nomination portraying himself as a maverick warrior and agent of change.
(AP, 9/5/08)(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 4, Jack Abramoff (49), once powerful DC lobbyist, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for his part in a political corruption scandal. He had already spent 2 years in prison for a fraudulent casino boat deal in Florida. On Sep 10 a federal judge shaved 2 years from his Florida sentence guaranteeing the Abramoff will serve no more that 4 additional years. Abramoff was released from jail in June 2010.
(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A4)(SFC, 9/11/08, p.A7)(SFC, 6/23/10, p.A6)
2008 Sep 4, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (38) pleaded guilty to a pair of felony obstruction charges in a sex-and-misconduct scandal and will step down after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city. Kilpatrick’s sentence included 4 months behind bars, a $1 million fine and forfeiture of his license to practice law.
(AP, 9/4/08)(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 4, A US coast Guard helicopter went down off Oahu, Ha., killing 4 crew members.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 4, Albanian artist Saimir Strati in Tirana glued 229,764 corks of various shapes and colors over a plastic banner measuring 12.94 meters by 7.1 meters to make the art piece "Romeo with a crown of grapes playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun". He worked 14 hours a day for 28 days to complete his project.
(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Ethiopia unveiled its famed Axum Obelisk after more than three years of work to re-erect the 150-ton stela plundered by fascist Italy 70 years ago and returned only in 2005.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Tropical Storm Hanna roared along the edge of the Bahamas ahead of a possible hurricane hit on the Carolinas, leaving behind at least 137 dead in Haiti.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, In northeast China 24 people were killed and six injured in a coal mine gas explosion, that left 3 miners trapped.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Georgia US Vice President Dick Cheney condemned Russia for what he called an "illegitimate, unilateral attempt" to redraw this US ally's borders by force.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, German ministers agreed to update data protection laws for the digital age in the wake of scandals showing how easily personal details can be bought on the Internet.
(AFP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Some 20 Greek anarchists stormed a supermarket in Thesaaloniki and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices.
(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, The US military arrested an Iraqi cameraman and three of his family members during a raid on their home in Baghdad. Omar Husham (28) was arrested in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Pakistan’s Parliament passed resolutions condemning an American-led attack in Pakistani territory after the government summoned the US ambassador to protest the unusually bold raid that officials say killed at least 15 people. Four Islamist militants were killed and five wounded in a missile attack by a suspected US drone in the village of Char Khel in North Waziristan near Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/4/08)(Reuters, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Middle East envoy Tony Blair toured a Palestinian aluminum factory in Beit Iba and was told it runs at one-third capacity because of Israeli import restrictions. He promised he'll take it up with Israeli authorities.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Moscow officials said BP PLC and its billionaire Russian partners in the joint venture TNK-BP have agreed on a deal that forces out its embattled CEO and signals an end to a bitter struggle for control of the Russian-British company.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Russian troops killed 5 suspected Muslim rebels in Dagestan.
(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 4, Spanish police arrested Vallejo-Guarin (47), a suspected Colombian drug trafficker, listed among the most wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 4, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced that his country has handed over proposals for peace with Israel to Turkish mediators and would wait for Israel's response before holding any face-to-face negotiations.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, Teachers in Zimbabwe's public schools went on strike to press for higher pay, despite a pay rise for civil servants announced by the government.
(AFP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 5, US bank regulators shut down Silver State Bank, saying the Nevada bank failed because of losses on soured loans, mainly in commercial real estate and land development. It was the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, In SF Western artist Thom Ross displayed 100 wooden Indians on horseback on the same stretch of Ocean Beach that was used in a 1902 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show featuring live Indians on horseback.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 5, In Berkeley, Ca., arborists began removed trees in preparation for a $124 million UC athletic training center. 4 protesters continued a 21-month-old protest in a lone redwood.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 5, In Lancaster, Ca., a road was paved, at the request of Honda’s Santa Monica advertising agency, with grooves so that passing cars would hear a rendition of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. On Sep 23, following complaints and safety concerns the road was repaved.
(WSJ, 10/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 5, Robert Giroux (b.1914), NYC publisher (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux), died in New Jersey. He had joined Farrar as editor in chief and was made a full partner in 1964.
(SFC, 9/6/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 5, In western Afghanistan an overnight raid in Farah province killed six militants and two civilians.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Angolans voted for the first time in 16 years in a parliamentary election expected to extend the ruling party's hold of more than three decades in the oil-rich African nation. A new quota required 30% of the candidates to be women.
(AP, 9/5/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.76)
2008 Sep 5, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia's governor general, the first woman to act as the British queen's representative Down Under. Morris Iemma (47), the embattled premier of Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, was forced to resign after his party withdrew support for him over a dramatic reshuffle of his cabinet.
(AP, 9/5/08)(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Bolivia protesters stormed a small airport and blocked major highways across eastern Bolivia in a standoff over central government reforms designed to empower the nation’s indigenous majority.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Canada joined the US and EU in imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe's authoritarian regime headed by President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, EU nations called for an international probe to find out which country should shoulder responsibility for starting the conflict between Georgia and Russia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Rosetta, the European deep space probe launched in 2004, completed a flyby of the Steins asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 5, The flagship of the US Navy's Mediterranean fleet anchored outside the key Georgian port of Poti, bringing in tons of humanitarian aid to a port still partially occupied by hundreds of Russian troops.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, The Iraqi government reacted sharply to published allegations that the US spied on Iraq's PM Maliki, warning that future ties with the United States could be in jeopardy if the report were true. An explosion in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour killed six bodyguards of ex-Iraqi deputy prime minister and former Pentagon favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, who escaped the suicide car bomb attack on his convoy.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, An Israeli defense official said Israel has allowed Palestinian security forces in the West Bank to receive a shipment of about 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of bullets in a step aimed at bolstering the moderate Palestinian government there. The weapons shipment reached the Palestinians through Jordan about one week ago.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Mila Schoen (b.1916), an Italian designer of elegant, impeccably tailored clothes, died at her villa in northern Italy.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Japan right-leaning former Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced that he will run for ruling party president in a move that would put him on track to take over as Japan's next prime minister.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, once reviled as a "mad dog" by President Reagan, on a historic visit which she said proved that Washington had no permanent enemies. John Foster Dulles was the last US Secretary of State to visit Tripoli, in May 1953.
(Reuters, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, Malaysia said it is dispatching three navy vessels to the Gulf of Aden to protect its merchant ships following a sharp surge in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Mexico two 18th century paintings, "The Adoration of the Three Kings" and "The Birth of the Virgin," were stolen from the Santa Matilde church in Pachuca, the capital of central Hidalgo state. In February, 2010, they were found in an art gallery in Tlaquepaque, a town near the city of Guadalajara, where they were on sale for $35,000.
(AP, 2/26/10)
2008 Sep 5, The political party of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged Myanmar's military government to ensure her well-being as she continued to refuse food deliveries to protest her detention.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Nigeria said it has set up a 40-member technical committee on peace talks to end the crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Pakistan's Supreme Court reinstated three judges ousted by Pervez Musharraf, cementing political divisions in the country a day before it elects a new president. An explosion possibly caused by a missile strike killed five suspected foreign militants near the Afghan border in North Waziristan.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to try to reach a final status peace agreement with Israel by the end of the year, but he admitted the goal, set by US President George W. Bush, might not be achieved.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Poland police detained Krzysztof B. (45), in the eastern city of Siedlce, after his wife and daughter came forward with the allegations that he had imprisoned and raped his daughter (21) for 6 years fathering 2 children, who were put up for adoption.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Sri Lankan soldiers captured three Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers and killed 24 guerrillas in fighting across the island's restive north.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 5, Taiwan newspapers said authorities in central Taiwan have turned off the red light at the county's last legal brothel after the death of its pimp aged 87. Prostitution has been illegal in Taiwan since 1997. Licensing of new brothels stopped in 1974, but isolated illegal brothels can be found all over the island. Brothels licensed prior to 1974 were allowed to keep operating.
(Reuters, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 5, Togo’s PM Komla Mally unexpectedly resigned after less than a year in office. He had been accused of lacking initiative and of being ineffective.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 5, In Kiev US Vice President Dick Cheney pledged US support for Ukraine following last month's war between neighboring Russia and Georgia.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 6, The $500 million GeoEye-1, a super-sharp Earth-imaging satellite, was launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast. GeoEye Inc. said that in black-and-white mode, the satellite can distinguish objects on the Earth's surface as small as 16 inches.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 6, Tropical Storm Hanna blew hard and dumped rain in eastern North Carolina and Virginia, but caused little damage beyond isolated flooding and power outages as it quickly headed north toward New England.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Martinez, Ca., Jose Felix Sandoval, in search of his estranged wife, killed her cousin and a police sergeant, before he was fatally shot by police officers.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 6, The 45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) overcame fierce obstacles and approved a landmark US plan to engage in atomic trade with India, a deal that reverses more than three decades of American policy. The plan still needs backing from US Congress.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Afghanistan a suicide bomb attack by a fake beggar inside a regional prosecutor's office and a shoot-out between police and Taliban militants killed 15 people.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Angolan election officials extended voting by a day in the capital, but said the logistical problems that marred the first balloting in 16 years were confined to Luanda.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Thousands of Armenians lined the streets of the Yerevan to protest the first-ever visit by a Turkish leader and to demand that Turkey acknowledge the World War I massacres of Armenian civilians as genocide.
(www.interfax.com/3/425662/news.aspx)
2008 Sep 6, Cuba politely declined a US offer to send a disaster assessment team to the island after Hurricane Gustav, saying it would rather Washington suspend restrictions on travel and the sale of food and other materials it needs to recover.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Egypt massive boulders fell from the towering Muqattam cliffs onto a shanty town outside Cairo and buried dozens of homes. The death toll rose on a daily basis and reached 103 on Sep 19. According to residents, there could be up to 500 people buried under the hundreds of tons of rock that fell. In 2010 a court convicted the Cairo deputy governor for the rock slide that killed 119 people and sentenced him to five years in prison. The court found Mahmoud Yassin and seven lesser officials guilty of manslaughter.
(AP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(AP, 5/26/10)
2008 Sep 6, In Greece the body of Amphithea Tanida (36) was found wrapped in sheets in a bathroom in her parents' villa at Amarynthos on Evia. Masami Tanida (77), a retired Japanese diplomat, and his wife Maria (67) were arrested the next day and charged with murdering their daughter.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Iraq a suicide car bomber blasted an outdoor market in northern Tal Afar city, killing six people and wounding 54. Kurdish security forces raided a house in Irbil province, killed a suspected member of an al-Qaida front group and captured a 17-year-old girl wearing an explosives vest.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Yahoo! Japan announced support for victimized users whose Yahoo IDs were used illegally. The company admitted that its online auction site suffered a huge security breach and agreed to reimburse users who had been charged fees relating to fraudulent transactions.
(http://blog.trendmicro.com/caution-needed-jp-yahoo-auctions-site-phished/)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.76)
2008 Sep 6, In Indian Kashmir thousands of angry people took to the streets to denounce the killing of a protester by government troops, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas shells at Muslim demonstrators chanting anti-India slogans.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, became Pakistan's new president after winning a landslide election victory in separate votes in the federal and provincial assemblies. Overnight clashes left 24 people killed after residents of a village in the volatile northwest foiled a militant kidnap attempt, then were attacked. An explosives-packed pickup truck blew up at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing 37 people.
(AP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/7/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.55)
2008 Sep 6-2008 Sep 7, In the southern Philippines 6 people were killed after a landslide triggered by heavy rains buried houses in the village of Masara. Another landslide the next day killed 5 more people there. At least 16 people were left missing.
(AFP, 9/6/08)(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 6, In Sri Lanka air force helicopters bombed rebel bunkers in the rebel-held Mullaittivu district to support advancing ground troops.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Sudanese forces launched ground and air attacks on two rebel bases in North Darfur, killing an unknown number of people.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 6, Swaziland King Mswati III celebrated his 40th birthday and the nation’s 40th year of independence in a lavish extravaganza officially estimated at $2.5 million, but widely believed to have cost 5 times more. Mswati remained Africa’s last absolute monarch and lived a luxurious lifestyle with his 13 wives. Some 70% of the population of 1 million lived below the poverty line and nearly 40% of adults were infected with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 6, Hurricane Ike barreled toward the Turks and Caicos as a powerful Category 3 storm, prompting an exodus of tourists and locals from the normally idyllic Atlantic island chain.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 7, At the MTV Video Music Awards on the show's 25th anniversary, the network threw its full support behind Britney Spears' comeback. Spears won a leading three awards, including video of the year for "Piece of Me."
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans to take control of troubled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace the companies’ chief executives. This would effectively wipe out shareholders' interest in the publicly traded companies. 27% of the nation’s 8,500 banks lost a combined $10-15 billion from holdings in preferred shares in Fannie and Freddie.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)(WSJ, 9/8/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 7, In Afghanistan 2 suicide attackers detonated bombs inside the police headquarters in Kandahar city, killing six policemen. In southern Afghanistan a Canadian soldier was killed and seven wounded when their armored vehicle struck an explosive device while on patrol.
(AP, 9/7/08)(Reuters, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, The conservation group WWF said Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing. Queensland state last week revealed that 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, a figure WWF said would have resulted in the deaths of two million mammals.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In London an urgent inquiry was underway after a disc containing the personal details of 5,000 justice staff went missing in yet another embarrassing data loss blunder. Private contractor EDS told the Prison Service in July that the hard drive had gone astray. The missing disc was last seen in July 2007.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, Canada’s PM Stephen Harper called an election for October 14 in a bid to strengthen his grip on power after 2-1/2 years in charge of a minority Conservative Party government.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In China a flood swamped the mine in Yuzhou city of Henan province trapping 23 people.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In Haiti at least 58 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept the impoverished Caribbean nation. Officials also found three more bodies from a previous storm, raising Haiti's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas and threatened the Florida Keys on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm.
(AP, 9/7/08)(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, Hong Kong's pro-democracy politicians lost several legislative seats in elections, but held onto their veto power over major legislation as they push for greater political freedoms in the Chinese territory. Democratic parties won 23 of 60 legislative seats in the voting, down from their previous 26.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, Italy's foreign minister, after meeting US Vice President Dick Cheney, said the EU wants to work closely with the United States in resolving the Georgian crisis.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, Pakistan’s reserves in the 1st week of September fell to $5.5 billion, enough to cover just two months of imports. Reserves as of last November were about $14 billion.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.48)
2008 Sep 7, South Korean police arrested four people over the theft of data on 11 million customers of a local oil refiner in what is being called the country's largest-ever data leak.
(AFP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7-2008 Sep 8, Spanish police said immigrants went on a rampage in the southern Spanish town of Roquetas de Mar overnight, setting fire to homes and cars and throwing stones at police, after a Senegalese man (28) was stabbed to death in an apparent dispute over drugs. The Rampage continued for a 2nd night.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 7, A Darfur rebel group says it has successfully repelled a government assault in North Darfur, but the Sudanese government denies it carried out any operations in the area.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, In the Virgin Islands US federal agent William Clark (33) intervened in a couple's drunken fight outside his apartment and shot Marcus Sukow to death. Clark was charged with murder and faced trial. In 2010 the case was dismissed on a technicality: that proper procedure was not followed in identifying Sukow's body to the medical examiner.
(AP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/28/10)
2008 Sep 7, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said his party would rather withdraw from power-sharing talks than sign an unsatisfactory deal and challenged President Robert Mugabe to call a new poll.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 8, The US stock of Lehman Brothers, led by Dick Fuld, began to get pummeled. By Sep 10 shares were down by almost half their value.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 8, In Berkeley, Ca., university officials cut off the food and water supply to 4 protesters who continued a 21-month-old protest in a lone redwood.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 8, In Oakland, Ca., authorities said 3 school district custodians had been arrested for stealing electronic equipment from the district.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.B3)
2008 Sep 8, A roadside blast in southern Afghanistan killed six civilians.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said Australia will not sell uranium to India unless it signs a key non-proliferation pact, despite a decision by nuclear supplier nations to end a ban on trading with New Delhi.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In London 3 of 8 British Muslims with ties to Pakistan were found guilty of conspiracy to murder in a terrorist bombing campaign, but jurors failed to reach a verdict on whether they plotted to blow up multiple trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks. Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain were convicted of trying to make a bomb out of hydrogen peroxide.
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.63)
2008 Sep 8, In northern China a landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 277 people, with 10 missing and presumed dead in Shanxi province's Xiangfen county. In 2009 a Chinese court jailed 12 officials for the collapse of an illegal mining dump that triggered the landslide.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 6/28/09)
2008 Sep 8, Deadly Hurricane Ike roared across Cuba, blowing buildings to rubble and sending waves surging over homes. Some 900,000 Cubans evacuated from its path, which forecasters said could take it to Louisiana or Texas later this week.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pressed Moscow to honor its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia, while Russian soldiers prevented international aid convoys from visiting Georgian villages in a tense zone around the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Pres. Medvedev and Sarkozy revised the EU-brokered deal to end the fighting between Russia and Georgia. Medvedev said 200 EU monitors would deploy to regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month. After that, Russian troops would pull out of those regions by Oct. 11 to a line that preceded last month's fighting.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Legal sources said the Church of Scientology is to be tried for fraud, and seven of its members for illegally prescribing drugs, in the latest clash between French officials and the controversial religion.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Lebanon rival groups signed an agreement to end sectarian violence that has killed and wounded scores in the past three months in the northern city of Tripoli.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 8, Miners in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho found one of the world's largest diamonds, a near-flawless white gem weighing nearly 500 carats.
(Reuters, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 8, Nepal's Maoist-led government vowed to end slave-like conditions for around 150,000 bonded laborers in the far west of the country who have been paying off debt for generations. Nepal officially abolished all forms of slavery in 2001, but the Haliya system, which traps people in a cycle of debt, lived on in remote areas.
(AFP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, In Pakistan missiles fired from 2 US drone aircraft hit a seminary and houses associated with a Taliban commander in North Waziristan, killing at least 21 people, including both militants, women and children. Neither Jalaluddin Haqqani nor his son, Sirajuddin, were present, but four mid-level Al-Qaeda operatives were among the dead.
(AP, 9/8/08)(SFC, 9/9/08, p.A9)(WSJ, 9/9/08, p.A16)(AFP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, In Berkeley, Ca., the last 4 protesters in a lone redwood voluntarily climbed down. The struggle to protect 42 trees from being felled for a sports training center had begun on December 1, 2006. UC later sought as much as $10,000 from each of the tree sitters for attorney fees.
(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A1)(SFC, 9/22/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 9, San Antonio, Texas, unveiled a deal that will make it the first US city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel.
(Reuters, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, O3B Networks Ltd., founded by Greg Wyler (38), announced plans to launch as many as 16 satellites that could provide Internet service to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Latin America by 2010 at a cost of some $650 million.
(WSJ, 9/9/08, p.B1)(www.o3bnetworks.com/)
2008 Sep 9, Angola's former rebel movement and main opposition party UNITA faced up to a crushing electoral defeat in a landmark peacetime poll in which it won only 10.4% of the vote. The ruling left-wing MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which has been in power for over three decades, had nearly 82 percent of the votes.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, The 27-member EU stopped short of offering Ukraine membership during an EU-Ukraine summit hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But the two sides began work on an "association accord," a step that offers closer political and economic ties and in the past has been designed to prepare nations for eventual membership.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, An Italian study showed a new way to test for cervical cancer is more accurate than a pap smear and identified more dangerous lesions.
(Reuters, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, A NATO bomb missed its target by more than 1 1/2 miles and hit a house, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding 10 at a time of rising tension between the Afghan government and international troops over the use of airstrikes.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Hurricane Ike roared south of Havana, Cuba, after tearing across the island nation, ravaging homes, killing at least four people and forcing 1.2 million to evacuate.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, The Iraqi oil ministry said Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a gas joint venture with Iraq worth up to four billion dollars, becoming the first Western oil major to gain access to the violence-wracked country's vast energy reserves.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Morocco said it would start vaccinating all livestock after the outbreak of Peste des Petits Ruminants, a deadly viral disease, ahead of the Eid festival when millions of animals are sacrificed.
(AFP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta hijacked a vessel with five expatriate and eight Nigerian oil workers on board. Robin Hughes from St Margaret's Bay, Kent, was among 27 oil workers kidnapped by militants when their vessel was hijacked. Hughes (59) was freed on April 19, 2009.
(AFP, 9/10/08)(AFP, 4/20/09)
2008 Sep 9, North Korea held a military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding, but leader Kim Jong Il (66) was missing. Media later reported that Kim Jong Il had brain surgery after a stroke last month and could have partial paralysis on one side.
(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A3)(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 9, OPEC ministers decided to scale back production by some 520,000 barrels a day in the face of falling oil prices and slowing demand. Hours earlier Russia proposed extensive cooperation with OPEC.
(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 9, Asif Ali Zardari. the widower of assassinated former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, took office as the country's new president, facing immediate pressure to crack down on Islamic militants and address daunting economic problems. Zardari and Afghan Pres. Karzai hosted a joint news conference and declared that they stand together against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
(AP, 9/9/08)(SFC, 9/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 9, Russia said it will station 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, announcing an imposing long-term presence less than a day after agreeing to pull forces back from areas surrounding the provinces.
(AP, 9/9/08)(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 9, Serbian lawmakers ratified a pre-membership agreement with the EU and an oil and gas deal with Russia after months of heated debate over the direction of the country's policies.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, A gunman killed an outspoken Somali lawmaker in the provincial town of Baidoa, the latest in a series of attacks in the lawless African nation.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 9, Thailand's PM Samak was forced to resign along with his Cabinet after a court ruled that he had violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows while in office. The Cabinet will remain in a caretaker position until a new administration is installed.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, Tamil Tiger rebels launched an air and ground assault on a military complex in northern Sri Lanka. 5 women were among 10 suicide bombers that struck the Vavuniya military complex, 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Colombo. At least 15 people were killed in the attack. The UN announced it was withdrawing its aid workers from Sri Lanka's embattled north ahead of a major military drive, as Colombo claimed its first downing of a rebel aircraft.
(AP, 9/9/08)(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 9, Togo’s Health Ministry said an outbreak of bird flu has been confirmed for the first time since last year.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, An internal government report said US Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington, who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands, had sex and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they were conducting official business.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 10, The US Pentagon cancelled the $40 billion competition for new aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force, delaying the competition to a new administration, and giving a reprieve to Boeing.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 10, The US Treasury Dept. accused Iran’s national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, of helping the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The proliferator designation, designed to stop companies from doing business in the US, further block the carrier’s ability to move money through US banks.
(WSJ, 9/11/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 10, A regulatory filing revealed that Carlos Slim, Mexican businessman, and his family had purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.78)
2008 Sep 10, Hurricane Ike barreled across the warm, energizing waters of the Gulf of Mexico on its way toward the Texas coast after crashing through Cuba's tobacco country and toppling aging Havana buildings. Ike had already killed at least 80 people in the Caribbean.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Frank Mundus (1925), the legendary shark fisherman said to have inspired the Captain Quint character in the movie "Jaws," died in Honolulu.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.102)
2008 Sep 10, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales said that he is expelling the US ambassador for allegedly inciting violent opposition protests.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said he accepts a reduction of Turkey's military contingent but that his side will still need security guarantees from Ankara as part of a deal to unite the divided island.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Georgian police officer was killed by gunfire that came from the direction of a Russian checkpoint near separatist South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai. Iranian state television reported that seven people were killed and 40 others were injured.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Two bombs exploded an hour apart in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least two people and wounding 15 others, including women and children. Health officials said cholera has killed two people in a province south of Baghdad, indicating that water quality and sanitation remain poor in a country that has endured years of war.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Israeli defense officials say the government has told all businessmen involved in military sales to Georgia to immediately cease visits to the former Soviet republic. The officials said the directive was decided upon this week because Israel is concerned about damage to its relations with Russia.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In northern Israel a military helicopter crashed at sundown and burst into flames killing two crew members.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Lebanon Druse Sheik Saleh Aridi died in his village of Baissour in the hills east of Beirut, after a bomb planted under his car was detonated by remote control as he drove away from his home. The country's first political assassination in months threatened efforts to reconcile its divided factions.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 10, Ahmad Ismail, a member of Malaysia's ruling party, was suspended for three years for "stoking racial tensions" with incendiary comments about ethnic Chinese that shook the governing coalition.
(AFP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Dutch court dismissed a bid by Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to hold the Netherlands liable for its troops' failure to protect the so-called safe haven.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, Pirates hijacked a South Korean bulk carrier with 22 crew off Somalia's coast but were thwarted in a separate attempt to seize a Greek ship. The crew and vessel were released on Oct 16 with no comment on ransom.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Sep 10, Officials said at least 89 people have died in wildfires sweeping through Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, An unmanned Russian cargo ship blasted off successfully carrying supplies, equipment and gifts for the international space station.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Sri Lanka air force jets attacked a rebel intelligence base in the north, stepping up a punishing wave of airstrikes a day after Tamil Tiger fighters launched a surprise attack on a military base. UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed international concern for tens of thousands civilians trapped in Sri Lanka's north as government forces prepared for a major showdown with Tamil separatists.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Geneva the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle collider, passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe. On Sep 19 it started leaking helium and had to be turned off. The technical problems delayed for at least two months the quest for scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the origins of all matter.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.96)
2008 Sep 10, Ruedi Rymann (75), a farmer and cheesemaker and renowned yodeler, died at his home in Giswil, Switzerland. In 2007 Viewers of a Swiss television series devoted to popular national music voted Rymann’s “Dr Schacher Seppli" as the greatest Swiss hit of all.
(SFC, 10/9/08, p.B8)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmsy6wA-T0o)
2008 Sep 11, Pres. Bush attended the dedication of a new memorial at the Pentagon in honor of 9/11 attacks in 2001. In NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a ceremony attended by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 11, Bert Langerwerf (b.1944), Dutch born lizard breeder, died. In 1988 he moved to Alabama and established his Agama International Herpetocultural Institute, which grew to become the world’s biggest lizard-breeding facility.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 11, The US expelled Bolivia’s ambassador following Bolivia’s expulsion of the American ambassador for allegedly aiding the opposition. The Peace Corps pulled all 113 of its volunteers out of Bolivia for alleged security reasons.
(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Javier Sanchez Perfino (30) pleaded guilty in San Diego to running a smuggling organization from 2003 to 2006, which at its peak smuggled 60-80 people per day and charging $1,500 per person. The operation ran through a live bombing range in southeastern California.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B12)
2008 Sep 11, In Afghanistan 10 militants were killed by US-led coalition troops north of Kabul. 2 US soldiers were killed in eastern Afghanistan. An insurgent attack on a compound in eastern Afghanistan killed a US soldier and another was killed by an explosive, making 2008 the deadliest for American forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
(AP, 9/11/08)(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, In Bolivia’s Pando state anti-government protesters fought backers of President Evo Morales in the pro-autonomy east with clubs, machetes and guns, killing at least eight people and injuring 20. Seven more bodies were recovered the next day farther from the highway. The bodies of three more marchers were later discovered, raising the death toll to 18. Lowland opposition leaders, guarding their region's frontier capitalism and more Euro-centric heritage, said they lost two of their own in the pitched battle. Protesters near Yacuiba closed gas valves, resulting in a gas leak and explosion that interrupted gas exports at a cost of $8-10 million a day.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/28/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 11, In Brazil Daniel Dantas, businessman, found $300 million of his money frozen by the courts under accusations of laundering public money and offering bribes. His fortune was estimated at over $1 billion. On Dec 2 Dantas was convicted of trying to bribe police officers. He was fined $5 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but appealed the conviction.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.82)(Econ, 12/6/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 11, James Ashley Nasmyth (b.1918), English oil journalist, died. In 1979 he launched Argus Telex, the first daily oil market report.
(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4827314.ece)(WSJ, 9/27/08, p.A16)
2008 Sep 11, Chile’s Senate unanimously passed a bill submitted by President Michelle Bachelet that bans whale hunting off the country’s 3,400 mile (5,500 km) coast.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, In Santiago, Chile. clashes erupted as protesters erected burning barricades and attacked police with firearms and rocks on the 35th anniversary of the 1973 bloody military coup.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, China’s Sanlu Group announced a nationwide recall of 700 tons of milk powder.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.58)
2008 Sep 11, Amnesty Int’l. reported that Egyptian security forces have killed at least 28 immigrants leaving Egypt for Israel, since the first killing in the summer of 2007.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 11, A Paris court convicted Didier Bourguet, a former UN employee, for the rape of young Africans during his postings in Central African Republic and Congo. Bourguet was sentenced to nine years in prison for having committed about 20 rapes of teenage girls between 1998 and 2004 during his postings as a mechanic for the UN.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Israeli divers found a red suitcase containing a small skull, bones and clothes, which police said may belong to Rose Pizem, a 4-year-old French girl missing since May, whose grandfather is jailed in the slaying.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Japan said it was ending an air mission in Iraq, wrapping up a military deployment which was historic for the pacifist nation but deeply unpopular among the public.
(AFP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Nepalese officials said Tibetan exiles living in Kathmandu illegally are to be deported in a bid to curb anti-China protests threatening Nepal's ties with its giant neighbor.
(AFP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, New Zealand cut its benchmark interest rate half a point to 7.5% in a bid to engineer a quick recovery from a widely expected recession.
(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 11, Pakistan's PM Yousaf Raza Gilani backed a harsh rebuke of the US by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Muslim nation's military chief. This was in response to news that President Bush during the summer had secretly approved US military raids inside Pakistan against alleged terrorist targets.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan (79), Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official, issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content. On Sep 14 he adjusted his comments saying owners who broadcast immoral content should be brought to trial and sentenced to death if other penalties do not deter them.
(AP, 9/12/08)(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 11, Sri Lankan troops killed 37 Tiger rebels during fresh fighting across the island's north.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, Venezuela interrogated military officers named in recordings of an apparent plan to kill President Hugo Chavez, in what may the firmest evidence in years of a barracks plot to oust him. Chavez ordered the US ambassador to leave Venezuela within 72 hours, accusing the diplomat of conspiring against his government and saying he would also withdraw his own envoy from Washington immediately.
(AP, 9/12/08)(Reuters, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, President Robert Mugabe and the opposition reached an accord in which they will wield equal power in a unity government aimed at ending Zimbabwe's protracted political crisis and economic meltdown. One source said Mugabe will chair the cabinet, while Morgan Tsvangirai takes charge of a national security council which consists of 31 cabinet ministers.
(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 11, Zimbabwe's health minister said a cholera outbreak in a Harare suburb has killed at least 11 people.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 12, The US accused Rodriguez Chacin and 2 other top aides to Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez of helping Colombian guerrillas traffic cocaine and procure weapons for FARC. Chacin had just resigned on Sep 8 from Venezuela’s Interior Ministry.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 12, The SF Opera said it had received a commitment from board chairman John A. Gunn (64) and wife Cynthia Fry Gunn for a gift of $40 million. John Gunn served as chairman and CEO of Dodge and Cox Investment Managers.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 12, In southern California a commuter train smashed head-on into a freight train killing at least 25 people in the deadliest US passenger train accident in 15 years. Officials the next day attributed the accident to failure of the passenger train engineer to stop at a red light. It was later found that engineer Robert Sanchez, who died in the crash, had sent a text message 22 seconds before the crash.
(AP, 9/13/08)(Reuters, 9/13/08)(WSJ, 10/2/08, p.A11)
2008 Sep 12, David Foster Wallace (b.1962), the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead in his home in Claremont, Ca. In 2012 D.T. Max authored “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace."
(AP, 9/13/08)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B7)(SSFC, 9/2/12, p.F1)
2008 Sep 12, Taliban militants attacked a logistics convoy in western Afghanistan, sparking a clash that killed 10 insurgents and five Afghan guards. Afghan police said they had arrested three suspects accused of giving the US military false information that led to the August 22 bombardment of the village of Azizabad.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, Bolivian President Evo Morales decreed a state of siege and sent troops to the eastern province of Pando where at least 16 people were killed in street battles between pro- and anti-government activists. Another 2 people were killed at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control, opening fire to disperse protesters.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, British and French firefighters extinguished a 1,000-degree inferno in the Channel Tunnel but tens of thousands of travelers faced more delay as they waited for the undersea link to reopen.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Shops throughout China pulled a milk powder, suspected sickening babies, from shelves in the latest safety scandal to rock the country's food industry. Investigators soon detained 19 people and were questioning 78 to find out how melamine was added to milk supplied to Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer. On Sep 15 Zhang Zhenling, vice president of Sanlu Group, read a letter of apology at a news briefing in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, where the corporation is based. China later reported that more than 6,000 babies had fallen ill and three died after drinking contaminated milk powder. Consumer complaints to Sanlu Group regarding its baby milk formula had begun as early as last December. By the end of the year 6 children had died and tens of thousands were made ill from milk powder tainted with melamine.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/13/08)(AFP, 9/15/08)(AFP, 9/17/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A12)(Econ, 5/25/13, p.67)
2008 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI urged France to take Christianity into account despite its secular tradition, saying on his first visit there as pontiff that church and state should be open to each other.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Tens of thousands of Muslims joined pro-independence rallies across Indian-controlled Kashmir, leading to scattered clashes with police that left at least two protesters dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Mexican police found the bodies of 24 men with their hands bound and shot to death execution-style outside the capital. On Nov 27 prosecutors charged a municipal police commander and an alleged drug cartel member with homicide in the September massacre.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Sep 12, In Pakistan a US Predator drone fired 2 missiles at a home in the village of Tolkhel, North Waziristan, killing at least 12 people.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 12, Poland's last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, and seven other Soviet-era officials went on trial over the declaration of martial law more than a quarter of a century ago. The 1981 decision led to the deaths of dozens of people and the jailing of hundreds more.
(Reuters, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Russia’s Itar-Tass news reported that Syria’s Tartous port is being renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A14)
2008 Sep 12, A South African judge ruled that prosecutors were wrong to charge ANC President Jacob Zuma with corruption, effectively clearing way for the 66-year-old former freedom fighter to become the country's next president.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, The Sudanese government army and Janjaweed militias launched new attacks in a mountainous area of south Darfur according to rebel claims made the next day. UN boss Ban Ki-moon welcomed the establishment of an Arab League panel led by Qatar that will work with the African Union and United Nations to sponsor peace talks in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AFP, 9/12/08)(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 12, Samak Sundaravej ended his bid to return to power as Thailand's prime minister, after a revolt within the ruling party torpedoed his re-election in parliament.
(AFP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 13, Hurricane Ike ravaged the Texas coast with 110 mph winds, flooding thousands of homes and businesses, shattering windows in Houston's skyscrapers and knocking out power to millions of people. Ike left at least 37 people dead in Texas, including 5 on Galveston Island, and 35 more dead across 10 states. Galveston later requested $2.2 billion in disaster relief. This amounted to about $36,000 per resident. Officials later estimated that damages from Ike could exceed $50 billion.
(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A6)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A8)(SFC, 9/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/08, p.A2)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.34)
2008 Sep 13, In San Francisco Tong Van Le left his store in Bernal Heights and headed home to Novato where 5 men, who had followed him, shot him dead with a high-powered rifle. They had allegedly been told to get rid of Tong Le by Larry Blay Jr. (19), who was in jail on charges of robbing the Nasser Market on Crescent Ave. Sep 13. With no witness the case against Blay was dismissed in October. In June, 2009, an indictment accused Blay and 4 of the 5 defendants of murder and conspiracy.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B1)(SFC, 7/29/09, p.D3)
2008 Sep 13, The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced Stanley Falkow (74), Stanford microbiologist, was the winner of a $300,000 Lasker award for Special Achievement in medical Science. His work helped to explain how pathogens cause human diseases.
(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B2)
2008 Sep 13, In Afghanistan Mohammad Jan Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province and a former cabinet minister, was killed with 3 others in a bomb attack near Kabul claimed by Taliban rebels and condemned by President Hamid Karzai. A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Helmand province. Taliban militants in Ghazni province ambushed and killed 4 police. 3 more were wounded and died the next day.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/14/08)(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, A fiery bus crash in China's Sichuan province killed 51 people.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, Hundreds of Russian forces packed up and withdrew from positions in western Georgia. A Georgian official said Russia had met a deadline for a partial pullout a month after the war between the two former Soviet republics. A Georgian policeman at a post near Abkhazia was killed by gunfire that came from the direction of a position where Abkhazian and Russian forces have been based. Some 1,200 Russian servicemen still remained at 19 checkpoints and other positions, 12 outside South Ossetia and seven outside Abkhazia.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, In India a coordinated series of bombings struck crowded shopping areas across New Delhi, killing 21 people with over 100 wounded. 5 bombs exploded and 3 were defused. India blamed a group with ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba. A Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility for the explosions.
(AFP, 9/14/08)(WSJ, 11/28/08, p.A6)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 13, Bombs and shootings killed at least 16 people in Iraq, including four employees of an Iraqi television station. They were abducted in Mosul while filming a program about the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. At night in western Baghdad a bomb exploded in the car of Fuad Ali Hussein, killing him and his deputy and two bodyguards. Hussein was head of a neighborhood awakening council.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, Nepalese police said at least six people have been killed in southern Nepal in rampages by wild elephants in the last two days.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, A MEND statement said the armed forces of Nigeria had begun a full scale aerial and marine offensive on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) positions and neighboring Ijaw communities in Rivers state.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, At least 24 Islamic militants were killed in fierce fighting with Pakistani government troops hunting Taliban fighters across Bajaur near the Afghan border.
(AGFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, A Palestinian stabbed a 9-year-old Israeli boy in a West Bank settlement outpost, setting off clashes that left injured six Palestinians. Israeli troops fatally shot Hassan Hmeid (16), a Palestinian teenager during a clash near Bethlehem. Witnesses said the troops opened fire when a patrol entered Tekoa and were pelted with a hail of stones thrown by local young people.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers accused the government of planning a genocidal campaign against Tamils as UN agencies pulled out of rebel-held regions in the island's north. Violence in the last 24 hours killed eight Tiger rebels and two troops.
(AP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, In Sudan an army spokesman said troops had entered the North Darfur area to arrest armed bandits.
(Reuters, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 13, Typhoon Sinlaku lashed Taiwan with powerful winds and heavy rains, disrupting flights and train services as well as celebrations for a major holiday.
(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 14, The Denver Broncos won 39-38 following a 2-point conversion after a mistaken call by NFL referee Ed Hochuli gave them the ball in the last minute of the game.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 14, California legislators said they had reached a spending compromise, potentially ending a record-breaking budget impasse.
(SFC, 9/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 14, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked a convoy carrying Afghan doctors working for the UN, killing two doctors and their driver. They were on a mission to monitor efforts to vaccinate children against polio. 6 children died in central Ghazni after ordnance they were playing with exploded. An Afghan interpreter working for the US military was shot dead as he stepped out of his home.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Western Australia's 4 people died in a helicopter crash in the Bungle Bungle National Park of the remote Kimberly region.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Archaeologist Georgi Kitov (b.1943), an expert on the treasure-rich Thracian culture of antiquity, died of a heart attack while excavating a temple in central Bulgaria.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 14, In eastern Congo a riot ensued following accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft. 13 people were left dead.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 14, Roadside bombs killed five Iraqi policemen and injured eight others north of Baghdad. An American soldier in Iraq died of causes unrelated to combat.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, France's ecology minister said the government is considering a "picnic tax" on disposable dishes to encourage people to use reusable plates and cups instead.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Mexico's military seized US$26.2 million in cash believed to belong to members of the Sinaloa drug cartel. This was the 2nd biggest seizure since March 2007, when police seized US$207 million linked to a trafficking ring for pseudoephedrine.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 14, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant group in Nigeria's southern oil region, declared a state of war after two days of clashes with government forces, launching reprisal raids and raising the specter of more conflict in Africa's biggest oil producer.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Pakistani security forces killed 16 suspected militants and wounded 25 on in the Bajur tribal region, the latest round of a military offensive with no end in sight.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Aeroflot Flight 821, traveling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm, crashed near residential buildings as it was preparing to land, killing all 88 people aboard, including 21 foreign nationals. A Russian investigator said the crash of the Boeing-737-500 was most likely caused by engine failure.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Somalia at least six people, including an African Union (AU) peacekeeper, were killed Sunday in two separate incidents in Mogadishu.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Sudan Minni Minnawi, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction turned presidential advisor after signing the peace deal with Khartoum, said his forces had came under attack at their base at Kolge in the east Jebel Marra region.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, Typhoon Sinlaku pounded Taiwan with fierce winds and torrential rains, leaving at least 11 people dead.
(AP, 9/14/08)(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 14, A Turkish ferry carrying some 100 people sank in the Sea of Marmara, killing at least one person. At least 23 more were missing.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Lehman Brothers, burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition after attempts to rescue the 158-year-old firm failed. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction. In 2009 Lawrence G. McDonald and Patrick Robinson authored “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers." With over $600 billion in assets Lehman was America’s largest and most complex corporate failure.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/12/09, p.91)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.86)
2008 Sep 15, Oil prices plunged to a seven-month low as the Gulf Coast energy infrastructure appeared relatively unharmed after Hurricane Ike and traders bet that Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy could ignite a massive liquidation of commodities. Oil closed at $95.71, its first close below $100 since March 4.
(AP, 9/15/08)(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 15, Hewlett-Packard said it will cut 24,600 jobs as part of its plan to integrate Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS).
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 15, An Australian jury found Abdul Benbrika (48), a Muslim cleric, and five of his followers guilty of planning to stage a "violent jihad" in Melbourne in 2005 to force Australian troops out of Iraq. A 7th man was convicted the next day. In 2009 Benbrika was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison.
(Reuters, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)(AP, 2/3/09)
2008 Sep 15, South American presidents agreed to work urgently to prevent a political collapse in Bolivia, where the government said it would charge a rebellious governor with genocide for allegedly ordering the machine-gunning of peasants.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, According to a new UN report Brazilian police carried out a "significant proportion" of the 48,000 murders that swept Brazil last year, casting doubt on the government's ability to curtail drug violence and reign in vigilante militias.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, In London the sale of pickled sharks, butterfly paintings and other pieces by Damien Hirst (43), the provocative British artist, raised some US$127 million. The sale continued the next day. Total sales reached $199 million. In 2009 his total auction sales shrunk to $19 million. Hirst had taken over Sotheby’s London headquarters for his two-day show “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever."
(AP, 9/16/08)(Econ, 9/20/08, p.73)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.99)(Econ, 4/15/17, p.72)
2008 Sep 15, Richard Wright (65), a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, died. Pink Floyd's spokesman, Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist, said Wright died after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. The band released a series of commercially and critically successful albums including 1973's "Dark Side of the Moon," which has sold more than 40 million copies.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, China’s central bank cut interest rates for the first time in over 6 years. Its benchmark one year lending rate will fall .27% to 7.2% effective Sep 16.
(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 15, Cuba said hurricanes Gustav and Ike together delivered the worst hurricane-related blow in Cuba's storm-battered history, causing "around US$5 billion" in collective damage.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Egypt a speeding truck collided with a tourist bus in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, killing 12 people and injuring 33.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Europe's major central banks moved quickly to calm markets, pumping billions of euros and pounds into the financial system to shore up confidence in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy filing in the United States.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, French troops stormed a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates, killing one, capturing six others and freeing their two French hostages, who had been held since Sep 2.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Indonesia at least 23 people were killed in a stampede as they crowded an alley to receive $4.25 in cash handouts for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
(AFP, 9/15/08)(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A20)
2008 Sep 15, A new International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran has repeatedly blocked a UN investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and the probe is now deadlocked.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, A suicide bomber blew herself up among police officers who were celebrating the release of a comrade from US custody, killing at least 22 people. Separate bombings in Iraq killed 13 other people. A member of a Sunni group allied with US forces was killed by a bomb stuck to his car in a mainly Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Mauritania suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 12 soldiers. The terror group had promised to avenge the country’s recent coup.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 15, Mexican police and soldiers quelled a riot at a Tijuana prison that left 4 inmates dead and at least 31 prisoners and officials injured.
(AP, 9/16/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Oaxaca, Mexico, Omar Yoguez Singu (32) allegedly had consensual sex with Marcella Grace Eiler (20) of Eugene, Oregon. He then killed her with a machete after an argument. Her badly decomposed body was found Sep 24 in a shack 80 miles south of Oaxaca City. Friends of Singu beat him up after he confessed to the crime and on Sep 24 turned him over to police.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 15, Hundreds of disco workers protested in Kathmandu against a government crackdown on "nude dancing" in its bid to improve the deteriorating law and order.
(Reuters, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Nigerian militants attacked a Shell-operated oil facility, killing two and forcing the evacuation of nearly 100 staff, in a third day of fighting with security forces in the Niger Delta. Police in northern Nigeria arrested a Muslim preacher who claims 86 wives and 107 children, charging him with breaking Islamic laws governing marriage.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 15, Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships and fighter jets killed 15 suspected militants as security forces advanced on Taliban strongholds near the Afghan border.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Rwandan voters went to the polls for parliamentary elections contested only by movements allied to the ruling party of Pres. Paul Kagame. His Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) won 42 of 53 contested seats in a proclaimed turnout of 98.5%.
(AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)
2008 Sep 15, In Somalia an African Union peacekeeper was killed in a roadside bomb explosion in Mogadishu, the 2nd AU member to be killed in there in as many days.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Darfur rebels said they were fighting back against attacking government troops for a fourth day, the latest in a series of battles in Sudan's war-torn western region.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, Thailand's ruling party chose the brother-in-law of ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra as its nominee to become the next prime minister, immediately drawing opposition from anti-government protesters and dozens of its own members.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 15, President Robert Mugabe relaxed his iron hold on Zimbabwe for the first time in nearly three decades of one-man rule, forced by escalating economic chaos into sharing power with his bitter political rivals. PM Morgan Tsvangirai used his first platform as head of government to call on Zimbabwe's rival political parties to work together to "unite" the country.
(AP, 9/15/08)(AFP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 16, Urgently trying to keep cash flowing amid a Wall Street meltdown, the Federal Reserve pumped another $70 billion into the nation's financial system to help ease credit stresses. Late in the day the Federal Reserve agreed to a 2-year $85 billion loan to insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake in the form of warrants called equity participation notes. Central banks in the US, Europe and Japan pumped tens of billions into their banking systems to keep money flowing.
(AP, 9/16/08)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 16, The United States pledged 1.8 million dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge court, making its first donation to the UN-backed genocide tribunal aimed at trying regime leaders.
(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger promised to veto a state budget approved by lawmakers just hours earlier.
(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 16, Local media reported that a Florida judge has deemed unconstitutional a law banning baggy pants that show off the wearer's underwear.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Texas the torn apart body of Brandon McClelland (24), a black man, was found on a rural road near Paris. He had crossed the border to Oklahoma the previous evening with friends Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley (27) to buy beer. In 2009 murder charges were dropped against Finley and Crostley due to lack of evidence.
(SFC, 10/25/08, p.A5)(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A6)
2008 Sep 16, James Crumley (1939), American novelist, died in Missoula, Montana. His books included “The Last Good Kiss" (1978). The opening line of that book has been widely called the best in crime fiction.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Crumley)
2008 Sep 16, In Bolivia government soldiers arrested Pando state Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez on suspicion of directing the recent massacre of government supporters.
(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 16, The US declared Bolivia to be “non-compliant" in the war on drugs, a step that implicated an end of American aid.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.52)
2008 Sep 16, Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of China dairy giant Sanlu Group, was fired from her posts in the wake of the tainted milk powder scandal.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/16/content_10041638.htm)
2008 Sep 16, Costa Rica Security Minister Janina del Vecchio said that a 70-foot (20-meter) submarine-type vessel was intercepted by the US Navy in international waters near Costa Rica.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, Georgia’s government said intercepted mobile phone calls show that Russian tanks and troops invaded before Georgia unleashed its offensive against South Ossetia, pressing its claim that Russia was the aggressor in the war last month.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Honduras said it will welcome a new US ambassador after a one-week delay meant to show support for Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with Washington.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, A Japanese researcher said he has taught a beluga whale to "talk" by using sounds to identify three different objects, offering hope that humans may one day be able to hold conversations with sea mammals.
(Reuters, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Iraq a bicycle laden with explosives exploded near a military truck in a market north of Baghdad, killing 2 civilians and wounding 19. Gen. Ray Odierno took over as the top American commander of the Iraq conflict.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Malawi withdrew its recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), proclaimed by the Polisario Front in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. SADR was declared in 1976 by the Polisario Front, a rebel movement that wants independence for Western Sahara. The guerilla war against Rabat's forces ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Mexico explosions at an Independence Day celebration killed 7 people and injured 101 in the city of Morelia. Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy said organized crime was responsible.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, A Buddhist monk slashed his throat in a suicide attempt at Myanmar's most sacred temple, the scene of several pro-democracy protests that erupted a year ago. A trustee of the Shwedagon temple said the monk became desperate after running out of money to pay for medical care.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Nigeria militants destroyed the Orubiri flow station operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company in Rivers state. The next day MEND said it killed all the soldiers on guard at the facility and took their weapons.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 16, Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg said Norway will give Brazil US$1 billion by 2015 to preserve the Amazon rain forest, as long as Latin America's largest nation keeps trying to stop deforestation.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Pakistan's military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border. Security forces backed by air support again pounded suspected militant hideouts in a northwest Pakistan tribal region, killing eight alleged insurgents.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Hamas police waged a fierce gunbattle against members of a heavily armed Palestinian clan in a crowded neighborhood. A night of clashes left 11 people dead including an infant, and at least 40 wounded.
(AP, 9/16/08)(SFC, 9/17/08, p.A11)
2008 Sep 16, Thailand's ruling People's Power Party announced that it has reconciled with a renegade faction, clearing a hurdle toward the selection of Somchai Wongsawat as a consensus candidate for prime minister.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 16, Ukraine's pro-Western coalition collapsed, paving the way for complicated coalition talks or yet another early parliamentary election.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 17, The Bush administration released $100 million in disaster relief to West coast salmon fisherman, $70 million less that was approved by Congress. About $63 million will go to California, $25 million to Oregon and $12 million to Washington state.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 17, US federal prosecutors unsealed charges against alleged members of a global network procuring potentially sensitive electronic components for Iran. 8 companies and 8 people, including Iranian, Malaysian and British nationals, were charged with violating a US embargo that restricts certain goods to Iran.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 17, The US Coast Guard intercepted a submarine-like vessel carrying 7 tons of cocaine about 400 miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border. The Coast Guard sank the vessel after determining it was too unstable to be towed to port.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 17, The US non-profit “Do Something" group launched an IPO to raise $8 million. The 15-year-old organization promoted volunteerism among American teenagers.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.72)
2008 Sep 17, Gold prices rose $70 to close at $850.50, its biggest one-day price jump ever.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.C3)
2008 Sep 17, In SF the large “Wall Drawing #935" and “Wall Drawing #936," conceived by Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) and painted by his assistants in 1999, were painted over at the SF Museum of Modern Art. The museum retained the sole right for their reproduction.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.E1)
2008 Sep 17, Philip Morris International said that it succeeded in its tender offer to acquire Canada's No. 2 cigarette maker Rothmans Inc.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A roadside blast in eastern Afghanistan killed four US coalition soldiers and an Afghan. In Kabul US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed "personal regret" for recent US airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians, and pledged more accurate targeting in future. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said years of under-investment in defense by European countries was to blame for a critical shortage of international forces in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Barclays PLC said it may pick up some of Lehman Brothers assets and employees in Europe and Asia, on top of the British bank's deal to acquire key U.S. operations from the failed investment bank.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A packed "Bird's Nest" National stadium witnessed the formal end of the Beijing Paralympic Games, bringing down the curtain on a glittering 12-day sports extravaganza.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A German court convicted 3 Turkish men of siphoning $25 million from the Deniz Feneri charity, which raised fund to ostensibly help needy Muslims.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 17, In northern Lebanon a gunfight between two rival Christian groups has left two people dead and three wounded.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A second riot in three days at an infamous Tijuana prison left close to 2 dozen people dead and 12 injured. 2 American inmates were among the dead. Inmates at La Mesa prison rioted again because they have not been given food or water since Sep 14, when a separate riot led to the deaths of at least three inmates.
(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, Armed Nigerian militants, who have declared an "oil war" in the restive south of the country, claimed to have blown up a major pipeline in their latest attack on oil installations in the region. A spokesman for Nigeria's state oil company said that militant attacks are now cutting the country's daily oil production by about 1 million barrels a day, 40 percent of what the country produced before the militant campaign began three years ago.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, A CIA missile strike in South Waziristan killed 6 people as US Adm. Mike Mullen assured Pakistan’s leaders that the US respects Pakistan’s sovereignty.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 17, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed friendship treaties with Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and promised them the backing of Russia's armed forces.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Thai lawmakers turned to Somchai Wongsawat, the brother-in-law of deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra, to be the new prime minister, setting up a showdown with protesters determined to tear down his political legacy.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko said she would not resign as required following the collapse of the country's ruling pro-Western coalition.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Suspected militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the US Embassy in the Yemeni capital. The coordinated attack killed 17 people, including six assailants. The dead included Susan Elbaneh (18), a US citizen from Lackawanna, N.Y., who was recently wed in Yemen in an arranged marriage, along with her Yemeni husband as they stood outside the embassy.
(AP, 9/17/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 17, In Zimbabwe a government-controlled newspaper said key aspects of the new power-sharing deal won't go in effect until next month, adding to concerns that President Robert Mugabe's agreement to cede some power for the first time in 28 years will founder.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 18, Central banks around the world poured in $180 billion in extra liquidity to calm markets made jittery by the mayhem on Wall Street. An SEC measure took effect making short sellers and their broker dealers deliver securities by the close of business on the settlement date, three days after the sale. The Bush administration asked lawmakers for the power to rescue banks by buying distressed assets. Pres. Bush said “markets are adjusting" as he defended the government’s recent moves.
(AP, 9/18/08)(Reuters, 9/18/08)(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A14)(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, A non-profit Internet rights group filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush and others in his administration for the "massively illegal" surveillance of emails and telephone calls without court warrants.
(AFP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, California’s budget standoff ended as Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders struck a deal on a $104 billion budget after 80 days of stalemate.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, In south Berkeley, Ca., drug dealers Kevin Antoine Parker (42) and Kelvin Earl Davis (26) were shot and killed. In 2011 Oakland gang member Desmen Lankford was convicted of the shooting and faced life in prison.
(SFC, 9/15/11, p.C3)
2008 Sep 18, Chicago Mayor Richard Daly unveiled an aggressive plan to reduce heat-trapping gases. The plan included changing building codes to promote energy efficiency and solar panels at municipal properties as well as alternative fueling stations.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 18, In Minnesota the new Interstate 35W bridge opened. The old span over the Mississippi River had collapsed on August 1, 2007. The new $234 million St. Anthony Falls Bridge was embedded with an early warning system consisting of hundreds of sensors.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.6)
2008 Sep 18, In southern Afghanistan NATO-led troops killed an ally of President Hamid Karzai during an overnight gunbattle. The Afghan president said the death resulted from a "misunderstanding between foreign and local forces." Ruzi Khan Barakzai, the former police chief of Uruzgan province and a tribal leader and militia commander, were killed outside the provincial capital of Tirin Kot. Taliban militants killed two policemen and wounded three others after attacking their checkpoint in the eastern Paktika province.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Australia’s PM Kevin Rudd said the west's relations with Russia are at a turning point after its intervention in Georgia and a pact to sell Australian uranium to Moscow is in the balance.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, HBOS, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, agreed under government pressure to be taken over by Lloyds TSB.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.90)
2008 Sep 18, China announced plans to buy shares and take other measures to support the nation’s plummeting stock market.
(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 18, The Bank of China announced that it would take a 20% stake in the French arm of LCF Rothschild, its first investment in a euro-zone bank.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 18, In Iraq an explosives-laden car parked at a bus station in the southern city of Nasiriyah killed two people and wounded one. 7 American soldiers were killed in southern Iraq when their helicopter crashed as it was flying into the country from Kuwait.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Tzipi Livni (50), Israel's foreign minister, eked out a victory in a surprisingly tight race to replace PM Ehud Olmert as the head of the governing party, putting her in a strong position to become the country's first female leader in 34 years.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, In Italy 6 immigrants from Ghana, Togo and Liberia were slain by automatic gunfire as they stood outside a store that sold ethnic goods in Castel Volturno, a town north of Naples.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 18, MEND militants in southern Nigeria, as part of their "oil war," claimed to have destroyed a major oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the fifth attack on the company in less than a week.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, In northwest Pakistan militants briefly seized 300 boys at a school. The incident ended with the deaths of 2 suicide bombers. No children were harmed.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 18, Peru’s Pres. Alan Garcia led a deputation of half his cabinet and over 200 business leaders to see Brazil’s Pres. da Silva.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.44)
2008 Sep 18, Russia ordered its main stock exchanges closed for a second day as President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled an expanded $120 billion rescue package and called for pouring 500 billion rubles ($20 billion) into blue-chip shares in an effort to stabilize them.
(AP, 9/18/08)(WSJ, 9/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 18, Rwanda became the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, according to provisional results announced at the close of a four-day legislative vote.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, Armed pirates hijacked a Greek ship with 25 crew members off Somalia, bringing to 55 the number of reported attacks in the lawless sea lane of the African region.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, Sri Lanka's military said it was moving closer to the headquarters of the Tamil Tigers. Naval forces fought a ferocious sea battle with Tamil Tiger separatists off Sri Lanka's northwestern coast, sinking 10 boats. Tamil Tiger separatists and government forces fought intense battles across the embattled northern region, killing at least 62 rebels and eight soldiers according to military officials. The Tamil Tigers, meanwhile, said they repelled a government offensive in Kilinochchi, killing 25 soldiers.
(AFP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 18, Rebels said Sudanese aircraft bombed Darfur rebel positions in the latest offensive in the war-torn region, with the UN reporting wounded government troops in the area.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 18, A senior Yemen security official said at least 25 militants with suspected links to al-Qaida have been arrested in the last 24 hours in connection with the deadly attack on the US Embassy in San’a.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 19, A global recovery in markets took place after the US took steps to limit damage from a seize-up in world credit markets following the forced private sale or government takeover in recent days. The Bank of England offered to lend an additional 22 billion pounds (40 billion dollars) to financial institutions struggling to obtain funds amid a worldwide squeeze on credit.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, US federal securities regulators, in an effort to boost investor confidence in the face of a market crisis, took the dramatic step of temporarily banning the trading practice of short selling financial stocks. The rules were soon adjusted to allow bona fide market making and hedging activity. The SEC eased buyback rules allowing corporations to purchase in one day up to 100% of the average daily trading volume of their stock.
(AP, 9/19/08)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A9,B1)
2008 Sep 19, Ken Cockrel Jr. was sworn in as the city's new mayor, vaulted into office by a sex scandal that destroyed the reign of Kwame Kilpatrick and threw Detroit's government into chaos for months.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Nebraska at least 86 workers were fired at the JBS Swift & Co. Grand Island meat packing plant after they walked off their jobs amid a dispute over Ramadan prayers.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 19, Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people just before midnight.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, In western Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a US-led coalition convoy killing one coalition soldier.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 19, PM Kevin Rudd announced that Australia will launch a multi-million dollar international carbon capture and storage institute to fight global warming.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Hammaad Munshi (18), said by prosecutors to be the youngest Briton to be convicted of a terrorism offence, was jailed for two years. He was found guilty last month of being part of a cell that spread extremist propaganda and provided practical guides on how to make poisons and suicide vests.
(Reuters, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, David Heiss (21), German office worker, stabbed Matthew Pyke (20) 86 times in an attack in Nottingham. He had met Pyke and Joanna Witton, Pyke’s girlfriend, on a war games website, and flew to England after the couple made disparaging remarks about him. On May 11, 2009, Heiss was sentenced to life in prison.
(http://news.cnet.com/technically-incorrect/?keyword=David+Heiss)(AFP, 5/11/09)
2008 Sep 19, Masked kidnappers in Egypt seized 19 hostages including German, Italian and Romanian tourists in a remote desert area near the Sudanese and Libyan borders. The kidnappers demanded $15 million in ransom. On Sep 29 Egyptian and Sudanese forces rescued the captives near the Sudanese-Chadian border.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 19, Haiti said its system of agriculture has been destroyed by the last 4 tropical storms, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. The storms killed 425 people in less than a month. On Oct 3 authorities said the official death toll from four storms that ravaged Haiti this summer nearly doubled to 793 people.
(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A10)(AP, 10/3/08)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.45)
2008 Sep 19, Indian police in New Delhi battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house, killing two and arresting one before 2 others escaped. They were believed to be members of the Indian Mujahedeen, the group responsible for the Sep 13 serial bombings in New Delhi.
(AP, 9/19/08)(SFC, 9/20/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 19, Seven Iraqis were killed in a raid by American troops backed by attack aircraft targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. Those killed in the Sunni town of Adwar included four suspected insurgents and three women. Iraqi officials and neighbors said the family had no connection to the insurgency. Gunmen killed Sheik Oday Ali Abbas al-Ajrish, a cleric loyal to US foe Muqtada al-Sadr, in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 9/19/08)(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Italy hundreds of African immigrants took their anger over the alleged mafia killing of six Africans to the streets, hurling rocks and smashing windows in Castel Volturno.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, Alitalia cancelled flights and regulators said they might soon ground the troubled flag-carrier as it hurtles toward bankruptcy after the failure of another rescue plan.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Japan's agriculture minister resigned in a widening scandal over rice contaminated with mold and pesticide that was sold as food for thousands of people, including schoolchildren and nursing home patients.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In central Nepal a bus rolled off a mountain highway and crashed into a river, killing at least 14 people and injuring 25 others.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Nigerian militants destroyed another major oil pipeline in the Niger Delta after a week of the most intense attacks against Africa's biggest oil and gas industry for years.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 19, North Korea said it is making "thorough preparations" to restart its nuclear reactor, accusing the United States of failing to fulfill its obligations under an international disarmament-for-aid agreement.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, In Quetta, Pakistan, a bomb exploded at a religious school run by a pro-Taliban Islamist party, killing five people and wounding 10 more. A witness claimed it was caused by a suicide bomber intercepted at the main gate. Unknown gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on a police patrol vehicle in Quetta, killing one officer and wounding one policeman and a passer-by.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Russia said it will boost its defense budget next year by more than a quarter to a post-Soviet high of $50 billion. Russian stock exchanges halted trading after stocks shot higher, rebounding off a two-day closure amid a financial crisis as the government rushed through emergency measures that included more money for banks and purchases of shares to stem plunging prices. Trading resumed later in the day.
(AP, 9/19/08)(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 19, Singapore banned all dairy imports from China and the European Union demanded answers from Beijing as the baby formula scandal, which left 4 babies dead and over 6 thousand infants ill across China, spread to liquid milk.
(Reuters, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, South Korea said it will completely withdraw its remaining troops from Iraq by December, ending five years of military deployment.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Spain approved a decree under which it will pay jobless immigrants to go home, more evidence of how its once-booming economy has quickly gone bust.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Ben Stocking (49), an Associated Press reporter in Vietnam, was punched, choked and hit over the head with a camera by police who detained him for a short while as he covered a Catholic prayer vigil at the site of the former Vatican Embassy in Hanoi. The city had started to clear the site after announcing a day earlier that it planned to use the land for a public library and park.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) again failed to break a deadlock over forming a cabinet after reaching a power-sharing deal.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 20, Arkansas State Police troopers raided the 15-acre complex of evangelist Tony Alamo (74), searching for evidence of child pornography. FBI Agents arrested Alamo five days later in Flagstaff, Ariz. Alamo later pleaded not guilty to a 10-count federal indictment.
(AP, 7/10/09)
2008 Sep 20, The California Coastal Commission sponsored its annual coastal cleanup. Some 55,634 volunteers collected over 742 thousand pounds of debris.
(SSFC, 9/21/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 20, In Washington state Shawn Roe (36) killed police officer Kristine Fairbanks (51) during a traffic stop. He has also killed Richard Ziegler (59), a retired California corrections employee, whose pickup he was driving. Roe was killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 20, A soldier from the US-led coalition and two Afghan civilians were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in southern Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said he will cease all dialogue with Western countries if they fail to recognize the ex-Soviet state's parliamentary election.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, In southern China a fire and subsequent stampede at the Dance King nightclub in Shenzhen killed 44 people and left 88 injured. In 2010 two bosses of the club were sentenced to 15½ years in prison. Club general manager Lu Jinghuang was ordered jailed for three years. 14 other club managers received jail terms ranging up to six years. In Hubei province a migrant worker stabbed 12 people, seriously inuring 2 of them in Shiyan city.
(AFP, 9/21/08)(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)(AP, 3/31/10)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that Muslims in France, about 8% of the population, were estimated to make up over half the prison population.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 20, German police cancelled an anti-Islamic congress planned for today in Cologne after leftist opponents of the rally clashed with its right-wing backers.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, Indian officials said thousands of people have been evacuated and at least were 7 swept away in eastern Orissa state after 4 rivers burst their banks and inundated scores of villages. Uttar Pradesh state, meanwhile, reeled under torrential rains which killed at least 16 people and toppled trees and houses.
(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that Mexican officers and prison guards in Michoacan state can now get special deals on houses and financing through a pilot program designed to keep them out of the pockets of organized crime.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, President Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan will not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants. He also called for an end to the president's powers to dissolve the assembly and dismiss the government, and pledged to tackle Pakistan's economic problems. A suicide bomber and a roadside bomb struck two military convoys in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan killing four soldiers and four civilians.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, A suspected car bomb caused a huge explosion at the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. The death toll soon grew to 54 with some 270 injured, including the Czech ambassador and 3 Americans. The next day Pakistan blamed Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants for the massive suicide truck bombing.
(AP, 9/20/08)(AFP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 20, A Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers who said they saw him light a firebomb near a Jewish settlement. Suhayeb Saleh was later identified by his parents, who said he was 14 years old. Egypt opened its Gaza border terminal to allow passage of students and medical patients for 2 days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, South African President Thabo Mbeki agreed to resign after the ruling party ordered him to step down, a move that could heighten turmoil in Africa's economic powerhouse. A Sep 19 ruling threw out corruption charges against Zuma it appeared Mbeki and his justice minister had colluded with prosecutors against Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC. Mbeki indignantly denied this.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 20, The Thai government said floods have killed 14 people and sickened more than 53,000 others, including many who contracted waterborne ailments. The 14 people were swept away by flash floods that hit 36 of Thailand's 76 provinces over the past nine days.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 21, At the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards HBO led with 26 trophies.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, The US Federal Reserve said it had granted a request by the country's last two major investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to change their status to bank holding companies.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Oracle’s 5-day OpenWorld customer conference opened in SF with some 43,000 people attending.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 21, NYC police arrested more than a dozen people for stealing pieces of Yankee Stadium during the 85-year-old ballpark's final game.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 21, Wallace N. Rasmussen (b.1914), former head of Beatrice Foods (1976-1979), died at his home in Nashville, Tenn.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 21, The UN said guns fell silent across much of Afghanistan for the 26th anniversary of the International Day of Peace that saw pledges by the US, NATO, the Afghan government and the Taliban to halt attacks. Taliban militants attacked a security company guarding a road construction crew in the southern province of Ghazni, killing two guards. In southwestern Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants kidnapped about 156 civilian laborers who were traveling in three buses in the Bala Buluk area.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AFP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, Egypt's foreign ministry said an illegal migrant boat carrying 83 Egyptians headed for Europe has gone missing off the coast of Greece after leaving Egypt 3 days ago.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Hermann Simm, a middle ranking civil servant in Estonia’s defense ministry, was arrested along with his wife and charged with spying for an unnamed foreign power. He had set up and run a system for handling top secret documents from NATO allies and handled security clearances for Estonian officials in the military, security and intelligence services.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.68)
2008 Sep 21, Hong Kong authorities said they found traces of melamine in a batch of Chinese-made Nestle commercial milk. The next day they forced Nestle to recall the milk line.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A22)
2008 Sep 21, Iraqi interior ministry Brig. Adel Abbas was killed along with his driver in a drive-by shooting in western Baghdad. A finance ministry director was seriously wounded when a bomb exploded in his car, also in western Baghdad. An American soldier was killed when his patrol came under small-arms fire in Baghdad.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 21, Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert, crippled by a series of corruption investigations, announced he would resign, clearing the way for his foreign minister to try to succeed him as Israel's next leader.
(AP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, In southern Nigeria MEND declared a ceasefire following a week of attacks on oil industry targets.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two US helicopters that crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan. The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing.
(www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1479095)
2008 Sep 21, Pirates in speedboats hijacked a Greek bulk carrier with 19 crew members off eastern Somalia. On Dec 8 Somali pirates freed the 19-man crew and MV Captain Stephanos, the Greek-owned and Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Sep 21, Somali refugees abandoned by smugglers in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden were rescued. They had drifted for 18 days, and at least 52 died before the group was rescued off the Yemeni coast. Seventy-one people survived the journey.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 21, In northeast Spain suspected Basque separatists threw petrol bombs at a police station in Ondorroa to lure officers outside before detonating a car bomb, which injured 10 people. The attack came only hours after a car bomb exploded in the regional capital of Vitoria. Nobody was injured. Authorities suspected ETA.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 21, In western Turkey 13 newborn, premature babies died over the weekend at Izmir's Tepecik hospital. In August, investigators looking into the deaths of 27 newborns at an Ankara hospital concluded that a staff shortage had increased the risk of infection. Tainted IV treatment was later suspected.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 22, Group of Seven (G7) nations welcomed the $700 billion US markets bailout plan and said they were prepared to step up international cooperation to protect the world's financial and banking system.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The price of oil jumped $16.37 to $120.92 per barrel, its biggest single-day gain ever, as the dollar posted its worst single-day percentage drop. During this final day for the October contract, oil had soared to as high as $130 per barrel.
(SFC, 9/23/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.C2)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.90)
2008 Sep 22, Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan's largest brokerage, reached a deal to buy the Asian operations of bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in a deal valued at around $225 million.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, It was reported that SanDisk, a maker of flash memory, was teaming with 4 top music labels to roll out a new music medium based on its microSD cards, which would feature pre-loaded albums and additional content and compete with the declining CD market.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 22, In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed a district chief and a police chief in Kandahar province. An Afghan journalist detained for 11 months at the US military base at Bagram alleged that his captors kicked him, forced him to stand barefoot in the snow and didn't allow him to sleep for days. Jawed Ahmad (21), who worked primarily for CTV, a Canadian television network, was handed over to Afghan authorities on Sep 21.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, in Australia 400 sheep died in a road accident, prompting animal rights activists to repeat their call for an end to the long distance transportation of livestock for slaughter.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, In southern Brazil 5 hooded gunmen killed 15 people on an alleged drug trafficker's ranch. The suspected trafficker and two of his sons were among the 15 dead.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The number of Chinese infants sick in hospital after drinking tainted milk formula doubled to nearly 13,000 and the country's top quality regulator resigned in the latest blight on the "made-in-China" brand.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, The UN appealed for $460 million to feed some 10 million Ethiopians hit by drought and high food prices. In southeastern Ethiopia two expatriate staff for French aid group Medecins du Monde were kidnapped in the rebellious Ogaden region.
(AP, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, Georgian forces shot down a Russian drone near the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, The death toll from heavy monsoon rains and flooding across India reached 119 in the past three days.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Iraq and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a deal to establish a joint venture that will tap natural gas in southern Iraq. A mortar round apparently aimed at an Iraqi military base missed its target and slammed into a house in northwestern Baghdad, killing one man and wounding four others. A car bomb struck a mainly Shiite area in central Baghdad. Police said two men and a woman were killed and seven people wounded. In Mosul a bomb hidden under trash killed at least 5 children playing soccer.
(AP, 9/22/08)(SFC, 9/23/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 22, A driver plowed a BMW into a group of soldiers at a busy intersection near Jerusalem's Old City, injuring 13 of them before he was shot to death. The driver was a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem who apparently acted alone.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Brash conservative Taro Aso easily won the presidency of Japan's struggling ruling party, virtually ensuring his election as prime minister later this week amid political and economic turmoil.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, Mozambique's former interior minister Almerino Manhenje was arrested in connection with the disappearance of millions of dollars during his time in office. He served as home affairs minister in the Joaquim Chissano administration between 1996 and 2005.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, North Korea asked the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) to remove seals and surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Pakistan gunmen kidnapped Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's ambassador-designate, and killed his driver in the main northwestern city of Peshawar. Farahi was released on Nov 13, 2010.
(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 11/14/10)
2008 Sep 22, In the Philippines 16 gold miners went into shafts during a typhoon that rapidly flooded the tunnels in Benguet province. 2 bodies were retrieved on Sep 25, 3 miners were rescued on Sep 29, 3 more on Sep 30, and 3 more on Oct 1. Two bodies were recovered on Oct 2 and one miner remained missing. The last of the miners was rescued on Oct 3. He was then arrested by police, who had a warrant for his arrest on unrelated theft and robbery charges.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)(AP, 10/1/08)(AP, 10/2/08)(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Somalia mortar rounds slammed into a market in Mogadishu, killing up to 30 people including children and overwhelming hospitals with dozens of wounded in the worst fighting in months.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In South Africa ANC members of parliament said the ruling African National Congress will name party deputy head Kgalema Motlanthe as South Africa's caretaker leader after the ousting of President Thabo Mbeki. His resignation will take effect Sep 25.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In northern Spain a car bomb killed a soldier in the third attack in just over 24 hours by the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 22, In Sri Lanka some 26 Tamil Tigers were killed in ground fighting across the across the embattled regions of Weli Oya, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya, where troops were trying to wrest control of the rebel capital of Kilinochchi.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 22, Unicef said Ugandan rebels kidnapped 90 children in eastern Congo and that fighting has forced 100,000 people to flee the area.
(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, The Bush administration urgently pressed Congress in public and private to move quickly on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry as Democratic and Republican lawmakers vented their anger over a crisis that pushed the nation's economy to the brink. Congress and treasury secretary Hank Paulson appeared to have worked out the general outlines of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
(AP, 9/23/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.81)
2008 Sep 23, The US said it has given Ethiopia 151 million dollars to boost its health and education services.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a $144.5 billion spending plan. The state budget was a record 85 days late.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, Ronald Dominique, suspected of killing as many as 23 men in southern Louisiana over 10 years, pleaded guilty to killing 8 men. He was sentenced to serve 8 consecutive sentences of life in prison.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A4)
2008 Sep 23, Chrysler LLC disclosed that it had lost $400 million so far this year just hours after it unveiled prototypes of 3 new electric cars.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 23, Goldman Sachs said it will get a $5 billion infusion from Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway Inc., giving Berkshire roughly 10% of Goldman.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 23, Google and T-Mobile unveiled the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the Google’s Android operating system.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 23, In China Li Shiming, a corrupt and rapacious local Communist Party secretary in Shanxi province, was murdered by Zhang Xuping (18). Shiming had Zhang expelled from school in 2003 following the imprisonment of his mother, who had protested along with others the confiscation of land by Shiming.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.38)
2008 Sep 23, Ecuador expelled a leading Brazilian construction firm sending in troops to seize projects worth $800 million. Pres. Correa was battling with the Odebrecht firm over a dam which the government said was badly built.
(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A24)
2008 Sep 23, In western Finland Matti Juhani Saari (22), whose violent YouTube postings made police bring him in for questioning, opened fire at his trade school, killing 8 women and 2 men before shooting himself.
(AP, 9/23/08)(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Iran's President Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Two bombs apparently targeting Iraqi security forces struck different areas in Baghdad, killing at least one civilian and wounding seven others. US soldiers accidentally killed Jassim al-Garrout, a US-allied Sunni group leader in Siniyah.
(AP, 9/23/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 23, Japan’s Nomura Holdings said it will buy the European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking operations of Lehman Brothers for an undisclosed sum.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, The international organization Transparency International reported that, among 30 member states of the European Union (EU) and other countries of Western Europe, only Romania and Bulgaria encounter worse situation than Lithuania according to the corruption perceptions index.
(www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=5411)
2008 Sep 23, Mexico said it plans to search 10 percent of all vehicles entering the country from the United States in an effort to curb arms smuggling.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner, journalist Win Tin, was freed after 19 years behind bars and vowed to continue his struggle to achieve democracy in the military-ruled country. Altogether Myanmar freed 9,002 prisoners. Win Htein (64), a former aide to Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was re-arrested less than 24 hours after being freed by the military government in the mass amnesty.
(AP, 9/23/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A4)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 23, Pakistani officials said security forces, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery, have killed more than 60 insurgents in the northwest tribal regions in offensives aimed at denying al-Qaida and Taliban militants safe havens.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, The bodies of 2 Palestinian smugglers were pulled from a tunnel that collapsed along the Gaza-Egypt border. 3 more bodies were removed the next day. The five were bringing contraband goods from Egypt into Gaza when an explosion collapsed the tunnel. Three smugglers survived and were arrested on the Egyptian side.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 23, Portugal's Socialist government began the roll-out of 500,000 ultra-cheap laptops for school children in a program that the government said could be extended to Venezuela. While the Magellan computer will be assembled in Portugal by a company called JP Sa Couto, it is based on Intel's Classmate PC, a cheap computer that has been adopted in various formats in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia.
(Reuters, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Heavy fighting between Somali insurgents and African Union forces erupted in southern Mogadishu, leaving at least seven civilians dead.
(AFP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, South Africa's finance minister resigned along with most leading Cabinet members but tried to reassure a shaken business community and stock market by saying he was willing to serve the country's new administration.
(AP, 9/23/08)
2008 Sep 23, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in China to hold talks with his counterpart Hu Jintao and sign a deal for combat aircraft in a visit likely to irk the US. Chavez said Venezuela and China agreed to jointly build 2 oil refineries, one in each country.
(AP, 9/23/08)(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A25)
2008 Sep 24, Pres. Bush went on national TV to support the economic bailout plan.
(WSJ, 9/25/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 24, A US federal appeals court ruled Ivory Coast plantation workers, who claimed they were sterilized by a US-made pesticide, cannot sue the manufacturers and distributors of the chemical in the US, because they can’t show that the companies intended them harm. Some 700 workers accused US companies of genocide for marketing DBCP abroad after the pesticide was banned in the US.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.B3)
2008 Sep 24, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger began signing bills including legislation that bans text messaging while driving and a law that forbids companies that do business with the state from having investments in Sudan.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 24, In California a mercury spill at Searles Valley Minerals in San Bernardino County released some 90 pounds during a demolition project. Another 90 pounds was released in a 2nd spill at the site on Oct 10.
(SSFC, 2/8/09, p.A21)
2008 Sep 24, In NYC police Lt. Michael Pigott ordered a fellow officer to fire a taser at Imam Morales, who had threatened to kill himself and stood naked on a window ledge. Morales fell about 10 feet and died. A distraught Pigott committed suicide on Oct 2.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 24, Google introduced a $10 million project to reward 5 winners in an Internet competition for an idea making the world a better place.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 24, Oracle unveiled a joint project with Hewlett Packard for a storage server for data warehousing: the HP Oracle Database Machine.
(SFC, 9/25/08, p.C1)
2008 Sep 24, In Afghanistan a bomb blast in the capital has wounded Kabul's chief criminal investigator. Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal was investigating the overnight killing of three officers at the checkpoint in Kabul's western outskirts when a blast struck his team. A remote-controlled bomb struck a police vehicle in Spin Boldak district, killing two officers.
(AP, 9/24/08)(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, Britain pledged 26.9 million pounds for drought-hit Ethiopia, where some 9.6 million people are in need of emergency food aid.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Typhoon Hagupit plowed into south China, killing at least 13 people, closing schools, canceling flights, uprooting trees and bringing down billboards in several cities. Torrential rain isolated more than 20,000 people in an area of southwest China still recovering from a devastating earthquake in May. Flash floods and landslides unleashed by heavy rains killed at least 16 people in Sichuan province.
(Reuters, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 24, The European Union warned that Iran is nearing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, French power provider EDF said it has agreed to acquire British Energy Group PLC for about $23.2 billion in cash in a deal that would create a powerhouse in nuclear energy.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Iraq's parliament overwhelmingly approved a provincial elections law, overcoming months of deadlock and giving a boost to US-backed national reconciliation efforts. An ambush against Iraqi forces raiding Othmaniyah, a Sunni village northeast of Baghdad killed 35, most of them commandos sent to the area as part of a US-backed military crackdown. A suicide bomber killed a US soldier in Diyala province.
(AP, 9/24/08)(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, Taro Aso (68), former foreign minister and flamboyant conservative of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), took charge as Japan's new prime minister, pledging to work for a "cheerful" nation by reviving an economy in the doldrums.
(AP, 9/24/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.53)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.51)
2008 Sep 24, In Morocco at least 12 people were killed and 43 injured when a bus overturned in the southern province of Taroudannt.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, In Nicaragua Russia's ambassador to Managua said that his country will replace the Nicaraguan army's aging weaponry.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 24, North Korea barred UN nuclear inspectors from its main nuclear reactor and within a week plans to reactivate the plant that once provided the plutonium for its atomic test explosion.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, The Pakistani army said it found the wreckage of a suspected US spy plane near the Afghan border, but denied claims that it had been shot down. A suicide bomber killed an 11-year-old girl and wounded 11 troops in the frontier city of Quetta. Security forces killed 20 militants in the Bajur border region.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, Ruslan Yamadayev (46), a former Russian lawmaker and brother of a Chechen warlord, was assassinated as he was stopped at a traffic light just outside the British Embassy in Moscow.
(AP, 9/25/08)(www.newstin.com/rel/us/en-010-005544799)
2008 Sep 24, Sudanese forces were laying siege to a remote desert hideout where bandits held 19 people captive, including European tourists, but said they did not plan to storm the area. Negotiations were continuing with the kidnappers, who have reportedly demanded a ransom of up to 15 million dollars.
(AFP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 24, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced Simeon Nchamihigo, Rwanda’s former deputy prosecutor, to life in prison for his role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 25, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc., and then sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. WaMu, founded in 1889, became the largest bank to fail by far in the country's history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse the $40 billion of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, In Oakland, Ca., the dedication ceremony for the new Cathedral of Christ the Light took place at the northwest tip of Lake Merritt.
(SFC, 9/26/08, p.B6)
2008 Sep 25, Dinwiddie Lampton Jr. (b.1914), former head of American Life and Accident Insurance Co. of Kentucky, died.
(WSJ, 10/11/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 25, In Afghanistan a bomb targeted a bus full of police trainers in Kandahar city, killing a civilian passerby. The bomb missed the bus. The bullet-riddled bodies of four police officers were found dumped in Ghazni province.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 25, Britain unveiled its new biometric identity card which the government says will be vital in fighting illegal immigration and terrorism, while critics call it an expensive attack on civil liberties.
(Reuters, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, China successfully launched a three-man crew into space to carry out the country's first spacewalk, beginning the nation's most challenging space mission since it first sent a person into space in 2003. The Shenzhou VII spacecraft was launched on a Long March II-F rocket in western Inner Mongolia.
(AP, 9/25/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.60)
2008 Sep 25, The Czech counterintelligence service said Russian spies operating in the Czech Republic have tried to increase public opposition to a planned US missile defense facility. Most Czechs oppose the base, according to recent polls. The Czech Republic's government has approved the missile defense treaty, but it still requires the approval of the Czech parliament, where it faces strong opposition.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, The EU banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk as tainted dairy products linked to the deaths of four babies turned up in candy and other Chinese-made goods that were quickly pulled from stores worldwide. More than a dozen countries have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products as melamine was found in milk products from 22 Chinese dairy companies.
(AP, 9/25/08)(SFC, 9/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 25, A joint statement said India's PM Singh met with Pakistan's Pres. Zardari at the UN in New York and they agreed to boost a faltering peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, In India about 50 Christians armed with knives, sticks and stones hacked a Hindu man to death in the eastern state of Orissa in the latest outburst of sectarian violence that has left 27 people dead. In a 2nd incident about 500 Hindus attacked and burned about 50 Christian homes and two prayer halls in Beherasahi village.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Iraq's Health Ministry reported that a total of 327 cholera cases had been confirmed in central and southern Iraq since an outbreak of the disease last month. A roadside bomb killed an American soldier south of Baghdad.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, A pipe bomb exploded outside the home of a prominent Israeli scholar and outspoken critic of Jewish West Bank settlements, lightly wounding him in what police suspect was an attack by Jewish extremists.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 25, Mexican federal prosecutors in Apatzingan, a drug stronghold in the western state of Michoacan, arrested three drug gang members accused of throwing grenades into crowds of Independence Day revelers. They belonged to a group of infamous Gulf Cartel hit men known as the Zetas.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 25, In southeastern Mexico storms flooded hundreds of people out of their homes and caused the death of a woman and 4 children whose car plunged into a swollen irrigation ditch in Nanchital, Veracruz state.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Pirates seized the 530-foot, Ukrainian cargo vessel, MV Faina, with 21 people aboard off eastern Somalia. Russia's navy soon sent a warship to Somalia's coast a day after pirates seized the Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 tanks, ammunition and 3 Russian crew members. The ITAR-Tass news agency said the military equipment had been sold to Kenya. It was later reported that the arms were destined for southern Sudan and that Kenya’s cooperation would be rewarded in the future with cheap oil. The shipped was released on Feb 5, 2009, following a ransom of $3.2 million. Viktor Pinchuk, A top Ukrainian businessman, paid the "lion's share" of the ransom.
(AP, 9/26/08)(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A5)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.49)(AP, 2/5/09)(AP, 3/3/09)
2008 Sep 25, South Africa's parliament elected Kgalema Motlanthe, former trade unionist, freedom fighter deputy leader of the ruling ANC, as interim president of a country gripped by the worst political crisis since the end of apartheid. He was expected to step aside after elections next year, when Jacob Zuma was expected to become president. Motlanthe, within hours of taking office, won instant praise by announcing that Manto Tshabalala-Msimang would be removed as health minister and given a lesser post in his office. She had promoted nutritional supplements instead of conventional medicine for people with HIV.
(AP, 9/25/08)(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, In Sri Lanka fighting in Kilinochchi left at least 24 Tamil Tiger soldiers dead, with two killed on the government side. Troops also killed nine rebels in separate attacks along the northern front of Vavuniya and Weli Oya.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Turkish warplanes bombarded Kurdish rebel territory in northern Iraq, damaging a school and wounding three people.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 25, Typhoon Hagupit hit northern Vietnam. Floods triggered by the storm left at least 41 people dead and at least $65 million in damages.
(AP, 9/27/08)(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 25, Zimbabwe's central bank chief said nearly 600 shops had been licensed to sell goods in foreign currency to fight the world's highest inflation rate and critical shortages of basic goods.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep 26, Barack Obama and John McCain shared a stage in their first of three presidential debates. It primarily focused on foreign policy.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, The Utah legislature adjourned after addressing a $354 million budget deficit in a 2-day special session, primarily through a three percent across-the-board cut in state agency spending, while preserving a $500 million reserve fund to address a potential future shortfall.
(www.statescape.com/SessionUpdates/SessionUpdates.asp)
2008 Sep 26, Marian McQuade (b.1917), lobbyist for the elderly and National Grandparents Day, died. Her efforts led Pres. Carter to designate the holiday in 1979. She got West Virginia to be the first state to create a Grandparents Day in 1974.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 26, Paul Newman (b.1925), the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as the anti-hero of such films as "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Color of Money," died after a long battle with cancer at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeting a militia commander killed five people, and wounded seven others in eastern Khost province. Three policemen were killed in Ghazni province when militants linked to Taliban attacked their patrol. Troops backed by gunship helicopters killed five Taliban-linked militants in Ghazni province. Taliban militants released 118 Afghan laborers.
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, In eastern Indonesia a packed ferry caught fire and sank between two coastal villages in the Maluku islands, killing at least eight people.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Pakistan said that its troops had killed 1,000 Islamist militants in a month-long offensive in the Bajaur region in which 27 soldiers died. Five top Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders were among those killed. Police raided a militant hideout in Karachi, triggering a shootout during which three suicide bombers blew themselves up. The body of a man held in handcuffs was found in the rubble. The prisoner in the rubble was identified as a wealthy supplier of fuel and goods to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A bomb blast caused a train to derail in eastern Punjab province, killing 6 people including 3 children.
(AP, 9/26/08)(AFP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, In the Philippines three soldiers were killed after they tripped landmines planted near a New People's Army camp outside Lingig township in Surigao del Sur province. Informants reported that eight guerrillas had been killed since Sep 24 when army soldiers overran a rebel camp.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to create an upgraded nuclear deterrence system for Russia by 2020, including a space defense system and new nuclear submarines.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 26, Somali pirates hijacked the Liberian-flagged oil tanker MV Genius, a Greek-owned ship with 19 crew. The MV Genius was ransomed and released on Nov 21.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Sep 26, In Sri Lanka at least 52 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy fighting between troops and the guerrillas just outside the insurgents' northern capital. Fighting along the northern region of Weli Oya and Jaffna left eight rebels and two soldiers dead.
(AFP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 26, Turkmenistan's highest legislative body unanimously approved a new constitution that increased the president's powers but also broadened the role of parliament.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 27, Taliban militants released the last 30 of approximately 150 Afghan laborers they had abducted for almost a week after suspecting the workers of being Afghan soldiers. 118 were released a day earlier. 3 had been released earlier in the week due to illness.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, According to an estimate by the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), up to A$12 billion ($10 billion) in illicit drug money could be flowing out of Australia every year.
(Reuters, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Mission commander Zhai Zhigang floated, a Chinese astronaut, performed the nation's first-ever spacewalk, the latest milestone in an ambitious program that is increasingly rivaling the United States and Russia in its rapid expansion. Fellow astronaut Liu Boming also emerged briefly from the capsule to hand Zhai a Chinese flag that he waved for an exterior camera filming the event. The third crew member, Jing Haipeng, monitored the Shenzhou 7 from inside the re-entry module.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, It was reported that the elephant population in Congo’s Virunga National Park had dropped to under 200, mostly due to poaching. In 1964 there were an estimated 2,900. In 2006 the number had dropped to 400.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.62)
2008 Sep 27, In India one child was killed and 18 people were wounded in a bomb attack in a crowded shopping area in New Delhi. A young boy was killed instantly when he picked up a bag containing the bomb to return it to suspects who fled the market before the explosion. A 2nd man died the next day from his injuries.
(AFP, 9/27/08)(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 27, The UN Security Council unanimously approved a new resolution reaffirming previous sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program and offering Tehran incentives to do so.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Iraqi police fatally shot Riya Qahtan, a Kurdish politician, in Diyala province, a killing that underlines the growing tensions between Kurds and Arabs in parts of the north. The US military arrested five Iranian-backed Shiite extremists, in 3 separate locations in eastern Baghdad. accused in recent rocket attacks on Iraqi and American forces. The extremists were suspected of links to the Hezbollah Brigades, a Shiite extremist group that the US believes is backed by Iran.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, The AIDS virus was reported to afflict some 5.5 million of South Africa’s 49 million population.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.19)
2008 Sep 27, The population of Seoul, South Korea, was reported to be about 23 million.
(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.3)
2008 Sep 27, Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a rebel base in Kilinochchi district. The government it said was used to train suicide bombers. The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said the bombs fell on a civilian town, killing one person and injuring two, including a child. Clashes between government soldiers and rebels left 17 dead in the country's war-ravaged north.
(AFP, 9/27/08)(AFP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 27, In Damascus, Syria, a car packed with explosives detonated on a crowded residential street, killing 17 people and wounding more than a dozen others.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, A Ukrainian ship, sailing under a North Korean flag, sank in the Black Sea and all crew members were missing. the 5,000-ton Tolstoy was carrying a cargo of scrap metal to the Turkish port of Nemrut.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 27, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader and designated prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai said it was "urgent" the country form a new government to ensure food supplies and prevent starvation.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 28, Congressional leaders and the Bush administration agreed on the main elements of a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry, paving the way for swift enactment of the largest government intervention in markets since the Great Depression.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In San Francisco hundreds of thousands gathered for the 25th Folsom Street Fair, the world’s biggest celebration of leather, bondage and sexual fetish.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.B1)
2008 Sep 28, Space Explorations Technologies (SpaceX) successfully launched its 2-stage Falcon 1 rocket into orbit with a dummy payload. The South Pacific launch was its 4th attempt following 3 earlier failures.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 28, In Maryland a medical helicopter crashed and killed 4 of 5 people on board.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 28, In Afghanistan two gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed Malalai Kakar (41), a high-ranking woman police official in Kandahar city. A suicide bomber killed three police and three civilians in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. An Afghan police official said a US-led coalition killed three civilians in an operation apparently targeting a suicide bomb cell in eastern Afghanistan. That claim was disputed by the coalition, which said its troops killed two al-Qaida militants. A NATO soldier and an Afghan policeman were killed in a row that erupted after a bomb strike. Gunmen opened fire on the head of a provincial council, near his home in Kandahar city. Mohammad Hashim Granai survived, but 4 of his bodyguards were killed.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Algeria a suspected suicide bombing killed three people and wounded six in a village east of Algiers.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, Austrians voted in parliamentary elections that analysts say could bolster the standing of the country's far-right and give the main ruling parties their worst results in years. The rightist Freedom Party (18%) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (11%), capitalized on voter discontent and got a combined 29%. The voting age had recently been lowered to 16.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.16, 56)
2008 Sep 28, Belarussians voted in parliamentary elections that could determine whether President Alexander Lukashenko's regime warms to the West or moves deeper into Russia's orbit. Loyalists of Lukashenko won every seat in the parliamentary polls that observers said failed Western standards and had the opposition crying foul.
(AFP, 9/28/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, The governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg took partial control of struggling bank Fortis NV.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In England Frank McGarahan (45), a top Barclays executive, was beaten to death by a group of youths in Norwich as he tried to stop them attacking a homeless man.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, Konstantin Pavlov (b.1933), Bulgarian poet and screenwriter, died. He was among the few Bulgarian intellectuals who dared to assert their professional independence during the 1945-89 communist regime. Some of his most popular volumes of poetry are "Sweet Agony" (1991), "The Murder of the Sleeping Man" (1992) and "A Long Time Ago..." (1998).
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, Three Chinese astronauts made a jubilant return to Earth after successfully completing the country's first-ever spacewalk, an event the premier said was "a stride forward" in China's space history.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, Ecuadoreans voted on a new constitution that would significantly broaden leftist President Rafael Correa's powers and let him run for two more consecutive terms. Correa's avowed quest for an "equitable, just" Ecuador won a major boost as voters approved a new constitution that will help the leftist president consolidate power and enable him to run for two more consecutive terms. The new constitution conferred on ecosystems “the inalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve." The new constitution also imposed a 12-month deadline for approving new regulatory measures.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.68)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.44)
2008 Sep 28, In Ethiopia 4 people were killed and 22 injured in an explosion in eastern Somali province. Police the next day said a suspect had confessed to being a member of the Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya operating in the region.
(AFP, 9/28/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Germany Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia broke the marathon world record for the second straight year, becoming the first man to run the distance in under two hours and four minutes. He clocked 2:03.59 in winning his third straight Berlin Marathon, breaking the mark of 2:04.26 he set last year over the same flat course.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Iraq 3 explosions in Baghdad killed at least 31 people.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A19)
2008 Sep 28, An Israeli official said the US had installed an advanced American radar system in the Negev Desert.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 28, In Pakistan suspected militants seized a Polish engineer and killed his Pakistani driver, guard and assistant in the northwestern city of Attock. A government official in Bajur said militants attacked security forces in three places overnight. He said the troops repulsed each attack, killing 11 fighters.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Sri Lanka a suicide attack in Vavuniya killed one civilian and left 8 wounded. A soldier died form wounds the next day. Troops captured part of a strategic road in Kilinochchi district after a seven-hour battle that killed seven rebels and one soldier. Attacks on rebel bunkers and other scattered fighting killed 11 rebels in the Welioya, Jaffna and Vavuniya districts. Two other rebels were killed in a brief clash in Ampara in the east, which the government ousted the rebels from last year.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 28, Sudanese forces engaged a group of kidnappers in a gunbattle in northwest Sudan who had been sent out to get gas and food. Six kidnappers were killed in the fight, and two captured. The two told the authorities where the rest of the kidnappers and their captives were hiding. The kidnappers were believed to be armed desert tribesmen. Kidnappers released the 19-member European tour group, abducted on Sep 19, into one car near the Sudanese-Chadian border. The group drove some 200 miles before encountering Egyptian special forces and returning safely to Cairo.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 28, President Hugo Chavez said that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy, a move likely to raise US concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, The US House of Representatives rejected the Bush administration’s $700 billion emergency rescue plan. Democrats voted 140 to 90 in favor, while Republicans voted 133-65 against the plan. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 777.68 points, its biggest single-day fall ever, easily beating the 684 points it lost on the first day of trading after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Crude oil futures closed down $10.52 in their biggest decline since Jan 17, 1991, when the US opened strategic oil reserves during the first Gulf war.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.C8)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.30)
2008 Sep 29, The US Federal Reserve with the help of the ECB, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan agreed to lend banks a further $620 billion.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.73)
2008 Sep 29, Kyle Dustin Foggo (53), former executive director of the CIA, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government. His guilty plea to a single charge wiped out 27 additional counts. The case was linked to the corruption scandal involving Randy Cunningham, former Republican congressman from San Diego. In 2009 Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
(SFC, 9/30/08, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/09, p.A5)
2008 Sep 29, Kelsey Peterson (26), a former 6th grade math teacher in Nebraska, was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison for having sex with a 13-year-old boy student beginning in Nov, 2006. In 2009 Peterson was sentenced to 8-10 years after pleading guilty to 2 state counts of 1st-degree sexual assault of a minor.
(SFC, 10/2/08, p.A6)(SFC, 4/24/09, p.A5)
2008 Sep 29, Citigroup bought the operations of Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp. for $2.2 billion in stock and assumed $42 billion in losses on the bank’s risky $312 billion loan portfolio, in exchange for the FDIC backstopping losses beyond that. Citigroup agreed to give the FDIC $12 billion in preferred stock. Wachovia shares fell 8.20 to close at $1.80. Wachovia’s new 48-story headquarters in Charlotte, NC, was still under construction.
(AFP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.C6)
2008 Sep 29, Scientists reported that NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has discovered evidence of past water at its Martian landing site and spotted falling snow for the first time. Soil experiments revealed the presence of two minerals known to be formed in liquid water. Scientists identified the minerals as calcium carbonate, found in limestone and chalk, and sheet silicate.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, US warships and helicopters surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands." The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan, not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. Somali pirates demanded a $20 million ransom.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 29, In Afghanistan a bomb struck a vehicle killed two civilians and wounding two others in rural eastern Paktika province. Taliban attacked a police outpost in Ghazni province overnight and killed two policemen, taking one away with them. International forces bombed a Taliban group in Ghazni and killed five rebels.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Opposition activists in Belarus called for the US and EU not to recognize the results of parliamentary elections swept by supporters of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who had promised the vote would meet international standards.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Brazilian officials said the Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Britain seized control of mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley. Germany organized a credit lifeline for blue-chip commercial real estate lender Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, while Iceland's government took over Glitnir bank, the country's third largest.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, British candy maker Cadbury said it is recalling 11 types of Chinese-made chocolates found to contain melamine, as police in northern China raided a network accused of adding the banned chemical to milk.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, The parliament of the Central African Republic (CAR) adopted an amnesty law aimed at laying the foundations for a process of "inclusive political dialogue" between the government and rebels.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, China kicked off its National Day celebrations.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Typhoon Jangmi roared toward eastern China after lashing Taiwan with torrential rains and powerful winds that killed two people and injured more than 30.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Georgia almost 300 monitors from 22 EU nations were in place to oversee Russia's promised troop withdrawal from the large swaths it has occupied since the August war.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Two bombs exploded in separate towns in western India in crowded markets packed with Muslim shoppers, killing six people and wounding 45 others.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual population figures to mark the New Year. It said 7.34 million people live in Israel, including 5.54 million Jews, or 75 percent of the population. There are 1.48 million Arabs, about 20 percent, and 315,000 members of other groups. This year the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, began at sundown and coincided with Eid el-Fitr, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ said it would take a 21% stake in Morgan Stanley at a cost of $9 billion.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/30/content_10134094.htm)
2008 Sep 29, In northern Lebanon a car bomb exploded near a military bus carrying troops going to work, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others. Two more people died from their wounds the next day, raising the total death toll to seven.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Mexico the bodies of 11 men and one woman, some with their tongues cut out, were found dumped in an empty lot next to a Tijuana elementary school, an hour before children were scheduled to arrive. A message nearby, written on a white piece of cardboard, read: "This is going to happen to all of those who are with 'The Engineer' for being blabbermouths." Minutes later four other bodies were found in another empty lot in Tijuana. Two other bodies were discovered the day before in a lot next to a factory.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Pakistan appointed Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha as new head of its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, amid US accusations that the military spy organization secretly backs Taliban rebels on the Afghan border.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, Somali Islamist insurgents attacked government forces and African Union peacekeepers overnight in Mogadishu. At least four people were killed in the clashes. Somalia pirates released Malaysia’s palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati 2, two days after its first vessel was released.
(AP, 9/30/08)(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, South Korea said its state run Korea Gas Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom to import gas from Russia for 30 years starting in 2015 as part of a $102 billion bilateral gas and chemical deal.
(WSJ, 9/30/08, p.A9)
2008 Sep 29, Suspected Tamil separatists set off a bomb in a parking lot in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, wounding three people.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Sudan a helicopter contracted to UN-led peacekeepers crashed in the Darfur region, killing two people with two more feared dead.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 29, UNESCO accept a proposal to launch a prize for achievement in life sciences paid for and named after Pres. Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
(Econ, 5/8/10, p.16)(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0016/001629/162938e.pdf)
2008 Sep 29, Zimbabwe's central bank introduced 10,000- and 20,000-dollar bank notes to ease a cash crunch in the country struggling to cope with the world's highest inflation rate.
(AFP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 30, President Bush warned that failing to pass a financial rescue plan would bring severe consequences to the US economy. "Congress must act," he declared in an appeal that John McCain and Barack Obama echoed.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, A new US law took effect as part of the 2008 Farm Bill requiring food retailers to label or display the country of origin for meat, produce and certain kinds of nuts.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 30, The Cayman Islands announced plans to scuttle a decommissioned US Navy ship to create an underwater attraction for scuba divers and snorkelers.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, In the Dominican Republic a Hummer truck registered to New York Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos struck pedestrians Josefina Minaya Martinez (38) and Angely Fana (29). They died later at a hospital. An arrest warrant for Burgos was issued on Oct 3.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 30, Bank rescues spread in Europe and some investors expressed faith that the US Congress would eventually pass a $700 billion bailout plan for the financial sector.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Former Nepalese Gurkha soldiers won a legal test case on their bid for the right to settle in Britain.
(AFP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, China’s state media reported that police in northern China have arrested 27 people in their probe into tainted milk that has sickened 53,000 children and tarnished China's reputation abroad.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Zhou Yongjun (41), former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, was seized and secretly imprisoned as he sought to re-enter China to visit his parents. When he tried to return to China in 1998, he was sentenced to three years of "re-education through labor" and returned to the United States in 2002. In May 2009 he was charged with fraud.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/p6mcno)
2008 Sep 30, A French court ended a long legal battle between Bernard Tapie (b.1943) and the Crédit Lyonnais bank. Crédit Lyonnais had allegedly defrauded Tapie in 1993 and 1994 when it sold Adidas on his behalf to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, apparently by arranging a larger sale with Dreyfus without Tapie's knowledge. The court awarded 405 million euros to Tapie. This decision was partially overturned on 9 October 2006 by the Court of Cassation. In 2011 a French court ordered an investigation into IMF chief Christine Lagarde, France’s finance minister at the time of the settlement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Tapie)(SFC, 8/5/11, p.A2)
2008 Sep 30, In western India thousands of pilgrims panicked by false rumors of a bomb stampeded at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur, killing at least 224 people in the crush to escape.
(AP, 9/30/08)(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Sep 30, An American soldier was killed by small-arms fire in northern Baghdad, one of only eight US deaths during fighting in September. At least 159 Iraqi police, soldiers and Sunni armed guards who have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq were killed in September. At least 503 Iraqis were killed in September, a more than 50 percent drop compared with 1,023 reported last September.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Ingushetia a suicide bomber attacked the motorcade of Ruslan Meiriyev, the top police official. Meiriyev was unhurt, but a bystander was killed along with the attacker.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2008 Sep 30, In Ireland Brian Cowen, the Fianna Fail prime minister, decided to guarantee all bank deposits in Ireland. By late 2010 the bill for this reached almost a third of GDP.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.103)
2008 Sep 30, Italian police arrested scores of suspected mobsters, including three top fugitives believed linked to the gangland-style slaying of six African immigrants near Naples.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico 20 heavily armed men in Sinaloa state stole five small planes that the army had seized in anti-drug operations. Officials on Oct 3 said the planes were found on a ranch in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, a hotbed of drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/1/08)(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico Ramiro Guillen Tapia (65), leader of a farmers' group seeking government mediation in a dispute over 620 acres (250 hectares) of land in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, set himself on fire. Tapia died the next day with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, A late night missile strike by a suspected US drone killed at least six people in a Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Sep 30, Alexander Lebedev, a Russian billionaire said he is teaming up with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to form a new political party that will challenge the country's recent steps away from democracy.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, Tropical Storm Mekkhala slammed into Vietnam's central coast before moving to Laos later the same day. At least 8 people were killed with 8 more missing.
(AP, 10/2/08)
2008 Sep, US scientists warned that the potential link between mobile telephones and brain cancer could be similar to the link between lung cancer and smoking -- something tobacco companies took 50 years to recognize. A 2008 study by Swedish cancer specialist Lennart Hardell found that frequent cell phone users are twice as likely to develop a benign tumor on the auditory nerves of the ear most used with the handset, compared to the other ear.
(AFP, 9/25/08)
2008 Sep, From Algeria Andrew Warren, a CIA station chief and a convert to Islam, was sent back to the United States after two women came forward with charges of rape after lacing their drinks with a drug.
(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A4)
2008 Sep, The City Council of Myrtle Beach, SC, adopted a series of anti-motorcycle rally laws to discourage bikers from their annual May rallies.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A9)
2008 Sep, In China hepatitis C infections were discovered after a patient who had received a transfusion during an operation in Pingtang tested positive for the disease. In 2009 police detained the director of the hospital, where at least 64 people were infected with the potentially deadly liver disease after receiving transfusions from blood collected illegally.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2008 Sep, Egypt’s overall inflation rate stood at about 23%. The average wage was under $100 per months and some 2.6 million people were unable to cover their basic food needs.
(Econ, 9/13/08, p.31)
2008 Sep, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to swap Israeli near the Gaza Strip and West Bank in exchange for settlement blocs in the West Bank. The Palestinians did not respond to the proposal, submitted at a time when Olmert's ability to negotiate a peace deal was compromised by corruption allegations that eventually forced him to step down. Talks broke down after Israel's war against Gaza militants and never resumed.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2008 Sep, Rwanda’s population at this time was about 10 million.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)
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